OUR FRENCH CLASS IS ON TUESDAY MORNINGS.

We usually catch up on our homework first thing.

Sometimes it's harder than others, and nothing to do with the verbs!

It's very Novemberish weather here today but back chez nous in the UK it is worse.  Snow, and plenty of it.  Not unusual for mid November, although in recent years not so much.

A WEEK IN FINISTÈRE

Finistère is a department of Brittany and a part of France that we had never previously explored.  We were hankering after a seaside break but finding a suitable gîte proved to be tricky as we had left it a bit late to look for one.  Our principal requirements were a decent sized enclosed garden for Hugo and privacy, or at least not having to share space with other holidaymakers.  We would not want a large and very bouncy dog to be a problem for other guests or vice versa!

We found a gîte not far from a little village called Guimaëc, which is just over 1km from the coast.

The day before we went we had intended to do our packing in the morning and take Yvonne to the cattery in the afternoon.  Instead, we ended up taking a delivery of six stères of logs before 9.00 am and spent all morning stacking them.  After lunch we coaxed Yvonne into her carrier using the little pot of tuna method.

Yvonne's usual cattery (called a "pension" in France) was fully booked but I found another one about the same distance from home.  She is not a good traveller and it was not great.  Her pen was very small and the access to the cat accommodation was via a courtyard surrounded by pens of barking dogs.  She was stressed and frightened but we left her there (we had no choice) thinking that the owner didn’t understand cats too well but at least she would be safe and fed.

A humorous display made from hay bales, announcing a wedding, spotted in a field near the gite.

We set off north on Saturday and the journey to Guimaëc was around six hours.  Hugo always travels well and after just one short break to stretch our legs we arrived around 5pm.  We have stayed in many gîtes over the years and some have been decidedly better than others.  This one was spotlessly clean, had a large enclosed garden, good kitchen equipment, endless hot water and very comfortable beds. It lacked a bit of charm and was short of a few minor things but it was fine.

It was a farmhouse built probably early in the twentieth century alongside the original and much older farm buildings.  The owner had inherited it from her grandfather and it hadn’t been a working farm for several decades.  

Whilst the old buildings were low and cramped, this house was roomy and lofty.  It felt more like a barn than a house but this might have a lot to do with the way it had been converted into a gîte.  It had three double bedrooms upstairs, plus a sofa bed downstairs in the cavernous living room, so was able to cater for a large family on holiday.  

With the formalities over, we drove down to the nearby cove to see the sea, returned to the gîte and cooked a pasta dinner, unpacked and settled in.  In my unpacking I discovered that I had entirely forgotten to bring (amongst other things) any knickers, or a hairbrush.  The first job the next day would have to be some shopping!

GOING, GOING, GONE!

 The view at the back of the house has improved no end!

Yesterday morning Enedis vans turned up in convoy and one by one removed the long since redundant pylons.  The electricity supply was placed underground two years ago.

The first job was the removal of all dangling wires then the digging of the concrete pylons out of the ground.  A man on a tower tied something round each pylon about half way up and it was lifted up in the air then lowered carefully to the ground.  Clever stuff.

It was a nervous moment when they set about the one immediately behind the house as it would definitely have taken out the landing and kitchen if it had fallen the wrong way. But these guys knew what they were doing and it was safely on the ground in minutes, stripped of its glass and metal crown and taken away to join the others now piled up at the side of the road.

Maybe now our farmer will finish the work on the field.  We can hope!

The other thing that happened yesterday is that I had my MRI scan on my head.  I was dreading it but as always, although not exactly pleasant, it was not as bad as I expected.  The amazing thing is that I left the clinic with a CD of more than a hundred scan images and three hours later the results arrived by email, being sent to my GP at the same time.  It makes an interesting contrast with the experience of a friend who had an MRI scan in the UK in July and has been told he will have to wait 10-12 weeks for the results.

