life in the Limousin

Another week another car crisis.
I don’t know if Alfie just has a really bad energy about him but following on from his ‘incident’ of a couple of weeks ago when he buried his car in a ditch other vehicle related events have occurred. – and not good ones.
The first happened about a month ago, when he borrowed the keys for the tipper truck to go and take a bed to his new house. Somehow he managed to lose the key between the van which he parked in the drive and the back door and meant that after extensive searches of houses/cars/bars/gardens that had been visited later in the evening in case it had been left in a pocket and lost later on, Donald was called to the rescue and after some trickery with a drill and a screwdriver – which we now use as our new key, it was back on the road again. This is good, not only because there were some oak doors 240m wide which needed picking up from Lapeyres but also because it’s the only thing that will pull the trailer that moves the mini-digger - which Denis managed to bring back from the dead the week before when the hoses ‘went’.
The second involved he and Matt coming back from work last week at lunchtime. After about 10mins of chatting Alfs set off to drive the van back to his place to meet Amber but 2 mins later he was back in the house.
‘What’s the matter with the clutch’, he asked, which seemed an odd question given that they’d both driven in it 10 minutes earlier when it was fine.
Matt went out to look and it had ‘completely gone’ ( I think those were the words), which as the Trafic is the only reliable vehicle we have left came as a major disappointment.
It was quickly shipped off to Denis who can fix anything and luckily it turned out to be only a small leak of clutch fluid, which was a result! Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, whilst they were driving back from Denis’, with him driving the van and Matt following in his BM I had a call from Matt’s mobile.
‘Has Denis arrived yet?’, he asked. I went to the front and saw him getting out of the van.
‘Yes’ I answered ‘he’s just turned up’.
‘Good’, Matt said. ‘Could you ask him to come back to the bottom of the road and tow me back – the car’s just blown up’……….and it really has irretrievably died, but lucky that it did so with a mechanic there on hand and just a few hundred metres from home.
So, because the head gasket went on the Mini months ago and I can’t afford to get it changed ( average time to change one with a normal car 8hrs……with mine an extraordinary 23hrs) it means that we’re all travelling round like a pikey family in the van until we find a replacement.
Ebay it was then and after 2 days of almost continuous reading up on and comparing of cars we have found a LHD one in England which seems a good deal. Luckily Denis’ step son is driving back to England on Sunday so Matt is going over with him and making his way to Luton on Monday – where resides our new vehicle. I’ve booked the ferry back and a hotel room in Calais for Monday night and the two come to 80€. I found them on aferry.fr. If you go to the tabs at the top and press ferry+hotel it takes you to another website and the price of the crossing is substantially less. It was only 28€ for a one way ticket with car, which is about half the price it is on the original website. I don’t even think that you have to book the hotel with it either.
We’ve never bought anything mechanical on Ebay before and it is a bit of a risk, especially when you know nothing about cars or what you should be looking for/asking but hopefully everything will go smoothly. With our luck with cars what could possibly go wrong?
Anyway when this is what you see everyday when walking the dog who cares about cars….

