Our place in France Chapter 92

I think that next Winter, or, in fact for the next two weeks, we should go into real hibernation. Just get into bed one night and not get out again for two weeks! There are a few logistical problems with this idea, I know, seeing that we do not have the physiology of polar bears but we are prepared to deal with those problems. It just seems to be the only sensible way to deal with this climate. There was no blog last week because there was simply nothing to write about. I could, I suppose have told you about our trip to the supermarket to get eggs, butter, bread and cheese and other essentials but that would have been far too boring. Although, I could have told you how much nicer it was in the car (with the heater on full blast) than in the house before we get the fire going. Only trouble with that is, of course, the getting out at the shops!

What I am really trying to say is that this week is not too different and we have been nowhere of note and done nothing interesting. In fact, we had a trial run at hibernation on Monday and on Thursday staying upstairs in our cosy bedroom until three or four o’clock in the afternoon. It works extraordinarily well! We have everything to make coffee up there, and a supply of home-made rusks, as well as our books if we feel like reading or the TV if we want to watch for a while Apart from real food, there is no reason to venture downstairs at all. The only problem is that we are always worried that someone will come and knock on the front door and then one of us will have to go down and find out what they want. Not good!

Isn’t it amazing how accustomed one can become to a sound that occurs regularly. I’m talking about the church bells that are only about 30 metres away from our bedroom window From ten at night until seven the next morning, they are silent, but at seven o’clock they go all out to wake everyone up Seven strikes for the hour, followed by three sets of three strikes, followed by sixty-four strikes to let all the good Catholics know that it is time for the morning service and they should be getting up, or rather, up already. The sixty-four appears to be variable and we have wondered if it is more to do with the time taken to do all those strikes. Two minutes probably covers it and because our church has a single bell, it manages to fit a lot of sound into the time allowed. The end result is a bell pealing outside our window for approximately three minutes which should be enough to wake anyone. But, as I said, it is amazing how accustomed one can get to a sound which occurs regularly. As a result we sleep on blissfully for at least another hour and a half.

No pictures again this week for reasons given above, but take heart, we are going away for a week on the 17^th to a whole new area for us and will have more than enough pictures after that.