It's baffling why there is such a difference.  In France there was clearly somebody assessing the images immediately after the scan was done and produced a fairly comprehensive report, presumably filling in a pro forma document online and sending it by email to both patient and GP.  Why on earth can that not be done in the UK in these days of technology?  I'm sure somebody out there knows why but I would guess that the images are sent to someone who looks at them and sends the report on in just the same way.  Is it because there are not enough trained people to assess them and there is a huge backlog?

The good news is that the scan revealed nothing of significance.  Which is good news especially when added to the blood test results which all came back normal too.  The bad news is that so far nothing has been found yet to explain the weird situation with my ears - the tinnitus, the snuffly cold and the headaches I've been having for the last seven months.  I have however managed to secure an appointment with a different ENT specialist one month earlier - in October.  The previous appointment should have been in July but it was cancelled by the clinic at two days' notice and I had to go to the back of the queue for another one.   The earliest available with that person was late November.  Still, at least when I do eventually see someone I will be armed with all significant tests done.

In other news, we have had a busy week.  On Monday morning Nick went to the GP for his prescription review and in the afternoon he drove me to Chatellerault to collect my Harley from the garage complete with a service and a CT (MOT) good for three years.  On Tuesday afternoon Nick got a haircut then I drove him to Chatellerault to collect his Harley with the same and it's good to see them both back in the barn, gleamingly legal and fettled for riding.  On Wednesday morning at 7.15 the nurse arrived at the house to take blood samples for Nick's annual review and we met up with friends for a pizza in the evening.  On Thursday (yesterday) I got my MRI scan and by the time we got home the last few pylons were being removed.  This morning (Friday) we had six stères of logs delivered  at 8.30 and we had stacked all of them in the wood shed by lunchtime.  (A stère is roughly a cubic metre and six of them makes a big pile of logs!)  It was jolly hard work but we were glad for the light drizzle and to get it done before the sun came out!

Last but not least, as I write this Yvonne is corralled in the bedroom because we are going on holiday tomorrow.  We shall use the dish of tuna method to trick her into the cage but she clearly has already sussed that something's afoot.  Then she will be trying out a new cattery.  The one we usually use was fully booked so it's fingers crossed that she will be ok with the new one.  Fingers are however already crossed that we can actually get her into her cage!

Then, tomorrow morning, Nick, Hugo and I are off to the seaside.  We have booked a gite near the north coast of France in a region called Finistère.  We have never explored that area before but it looks beautiful.  It will be the first real holiday we have had since our wet week in Norfolk in May 2021!

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD!

An awful lot of water has gone under the bridge, literally, since my last post which was, incredibly, six weeks ago, the longest gap ever between posts I think.

So much has happened that I hardly know where to start, so I will start at the beginning!

There was so much rain over the Easter weekend that several of the local rivers flooded.

Friends of ours live in the house right in the middle of this picture.

They were rescued by the pompiers in a small inflatable boat.

The water went back down just as quickly as it came up, leaving huge devastation behind in many of the surrounding villages.

An English couple opened an art gallery in an old garage building in Le Grand-Pressigny last year.

A few weeks ago they held an exhibition of his own sculptures, made from old metal, bones, stones and otherwise unwanted objects, creating fantastic pieces of art.

This was my favourite piece.

I was surprised to learn that the frilly "collar" is literally called a ruff.

It's the base of a deer's antler.

Yvonne is now fully settled in chez nous*.  She is a delightful, feisty and friendly cat and the doubt we had at first about being able to keep her is now gone.  The doubt was because we felt that she and Hugo would never get on well enough to enable us to take her on the long journey back the the UK if we wanted (or needed) to spend more time there.  They now get along perfectly fine.  She mostly ignores him and he is the perfect gentleman around her.  

So we thought the time had come to get her a passport.  An appointment was made with the vet but when we tried to put her in her cage she absolutely refused to go in.  This was odd because she has been carried in her cage several times before but on this occasion she was not having it.  It was war!!

She fought, hissed, growled, scratched and spat.  We almost got her in but she bashed the door open and burst out.  We finally caught up with her when she was hiding under the sofa.  We tipped it backwards and I pinned her to the floor but she had shed her collar so I thought "now what am I going to do?"  

