Welcome to our Blog page for 2010.  Periodically we will be featuring our thoughts on our new life in France And sharing with you some of the amusing and/or interesting, to us anyway, events that fill our lives.  For the previous years, visit the Blog 2008 and 2009 pages.

12^th February 2010

It is astonishing to see that we have not written anything in the Blog since late October 2009 and there is no immediate explanation. One would have thought that with winter very much upon us, we would have plenty of time. However, that old saying that what you have to do always manages to take up the time that you have available to do it has never rung so true! However, we have been making entries, just never posted them, something we have put right now.

As you will see reading through the ‘diary’ below, ‘summer’ hung on until quite late so that even at the end of October I was still cutting the grass! Although not with the new toy, a sit on mower with 6 forward gears and reverse and headlights!!! So I will be able to really annoy the neighbours by doing some midnight mowing!!! Some friends of ours are having a swimming pool built which is reducing significantly the amount of grass they have so they wanted to get rid of their sit on mower and a deal was struck!

When winter came, it certainly came on strong! If you were to ask me which month usually sees the worst weather I would always say February. However, 2009/10 saw an early onslaught with heavy snow blanketing us from around the 17^th of December 2009.

However, it finally cleared sufficiently for us to make our planned trip back to the UK over Christmas & New Year and to get back here before it closed in again on the 3^rd/4^th January 2010.

These, then, are just some of the events that have taken place in our lives over the last few months.

Friday 12^th February

More snow overnight and yet another social event cancelled! We were due to welcome some friends chez nous for lunch but, yet again, the weather has put paid to them travelling from their home in the Creuse, the neighbouring Departement.

I have lost count of the number of functions with friends that have had to be cancelled or postponed in the last two months due to the weather. The friends who we were to have seen today have already decided that they are going to have their Christmas lunch in June or July when the weather should not be a problem. Only last weekend we attended a lunch at the home of some other friends which had been postponed from early January!  As in the UK, it does seem that this winter is rather more severe than usual and, after two months, everybody is very keen to see and end to it, pretty though the snowy conditions may be.

One must also spare a thought for the hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes etc who must have been hit by a significant downturn in custom as people do not venture out due to the weather. We have noticed a few places that are closed with a sign in the window ‘Reouverture Prochaine’ (‘re-opening soon)’and it remains to be seen whether they will, indeed, re-open.

Although it is bitterly cold still (around minus5C) Poppy and I braved the biting wind and snow to go for a walk. I cannot begin to describe the utter peace and quiet. The only noises were the wind blowing around my ears, the unmistakable ‘crunch’ of virgin snow under my feet, a tractor a mile or so away across the valley, the beautiful sound of a stream rushing down over rocks and stones, a dark streak in amongst the dazzling white of the snow covered banks, the occasional bird song and then, a raucous chorus of a murder of crows calling to each other as they took off from a field where they were picking up the remnants of silage put down by the farmer for his cattle and wheeled around the trees before heading off to another field.

There is something wonderful about walking along a road or chemin where the only evidence of life is animal footprints in the snow. For a distance of about half a mile, there were small paw prints which ran up the middle of the road with occasional forays off into the hedgerows and banks that edge the road. In another part of the walk there were webbed footprints which milled around in the chemin and headed to the ditches either side which, despite the cold, had some water in them.

The snow of the last two days has again been quite powdery and has been sculpted and moved by the keen wind. In places the road surface is visible whilst elsewhere there are drifts perhaps a foot deep. Roofs are almost clear of snow at one end and covered by quite a depth at the other. Nature never ceases to surprise, amaze and delight! 

11^th February 2010

We are once again covered in snow! It has been snowing on & off since late yesterday although there has been a quite substantial further fall this morning. Once again, our friend Mel, who was making yet another attempt to fly back to the UK to visit friends and family today has been thwarted by the weather because her RyanAir flight has been cancelled due to the closure of Limoges Airport because of the snow – strange, however, that, according to the airport’s website, an Air France flight to Paris took off 30 minutes after the scheduled departure of her RyanAir flight!!????

9^th February 2010

A sad event overnight as one of our four ducks, christened Jemimah Puddleduck of course, turned up her webbed feet and died. She had been very listless and having some difficulties walking for a few days and spent all day yesterday just sitting in the coop doing nothing. I had already steeled myself for having to do the job of finishing her off today but when I went into the coop this morning she was gone.

