28) A French car

Renault Estate partly for disguise, partly for loads of luggage

As part of our efforts to “blend in” we have now bought a French car.  For the past few years I have had German cars - Volkswagens and Audis.  Like any cars, they do occasionally go wrong, but I like the reassuring, understated clunk as you close the door, and the lack of rattling or grinding sounds from the engine or wheels.  It has thus been a bit of a challenge to move to a Renault.  We thought long and hard about the decision but, in the end, we felt if we are going to embrace the life of France, we will have to take the rough with the smooth.   German cars are incredibly expensive both to buy and maintain over here.  We also suspect there might be a slight modicum of resentment against buying a non-French car when Peugeot, Citroen and Renault are so much a part of the French psyche.  And when the car gets old and its warranty has run out, we will want to use a toutes marques garage (they are half the price of the main dealers), and they are bound to know the ins and outs of French cars better.

Our landlord's (fairly typical) French car, showing some of the scratches, dents and holes

It’s difficult to know how long we’ll be able to keep the new car scratch and dent free.  The French seem to regard the body of a car as simply a device for keeping out wind and rain.  It, therefore, doesn’t really matter what shape it is, or whether it’s scratched or not, just as long as it doesn’t leak (too badly).  When we bought the car, part of the deal was that all the minor scratches and dents would be fixed (there were just four, as it was only a year old).  When we came to pick it up there was one they had forgotten to do (though it did seem to be in a slightly different place).  They didn’t make a fuss, and what we both realised, but didn’t say was that, actually, this one was an additional scrape that had been picked up in the garage itself while the others were being fixed.

We are, of course, quite used to driving in France now, but there are still a few little oddities we have yet to learn about.  You have to carry with you in the car the insurance certificate and the carte grise (which oddly is not actually grey, but more a kind of orange).  You are not supposed to leave them in the car on the basis that, if the car gets stolen and then stopped by the police, the thief cannot produce the right documents.  However, until you get used to all the chopping and changing there is a very good chance they will be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or simply get lost altogether.

(Semi) pedestrianised main shopping street in Montauban

While our new (second hand) car was having the additional scratch taken out, we were given a replacement with a full tank of fuel (usually courtesy cars have the flashing light on, and an annoying bleep telling you you are about to run out of fuel).  We, therefore, decided to go for an extended drive down to Montauban, a largish town about 40 miles away that we hadn’t yet been to  .It was a lovely drive but once we arrived it was all one way streets and we couldn’t find anywhere to park.  We thus drove round and round getting more and more lost, and more and more agitated (I thought I was staying quite calm, but not everybody agreed).

A French police car, just like the one that nearly hit us

Suddenly, as we were driving down what I regarded as a fairly main street, a maniac in a blue and white car shot straight out in front of us from a side street to our right.  With great dexterity and skill, I managed to swerve round him, thus avoiding what would otherwise have been an expensive collision (in our borrowed car, for which, incidentally, we had none of the requisite papers).

Unfortunately, the said maniac turned out to be a policeman.  Instead of congratulating me on my driving skills which had saved an expensive claim on his precious car and mine (or at least the garage’s), he turned on his flashing blue light and siren, and started chasing me down the street.  I was already lost, and couldn’t find anywhere to park, so this was really the last straw.

I was anxious not to stop too suddenly and cause an accident

The next problem was that I then couldn’t find anywhere to stop.  For a few seconds ("which seemed like an eternity..."), I agonised over whether I should stop immediately in the middle of the road and almost certainly cause an accident, or keep going until I found somewhere safer to stop and risk the crazy policeman thinking I was trying to outrun him (which might mean he would start shooting).

I found somewhere safe to stop and he stopped alongside me in the middle of the road.  He wound down his window and started shouting something about Respectez la priorité.  I in turn, started babbling all the words for apology I could muster in French (looking as meek and contrite as possible).  They soon realised (though I’m not quite sure how, given our disguise of the French car) that we were English.  His female colleague obviously thought the whole episode was hilarious, and soon he saw the funny side too, and off he drove with both hands off the wheel in a classic Gallic shrug (Bah!).

I am sure that we really did have priority on that occasion, but you don’t argue with police carrying guns.  Perhaps he was saying that POLICE had priority (however badly or dangerously they may be driving).  As it turned out we had stopped right next to the only parking space in Montauban, so he’d actually done me a favour after all.

