tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90555401940683480562024-03-05T06:57:53.399+01:00From the Top of the HouseAn outsider's inside view of living in France, and French lifeLorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-77635159579785916362014-03-27T11:22:00.000+01:002014-03-27T11:32:11.543+01:00Matters Canine, or the Tale of Everydog<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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We do not own a dog. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In fact, this is the dog that we do not own. His name (or one
that he answers to, given by our French neighbour whose dog he is also not), is
Pepsi. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCKUvXz9HuQ_xx6oO5EdoqM2ATLWWfeG38Vcmsi2d7qcKbhq9bapSxeu90R_UFJRSKId3StoJRauRl4IeQNM-kQWUum6YRxFa9YrAAN98PyZDSa9zQQZkcz8otdNsjm_OvTdH-E3aJvU/s1600/DSCF0677.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcCKUvXz9HuQ_xx6oO5EdoqM2ATLWWfeG38Vcmsi2d7qcKbhq9bapSxeu90R_UFJRSKId3StoJRauRl4IeQNM-kQWUum6YRxFa9YrAAN98PyZDSa9zQQZkcz8otdNsjm_OvTdH-E3aJvU/s1600/DSCF0677.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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We buy biscuits and chewy treats for him. He is gentle of
mouth, and his table manners are excellent. He comes into our kitchen and sits
to be hand fed, and he will keep us company in the garden whenever the need
arises. (His or ours is debatable.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He brings a friend for afternoon tea, and the pair of them lurk
about in the sun on our doorstep looking hopeful until we give in. Which we do. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This proves that we are a) soppy and b) English. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The French attitude to dogs comes as something of a shock to
subjects of Her Britannic Majesty (as we all too often appear in the French
press). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dog is an animal that lives in
the garden, if the fencing is up to it, where it is frequently ignored for most
of the day. It may, but may not, have <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>access
to a shed or garage should the weather be inclement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is rarely walked, and may not know how to
behave on a lead – and certainly not off it. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Our visitor, as far as we know, is a farm dog who prefers to
be elsewhere. One day we set off for a walk, and along came Pepsi, happy to be
with company. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All went well until we
passed, as one must, a field of cattle. The little chap the size of a corgi ran
amongst them barking his furry socks off, and generally showing them who was
boss. It was a toss-up whether the cattle would stampede or he would be
trampled to death – and there was nothing we could do about it. He doesn’t wear
a collar or identity tag; there was nothing to grab, and no leash to hold. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Only by walking away shouting his name did we manage to get
him to follow. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note to self – don’t take
village dog on country walks. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, to the canine community, we have somehow become
known as the doggy tuck shop - though it is a false rumour, as we confine our treat-giving to Pepsi and his lady friend. It is possible, on any given day, to see a venerable
golden Labrador, who obviously sleeps in a cattle shed, in the garden too; also
a rangy black and tan number, and the two often travel together. They are all
good natured animals out for a constitutional (though the wandering Rottweiler we
had once was not assessed for his friendliness) with, presumably, owner
consent. This in spite of the fact that a busy road runs right through the middle of the village.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On one recent occasion , I fell off the steps that lead up
here while trying to watch a full-grown St Bernard that was wandering in and
out of the Little House. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d think
that you’d notice a dog that size missing from your garden, but it’s not the
first time he’s been here. He strolls up from the next village 4kms away. They have a good fence there; they just leave the gate open.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We also had a neighbour’s boxer dog chasing the same neighbour’s
cat, but the man kindly erected an electronic dog barrier that prevented a repeat.
He’s since moved out. The cat stayed. </div>
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<br /></div>
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You may wonder why we don’t have fencing around our garden.
On the one side we have a hedge. The shorter dogs have made holes under it. On
the other side we have nothing. Why would we? </div>
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<br /></div>
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We do not own a dog.<br />
<br />
<br />
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Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-24966997822320652162013-12-31T17:48:00.000+01:002014-07-09T13:31:22.316+02:00Light in the dark<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It’s the end of the year; only a few hours to go, and I’ve
been reflecting on light. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’ve gone back in time recently, battered by a succession
of storms that left us, for two days over Christmas, without electricity. No
lights, no heating, no hot water, no oven, no internet, no telephone.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At first we thought, we’ve had unscheduled power cuts before
and the longest has been a couple of hours. So we waited. We lit the
log-burning stove. We made soup. We read books. After a while, as the light
began to fade, we realised that the problem wasn’t going to be sorted that day,
so we found candles, and a large pan in which to boil water for all sorts of
things, on the hob - the hob for which, in the midst of the gale, we had
gone out the day before to buy a new gas bottle. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s an odd feeling, knowing that you are left in some
strange historical place, at Christmas of all times. It’s one of those
backward-looking seasons, and here we were, re-living some piece of our own
history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4CHvnDuLrsoA3JG5yEkkTwLb8aTUwvTnNQg8cktP06G-RrR65MB6nm1O9ugXZC682cu3AiLbWDPE4oyEi71DCSLvsA66GFy7ASj1fFlvh6CyR4La5fCj1Bv6C1dQwK4Rc4HcAtiaR2o/s1600/DSCF0820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4CHvnDuLrsoA3JG5yEkkTwLb8aTUwvTnNQg8cktP06G-RrR65MB6nm1O9ugXZC682cu3AiLbWDPE4oyEi71DCSLvsA66GFy7ASj1fFlvh6CyR4La5fCj1Bv6C1dQwK4Rc4HcAtiaR2o/s1600/DSCF0820.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Christmas Day was still powerless, so we adapted. We had an
old gas cooker in the garage, which we heaved out. We bought it when we first
moved in down south, and there was no kitchen except a sink. We used it for a
couple of years, even though the oven has no thermostat; it has just a large
gas ring like any other, under the floor, and the only way to turn down the
temperature (it has two – over 400F or below 150F; in between, it either gets
over-excited or sulks) is to open the door and fan a tea towel as though it
were a maiden lady indulging in a fit of the vapours. This is not a device to
which to confide your Christmas leg of lamb; we let it work on a cashew nut
roast instead. Vegetarian for Christmas! Shock, horror! (Well, for He Who Does
Everything Around Here anyway.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We went up to the beach for a walk in the sunshine, leaving
all the blinds up and curtains well back, for maximum gain. (This is the one
time when the solar water heater doesn’t work, even though it is precisely the
time that we need it most; it needs electricity to pump the water round.) On
the way there and back, I charged my mobile phone, and so was able to speak to
our family and wish them Happy Christmas. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the evening, we were able to read, and navigate, by
Kindle-light. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The weekend before Christmas, we went to Poitiers, and
watched the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">polychromies</i> - a light
show that puts the original colour back onto the front of the church of Notre
Dame le Grande, as the people of the 14<sup>th</sup> century would have seen
it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrKKGp07EjsQcdbLDg3NTpbmCu7sHO2JfaqEOaMy_hP_qJpIqtVACv9L6QiJTbdi9iC9XZkKmCXDd0qSEaPeun4W00AMWWxngN6UrgR9dcKANfGG7C3QGvQz7U39ASRAlhVYGuKAFWBI/s1600/DSC00099.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrKKGp07EjsQcdbLDg3NTpbmCu7sHO2JfaqEOaMy_hP_qJpIqtVACv9L6QiJTbdi9iC9XZkKmCXDd0qSEaPeun4W00AMWWxngN6UrgR9dcKANfGG7C3QGvQz7U39ASRAlhVYGuKAFWBI/s320/DSC00099.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Modern technology brought us a representation of the past. Two days later,
modern technology reminded us that we’re only a gust of wind away from that
past; and while we survived, without too much aggravation, our 50 hours without
electricity, that was because we had the alternatives available. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So as the year ends, and we look forward to 2014, maybe it’s
worth remembering that we aren’t masters of all we survey; we don’t own
everything, and we can’t control everything. A little humility, a little
acceptance of our limitations when faced with nature, and maybe a dollop of
good old common sense, and 2014 could be the year we begin to appreciate what
we in the West actually have, and what we’re wasting, beyond hope of replacing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe this year, we’ll begin to see the light. <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Bonne fin d’année, bonne année. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
© lms 2013
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-3534311743046880902013-12-01T17:04:00.002+01:002013-12-02T18:43:07.621+01:00A Woman's Work<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Laundry. We gather it up, sort it out, stick it in the
machine and press the button. Sometime later, we unload it, hang it out or put
it in the dryer. We may or may not iron it. We put it away. And we moan about
having to keep on doing it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back in the days when I was a student, our flats didn’t have
washing machines. We either trekked to the laundrette (complaining, obviously),
or did our laundry in the kitchen sink. Washing jeans by hand was no fun, but
we did it, wringing them out, and putting them to drip on the rack. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is somewhere a recording of me singing my heart out
whilst doing my laundry in the basement of a flat in Notting Hill. It was preferable
to sitting in the laundrette surrounded by silent strangers watching the stuff
go round and round, and at least I entertained the neighbours, whether they
liked it or not. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Laundry has always been a chore; but in the not so distant
past it’s been much more than that. It was hard labour, and it was an escape
for which women were actually grateful. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The one thing men did not do (and I’ll leave you to debate
whether they do it yet) was the laundry. France has always been a very patriarchal
society, and women, especially in rural areas, are still very much second in
command. Doing the weekly wash got a woman out of the house, and into the
company of others, in the one place where no man dared to tread: she went to
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lavoir</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nRzeWwVOxV8iGgHgyH6e8Qohf97UIlgD2SKaQPYGTGqIXx15xpYVMkPcUPxJO6J4wN_TuaxVAEWW5aQ3s-QUCWxigKAvJUbt9hnmmcQqfxhk-rCyClJ_9tpJd1UycIJSx9ls9vryLy0/s1600/DSCF0805.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nRzeWwVOxV8iGgHgyH6e8Qohf97UIlgD2SKaQPYGTGqIXx15xpYVMkPcUPxJO6J4wN_TuaxVAEWW5aQ3s-QUCWxigKAvJUbt9hnmmcQqfxhk-rCyClJ_9tpJd1UycIJSx9ls9vryLy0/s320/DSCF0805.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Make no mistake; this was back-breaking work, and it went on
all day. She would push a wooden barrow containing her washing and a
three-sided box with a shelf, inside which she would kneel to scrub and dunk
and soak and rinse the household linens. She could expect to spend the entire
day at the task, with harsh soap, in cold – frequently freezing – water. At the
end of it, she would reload her barrow and trudge back home again. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMgBUk1x-3SZXLowT_gFZ90VcFXbeuGv-tC3u7JLoJ5M4gzYueEj-lcUQ8KwwbJPWnW2tucPzFlEp-Gyj5gI2jxEESXdQV4_GfYwgvd_zPvDVyq1HbRFWjQV6uj9DFhz4jhTfQ9g7jfuo/s1600/DSCF0802.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMgBUk1x-3SZXLowT_gFZ90VcFXbeuGv-tC3u7JLoJ5M4gzYueEj-lcUQ8KwwbJPWnW2tucPzFlEp-Gyj5gI2jxEESXdQV4_GfYwgvd_zPvDVyq1HbRFWjQV6uj9DFhz4jhTfQ9g7jfuo/s320/DSCF0802.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lavoir</i> was fed
by and drained into a stream; it was constructed of stone, and, if you were
lucky, had a roof. The woman would set up a pitch, and get to work, chatting to her
neighbours as she did so; and here was the liberating part of the whole hard,
exhausting exercise – the company of other women.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to the words on the wall of one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lavoir</i>, they cleaned the linen and dirtied
the people. They exercised their power in the making and breaking of their
neighbours’ reputations. Here they could moan about their menfolk without courting
the possibility of a clout round the ear. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGg5XiEq3dvZLM1q8C3hDt4zlACtn2zgL1WSvozXA7Hk3RDqqgYCv58hsKeoxhWiDpkOY8doWplXZV7KbSDhvZGs5rNHguzJF8aEFhFvsI_kpOnvIqjMuFokharUeL3wYNCG0xny_OFOw/s1600/DSCF0815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGg5XiEq3dvZLM1q8C3hDt4zlACtn2zgL1WSvozXA7Hk3RDqqgYCv58hsKeoxhWiDpkOY8doWplXZV7KbSDhvZGs5rNHguzJF8aEFhFvsI_kpOnvIqjMuFokharUeL3wYNCG0xny_OFOw/s320/DSCF0815.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In our last village, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lavoir</i>
was sited between the Priest’s house and the church. Cleanliness may well have
been rather too close to godliness in this instance, and the women were roundly
condemned for their coarseness and their loud voices. It made no difference.