We were all very distressed so I humbly phoned the vet to explain that we wouldn't make it that day.

Other cat owners suggested how we might overcome this problem and we started by getting a bigger cage so that it was not so easy for her to block the doorway by plumping herself up and putting the anchors down.  I left it in the bedroom with the top door open and the front door off and tempted her inside with something special.  A little dish of tuna - and not the cheap stuff either!

The idea was to make the cage the only place where she gets to eat this special treat and it worked.  She gingerly went in the first time, then shot out again onto the bed where she had a look on her face which said "if you think I'm falling for that one.........."!!

However, it worked.  After a few more tins of tuna we took her to the vet's where the young female vet skillfully coaxed her out of the cage, wrapped her in a fluffy blanket and injected her in the bottom before any of us knew it had happened.  She now has her own passport and we can take her with us to the UK.  How on earth the twelve hour drive will pan out is a worry for another day!

The weather has been quite bizarre.  The winter seems to have been endless, grey, cold, wet and miserable for weeks on end.  There has been an occasional day when the sun came out and we could sit outside for a while thinking spring had arrived.  Then the wintry weather returned.

On 14th April at the brocante at Azay-le Ferron it was so hot and sunny that I got sunburned!  We had a lovely lazy barbecue mid afternoon but after three days of glorious sunshine, winter returned again!

Brocantes tend to be held on the same weekend every year in each village and I remembered that at last year's event in Azay it was perishing cold!

The sunshine brought lots of people out and some of them in their lovely old cars.

We had been looking for some old fashioned lights for the kitchen and found these.

We got two for 6€ and after a good clean and rewiring they should do the job.

I definitely don't need any more cake stands but for 2€ I couldn't resist this one.

The serving dish was also 2€.

Since my last post I have made two trips back to the UK.

The first one was planned as one of us needs to go back to the UK house every so often to comply with our insurance and to keep an eye on the place.  While I was there I went to see an ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist.

Back in January I woke up one morning with a thumping headache, a snuffly cold and awful tinnitus.  Nothing I have tried will shift it and the GP referred me to a specialist which in France is called an ONG (oreille, nez et gorge).  The soonest I could get an appointment was in six months time.  I looked online and could get an appointment with one privately (at huge expense) in Sheffield the next week.  As I was flying back to the UK anyway I decided to go for it in the hope of getting some relief but came away with more questions than answers.  A huge number of blood tests later I am still no clearer about what the cause of the problem is and I still have all the symptoms after twelve weeks.

Answers on a postcard, please.

We usually take Hugo with us to the airport and for a walk around the lake at Neuilly.

The second trip back to the UK was completely unplanned.  A broken tooth.

This tooth has broken twice before over the last five years - the first time on a prawn sandwich and the second on a fish finger sandwich.  Each time the dentist said it was fine, if it's causing no problem we can leave it.  This time the culprit was a piece of battered fish and with three of the four cusps of a back molar now gone I knew it was time to get serious.

As it happens, a friend had broken a tooth the week before and despite spending two days making phone calls and knocking on dentists' doors she was completely unable to get an appointment in France.  She had to go back to the UK to see her own usual dentist.  I already knew that finding a dentist in France is just as impossible as in the UK unless you are already registered with one so I decided not to waste time trying.  Thank goodness for Ryanair!

I have to wonder how people in France cope if they need a dentist urgently and can't find one.  Another friend said one of the Ukrainians that have settled locally after being displaced by the war had to go back to Ukraine to get dental treatment.  That really is desperate.

I left home at 5.30am to get my flight and at 3.00pm I came out of the dentist's surgery feeling pretty wobbly.  I'll spare you the gory details.

On the way home I called for some groceries and something easy to eat for dinner.  I spotted some tins of HP baked beans.  They came in packs of four at less than 50p a tin and with a sore and numb mouth were ideal for my supper.