Cleverly marked cycle lane in Cahors

We are also somewhat bemused by the proliferation of cycle lanes in France.  You find them not only in the towns, but even in all-but deserted bits of road, miles from anywhere in the countryside.  The odd thing is that no one seems to cycle anywhere, at least not in this part of France.  This could be because all the cyclists have been killed off by their fellow countrymen who drive cars, or perhaps it’s simply too hilly.  You see lots of would-be Tour de France types in multi-coloured lycra, but they always travel in packs.  Presumably this is on the basis that if they are mown down by a car, at least one of them is likely to survive to sue the driver and get compensation for the widows (they are always packs of men).

Someone with very little regard for his life

Quite near to where we are staying we did spot one brave soul using the cycle lane (without a helmet I might add).  We assume he was foreign (that is to say, not French), and most probably English.  In fact, when I looked at the photograph later (which we took on the move), it seemed to look very like Vince Cable.  He has obviously had a hard time of late, what with having to chummy up to the Tories (who he obviously doesn’t like much) and getting trounced on the PR, AV (or whatever it was) referendum.  As a result, he may not be too concerned with survival, and this may explain the extraordinary risk he is taking.  The lack of crash helmet may even be a typical Vince well-thought-through-stratagem.  If he gets hit by a car, even by a Renault or a Citroen, he is likely to be severely maimed.  But without a crash helmet, he will probably be killed.  No more Cameron, no more Clegg, no more lying about policies he doesn’t believe in.  No more misery.

27) Spring and Summer arrive all at once

White Campion

Spring and summer seem to have arrived all at once in the Quecy Blanc.  The swallows arrived on 7^th April, the swifts arrived on the 6^th May and, as in the rhyme, the cuckoos are singing all day (they have been throughout April).  Yesterday we saw (almost ran over) a red squirrel, the day before we saw (almost ran over) a hoopoe, and each night after dark we listen to the nightingales singing to each other across the valley.  We have also seen what we think might be an eagle.  There are lots of buzzards and kites soaring on the thermals over the valley, but this is bigger (and more eagle-like).

Oak tress (Latin name Quercus) across the valley from our gite balcony

I gather the weather in England has been very hot during April, and it has been the same here.  As it is our first year in France, we are not sure what to expect or what is normal.  One thing that did astound us, though, was the way the oak trees came into leaf, all at once, on the same day - the 11^th of April.  It is very chalky here, and everywhere there are wild oak trees (hence the name Quercy Blanc).  We sat and had breakfast on our balcony in the morning and, by the evening we noticed all the trees had come into leaf.  The whole landscape thus changed overnight (overday?).

Vines in the field next to the gite

The other change to the landscape is the vineyards.  Gnarled and brown when we arrived, they are now turning a lush green as their runners shoot out along the vine wires.  There is lots of activity in the vineyards, with the most extraordinary machines trundling precariously over the vines, as their guardians shower them in a fine dust of noxious chemicals to keep at bay the bugs and beasties that could damage the precious crop. 

Cahors wine is somewhat of an acquired taste.  It is very dark (it is known as the black wine), and tends to be quite strong and heavy.  Peter the Great of Russia apparently once declared that the official communion wine should be Cahors wine.  Apparently this was because it travelled well (presumably because no bacteria could survive in it – God knows what it’s doing to our stomachs).  The best of it is very good, but quite expensive.  We have, however, found some very drinkable local wine in the markets, which you can buy direct from the producers for around £4 a bottle (and, of course, you can buy it en vrac at around 1.50 euros a litre).  In due course, we will travel round the vineyards themselves on a serious wine tasting exercise to discover where it’s best to buy.

This chalky area is also wonderful for wild flowers.  They are everywhere, and there are so many different varieties.  April and May must be two of the best months to be here, and yet no one seems to arrive until the summer holidays, when so much of the best will be over.

Aptly named Bee orchid

Another type of orchid

I didn’t have to worry too much about the orchids being cut by the chap who mowed the lawn at our new house, as they too are all over the place.  So far we have found at least nine different varieties, and several plants we have spotted have not yet come into flower.

