The chicken whisperer

So I am contemplating hiring P out as a chicken whisperer, this task will not include naming chickens for his clients.  Yes they’re here.

Those of you on FB will know recognise Jeff and Vera, except that they are now Bleep and Booster. Jeff was P's  momentary flirtation with one the main characters  (the dead one) in Randall and Hopkirk Deceased (forgive him he was only 9 when the first one was released and we were still bedazzled by colour TV).  So I had to come up with a suitable girl’s name which couldn’t be Jeanie (the heroine) because my mother’s name is Jean and we have had this discussion about not having relatives names in case one day one of them (the chickens) has to have it’s neck rung. Lamely I arrived at Vera since the only Jeff I knew with a female partner, Janet, and that should be with John except that is one of my brother's name and we are back to neck wringing and and and and …However the chemistry was lacking  every time we came to shout it I couldn’t remember them at all and P kept coming out with every name but Jeff.  So they got the last collective Proper nouns as above and we seem to have coped. There was never meant to be a male as those of you gripped and immersed in the previous story will remember P suffers from EDES or to give it it’s clinical name embryonic dippy egg syndrome.

Their arrival has not been without difficulty.. Last time I said we were having terrible trouble sourcing any chickens due to the “maladie desastre” which gave the chickens camel humps then they died. Well I had wondered about the lost in translation possibility and it turns out that SW France has the worst outbreak of chicken flu for, I think it is about 15 years. P read this on the internet whilst I was in the UK, one day after one of his Sharman’s away let’s go crazy moments which manifested itself as ordering chickens on line which come in the post from Normandy. Hell he could have been really mad and ordered Bennett

So like expectant parents we eagerly awaited our new charges who came in a pyramid shaped box with the top cut off, that’s the box not the chickens. 

3 days in an ancient Egyptian burial tomb shaped box in the dark creates a bond that can never be severed and they have never been apart since, in fact, sitting outside the pound (do I have a subliminal desire for a dog?)  in a get to know your chickens session I spilled me tea when Booster jumped Bleep in the long grass.  There have been moments when we thought that we should have called them Derby and Joan. They keep very regular hours and if we turn up a little late, though far from even vaguely dusk, they are already tucked up in the corner of the chicken house with the air of “what time do you call this”.

The avian flu thing has meant we have had to register our two birds at the Mairie for statistical purposes, we are the downward bulge in the bell curve. We turned up at the same time as Madame Supreveille, at least that’s what we think her name is. She has the farm next to us and was regaling us about one branch of her family who have had to lay off 10 workers who are employed to look after their ducks and prepare foie gras. Whilst not a great fan of the stuff and the farming techniques surrounding its production the impact on families and their livelihoods is very sad. 60% of the foie gras is exported to China and they have cancelled all exports. So they reel like the UK beef industry did when the world reacted to Mad Cows disease.  Mme Supreveille was in the doldrums contemplating what to do with her ducks, which are not numerous and not ill. 

She then brightened a little at the thought of casserole, pot au feu etc. until

we entered the Mairie when we began to wonder if Monsieur le Maire  was in tune with his electorate:

“Ah oui,  enregistrer les canards” accompanied by a laugh followed by a machine gun strafing sound and action followed by a

“Aha …les pigeons,  BOOM BOOM” accompanied by a shot gun take upward aim and shoot action .

Followed by an imaginary “Thwack, Thwack”, as Madame Supreveille knocks him to the ground with her imaginary handbag and stamped his official stamp "ou le soleil ne brille pas"

Bleep and Booster are not the only new arrivals. We have the constant baby blue tit “meep meep” in the first bird box that P put up. I have become expert on the taking of photographs of manic blue tit parent bottoms. Comme ca! (Said with upward inflection). 

 And equally expert in the taking of blurred flights to collect the take out. Comme ca! (mumbled with downward inflexion).

Then there is the Confederation of Swallows (SW France branch) annual reunion which takes place in our barn on the drying rack above the freezer and the washing machine which makes perfect surfaces to compare target practice. It is louder than a Women's Institute Handbag Tony Blair session. 

And hot off the press P has been so enamoured by the chickens that, he thought I would like another two so we have Pekin Bleu arriving soon. 

I am a little worried about the amount of conversation he is having with them when it leads to comments like:

"Damn I forgot the blue seed for the bird tits".

Wyandotte? Why Not?

The des res for the chickens is ready and we have transported it to it's location which means out of the barn, across the front of the house, 400 yards across the garden to its site.  It has been a source of dissension for the Doublavays.  We are both quite self reliant people and do not wish to ask for help but do I look like I can lift the equivalent of 4 pallets in bijou form even if we take the nest boxes off. So the local builder's wife...she of total adoration of P's building skills  has offered her husband's fork lift for the job...along with her husband. P is adamant we don't need to if I can just help him load it onto the trailer.  I don't think I have to offer him in return. I lost and this was our modus operandii

I can't imagine what the neighbours thought.