Here they made the rules, and if men wanted their clothes and their sheets
cleaned, they had to put up with it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of these <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lavoirs</i>
are now being restored, and seen as an important part of social history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an acknowledgement of the hard labour
that constituted domestic life for women well into the last century, whether servants
or members of the family, which is rarely given so much as a nod; and perhaps a
grudging admission that behind every good man was a woman with a square bar of
Marseilles soap and a scrubbing brush. It’s as good a place as any to start.<br />
© lms 2013</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-92088833020742000012013-11-06T11:43:00.000+01:002013-12-02T18:43:49.925+01:00To market, to market<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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The French market is a wonderful thing. I’m not talking about
the tourist ideal of strolling through stalls of sun-fed produce, and cheeses
of all shades, ages and textures, and purple dried sausages, and glistening
fish; I’m talking about the market itself. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It can be anything from three stalls on a Friday in a
village square to an entire town centre taken over and pedestrianized, as at Lamballe
and Quintin. The traders arrive in their purpose-built vans, designed so that
one side can be folded down or removed, and the top opened out to make a
canopy; or they set up traditional trestles with sun umbrellas (no matter what the
weather). They will arrive by 7.30am, and leave by 2pm – and the only sign that
they were there will be a stray cabbage leaf, and the puddle where the fish
stall dumped its ice. They have got clearing the site off to a fine art. </div>
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<br /></div>
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You can find a market pretty much every day, and in big
towns like St Brieuc, twice a week. To the English, the market has been seen as
a place to buy things cheaper than in the shops; not so in France, where prices
are monitored. The whole idea was to bring the goods to the people in their own
towns, in an era when they didn’t or couldn’t travel. The quality today is as
good as, and frequently better than, in the supermarket. </div>
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<br /></div>
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At the moment there is a debate about Sunday trading – as in,
there isn’t any, and the few big chains who have tried to implement it have
been taken to court. There are, however, Sunday markets, though few and far
between. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There is one at Croix Saint Lambert in St Brieuc. It’s held
across the parking space in front of a row of shops, and across a petrol station,
right up to the pumps; and it is very popular, in spite of the fact that by
the very nature of the site, there is nowhere legal to park your car. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So every Sunday, on the dual carriageway
approaching the place, there are vehicles abandoned not only along the verges
but along the central barrier, and round the edges of the roundabout. Drive down
that way and you have to beware of car doors opening on both sides of the road,
and people stepping out into the traffic with their minds on meat and mussels,
not safety. It’s a nuisance, but it’s tolerated. </div>
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The market at Neuville de Poitou has been tolerated since
the 10<sup>th</sup> century. A large congregation would come for the Mass from
far and wide, and it was too good an opportunity to miss: a market began to be
established right beside the church. By the 16<sup>th</sup> century it had
become huge, even occupying the cemetery. The Church deplored this
commercialisation, the noise of which disturbed the church services, and as for
the taverns – well, that sort of behaviour didn’t belong on a Sunday and should
be banned. During fairs and assemblies, there was even dancing amongst the
gravestones! It was not to be permitted! </div>
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Well, it was, and it continued to be. Even the Revolutionary
powers couldn’t ban it. On went the Sunday market, though they did take Easter
off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1829, the municipality tried to
replace it with a Friday market, but as ever it was doomed to failure. And so
it is still there, every Sunday, eleven centuries old and going strong. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In 1903, it seemed a good idea to tax the stallholders, so
the powers that be came up with a list of what could be sold there:</div>
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Hens, chickens, capons, cocks, ducks, pigeons, quails, rails
(a kind of water fowl), thrushes, turkeys, rabbits, hares, foxes (why?),
badgers (again, why?), sheep, lambs, goats, pigs, mules, donkeys, beef cattle,
cows, chestnuts, hay, hemp, wool, wines of the Haut Poitou, dairy, fruit and
vegetables; but also song merchants, dancers, acrobats, travelling musicians,
puppeteers, hats, materials, tools. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And finally,
there were eels, which since the Middle Ages had been grilled on the braziers
there. They still are, and that’s a smoky scent you won’t find in a supermarket
on any day of the week. (Which, on reflection, is a good thing). </div>
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<br /></div>
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So today, you may not be able to go out and browse the shops
on a Sunday, but you can go to a market and buy pretty much anything you could
possibly need. Just don’t stand downwind of the eel man.<br />
© lms 2013</div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-63761149892686883952013-10-27T14:11:00.002+01:002013-12-02T18:44:31.229+01:00Transports of Delight<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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I’ve recently had the unalloyed pleasure of travelling
across England again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He Who Does Everything Around Here made the decision to
travel by A-road, rather than Motorway, from Devon to Milton Keynes. This was
an unforced error, resulting in a much longer journey than planned; on the
other hand, it avoided the M5, which is a thing to be wholeheartedly encouraged. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The roads in England are broken. All of them. They need
mending. They also need an army of litter pickers to tidy up the verges. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem with both of these things is that, should the
Government actually notice, and, after due consultation and a week’s holiday somewhere
warm, decide to act upon these shortcomings, they would then put them out to
tender. Some vast company would eventually win the right to do the job, by quoting
a price which the Government will then forever afterwards insist will be the
sum paid and no more. It will then be discovered that the real cost will be
three or four times that, due to unforeseen factors, including the one that
says that every government scheme always does come out three or four times over
budget, and the company concerned is never made to pay the difference. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, as the holiday season drew to a close here in France at
the end of August, the road menders and builders came out in force. The
national stock of ‘Diversion’ signs was taken out of mothballs and spread
around the country, with rather a large proportion of them being placed on any
road that we care to travel upon within a ten mile radius of here. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a brand new ring road being built to take the holiday
traffic past St Brieuc. When major works like this are undertaken, a big sign
is put up, telling the passer-by just how much it is going to cost, and who is
paying what proportion of that cost. They may be counting on the fact that the
average passer-by will be travelling at some 70kph and so won’t be able to read
it, but if the urge struck, you could stop and find out all you need to know.
Actual numbers, upfront, with no added bit to say ‘4m€, unless they’ve underbid/got
their sums wrong/decided to charge more’, which is what would have to happen in
England. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I was thinking about this as we undertook to drive my brother,
aka The International Traveller, to Paris CDG Airport, to catch a flight to
Australia. This is, as you will realise, a service above and beyond the call of
duty, as it involved the Paris Ring Road, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Le Periph, as it is fondly known (though not
by me), on a Friday afternoon. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I take back everything I have ever thought about the M25.
