Last French 2009 Post

As I sit here listening to last night’s episode of BBC’s Archers and reflect over the last six months I say to myself in fluent French where has the last six months gone?? This is my build up to justifying that I have not written a blog for some time, so much has happened since the last blog it is difficult to know where to start without being too long winded and boring.

I think a synopsis will be enough but in the style of the back of a new novel that you are not sure whether to read or not:

“This gripping, exciting page turner of a blog will make you stay awake until the last word has been read. Read about the trip to the UK and amazing visits by friends and family from Australia”

Or

“Unputdownable”, “Pacy. Sexy. High-octane stuff” “A blog which makes for sleepless nights”

Actually that describes the latest James Patterson book but I thought it might add a bit of zest to the reading!!

Since returning from Lake Geneva and Provence our great 2009 French experience has continued, the highlight of course was the children (adults) and grandchildren coming en masse to stay for almost three weeks. As a bonus Terry’s father Ron was here also (his second visit this year) which made it a very emotional time with him bonding with grandchildren he has not seen in 10 years and great grandchildren he hadn’t ever met. We had a ball, not only sightseeing but challenging ourselves with rope climbing in the trees, go- karting, chopping down trees, building a tepee in the garden (well done Steve), catching yabbies in the pond, playing in the pond or should I say mud, shooting and missing frogs and yabbies in the pond with the air rifle and air gun, pumping water out of our neighbours pond into ours ...anyway the list is endless and this is without mentioning the nightly firework display by the boys I mean adult boys but that is debatable watching them playing with the fireworks. We also celebrated Terry’s 60^th with Steve’s mother and stepfather and Steve’s brother, sister in law and children, who had also come to France, so one big get together.

It was amazing how technology played such an important role in this trip with family mainly through the social media Facebook, there was many a time when three laptops were on the go all logged into facebook downloading photos from France, so it has been interesting for Terry and I reading facebook since they have left and checking out all their photos. Dominic and Annie had a week end in Barcelona while we all looked after Abigail, Gavin, Dominic and Annie had a night in Andorra and then Kaliska and Steve had a night in Andorra while we looked after their children.

The day after they all left we went to the UK for Bob’s 60^th birthday party, Helene and I had a great day shopping in Croydon, Marks and Spencers (shoppers dream, well mine anyway), as we drove up to Deippe over to Newhaven with the car, it was amazing not having to worry about the luggage allowance, the car got filled up from places like B & Q (Bunnings look alike), Sainsburys (Coles look alike) Marks & Spencers (nothing compares!!!) and of course NEXT and Mothercare for the girls who had given me a list and money to buy children’s’ clothes. The worst thing about the UK we had arrived during a bitterly cold snap and our bones could have snapped with the cold, ugh.

When we got back I had organised another party for Terry’s 60^th a Curry night for our French friends, this was interesting as I had never cooked a curry in my life before but thankfully a great expat friend Bob came to the rescue with a detailed telephone call telling me what I needed to do step by step. I phoned this particular friend as he has a reputation for his fine curries, I did try asking the audience but they weren’t in the slightest bit interested. (sorry I digress and for those non sad people I was using the Who wants to be a millionaire program as an analogy).

Terry’s birthday was on the following Monday to make it even more special Bob and Chris his two lifelong buddies (Bob was our bestman) arrived for two days, we had a great time doing what we do best ... eat, drink and chat ....and chat they did, continuously for two days, who said women talk alot (sorry Chris).

Things have been pretty full on since we have been back from the UK including a motor vehicle accident I sustained in our local village. For reasons of accuracy this is what happened from the horse’s mouth, me, Carol who was technically in charge of the vehicle at the time. I had driven into SOS to pay someone some money, when I returned to the car it wasn’t there, mon dieu I exclaimed in my best French accent. Then I noticed 5 or 6 French men gesturing and scratching their heads towards a grey grand voyager that was in the doors of the butcher’s shop. Mon dieu I exclaimed (again) (actually it was worse than that but I am reluctant to put it in black and white the word I used) the car looked suspiciously like ours, in fact it was our car and to be honest I was all set to walk past with a cheery Bonjour but decided there was no way out of this situation but just find out what damage I had incurred to the butchers front door. Luckily, when I drove it off the wall and pot plant and out of the door it was surprising that other than a chunk out of the wall, a small scratch on the door and slight bend in the door frame it looked fine. But the French being the French we exchanged insurance companies but this was a week ago and so far no news. Fingers crossed, for those of you interested, once I had rubbed off the brick dust off the ball bar and side of the car there was only a couple of little scratches!!!