And there we were all set to go 

but it turns out according to our builder's wife friend who is helping us source the chickens, the one of the P adoration, that the lady from whom we were to get our chickens has had a very bad case of the disease that camels carry. I kid you not and did ask her to repeat the statement in which all the words desastre, dromaderie, chamel, mort and maladie occurred. Consequently no chickens. I think we are a bit early but we cannot source the ones we want from anywhere. Mrs Builder's wife has offered to have babies for us...Bantam Pekin as they are what she rears but we will have to wait until June.  That's fine as we did want some of these too but our other desire was the Wyandotte. We can't even get them on the internet and I did fancy the experience of receiving live chickens in the post. We will keep you erm...posted.

Dooblavay domestic strife has been a bit of theme as it has also occurred whilst painting. St P “Martyr of Our church of the Streak Free Wall” gets anxious when his mere follower of a wife offers to help, the badgers run for cover at the replacement hairs they will have to provide for those that have just fallen out of his brush which noticeably shakes as I take the screwdriver to the paint tin lid.

A feature wall of raspberry pink using the Crown Period Colour Tudor Rose and remaining walls to be cream which the lady in Monsieur Uno’s assured us was cream actually gave us a room akin to a packet of Dolly Mixtures, being closer to a deep red and a pale yellow.

Yellow is our bogey colour…I have a lovely pale yellow hall and landing with white wainscoting which took a number of attempts to achieve. The first tin we used which we thought was the same as the other two (it’s a big space) and why wouldn’t you because it was in the same column on the same shelf on the same row down the same aisle with the same price WAS NOT THE SAME and made you feel like you had walked inside a bottle of Sunny D. On entering our house visitors would have had to read the safety card “If you treasure your retinas do not look directly at the walls else keep your fake Ray Bans primed.

Back in our pink room, France is the only country to offer paint mixing and volume estimation on the school curriculum, so by the time they are adults les Francais can take a tub of white and add colour from a tube and Voila……….When in France,  I head for my laboratory which doubles as a scullery, determined to please. I take the red first and give a hint of white – no just using teaspoon measures in an old ice-cream tub TA DA …flamingo pink. And now for the yellow…it’s nearly Easter if Jesus can turn water into wine I’m sure I can turn yellow into cream.  A hint of white to yellow and lo there was …………..LEMON.

Hang on the previous incumbents of the property left some tins of posh Craig and Rose gold paint. I can do this for the cream at least. Stir the paint first before taking a sample. That’s strange I am not stirring vigorously, none has poured over the top on to the work surface, what’s going on. Lifting the tin reveals a running drip, onto the work surface, I clamp the tin back down and lift it again…you know how you do to double check that the disaster you thought was unfolding in front of your eyes IS unfolding in front of your eyes, across the work surface, over the edge across and into the white fronted drawers, onto the floor. Bang goes the tin back down and I dash for a.. a.. a.. a.. a.. a.. a.. a.. dinner plate. Yes a dinner plate and and.. and.. and.. and.. and..more ice cream tubs.  I wasn’t in the brownies for 6 months for nothing you know. And so I spend the next half an hour scooping, spooning, ladling and then pouring paint into pistachio flavour, raspberry ripple and Madagascan vanilla tubs. The return to my experiment – gold with a leetol beet of white makes ……………  MUSTARD.

When I return upstairs P has continued with the yellow anyway and I relate the disaster to him at which point he asks why I didn’t call for help, meanwhile the second coat of paint we are compromising and calling pinkyred which, he applied an hour ago is drying streaky. We both fume quietly and privately and we are living with it for now.

A very kind friend has suggested that with the right soft furnishings it will look good and we have been brave in our thinking outside the tin with those colours. With that in mind and some of you will know this, on account of my technological error sending a message meant for one person to half the universe, I have dug out an article from Ideal Home, November 2003 edition, don’t mock I knew it would come in useful sometime, which shows just the type of curtains I think will be sympatico.   The web site has a “contractors heading” so I have e-mailed them to ask whether they have a special service for the individual, colour illiterate customer.  I note however that they are based in Bourton on the Water which means the material will probably be the same price as one of the peasant hovels on the nearby Highrove Estate which is rented out to one of the erm…peasants called Jacintha or Algernon for a future King’s ransom. The rent agreement probably comes with a sub clause about having to consume four jars of quince jelly every month.

And on a final ranting note ...if you decide to follow a tip on using a quilt to make a soft window seat cushion just be mindful of the fact that you cannot I repeat CANNOT siphon 1 million feathers from a 1 cm slot into a bag and you will spend 2 days hoovering and 3 days washing the wool jumper you were wearing at the time.  I can only put my madcap flight of fancy down to the truly spectacular fall  as I attempted to plant myself head first in front of the lunchtime audience and ski lift operators after a successful completion of a black run...just because I was obeying the rule to slow down and couldn't.

