Nostalgia versus Homesickness

It's the Sunday before Christmas in Xaintrie. Nostalgia is in the air as we hear the  everlasting carols and christmas songs once again on the airwaves. We're more than 500 miles from 'home' (except that we've been able to avoid that expression for some years now. During the first two or three years, the word popped out without warning whenever we talked about the UK, but now it doesn't. At first, you don't notice it, then after a year or two you hear yourself say it and make a mental note to correct it. Finally it becomes automatically the epithet for what has been truly 'home' ever since we arrived over 8 years ago). Does that mean we're 'homesick'?

Personally, no. I don't think I could ever say that I've been homesick since moving to France. Or after moving anywhere in fact; I'm not the type. Nostalgia, however, is another thing altogether in my opinion. I've plenty of that when the opportunity to take a gentle reverie in the past arises. Christmas is particularly evocative of childhood and other earlier-

life memories and is already stirring dormant reminiscences of family gatherings (good and bad), meals and places. In three days' time we'll have the Nine lessons and Carols once again from the chapel of King's College, Cambridge; a key event in my Christmas evocation. Even if I miss the forecast, knowing that it is taking place paints a misty picture for me of the small back 'parlour' of my parents' house on a Christmas eve, grey sky outside the window dripping with the condensed breath of me, my parents and sisters as the coal fire in the grate bravely but barely manages to keep at bay the December dampness and cold just the other side of the window. The shiny brown bakelite wireless is on with the Cambridge choir in full song and I can smell mince pies.

This to me is nostalgia - an affection for the past, not a longing for it which is the true description of homesickness.

Interestingly, there is no French word equivalent for 'homesick', but 'nostalgie' is there all right. There is even a pop music radio station with that name; you can imagine the stuff they play.

Happy Christmas

Mapmaker

Mince Pies and Carols

Yesterday, a unique cultural event took place at the Church of Saint Peter here in Argentat. It was a joint English/French Carol Service, organised to bring together the local community and its English residents in a sing-song, with nativity readings from the Bible by local schoolchildren in the two languages. The children had also been coached into a delightful rendering of 'Away in a Manger', complete with handheld candles, theatrical dimming of the lights. They even sang 'Little Donkey' entirely in English. 

We also had the opportunity to bellow out other carols like 'Once in Royal David's City', 'O Come All Ye Faithful', 'Hark the Herald Angels' and the like to the polite surprise to the French majority of the congregation who had previously thought us a rather reserved lot, full of sang-froid.

Our local Web-Wizz has already set this up on the Argentat website. Click here to see the article and a short slideshow-video of the service. The sound quality is excellent and gives a good idea of what it was like. The article, written by Corinne Escure, is translated, more or less, by me: ...

At the beginning of the autumn, Alice, Sue and Johanna [English and French members of a choral group] proposed to Père Damian [the local priest] that they could organise a traditional English Christmas Carol service. Johanna, teacher and parent at the Jean d'Arc school [in Argentat] also suggested this to the other teachers. They were charmed by this and also by the idea of a cultural event for the two communities [French and English]. Consequently, the schoolchildren started to practise bible readings [in both languages] and carols, to be ready for this unforgettable evening. French and English carols followed one another, the children's voices carrying beautifully in the warmth of occasion. The children carried 'Christingles', decorated oranges with candles, symbolising the Earth and Light - and a moment of sharing with the traditions of Great Britain. After the service, still feeling the charm of the English and French choristers and of the solo by Mr Eyrigoux [he sang 'Silent Night' in French - 'Douce Nuit'], everyone was invited to take mulled wine, mince pies and other patisseries. An evening, we hope, to be only the début of further cultural exchanges!

Then it started to snow. The next morning, Sunday 14th December gave us a real taste of winter - and a traditional Christmas scene:

Real sang-froid has now set-in. Time to stoke up the fire, a little early I admit, with the Yule-logs.

Mapmaker.

It's the 'Telethon' this weekend.  A bit like the 'Pudsey' phenomenon in the UK last month (fund-raising for the  'Children in Need' charity), this one is for the 'Association Française contre les Myopathies', in other words, dedicated to raising money for the French Muscular Dystrophy charity. All over France, people will be doing worthy or silly (or both) things for pledges of cash. 

An English version of the official website gives a flavour of the event.

I wrote the last paragraph last week. Telethon now been and gone along with several more days of my life. I can't understand how these days pass, seemingly at ever increasing speed although it has been one of those weeks stuffed with more social activities than the average...

Notably, December 5th, or 6th (depending on your euro-origins) is the day when the Dutch, in particular, celebrate 'Sinterklaas'. It's a long story, but he's basically the very same 'Santa Clause' or Saint Nicholas or 'Father Christmas' that the rest of us recognise. Last Wednesday was the 5th December and it so happened merry band of friends held another of our 'Entre Deux' meals, this time chez Nini (Nini and Chris's names came out of the hat the time before).

As half of us around the table are Dutch, we did some of the traditional stuff like providing a couple of the 'Black Pete' slaves and writing little poems about one another. I and Chris were persuaded to 'black up' for this(!)

That was last week - now Christmas decorations are up in town and on Saturday there'll be a carol service in the local church. It's going to be a mixed French/English affair; we haven't sung English traditional Christmas Carols for ages so we're looking forward to it. Mince pies and other goodies afterwards.

Joyeuses Fêtes...

Mapmaker

Saint Barbara to the Rescue

Two young 'pompiers' came by the house a couple of days ago with their calendar for 2009. They do this every year, at about this time which is another reminder that winter is setting-in.

The Sapeurs-pompiers is France's fire and rescue service and is largely voluntary for the smaller communes. It is expected that we give a donation for the calendar. We always oblige - you never know when you might need their services and besides, next year is our local brigade's 150th anniversary.  The busy, six-page glossy calendar is full of dramatic scenes

of their derring-do over the past year as well as some homely, family touches such as a large photograph of 'Le petit Luca et son papa, le sergent Jérôme Courcelaud'.

The first page of the calendar is entirely taken with 'mugshots' of the whole brigade; one Chief, 14 other officers down to the rank of 'caporal' and 11 more 'sapeurs, 1st classe'. Out of these 26, four are women. On the last page we are treated to photographs of five more under the title "La section Jeunes Sapeurs-Pompiers" in their uniforms - sort of apprentices or 'cadets', aged form 11 to 16 years. Four out of the five are young women. All this for a town of 3,000 inhabitants. A bit like the scouts, but with some serious hardware to play with. Wikepedia has a description of these cadets and their duties here in English.

A small 'flyer' accompanied the calendar inviting us as residents, to a free knees-up ('Grand Bal Gratuit'. It does sound better in French), in January in the sports hall. The occasion is an address on behalf of the patron saint of pompiers, Sainte Barbe, to be followed by general jollity with dancing - all organised by 'Fred et Lulu'.  Sounds intriguing.

