2) Round-up of first week

Swanky hotel on our first night in France

After finding ourselves in rural France on a cold snowy Sunday night when EVERYTHING was closed and the place where we were supposed to be staying was all locked up and completely deserted, we took ourselves off Chatres, where we booked ourselves into, what for us, was a relatively swanky hotel to lick our wounds and drink away our sorrows in the bar (where according to the hotel blurb ...our staff will always have a smile for you).  Just what we needed and it was the best hundred quid we have ever spent.

Our first gîte called La Nouvelle Vie (fate?!)

Our first stop was in the Limousin, which was beautiful.  The place we were staying in was owned by an English bloke called Mick.  He reminded me rather of Norman Wisdom, only with a moustache.  He was really nice and had actually lived in the place himself, so everything worked, and it had a wood burning stove so was WARM (minus 10 outside).

Limousin cow

Limousin is, of course, famous for cattle.  We heard, though, that they only raise them for meat and not for milk.  This has the advantage that they are kept outside and shit in the fields, relatively small pats at a time.  This is in stark contrast to the Lune valley where they are kept inside much of the time and then the enormous quantity of shit that is slushed down from their stalls is allowed to fester in tanks for a few weeks before being sprayed (once it is really rank) all over the fields right next door to your garden.

Near where we were staying the first week

We saw several houses in the Limousin, as well as a few further south.  Nothing quite right amongst those we saw, but the main point was to check out areas we didn't know.  Certainly, it looks as though you could get quite a lot for your money if you found the right place.

This 4 bedroom house had an enormous barn as well as outbuildings all for 285,ooo euros

As well as beautiful scenery, the Limousin also had some very attractive towns and villages.  Treignac was one we particularly liked, but Beaulieu, a bit further south also had much to offer.  We are not quite sure when in France a village becomes a town.  They seem to refer to almost everything as a village unless it is pretty much what in England you would call a city.

The old church at Treignac

Christmas is, of course getting closer, and although the French don't seem to do things quite so over the top as they do in England, they certainly take their decoration seriously, or at least the Mayor does.  Le Marie is, of course, all powerful in France and they apparently issue edicts as to how you must decorate the streets.  In order to ensure obedience and consistency, Le Marie organises the supply of the regulation Christmas decorations to each shop, bar etc.

Tastefully  decorated street bollard in Brive

At this point, however, the system seems to break down.  It appears there are no insrtuctions issued as to HOW the decorations should be put up.  This leads to some truly bizarre displays.  Some people have great taste and make the best of what the Mayor has supplied, others haven't a clue, and some are clearly taking the piss.

Drain pipe with Christmas decoration in Villefranche - Tracy Emin

The other somewhat bizarre thing we love about French public adornment is what Georgi and I refer to as crap sculpture.  You find this all over the place in great abundance, and I can only think that it, again, has something to do with Le Marie.  You also find it all along the motorways, though, so perhaps central government  is involved in some way as well.  In the villages and towns they obviously try to out do each other and I am sure there is a money making opportunity here as a crap sculptor.

A rather subtle piece of crap sculpture cleverly placed so as to block the door of a bar   

I am beginning to make a photographic record of their crap sculpture and perhaps one day it will be published as a book.  I might also put together a group of examples of how to ruin a good building.  There are, in fact, probably more of these in England but perhaps in France some of them are more extreme.

Strange red and pink painted concrete phalluses in front of an hotel's mediaeval facade (Beaulieu)

Signage can also be a little confusing, sometimes with potentially disastrous results (particularly when one's been searching for a loo and you-just don't-have-the-time-or-inclination-to-start-working-out-what-their-fucking-stupid-signs-are-supposed-to-mean).

Hommes? Dames? Who gives a damn. When you gotta go, you just gotta go.

Gardens are another intriguing subject in France.  It is well known that in the country people regard gardens as a source of producing food for sustenance, rather than places simply to sit in and enjoy.  I remember a Belgian girl I was once rather fond of saying she would never marry an Englishman because they were more interested in gardens than women, and when they got older they gave up sex in favour of gardening (she was rather advanced for her age).  If one takes her observation as accurate, one may surmise that les gentilhommes in the houses below certainly know what is most important in life (and presumably their womenfolk are enormously satisfied).

Low maintenance French garden to leave time for the more essentials of life