One of the things that we have learned in our 20 or so months here is the fragility of animals’ lives and the fact that they die for no apparent reason. We have had no less than three lambs/sheep die on us as well as having seen quite a few lambs and ewes die at our sheep farmer friend’s place. It is an everyday occurrence and not something about which one can be sentimental.

There are, of course, certain animals that seem to have a death wish. Regular readers will recall a blog some while back about the death wish of sheep. Our current companion for Benji, Iffy the hermaphrodite, has a total disregard for the electric fence which surrounds their field and, despite some very intense hands on instruction from me, he/she/it continues to simply push through the fence for the grass that is greener on the other side.

As if to add insult to injury, he/she/it promptly heads back through the fence when I approach, waits until I have left the field and pops back into forbidden territory. So we have tethered her/him/it outside the field much to her/his/its annoyance and chagrin. The two sheep have been bleating pathetically to each other across about 15 yards of garden and Iffy very successfully managed to get the tether well and truly wrapped around her/his/its hind leg. Better at knots than I am!!

The next step is further intense hands on experience of an electric fence but we will have to wait for the snow to go first. It is too darn cold to be out in the field at present.

6^th February 2010

Another week and is it my imagination or is it a bit less cold? No it is not my imagination because the thaw brought about a deluge of water as a mains supply pipe in the sheep shed thawed out disclosing a burst! I am not sure how long the water had been escaping, I think it was at least overnight, and the sheep shed was awash in the morning. As the burst was the ‘wrong’ side of the house supply, the only way I could isolate it was to shin down a ladder into the underground ‘bunker’ which houses the water meter and our well and turn off the supply.

So, all day we were waterless! Fortunately our neighbour who lives about 100 yards up the road is a plumber and so he very kindly called in on his way back from work at about 7.30 p.m., disconnected the offending section of pipe and restored our water. It’s a mark of how cold it has been here! Yet more plumbing repairs required.

31^st January 2010

Another week and, tomorrow, another month! It has been pretty cold here this last week – almost minus 10C this morning following a day of snow and a night of freezing fog. This morning, crystal clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine lighting up the trees encrusted with frost and snow. It was beeeeeautiful! You can see some pictures I took this morning at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7309&id=100000413284595&l=e51fb09acd whilst out for a walk.

The weather has been having dire effects upon travel in the area. Thursday we had freezing rain and everywhere and everything was coated in ice. Out on the motorway a huge pile-up left the motorway closed for hours with 7 seriously injured and one of our neighbours taking 4 and a half hours to reach work 30 miles away!

Not far away in the other direction an English woman, a mother of three, in her early 30s was killed in a collision with an HGV on an icy road.

Some friends who were headed for the airport were stuck for two hours and missed their flight, or would have had the airport not been closed because the runway was iced up!!

The same morning I slipped, fell in the duck pond and got my wellies full of water! But least said about that the better!!! Needless to say I have had numerous enquiries from people wanting me to teach their ducks to swim too!!!

23^rd January 2010

Bonjour from a corner of France that is all calendared out!!! Let me explain!

As you will know, in the UK it is the custom – requirement more like – that you tip the postman, the dustmen, the milkman if you have one etc. Give them their Christmas box! And of course you generally do ‘comply with custom’ for fear that they will exact revenge on those who don’t by some means or other even though you may not feel that any such gesture is actually warranted!!!.

Here in France, the custom is somewhat different! You get given a calendar for which you give a donation! Ask how much and the answer is always ‘Comme vous voulez!’ What you like!

So now, in addition to the calendars which we bought when we were back in the UK (including a great VW Microbus one which I have) and those with pictures of the grandchildren which we were given as Christmas presents, we have a 2010 calendar from La Poste, courtesy of the lovely lady who delivers our mail, which is a veritable almanac with a month to a page and with the name of the saint for each day – yes every day is a saint’s day here! Plus there are recipes and world maps and bits about French territories and so on.

Then there is the calendar from le Football Club de Saint-Sornin-Leulac (our local team) which also gives the applicable saint’s name each day as well as having a photograph of the current squad and sponsors adverts. Delivered by no less than three Club members with this came a little card calendar, very useful except that we need to put on our spectacles to read it!

Finally, today saw my lady wife’s heart leap as two uniformed firemen appeared at the door! Her excitement was somewhat tempered by the fact that one of them was probably older than I am – or at least looked it!!!

The Sapeurs-Pompiers had a calendar on offer and were taking names of who ‘bought’ one!!! Rude not to, especially as you never know when you are going to need them!