Butterfly on lilac at the new house

A rather beautiful lace winged butterfly seen on a walk near our gite

We have also seen some amazingly beautiful butterflies, and the other day an enormous moth turned up on the doorstep. 

An enormous moth

Underside of the moth with 50 pence piece (unfortunately it died)

The down side to all things that fly about and buzz, is that they are not all as welcome as butterflies.  There are also some enormous hairy black things which buzz slowly about at high volume, and one of the giters the other day said they had seen a hornet (gulp – I am neurotic about wasps, let alone monster versions with a reputation for violence).

A rather blurry picture taken with a hand shivering with fear of an imminent strike

On a walk in the delightful village of St Vincent, G and I were watching the fish in a crystal clear stream when slowly (and rather menacingly) a small pointed head emerged from the weeds, followed by the beautifully (but chillingly) marked long lithe body of une vipère.  Luckily, (and I really do want to believe this) things such as adders and hornets are not much interested in humans and, in fact, are rather scared of them (the feeling is mutual).  In the grand scheme of things, French drivers (or for that matter, English drivers) are undoubtedly far more of a potential threat, and certainly they are far more dangerous.

Lauzertes market where we bought strawberries

With the advent of summer, the markets have expanded, as has the range of produce for sale.  Strawberries are out in abundance, and they actually taste of strawberries.  This area is renowned for melons too, but the local ones don’t seem to be in the markets just yet.

A rather shady character in Monsempron Libos market

Monsempron Libos market on a Thursday was a real discovery, the biggest we’ve yet found.  Here they had stalls (several) just selling asparagus, and on Sunday we bought some white asparagus for the first time at our local market of Montcuq – what a treat (and virtually no calories).

26) Post script to the Royal Wedding

In the end we couldn’t avoid watching the wedding as it seemed to be on all the UK channels at the same time, all of the time.  I must say, I thought William and Kate (whom I don’t really know, but everyone seems to call them by their christian names) did very well.  The thought of being on close up cameras, being watched by a billion people is enough to make anyone freak out (particularly if you knew lip-readers had been employed to check out anything you may say out of earshot).  What happens if you suddenly need a pee (or worse)?  Perhaps the geeks at Porton Down came up with some sort of imodium for bladders?  Or perhaps there was a stand in Kate-look-alike actress that took the part in the Abbey?

Kate’s sister looked very pretty, but they had wrecked her hair from when we saw her arriving at the hotel. Perhaps they did this so she didn’t outshine Kate (or the stand in actress) on the important day.

I thought the trees in the Abbey looked crap.  Whose idea was that?  I heard one reporter saying it brought a modern touch to the event.  It didn’t.  It just looked crap.  Gothic cathedrals are wonderful.  They can also look great with modern art in them ( Henry Moore in Salisbury, Sutherland in Chichester, or the Gormley in the crypt at Winchester), but trees just don’t work, they simply look crap.

I did feel a bit sorry for the RAF, though, with William choosing to wear an army colonel’s uniform.  Admittedly, it was a very striking red colour, and had much more pizazz than the T Mobile Utube version, which had William in RAF garb.  Then to add insult to injury, he had sown his RAF wings onto a sash.

I think there ought to be a sort of Royal uniform, which doesn’t have a connection to any of the forces.  Something perhaps like that of Black Rod, but with the addition of a crown.  Why no crowns?  Kate, who wasn’t even Royal until the “I do” bit had a tiara, but no crown for the Queen and not for the Prince either.  Shame.

Coverage in France built up to a bit of a crescendo on the actual day, but they dropped the story like a pomme de terre chaude the day after.  Back to normal now, with not much news about England (I think the recent election was just far too muddling for them).  Of course, the most famous Englishman over here is Arsen Wenger.

25) The Royal Wedding from across the Channel

The happy couple as seen on TV

It is quite interesting to listen to the coverage of the marriage royale on French TV and radio.  It isn’t so much “coverage”, as more “amused comment”.  Unfortunately my French is not yet able to pick up all the nuances, but it appears they are somewhat bemused by the way the whole of the Royaume-Uni has become so focussed and besotted with the happy couple and their forthcoming event. 