SOS has been high on our ‘entertainment’ list recently, another highlight has been the fact that the new mayor is renovating the market square, they have removed the surface of the carpark to reveal the remains of a 11^th century church and cemetery, I have taken some photos of the wall outlines and also of a number of exposed bones. How amazing it has been, Terry’s own Time Team on his doorstep. They are planning to cover it up again in the next few days but there has been some talk of putting some lights and Perspex over a particularly well preserved crypt (see circular room in photo). I can’t believe how you can just walk up to the site and see bones in the dirt, we even saw a stone coffin with a pelvis just laying there, anywhere else the area would have been roped off and the bones moved ceremoniously to another place of rest, but no not the French, it is not their way.

I am sure there have been many incidents and anecdotes that I have either forgotten or omitted to write about but our thoughts are now in a hotter climates as we slowly pack up the house and garden ready for next year’s French experience.

A bientot

Photos since last blog

Happy 60th Birthday Terry

Curry Night at Capet
Bob's 60th (far right), poster at the back was photo taken about 28yrs ago.

Gavin and Dominic 'shooting' frogs and yabbies

More Photos

Dominic and Terry
'The Boys" at Uncle Peters Willis Jeep
Abigail - 13 mths
Great Grandad with Owen and Chloe
Carol and Dominic helping me get up enough courage to do the flying fox!
"Hurry up Mum, we have been here two hours" "Chill Dominic I am waiting for the photographer"
Kaliska and Steve
Ready for a climb - Owen, Chloe and Ella
Ella and Owen in the pool
Meal at Capet
View of the square SOS
Crypt
Bones exposed in one of the stone coffins

Chicken Saga Update

Quick update as I have some concerned readers about the chicken...
Terry got up to make the tea this morning and saw it sitting in the rhubarb, so it was interesting watching him run round naked trying to catch it, which he did.

Forgot to mention the funny story when collecting the chickens, Terry asked the person we bought them off "What are they called?" and the reply was "They haven't got names you came name anything you like!" in case you didn't realise Terry wanted to know what TYPE they were ... Rhode Island Reds as it happens.

Photos of Cinque Terra

Back at Capet

Didn't continue with my last post as quickly as I would have liked, but here has been a couple dramas since my last blog. My mum was admitted into hospital with pneumonia and had another heart attack so we decided to cut short our stay with Helene and Dudley at Lake Geneva as I felt I needed to be close to my Australian passport, thankfully she is doing OK now and staying with Gill my sister for the time being. The other drama has been our car which may have a gear box problem, yet to be decided.

Back at Capet and had some unexpected visitors to stay for a couple of nights, one of my bookclub members and her husband, we had a great few days, picking figs and making some delicious fig jam ... thanks Jill. Life back in Capet has got back to 'normal' with Terry pottering and me reading and generally being lazy. He has finally finished the barn doors for the woodshed, he started them when we arrived in June and now they are 99% completed. The garden is looking glorious as we are now slowly going into Autumn which is evident by the falling leaves and the trees taking on an orange tinge and the winter crocus. This year has been a particularly good year in our neck of the woods for fruit and vegetables, we currently have a prolific fig tree, apples trees and pear trees, so I have been making jams and pickles, each time we go to our Sunday market we generally bump into some friends who are very quick to off load some of their culinary efforts in the shape of jam, it has become a great battering item. Also our vegetable garden has been amazing this year with tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes (or should I say marrows) along with French beans (of course), lettuces, aubergines, peppers and carrots, almost self sufficient. Talking of which we have just picked up three chickens on loan four weeks, for the grandchildren later this month, well tonight is the first night and as it is getting dark Terry decided to go out and lock them away and low and behold they were missing until we saw them up in the tree, well two of them that is, we have hunted high and low for the third one but no sign of it, hopefully it will appear tomorrow!!!!

Terry has now got bought his long conveted tractor complete with mowing attachment and carrying box, trouble is once the lawn is mowed there's not much he can do with it, oh sorry forgot he mowed the grass verges today along our lane leading to the house, the local marie will be pleased!!!

Well thats us..happy and enjoying ourselves in France.

A bientot

On Our Travels Again!!

I am sitting here on the edge of the Italian Alps (I think) in a Chambre d'hotes perched on a hill, central to my view is a huge bridge about 2 kms away which is the main highway to Roma, so not so romantic. We have arrived here via the South of France where we stayed four nights in two different locations in Provence, the views and the surrounding countryside is quite spectacular (sorry as an add on to my current view a bloody great train has just gone past about 1 km away). Back to Provence, we had a drama getting to our last B & B (would one of my blogs be complete without a drama??) getting to the house we took a very narrow lane which was for two way traffic up a very steep hill, our poor van which is 7/8 yrs old was really struggling especially in the low gears, we had to pull over for a car, of course it was rush hour going the other way on 'La steepe 'ill', and we ended up having to turn the car round and in the process hit a rather large boulder on the driver side wheel, this incurred a very unusual hissing sound ?puncture ?break line ?air conditioning the list went on and as the wheel was not going down and the metal bit on the wheel was badly buckled, it was obvious that was the problem, then we got to the actual drive of the house and it was a vertical drop, at least we hopped it wasn't the breaks, all fixed now and just to continue the car troubles we are experiencing an unusual knock on the right front wheel any ideas???? As we went to a mechanic in Italy and as its holiday time everywhere is closed.