Bonne Paques 

Philippe, Whilippe, sur, sûr, potato, potaato

Bonjour my little chipirons ,

Oui I agree it has been a long time, beaucoup des gaves sous the pont as they may say in the Bearn Patois. Tempting tho’ it is to furnish you with a brief synopsis of blogs that should have been I do not wish to bore you rigid, first time round this was the Freudian typo – frigid..appropriate when I started to write this on St Valentine’s Day, I thought.

Why now? Well I couldn’t let the moment pass without saying goodbye to the circumflex. Yes the Academie Francaise which rules on all things lingual in France has decided to banish it. A welcome move for those who do not sign language and who have been misunderstood for millennia (well since about 1740) because the sometimes there is no difference in pronunciation e.g.  “sur” -> on  and “sûr” ->  certain. For more detail:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35496893

And if you haven’t the time – it seems to boil down to monks feeling guilty about sloppy diction and so the loss of letters like S – “Pity ...INIT BRO”.

From Academie Francaise we move effortlessy to the opposite end of the spectrum culturally when yesterday whilst at the market in Navarrenx we tried to teach P’s personal cheesemonger, Marion, to say “Tighter than a duck’s arse”, I started it with “short arms and deep pockets” and he just had to lower the tone. It was in response to her recommendation for a café at a café round the corner which was “pas plus cher”. She knows more than one way to charm a Yorkshireman. The French saying is “Tonder des oeufs” which literally means  “To shear eggs”.

Anyway no such angst at the attrition of a noble language for P who, whilst understanding all that is said to him by our Gallic friends continues, through modesty primarily, to struggle to articulate his thoughts and desires. Not that this is a hindrance; he has Marion’s telephone number in case he has a cheese emergency , at any village repas the ladies of the parish have this overwhelming desire to feed him up and make sure he is well tended and the wives of the village mayor and builder swoon like Sleeping Beauty on account of our latest project.

Oh Philippe, Mon Dieu,  c’est superbe (no circumflex….never was). And his fame is spreading as we receive a request from a friend of a friend in the metropolis that is Sauveterre who has requested that her French husband come to see what P has built. Note the nesting box at the side

Not unlike Saint Valentine I have been at risk during this cause, though he was the patron saint of chocolate and martyred because he wouldn’t reduce the amount of cocoa solids in his Nipples of Venus (I think that’s true) my downfall is likely to be eggs.  

We are moving into the final stages of preparation for les poules which is the run, I find myself on the end literally of a 2.5 metre pole which is being split down the middle using a circular saw  which the previous inhabitants left us in the garage

This piece of kit is to me, what the furnace in the basement was to Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone” and I have similar trepidation when it comes to our hydraulic log splitter which according to the runaway best selling author  Lars Mytting is only used by tough old timers when they reach the age of 95.....

I digress, my job is JUST to hold the wood steady at one end. P commences feeding the jagged toothed beast, at first I feel like the fodder in a medieval trebuchet, if the physics goes wrong I am likely to be catapulted over his head to either hit double tops on the dartboard or discover whether the beams are fit for purpose as I sit astride one. As the sawing progresses I am drawn inexorably towards the jaws of death which start to “fulminate” with blue smoke, no worries, methinks that’s just friction.  P stops to allow for cooling off and a slurp of tea. We are a third of the way but resumption finds the blade refusing to spin on account of the pole not wanting to be split asunder (now I see the point of physics).  So we return to trebuchet formation starting at the other end of the pole and whilst concentrating on not having "mi skin nipped" between what is now two bits of wood I miss the aroma of burning synthetic until a brief downward glance reveals my yellow body warmer is responding warmly to the slops tray of the saw which is responding to the sawdust which appears to have spontaneously combusted. I utter a squawk... a huge sigh from P which translates to an incredulous "And your problem is?"  so all is turned off and the remainder of the Yorkshire tea is chucked on the flames for another cooling off period. The obstinate third of a length having been reached, the only answer is to cut the middle section by hand.  I am told to just hold the wood and not lean on it…I can only stop it jiggling up and down under the force of P’s sawing action if I lean on it. P makes good progress, I am approaching from behind, and he starts to get narked when the pole begins to jiggle again. This is for his own good or he will have to buy a French version of the tshirt “I do not beat my wife” the English version was in response to when like now he just hadn’t seen me standing behind him as he turned round elbows first…..initially it was a common occurrence...Bruce Armstrong of Kingston University and half the Law Department of Northumbria University can attest to my black eye/swollen cheek bone.

Yesterday's trip to Navarrenx was to offset P’s other labours one of which is lagging the loft, a king’s ransom of Kingspan would be required so we have standard loft insulation for above the ceilings and quilted tin foil to fit under the roof tiles and staple to the roof battens. 