Well, not all of it, perhaps, but most of it. The M25 has got one major
advantage over Le Periph: daylight. I have no idea how many tunnels we had to
go through; and I am only glad that our exit wasn’t in one of them, and so
could be signalled by the satnav, without which we would still be circling even
now. They have sorted out the mad motorcyclists since our last foray here; they
have the right to travel at any speed they choose, but always faster than you,
between the two inside lanes, and will sound their horns to get you to shift
out of their way. (Shift where? We’re in a tunnel here). </div>
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What worries me is that one day they are going to need to do
road works here – big ones. Like England’s road system, Le Periph wasn’t built
for this volume of traffic. Something has got to give. If the traffic above the
tunnels is as heavy as that in them – well, I leave it to your imagination; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I shut mine down somewhere underneath the
French capital, while shedding several years off my life-span. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I will never be there to witness the ensuing chaos. I am not
travelling round Paris by car ever again. I will thus not contribute to the
wear and tear, for which all Parisians may thank me. However, when the authorities
put up their sign saying how much the works will cost, they can be assured that
it will be read by every motorist passing by, for the simple reason that they
will have ample time to read it. They may even be thankful for the
entertainment value. What else is there to do as you sit on Le Periph on a Friday
afternoon?<br />
© lms 2013</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-24625738286786855792013-09-16T11:47:00.000+02:002013-09-16T11:47:11.753+02:00French Horns<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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One of the local lads has the habit of announcing his
arrival from afar by playing Dixie on his car horn – something that started
with Boss Hogg and the Dukes of Hazzard and should have ended with them. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But there are other occasions when the sound of a horn – or even
a whole orchestra-worth - is welcome. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Saturday there was a wedding – the first we’ve seen in
our tiny little church. </div>
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<br /></div>
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You know when there’s a wedding happening somewhere<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nearby, because all the guests and the bride
and groom drive around the locality tooting and parping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cars have bits of gauze on wing mirrors
and aerials, so that should you rush out ready to shake a fist at the disturbers
of the peace, you realise your error and wave instead. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There’s a civil ceremony, and a church one; and between the
two there is a lot of noise to be made, and joy to be shared. In times gone by,
the bride and groom might have been carried aloft by their friends and paraded
through the village, so this is the modern version. They go into the church for
a short ceremony, and emerge for photos, and perhaps go into the Salle de Fêtes
for a couple of hours, and then off they all go again, horns blaring. </div>
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It’s very exciting and good-natured, and it’s an invitation
to share in the event even if you don’t know them – though, this being
Brittany, and close-knit, you probably do. </div>
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<br /></div>
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On Sunday morning, the Chasse was about. They are allowed
out to play with their guns on Sundays and Thursdays in our commune, so you
know which days not to go walking across the fields dressed in fur. They have
their hunting horns, which, by and large, the dogs ignore, especially if they
can dash across a road in front of a passing car and frighten ten years off the
driver’s life instead. Still, it’s the traditional note of Autumn. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The nature of the land here is such that you can hear things
coming for miles, especially when they make a lot of noise. So in the afternoon,
alerted by approaching sound, we dashed up to the road to wait, and our
patience was rewarded by a cavalcade of old cars. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were a couple of real veterans, but
mostly they were all from the 50s and 60s. A Mini, a Frog-eyed Sprite, a
Triumph, numerous Renaults, Peugeots, and Citroens, 2CVs of course, a few boxy Mercedes,
some khaki Jeeps, a Caravelle; there were two or three huge American cars,
white-wall tyres and chrome enough to blind, and lots of little round utility ones
like Morris Minors but even more minor. People were smaller when they were
built. Cramming four modern adults inside makes one appreciate the Breton fondness
for the sardine tin.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There must have been 40 or 50 cars in all, all to be greeted
with a wave and a smile – because it’s infectious, all this excitement. It’s
people enjoying themselves in their own treasured vehicles, sharing the magic
of old-fashioned motoring on a sunny afternoon, stirring some memories, and
inviting us to be part of it. </div>
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You will rarely, outside of the cities, hear a car horn
sounded in anger; but you’ll hear it often sounded in fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know which I prefer.</div>
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© lms 2013</div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-61864223050961027192013-08-17T11:05:00.000+02:002013-08-17T11:08:30.327+02:00A Handful of Summer<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Wherever you go at the moment, the bends of the roads are edged in
spilled golden grain. Flocks of birds congregate to pick up the free feast, and
with their minds on their stomachs they may not see a car bearing down on them
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All night the harvesters can be heard working, and tractors haul fully laden trailers back and forth between field and collection point. We have
one a little way outside the village, and it's refilled almost as soon as it's emptied. It is manned all day and night for weighing and unloading. At present
there is a huge overflow from the two wide open stalls, covered to protect it from the drizzle. </div>
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The normally quiet countryside is humming with activity, and
this year is better than many. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Signs are
popping up everywhere – ‘Vends <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Paille</span>‘–
straw for sale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fields are topped of
the grain heads, then the straw is cut and baled, then the stubble turned in. It
used to be burnt in lines of black and flame, very controlled, but the only
fires now are when the machinery clogs up with combustible dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been so hot and dry that the crops have
turned a deep copper brown, glowing in the sunlight, darkening in the fine
occasional drizzle we have today. </div>
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The huge harvesters and the small balers move from farm to
farm, which can cause a certain amount of consternation to other road users
when the ways are narrow. ‘Convoi Exceptionnelle’ means get out of the way:
there’s a massive machine on the move, built for open prairies, not Breton
lanes. Wide, tall, and often pulling some other many-toothed apparatus behind
it, it’s a danger to telephone cables. If you find yourself following one, you
may suddenly discover a spirit of adventure, and the desire to find out what
some other road has to offer. If it’s a dead end, you can always come back, by
which time the harvester will have moved on; and if it leads somewhere, you may
see some ancient dwelling you never knew existed. Either way you win. </div>
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I picked up a handful of grain from the road, and it was warm in my
palm. Corn or wheat, I’ve no idea: but it was fresh and dry, a sign of good
things to come. </div>
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It’s a pattern as old as farming; what goes into the ground
will, if we are lucky, come out of it again, multiplied and ripened and in a
form we can use. It’s that connection that we have lost, between sun and earth,
seed and flour, but it was all there as a promise in the little fraction of the
harvest that I held. Soon it will be the turn of the maize, standing tall and dense and darkly green, tassels browning and cobs ripening. Some fields are already being turned again, smoothed out, drilled, planted with hope for a good autumn.</div>
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The weather has made up for its sulky spring self. The
holiday makers have had a wonderful break, and will go home sun-warmed to their
bones, leaving us to make the most of the rest of the summer. What’s good for the
crops is good for the soul, too; because no matter how sophisticated our lives
seem, nor how technologically crammed, underneath it all we are still
elemental, and everyone responds to a little warmth after a cold season.</div>
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©lms2013</div>
<br />Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-64894521457336961842013-07-21T17:09:00.002+02:002013-07-25T14:37:36.876+02:00Oh I do like to be beside the seaside<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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There’s a lot to be said for the sea. </div>
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Brittany, of course, has a lot of it, so no matter where you
are, you’re never that far from a spot of ozone replacement therapy. In these
hot days, the lure of the beach is stronger than ever, though it calls all year
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The coast differs greatly depending where you are, from the wide
sandy crescents of St Brieuc bay, to the tiny little beaches amid the rocks of
the <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Côte</span> de Granit Rose, to the mighty cliffs of the Atlantic coast. </div>
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We’ve been up to the beach at Les Rosaires in all weathers.
One wintry Tuesday we picked up a whole roast chicken and a pot of fried
potatoes and onions from the rotisserie man at Quintin market, and ate them in
the car watching the waves hurl at the beach. </div>
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<br />
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Even on the least inviting days there will be someone in the
sea. It’s common to see groups in wetsuits walking breast-high through the
water, occasionally with a leader who does the whole thing backwards whilst
encouraging the rest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One lot were all
equipped with paddles, looking for all the world as though their boat had sunk
under them. There are events where these teams walk all the way across the bay,
though I think I’ll give that a miss; you can’t exactly sit down half way for a
breather. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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We’ve recently been up at high tide, with the waves foaming
at the rocks just below the promenade, and the sea noisy but not
quarrelsome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later the same week, it was
flat calm, murmuring at the sand. There have been men with fishing rods
stretched out, hoping for a bite. In other seasons there will be lots of people
bent at the waist, looking for shellfish with which to fill their buckets. The
beach occasionally gives generously, but it also takes back: every year someone
will die for concentrating too much on the possibilities of a free lunch and
not enough on the turn of the tide. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Just now it’s full summer, and very hot, so there are
families at the beach; but there are nothing like the crowds we have seen on
the TV news. ‘England is having a heat wave – head for the sea and broil!’ It
doesn’t seem so frantic here. Dogs, horses and radios are banned from the beach
from 10am to 7pm. There will be people playing volleyball, courts scratched
into the sand, and children building sandcastles; there will be babies trying
out the water for the first time, and teenagers discovering that air and water
temperature don’t line up as closely as they hoped. There just won’t be a lot
of noise or cramped crowds. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There are sailing schools, and numerous vessels just
offshore with matching sails, passing back and forth before the breeze – or
against it, which confuses a landlubber like me no end. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This proximity to water is wonderful, even though neither of
us is a swimmer; we’re more the frantic floater types.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live near a lake, but there’s something
sinister and waiting about lakes; I’m not sure what it is, but still deep water
worries me. The sea doesn’t wait for anyone. It just does its thing, backwards
and forwards, endlessly, and in many moods. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, the renovations can’t be put on hold just because it’s
summer, you know; but we’ve come up with a compromise. I will go into yet
another DIY store and gaze longingly at plumbing sundries, (largely because I’m
the one with the specs about my person and neither of us can read the small
print without them), in exchange for a swift detour to the beach five minutes
up the road. It works out really well. We both get some exercise and fresh – occasionally
very fresh – air, and we come home with lots of things to keep He Who Does