I hadn't seen HP baked beans for decades although I do remember eating them as a child and teenager.  I had no idea that HP still made them.  It turns out that they are just as good as Heinz (IMHO).  So I decided to pack the three unopened tins to bring back with me.  I also spotted some tins of mushy peas in the cupboard so decided to pack those as well.  I also packed a small bag of rhubarb from the garden.  Cramming it all into my little bag took ages.

I had travelled with the minimum baggage - just one small bag that has to be tucked under the seat in front on the plane.  My bag met the stringent Ryaniar size requirements but was well stuffed.  As I got through the security lane I saw the tray containing my shoes and coat, and the second one containing my iPad and phone come towards me.  Then the third containing my well stuffed bag was directed to the other conveyor for inspection.  Drat!

When it came to my turn the lady with the explosives detector asked me to open my bag and I thought it must be because of the rhubarb.  "It's the rhubarb, isn't it?" I said weakly and she gave me one of those withering looks reserved for very daft people.

It turns out it was the beans.  To see someone wiping your tins of beans with an explosive detection wipe which then has to be disposed of carefully and correctly is an interesting experience.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry and as she pushed the overflowing tray of stuff towards me I had the intense desire to become invisible.  As I walked away, wondering how I was going to get all this stuff back into my bag, the man next in the queue for inspection said "you got away with the rhubarb then!"  That was the moment I was reminded of the expression "just because you can doesn't mean you should"!

*As I wrote the last two paragraphs of this post Yvonne was sitting on the mouse mat with one paw across my wrist.  Numerous typos have had to be corrected.

JIGSAW PUZZLE WEATHER!

Last weekend we were fooled into thinking Spring had arrived!  We got the outdoor tables out and I oiled the wooden chairs and benches.  We went to the garden centre for some new plants and even had a barbecue!

This week we’re back to winter.  Yesterday it rained all day and was blowing a hoolie. Our lovely daffodils are blasted to bits and the wind even blew a whole mistletoe plant out of a tree.

Still, Yvonne was very happy to lend a hand with a jigsaw puzzle!

Today I have made a "school cake" and poached some chicken ready for making six litres of cock-a-leekie soup for an event in the village tomorrow.  Time passes pleasantly, in spite of the 'orrible weather!

PYLONS

Last autumn Enedis erected several new tall pylons along our road.  It looks like they are poised to replace the hotch potch of old pylons that litter the roadside and fields around us.  The wires are in place but not connected up yet.  We had a planned power cut in the middle of this month when we assumed that might happen but they are still not connected to anything.

Earlier this month we had a problem with a dead live box and Orange came and fixed it straight away.  Not long afterwards one of the new wires connected to our new pylon broke off, was dangling in mid air and resting on top of our telephone cable.  We reported this fault to EDF but other than getting a reference number nothing was done about it.  All was fine until a storm that had the cables swaying around and bouncing off each other.  Lo and behold we lost our telephone service again.  We reported this to Orange who sent someone out the next day.

The telephone engineer took one look at the rogue cable and got straight on the phone to EDF.  Moments later they cut the electricity off.  Which was rather disconcerting as we were expecting five people to arrive for a Burns Night Supper that evening and I was busy baking Scotch pies.  Luckily I had in fact just taken them out of the oven as the power went off but there were other things to cook that needed electricity.  French cream is hard enough to whip up using an electric whisk so to try to do it by hand would have taken a month of Sundays!

I set about laying the table and fortunately the power was switched back on about an hour later so all was well.  The new pylons are still not connected to any live wires.

However, with only two days to go before the deadline of the end of January, we received a text from Orange to say that fibre was now available.  We had been checking every day and up to the weekend we were still in the category "working on it".  We immediately dashed up to the Orange shop in Loches to put in our order for it.  The earliest that an engineer could come and connect us up is 26th February!  Still, if we hadn't gone straight away who knows how much longer we might have had to wait as the service is now available to scores of extra outlying households.  For once we seem to be near the front of the queue!

In "other news" the weather has made a definite change for the better, frequent sunny days and temperatures in double figures.  We have been out and about enjoying the sunshine.