Well autumn arrived some time late last week and the night time fires and morning frosts serve as timely reminders that the long hot summer has finally come to a close and the endless days of cutting, chopping, carrying and stacking wood are here to stay for the next few months when trying to stay warm becomes the imperative.
If the weather hadn’t changed there could have been little doubt that autumn had well and truly arrived, in our neck of the woods anyway, heralded in, as it was, in true Limousin fashion with a discordant cacophony of banging, clattering and trumpeting courtesy of the Champagnac la Riviere Fanfare which announced the annual seasonal bacchanalia which is the pork and cider fest.
The last one felt as if were only yesterday, which is both a good and a bad thing. Bad for obvious reasons - if you’ve ever been to one - and good because it meant that the memory of last years event was still fresh when, mid dodgy sausage sandwich, we had espied a Dutch fish and chip van which we hallmarked for this year and so this time cut to the chase, speed walking straight past the andouillette griddle and metres of bubbling boudin frothing away in gigantic vats. Luckily as it was lunctime and most of the stall owners were sitting down at their Decathlon folding picnic tables they weren’t ready to wield a fish slice anyway but the Dutch van, with it’s anglo saxon m.o. was up and ready for business. There was a french man standing at the table there eating a plate of fish and chips which makes him possibly the first French person I’ve seen in 16 years over here to eat something blatently foreign in a public place ( pizza not included). Obviously he wasn’t from around these parts or he wouldn’t have been tucking in so nonchalently - knowing as he would that there would be recriminations and finger pointing.
We left the kids to play with their friends and came home for a couple of hours only to return later for an apple beignet, our dessert of tradition, and to try and lure them back home to no avail so we walked around for a while looking at the vide grenier with Kevin and Moraig, who we met there, and their very sweet baby who slept the whole time completely oblivious to the marching band or the vocal musak of some man on microphone whose voice boomed from speakers dotted the length of the village, about something no one could understand. By that time the place was heaving and the bar by the apple press far too busy to try and go and redeem the entry ticket for a free glass of apple juice so we had a glass of hot wine instead. Moraig took a photo of some bizarre looking gourds whilst I waited for a photo opportunity that would encapsulate the unique spirit of the event and returned with nothing - which may say more.
When Matt went to pick the the kids up at 6.30pm they were at Antonin’s house feeding baby goats from a bottle but Matt was in no rush as he was busy watching Dominique Janniere trying to stuff a pig into the back of a Mercedes. As he’s living in the bourg and doesn’t have much in the way of a garden I think that it may be a one stop shop to the abattoir for that pig. Mathilde’s grandma also won a pig that she doesn’t know what to do with. If only they had been introduced. Alfie was also spotted there buying up boudin at 1€ a pop. If blood sausage is your thing it’s definitely the place to be and be seen. It probably goes without saying that we were exhausted come night time following the days events and unfortunately neither of us slept that well - but then there are some things the human mind just won’t ever be able to process.

Matt went over to England yesterday afternoon to see his mum after she fell and broke her collar bone. It was a last minute unscheduled visit booked on Tuesday.
‘You may as well see him anyway’, he said of the rendez vous we had lined up this morning with a new accountant, and as I do the books anyway I agreed that he didn’t need to be here – although he is definitely the talker in the relationship and can cover a pregnant pause like no one else I know. Not that there is ever any likelihood of a pause of any nature when talking with to someone French.
At 10.00am a 6ft 7inch Peter Mandelson lookalike turned up on the doorstep and didn’t leave until 1.40pm. I’ve never been so exhausted (or hungry) in all my life. I’d actually stopped listening and had glazed over after about 35 minutes but, in the name of professionalism, feigned an obviously far too believable interest in the subject. Alfie popped in from a morning of concreting at 12.30pm with two slices of bread and a tiny tin of paté. In a misguided attempt to show what a great mother I am I offered him the stew which was on the stove which I’d earmarked for myself and had been eyeing up for at least half an hour waiting for Mandy to get a move on with his flow charts. Luckily by the time he eventually went I’d lost the will to eat.
Bi-lingual as he was we started in French but after a couple of hours I can only describe the drivel I was coming out with as something approaching speaking in tongues - and that isn’t a euphemism. He seemed to be missing the point that the reason people pay for an accountant is because they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in spending even one moment more than necessary studying figures, charts and calculations.
‘What we try to do’, he tried optimistically, ‘ is to train and empower you to run your own business successfully and to rely on yourself rather than us’. For that read - you do all the work yourself and then pay us at the end of the year.
That was a wasted 3 and a half hours then.

We have endured a few very sad and painful days since Roz last blogged. As “Sunday Alan” mentioned we lost our wonderful horse Amber last Thursday. She has been Roz’s partner in many exhilarating and challenging events over the last 25 years, such as cross country, mounted police branch hunter trials, she even hunted once I think ( after a stuffed fabric rabbit) and together they have covered most of the pubs in Surrey. Amber once bought Roz home slumped across the saddle after one too many scrumpy jacks I believe. ( actually, I have since been advised this happened many more times than once! It was all off road stuff obviously) Suffice to say they were a perfect match for each other and though incredibly sad, Roz can still appreciate how lucky she was to have had such a wonderfully natured horse.