Over here, there is still quite a bit on the news about the crise (financial crisis), immigration, healthcare, tsunamis and tornados, impending nuclear disasters, atrocities in Libya, as well as revolutions all over the Middle East.  For some reason, (possibly connected to the battle of Crecy, the Hundred Years War, or General de Gaulle and his anti British rhetoric) they don’t seem to understand how the British could regard a Royal Wedding as much more important an event than any of these.

No more royal weddings in La France (no more Royals)

They, of course, dispensed with their monarchy over two hundred years ago.  Instead they have the very laudable sentiment of Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité.  Of course, the trouble is Egalité does not allow for things such as a Royal Wedding.  Instead they have to make do with the romantic goings on of their Presidents.  Sarkozy is not as colourful as Berlusconi in this regard, but at least his wife is not only very attractive (like Kate), but she also has lots of interesting "history" (unlike Kate). 

The happy couple

Kate, in contrast to Carla, has had to do very little to get noticed, all she has had to do is stand (looking charming and demure) next to the future king of England.  William, of course, has not had to do anything in particular because he, unlike Nicolas Sarkozy, does not have to wheel and deal (or even get any votes) to become Head of State.  He can also be fairly relaxed about things because, unlike Sarkozy, he won’t be voted out next year, all he has to do is simply stay alive.

Harry and William in morning coats

Cameron lounging about in a lounge suit

The French are, of course, totally baffled by the controversy over whether Cameron, Clegg and the rest of the Government will be wearing lounge suits or morning coats.  A few enterprising media men have looked these up in the dictionary, but this has only caused even more confusion.  They cannot see why anyone would attempt wearing a sofa and two chairs, or why you would go to a royal wedding in a light weight dressing gown and slippers.  Dress sense is not a great concern beyond the fashion houses of Paris, so this particular story has made little headway.

My mother (who is going to a Royal Wedding party at one of her friends) told me it is expected that  two billion people will be watching the wedding on television.  Personally, I have never met either Kate or William.  I am sure they are charming, but Georgi and I don’t normally go to the weddings of people we don’t know, let alone watch them on television.  I fear, therefore, there may only be 999,999,998 viewers on Friday.

A baby, (possible future Head of State?)

What does concern me though, is all the discussion there has been about the future rules of succession if Kate and William have a baby girl before having a boy.  Having married one, I am all in favour of girls.  I also have two daughters who are girls, and quite the match for any boys, in terms of bossing people about in order to be the (pretend) Head of the country.  I therefore see no reason why a girl should not make just as good a Head of State, or why boy children should take precedence.  What I do object to, though, is why the eldest should take precedence in the first place.  Why should age have anything to do with it any more than gender?

As a second born, I feel it is very unfair that favours of any kind should be granted to the first born, whether they be a boy or a girl.  Why has no-one brought up this anomaly?  Surely the person who should succeed should be the most suited.  In the case of a potential monarch, they should probably be rather good looking, keep their opinions to themselves, do lots of charitable good works, and have the common touch of being prepared to hug little children in African villages, whilst being equally at home stoned out of their minds in Annabel’s.  There is no reason why the first born, boy or girl should necessarily display these qualities any better than numbers two three or more.

The Pope (slightly singed round the eyes)

Come to think of it, there is actually no reason why any of the monarch’s children in particular should be any better suited to the role than a lot of other people.  The Pope is a kind of Head of State, and certainly much more influential than the British monarch, but the Vatican doesn’t select as his successor the eldest child, or indeed any of his children.  Rather cleverly, they have decreed that all Catholic priests should be celibate, on the basis that one of them one day will become Pope.  No children, no arguments over which one should succeed.  

Instead they have devised a rather intriguing ceremony of setting fire to the potential candidates in secret.  Eventually they find one who is so holy, he burns with white smoke, and he becomes Pope.  Most of the other candidates die soon afterwards, thus avoiding any unpleasant in-fighting or rivalry from disappointed would-be-Popes.

Michelle Hussein has all the right qualities to make a really good monarch

I am not sure how worthy the current monarch’s children have proved themselves to be for the top (pretend) job.  And I’m sure if you set fire to them, none would burn with white smoke.  The ideal candidate, I feel, would be someone such as a news reader.  Known by everyone, slightly aloof but still able to give the impression they are talking directly to you, attractive but also authoritative, totally re-assuring however grave the crisis, and yet willing to make a fool of themselves for the sake of Comic Relief.  My vote would go to Michelle Hussein.