We have had some gorgeous sunsets.

Yvonne has settled in extremely well!!

A BUSY QUIET WEEK

Our first week of 2024 was meant to be a quiet one.

On New Year's Day we went to Chinon in search of a nice coffee and a walk in the sunshine.

We were disappointed on the coffee front.

Everywhere was closed except for two bars that were very busy.

We didn't venture inside.

We were not disappointed on the walk front.

Chinon is always a good town to stroll around, possibly even more so in winter when there are few tourists.

We brought with us the jigsaw puzzle started on Christmas Day.

It was very challenging.

I had swooped on a jigsaw board at half price during my last visit to the UK prior to Christmas.  I had spotted a young man walking through town with one under his arm and asked him where he got it.

We adopted a different approach to Christmas presents this year.

Maximum spend £7 on each person from charity shops or charities online.

It was a great success.  Jigsaw puzzles and books proved to be popular presents.

Yvonne is settling in well.  She barely gives Hugo a second glance now.

He would like to be more friendly but is, like a real gentleman, giving her some space.

On arriving back in France our Orange live box that serves the landline was not working.  We reported it to Orange and less than 24 hours later the engineer came to fix it.

Excellent service.

It was fixed within 30 minutes of his arrival.

The live box is upstairs and he took his boots off to go up and check all was ok.

He wasn't wearing any socks!

We called at the PreHisto bar for an apéritif before moving on for dinner.

One of the bars in the village has changed hands again and reopened as a pizza place just before Christmas.  The place has had a little redecoration but the lovely old floors and other features have been kept.

We felt duty bound to go and check it out.

When we first came to the village it was literally just a bar called the Jean Bart and didn't serve any food.

After the owner retired it carried on as the Jean Bart and the new couple running it started serving a few snacks.

They moved on and it became Lisa's where Lisa served excellent food.

Sadly it closed during the pandemic but soon reopened as Le Comptoir.

It was very successful, serving delicious pizzas and burgers, but the manager found the hours too restrictive and it closed again after a couple of years.

Last year someone took it on and turned it into a creperie, serving only galettes.

It didn't work.  We never ate there while she owned it.

Now that it's in new hands things are looking very promising.

We have had some lovely sunsets but it's turned very cold.

We took down our Christmas decorations only a day late.

Nick tackled a job that's been on the back burner for a while, fixing the draughts in the bathroom.

The boxing in where the roof meets the wall was not sealed well.

It is now and the bathroom is draught free.

We finally managed to complete the jigsaw puzzle.

For a quiet week it turned out to be quite busy!

 

A STAR

Nick was a bit concerned about being left with Yvonne by himself while I’ve been back home  in England.  She seemed very happy around me but hadn’t really got to know Nick and was very wary of Hugo.

I'm happy to report that the situation is much improved.  She now comes into the living room and will sit happily on the sofa while Nick watches tv even though Hugo is close by.  Cat and dog even manage to pass each other on the stairs or landing (occasionally) without clashing.

It’s not perfect yet by any means.  She still protests and warns Hugo off if he gets too close or curious but I have to say that he has been an absolute star.  So well behaved and obedient.

The fact that he’s probably more terrified of her than she is of him probably helps!

The other good news is that a phone call from the vet in Loches this morning reveals that all is good following the blood tests we had done last week and that Yvonne has already been spayed.  

TRAVEL, TECHNOLOGY AND PROGRESS

A quick trip back to the UK for me did not get off to a good start. Apart from the helping hand given by Yvonne in packing my case, that is!  She is very different from Daisy in many ways but in others just the same.

The two hour drive to Limoges was hard enough in pelting rain without the added excitement of a wild boar crossing the road at a leisurely pace only about a hundred metres in front of us just outside Le Dorat, but we still got to the airport in good time.  That’s when the fun really started.