Sainte Barbe  - Saint Barbara was an interesting, albeit shadowy saint in the catholic world. Originally she was prayed-to to protect one from lightning strikes.

Really? Is it worth it, I ask myself. Then again, we get some pretty awesome thunderstorms in these parts at times.

 Anyway, the way she came to be associated with lightning was through a typically tortuous set of circumstances. Her father didn't like the way she was always eyeing the boys so he locked her up in a tower. Having little else to do while she was in there, she somehow learned about christianity and converted to it. From what, I don't know (flirting?). This made her father even madder so he had her tortured.  She held-out against that, so he beheaded her (himself!). It seems that fathers were pretty strict in those days. It makes me feel that I got off lightly when I was smacked - hard, mind you, on the bum by my dad when I wouldn't stop asking for an ice-cream which he was not inclined to buy for me at the time. Ages ago, of course, but luckily not back in Bab's time.

I digress. As soon as Barbara's father had carried out the rather harsh punishment, he was struck by lightning and died. Served him right, you might say. Not for him our modern remedy of a spot of family counselling with a holiday at the seaside for all the family, just to help rekindle those happy earlier days.

After the unfortunate result of this mediaeval family spat, Sainte Barbe then acquired even more admirers and is now the patron saint of lightning-avoiders, architects, geologists, miners, gunners, metallurgists(!) and so on. Anything vaguely related to fire. Which finally brings us to the pompiers - she is well and truly, their guardian angel.

With a list like that, I suppose you could say that it goes some way towards compensating her for a rather heavy-handed bit of scolding from her dad.

Mapmaker

A Burning Issue

This morning we hear that the UK is once again under cloud, but 'mild' for the time of year. It's amusing how this sort of weather 'anomaly' still makes news back there in Blighty. Here, at the same moment, we are recipients of the opposite; a light frost under a pale blue sky. A harbinger of winter.

We're experiencing one of those not infrequent weather patterns which occur from autumn to spring, when a finger of high pressure pokes across the northern half of France delivering its slow, clockwise circulation of warm, damp, 'claggy' air from the Atlantic to Britain while at the same time dragging down crisp, dry, cold continental air across us here in the 'bottom half' of this country.

We Brits get 'caught out' by these European mainland weather phenomena quite often in our first few years as French immigrants, especially those who think that 'south of the river Loire' means 'southern Europe', ergo a Mediterranean climate.  In fact our winters can be much harsher than those of southern Britain, 800 kilometres to the north.

Almost all residents of France, with the exception perhaps of the well-heeled who can afford to inhabit the Côte d'Azur, have to accept the fact that they need heat in their houses for at least 7 months of the year. This means that the natives here are well-versed in the use of wood-burning stoves.

Wood-burning for heating has been around for a very long time - obviously. The stoves nowadays are very efficient - more than 70% of the heat generated is going to come into the room. What's more, 27% of France is still covered by forest and woodland so the 'industry' of growing and harvesting wood for fuel is still strong and actually increasing in activity. The French state now gives tax credits equal to 50% of the cost of installing in a home any device which uses renewable sources and this includes wood-burning stoves. We get a special low VAT rate for this also.

If the wood is dried for at least 18 months before it is sold as fuel, as any decent wood-farmer would do, the best (oak, beech, ash and particularly hornbeam, the hardest of all and better even than oak as fuel) can cost as little as around 2 euro centimes for kilowatt-hour of heat. Natural gas costs around 4.5 centimes for a kilowatt-hour, domestic fuel costs nearly 7 and propane gas, over 10!

Here, the wood is sold by volume.  This doesn't seem fair at fist because, in fact, weight  for weight, all woods are closely matched for calorific value. However, water content would make it heavier so the French prefer to sell it by this way. (Nevertheless, the Italians sell it by weight - ok, as long as it's dry).

The standard measure for us is the 'Steyre' which is, sort of, one cubic metre.  In fact, it is a pile of one-metre-long logs stacked, one metre high, on a one metre base. This means, the amount varies slightly, depending on how straight they are! It also means that if the logs are already cut into two or three (we use the latter for our stove) before delivery, they will stack closer so a cut 'steyre' will give you more wood than an uncut one.

All this is a bit academic as the supplier-farmers always deliver, cut and jumbled on a trailer behind a tractor and simply tip it somewhere near where you want it. It's all based on trust really. We pay a little extra for the cutting.

It's interesting to note that new Brit immigrants here have no idea how to manage a wood-burner as their main source of heating. We all had to learn, despite the fact that the wood burner has been a fashionable addition to the 'ideal UK home' for many years now. It's still more likely to be an aesthetic assembly in the fireplace, rarely lit and fuelled by a few sacks of logs, purchased at the local garage or from a dodgy itinerant local trader with a pickup piled with some scruffy bits of trees which were probably still growing, a few days earlier.

Here, we gradually realise that, as the main source of heating a house, the wood must be properly harvested and dried, the stove must be kept going, pretty well continuously throughout the colder months. The walls of the house will take 24 to 48 hours to reach a steady, warm state and must not be left too long without a heat source in the rooms.

It's alien to a Brit at first to stoke up the stove just before retiring for the night. Coaxing it into life again before breakfast is also a lost memory, passed over with the death of our grandparents. It was more dangerous then; now we have modern, efficient burners, often with warm air circulatory additions which make a real difference, capable of heating a house, most likely more economically than other systems.

Finally, but actually firstly, - make sure you insulate otherwise the draughts will suck away all this eco-heat and leave you with cold feet....

Mapmaker 

Kissing Cousins*

*Click here for definition

We left Siena on the Wednesday and drove out to the Italian coast at Livorno to follow the Mediterranean motorway to France. It was somewhere along this route that I spotted an Italian (at least, his car had Italian numberplates) peeing at the side of the road, just like his cousins, the French. For some time I'd had the idea of a blog on this subject (if I could come up with a polite title), hitherto being convinced that they, Frenchmen, were the only nationals in Europe, if not the world, who practised this art.  I was wrong. Perhaps I'd better abandon the idea of an essay on this topic for now; suffice to say, you can substitute the 'K' in the title of this piece for a "P" if you like.

The differences between these euro-cousins becomes apparent as soon as you cross the border at Ventimiglia. Tidiness take over. Confusing roadsigns, particularly the temporary ones setup for roadworks no longer leave you guessing. A sense of order - efficiency even, whispers its name again in the warm breeze coming from the sparkling sea, gliding over the fabulous rooftops of Monte Carlo. It's not until Nice, still on motorways but now crammed with traffic, that you are reminded of the auto-scrum that you get around all northern Italian towns and cities.

At last we were able to leave the motorway and, guided by Fifi, our faithful GPS comforter, start to take the road to the hills nearby.

Biot is a village in these hills a few kilometres inland from the ugly, urban coastal strip along the 'Bay of Angels' which stretches from Nice to Antibes. It must crawl with tourists from Easter to November, but when we arrived  (late October), it was almost normal with very few obvious tourists and the genuine feel of a French village, slowing down for the 'low-season', politely keeping its attractions available but in a sleepy sort of way. A delight after the mêlée of Siena.