Their calendar, which is a very glossy affair, has a page of fire safety tips plus loads of colour pictures of the squad at Chateauponsac, our nearest fire station, some of their vehicles and equipment and what are, in UK fire brigade terminology, ‘shouts’, so pictures of upside down or very misshapen vehicles which have crashed, things burning and casualties being stretchered off.

Interestingly, the Sapeurs-Pompiers provide the emergency ambulance service here in France. Almost all other ambulances are privately run!

All we need now is for the Gendarmes to come knocking with their calendar and we will have a full set! Let’s hope that if they do come knocking it is only to ‘sell’ us a calendar!!!

We are never at a loss to know what the date is now!!!

17^th January 2010

Hi from a green and sunny France!

It is amazing how quickly the snow has disappeared here. It virtually all went in a period of 24 hours thanks to a combination of a ten or twelve degree temperature increase and steady, sometimes heavy, rain. Certainly our animals are very happy that they can, once again, graze without having to do some snow ploughing first!

The ducks are particularly happy to have access to the pond although it has been fun watching them skate on the ice floes! The hens were very reluctant to venture out in the snow; they would stand in the doorway to the coop looking askance as if to say, ‘you want me to go out in that? I don’t think so!’ They also stopped laying in protest! Now they are happily scratching around making their usual mess! And at least one of them has resumed supplying yummy eggs!

Benji, the tup, has become even more feisty and is venting his attitude on the swing which is in the extended field in which the sheep are grazing. It is very amusing to see him take a run at the swing and launch himself, all feet off the ground, at it delivering a resounding butt. He then stands there only to be clouted roundly on the head by the swing coming back at him! He frequently receives a third clout as it swings back again which does nothing to remove his bemused expression. One is reminded of Gerard Hoffnung’s wonderful Bricklayer’s Lament -  If you are not familiar with it, listen here on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZUJLO6lMhI

11^th January 2010

I hope that you are all surviving OK and that things are beginning to get back to normal now. We are still semi-snow bound but there are signs of a bit of a thaw today – the temperature has soared to plus 0.2C, the first time it has risen above minus 2C since the 2^nd of January!!! Must confess we are beginning to suffer from cabin fever!!

We spent the morning tending to the livestock – cleaning out the chicken & hen coop – lovely job, loads of frozen chicken s**t everywhere!! What we have to do to get fresh eggs!

Then we had to round up the sheep and corral them so we could dose them with de-worming stuff & something else. This involved grabbing them and forcing open their mouths whilst my wife inserted a syringe and squirted the stuff down their throats. If you had told me I would be doing this two years ago I would have laughed in your face!!

It is very obvious, listening to UK radio and watching UK TV, that the severe weather conditions which have been hitting parts of the UK have, as usual, caught the authorities on the hop and they are just not coping.

Talking to one of our neighbours and reading bits in the local press etc. it would seem that the feeling in the Limousin is that the authorities are ill-equipped and do a poor job here too. This would seem, perhaps, to be borne out by stories told to us by a neighbour and mentioned elsewhere about the problems his wife has been having travelling the 30 miles down the motorway to Limoges each day to go to work.

Whilst accepting that we have not needed to travel, something which we could not have done, by car at least, for some 5 or 6 days because we could not even get out of our drive, we have twice had a snow plough come through our tiny hamlet passing in both directions along the road onto which our drive gives.

In our local ‘town’ (population 660) the pavements have been cleared by the commune and grit has been spread

Most days I have managed to walk the mile each way to the bakers in the local ‘town’ up a hill that has been closed to traffic but is still passable on foot. It has been wonderful walking with Poppy our dog in the snow, everywhere is so peaceful and still, the snow has been that great snow that crunches under foot and it has been great exercise.

Up in the ‘town’ there has been a great sense of camaraderie with everyone greeting everyone else and stopping to chat, swap anecdotes and to enquire if everything is OK? The three shops (butcher, baker and mini-market) which adjoin each other on the main road, really are an important centre of the ‘town’ and certainly the place to be if you want to know what is going on!!!

3rd January 2010

Bonjour mes amis et bonne année!!

Yes it is a new year and a new decade and here’s hoping for better things this year than last. I am tempted to rant but it is too soon after the New Year to get on my soapbox!!!

We are now back in France after spending some 10 days over Christmas & New Year in the UK. During an incredibly busy time we covered something like 1500 miles, 700 in the UK, most of it on the M25 and on Sunday 27^th December I clocked up just under 7 hours driving! Still we got to see family and attended my son’s wedding on the 31^st which was a wonderful day and evening! New Year’s Eve will never be the same!!