I was the last person in the bag drop queue and five places behind the person who took twenty minutes to fail to pay the excess baggage fee for his suitcase.  He went off to speak to someone (presumably to ask for money) and had to be literally fetched back by the one lady on the desk.  He returned empty handed, a few more tetchy words were exchanged and he was sent away with suitcase to the security line so I presume he got away with it.  

Then there was the family comprising mother, grandmother and toddler in pushchair where the mother took ten minutes to find the right page on her phone to show their boarding passes.  

In the security line the family of grandparents, parents and two little girls caused a hold up because they either hadn’t read, didn’t understand (or maybe thought they would just get away with it) the rules about what you can and can’t take in your cabin bags and which items have to be removed for inspection before passing through the scanner.

I was behind yet more people who couldn’t find their boarding pass on their phones (why don’t they just print the damn things out as instructed to do on the Ryanair website so they can show it when asked, or at least have the right app/page already open) but finally got into my window seat on the plane.  

The plane however wasn’t going anywhere.  It was clearly brand new, not a scratch on its pristine interior, but when thirty minutes beyond our departure time had passed the pilot made an announcement.  There was a mystery warning light showing in the cockpit that they couldn’t persuade to go out. Another thirty minutes later I was in conversation with the couple next to me about likely outcomes if the flight had to be cancelled at eleven thirty at night when the pilot made a second announcement.  The proposed solution was to switch the aircraft off, wait ten minutes and switch it back on!

This appeared to solve the problem although the next announcement didn’t exactly say as much in so many words.  Another twenty minutes had suspiciously elapsed by the time the pilot said we would soon be leaving the runway, having permission from "the boss" to fly as fast as the plane would go  - but only after they had persuaded the tanker driver to get out of bed and bring more fuel.  Switching off and restarting an aircraft uses quite a lot of it apparently.

My guess is they decided to stick a bit of tape over the offending warning light and go for it.  Better than spending the whole night waiting for a spare plane to arrive or being bussed to another airport!

Once back in our little UK bungalow I was relieved to find the house dry and unaffected by the flooding elsewhere in town but not without a few issues.  For some reason the fridge freezer in the garage had clearly defrosted itself then refrozen.  I discovered this when searching for something to have for my dinner only to find that the bottom drawer was stuck fast because of a frozen puddle of melted strawberries.  The freezer had obviously been off for quite a while. This suggested there had been a power cut but not so.  The other freezer in the garage was fine and there were no flashing clocks anywhere.  An internet search suggested that modern freezers will go into automatic defrost mode if they are over full and the fan mechanism obstructed, especially if they haven’t been defrosted for a while.

Guilty as charged! I threw away all the contents, cleaned it out and while I was at it cleared out the other one as well, throwing out some well out of date bits of saved pastry and portions of casserole.  We've been in the habit of saving leftovers as a handy ready meal for one for our individual return trips and it’s worked well so far but we’re back to a blank canvas now!

The UK weather has been pretty miserable but not as wet as in France.  On a fine, dry Sunday morning I fished the table and a chair out of the shed and had breakfast outdoors.  The grass was dry enough to cut but sadly I couldn’t persuade the mower to start.  Rats!

I had low expectations of this trip.  The weather has been as grim as I expected, the potholes and traffic just as bad as usual and the litter everywhere just as unsightly as ever but it hasn’t bothered me as much as before.  It’s been lovely to catch up with friends and family and despite the general gloom and doom that hangs over everything people seem to have an air of resignation and cheerfulness.  Or maybe I've finally got the knack of turning a blind eye to all the rubbish and finding a bit of joy here and there instead.  

I confess that I can no longer bear to watch or read the news.  Feeling powerless and anxious about things which are well beyond my understanding, at home and abroad, was not doing me any good at all.  I’ve adopted a formula of doing my best to live well and spend time with those who mean a lot to me.  It’s worked before.

Nick has reported that back at chez nous there has been an improvement in inter species relations.  Yvonne can now tolerate being in the same room as Hugo without necessarily growling and hissing at him and has started venturing into the living room to explore and sit on the sofa, even occasionally on his lap.  Progress indeed and excellent news!