As one door closed another four opened as one of our broody hens delivered us four chicks out of seven eggs. Not bad going. Duke, our dashingly attractive cockerel who sports fully feathered fluffy legs is unmistakably responsible for these offspring, as they too have bright yellow trousered legs. The little bundles of yellow that scamper in and out, under, over and around their mum look faintly ridiculous with this early seventies fashion accessory but no doubt they will grow into fine birds and if Duke is anything to go by they should be a good size for the table too. We know our pal “Sunday Mel” is gagging to get out to see them. (Have a safe trip guys and see you at the weekend)

Roz has been making chilli and tomato chutney today which has seen us pick the last of the tomatoes ( since been advised that this is nonsense too as there are still tons of toms to pick) but the chillies are still going great guns. Things are winding down a bit on the home produce front but if our plan of poly tunnel erection gets to be any thing other than a plan we could be increasing our growing season vastly next year. I have it planned in to get the digger working on the site at the beginning of October so hopefully we will have it up before the clocks go forward.

Louis went back to school this morning, so with Etienne back yesterday that’s two mornings of having to get up at 7am in a row. What a shocker. It’s really putting paid to the post midnight tv viewing but more horrific still I’d forgotten just what an assault it was when they get home and are both waving their Carnets de correspondance in front of me at the same time with lists of things to sign, forms to fill, stuff to buy and homework requests. The last is well past my remit and has been since they were in maternelle. For some reason Matt manages to avoid any of this stuff on the grounds that his writing’s illegible and that he was crap at school so from 4.30pm until bedtime the night for me is the equivalent of their school day except that I’m the dinner lady too. I’d forgotten how shocking the transition from quiet day to tumultuous night was. In fact as I type this there is a pile of about 20 forms to fill in ( and I’m sure I’ve already done most of them atleast once anyway) requiring details, all of which need finding, such as social security number and address, date of last tetanus jab, number for the insurance each child has to have, address and phone number of the family’s médicin traitant, blood group, people to contact in case of an accident including someone leftfield if no one else is available……as well as the easy questions such as date of birth which, worryingly, I have to sit and think about for a good 10 seconds each time. I can barely remember my own. Luckily as school won’t be starting properly until Monday the homework is sparse. Only Louis has some this evening and that is to commit to memory the list of things necessary to avoid getting Grippe A ( swine flu). I’m sure they’d like to add closing Limoges airport to the list although it hasn’t yet gone that far but does make a plea for those without a mouchoir to sneeze into their elbow. Don’t ask.
Anyway for all of the above reasons, ie; my evening is no longer my own, I’ll call this a day and just put on a few photos from the holiday which seems oh…..ever so distant now!
This one is of a small island we visited down south towards Marseille called Martigues. It’s known locally as Little Venice because of the abundance of canals and bridges and , although for some reason the one photo I took shows the contrary, most of the boats harboured were in even worse repair than the old nail we own and which has never yet seen water - despite Matt having taken his permis at Lac Vassiviere about 3 years ago. We really felt that we could settle down there if we were to move down south - and there was also the extra lure of the giant petro-chemical plant just kilometres away. Here is a photo of the small church where every wall was covered in trompe d’oeil, just next to the restaurant we ate at where the chips were sprinkled with not only sea salt but also lavender, which doesn’t taste as weird as it probably should.

After the best part of a month of visitors we can say it’s been a wonderful time but we are probably ready to have a break from the break if you get my drift!. When your friends are on holiday they do the sort of thing you’d expect of relaxing holidaymakers. Late mornings, late brunches, lounging in the sunshine ( fortunately) and cracking the first bottle of Rose mid afternoon leading to balmy boozy evenings watching the sun set. This was lovely to see but however much I reminded people that actually we were not on holiday and that we still had to work, inevitably we got drawn into their holiday regime which resulted in a 25 minute working day for me and being sloshed before dusk most days. Fun, but not a sustainable way of life for us or our livers. Clearly there is nothing to report on the progress front.

This pleasant distraction did have some lovely consequences as it gave us time to fiddle about with stuff we normally struggle to fit into our agenda Late summer has brought some very impressive blackberries of which we have had good fun gathering and made very tasty jam. The pears this year are superb and we have our usual crop of delicious apples, mostly rotting on the floor at the moment but preserving some is a near future operation. The tomatoes have also been very productive and we have a small basket of ripe fruit most days and Rozzy very successfully sundried one crop which taste marvellous. Roz also made a couple of gallons of elderberry wine which smells fantastic and our shelves are brimming with chutneys, jellies and jams. I also collected, with our friends help, a large basket of hazelnuts which, though small, are very flavourful. It’s a very satisfying and motivating time of year and I feel compelled to get some beer on the go so that’s tonight’s project.

Roz is back in the UK at the moment trying to put together a store of pennies for the winter. She’s there for over three weeks this time and I’m missing her already