Everything Around Here occupied next door for hours afterwards. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I sit here at the bottom of the house – I’ve had to
decamp, or suffer from heatstroke up under the roof – and write, with a new
view of the garden to gaze at for inspiration, while he plumbs and mutters and
wanders in and out for cups of tea. Then, when he comes in frowning, and says,
‘There’s a bit of a hitch,’ I sigh and reply, in that wifely understanding but
slightly exasperated way, that we’d better go and buy another part. I’ll pack
my sun-hat and towel, and reach for the Factor 50 cream. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, there’s a lot to be said for the sea.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
© lms 2013
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-89758011777892869522013-07-01T17:48:00.001+02:002013-07-02T10:51:32.684+02:00July 1st - it must be Summer!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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The sun has come out, the temperature’s on the rise, and
every commune is having fetes of one sort or another. </div>
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We had our Music Festival a week ago. This is a very local
event, held in the car park of the Mairie and the church. Anyone can take part:
you just book your slot with the Mairie’s office. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Yes, I could have; no, I didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to keep the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">entente cordiale</i> cordial, you know). </div>
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The evening began with a Balade Chantée: this is a walk
round the village’s many little green ways, in amongst the houses, accompanied
by a donkey (for reasons that weren’t explained, especially not to the donkey,
who objected to being there) and a group of singers. A man and a boy played Breton
pipes, if the singing flagged. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the
songs were question/answer ones, where the lead sings a line and the rest repeat
it. We stopped at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fontaine</i> of St
Théo, a place where women used to scrub their smalls to the beat of bawdy
songs. We paused at a house where the garden is open to the public on regular
occasions; and then off we went after the donkey, behind our
own garden, and back to the Mairie. </div>
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Within a few minutes, with barely time for a small glass of
wine, we were whisked off to the church, where a choir sang something French to
the tune of Over the Sea to Skye, and Zulu and Maori music, as well as some
jazz: and they really enjoyed themselves – as did we, even if the benches were designed to make sinners repent.</div>
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The interior of our village church</div>
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Outside again, there was time for a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">galette saucisse</i>: a galette, with a sausage in it, wrapped in a
napkin, and eaten like an ice cream cornet – just the thing for a chilly evening. </div>
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After that there were various groups who for some reason
sang in English (and I have never heard A Hard Day’s Night rendered with such
perfect diction before), some Breton dancing and traditional music, and all
washed down at the obligatory beer tent. </div>
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It ended with a bonfire and a trumpet playing a salute. </div>
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Yesterday was the Fete du Monde Rurale. This is rather
larger, and canton-wide. </div>
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Now, the thing about this is that it happens every two years,
in pretty much the same guise: the first time we went it was in the grounds of
the Chateau, but this time it was on a dairy farm at the other end of the
village. (As that’s about 300metres from end to end it’s not far). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This time we had the sit-down meal: it was organised so that we all took a glass of kir, a tray holding a plastic plate,
half a melon with parma ham, a piece of cheese (‘the cheese course’), and a
dessert, and sat down at a table. There we found napkin, cutlery and spare
plastic cup. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could buy a bottle of
wine if desired (it was), and we settled down again. When we had eaten our
starter, we took the same plate outside to where men were slaving over a
barbecue grill, on the hottest day of the year so far, cooking beef from a
local beast. We were given our steak and two boiled potatoes, and went back to our
table. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually a lady came round with
a coffee jug, and the meal was complete. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZqoxjEl5k43Ub0vevIFV8hO3LaQy_ZRkRln1oWm9VWzrQDV_DgkAYomqmdeUJ0G6FfqXPjM7hpzzph4Cpng5xSZOb_Vnn1ADYF4ZtqqvSyOdA56DyypiAMxOg-wIzkfiucUgMmmySIFU/s1600/DSCF0688.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZqoxjEl5k43Ub0vevIFV8hO3LaQy_ZRkRln1oWm9VWzrQDV_DgkAYomqmdeUJ0G6FfqXPjM7hpzzph4Cpng5xSZOb_Vnn1ADYF4ZtqqvSyOdA56DyypiAMxOg-wIzkfiucUgMmmySIFU/s320/DSCF0688.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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By now the decibel level in the barn had risen to
astonishing proportions, but we were wise to have gone in when we did. An
American-style marching band came in to play later, to add to the fun, but we listened from the safety of the open air. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Outside there were farm machines old and young in use, Breton
horses with foals, wine tasting (we didn’t), <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>farm-made ice-creams (we did), and a man
herding geese with a sheepdog. </div>
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</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEqXVQryrcFHGwrUV-OABqIf23dKh7B1N1emHGR5zD7_T2y3UMutsf_4eI2r2IcWws0fM_4QUfeLnilC6DEod119GIjwNpT5dWcvpYCKEhyphenhyphenACjM3qqHBC6nm8onJrHi7_s0Y-ZqyIZEaQ/s1600/DSCF0732.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEqXVQryrcFHGwrUV-OABqIf23dKh7B1N1emHGR5zD7_T2y3UMutsf_4eI2r2IcWws0fM_4QUfeLnilC6DEod119GIjwNpT5dWcvpYCKEhyphenhyphenACjM3qqHBC6nm8onJrHi7_s0Y-ZqyIZEaQ/s320/DSCF0732.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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There were stalls set out with rural history,
and other farm related exhibitions. There were two beer tents (it was a hot
day) and a helicopter selling 5-mintue taster rides. These went on long into
the evening after everyone else had left, and the cows had been milked. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pretty much all of this will be repeated next time, and everyone
will go again, because it’s free (apart from the meal and the drinks), and
because it’s local and it’s what life is about. There’s nothing complicated, apart
from the catering for nearly 1000 meals, and you may have seen it all before:
that doesn’t matter one jot. It’s a community event, and it’s being seen to be
part of it. </div>
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And by the way, the beef was excellent.<br />
© lms 2013
<br />
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
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<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-44835206328041399332013-06-10T11:30:00.001+02:002013-06-10T11:33:09.497+02:00Works in progress<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXKxKHiuJ9lB_lUGEA27QTPgE33wYFiSWPzfL7PM6Kn4AXN0Snn_xeL_7RLM52Bxd_FgeFhfP_6S7Eksk_aTLxsTppS0cHPPW-DwLTfoQaemJHFRmqa6NJEVf8NbP2_s961P18xv1rJk/s1600/M1+sdb.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXKxKHiuJ9lB_lUGEA27QTPgE33wYFiSWPzfL7PM6Kn4AXN0Snn_xeL_7RLM52Bxd_FgeFhfP_6S7Eksk_aTLxsTppS0cHPPW-DwLTfoQaemJHFRmqa6NJEVf8NbP2_s961P18xv1rJk/s320/M1+sdb.JPG" /></a> </div>
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXYgYuSbcyZ0T3TVScLChnQFIPG5bLhSBWuFE8cyF23D9-v68u3ugVNETprstrFuLbRgZ69LDSloHouIYfe03_7BRnpX3OyPZqxgajz2P6dCEXTXy3u0oHqFLYi9oNZcfOQElGsvWRoE/s1600/DSCF0549.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXYgYuSbcyZ0T3TVScLChnQFIPG5bLhSBWuFE8cyF23D9-v68u3ugVNETprstrFuLbRgZ69LDSloHouIYfe03_7BRnpX3OyPZqxgajz2P6dCEXTXy3u0oHqFLYi9oNZcfOQElGsvWRoE/s320/DSCF0549.JPG" /></a> </div>
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMkELfhoTFhu4AETuCmBjfWvRe9Q1KbD6NCsCkFp-VGbIv7oT-33BQATnONSho3EqPVpWBQE5R6qbR0QjkwBe8t0bZBODwfSFen0BUcWfnvuIOnPsnIcCp_rdhLgzFJy05frzt6VxSDg/s1600/DSCF0548.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMkELfhoTFhu4AETuCmBjfWvRe9Q1KbD6NCsCkFp-VGbIv7oT-33BQATnONSho3EqPVpWBQE5R6qbR0QjkwBe8t0bZBODwfSFen0BUcWfnvuIOnPsnIcCp_rdhLgzFJy05frzt6VxSDg/s320/DSCF0548.JPG" /></a><br />
Bathroom before and after</div>
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUQu9QNCicJNr9snDmMifooJVaqj8ONzEuS0gbLy01zW_s4KQjHb_FVKzf7Lbn-fbmPeDQccrCPTzJbT14-E-VjLTjp1PH9fHyCRqRLaUHKfrzVWS-V1ulDGx42itSGNtRzNVdCDyDYE8/s1600/M1+cuisine+bis.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUQu9QNCicJNr9snDmMifooJVaqj8ONzEuS0gbLy01zW_s4KQjHb_FVKzf7Lbn-fbmPeDQccrCPTzJbT14-E-VjLTjp1PH9fHyCRqRLaUHKfrzVWS-V1ulDGx42itSGNtRzNVdCDyDYE8/s320/M1+cuisine+bis.JPG" /></a> </div>
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN4eysOgNTXpSL1eQho7xlxEN4z3EFIoWVMWMM4a7M19e-EjGyFXr4rmwSBXqfMejXIwAcGGudbxU0lESqF-wkqxUCoesg-ALIeHQjCc063EmgQzJtAY8myMPgbY0aml0x2EB-hJtEWu0/s1600/DSCF0545.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN4eysOgNTXpSL1eQho7xlxEN4z3EFIoWVMWMM4a7M19e-EjGyFXr4rmwSBXqfMejXIwAcGGudbxU0lESqF-wkqxUCoesg-ALIeHQjCc063EmgQzJtAY8myMPgbY0aml0x2EB-hJtEWu0/s320/DSCF0545.JPG" /></a><br />
Kitchen before and after<br />
<br />
Just to prove that while I'm writing, he who does everything around here has been doing everything around here... all his own work.<br />
© lms 2013</div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
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Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-70757209115653840412013-06-01T14:51:00.000+02:002013-06-01T14:51:36.565+02:00To the Victors, the Spoils<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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2014 is going to be a big year for looking back. It will be
the anniversary not only of the end of the First World War, but also of the
1944 D-Day Landings. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, quite apart from the sombre nature of these occasions,
there are practicalities to be considered: or, to put it another way, there’s
cash to be earned, on both sides of the Channel. There will be many, many people
who want to come and see where they, or their fathers, brothers, or uncles were,
at the time. They will be there to commemorate the lost, and the disasters, even
while they celebrate survival and ultimate victory. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
War has a particular reverberation among the French that the
English can never understand. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>As we have
never been occupied (or at least, not since 1066), we can’t possibly comprehend
the emotions involved. Regularly there are stories in the paper about former Resistance
people – ordinary, extraordinary, men and women - who will never, ever talk
about their experiences, because they took an oath of silence 70 years ago and
will not break it. The memories live on behind the eyes of those who saw too
much, when they were very young, to forget now that they are old. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All over France there are plaques to those who were shot against
church walls or in village squares: the tiny human scale of warfare. There is
Oradour, the village that died one day, and stands as it was left, cars in the
streets, bicycles upturned, plates on the tables. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only the people are gone. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But here we are, looking forwards to 2014; and in Normandy,
a group of six tourism offices in a sector dominated by the Right, wanted to
band together and claim the Normandy Landings as their own. They would have a
sort of theme park monopoly on the celebrations, based around Utah, Omaha, Gold
and Juno beaches. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Unfortunately their plan omitted Sword Beach, where the only
French party of 6<sup>th</sup> June landed, and Pegasus Bridge, which falls
under the aegis of the Left; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they were
going to be quietly set to one side, because current political divisions couldn’t
be bridged. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I was thinking about all this a few weeks ago, as we
travelled back through Normandy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a
green and rolling country, famous for apple orchards and dairy cows, cider and
Camembert. It struck me how very French the architecture of the towns is, and how
strange it must have looked to those young men disembarking for the first time.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amidst the war-torn ruins that lay
before them were people going about their business as best they could, working
land already ravaged by so many other battles going back for millennia – the Romans,
the Vikings, the English, who all came here armed to the teeth and ready to
grab what they could, or defend what they had. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question of the D-Day Landings theme park was settled
from on high, when the regional politicos would only squabble over their share
of the spoils. Some see this as an imposition upon their rights as locals,
others as the only way forward. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Yes, there are practicalities to be considered, and hundreds
of thousands of visitors to be housed and entertained and fed: but if we want
to commemorate something so tragic, violent, miserable, heroic, victorious,
look into the eyes of the people who were there, of all nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can’t own that, or package it, or sell it.