We headed for 'Les Arcades' hotel-restaurant at the top of the oldest part of the village.  We'd passed-by a few years before, briefly, with Marina (once again) as our guide. She knew it from her earlier days as a photo-journalist as it was only a short dash from Nice and Cannes and thus became known to the press-crowd and their filmstar targets during the Film Festival weeks.

The hotel is a delight. The proprietors, M. and Mme Brothier (André and Mimi) have run it for over 50 years and treat their guests like relatives, who drop-in from time to time for a meal and to catch up on the family news. Each room is hung with original artworks of no mean value (artistic as well as financial). Mimi will show you her large private art collection in the cellars as well as expounding some useful medicinal advantages of some of her recipes - "The entrée you have chosen is a diuretic.  Makes you peepee," she said with an encouraging smile.

The village of Saint Paul de Vence is only a few kilometres distant and so we made a visit in order to ogle at the (very) up-market galleries, artworks and residences in the ancient hilltop settlement, tucked inside its ramparts, from where you can peer down onto its millionaire neighbours' villas and swimming-pools.

Enough. Time to return to the cool, green valleys of Corrèze by way of the fabulous Millau bridge, designed by Sir Norman Foster. Another 'Kissing Cousin' perhaps? Well, he is English - from a working-class north-of-England family who has risen to 'Baron Foster of Thames Bank'. Sadly, I can find no information on his propensity to kiss, unlike the Italians...

Mapmaker

Tuscan Travels

This morning, 26th Ocober, we had the first frost. At least, the car had ice on the windscreen, just after sunrise when I went out to buy fresh bread. It's just thirteen days since we left Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, in warm sunshine, to drive down to Siena in Tuscany to finish our short holiday.

We were now five friends in two cars, Roz and Bob having left by train for Venice, Florence and Rome before flying back to California after another week. We set off heading south across the interminable Lombardy plain, on what must be the most boring and ugly drives in europe, flat as a board and as picturesque as an enormous industrial estate in decline. Siena was 450 kilometres distant and not until Bologna (300 kilometres) can you find anything worth looking at from the motorway.

We knew that Bologna to Siena via Florence meant crossing the Apennine mountains and sure enough, green hills hove into view a few kilometres north of Bologna. We swept into them, climbing steadily, by-passing the city with welcome views of farms and woodlands. I was a bit surprised to find the maximum altitude attained was only 750 metres (according to Fifi, our GPS locator) and the motorway was in pretty poor condition at this point, two lanes only and an uneven surface (not unusual for Italy, even on newly-laid carriageways). 

The route by-passed Florence as we left the 'mountains' passing through more ugly industrial activity and yet more road construction work with the city itself just a smudge in the haze to the east of us. We were now well and truly in Tuscany.

Thomas Patch, an English painter living in Florence painted this 'Distant View of Florence' in 1763. The words 'spinning' and 'grave' come to mind.

Later in the afternoon we were threading our way through the northern suburbs of Siena towards the walled city centre with some trepidation. Complex meeting arrangements had been made; we were not going to be able to park or even unload our luggage near our apartment as it was inside the mediaeval city walls, legal access by vehicle being only available to residents. The plan was, to telephone Jacopo, an old friend and former work-colleague of Marina through whom the accommodation had been arranged. His son-in-law, Pino (who, we imagined, was the owner of the apartment), would drive to meet us, transfer our luggage to his car and then somehow show us where to park and lead us to the apartment at the same time.

All this came to pass- eventually. The apartment was on a steep bluff, just inside the city walls on the north-east side of the city, at the corner of the Piazza San Francesco

I found this photo which actually shows the apartment and part of the mediaeval wall - our green balcony on the yellow building where we took our evening drinks just visible above the trees in front of the looming mass of the Basilica of San Francesco. 

There is an alley between the two buildings which leads to a series of escalators descending to the street and the public car park where we had to leave our vehicles - at 30 euros a day each.

There is no doubt that Siena is one of the world's surviving wonders. The 'Campo' in the centre is a marvel and must not be missed. Of course, we expected and were not wrong in assuming that to sit there at one of the numerous bars and cafés to admire the view while sipping a refreshing drink would not be the cheapest way to quench our thirsts. Beers were three times normal price and nearly nine euros for a gin-and-tonic was mildly eye-watering (not due to the alcoholic strength, I might add).

If one's 'thing' is to visit, study, imbibe the magnificent monuments crammed into a marvel surviving from the middle ages such as Siena, then one could spend a week or more there, discovering new joys by the hour. After two days however, having been let down on various lodging arrangements (Marina had to move twice to nearby B&Bs at the last minute) and worrying somewhat about the security of the vehicles and the haemorrhaging euro in our pockets, we decided to review the situation. Personally, I found the bane of Siena was the noise and local pollution of constant roaring, rattling mopeds weaving in and out of the pedestrians in the narrow streets. The noise was amplified as in canyons so eating out on the pavement, although pleasant in the warm weather, was a spoilt experience.

In addition, Michel was obviously contracting a cold, or worse so we made a trip out to the hilltop village of San Gimignano as everyone should, who visits this region, then headed back to France on the third day.  Michel needed to see a GP and we had decided to settle for a visit to Biot, near Antibes on the Côte d'Azur as a possible rest stop for last part of our trip.

Mountains and Lakes

Back home at last, after a busy schedule outlined in the last blog. The best laid plans are often disrupted and our odyssey into Italy and back through France's Provence was no exception. However, the holiday was great and family bonds were reinforced, as they should be.

The crossing of the alps was the first casualty of my route plan. I turned into the wrong valley while cruising along the autoroute on a warm, sunny afternoon and we couldn't be bothered to retrace once I realised the error. So we went through the Fréjus tunnel instead of climbing over the 'Little St Bernard' pass.  It was just as well. We reached our destination just as it was getting dark. The drive over the top would have set us back further in time, making the final 100 kilometres to Simon's house near Lake Maggiore a bit tricky as we were a two-car convoy with Michel following me on his first visit to Italy. The dense scattering of villages and lanes full of local traffic on steep

hillsides once we'd left the motorway was not the easiest place to try to follow another car in the dark.

Our three-day stay included a day trip on one of the passenger boats which cruise around the southern end of the lake like buses; the ticket was inclusive of stops anywhere around the circuit which included Laveno where we embarked, and the islands of Isola Madre and Isola Pescatori, both of which we visited.

Isola Madre consists entirely of a garden with a 16th century villa in the middle of it which belonged to the Barromeo family, all of which can be seen between passenger boat visits. The picture shows a view from the gardens. I've put a set of these pictures here on 'flickr'

After another superb celebratory dinner, arranged by Simon which took place in a sort of grocer's/butcher's shop which doubled as a restaurant after hours, it was time to leave for the next planned stop on our itinerary - Siena.

So far so good, if not quite as predicted....