We also got the chance to meet up with old friends including Ray Bartrip who we met for lunch and some of the Crawdaddy crew with whom we spent a smashing evening in a superb Indian restaurant. It was also my great pleasure to join Tim Aves on his SaintFM radio show on Sunday 27^th.

We experienced the madness that is Bluewater, spent hours in traffic jams, is there any part of the M25 where there are not roadworks? We changed our plans every few minutes as another idea was scuppered by the massive amount of traffic resulting from people wanting to go to the sales. As a result, some people we were hoping to see we did not!

However, it was lovely to see friends and to spend time with family, especially as on the 27^th we took my Mother out to lunch and to an Indian restaurant for probably the first time in her life! We (my Mother, Patricia & me, my daughter and her partner and their daughter) were the only people in the restaurant.

There were almost more staff than customers and no-one else came in throughout the time we were there. I bet they were pleased to see us!

The 31^st saw us at a lovely country hotel in the depths of the Kent countryside for my son’s wedding to Claire. It was a wonderful but long day.

Everything had been organised with great attention to detail and with the ceremony at 1.30 p.m. followed by a very lengthy photo session, and a simple but lovely wedding breakfast with some very amusing speeches. At about 6ish there was a pause which saw us repairing to our suite – yes honestly – we had his & hers bathrooms, a good sized bedroom with flat screen TV and DVD player and a large sitting room with a settee and armchair and another flat screen TV. It was nice to pause, have a cuppa and spend some time with my brother who we rarely see.

The evening saw further arrivals for an evening party which was a really great opportunity for me to see old friends and members of my son’s mother’s family, some of whom I had not seen for more than twenty years. Entertainment was provided by an excellent DJ who really made the evening and a wonderful firework display shortly before midnight.

It was very special for me to see the New Year and new decade in with my son and his new wife, my daughter, her partner and their daughter.

The 1^st of January dawned (well quite late really) with a light dusting of snow which only served to make the gardens surrounding the hotel look even more picturesque.

To avoid facing a long drive home after a long, tiring day and a late night, we had booked an hotel just down the M20, close to the Eurotunnel terminal. It was a bitterly cold day and keen to get into a warm room, we arrived at the hotel soon after 2.30 p.m. only to discover we could not check in until 3.00 p.m. We asked the ladies behind the reception desk where we could eat that evening and were told that food was available later in the hotel café.

At about 8 p.m. we came down having perused the menu in our room and planned our evening meal and were greeted by another lady who advised us that there was no chef that evening and so no food!  So it was back to the room to don coats, gloves, hats etc. and make our tortuous way across a dangerously slippery leisure park to the nearest eatery, a Pizza Hut.

It was not our day as we were greeted at the door by one of the waiters who advised that, due to them having missed a delivery earlier in the day, much of what was on the menu was off!!!

In desperation and unwilling to slide any further, we managed to find something that we liked which was available. We did not stay any longer than absolutely necessary as it was almost impossible to hold a conversation due to the volume of the ‘background’ music. We must be getting old!

The following morning it was across the icy car park, ten minutes of de-icing the car and off to the Eurotunnel terminal. On arrival in France, it was a quick dash to the nearest supermarket to fill up with cheaper diesel and then we hit the autoroute to drive back through snow and slush in Northern France, often behind snow ploughs, finally reaching the peace and tranquillity of home in the early evening of the 2^nd! We are now recovering!!

19^th December 2009

Hallo and greetings from a very snowy and cold France (temperature this morning at about 9.00 a.m. was minus 8.2C and it is now (at 17.00) minus 4.8C. We have had loads of snow and been spending quite a bit of time looking to the animals to make sure they have food and water etc.

We saw an intriguing facet of the French approach to traffic management in snow on Friday. It had snowed quite heavily overnight and the nearest main road to us, a very hilly one which is a major cross country truck route from Portugal & Spain to Eastern Europe, became very difficult with lorries unable to climb the hills.

So the Gendarmerie simply corralled the trucks with the result that in our local village (about a mile away) there were some 70 or so trucks held on the main road and not allowed to move. Cars and vans were clear to travel and this helped get the snow melted and mushed up. About a mile and a half of trucks stretched through our town and away into the distance. A similar corral was put in place a couple of miles further down the road.

They repeated this at various points on main roads throughout the region with the result that traffic moved freely and enjoyed almost empty autoroutes!!!