Tomorrow we are walking the Cinqua Terra Trail which is 5 villages perched (as usual) on the side of a mountain with the sea below, it is quite a challenging walk up and down steps, in fact I don't think it will the walk that will be challenging but the weather, the last week we have had temps of up to 40 degrees plus. This has been difficult journey with the respect of directions, got lost a few times, I have been telling Terry we need a GPS for weeks now and he thinks I only wanted it as it is a gadget (he calls me gadget women, I call myself an up to date with technology women not a technophobe like Terry) so yesterday before we set off for Italy it was straight into our Harvey Norman/PC World equivalent called Darty and bought a TomTom which covers 42 European countries, that should be handy for next year me thinks!! So here we are with our GPS called Jane on our way to Le Spezia in Italy via Monaco and Monte Carlo and he is arguing with Jane and she got her own back and got us lost in Monte Carlo!!!!! To be continued.....

Hopefully photos to follow depends on time!

Bye for now

Carol

Canal du Midi

Canal du Midi

We have been in France for two months now and we are amazed where the time has gone, I am beginning to get frustrated because I am getting behind on my reading ala relaxing, but as Terry is quick to remind me we have been doing lots of things.

This includes our last adventure six days trip away with 4/5 days of cycling along the Canal du Midi. What a fantastic experience that has been, there were six of us at the start, Helene and Dudley (from UK) went with us to Carcassonne were we met up with our Australian friends Dei and Rick then we cycled to Beziers. We are all relatively fit and relatively keen cyclists but only on the road, the tow paths are not what you would call smooth easy riding terrain!! The tow paths are beautifully shaded by plane trees but unfortunately for our deriers, plane trees have a fantastic root spread, which made our rides very very bumpy. Non the less the vistas were incredible from the long beautiful canals with the trees reflected into the green waters to the old medieval villages we passed through to the fantastic foods and drinks we consumed on route. Funnily enough our first lunch on the Sunday was in a small village that was holding a vide grenier (car boot sale) and they had a barbeque area where they was selling French sticks filled with fat dripping belly of pork, washed down with large plastic tumblers of wine all for the princely sum of 3 euros each. Did I also say this was the cheapest meal we had on our trip, cheapest by a mile or should I say kilometre.

The most import thing I forgot to mention is that we cycled 200kms and with the difficult off road manoeuvring we had to do around the roots, we think we have done very well, but as with all good journeys one does not survive without encountering a few minor mishaps......To be perfectly frank and honest The Trims encountered ALL of these minor mishaps. We both fell of our bikes, I nearly feel into the canal, no injuries except Terry tore a small coin sized flap off his knee. (I say small and down play his injury as it was nothing compared to my broken shoulder last year). In the photos you will notice we had to cycle along the railway track to get to the other side of the canal (we still think the French were having a lend on this particular route!!) To get to the railway track we had to push our bikes up a very steep gravel hill, Terry being Terry carried all the girls bikes up (one at the time!!) and feel down the hill through a bramble bush so twisted his ankle mildly and scratched his arm to shreds (slight exaggeration but there was alot of blood). Then guess who got the only punctures, a Trim, yes, me not one but three, so if nothing else the Trims as usual caused all the dramas! At the end of this marathon effort I would like to say that we are all ultra or should I say uber fit and slim but the French food and wine made sure we stayed true to form.

Since we have been back it is been pick up the social whirl and hang on tight, July and August is very busy in rural France with night fetes most nights, these consist of: craft market stalls, various bands playing and lots of eating and drinking. In our local village SOS on a Wednesday evening for example, it is the time all the villagers get together and have a good ole knees up, the local farmers sell their produce to consume in the square, generally on long trellis tables and benches. The food includes, duck (breast or leg), chips, wild boar roasted or on kebabs, pork roasted or kebabs, chips, snails in garlic, chips, chicken on the spit and of course chips. Local cheeses, breads, sausages, foie gras, salad, chips. Then crepes, strawberries and dreadful Chantilly cream or melon (no chips) Two or three local wineries have stalls selling wine for about 4 or 5 euros a bottle (not cheap for this area). However last night we went to a Medieval night market and had the obligatory chicken and chips followed by crepes, including a bottle of wine and a bottle of water we paid 10 euros each. This market was great as all the villagers dressed up in medieval clothes and there were fire eaters/dancers, local artisans demonstrating their skills, iron mongers, stone masons, broom makers!, rope makers, wood turners, wool spinners etc etc, very interesting.