Mapmaker

The Days Grow Short

October is well under way and we have a busy schedule ahead. The weather is still kind with warm sun and no rain to speak of. I took this picture this morning from the garden. I was just too late to capture the earlier wisps of mist rising vertically from the water surface like party ribbons, something we see often at this time of year. Promise of a warm day again.

The schedule should run like this: 

Drive to Limoges airport tomorrow, Wednesday to pick-up Roz and Bob who have come all the way from California via the UK. Dinner at the Fouillade in the evening with Chris and Sophie added to the ensemble.

Lunch on Thursday with the 'Entre Deux' crowd, plus Roz, Bob, Nadine and Michel - that makes Fourteen of us. Special occasion, Fleur's birthday on Sunday but we'll be in Italy by then so not all friends here will be able to attend, hence early celebration.

Friday morning, we're off to Italy to Lake Maggiore with Roz, Bob, Nadine, Michel, Fleur and Marina in two cars, to visit Roz's brother and family via the alpine pass alongside Mont Blanc - the 'Little St Bernard' (height 2,188 metres).  I'm keeping an eye on the webcams up there at La Rosiére, a ski resort just below the pass on the French side) but there shouldn't be a problem at this time of year.

Another celebration, Italian style, on Sunday, then the two Californians leave for Venice while the rest of us head for Siena where we have an apartment reserved for the rest of the week, thanks to a friend of Marina.

The return journey is planned (for me, Fleur, Nadine, Michel and Marina) to be via the Mediterranean route with a night or two at St Rémy de Provence, a watering hole we've visited several times before. We should find our way home after that.

Not a bad schedule for October. Well, you only live once and winter is-a -comin', in more ways than one, if the current financial crisis is anything to go by.

Later blogs  - hope to show how it all turned out.....

Mapmaker

Confusers and Electrickery

This blog is about computers, so skip it if the subject bores the pants off you....

I can  think of only one of our large group of friends and acquaintances in this neck of the woods who doesn't have a computer; I'm talking about a group of people, mostly immigrant retirees, with an average age of around 60+, at a guess. Yet nearly all of us have them in the home and feel utterly deprived when they 'go down', get fried by thunderstorms (pretty fierce affairs here when compared with those we remember from times past back in Blighty) or when our 'Internet Providers' inexplicably stop providing on random occasions. 

'Confusers' are what a good friend of mine calls computers - you only have to change a few letters and you're there. 'Electrickery is another word he uses a lot. He's a nice, intelligent chap, running a survey company in the UK. He has to rely on them as tools of the trade (we're talking land survey here - mapping, so lots of numbers have to be crunched), but he's honest too. I spent ten years helping people to do useful things with these desktop, one-eyed beasts and I know that my friend is not alone. Everyone is confused by them, including me.

One thing came home to me very early during this period when I was frantically trying to keep ahead of the latest 'improvements' and 'updates'. My revelation was that these machines will always be confusing until the day comes along when their actual purpose and method of use are as readily understood as those of a toaster, a telephone, or a teapot..

Why do so many of us, even oldies and crinklies, need these wretched machines? What do we actually do with them? We send emails and browse the internet. These two activities have been more or less 'mastered' by most of us, but even then, the finer points of 'cut-and-paste', email attachment formats, 'favourite' web site management, RSS news-feeds etc. etc. are too tricky to bother about. We get by, largely without them.

Some of us like to use the 'media' facilities and enjoy playing with our digital photo or video libraries. As for spreadsheets, databases, desktop publishing, graphics, even computer diaries and 'to do' applications, these are largely spurned by most of us. Yet, a 'home' computer is an incredibly versatile and powerful tool, capable of doing almost anything if you know how. That's why it carries its relatively high price-tag; it's like having a box of tools in the house for any conceivable task. Only a small percentage will ever be used because we haven't learned how to use them, or we're just not interested.

Yet, the complete toolbox is there, cluttering-up the desk.

We don't actually need all this capability. Most of the time we simply need a small device for internet browsing, interaction (booking hotels, flights, ferries etc.) and emailing.

And in my opinion, combining these functions in a portable telephone is not the answer, especially while the telecom companies persist in ripping everyone off with outrageous charges.

Times are changing however. Broadband blues aside (last month's blog on the subject..), hand-held, wireless devices are now available offering email and web access with all that the latter can provide. Not to mention the digital media functionality like photo, music and video facilities. The leader of the pack at the moment is Apple's 'iPod Touch' which is, in fact, its world-beating iPhone without the 'phone bit (i.e., without the crippling charges). Other manufacturers are catching-up, fast.

I can see us all using these before we're driving our Zimmer frames. The computer accessories industry will be right there with us with its 'Zimmer iPod clip-on holder' with built-in speakers, auto-charging as we shuffle along....

I hope so - I look forward to it.

Mapmaker

Bras, Boobs and Buttocks

With a title like that you might wonder where I've been recently. Browsing around Marks and Spencers in Bournemouth, UK is the rather sad answer I'm afraid - and musing on the plethora of bouncing bosoms in British high streets.

I didn't actually take this photo of the current darling of the charts and the tabloids, but it does illustrate the point(s). Women are currently enjoying an exposure which hasn't been quite so revealing since the 18th century (if costume dramas on film and TV are anything to go by). More noticeable in UK high streets than here (at least, to me), one of this interesting fashion phenomenon's secrets was pointed out by my wife while cruising around M&S's lingerie section. The cunning bra engineers build pads into the lower or lower-outer parts of the cups to push up or in (or, up-and-in) the wearer's bazooms in a sort of gravity-defying, difficult-not-to-notice way. I didn't know that. I thought it was something to do with diet or genetics or evolution (something which might have fascinated Darwin perhaps). I am of a certain age, don't forget - out of touch, so to speak.

My excuse, as a self-proclaimed artist-painter with a penchant for figure drawing and painting, is that this 'development' resulting in certain modifications of the female form, is of academic interest. Well, I would say that, wouldn't I?

What was even more fascinating was the size of some of these supports.  The largest on display could have housed a pair of hefty buttocks, let alone a couple of boobs. Not surprising as the world is supposed to be suffering from a plague of obesity.

Speaking of which, the book 'French Women Don't Get Fat' by Mireille 

Guiliano - a bestseller recently, does not speak the truth. Her advice is obviously correct - keeping portions small, savouring food to increase satisfaction, smaller amounts of high quality rather than large amounts of low quality, etc. but It's pretty obvious here that not all French women (or men) keep to this regime, or follow it instinctively. It's true that a nation whose culture is food will probably be wiser towards the part it plays in its daily life; more likely to spend more time at the table savouring quality, well-crafted dishes. Plenty of (non-French) people have been saying 'not so' however since the book came out, and this sight (photo above) is not that rare.

Here's an icon of fifty years ago to end this blog - Brigitte Bardot at 72. A pretty good advert for Ms. Guiliano's book....?