There is a lot of contorting to achieve this…he is a big bloke trying to fit in some teeny spaces. He is valiant…I am scared witless of heights. My role in any of these situations is generally to make cups of tea and cake and at really great unpredictable heights foot the ladder. Here I find P’s grasp of physics rather flimsy for an engineer …I am never going to right a ladder with my 7 and a half stone at the bottom and his 15 stone at the top. At least he won’t be laying there undiscovered for hours/days being nibbled alive and possibly to death by the bats.

So, to return, we wandered out of Navarrenx, meandering along the picturesque Vallee d'Josbaig to Oloron Ste Marie so P could pick his own birthday chocolates from the Lindt factory outlet shop http://www.pyrenees-bearnaises.com/en/a-land-of-art-and-history/tourist-sites-and-museums/lindt-and-sprungli-master-chocolate-maker/master-chocolate-makers.htm, there seem to conflicting messages on tinterweb about whether there is a factory there or not but having grown up in a town which was home to British Oil and Cocoa Mills I can’t believe that all that chocolatey aroma is just escaping the foil wrapped chocs.  OSM is a place we regularly circumnavigate twice in our attempts to get to Gourette ski resort, Eaux Bonnes

 stunning but slightly dilapidated spa town which has suffered the effects of global warming in the form of humungous downpours, landslips and burst riverbanks and Laruns which has a creperie, Fleur de Sel, where the crepes are anything but “crape”.

After being turned away from Aux Pyrenees where the tables were rammed or reserved we seek out an alternative and then decide to walk around OSM and discover lots of crooks and nannies and an amazing  mediatheque building erected at the confluence of the Gave D’Aspe and the Gave d’Ossau. What I loved is that it is a risky place to build such a structure but it tries to harmonise with its environment by allowing the water to flow underneath it and out of outlets but they only come in to play when the water is at a specific height. A great example I think of person/persons trying to live with nature not fight it.

Proceeding with our perambulations which took us past more public conveniences than usual, I select the only foot hold pissoir and then arrive at France’s response to the Tracey Urmin Sloppy Bed..”Le Lit Ecologique

And a wrong turn to this sign 

which translates roughly to “For his/her safety (and to protect us from litigating relatives), if an old geezer or gal is trying to make a run for it at the same time as you, please alert to staff so they can let the dogs out and put the kettle on.”

And to finish off the day I persuaded P that we needed to pootle along the Valle d'Aspe to try to find the remote valley where we almost bought a house which had a moat and where I also wandered with Roisin and Finlay on a roundabout route to pick P up from Pau airport. We didn’t get quite as remote as last time but will be going back to get closer to this:

Adishatz (common au revoir)

xx

Mainly wood

D’accord

This is a bit of a long one as it has been a while I know.  Je suis desole.

Another ski trip…to the resort of Pierre St Martin which you are told is open but you get within 10 kilometres and there is still not a smidgin of the white stuff. Then if coming from Arret you begin to climb at about 60 degrees and 4 foot of snow appears like the immediacy of Harry Potter’s Whomping Willow shedding its leaves.  This time the snow started at 15 kilometres away and it was falling horizontally. The snow trucks had not kept up and passed us going down to start their day, so in the resort itself you could have been forgiven for not knowing there were roundabouts and lanes. We drove into a parking spot without seeing the 12 inch wide sink hole which our left back wheel must have gone over. By the time we came back after a powder day which kept being a powder day all day the hole had been covered up by snow and a cone put at the back of the car so thanks for the hazard warning attached to the stable door of the bolting horse. Gingerly we feel around the area we think it is so we can reverse strategically but P suddenly drops 3 feet in height on his left side – he’d found what was a sink hole. Any clues what we can fill the hole with hmmm, how about the 4 foot of snow drift that has built up against the car.  Job done and having followed the locals and lifted the windscreen wipers up so they don’t freeze to the screen we remember to put them back down but they won’t go down due to an accumulation of ice, I resort to using the ski goggle wipers on my ski gloves.  Gulping deeply we manage to reverse over the hole and set off down the mountain side..which has become so icy that as we start to slide rather than drive the windscreen wipers appear to speed up and screech panicking the ABS into action. I have to get out twice to get more ice off the wiper blades, we wait behind  two snow trucks which clearly operate like buses and have to overtake a  Frenchman driving so uncharacteristically slow we are really freaked.

Aah home, fresh bread, sloe gin, hot bath, fire, pizza. I’ll just get the tot glasses from the dining room….. you know there’s nothing like coming home to a bottle of the Yorkshire man’s home brew bramble wine having exploded across the width of the dining room with a spatter pattern worthy of any US crime drama. The dining table has a puddle underneath and the wall to the side of the explosion which is a Farrow and Ball heritage maroon colour,  now has a bramble wine maroon Dulux non-Matchpot 3 foot patch. The trajectory finishes at the distressed glass cabinet which by now is positively inconsolable. The wine is maturing in the barn.