We are still keeping up with our French lessons while we are here and try to go once a week, I think it is helping if not its mainly our faults as the teacher is fantastic, today was a challenge for Terry as the house we were having the lessons had a team of carpenters in putting up roof trusses on a new workshop. Terry’s seat was right opposite the window overlooking the men working so as you can image he spent most of time wondering why they had cut this bit of wood this way and put a nail in that way!!!!! All the way home he had a long discussion with himself (as I wasn’t listening) about why the carpenters had put an extra bit of wood at the front of the workshop!!!! French lesson what French lesson!!!

No doubt everyone can’t wait to hear about Terry’s battle with the moles!!! We think it is a battle fought and won, which in a way is rather disappointing as he can’t play with his explosive devices but low and behold we was at a market on Sunday morning having coffee when a couple of our gay friends sat down with us and asked if Terry knew anything about getting rid of moles out of a lawn. This is how it went “do you know how to get rid of ‘a pesky mole in my manicured lawn’ Well poor buggers they wished they hadn’t asked, Terry’s enthusiasm was a sight to behold and now he has got two explosive devices and no moles in our lawn...you can imagine the rest. We are getting regular phone calls from the guys asking Terry to go over as the explosive has gone off, so far it has gone off twice with no body and new mole hills are appearing, the gauntlet has been been well and truly laid......

I suppose I should mention the weather, this is the third summer chez maison and it has been the best one so far, very hot and warm evenings so the above ground pool has been a god send when we get time to get into it....

Suppose I could catch a hour in the hammock with a book if I am quick as its moules and yes you guessed frites for tea at SOS night market tonight.

Abientot

My Links

Links to follow: www.nationwidetraining.com.au
Kaliska's new webpage: www.craveinteriors.com.au

Photos from Heatwave Blog below

French Heat Wave Arrived

For those of you in the southern hemisphere you may not want to know this but for everyone who has been sweltering in the non typical heatwave .... the weather has been fantastic. We certainly enjoying it as this is one of the reasons we decided to take on this adventure, to have perpetual summers. This is our third summer in France and it is definitely the hottest so far, long may it reign (I did say reign and not rain!!). We were looking forward to a relaxing time in France but as usual it has been full on, not that we are complaining but some of the planned (mine particularly) activities, an online course, reading and keeping fit have ALL been put on the back boiler. However, we are really enjoying ourselves, doing other ‘unplanned’ things that include weekly French lessons (I am not sure when it will sink in), visiting new villages, getting a new clutch on car (sorry shouldn’t be in the enjoying ourselves category) and Terry has been doing his usual pottering. This has included changing the position of the hammock to hang next to the pond, incidentally when I tried it out for height the thing collapsed and I nearly feel into the pond, then I was told it was only temporary and he needed me to test it before he secured it. Another job has been finding any big bushes that can be cut down or should I say pruned so that we can continue the Capet tradition of a continual bonfire. Then there is the job of building a deck around the front of the pool, poor man he was merrily building the base using all his new tools until I came along and said that I did not want the deck to be an old door that he had found, so that decision caused yet another trip into our ‘local’ building/wood supplies cum Bunnings cum B & Q which is about 40 mins away, I think the car knows its own way now.

Terry’s Dad arrived yesterday on probably the hottest day ever, but he is bearing up well and at 83 that’s no mean feat, although I was just listening to a conversation he and Terry are having in the garden discussing whether Terry should buy a bolt next time he goes to his ‘local’ building supplier and Dad is saying ‘no I don’t think you should buy a boat” probably because the pond is a bit small!!

At the week end we went to our first night fete, which as it happened was a paella night, we went with some friends from Perth (who live nearby in France) and had a ball, there was the customary ‘oopla’ brass band and a live group, then at midnight we joined a procession of children and adults through the streets of the little village carrying lamps with small tee lights, following the brass band and the man at the front who was lighting fireworks and leaving flames of different colours for everyone to follow. Between the children with their lanterns that had set alight and hitting the people in front on the head and the fireworks that still had flames bellowing from them where we were walking ... Occupational Health and Safety would have had a field day and probably closed the place down!!

MOLE COUNT..... Terry 1 possibly 3 but due to no evidence they don’t count, so probably Terry 1 Moles 2!

Forgot to mention the devastation called by La Tempest in April this year There were alot of trees in our area that was flattened or just snapped off by the storm, it has been likened to the storm in the UK in 1987, Ste Maure was badly hit and lucky for us only two trees down in our garden.

That’s all for now folks, au avoir bonne apre midi etc etc......