Mapmaker

The Lost Art of Trundling

We decided that our 10-day trip to England would be less of a rush if we did a 'trundle' instead of the usual dash to the Channel ferries - a total of more than 700 kilometres from here.  It's what we used to do, before we settled here permanently. I was blessed with long holidays as a college lecturer(!), so we were able to roll slowly across France each summer, no fixed itinerary, discovering the delights of out-of-the-way places by taking the 'yellow', 'D' roads (à la Michelin) or even sometimes the white ones. It's how we fell in love with France.

Since our full-time residence here we abandoned this idea in favour of a dash along the ever-burgeoning motorway system, marvelling at how more and more quickly we could cover the distance.  Hotel fees reduced to a minimum, door-to-door from here to my dad's place in Dorset on the same day.

This time we thought, why not have an 'old-time' holiday on the way, taking 2 days instead of one? Trundle speeds should save us some fuel too, contributing towards the cost of an extra night's lodging somewhere. Setting of in a vaguely northerly direction, we would keep the speed down to 80km/hr or less and enjoy the ride, with the expectation of coming across a small country hotel in a sleepy town sometime in the late afternoon.

All went according to plan; under a bright, blue sky we drove leisurely across the Millevaches plateau, an upland area with considerably more than one thousand cows on it ('vache' means 'cow' in French, but here it is probably an old word for 'source' or 'spring'). After a café lunch at the Lac de Vassivière we pressed on, gradually leaving behind the granite uplands of the Millevaches as they gave way to the softer contours of Creuse, parts 

of which showing similarities with south-western UK.

The rest of the day's journey was now dictating itself - a drive to the Creuse river, then follow it through to Argenton-sur-Creuse where we took on board two enormous cappuccinos at a sunny café location in the middle of town. Then again onwards up to the small town of Descartes where we found a hotel for the night. 

The town was named after its famous 'father of modern philosophy', René Descartes. It used to be called 'La Haye en Touraine'. Imagine calling the village of Stradbroke in Suffolk after its famous son, Robert Grosseteste (12th century philosopher and Bishop of Lincoln).

Whilst sipping a refreshing beverage at a pavement café in the town we were reminded yet again of the 'Rentrée' (see my blog of September 3rd). The sign shown here was in the window of the pharmacy on the other side of the road. The enterprising proprietor has shipped in extra supplies of anti-nit spray and kits to 'finish-off the little critters' and wishes his customers a 'Bonne rentrée' - presumably guaranteed after making this purchase.

Dinner was up to expectations: I had a warm goats'-cheese salad with figs as an entrée followed by turbot in a mustard-seed sauce then baked banana in cream and rum as dessert. Nyam! nyam!, as the French say.

We were about half way but the next day, despite the easier, flatter countryside of Touraine and Normandy, it still took another day to reach Cherbourg port under our 'trundle rules', rolling into the port around 6pm with an hour to spare in order to catch the ferry.

There is a coda here: We saved some fuel -  around 10% in fact. However, the following days' reflection brought home to us that we had spent two whole days in the car instead of one, with a subsequent heavier toll in terms of general fatigue. In fact, for the first day in the UK we were knackered. The 10% fuel saving was not much really and to cut this long story short, we decided to go back to the quick-dash regime next time.

Trundling can be considered part of the holiday of course, but is not necessarily for everyone. The French may be catching-on. I noticed a piece in, I think it was 'Le Figaro', last week. It has been shown here that the consumption of carburants by the nation's motorists has fallen significantly over this summer - the French are driving more slowly, to save fuel! Encroyable!!

Mapmaker

Broadband Blues Update

Broadband Blues (my blog, August 26th) may be a lighter shade of that colour - my friends with Numéo now report continuous functionality for the past week or so, AND their first payment has been lifted (Numéo said they wouldn't start taking subscriptions until the problems were solved).

To be fair to Numéo, the problems seem to have been higher up the chain with their physical network suppliers AXIONE who provide the 'backbone' of cabling here in Limousin on which the Wimax distribution is based, utilised by Numéo.

The two-way satellite broadband story plunges us back into the dark blues; cost of kit for self-installation, ('Tooway') including all the bits and TVA (VAT) added is nearer 900+ euros, not 600 as I'd previously suggested.

Enough of this techspeak.  We're off to UK next week so that should give me something to write home about.

Mapmaker

It's the 'Rentrée'

Yesterday all French schoolchildren went back to school after the summer holidays.  It's the 'rentrée'.  I assumed that's what the word referred to but as the occasion arrived each year we non-French immigrants realised it is actually some form of restart for just about everything in the French social, political and commercial calendar.

I'm just an uninvolved observer of this phenomenon so I recommend an expert - just click on the 'Links to try' alongside this blog ('Another Brit in France - Interesting stuff') or simply click here.

No translation needed for the above...

Mapmaker

Art for Art's Sake..

Seven years ago we created CA3 which stands for 'Le Cercle des Amis des Arts d'Argentat. The idea was for a group of friends to meet regularly in order to paint and draw together, learn form each other and generally have a good time.
The new 'season' starts this week so we celebrated with a barbecue. Very little actual 'art' on this occasion but the thought was there........

A lovely afternoon beside the Dordogne....

Mapmaker

Broadband Blues

Here in Xaintrie we enjoy a rural existence with beautiful scenery; wooded hills, plunging gorges, trout streams and placid lakes, peaceful meadows with scattered, contented cattle. Not too crowded, lively towns and villages which don't die in the winter when the visitors have all left. Not a bad life really. We even have broadband access to the internet.

Some would say that this is now an essential requisite to life in the 21st century although some would say otherwise. But not many. Without even attempting to analyse why this service is deemed essential, you only have to open your ears to the complaints of friends and neighbours to be convinced that a decent broadband service is not a longed-for luxury but an absolute, fundamental human right. 

Why is this?  What is so 'essential' about speedy access to the internet? Only two or three years ago we were perfectly content with our 'dial-up' connections, happily swapping simple emails with family and friends. Two or three years before that most of us were content to wait for the postal service to do what it has always done for the past century, oblivious of the internet revolution twittering into our lives.

Is the answer something to do with consumerism and desire, to indulge in the latest trends? I think it's much more than this. The message is sinking home that the internet is actually us. We are the world-wide-web. We can actually make our words count and have an effect on those pressures which govern our daily lives.

Look at the Wikipedia phenomenon.  Note also a number of recent media stories concerning how the US presidential hopeful, Barak Obama has grasped this and used it to great effect in his campaign. We all want a share of this power.

So, we now have the internet, but what has this desire for speed (of connection) got to do with it. We can use our 'phone lines and join in the 'www' jamboree. Why should we have to do this at ever increasing speeds? Well, anyone who has spent a frustrating time waiting for a web-page to manifest itself (due to the fact that the designers all presume we have fast broadband access anyway) at dial-up, non-broadband speeds will know the answer.