Honour it; and be very, very glad that it wasn’t ours to deal with, and to live
with and to remember until we die. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Normandy is beautiful; it should be seen, and visited, and
enjoyed. Let’s not squabble over rights to the past – let’s get on and learn
from it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
© lms 2013</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-28555804693782924582013-05-09T15:39:00.001+02:002013-05-09T19:08:48.798+02:00Comically Historical<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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The French have got a thing about comic books – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bandes dessinées</i>, as they are known in the
adult world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go into any bookshop, and
the busiest place will be the adult B.D section. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The (mostly male) customers may do more reading than buying,
but there they will be, leafing through the pages for hours on end. These books are works of art: so much so that there are annual
B.D. festivals, where aficionados gather to dissect and discuss the latest books
and the classics. </div>
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There are all types of these books. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anything from flying ace war stories to the
Wild West: improbably-chested heroines, muscular heroes, sci-fi, insects,
dinosaurs, erotica: it’s all here, in glorious colour or black and white. You
only have to think of Tin Tin (though he was Belgian so he doesn’t count). </div>
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Well, there’s nothing new under the sun: the first cartoon
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Which isn’t tapestry at all, it’s embroidery. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one knows who made it, or commissioned it,
or where it was supposed to hang. It may have decorated the Cathedral; it may
have been in some lord’s castle. For now, it’s safely displayed, out of reach
of bugs and humidity, in a converted seminary in Bayeux town. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We dropped in to see it on the way back from England, and
coincided with market day, which may or may not have had a bearing on the lack
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signs, and found the place, and paid our entrance, knowing what we were going
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Actually, we didn’t: nothing prepares you for the reality of
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the throne, oh dear me no, whatever gave you that impression? And then he
turned round and said, Surprise! I lied! So William gave him a poke in the eye to
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The horses are wonderful, prancing, falling, hooves aloft
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The boats are open; you’d have thought the chain mail would
rust in the salty air on the Channel crossing. The battles are rather clean –
just lopped off limbs lying around bloodlessly. And there is Harold with an
arrow in his eye (we’ve talked about boys playing with sharp objects before,
some five hundred years earlier: they never listen). For some reason, people
like to linger here for a better look, which is more than Harold was getting at
the time. </div>
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The audio guide that sounds rather like Edward Fox takes
you through the whole thing at a brisk trot. ‘Here in Scene 4… Here in scene 8’,
with no mention of the interesting things going on in scenes 5,6, and 7. You
get the idea that a coachload of tourists is just about to burst in behind you,
so you go with the flow as directed, until you arrive rather breathlessly at the
end of the story. William wins, every time. </div>
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But – and this may be because I’m English – I have to
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And one final thought: the Normans won at Hastings because they
had the best archers. So what happened between then and the Battle of Crecy,
when the feared English longbow triumphed? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that a case of being hoist with your own
petard? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, as we say, what goes around
comes around; and if you don’t listen to your mother, you’ve only yourself to
blame.</div>
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©lms 2013</div>
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<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-92013979433040911552013-03-23T16:36:00.000+01:002013-03-27T17:13:39.739+01:00Reality Blog Award<br />
<br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL90H7hbw3PIOicqzjzRjGomVjhd1la6dP-PvKN0rp1jOVM_4w6qtOWcwtTrG1Sipb0f23aMR8HcPVzNvw1zy-3gj05DzrdimxT7DLJ3k0mHvi-ksk2rJXFC1lS6VTkmBnxjKtVzGptS-v/s1600/reality-blog-award1-e1357511854615.jpg" /> I've been nominated for an award by the lovely Carol Bevitt, at carol-bevitt.blogspot.fr - which is how it appears on my screen, though she's not in .fr but in .uk - the mysteries of modern science.<br />
<br />
To earn my award I have to answer some questions, so here goes:<br />
<br />
<b>If you could change one thing, what would it be?</b><br />
What, only one? In this whole world? I'll start close to home.<br />
I have an inordinate ability to put off writing when it's the one thing that gives me most satisfaction and pleasure: why do I do that? Perverse, I suppose. Like my ability to put off exercising when I know I need it for my health. Perverse again. So I think I'll just opt for changing my perversity!<br />
<br />
On a national scale, the idiocy of the House of Commons where debate is rarely any more than a bunch of bragging kids blaming the other side for getting it wrong now, or historically, but never saying, 'Well, how about if we all just discussed this rationally and came to a joint conclusion?'<br />
<br />
<b>If you could repeat an age, what would it be?</b><br />
Not sure I would: at any stage in life we are the sum of the years before, so if I went back to 25 or 35, I'd still be the same person. If you're asking when was I happiest, I don't know: what if that time hasn't come yet? Why go back, when I can go forwards?<br />
<br />
If the question means, what would I do differently, the answer is nothing - how could I, being the person I was then, without the knowledge I have now? And even knowing what I now know, would I guarantee to get it right? No - I'm human, and the choices are always innumerable. You make the decisions you make at the time, given the information you have at the time.<br />
<br />
<b>What one thing really scares you?</b><br />
Running out of money.<br />
<br />
<b>If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be?</b><br />
Well that's the joy of being a writer (when not procrastinating perversely):<b> </b>I can be anyone I want to be, any time, any day, just by writing in another character's voice. I have a cast of thousands inside me, and I can think like them, and do what they need to do, and use their words, to my little heart's content.<br />
<br />
<b>Now I have to nominate someone else's blog for the award - I may add to this list later, but for now, my nomination goes to:</b><br />
<b> </b>www.mystripybook.com<br />
©lms 2013 <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-51438187662494538372013-03-20T16:27:00.001+01:002013-03-27T17:13:22.308+01:00Innocents Abroad<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Forty years ago, Brittany Ferries started ferrying people
from Plymouth to Roscoff and back again. There was a demand in the far
south-west of England for transport to France, without having to trek all the
way across the country to the traditional Channel ports of Portsmouth,
Folkestone, or Dover. </div>
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<br /></div>
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At that time, we lived in Plymouth, and it was decided that
a week in Brittany – also known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">overseas</i>
– would be a jolly good idea. Mother’s experience of foreign travel was a
weekend taster offered by the same ferry company, undertaken by her and Father,
with no French between them beyond the words of ‘All the Nice Girls A<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">iment<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>un Matelot’,</i> which I am not totally sure wasn’t an invention of
Dad’s. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This time, there would be two of us who, in theory, knew
something about the language: my brother, being nearly three years
my senior, (allegedly) knew more than I did, but I was game. I’d been
to France before, on a geography trip undertaken in a minibus with
our teacher and her husband, whose back gave out halfway up the Massif Central;
he had to lie on the floor of the bus every night, and so was denied the thrill
of sleeping in the snow in a leaky tent. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It was a venture into the unknown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That became clear on the boat. For some reason,
the cabins had three berths each, and there were four of us: it was decided
unilaterally that the fourth ticket, with which one of us would have to share a
cabin with strangers, would go to the man of the party. So off he went, a
blazered Englishman abroad, sure of his place in the grand scheme of things. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Some squeals and a raised voice or two later, he was back. The
berth was in a cabin currently occupied by two <i>madames</i> in a state of undress.
Red-faced and horrified, he gave me to understand that it would be much better
if I were to be their overnight travelling companion. The ladies and I didn’t
exchange a single word on the whole crossing. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We had one of those big, boxy Ford Cortinas, and we hadn’t
realised how narrow the roads would be. In the Roscoff part of France, hedges
were, and still are, lacking. There was tarmac, there was field, and it would
be very easy to slip from one to the other, especially as we would be
travelling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on the wrong side of the road. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a good thing that cars in France were small and the
drivers agile (especially when making those Gallic gestures that say so much so
economically.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the stroke of twelve, shops not only closed, they pulled
down their shutters in a most unfriendly fashion: the equivalent of waving two
commercial fingers in your face, when you are a stranger in a strange land. We
spent many a two-hour-long lunchtime traipsing round empty streets, not knowing
quite what to do or where to go. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
all so very alien. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Language lessons at school hadn’t prepared us for the real
Frenchness of a platter of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fruits de mer</i>
in their original shell attire being demolished and consumed by two stout
ladies, or an ordinary man in his worker blues tucking into a plate of oysters
for lunch. At that time Vesta Curry and Chicken Chow Mein were exotic, but
oysters were swallowed alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were
way out of our comfort zone. </div>
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<br /></div>
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What’s more, men everywhere seemed to be peeing in public,
most notably over the quayside at Morlaix. It just wasn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">done</i>, in England. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s curious to look back now, as we plan another crossing
on Brittany Ferries with the same brother later this year. The boats are
bigger, classier, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cruisier</i>: the food
is French, and very good. The cabins are two or four berth, with en suite
facilities including a shower. This is always the real start of the holiday,
the beginning of the adventure, the sailing out onto the ocean wide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s only the English Channel, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Manche</i>, depending on which side you’re standing, but that
stretch of water is the dividing line that makes France French, and Britain
British. The architecture, the roads (not to mention the habit of driving on
the wrong side), the people, the food, the closing or non-closing of shops have
all developed in isolation because the sea stopped the blurring of boundaries. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wherever you start from, you are going <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">abroad. </i>You’re crossing into a foreign land, and a foreign culture.
