Our place in France Chapter 99

If you had asked me in the middle of the week how things were going, you would have received a very negative reply. It was about then that I had decided that France really didn’t like me and was wearing me down bit by bit. Because, since we have been here, I have been beset by strange and unusual ailments, which have made me quite miserable at times. To start with it was the dreadful chilblains that I got when we first arrived. Having never lived anywhere that experienced such cold, I was obviously a prime victim, but no-one warned either of us. So, for the next year, I had to put up with missing toenails and the discomfort of wearing socks (to keep my feet warm) and shoes which rubbed on the sensitive part of my toes. Happily that is now a thing of the past and my nails have almost entirely grown back.

In the same year, I had quite a bad fall and although I didn’t break anything, something got shaken up and after a while I started having severe pain in my hips and lower back. I was prescribed a number of physiotherapy sessions but although I religiously went, I was less than satisfied with the results. I am well aware that I am a dreadful patient and that I always want to be cured immediately but I would have settled for less, if there had been any obvious results, but there hadn’t been. However, they say time is a great healer and after a while I really thought my condition had improved without any outside help. That was ignorance thinking and a month later after spending a couple of weeks in the most deliciously soft and bouncy beds each night, I was right back to square one. When the pain became almost unbearable and I was in danger of becoming a pain-killer addict, I thought that it would be a good idea to get some help, but not from my original physio. After asking around we found another person who turned out to be just what I needed and after only two sessions there is already improvement.

In between all these strange ailments it was suddenly discovered that my eyesight was failing and that there was treatment available but that it had to be started promptly or I would lose my sight altogether. It was a real wake-up call but I had no option but to go through with it. In the end, it sounded much more horrendous than it actually was, thank goodness. I mean who would willingly have injections into the one’s eyeball? But as I said, it turned out to be not so bad at all and also turned out to be a fairly routine procedure with at least twenty patients arriving every Friday morning and being dealt with in a very matter-of-fact way, reminiscent of a sausage machine! After six injections into each eye, spread over about five months, I think I can honestly say that there is improvement here too, for which I am very grateful. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting when I went to the eye clinic on Tuesday afternoon for an assessment after the twelve injections. I bounced into the consulting room fairly confident that I would have an eye test and a new pair of spectacles would be prescribed but things didn’t go quite like that. A scan of my eye showed that there was still room for further improvement and another two injections were ordered with another assessment in May. Hopefully then, I will  be given new glasses and be able to read easily again. It will be such a relief.

So, you see, in the middle of the week I was fairly down-hearted but with good reason. However, by the end of the week my spirits had lifted again and there was once again light at the end of the tunnel. If the weather would now just warm up a bit things would be wonderful again.

I apologise to all my regular readers for burdening you all with my moans and groans but at least you now all know why I sometimes don’t seem my usual sparkly self!

In spite of all this, we both still love living here and would not have things any other way. We couldn’t wish for better or kinder neighbours and we love the thought that at least half our family is within reach. We still miss our friends a lot but are slowly making new ones although they will never be like the friends we had in South Africa. Our door is always open for visitors, don’t forget.

Our place in France Chapter 98

Spring has definitely sprung! We have noticed numerous trees with white blossom which a local friend of ours says is a wild flowering plum. Also, in this last week a lot of other fruit trees have suddenly come into bloom and the countryside is beginning to look really pretty. The rest of the trees around us are also just starting to get their new leaves and have a pale green cloud of colour around their tops. We know that within a few weeks they will all be fully ‘clothed’ and then a lot of scenery disappears for another year.

During the week we took a drive with a friend who is a builder of note, down to the Tarn, to view a house that Andre and Leigh had seen and liked. Our friend, Denis the builder, knows a lot about what needs to be done and how much the various jobs will cost, so he was there because the house was not entirely finished but after all the effort, it was decided that there was really too much to do and was going to cost too much, which the owners were not prepared to deduct off the selling price, so we have to wait for them, Leigh and Andre, to find something else.

Apart from that little bit of excitement, we had a quiet week until the weekend when Andre, Leigh and Cassidy came to spend a night with us. They brought the two dogs with them which made me a little nervous but they were very well behaved and the little Yorkie whose name, Puddles, aptly describes his level of house training, didn’t make a single puddle! Good dog!!

It was great to have a lot of people in the house for a change, although the noise level from the two girls got quite high at times. Courtney and Cassidy cooked for us on Saturday night and served a delicious three-course meal. We were all very impressed. Our main course of individual chicken, bacon and mushrooms pies, with vegetables, was preceded by a novel avocado and feta salad with parma ham and followed by a dessert of ice-cream and ‘Rice Crispie treats’ made of Rice Crispies and marshmallows. All very yum.

The weather during the week was unbelievable – sunny and blue skies but not yet really warm. And then over the weekend everything reverted to the horrid weather we seem to have been enduring for ages. Mind you, we had nothing like the freezing time the UK was having, thank goodness. I really feel that we have had our fair share of cold this year. Hopefully what is forecast for the week ahead is going to be the last cold burst and now that the plum trees are out and the plant selling marquees have made their appearance outside the supermarkets, warmer weather just has to be on the way.