Here in rural France some of us have broadband, some of us don't and some of us have it only some of the time. Speeds are low, no faster than 2Mb/s at best in this area for ADSL broadband and often at slower speeds of half-a-Mb/s, no better than dial-up. The average for the whole of the UK is around 3.6Mb/s and in Paris and other large cities, speeds of well over 10Mb/s has been attainable for some time now.  Telephone-wire-delivered ADSL broadband can only be effective up to around 4 kilometres from the 'exchange'.  This leaves a lot of people beyond its reach, including a number of people I know in this neck of the woods.

A year or so ago our Département of the Corrèze and its Region of Limousin announced that they were well aware of these connection problems in rural areas, where many new enterprises and commercial initiatives were struggling to launch themselves but hampered by lack of broadband access to the internet.  This page shows the situation and progress towards one of the solutions. The service is a 'Wimax' system which entails installing an antenna on the house and receiving the signals from a transmitter mast up to 10 kilometres away. Note that we need 'Les Opérateurs Particuliers' listed half-way down the web page (those companies offering services to private households). Of the 4 companies listed here only 'Numéo is anywhere near offering a service at this time but they have been offering it for 9 months now and it still doesn't work properly. I suggested to two friends of mine in this area who were beyond ADSL reach to try this option over 6 months ago. One household has actually had the system installed for more than 2 months now and it still does not give them a satisfactory service, often totally unobtainable for days on end.  The other friend has been told she can have the service but Numéo has gone completely silent on when. In fact, I'm sure there are major technical problems with Numéo at present (check out a few forums with their name).  Is there someone out there to prove me wrong?

Enter, stage right, two-way satellite communication for internet access.  This is our latest option, apparently now viable and affordable due to new equipment developed with the private household in mind.  See this web site devoted to 'Tooway'.  I have done some research here but to cut a long, rather complex story short, it's a bit tricky to install, the kit has to be paid for (in the order of 600+ euros) rather than equipment rental included in the monthly subscription and this subscription is at least twice ADSL and Wimax charges.

Should my friend go for this option? She is an erudite, retired journalist-photographer, very much still involved in world affairs and desperate to get broadband access. Her present dial-up with Wanadoo is laughable - slow, slow, slow, connections often closing down inexplicably after a few moments.

Two-way satellite-internet is new technology at the level required by the private household so, even leaving aside the expense, will it work satisfactorily? She's a feisty lady and doesn't stand any nonsense. Like all of us here, she's on a limited pension. Will money spent on this technology be worth it?

She's not going to move house. She needs Internet in place of Internot.

Mapmaker

 

Parlez Vous?

As a Brit, is it possible to live in France without speaking French?  Of course; there is no language test (yet) for immigrants, particularly if they originate from another EU country.  The debate rather takes another direction - should  a Brit speak 'passable' French in order to live here?  A genuine gallic shrug, beautifully illustrated here, probably isn't reproducible  by a Brit but should we at least try to get our mouths moving a little more?

In my opinion, living in a foreign country is more or less 'comfortable' according to the stance of the host nation.  This in itself has a number of levels - the laws of the State at the top and the attitude of your immediate neighbours at the bottom.

Most Brits living here seem to find few problems, even with a  limited command of the language.  Some of us struggle a little with our consciences, knowing we should do better, but find the idea of learning a foreign language (at the time when we prefer to indulge in our favourite pastimes) a pain in the bum and put the whole thing on the back burner.

The 'anglo-saxon attitude' - see the illustration here (gleaned from Google Images when I entered that phrase), probably doesn't exist anymore, at least among those who have genuinely made the permanent move to France.

On the other hand it has been replaced by a ready and grateful acceptance of the tolerance of our host-cousins to put up with our linguistic stumblings.  In fact, I would be happy to say "chapeau" ('hats off') to the French for a smooth ride in this respect.

There's a message here also for us Brits living in France  - an understanding of the French language to any degree will lead to a richer life.  To be able to reply to a jocular remark with an appropriate riposte is an achievement.  To do the reverse gives great satisfaction and means you'll feel truly 'at home'.

Mapmaker

Nickers!

The theme from the last blog continues, simply because the subject keeps cropping up in conversations with friends, relatives and in the media.  This has now brought into sharp focus for me one of the hitherto vague reasons people like us uproot ourselves and emigrate to another country and another culture.  People here are much less likely to nick things, ergo French society has retained more of its respect for other peoples' property.  I'm not talking so much about the habitual criminal fraternities but rather the mentality of people who will 'lift' a portable object and walk off with it simply because it is momentarily unattended.

Since the last blog the self-employed antenna and satellite-dish-installer son-in-law of a friend working in the UK told us how first, his ladders were taken from the top of his van, then valuable tools stolen from inside.  As an aside we learned that the insurance wouldn't pay up because the van was deemed a 'workplace'.  He's an honest man but is sure he'll lie next time and say that the stuff was stolen from home so his household insurance should cover it.  Otherwise, another hit like that and he'd be out of business.

Yesterday my former professional colleague, still working as a Land Surveyor, had his work umbrella (a special piece of kit, used to protect the survey equipment) stolen when it was left unattended for a minute or two, 50 metres from where he was standing.  Our friends with whom we were dining when we heard the ladder story, told us how their English village church roof had its lead taken - an everyday occurrence now.  It will cost £140,000 to replace which had to be raised by voluntary funding, not to mention the extra £40,000 for the security arrangements, insisted upon by the insurance company, to guard the scaffolding as obviously, that too would offer an irresistible prize to the 'nickers'.

The final straw, prompting this outburst was to hear on the TV yesterday of an English doctor, whose car was stolen after stopping to attend a pensioner badly injured after being hit by a bus in Salford.  Read it here.

Apparently, sat-nav units in ambulances are now the latest craze - ripped out by opportunist thieves while the crew attends an accident victim.  Nice one.

Am I being smug?  After all, we live in a rural corner of France, 45km form the nearest city Brive-la-Gaillarde, population 49,000.  Rural France is 85% of her territory but only 27% of the population live there.  Are the French that bad in their cities?  It doesn't seem so from here.

Be that as it may, my 'quality of life' is enhanced by being able to leave my car unlocked in my garden, my fishing gear hanging outside in the porch, ever ready to use as soon as the fish start to rise, my bicycle outside, potted plants around the house, safe from marauding 

opportunist ne'er-do-wells.  Great Britain is, I believe, the third most densely populated island in the world behind Java and Japan.  Is that a reason?

Mapmaker

Bless 'em All

The long and the short and the tall.  They're still here, especially the tall, in other words, the Dutch.  One more week and the visitors will suddenly leave; the campsites will lose most of their clientèle and our town will start to look normal again.

At present however, the supermarkets are still thronged with our summer visitors, the Dutch, perambulating through them like brightly-coloured fishing floats, bobbing around, well proud of the swirling  surface created by the rest of us.

Why is it that the Dutch are so tall?  Our Dutch settler friends say they are largely from the north of Holland, but that doesn't explain why so many choose here for their holidays.  They also seem to make up the majority of those who have chosen the émigré life here in Xaintrie.  There must be a historical context there somewhere.