Even the money is still different. Forget school, and just open all your senses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how many times you make
the trip, you’ve still got a lot to learn about what makes us different, and
what makes us the same: and thankfully it isn’t the sameness that’s going to stick with
you forever afterwards. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bon voyage</i>!<br />
©lms 2013</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-48670819441667025822013-02-16T11:39:00.000+01:002013-02-16T11:46:31.187+01:00A Wasteful Business<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Do you ever wonder about post-use plumbing? Do you ever
spare a thought for the journey taken by your grey water? Do you just flush and
forget? </div>
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Well, I know exactly where everything
goes, because we have a brand new drainage system. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Rural France doesn’t have mains sewerage: parts of it
are being connected up to locally centralised systems, but that costs money,
and money is in short supply. However, the various drainage inspection bodies
around the country go on looking into our domestic arrangements, and grading
them like essays. Our last house had an adequate system – that’s the equivalent
of a B-: good in parts, but needs editing. This house had an F: go away and
start again. They charge you for the privilege of undergoing this mandatory
inspection, and the cost varies according to the whim of the governing body:
anything from 80€ to 300€. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Nothing changes: there’s money in waste. Well <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>into the 20<sup>th</sup> century, there used to be a
man who collected ‘night soil’ from a special container at the bottom of your
garden, where you emptied the gazunders (the pot that goes under the bed), and
he would take it away and turn it into usable compost matter. In earlier times,
the liquid content would be collected by the lady of the house and, after 3
weeks or so in a pot in a little-visited corner of the yard, whilst no-one was looking, it would turn itself into ammonia. She
would mix this with wood ash – lye – and strain it through straw, and soak the linens
in it. She’d then go and beat the living daylights out of them in a stream,
which was just one reason why you did not drink the water. </div>
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Today, away from mains drainage, we have septic tanks. Ours
is 3000litres: it lives in a deep hole, so that only the twin covers peep over
the soil surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are pipes going
into it and out from it, as though it were the beating heart of the house and garden.
Which, actually, it is: if your toilet or your drains are blocked, everything
stops and panic ensues. You are only a flush away from domestic disaster. </div>
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The upside of having this work done, by a man with a Big
Digger, is that we now have a blank canvas of a garden. The tree roots are
gone, the remains of a chicken run discovered and removed, and nothing left to
mow. I took cuttings of the old roses that had been strangled by nettles and
brambles, all of which have rooted (to my less-than-green-fingered amazement).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He Who Does Everything Around Here, who was dreaming
of rows of onions and courgettes and beans and sundry edibles, is disappointed –
these are not to be grown in the ground within 3 metres of the soakaway which
runs under the place where the lawn used to be. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To fit into our garden this had to be done on
four 15metre lengths, so accounts for a large area. But he’ll find a way:
perhaps he could use some of those pieces of timber that lurk in the workshop for
a raised bed? It’s a man thing, it seems, to collect wood at the end of some
job, and then never use it in case it’s needed for something else. </div>
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We now know that the old system didn’t have a proper soakaway,
but that a large unexplained pipe ran across the courtyard and seems to have dumped
the contents into the lane, within a couple of metres of a well. When we were
being inspected, we never found this: but as we had to do an archaeological exploration
to unearth one tank (500litres, not emptied in 16 years), and to discover that
there wasn’t a tank at all for the other house, this isn’t surprising. Where would
you dig? Now that the new pipes have been covered up, I’m not exactly sure
where they are, and I only saw them yesterday. </div>
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However, I know they’re there, doing the job they were
created to do. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, some four years
from now, we could stand and watch our past lives pass before our very eyes as
the tank is emptied out (why do they use transparent pipes for that?); but for
now, we can be secure in the knowledge that we’ve earned an A++ this time. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now we have to plan a new garden; but we won’t be making a
big thing of the water feature.</div>
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<br /></div>
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©lms 2013</div>
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<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-33582280737840221812013-01-22T12:10:00.000+01:002013-01-27T14:16:28.765+01:00Matters Mechanical<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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My first car was a clapped-out Mini. It had lowered
suspension and alloy wheels, and was a strange shade of orange. I made all my
mistakes in that car, after passing my test and being officially allowed out on
the roads to play with the other hooligans. (He Who Does Everything Around Here
believes that I’m still a hooligan behind the wheel, but I beg to differ.) The
good thing was that, being so small, I could mess up the parking and there would always be room around me, no matter
what the angle (and I did leave a note for the owner of that car that wasn’t
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She served her purpose – she kept me out of the rain,
carried my shopping, and did the school run. She changed my life. I called her
Edna the Inebriate Mini, and I was very fond of her, right up until the day I
was preparing her for an MOT. It seemed to me that if you presented a clean,
well-cared-for looking car, it would do a lot better than an obvious heap of
junk, so I washed her and polished her, and hoovered her out – and sucked up
half the floor panel on the driver’s side. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Edna had to go to a new home, where a young man learned to
weld on her. I’m not sure what he did, but she ended up being called Barney,
and came to a final stop nose-down in a ditch. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was reminded of this the other day when I read a story
about two retired farmers (though that seems to be a contradiction in terms);
brothers – you only had to look at the nose – who fifty years ago put their
work horse out to pasture and bought a tractor. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fifty years ago means 1963. Carnaby Street, The Beatles, The
Mini, the E-type Jaguar; and in this part of France, people farming with
horsepower. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Their new tractor was a revelation. They could do everything the horse had done, at twice the
speed. They could use it for forestry, for ploughing, for harvesting. It revolutionised
their lives: and they respected it, as they had their horse. After all, without
it, and without the horse, they may as well be back in the Middle Ages. </div>
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For fifty years that machine worked their farm, whatever the
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rain and cold, but it provided the muscle, and they were grateful. </div>
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So much so, that they have celebrated its half-centenary by
giving it an overhaul. It’s been repainted, its engine sorted out, everything
made to be just as it was when it left the factory – to the tune of some 20,000
euros. </div>
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<br /></div>
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They wanted to give back something for all those years of
loyal service. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Our sheep-farming neighbour down south had to replace his
ancient Czech Zetor tractor (bought in the distant past for 700 francs) that
had carried his logs from woodland to farm and then to us, and all the feed for
his sheep, and the million and one other things he had used it for (to the
point where his doctor told him to get off and walk for the sake of his health.
He climbed onto his daughter’s bicycle instead). He went for another old
machine, because it would do what he wanted. He didn’t want to pay for a cab
and a soft seat and suspension, or shiny green paint: he just wanted an engine
to pull and carry. </div>
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The value of a thing isn’t just in the monetary worth; it
lies in its ability to do what you need it to do. When times are hard, maybe
that’s something we should rediscover. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forget
built-in obsolescence: bring back the repair man and the spare parts stockist. A
bad workman may blame his tools, but a good one will respect them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he respects them highly, maybe he’ll buy
them a 50th birthday present.</div>
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<br />
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©lms 2013</div>
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<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-50740271204944913452013-01-06T13:52:00.002+01:002013-01-06T13:56:27.715+01:00Bonne Année!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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It’s traditional at the start of the year for each commune
to hold a gathering called The Mayor’s Wishes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ours was on Friday. Everyone was notified, and
we wandered up to the Salle des Fêtes at the appointed time to meet and greet. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s rather like ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ where Aunt Ada holds
the counting, just to check that no-one’s sloped off to better things, and
escaped her Doom. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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We went in, and had to kiss everyone present twice (chaps do
the manly handshake thing) whilst wishing them ‘Bonne Année, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bonne santé’. Then we stood around for a
few minutes, chatting to all and sundry, and eventually sat at the long tables
which had been set with glasses, plates, teaspoons, napkins, and coffee cups. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Mayor started by explaining that the turnout was low, as
a lot of people are ill: gastro, bronchitis and flu are sweeping France, aided
by all the warm damp weather this winter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suddenly all that kissing and bonhomie seemed a bit foolish,
not to say downright dangerous. </div>
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<br /></div>
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She then told us all the civic news: who died, who’s been
born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The population of our commune has
dropped by 10, to 179, since the last census. (Aunt Ada Doom wouldn’t have
stood for it.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also told us about
major expenditure last year - lots of road resurfacing, and a new workshop for
the Commune Man - and what's planned for the year to come.</div>
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Once the speech had been made, it was time for the galette
des rois. This is a pastry and frangipane concoction with a hidden surprise: a fève,
or bean, rather like the sixpence in a Christmas pudding. The bean is a little
china figure, and the person who finds it is crowned king or queen for the
evening. The crown represents the one you’ll need to acquire from the dentist
afterwards, if you have been incautious. </div>
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We spent the evening talking to a couple who had been to
Scotland recently. They had eaten haggis for breakfast (though I’m sure she
told her neighbour that it was made from beef, and I really didn’t have the
heart to enlighten her), but had been aghast at the
price of food. 15 € for a single <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">plat</i>!
And the whiskey so expensive – they’d had to drink beer! The husband’s main
interest, though, was whether we’d had Christmas Pudding this year. He seemed
deeply let down when we said no. </div>
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So as the plates were filled (and refilled twice more)
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with a blunt teaspoon – try it sometime. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Our glasses were topped up regularly, possibly as there were
far fewer people present than had been catered for, with sparkling wine, and
the conversation was deafening. Last year’s wishes included a plan to sort out
the acoustics in the hall – obviously this was side-lined by road works and
workshop-erecting. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Eventually the plates were cleared away, and coffee poured: the
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<br /></div>
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At the end of the evening, we spilled out of the hall into
total darkness. The street lights go off at ten here, no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have never actually been unable to see my
hand in front of my face before: it is very unnerving. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly I understood the reason why people retired
when the sun went down, with a gazunder under the bed: how would you ever find
your way to an outside privy? Our little torch barely penetrated the black
night. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We came away glad that we had gone, if only to fly the flag:
we were the only English present. Some were on holiday, some had moved away,
and some were possibly struck down by one or all of the current maladies. I
have a copy of the Mayor’s Speech to translate for them, so they’ll get the
news without the beans, emergency dentistry, or any germs they didn’t have to
start with. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But they’ll have missed out on being made to feel part of it
all, being with friends and neighbours who are pleased to see us, even (especially?) if it’s
only once a year, and being, just for a little while, very French.</div>
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Bonne Année, et (and I mean this most sincerely) bonne santé!</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-12082179552491844772012-12-17T12:29:00.001+01:002012-12-17T12:31:56.077+01:00Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Here in our tiny village, which has a mainish road as the high street, there
are star-bursts attached to four lampposts; and there are coloured lights round
the church door and windows. The star-bursts are new this year, and when first
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One overhangs the carriageway a little too much, right on a
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about the theft of reels of the stuff from telephone companies and railway yards.