To gentler pastimes  - shorting and backing 70 leylandii trees has won us the lumberjack chequered shirt award in recognition of battling on against all odds commonly known as briar. Now it makes sense why it took a 100 years for a dumb enough prince to turn up to rescue Sleeping Beauty or it must be that through mists of oral story telling by grandma the first case of dementia may have occurred and it slipped her memory to mention that the prince started on the edge of the forest as a rhinoceros, then at some point the good fairy that in another incarnation converted the frog into a prince, interfered and Prince Rhino was, by the centre of the briar vortex, a handsome prince without a single scratch. Anyway we’ve gone from 12 feet tall to 8 feet (shorting) and lopped the fronts and backs off to try to encourage the branches to thicken on the sides to make a more dense hedge to fight the wind back; we get some interesting breezes that signal change is in the air without Mary Poppins or Dick van Dyke shouting “cor blimey mate!”

Having written the last bit about lumberjacking, a quick update, with the fact that we have experienced 100 km winds and hailstone. I couldn’t get out to take pictures but 8 foot bamboo was blowing horizontal and a heavy duty double garden seat tucked in near the house has been blown over. There was that much wind that it was blowing in through vents to make gurgling noises in every sink, tub and shower in the house, which is a blessing as we thought it was a repeat of the bedroom ceiling episode.

And persisting with lumber jacking my hot date on the eve of Valentine’s day was M. Herve who delivers bois de chauffage, he promised to ring in the afternoon to arrange to deliver 3 stere of the stuff, this translates as I will ring you at 7 pm and turn up at 9 pm. So there I was with P shifting a quarter of a ton of fire wood into the barn at 9 p.m. Summer I can understand, light nights and all that.

Likewise the nocturnal TV man promised to ring in the afternoon which was 6.30 pm with a rendez-vous at 7.45 pm when it is so much easier to investigate the aerial position on top of the toilet to see if the dum English has done it wrong. Satisfied that was ok there were then lots of breathy whistles followed by a “C’est une grande probleme” at the state of the aerial connection in the lounge (not our own work) but possibly that of a Yorkshireman worried about the cost of coaxial cable.  And by the way the French equivalent of a careful Yorkshireman is a resident of the Auvergne, an Auvergnat. Anyway the upshot is a new freeview box. The TV in the kitchen also now works and we can watch the French equivalent of Loose Women which is just what P needs NOT, having inadvertently become a member of the studio audience of the English version while wandering aimlessly down the Thames just before we came out here.

From one type of wood to another, we are looking for armoires, we have been to four brocantes so far, ignoring the first 3 on the grounds of small fortune or pure tat; no 4… well P was beginning to think of as a figment of his imagination having noticed it while were out terrifying the locals with the Harley and on a Sunday – sacre bleu.  We went back 3 days later in the car to find it but it wasn’t until we were on our way back – 5 pm in the evening that we spotted it – just 20 minutes from home. Well I say 20 minutes  - a note for anyone looking for brocantes, owners tend to put up notices a minimum of 20 kilometres from where they actually are which is  places where there comes a point where you should abandon all hope as the municipal authorities have given up with road signs and only handwritten directions back to civilisation remain.  We asked Mr Brocante if he was open and that started the verbal flood which was clearly an indication that he had not seen anyone for the last month. Despite him clocking we were English from the car and flattering though it is for a local to think I can understand everything they say ..I struggle at 500 words a minute smattered with Basque informing us of the last 50 years of English occupation in the bottom corner of the Pyrenees Atlantique whilst wandering around a 20 by 15 foot garage, where in between what the English have been doing, we are also treated to the provenance, wood, date and interested parties of every piece of furniture we happen to pass – none of which are armoires. We emerged into the failing light disappointed but thanking our local historian for his time, when his arms start to flail to the point where we think that the concealed tank which is feeding him oxygen to maintain the pause free diatribe dialogue, has run out, but no, it turns out he does have armoires and we follow him across the road to a barn. We are so excited, he throws back huge doors, and there we have it a football sized space with furniture stacked to the ceiling with just the backs, undersides, tops or legs showing – P’s hands cover his eyes and he starts to shake his head.  Our host commences making a space, wheeling stuff on little carts to near the door, it is like building a sandcastle while the tide comes in. We are slowly squeezed behind an 18^th century settle and a very nice writing table

-“which would go in the bedroom…but it’s not an armoire”

“yes I know but you can write letters on it in your bedroom”

I don’t think I look like a character from “Room with a View” . 