Speaking of supermarkets - I'm always amazed at how trusting they are here.  The two photographs were taken this morning.  Literally loads of stuff on display outside the main entrance; finely-tuned products for the summer visitors such as, tents, camping chairs, lilos, camp cooking equipment and lots, lots more.  All highly portable and totally un-monitored.  Not a single member of staff, let alone the beady-eye of the dreaded cctv camera.  People are left to choose what they want, then take it inside to purchase it.  Those who subsequently walk off with their choice without paying (and there must be some) are not contemplated by the management.  People are trusted to do the right thing.

Unlike the UK.  The surveillance society there doesn't want to take their monocular off the naughty public for one second.  And for good reason, they say.  Britain is now a nation of nickers.  People will nick anything.  A few weeks ago, listening to the BBC Today program we heard of the latest UK klepto craze due to the world shortage of metals.  Never mind your church roof with its covering of grey-gold (lead) - thieves are now carrying off whole bus-stop shelters.  Lots of good stuff there for the scrap merchant.

I wonder if it has occurred to the spying authorities in Britain that people might behave better if they were trusted to do so.

It seems to work here.

Mapmaker.

One Day in the Life

Yesterday, Sunday, 3rd August 2008 Alexander Solzhenitsyn died.  Curiously enough, I was going to use this title before I heard the news.  My blog was going to be another ramble recounting that particular day in my life, here in deepest France.  Trivia indeed, compared with that of Ivan Denisovich.

My day, more than half a century on from that of the Nobel Prize-winner, seems almost obscenely  privileged by comparison.  It included an unplanned morning spent at one of the local summer 'brocante' markets - a French version of a car-boot sale without the cars; aperos at the Café des Sports in the village, then the inevitable lunch chez Marina as we were not far from her place anyway.

An hour or to to recover then off to an 'American-style' barbecue at 5pm at Jerry's place in celebration of his 80th birthday.  His chocolate birthday cake was similar in shape to an F4 Phantom jet-fighter used in the Korean war; Jerry flew one during that conflict.  Around the time Solzhenitsyn was finishing his book, come to think of it.

A light-entertainment day for us here in our new, warless Europe.  Conversations and events of our day will fade quickly as they are of little consequence.  One image however from last Sunday will remain in my mind's eye - a photograph in a magnificent book Marina had recently taken delivery of, just arrived from Germany.  The book was entitled 'Diaspora' and was a collection of brilliant black-and-white photos of jews and jewish groups in scattered locations around the world.  On flicking through the pages I stopped at one showing four old, gnarled Greeks, forearms bared, their concentration-camp tattooed numbers still perfectly legible.

No further comment necessary.

Mapmaker

When the lights go out...

Yesterday's UK headlines were all about the nuclear energy debate and wranglings.  Will French EDF (80-odd percent owned by the French government) be able to buy/run the British nuclear industry (30-odd percent owned by the British government)?  Apparently not, as at present but this important discussion has already dropped out of the headlines this morning.

Two interesting points to ponder: One, who has been the wiser, the French or the Brits, in the level of reliance on private industry to plan for the (far) future?  I know who I'll put my money on.

Two: Once again another example here of the total lack of long-term planning and vision by successive UK governments in respect of securing a safe future for its people.  I don't feel that frustration here in France.   I see daily examples of an inherent sense of duty by the state, départements, local authorities etc. as, for example, the execution of continuous maintenance regimes on the roads, public buildings and other amenities.

To return to the subject of energy security I now live under a long-established nuclear/hydroelectric regime, envisaged over 30 years ago by the French.  (The World Nuclear Association website here gives the French situation).  My house is powered by electricity and wood.  My bills have increased, of course, but are not subject to these lurches in cost currently being experienced in the UK due to government failure to obtain energy security. 

And here, I'm a citizen, not a subject.  Vive la République!

Self-Catering with a Difference

I've already blogged on eating together with friends ('Table Talk', 22nd July) as a cure-all for society's ills; we're continuing to do our bit here in deepest Xaintrie with a splendid invention we call 'Entre Deux'.

Once a month, two names are drawn from a hat, out of a total of ten.  The names on the folded papers are all friends, all Xaintriecois.  The two 'winners' have to organise, design, prepare and serve (at a place of their choice) a meal for all ten of us.

The random nature of the choice of the catering duo, extremely variable culinary skills and international background of our group has proved to be a great formula for a jolly good time. Good friendships have become better and the unique recipes experienced and wines sampled have been such a delight that the latest meal (29th July) produced a resolve to record these dishes for posterity.  An 'Entre-Deux' cookbook was mooted along with other promises;  whether or not they'll be kept is open to question of course, but it's the thought that counts.

Anita and Marina (English and German with Belgian undertones) were the lucky pair this time.

After aperos in the garden on one of the hottest days of the summer, we sat down to the first entrée of a highly flavoured gazpacho soup, complete with centred ice-cube.  Couldn't have been a better start.

This was followed by a second entrée; an italian-style salad with mozarella, avocado, grape tomatoes poêlées (I think that's how it should be described, but I'm no cook - just an appreciative consumer), all in a balsamic-based dressing.

Main course was colin (hake?) steaks wrapped in prosciuto ham with a delicious marinated, baked cucumber with saffron.  Cheeses.  Dessert - Frozen orange juice with a chilled cream which had been pre-soaked in coffee beans in some magic way.

All accompanied by wines, choice of group members (no corkage to pay).

Roy and Elisabeth (English, Dutch) next month.  Can't wait.

Mapmaker

Being one's Age

Today is Mick Jagger's 65th birthday.  Yesterday was Marina's so we all went to the Moulin for lunch.  We sat on Jeff-the-Chef's new outside terrace alongside a French family (there's only room for 2 tables, 20 covers maximum).

The average age around our table was higher than Mr Jagger's total but that didn't stop us enjoying ourselves and making rather a lot of noise throughout the meal, in the usual melange of languages (French, German, Dutch and English).

Jeff excelled as usual with his inventive, skillfully crafted dishes; pan-fried foie-gras in a wild cherry sauce for example. Would you believe?

Our French family finished a little before us.  As they left, I turned to say a few words as I thought I ought to  apologise to them for making such a noise.  There were polite smiles in return as I explained, it was a birthday celebration.  The smile of the only man in the group looked genuine, along with the others as he replied, "Eighteenth?"

Touché.

Mapmaker

Extracting the digit

A short reflection on using numbers in French:

I love France.  I love living in France.  I'm retired now so absolute precision in numbers is not of absolute importance, but the French method of counting....?

Mapmakers do it with triangles and lots of numbers.  I trained and qualified as a Land Surveyor back in the pre-electronic days of hand-cranked mechanical calculators and even log-tables; batteries not required.  As such, the principal tenet rammed home during training and practice was to ensure that you always had at least two ways of calculating something from your observed angles and distances and errors in 'long numbers' had to be avoided at all costs.  Mistakes could be costly (especially when setting-out bridges, tunnels and the like).