Our place in France Chapter 97

It seems to me that we have reached that stage in our life in France where there is only something of interest to comment on in every second week and that the intervening weeks are pretty mundane. So, as this is an in-between week, there is really little news. The weather, always reliable as a topic, is at long last warming up a bit and we have had a whole two days of blue-ish skies and (some) sunshine. The thermometer balanced on the windowsill outside has discovered that there are degrees above the red zero line and has actually risen to 18 yesterday and 16 today. Positively tropical! There is definitely a touch of Spring in the air although we are only too aware of the pitfalls of ditching the winter woollies too soon. The well-known British saying tell us to ‘Cast not a clout ere May be out’ and with that in mind we will just enjoy the sunny days as they appear. I have to say that although the days are sunny, there is a still an icy wind blowing in from Siberia and we will be delighted when it stops.

To help in spreading the warmth through our house a little more we were hugely adventurous and bought a Stove Fan off Amazon this week which was delivered on Friday. This is a remarkably simple gadget that we have heard of before and saw in a friends’ house last week. Made of cast iron, the fan stands on top of the wood-burner and as the hot air rises and the stove top becomes hotter, the fan begins to rotate and blow extra heat into the room. It is a bit more complicated than that with bi-metal strips and a small electric motor, but it appears to be a very simple thing and it works! Anything that heats without using more plug-in electricity is a real boon. In fact anything that makes the house warmer without using more electricity is a boon!  Of course, now that the days, and nights are warming up a little, we don’t need this so much anymore but it is nice to have for that expected cold snap later on.

We expect to see the first signs of spring appearing on the trees and shrubs soon with the first one being the lovely bush with white blossoms whose name I have never discovered. All I know is that is the earliest flowering tree in the area and that very soon after that we can expect to see signs of the various fruit trees showing their pinks and mauves, along with the pale green of leaves appearing. A daffodil bulb that I ‘missed’ last year when a took up all the others has made itself known by suddenly pushing up through a tumble of mesembryanthemums and will make an interesting show. I also have a hyacinth that has decided we should really get on with the year and is sticking up about 5 cms above the ground. The mint plants survived unaffected in spite of being frosted and snowed on, but I expected nothing less. We fought the mint in our garden in Onrus for all of the twelve years that we were there and never got rid of it. Also a miniature rose plant has managed to come through unscathed which surprised me, but a pleasant surprise for all that. Also the day lilies that we didn’t dig out at all have suddenly made their appearance and have multiplied ten-fold. They are going to make a great show this year. However, as soon as the ‘Nursery garden tents’ start appearing outside the big supermarkets we will be there to get some new geraniums and a few basil plants to replace what didn’t survive. Every year at the official start to spring which I think is the 1^st May, these huge marquees are erected outside the supermarkets and are filled with everything you might want, or need, to have the best garden in the village. French people are very garden-proud and I have to admit, it shows. Towns and villages are always decorated with flower boxes and beds full of colour so we feel that we have to do likewise, as far as we can.

Our place in France Chapter 96

I really apol0gise for there being no chapter of the blog last SundayMonday but things will become clearer as you read on.

The second week of our holiday was lovely – as we knew it would be. Another cosily warm house and delicious food prepared by Tilly. What more could we ask for? Better weather, I suppose, but this is northern hemisphere winter so we must just accept what we get and hunker down until it is over. A bonus, in a way, was the snow storm we had on Tuesday which dumped about 5 cms of snow everywhere. As this is almost unheard of in that area of France, traffic was battling and when Pieter and Tilly went to do some shopping in the morning, they passed a number of cars that had slid off the road into the ditch. I think the towing service was kept busy all day. Little Jack though thought it was marvellous of course, and was a keen starter when building a snow man was suggested. The three men braved the icy cold to build a presentable ‘Snowy’ and then Jack pelted it with snow balls and knocked half its face off!

The snow lasted all day and probably half the night, but by morning most of it had melted and by midday there was virtually nothing to show for the beautiful snowy vistas of the previous day. I was told off by the family for having said that we are jinxed whenever we go somewhere new, because it always invites weather disruptions of epic proportions, after which Tilly was brave enough to say ‘Oh well, it is just as well you are coming to us because nothing really disastrous happens here’. Ha Ha!

While we were in that part of France, we took a drive one day to look up some old friends and had a chat-filled afternoon catching up on all the news. It was really such fun to drive around the areas that we know so well and to recognise places that we had seen before.

But there is down-side to every up-side, and in my case it was the wonderfully soft beds both at Constant and at Pieter and Tilly’s house. Soft beds are not good for bad backs and by the time we left there I could barely walk, and certainly couldn’t walk without a walking stick. It was a really depressing thought that although I had done some walking while we were away, my back and hips had given way again. Which is why, by the time we arrived back home again, the last thing on my mind was writing the blog, or even an apology for there not being one.

The good news is that after nearly a week in my own firm bed, I have almost ditched the walking stick and am feeling much, much better. The moral of the story is that one should always take good care of one’s self even if it means foregoing a soft springy bed in favour of a harder one.

All things being equal, there should be another chapter at the end of this week and then we will be back to normal.