24) Barmy Buxton and its bargain wars

The thing about doing a blog from France is that all the material is French.  I would like to give a more balanced view but, inevitably, from an English perspective there is quite a lot that seems bizarre and amusing here in France (as well as lots of things that are wonderful).  We did spot this, though, on a recent trip to Buxton.

All the things in the window of Hallam Pine certainly looked like pine.  One wonders where the solid oak comes in then (so solidly proclaimed in a rather forceful, solid typeface).   Perhaps the furniture is actually oak and then (very expensively) painted and grained to look like pine.  Or perhaps the white painted pieces in the window are in the style of white painted pine pieces but, in fact, they are made of solid oak.  Whatever the truth, it is certainly confusing for the unwary amateur collector.

Buxton is, altogether, a rather strange place; almost surreal.  Part of it has these rather spectacular pleasure gardens, with one of the most splendid band stands I have ever seen.  Sadly there were no bands, presumably because there are no longer any bandsmen .  Being a spa
 town, it has the most enormous extravagant edifice housing the baths, where you (used to) take the waters.  These, however are closed, presumably because they’ve run out of water.

Then there’s the main street, only one, which doesn’t even appear to have any side streets running off it.  Despite its status as a spar town and holiday resort, the town is rather seedy.  The shopkeepers seem to be vying with each other to see who can be the most down market (rather like some sort of Chamber of Commerce limbo dance competition).  I would guess Pound World opened first, and then some enterprising shopkeeper had the bright idea of going one better with everything 99p or less. Quite clever, this.  You could, for instance, sell Polos for, say, 30p, pencils for 50p, or apple pies for 80p.  The possibilities are endless.  If, however, everything has to be exactly one pound, customers who only want one packet of Polos will have to buy three (and pay over the odds), if they want just one pencil, they will have to buy a pack of two, and so on.  Surely only one of these shops can succeed?  My money is on the 99p chap.

If you look very closely, the pound shop man has, in fact, already bottled out.  There are a number of (rather scruffy and un-professional) notices stuck in his window advertising items for sale at £2.  Clearly he is a man who does not have the courage of his convictions, and is thus almost certainly doomed to failure.

Someone kindly pointed out that I had miss-spelt "spa" in the present post.  Sadly my spelling is attrocious, so I usually rely on the spell check to pick me up.   Also it has been pointed out that Hallam Pine (of solid oak fame) is actually in Sheffield not Buxton - apologies Buxton (and also to the Spar supermarket chain who have nothing to do with the dysfunctional waterworks in Buxton.)

23) High fashion in Argentat

Argentat, on the upper Dordogne

Although we had already more or less decided to buy La Borde Neuve in Cezac, we had an email from an agent in Argentat enclosing some very tempting sounding houses.  Argentat is a couple of hours drive from where we are staying, so we decide to go.  By way of a sort of inverted snobbism, we had always said we would not buy in the Dordogne because it is so fashionable with the Brits.  The area round Argentat, though, is in the Correze, and very different from what most people think of as the "Dordogne" (or so we thought from our first visit there).

It is very different, as our delightful agent was only too willing to explain, as he drove us (rather distractedly)  round vertiginous hairpin bends, high above the spectacular sheer drops down into the valley below.

It rains quite a lot, and in the winter a thick mist hangs over the river for most of the day, making it cold and dank.  Above the river, up on the hills, it tends to be cold and often windy.  During the summer, though, it is stiflingly hot in the river valley, with high humidity making it seems even hotter than it actually is, and particularly uncomfortable.  Argentat, we were ,told has an indigenous population of only about a thousand, but this swells to twenty thousand in the summer when the tourists arrive.  During the winter everything closes and the place is closed and dead.  As a consequence, the agent told us, everyone looks forward to the time when the tourists start to arrive and the place starts to come alive once again.  He went on to say, though, that this feeling only lasts for a week or so, before everyone gets thoroughly fed up with the tourists; there is nowhere to park, all the prices go up, and you can’t get into any of the restaurants.

A fascinating piece of history we saw near Argentat

If we had the benefit of this somewhat unusually honest and candid sales pitch before we made the journey over, we probably wouldn’t have bothered.  We did see a couple of fascinating houses (including this one above), but we felt this probably was not the area for us after all.