This is why, even now, several years into 'retirement' with my brain running at a  gentler pace, I find the French way of  'speaking num

bers' extraordinary and, at least to me and countless others attempting to make headway with the language, prone to misinterpretation.

Apparently, in French long numbers are grouped in twos and/or threes but not as we would say in English.  Take for example the number 205379099.  In English we would most likely say  "two-oh-five (pause), three -seven-nine (pause), zero-nine-nine.   This would be correct even if we didn't actually pause.  In French?  Possibly "vingt, cinquante-trois, soixante-dix-neuf, zero-quatre-vingt-dix-neuf". Or, "deux-cents-cinq, trois-cents-soixante-dix-neuf,  zero, quatre-vingt-dix-neuf.

Depending on pauses discerned or otherwise by the listener, the former coud be a number as long and as erroneous as "2

0503601908019" or something, almost correct, like "20537908019.

In either case, the bridge would fall down.

The picture is of one of my survey stations in Oman, 1963

Mapmaker

Table Talk

Yesterday was one of those not infrequent occasions when a group of us met for lunch - for no particular reason other than friendship, food and talk.  We were three Dutch, three English two Germans and an American;  seven of us were xaintricois(es) with two visiting friends.

Liddy and Gerrit were hosts; we passed a pleasant four hours or so (a normal lunch interval) around a table in their garden with a view across to the peaks in the Parc des Volcans, thirty kilometres away in the Cantal.  The food was 'rice table', a dutch favourite originating from the Netherlands' colonial past; the conversation was varied and ranged from language, through accents and travel to the inevitable food and drink topics.  We passed house prices and royal families on the way.

I'm one of those people who are convinced that civilisations grew out eating together, with family and friends.  Share conversation (even if three or four languages may be needed), food and drink and avoid wars.

Incidentally, the royal family topic popped out of Liddy's table napkins;  paper ones but obviously of superior quality as they were purchasedd at a Dutch 'royal' venue (a palace of some sort?) which boasts a shop with such items, the wrappings no doubt embellished with the Netherlands' royal coat-of-arms.  We were very careful what we did with them after the meal.

Mapmaker

Stuff Happens

The title of this blog is Donald Rumsfeld's 'blurt' after the looting in Baghdad in April 2003.  It has since appealed to me as one of the most useful (and shortest) quotes of the 21st century so far.

Here's a little of my stuff from yesterday:

A message on the 'phone in the morning , in French, from a woman interested in one of my paintings in the local summer exhibition here in Argentat.  I'm getting better at French numbers, rattled-off with their usual sprinkling of 'quatre-vingt-somethings' but I still need one or two extra plays of the recording to be sure I've got it right.  Final proof came when she answered my return call and we agreed to meet at the gallery at 11am.

A forty-something woman was sitting on the steps outside the gallery when I arrived, smoking a splendid English-looking briar pipe.  This turned out to be my interested (interesting) buyer.  We concluded the deal whereby I would change the frame for a smaller, and deliver the goods at 7pm to her house in town.

I spent the afternoon working on a painting in neighbour Jim's 'studio' which he lets me use.  The picture shows the view from the studio doorway.  Paradise.  

A great-tit flew into the room as I worked.  It was not afraid of my presence and spent some time hopping around, pecking at my feet, hands and even tasted the acrylic paints, spread on paper plates on the table alongside where I worked.  It seemed to prefer red.  Jim's mother feeds birds from her balcony nearby so I suppose it was just after a free lunch.  I didn't really imagine it had any artistic tendencies.

Since the last blog:   There's been some feedback, which is satisfying.

Marina thinks I should have put quotes around the word "foreign" at the end of the last entry. She has a point; I was imagining an unknown English person reading it in some remote spot like Hartlepool or Hull, who wouldn't need quotes around this word but to Marina, who is Bavarian, it looks a tad condescending and almost rude.  Interesting.

Among further comments, not all recorded, were ones from Simon in Italy who thought it was too long, and Simon in Australia who seemed to enjoy it (he lived here with his family for a year and his comments are attached to the last blog) although the process of reading it appears to have been a dangerous one.

The interesting woman took delivery of the reframed painting with grace and the right sort of appreciative noises (for me) later, as planned and wrote out the cheque.

Stuff happened.

Mapmaker. 

Bastille Day

Well, my first blog entry wasn't much of a first effort, but I'm still finding out how to run this blog thingy...

As I was saying, Xaintrie is actually a place.  I was about to say, "look it up on Wikipedia," but I now find there is no entry there - yet.  Something, perhaps, for one of us Xaintrie inhabitants (I think we're known as "xaintriecois") to rectify?  This website might help, if you read French.  There's a map, even if you don't.

Yesterday, Monday 14th July, was of course, a national holiday here.  As well as being Roz's birthday.  The weather was perfect for a firework display so we installed ourselves early on the Quai Lestorgie in front of Roger's Ice-cream bar/art gallery (Les Quatre Rivières).  This is where we expected to get a good view of the pyrotechnics, scheduled to be launched at around 10.30 pm from the Jeanne d'Arc schoolgrounds at the end of the quay.  The picture here shows the view we had while we waited (click on it to see it in greater detail).  The river is the Dordogne.

We didn't need to settle onto Roger's steel-pseudo-rattan chairs quit so early; we were there before 7pm.  He thought (hoped) there would be quite a crowd and would not be able to 'hold' them for us until much after that but like everything else associated with traditional tourism this year, visitor numbers are well down.  The quay didn't fill to capacity until 3 hours later.

The fireworks were great as usual.  The occasion was appreciated by all, perhaps a thousand or more, sitting at the Quatre Rivières, the Gabariers restaurant next door, the Créperie along the quay and the throng just standing around with their families.

Something to note (particularly for any blog readers here familiar with the current UK scene):  Not one incidence of drunkenness, throwing up, shouting or fighting despite copious amounts of wine and beer being consumed.  No police in evidence.  The Security Team comprised three pretty teenage girls wearing bright yellow hi-viz vests with the word "Security" on the back.  Their job was to politely keep the public away from the firework end of the quay, behind some portable (easily negotiated if you wanted to be awkward) barriers.  The public politely obliged.

A final word on this 'public' in evidence there yesterday.  We tried to guess how many might be French, how many non-French.  I think it was around 50/50 with a bias on the French with their families.  Everyone had a good evening and there was no trouble.  It was a national occasion but it had no hint of nationalism or jingoism.  This goes a little way towards explaining why this is reason 23 (or is it 24?) why we live here, in this foreign land.

More next time,

Mapmaker

First entry to "The Xaintrie Blog"

I've just created this with a view to getting into the blogosphere.  It's my personal blog, on anything that comes to mind.

Let's start on "Xaintrie" itself.  Why "Xaintrie"?  What does it mean?

Well, it's a place.  In France, where I live.