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Now, where did I put those candles?</div>
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Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-74707875248310269972012-11-23T15:26:00.000+01:002012-11-23T15:26:19.999+01:00The Unkindest Cut<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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There is a town which used to be known for the making of a
particular kind of knife. It had a high quality steel blade which folded neatly
into the bone handle. It bore the name of the town where it originated. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently I read that the name of the knife, which is also
that of the town, was bought by a businessman, and was now applied to an
entirely different product range made in the Far East and imported. The locals
are up in arms: if someone owns the name of their town, then where do they
live? They can’t (or don’t want to) put it on their addresses, as it’s a trade
name. They’d be advertising. They can’t make their own knives under their own
traditional marque, because they don’t own it anymore, so their name is now
associated with what they consider an inferior product. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Niort in the <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Deux</span><span lang="FR"> </span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Sèvres</span> was
famous for the production of slippers. Now, you can’t possibly understand the relationship
a French person has with their slippers. These aren’t just things you slip on
inside the house to ease or warm your feet at the end of the long working day in
clogs or wellies, or to preserve the parquet from your stilettos. A good pair of
slippers is to be cherished, lived in, worn in public. One elderly chap drove
one of the original silver 2CV vans to the supermarket at Vouillé every week, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>dressed in his best corduroys (even in summer)
and his navy jumper and his beret, and on his feet would be his traditional
slippers. He was a happy man from the ground up. Well, you know yourself:
unhappy feet can really spoil your day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But times change. Even the most traditional item can be made
cheaper elsewhere, so a couple of years ago the last slipper-maker in the <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Deux</span><span lang="FR"> </span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Sèvres</span><span lang="FR"> </span>closed
down. People check out the ones on the market stalls, and tut over them, and
complain about the materials and how they only last five minutes, whereas their
old pair did faithful service for ten years and more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back then, people didn’t earn much. They knew the value of
what they bought, and expected things to outlive them (which is a mean feat in
France, as I’ve mentioned before). A man bought a knife, and could hand it on
to his son: the maker might never sell another to that particular family. A chap
could go to his grave in his slippers, stepping comfortably shod into the hereafter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now people earn more money than their parents ever dreamed of
(well, I don’t: I’m a writer. I didn’t think up the story of a Boy Wizard in
time, and am therefore broke); but as the man from the former knife-making town
said, young people say they haven’t the money to plant a few leeks in the garden,
whilst texting on their mobile phones and cranking up the volume on their
mini-music devices. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s no point in making things that last. Why go to the
bother of having your old knife sharpened, and its spring replaced, when you
can buy a new one for half the cost? Why keep your slippers in pristine
condition when you can just chuck them in the bin when they look a bit grubby
and pop back to get another pair? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the traditional industries close down, and people haven’t
got any money, and they have to buy the cheap imports because they can’t afford
anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone’s been
asset-stripping, and thrown out the bit of the product they don’t need – the people
behind the name. We can have anything we want, dirt cheap: but at what cost? Ask
a Frenchman with a blunt knife and sore feet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
©lms 2012</div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-91449313199052112832012-11-12T11:07:00.002+01:002012-11-12T11:17:48.852+01:00Still wearing my other hatAnd it's live and lovely!<br />
<br />
The One Word Challenge Anthology by Talkback Writers is now available (e-format only) from:<br />
<br />
http://alfiedog.com/products-page/ebooks/one-word-anthology-talkback-writers/<br />
<br />
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00A5W0OAY<br />
<br />
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/253994<br />
<br />
There - no excuses! Get it on your Kindle, download a pdf, but please buy it!<br />
<br />
It is an amazing feeling, you know, to have your words not only published but out there in the real world <i>for sale</i>. There are previously published and hitherto unpublished writers in this anthology, but you won't see the join.<br />
<br />
I'd never written Flash Fiction until I started the One Word Challenge each month, and it's quite astonishing how much you can fit into so few words. Rather like Hemingway and his 'iceberg' style of writing, it's what lies underneath, implied, shadowed, known but hidden, that fills out the story. It's a snapshot of a moment in time, but a moment that the character has come to from somewhere, en route to somewhere else.<br />
<br />
I'm not poet, but I'd love to try, seeing what can be said by these talented writers in only 40 lines.<br />
<br />
One word, but the possibilites are endless.<br />
<br />
With many thanks to all involved with the publication - you may now relax!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-14750943759463663962012-11-06T11:48:00.000+01:002012-11-07T17:25:02.589+01:00Wearing my other hat <div class="MsoNormal">
I'm taking a step sideways today to blog about something not to do with France. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my other life I’m a writer (what do you mean, you couldn’t
tell?) and something exciting is happening there. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On November 12<sup>th</sup>, an e-book is being published: One
Word Challenge, by Talkback Writers. This is an anthology of poetry and flash fiction
written by the members of the Talkback forum of Writing Magazine (UK). The pieces
are all written in response to a monthly challenge: a word is chosen, and we
have to write about that word in any way we like, within strict limits - 40 lines of poetry, or 200 words for fiction. The winners of each month’s competition choose the next
word, and judge the entries. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have decided to bring out a collection of some of the
entries, with the intention of raising funds for a charity, inspired by a very
special little dog. This is Medical Detection Dogs. http://www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The charity trains dogs – not any particular breed, but
chosen for their intelligence and their ability to learn – to accompany people
with certain medical problems. Our little friend, Lola, lives with poet Liz, who
suffers from diabetes. Her blood sugar can drop without warning, even with all
the modern aids available. Lola, with her heightened senses, can tell when it
is about to happen and will warn Liz, so that she can take glucose and stop
herself from falling unconscious. You can read more about Lola (and Liz) here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
http://lizbrownleepoet.com/lolas-charity-to-receive-benefit-from-ebook/ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is vital work, and could help a lot of people with Liz’s
condition. The dogs can also be trained to help with other illnesses, and
possibly even to sniff out cancers. We’d very much like to help them, and so
10% of all proceeds will go to supporting them in their work. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hope some of you will think of buying the ebook ; it will be for sale through Amazon and Smashwords, but also direct from
the publisher at <a href="http://alfiedog.com/ebooks">http://alfiedog.com/ebooks</a>
where it will be 99p. I am proud to say that I have four stories in there,
which I hope you’ll enjoy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’d like to read more, there will be an article in
January’s Writing Magazine, in the shops on December 6<sup>th</sup>. https://www.writers-online.co.uk/</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Go on – that’s a good read for under a pound; and it could
help a lot more people to live normal lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-58720632480571773592012-10-27T12:37:00.000+02:002012-10-27T12:38:16.765+02:00Toussaint<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s that
time of year again: the weekly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">publicité</i>
tells us that every supermarket and garden centre everywhere is stocked to the
roof with chrysanthemums. Empty shops will open just to sell them by the pot.
Markets will have stalls dedicated to them. It’s nearly All Saints, and on that
day, November 1<sup>st</sup> – a national holiday – people everywhere will be
placing these flowers on the graves of their lost ones.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>
</div>
<u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"></span></span></u><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hallowe’en has become a new and not totally trusted event: it’s for the young. It's lost its original significance. All Saints is for
the older generations. It used to be celebrated in England, in a sombre
fashion, as an exclusively religious day. Here in France it belongs to everyone
who has someone to remember; and failing that, it's a day off work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the many
things that perplexed us since coming to France is the lack of old graves, and
indeed graveyards. Where are they all? In England, burials traditionally took
place within the churchyard; historically, disposing of the bodies and souls of
the dearly departed was the purlieu of the Church. You can walk amongst these
tombs, in various stages of upkeep, in just about any village and town.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the
Poitou, this is rare. The cemeteries are detached, often on the edge of the village,
with no religions building in sight, and on inspection, you will find nobody
commemorated from before the late 1800s. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">South of
Poitiers there is a Protestant burial ground in a forest, dating from the 17<sup>th</sup>
century. It had to be hidden away because the believers couldn’t, wouldn’t, be
buried according to Catholic rites. They were outcasts in life and death by virtue
of their religion. But that is one of the oldest sites of common people’s
graves still in existence. There will always be the grand tombs in Cathedrals
and city churches, but where were the ordinary people laid to rest? Where is
the old hallowed ground? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s missing is the sense of time, of continuation. Earlier
generations couldn’t afford engraved stones to mark their passage through history,
as was the case in England too; but there aren’t any monuments to local
lordlings or constables, either. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Brittany
there are churches with attached burial grounds, still in use. One of these, at
a tiny village near here, has an ossuary. This is a small stone building with
open sides, like a miniature market hall; and inside are jumbles of old bones. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The graves
are occupied as long as there are people to pay for their upkeep. Once this lapses, a notice will be attached to the headstone, warning that if
there is no contact from the relatives of the deceased within a certain time,
the plot will be cleared and made available to someone else. It’s a
pragmatic approach. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With the publicité for shellfish, and wine events, and
chrysanthemums, that comes to the mailbox every week courtesy of La Poste,
there will often be a leaflet advertising funerary monuments. Look at our range
of stone! Look at our carving! Want your loved one’s name in Gothic script,
picked out in gold? Easy terms available! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You can have
your place in history for as long as there’s someone to remember and to care: which,
when you think about it, is the simple truth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps fame
should be measured in chrysanthemums. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">©</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">lms 2012</span></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-26277663108185674542012-09-07T16:58:00.000+02:002012-09-07T22:04:47.865+02:00If Music Be the Food of Love<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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What did history sound like? </div>
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<br /></div>
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I can hear something working on a farm somewhere; I can hear
a motorbike, the occasional jet, passing tractors and grain lorries. It’s
tempting to think that history was quiet in comparison.</div>
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It wasn’t. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Every year in <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Quintin</span> there is a celebration of the linen industry that made this
part of Brittany important. During the<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> f</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">ê</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">te</span>, it’s possible to wander lanes that
are usually hidden behind closed doors.