The verbal assault of provenance etc etc etc of every piece of furniture continues whilst he moves table after table after table after chair, after table in order for us to get to see……………………………………… 4 wardrobes. One of which is 2k, another which has been eaten by woodworm’s answer to Mr Pastry, the third is the size of a small house even by our standards and the fourth which we can’t see because it is too far back but is from the time of Louis Napoleon AND will accommodate our hats and cravats via its side door…it has a side door, another small house then?  We take dimensions and promise to go back…it is 7.30 pm, we peer into the gloomy twilight searching for the hand painted signpost and as turn the corner we can still hear (translated from the French) “ And you know the station house in Abitain where you live, there’s an English man living there as well. But you know there are no trains there anymore!”

Time has moved on apace and we have warm weather, 22 degrees in fact, which P thinks is almost hot enough to go in the pool until a visit to St Jean de Luz and a paddle in the sea, albeit the Atlantic is slightly larger body of water. 

St Jean de Luz is a cross between Basque fishing village and Napoleonic (Third Empire) holiday destination. 

Everyone was gathered on the prom when we arrived, watching les pompiers tackle a fire at the top of one of the posh hotels. We wished we had brought our cozzies for a spot of sun worship – they were all out there – the over 60’s and a group who kept emerging in white bath robes from the health spa. 12 of them wandering up the beach behind the “look at me, I’m wonderful shooby dooby wah” health instructor whose lofty gesticulations were we presume about seaside ions. We were waiting for the big dip but only two went in in the end.  We had a paddle coupled with a sharp intake of breath.

And so we return to wood. We inherited this, 

the previous owner ran out of energy. Note the lean, after the tempetes the angles of lean became... imminnet collapse so P set to to finish it off and we have ended up with this. 

The journey has not been easy – heart attack when I nearly spiked a large toad who refused to move out. I have spiked one before accidentally and the scream is awful, especially when you carry it round to the neighbour to see if he will take it off for you, trying to not to wobble the fork as you go since it elicits the same heart rending agonising sound.  We had a sit off, as I weeded around him with a petite trowel, until P came to remove him in the soil tray. Unfortunately no pictures and he was not as pretty as the tree frogs who have taken up residence behind the shutters – they have become Monsieur et Madame Passepartout.  Anyway them aside next came the debate about to roof or not to roof – we have spare slates but the octagonal shape would make it difficult. When you sit inside it the view up to the sky is interesting so we stay as it is for now.

So now battery is going and McD waitress is looking at me ....I would like to t leave you with an abiding memory of P's favourite job...fixing toilet cisterns..but the upload takes days to get to SW France.

I will try to get a shorter one in next time.

A bientot.

xx

Bric a brac

Bonjour mes choufleurs

Greetings from MacaDee.

We have attempted le ski…a challenge for me psychodogically given my last run ended in the big yellow stretcher and Colgate ring of confidence man asking permission to touch me in “an inappropriate place ma’am” followed by 2 hours alternately sitting on frozen peas and wheatbags. Some noticeable differences in US and French skiing

–        the helpful US brush any snow off the chair lift upon which you are about to sit…the French don’t, even when it’s that snow that really wets you

-        the French shout at you even if you are not planning to go through the gate onto the ski lift, in the US it is have a nice day.

-        The French will not necessarily stop the lift roller mat thingy on which you are standing even tho’ they told you to stand further forward and you are in danger of coming of the end before the lift chair arrives. The Us are scared witless of being sued.

-        The French automatically think you want wine for lunch despite the slippy footwear to be redonned,  the first time you stupidly accept without thinking. 

I was not dancing with these the first time, I know they’re huskies. You can go on day trips with them and if you fall down in the snow, they drag you back home by your hood so you don’t die, at least I think that’s what the brochure said.

We were also testing the new technology that day - car snowshoes

On the creative side we have planted 2 rows of spuds.  P is still battling with les taupes and has attempted to rotivate his way through the earth’s core to join our surrogate son Mr B in Sydney. There has been ash put down, a chisel poked in moments after a hill has appeared, foul language, and big heel stomps. At the point of writing this the mole equivalent of a two finger salute appeared almost in the back kitchen and he resorted to jumping off the chicken house roof.  

I need someone to write to P advising of the danger of looking like Victor Meldrew in the hedgehog scene.  Meanwhile I have quietly got on and weeded all this

We have commenced decoration of the lounge as the rainy day project..we only do it when it rains. In the UK there is B & Q, stateside go to Home Deeeeepoooooot and in France Mr Bricolage, Bricomarche or Castorama. Who said the French are not into DIY;well it is possibly true based on the woman pursuing an assistant round the shop with “Ceci, que fait-il? “ on a loop. They even seem to have pensioner Wednesday.

