Spring Fever

Spring has now sprung - at least for the present. Blue skies, sometime morning light frosts, birds looking at their very best as they continue to eat us out of our stocks of bird-food (mostly large sacks of loose peanuts brought from the UK as this particular bird-feed isn't available here in bulk). Snowdrops have been around for some weeks already and crocuses are in the grass.

We went to the 'Moulin de Lavergne' country-restaurant for last Sunday-lunch; haven't been for ages. Jeff-the-chef produced fantastic cuisine as ever - a four course menu (as usual) for 24 euros of a standard that deserves more recognition. Yet, he's struggling, like many, many enterprises, people are cutting back on inessential spending and, in fact, his business has been falling ever since the 'smoking ban' of over a year ago. He built a small terrace outside last spring, to try to alleviate some of the 'side effects' of this ban (see my blog 'Being one's age' last July) but it wasn't enough. Catch 22 of course - we can't afford to go there more than just once every two or three months, on special social occasions.

This morning, Sunday 1st March it seemed strangely gloomy outside. We haven't seen a cloud for days so we're not used to it. We drove down to Figeac two days ago for a day out under bright, cloudless, cornflower-blue skies, car-windows open to the sparkling air after a light frost at dawn. The drive takes less than two hours and by the time we arrived at Figeac after passing through Saint Céré, over the shimmering hills and woodlands, through Leyme and Lacapelle Marival the temperature had climbed to a warm, breezeless 15 degrees or so. We parked in the Place Vival (50 centimes for 3 hours) and took a table in full sun in front of the Bar Brasserie "La Monnaie', facing across the square to the 'Old Figeac Museum' (Musée de Vieux Figeac). It was time for an 'apero' and after half an hour sipping and sunbathing we took lunch there too (Mussels and chips - Fleur's was 'Mariniére' and mine, 'Espagnol' with chopped chorizo in the sauce). Yum.

This could get boring I know, for readers (are there any?) still under grey skies, and smacks a bit of smug-buggery.

So, au revoir.... suffice to say, Figeac is an amazing little town, on the Lot river, much of very 'Italianate' in character and well worth a detour. For us, it's a short drive from the granite massif's gorges where we live to the soft, limestone start of the midi.

Contrast is everything

Mapmaker

Waiting for the Spring

Its over a fortnight since my last blog but then this is the quiet season - nothing much is happening. We haven't had the really bad weather that occurred recently 'up north' although the frosts persist; its been a bout 6 weeks of icy mornings this year - not usual. I'm burning much more wood than before in an attempt to save on electricity (my other form of heating) and it's working. The problem is, I'll have to find a couple more 'stere' of wood by mid March to see us through.

I have managed to re-arrange my office/studio into something rather more comfortable and un-cluttered during the frosty weather by being ruthless with unsold paintings (they haven't actually been thrown out, rather than stored in Roy's barn) and other accumulated dross (made myself take these items to the tip - a hard thing to do as I'm a hoarder). Still, there is now floor room here and even a bed for visitors...

I've also started another blog ('groan', I hear you say). The link will appear from now on, on the 'Links to try' menu. I decided to ramble about art in a slightly vain way (in both senses perhaps), partly for the reasons given in the subtitle, and partly because I've read that an 'authoritative' blog or website could eventually attract more readers and possible future commercial  art activity for me. We'll see.

The fishing season starts in about three weeks - whoopee! I must dust-off the gear and buy my permit - a harbinger of Spring if ever there was one.

Mapmaker

TV or not TV?

I've just been surfin' around - as you do - to try to find comment on the fact that we, in the bits of Europe nearest to the United Kingdom, can access pretty-well all of British television via satellite. Not many people seem to want to discuss this, at least, to link the discussion to the raging BBC licence debate which never seems to subside. Is it because we don't want to make these particular waves?

Ravings over the pros and cons of the BBC licence fee are legion on the web. My own sentiments are equivocal; on the one hand I think the service on  the whole is excellent and the programs generally better than any other service I've seen, and worth paying for. On the other hand, why, I ask myself, do the BBC make it so easy for the whole of Europe to watch their stuff for free by satellite. Knowing what I know now about picking up the transmissions here in south-west France, not to mention all the regional channels, ITV channels, Channels 4 and 5, etc. etc. etc., I'd be anti-paying the licence too if I were still in the UK.

Just look at the coverage (the satellite 'footprint'): It means that even this far south, you get a perfectly good reception even with the tiny Sky-dish supplied in the UK.

You don't need to subscribe to Sky of course for the main channels or the 'freeview' channels; you don't even need a Sky 'digibox'. A digital satellite receiver bought off the shelf in the local supermarket here for 60 euros or so will do the trick. Even our son in northern Italy gets perfect reception with a 1 metre dish.

What is this all about, auntie BBC? Or should I address this question to the British government? You can't prevent hundreds of thousands of us in Europe watching all your channels for free while the law in the UK makes anyone with a TV pay the licence fee. How can this be fair, to make your main source of income a UK tax on a service which can be used with impunity by anyone up to a couple of thousand miles beyond your shores?

There are few disadvantages for us. If we use a Sky digibox, we don't have to subscribe and it will continue to work for all the main channels but we might suffer a little more on reception break-down when it rains. This is often easily cured by installing a bigger dish. If we use a cheap-o receiver bought from the local supermarket, we also suffer a bit when it rains but occasionally 'lose' a channel as the frequencies are sometimes changed without warning, something the Sky-boxes seem to cope with automatically. It's a simple matter to refind lost channels by putting the receiver in 'auto-scan' mode on the Astra 2 satellite. Alternatively, all the up-to date frequencies can be found on the Internet (e.g. 'Lyngsat').

That's enough of that. Time to watch the news and, no doubt, another debate on the UK TV licence fee.

Mapmaker

Keeping Idle Hands Busy

At last! - It's now a simple matter to start a small business here without the cumbersome and complex bureaucracy previously associated with this activity. In fact, up to now many immigrants to France, me included, have fought shy of jumping through the hoops set before us in order to start a small legitimate company or trade. There's no doubt that the 'black'  activities (no, not racist; the French call illegal trading 'working on the black') of many people here, including the French themselves, have thrived simply because of the onerous registration processes and up-front tax charges which exist as a burden to all sizes of commercial enterprises. 'Sarko' seems to be making waves in all directions since his inauguration in May 2007 and this is another of his changes in order to shake France into life and increased profitability.

The instrument of change is a new category of business called an "Auto-Entrepreneur". The link shows a brief description. In fact, you can carry out the whole registration process on-line.

At the end of 2007, I was offered some work as an artist-painter, painting large acrylic scenes of early twentieth-century French rural life. These are displayed, screwed to the walls as theme-decor for a chain of franchised fast-food restaurants called 'Lapataterie', a sort of 'Spud-U-Like'. It meant producing three or four paintings a month and it had to be legitimate, so I took advantage of the services offered by the 'Maison des Artistes and registered as a professional "Artiste-Peintre'. The MDA, among other things, organises your social security payments for you in such a way as to protect you from the highs and lows associated with the life of an artist who never knows what the future might hold, income-wise. Other advantages include the non-necessity to register your business for VAT, or to use an accountant, or keep complex records of income and expenditure, and so on. The new 'Auto-Entrepreneur' category enables the same, but for anyone, doing anything.

There is a recession ringing in our ears but above this din I've just heard that for me, the new year has started with a new order for four more paintings so - so far, so good.

Mapmaker