These were the poor, dark houses where women twisted the threads into a yarn on
a hand-held spindle. They would sit outside as often as possible, in heat and
cold, just for the light. There would have been several women, with their children
around them, chatting, singing, working their fingers for hour upon hour. </div>
<br />
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</div>
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We went for a walk (and lunch, naturally) yesterday at Ile
Grande, on the<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> C</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">ô</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">te</span> de Granit Rose. It’s a peaceful place. The tide was out,
the seabirds wheeled, and the masts of beached boats chinked in the easterly
breeze. It’s so easy to think that it was always like this, but it wasn’t. This
little island was riddled with stone quarries. In the 14<sup>th</sup> century,
stone from here built <span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Tréguier</span>
Cathedral. Right up until the 19<sup>th</sup> century stone was taken out on
barges, loaded at low tide and floated out when it was deep enough to do so.
Men worked with hammers and chisels at the rock in all weathers, and the island
would have resounded with their rhythmic tapping. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Animals lived close to the farms – inside the longhouses, in
the winter months. There would have been axes chopping trees and wood, the
slow turning of soil. This would have been no silent countryside, but a place of
agricultural industry day in, day out. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Times may have changed, but the past can be heard, all over Brittany – in the music. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Breton music echoes the rhythms of the workers who sang the
simple songs as they spun their thread, or as they sat at the end of the day
with the endless tapping of metal on stone still inside their heads. It’s often
a sort of question and answer form – a theme played on one instrument, repeated
on another. In the same way, a woman might sing a few lines, and her neighbour
copy her, along the hidden lanes and back again. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There are bagpipes here, but they are nothing like the
Scottish ones: even though they were really only introduced in the early 19<sup>th</sup>
century, they have come to sound like Brittany, and at any <span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">f</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">ê</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">te</span> you can almost
guarantee a bagadou – a band of pipers and drummers walking through the streets.
The cornemuse as depicted in medieval church grotesque sculpture is an early
form, and far closer in sound to the Breton version than to Scottish pipes. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The main instrument, though, is the bombarde – the thing
that looks like a clarinet, and sounds medieval. When you hear Breton music
played by a small band of men and women, with a drum, a violin, and a bombarde,
you hear it in your feet. You want to dance. You know the tune after a couple
of verses, and you hum along. </div>
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There are so many fêtes in Brittany, all through the year,
all with their own history to honour – linen weavers, onion growers, horse
traders, fishermen. At every one of them, you will have the old music and the
dancing of people in costume; black based, heavily embroidered jackets (and it
was often the men who did the embroidery), lace head-dresses. There are clubs
where you can learn the steps, in many towns and villages. </div>
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I don’t know what it is: the Celt ancestry? The working day,
the need to get through by any means possible, whilst counting the hours in
verses? The hills, where you can’t see the next clustered farm, and each one
was a little hamlet all to itself? </div>
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History sounds like toes tapping, hands clapping, and a
bombarde, piercing, slightly raucous, and heart-stirring, as a band passes
through a stone-built street. It’s the sound of the people who worked with
their hands and their backs, and who still had a need and the time for music. </div>
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It’s a question and an answer in the same song: yesterday and today. It’s Brittany.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-31741546281785426292012-09-01T17:03:00.004+02:002012-09-01T17:10:53.775+02:00La Rentrée<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s September 1<sup>st</sup>, and someone has turned the
sun off. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The schools go back on Tuesday; the shops are full of mothers trying to decide which really is the best calculator,
and not the one Child wants because Best Friend has the same model. The mannequins
in the clothes stores are wearing wool and raincoats and boots. The colours
have turned dark. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
July was wet and ruined the tourist trade’s balance sheets.
Now, you have to wonder at people not coming to Brittany because it was
raining. If you are going to choose the far north-west of France, the bit that
sticks out into the Atlantic, for your main holiday of the year, you know to
bring your umbrella. Apparently the financial squeeze made people demand more
for their money: sunshine, or the deal’s off. It rained; they stayed at home
and sulked. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I never really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">got </i>the
French <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grandes vacances</i> until this
year. Down south, where half the time we huddled behind closed shutters,
fanning ourselves and mopping our brows with wet flannels, we didn’t really see
any tourists. They were either at the beach, near La Rochelle, or in private
villas with pools. The roads remained quiet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here there are beaches a-plenty, and events organised for every
day of the week. There are music festivals – Les Grandes Charrues, which draws
people like Bob Dylan, and 180,000 spectators, and Le Petit Village, a couple
of kilometres from here, where they have all manner of French artists. 8000
people turned up, and we never heard a thing. Sea-shanty festivals at the
coast, rock, pop, punk, folk, jazz , classical – it’s all here. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">son et
lumières</i> at ruined abbeys like Bon Repos, and night-time hikes. There’s
walking chest-high through the water across the Bay of St Brieuc. There are
cycle races, and old car races. Our next village had a speed trial and hill climb
round the fields of maize and up the roads and through the farms. (We didn’t
hear that either.)This weekend there is a vintage car race round St Brieuc
itself – Model T Fords and Porsches and anything in between. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been an amazing summer. It’s been so hot that I
couldn’t sit up here under the roof to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ve lived in shorts and tee shirts, which we never did down south,
where covering up was the name of the game. I even dug out my swimsuit. (Rather
like having a wasp in the room, I like to know where it is. I may not do
anything about it, but I feel one should keep one’s enemy in the sights.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, I am back in cardigan, long trousers, and a scarf to
keep my neck warm. It’s as though the weather’s giving a nudge to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rentrée</i>, a little kindness to say that
it’s time to stop playing now, and get back to work and school. Our Parisian
neighbours had a wonderful month, with lots of visitors staying, getting fit
and tanned and happy. They went back last weekend, in the rain. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So now Brittany is ours again. There are still foreign cars
around – English, German, Belgian, and some from other <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">départements</i>, but in the next few weeks, they will wander off home,
too. The beaches will be empty though the sea will be warm; no-one will be
there to see me in my swimsuit, should I be so brave as to put it on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There will still be music: this is Brittany , and music is
what we do. There will be more festivals all through the year, whatever the weather,
because there always have been. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It feels like the end of something. It feels like the start
of Autumn. Now it’s time for the ones who are left behind, when the tourists
fade away, to make the most of what we’ve got, just for ourselves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bright, noisy, excited visitors have left us, and we
will sit back and enjoy the quiet once more.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe I’ll just tuck the swimsuit back into its drawer. It
wouldn’t be fair to disturb the peace. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I wouldn’t want to make it rain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">©</span>lms 2012</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9055540194068348056.post-80095556782797880902012-07-13T15:49:00.000+02:002012-07-17T17:32:41.551+02:00Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Brasserie<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here in the land of milk and honey (well, cider and crêpes), it’s amazing how many pizza
restaurants there are. They’re obsessed with pizza here. Maybe it’s a sort of cousin of the crêpe – fast food of a floury sort
with a filling of your choice. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we have been out spending huge amounts of cash on
kitchen fitments, or plaster board, or any of that DIY essential collection
with which the working man likes to surround himself, we occasionally find
ourselves away from home at lunchtime. In the shopping complex which houses the
biggest <i>bricolage</i> store, there is also a pizzeria, where we sometimes drop in for lunch. Imagine
our disappointment when the last time we went, it was closed for refurbishment
– it’s being renamed and turned into another pizzeria. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So we climbed into the car (He Who Does Everything Around Here
having the taste of pepperoni so close and yet so far) and headed for the next
one along the road, only to find it was full. Everyone else, driven by
deprivation, had headed in the same direction. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We ended up in a bar-<span lang="FR">brasserie</span> attached to a supermarket, where all the workers go to
eat. This is a guarantee of good food, by the way – so if in doubt, eat like
the French White Van Man. (That ought to translate as Homme de Van Blanc, but we’ll
gloss over that.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the frantic atmosphere of shouted orders and whizzing
waitresses, while we awaited our lunch (not pizza), we looked around. There
were the working men with their plates piled high and their carafes of rosé wine (it’s summer: real men do
drink pink) enjoying a good hour’s conviviality with their colleagues. A second
carafe replaced the first, and they ate and chatted and eventually went out
into the rain for a smoke. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This happens a lot: diners leave the table en masse, and
then come back for a dessert and a coffee. They are trusted not to do a runner
without paying the bill. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The thing is that as of July 1<sup>st</sup>, every car has
to be equipped with 2 self-test breathalyser kits. Really you need one, but if
you use one, then you have none, so you have to have two to make sure you have
one. (Do keep up.) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The idea is that, if you have partaken of a few bevvies with
your lunch or dinner, you can test your suitability to get behind the wheel of
your chosen vehicle, and can stop yourself, and say, No, I have had too much to
drink. I will spend some of my hard-earned cash on a taxi, leave my car in this
rather dodgy car park, and come back for it when I am sober. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, thinking of the chaps who lunched, and have lunched
that way every day of their working lives, I wonder: at what point are they
going to think, when they have never thought before, that they may have had
more than is wise? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you attend any country market, you’ll find the local bar
busy, well before lunchtime, and frequently before breakfast time, with men
(and it is mostly men) knocking back a glass of marc, or a beer. There is a
story that in some regions market stall holders will have a bowl of French
onion soup on a winter’s morning, and will wash the bowl out with a glass of
red wine in which they will dip their bread. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will they reach for the self-test kit? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if they do, have they got one (or two)? The shops had
sold out long before the date when the law applied. The police can stop you and
fine you 30 euros on the spot if they find you less than fully equipped. If you
are a foreign person on holiday here, you have until November to comply, except
that the police in general do not know this, and will fine you anyway. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wonder if the kits have a use-by date; and being of a
frugal race, will a French driver get within two days of this, and think, I’d
better use it before it goes off, and find that all his life he has been
drink-driving? He’s more likely to think the kit has failed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In much the same way as you can take a horse to water but
you cannot make it drink, you can take a Frenchman to a bar-<span lang="FR">brasserie</span> for lunch but you cannot make him
test his alcoholic intake. Lunch and a
glass of wine – it’s written into the Constitution, surely?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
©lms 2012</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Lorraine and Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02465762588968278566noreply@blogger.com1