And we have been kept on the DIY straight and narrow due to a tempet violent without the Caliban, unless you class P contorting and snorting with derision whilst trying to move lights and re-wire switches with wiring akin to the Paris metro map. This has been exacerbated by the fact that when putting new paint on the old paint has obligingly come off!  Anyway the tempet has been so violent that our patio by the back door which is 11 bi 10 bi 3 inches in depth filled up and this is in spite of a legally required soak away..we watched our wellingtons float away from under the patio table cover AND…….the rain has come through the window shutters (we battened down all the hatches). As the young man in the café in Salies de Bearn once said and it could have been a direct quote from any of the cafés in Hawes, Coniston or the Ribble Valley ….”It doesn’t get this green by magic you know” ou “Ce ne develop pas ce vert par magic, tu sais”.

Many a time has it been said P knows how to show a girl a good time. My birthday was spent at the Foire d’Occasion in Navarrenx.  I was not entirely sure what one of these might be except I knew there was to be a vide grenier which is like a French car boot come temporary brocante, an antique/junk shop. So there we were working up and watching a steam being worked up on aged agricultural machinery whilst Lionel Ritchie’s Caribbean Queen is being blasted out over the village tannoy system.  Party on Wayne.

I negotiated expertly the very excited woman who asked where she could see the animals. I told her I had walked right round the village and seen none and she seemed to understand.

Scared of being asked to dance by the guy in the shell suit or P whipping out a scale model of hawk, Nimrod or JSF to the words:

“Call that a machine? This is a machine” I dragged him off to find the vide grenier which was in the school sports hall, the walk to which was highlighted by the local village character hitching her trousers up in a manoeuvre which seemed to suggest the opposite was about to happen, this was followed by her picking up a piece of stray ivy and some mistletoe and wrapping it affectionately in a rain mate and then the piece de resistance; looking in each parked car and then kissing the window…………it seems the world over we give lost souls the same askance look and twenty foot wide berth. 

I was hoping the animal lady had walked this way as the vide grenier was also advertising the chance to see “les beaux animaux” and there they were ….chickens and cockerels of all shapes and sizes…why are most breeds named after Orpington in Kent?  Then there was a very rowdy German cockerel and all the French breeds bar one looked like the teapot version of Angela Lansbury in Beauty and the Beast complete with bloomers. The cutest were the two little brown ducks who I would have just loved following me round the house as pets.  

But it also brings me to the newest phrase I have learned which is “leche la vitrine”…which translates literally as lick the windows and actually means window shopping.

This bit also brings me to the faux pas of P when we were first looking for a house. We brought a present for the owners of the chamber d’hote in which we stayed a couple of times and Muriel – a Parisian version of a young Hannah Gordon (those under 45 look it up). She had fallen in love with P in part because he ate everything she put in front of him. Anyway I taught him to say a phrase when handing over the present (a box of Yorkshire teabags…as she kept offering me a tissane – I may have short legs like him but there the resemblance to Hercule Poirot stops…yes I know he’s Belgian). The evening went like this:

While changing for dinner:

S        P you say “Muriel - Un petit cadeau pour vous”

P        Muriel, un petit cadeau pour vous

          Muriel, un petit cadeau pour vous

          Muriel, un petit cadeau pour vous

          Muriel , un petit canard pour vous”

S        No, no don’t say that; it means a little duck for you

P        Oh ok, Muriel, un petit cadeau pour vous

          Muriel, un petit cadeau pour vous

But the seed was sown. At dinner:

M       Bonjour Philippe et Sharman.(followed by mwah, mwah on each side of face except P gets three off her, only two is customary if just an acquaintance)

S        Bonjour Muriel

A (lain, Muriel’s husband) Bonjour Philippe et Sharman (mwah mwah…I

don’t get three off Alain)

P        Muriel

M       Oui Philippe (eyelashes almost fluttered off)

P        Un petit canard pour vous

M       Oh (as only the French can oh…you could eat your dinner off that pouting lip)..mmmmerci beaucoup

S        Cadeau, cadeau.

6  months later

S        Philippe, pour mon cadeau je voudrais deux petit canard

Maintenant a second ski trip, I think I have finally understood what I should be doing when skiing and that is to concentrate all the time…because whilst you may be getting to grips with the technique you can’t just float off and admire the view because some norrty pearsonne ‘as left les grands divots of snow which upset the back of your skis and send you into a perilous wobbell.  

The weather was a little better so no worries about a sopping tush.

It was touch and go whether we would get there because the main route via Arette was shut due to a landslip. The alternative was via St Engrace and the gorge de Kakaouetta …which I think is a Basque word meaning “pooh your pants” on account of the road which looks like it too should be designated a landslip. Stunning

but then it dawned on us that if this road did slip we would have to make our way back via Spain….obviously not all of it but enough for us not to get back in time for tea and a long time to be in messy underhosen.