2011 Spring fashions in Argentat

As can be seen from the picture at the top of this post, Argentat sits in a beautiful position straddling  the river, with tasteful, fashionable houses making its banks look picturesque and inviting for the wealthy and discerning (or, at any rate those who unaware of the downsides re: fog, winter closures, humidity, tourists etc.).  As such you would expect to find the sort of shops to cater for the rich and famous, with the latest fashions arriving simultaneously with those on the streets of Paris.

What you actually find, though, is this.  Now I am no fashion guru (as I am sure Georgi would readily attest), but to my eyes this was not the epitome of high fashion I had expected to find in such a place.  What would Carla Bruni or Segolene Royal, chancing upon this item, so delicately displayed between a drainpipe and an ad’ for a speed dating soiree make of it?  Perhaps this is another opportunity?  We must go back in the summer to check out the potential punters.

Carla and Nicolas

Segolene Royal

                                        

22) A bus ride in France

Interior of a (very clean) French bus, Aurillac

Shortly before we visited England in March, we needed to get the car serviced.  I might have waited until we got back to the UK, but every time you started the engine, an irritating “binging” sound came on, together with an increasingly urgent red flashing message telling you the service was now overdue.  As the car’s warranty had run out three weeks earlier, I felt I really shouldn’t ignore this rather bossy Teutonic, but undoubtedly sensible, advice any longer (I also thought the “binging” sound might drive me mad).

Aurillac has the reputation of being the coldest town in France, but it happened to be the nearest place with an Audi dealer.  The garage was about two miles from the centre of town, in a sort of industrial zone.  Despite my having looked up the French for “courtesy car”, the garage seemed to regard this as something accorded only to Government Ministers, 5 star Generals and other such elevated personages.  As I was clearly neither a high ranking official, a famous footballer or even a champion boules player, there was no way they were going to give me a courtesy car, so instead we thought we'd take a bus into town.  I had been on buses in Rome (that’s another story), but neither Georgi nor I had been on a bus in France.

They were all very friendly, and it was immaculately clean.  First we asked an adolescent youth, who was hanging around the bus stop, which number we should take for the centre of town.  He didn’t seem to know, but as soon as we engaged him in polite conversation, he seemed very anxious to disengage himself from us.  I suspect he was either selling drugs and thought we were some sort of sneaky ploy the gendarmes had come up with to trap him, or perhaps he was just trying to keep up appearances of being streetwise and cool.  Engaging in conversation with an Audi owning, middle class, middle aged couple could, quite possibly, obliterate what little street cred he may have already acquired by loafing about menacingly in bus stops.  Of course, in reality, before he managed to get away, he was very polite, as all French kids are.  They seem to have a sort of reflex action if you speak to them.  They respond with politeness if not charm.  However surly or threatening they are trying to be, they just can't seem to throw off that universal (other than in Paris) French civility.

Then, when we got on the bus, a further good Samaritan came to our aid.  We paid for our tickets which were disgorged from a machine next to the driver.  We picked them up and started to walk down the bus.  Monsieur! the driver called out, and then she glared at us expectantly.  Les tickets, les tickets! she said, with a certain incredulity and even a note of panic.  Baffled, we looked blank (and, perhaps, rather British) as we began to feel the onset of a mild anxiety attack.  At this point a kind passenger who had noticed we were foreign, retarded, English, or simply clueless, pointed out that we had to put our tickets back in another machine, next to the first one, before taking our seats.

Having done this, Georgi and I walked sheepishly to the back of the bus.  On examining our tickets we discovered the second machine had stamped the time on them.  It appears the tickets only entitle you to a maximum of an hour on any one journey.  We presume that this is to prevent tramps from spending all day on the bus, just going round and round Aurillac (rather a draconian measure, given its reputation for coldness).  The more we thought about it, however, the more barmy the system of self-ticket stamping seemed.  Why didn’t the first machine simply print the time on the ticket?  Is there a fortune to be made here, developing an all-in-one-bus-ticket-issuing-machine?  Surely someone has already thought of this?  There must be something deeper behind all of this.  We haven’t worked it out yet, but I do wonder if Clouseau hasn’t had something to do with it?