We later learned that there were some 500 trucks which were trapped on the road between the A20 and Bellac, a distance of about 20 miles! Many of them were there overnight and our commune opened up its’ Salle des Fetes (village hall) overnight and took care of around 100 trucks drivers etc.

Just hoping that the weather will improve by next Wednesday when we are travelling back to the UK for Christmas and my son’s wedding!!

16^th December 2009

Cold, colder, coldest. Where do you go after that?? For the last 2 days it has been bone-chillingly cold and we have not been able to start the car due to a flat battery so this morning I had to ring Mike, our sheep farmer friend to come over and assist. First problem was getting it out of the garage!

It is an automatic and we needed some juice to power the electronic gear selector so we could get it out of Park!! With the bonnet (battery) end of the car buried deep in the garage it took two sets of jump leads to connect Mike’s car battery to mine but, after a few minutes, there was enough charge in the battery to select N and enable us to push the car into the open.

With amore direct connection possible between the cars we managed to get it started and a twenty mile blast up the Autoroute got the battery a bit more healthy.

So a trip to a garage was called for but they were all closed for lunch as is the French way! Later I duly set off for La Souterraine, the nearest decent sized town, where there were several tyre & battery places similar to KwikFit and ATS.

I pulled into the first of these and quite quickly established that they had a battery of the sort required and yes they could fit it while I waited. About five minutes later the two technicians came shuffling into the tiny office and mumbled something to the lady behind the desk. They then informed me that they could not do the job, it was ‘trop compliqué’ and muttered something about leads and electronics. They suggested I needed to go to a VW dealer.

I moved on to another place across the road where they advised they did not have a battery but they could get one the next day. They looked under the bonnet to get the battery details and the pronounced they could not do it either for the same reasons quoted by the first establishment!

So, nothing for it but a 65 mile round trip to the VW dealer in Limoges where they not only had the required battery but fitted it in around 10 minutes!!!

An expensive and time consuming experience and a worrying one. I wonder of the local places will be able to fit a tyre if I need one??? Certainly, it seems that just about anything to do with cars and maintenance etc. is a good deal more expensive here than in the UK. Still, we had no option as we could not chance trying to return to the UK next week with a dodgy battery!

21^st November 2009

Bonjour mes amis,

I hope that all of you have come through the appalling weather unscathed, we were astonished to see and read the coverage of the floods in Cumbria and it was brought even closer to home when I read on FaceBook, that a musician friend of mine was concerned about his sister who lives in Cockermouth (he later learned she was OK) and that his niece was awaiting rescue from her place of work! Hopefully she is safe and dry now!

All the while we were basking in glorious sunshine with temperatures which touched just under 21C one day. Not so good today although still in high teens C!

No doubt we shall pay for it later!!!

7^th November 2009

Hi from a very soggy France!

At least it is not as cold as it appeared to be in Paris this afternoon watching the Rugby League match between Australia and France!

Hope that you all got through Halloween and Bonfire Night unscathed! It is lovely here because we do not have to endure weeks of fireworks before the fifth nor the two weekends (one before the fifth, one after) where all you can hear are fireworks.

Two big questions, why do they have to be so loud? I love fireworks, especially the big aerial displays, but why is it that we have to put up with explosions that rattle the windows and remind those who were there of the blitz???

Question two. Just what is clever, considerate and fun about having your firework display at midnight when many people, particularly children, are in bed sound asleep? Sorry but to me it is just another example of the lack of consideration for your fellow man that was one of the factors that lead us to move to rural France.

Here, they have fireworks on a very regular basis with big displays almost every summer week-end celebrating some foire, or dance or bar-b-que or concert etc. Even the smallest village will spend big time on a professionally staged firework display and very good they are too. You can also buy fireworks all the year round at many shops.

But I have seen no evidence of people being silly with them, throwing bangers at each other etc. As a five year-old (yes I can just about remember that far back!) I was badly burnt in a firework accident and have long held the view that fireworks should only be available to organised, properly controlled display and not the general public. It seems crazy to me that in these days of often over zealous Health & Safety political correctness, it is legal to sell almost anybody sufficient amounts of explosives and incendiary devices to seriously injure both themselves and other people!

OK rant over!!!!

31^st October 2009

Like you, we have had a gorgeous week weather wise with the temperature peaking in excess of 20C most days with loads of sunshine, most unlikely weather for the end of October. Spent half the day on Wednesday cutting the grass again!!! Will it never stop growing!!