Time to head home, sun’s gone to bed, but still stunning…hopefully there will be no landslides

We have also been to our inaugural village event; lunch to celebrate the combattants ?????????? of the village, we know of the first world war and Gaston Febus holed and repelling tout le monde for many a long day. P was not looking forward to this on account of being shy and not speaking much French. The day had not started well as it was our first real up close and personal with an old house. We had been aware of this leak…from the brown stain which had appeared on our bedroom ceiling and the gentle kerplink sound. My chevalier who is now sporting a beard had gone up to investigate 3 days earlier, an activity which required him to hug the chimney breast for dear life, become besmirched in cobwebs and discover a bucket cunningly hidden on the other side of said chimney breast. The general problem was sorted by a canny move of the bucket to the near side of said cheminee on account of the rain having changed direction, OBVIOUSLY. But this am just after the church bells clanged 7, the first kerplinkers were joined by the second kerplinkers and a lone kerplonker which forced its way through the ceiling to form a pool on the bedroom floor. P straight from dressing gown and morning tea to cobweb caghoul in one bound, Flashing Blade eat your heart out….meanwhile the lady of the house invents a new way of working out where to put the bucket in a darkened area with no hope of light (our house has only 2 rooms with central lighting). This is to place the bucket where you think it should be, peer closely at the spot and wait for the freezing cold kerplonk on the back of your neck to tell you got it wrong. Try this a couple of times and you miraculously develop night vision.

So….it becomes:

P        “I guess we are going to this do…………………………………………………”

S        “Of course. We have told them we would and I haven’t had the lady of the committee shriek down the phone “that she doesn’t know me” and then slam the phone down on me for nothing!

The silence is deafening.

S        P you can’t come into a small community (97 inhabitants) and ignore them.

The sun comes out, P trims his beard, I wonder whether it is acceptable 

to wear a vest to these types of occasions.

And off we go through the village, P inspecting every drain, arbour, well, garden and window shutter to delay the inevitable. He even persuades me to walk past la salle de convivialite (how can it not be a friendly place with such a name) where the meal is being prepared so he can “look” at the other part of the village (he’s had 5 weeks to do that). The church clock tolls midi, poor P is a whiter shade of pale. We enter, and the wife of the mayor approaches welcomingly. Lots of villagers enter and the bonjouring increases and every farmer tries to tell us which farm they have including the one who seemed to be saying that his was near big trees and had little houses (he gesticulated roof shapes low to the ground and plus petited) which might have been for bees but then that would be our neighbour Patrick who only has an orchard for the hell of it and the trees may be mediumish but not GRANDE. 

Then we are invited to the bar;

-      le martini (last time I was about 16)  and le whisky,

We are invited to sit at a long table with everyone:

-      le starter (5 lots of canapés) and bread and punch,* editor’s note 1,

-      lanother starter of soup and bread and punch, * editor’s note 2,

-      the main course – veal in a cream and tomato sauce (first time for veal probably one of many first times I won’t be sure of…did I mention I am trying each cheese we encounter and I hate cheese), strange no veg but bread and wine, * editor’s note  3,

-      ah the actual main course – duck and vegetables with meat wrapped round them and potatoes gratin and…..bread and wine, * editor’s note 4,

-      and now cheese and what have we here… bread and wine, * editor’s note 5,

-      oh god le pudding – chocolate and cream accompanied by br… no champagne * editor’s note 6

-      and a speech by Monsieur le mairie along with slide show where combattants seem to be the villagers and their community activities since 2007 (when M le Maire was elected)…there has been a lot of drain digging, church restoration and the installation of a timer to ring the bells at 7 am, 12 pm and 7pm  tree chopping, swashing down the pelotte court and the uncharacteristic appearances of farmers’ lower legs  on their annual outing which made much merriment and mirth. There was no evidence of fighting …or they weren’t telling the new people in town anyway and we didn’t like to mention Nelson even though unlike Napoleon, he paid for all his soldiers billets and nosh and the ladies were able to keep their hands safely on their tuppence.

P then washes up and I talk philosophical with Madame la Maire and it is time to au revoir and a bientot.

9.30 – Sunday evening of the meal P thinks he’s having a heart attack more commonly known in France as “Un crise de foie”. If you’re wondering what foie is, it would be eaten by the English with onions, possibly sausage and gravy with a big chunk of bread for dipping and mash. The editor is happy to report this has not stopped him checking his home made bramble wine  through to the bottom of the bottle (an Englishman and homebrew in France why does this feel like another mole campaign), having seconds of home-made orange scented almond torte (Williams and Sonoma Mediterranean cooking), home-made tarte tatin and brebis which is sheep cheese matured for 2 years and yes I have even tried that.

2 days later another invite to the annual thank you from the local hunt, who cook a meal for being allowed to run their hunt through your land (this was not in the small print). I think P’s mole isn’t a mole at all but some poor deer gone to ground and living the subterranean life.

Happy window licking

Editor’s note 1 – P has seconds

Editor’s note 2 – P has seconds

Editor’s note 3 – P has seconds

Editor’s note 4 – P has seconds

Editor’s note 5 – P has seconds

Editor’s note 6 – seconds not offered