Everything gets done, eventually

A few months ago I mentioned that our centralised hoovering system was blocked and wouldn't work. Well yesterday, the chap finally turned up to fix it. He ended up cutting away several pieces of piping, under the house, to find the blockage. He eventually found it and the blockage consisted of another piece of small pipe. It must have been there since the system was installed and a steady build of rubbish around it had finally completely blocked the pipe.

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We've decided to put Minnie 'on the pill'. Jan still hasn't decided whether she wants to let them have pups and we can't afford to keep replacing the shutters when Max decides that he wants to get his leg over and breaks out of the house.

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Vincent D turned up this afternoon, as agreed, to start filling in some of the trenches that he dug with his pel a couple of years ago (above). Nothing around here gets done in a hurry. Not what we set out to do, nor what artisans say they will do. Welcome to France.

Time warp

I forgot to mention that a strange thing happened over the weekend on the journey to Agen and back, in the area around Beziers. In both directions the car clock changed, by itself, going forward about 1.25 hours. Weird.

Mr Chimney Repair Man showed at midday yesterday, as re-scheduled. After a lot of sucking through his teeth (why do they do that?) he gave us a possible solution and, without giving a precise date, he said he'd come back and make some alterations to the fireplace. Everything is worth trying now.

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You wouldn't think that a man would use a visit to the gynaecologist to get time off work, but this one did.

Not according to plan

A couple of shots of our visit to the duck farm yesterday. Look at the size of those ducks. Nothing half hearted here mes braves. Lunch was taken sitting at bench tables in a huge rustic barn. Around the sides of the barn they were selling champagne, wines, beer and food. There was another huge tent with lots of other food things for sale next door.

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An early start this morning (look, 11.30 is early for us!) for the trip back home. We were sorry to leave because H&E are such kind hosts and good friends but there is much to do at home before we leave for the UK next weekend.
The dogs were delighted to see us and when we got them home, they rushed to see the new fencing that Michel had installed to keep them in the garden. You could almost hear Max saying 'damn'. Mr Chimney Repair Man didn't show as planned and rescheduled for the next day and Mr Landscape Gardener didn't show either (I'm not sure why I'm surprised), however a lorry load of gravel was delivered as planned. I suppose that one out of three isn't bad by French standards but it's irritating because I made a special effort to get back in time to see them.

Big duck day

If your cholesterol is a little low and needs a gentle boost, then I've found the place for you. If you eat at Ferme de Ramon, Lagarrigue, 47910 Aiguillon, there's a very good chance that your cholesterol reading will be gently nudged into double figures. They have a foire twice a year and we were booked in today for lunch. If you like foie gras (all complaints can be directed at and will be handled personally by the farm managers) or any duck related products then this is the place to be. When we arrived at midday, the place was already buzzing. In fact there were so many people that there were barely any duck breasts left for sale. Now I'm partial to a bit of magret de canard, so I dived in and in true French elbow gouging fashion managed to get to the front of the queue to buy the last three breasts available. I glared at the woman in front, who knew I was on a mission, and dared her to buy them ahead of me. But, in typical French fashion she backed down (or was she just being nice?) and she left them for me. There, a bit of entente cordiale without any nastiness.
It's a neat system. There were many local producteurs there and you choose your various courses from amongst them. Lunch was courtesy of H&E, so I purchased a bottle of Sauternes from Chateau Lafon, 33210, Sauternes, who were proud to announce that there vines are au milieu des vignes d'Yquem, to drink with the entrée. Well there you go, a wine that rubs shoulders with the best! How posh can you get? I'll whisper that we had foie gras mi-cuit for the starter (complaints etc..........). For the main course we had the almost obligatory magret and frites washed down with a red Domaine Amblard 2003. The magret was huge, and god knows what the ducks look like, but, I wasn't there to judge a beauty contest. Having said that the woman selling the Amblard was rather pretty. Anyway, it was now the turn of my blood sugar to take a hammering. Jan, who is usually a very nice person, forced me to eat the most delicious walnut cake covered with honey and, of course, I just had to finish off the Sauternes. Whose idea was this?

Out with Saddam's henchman

We took a trip west to the old town of Bazas at lunchtime, not only to look at the cathedral (above) which is on the pilgrimage route to Compostela in Spain, but also to eat at Le Bistrot Saint-Jean, 42 Place de la Cathedrale, Bazas 0556 25 18 53. The restaurant was mentioned in Rick Stein's French Odyssey television programme (but not in the cook book). The speciality of the house is beef (boeuf de Bazas) which has a special taste and is cooked to perfection, especially if you like your meat still breathing. My starter of terrine de foie gras was accompanied by an onion jam, flavoured with grenadine, very unusual but very nice. The cote de boeuf, which I shared with Harold, almost walked into the restaurant. Thank god I didn't want it rare. If you're a beef junky then this is the place for you.

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In conversation over lunch it transpired that Harold once had his picture in the Sunday Times with the caption that he was one of Saddam Hussein's henchmen. Two things come to mind. First, don't upset Harold, and second don't believe everything you read in the papers, but then you knew that anyway. The other thing that came out, was Jan mentioning that she once had to sign the Official Secrets Act. She then told us all about it.

Stuffed and tired

My usual way of creating this journal is to dump my thoughts at the end of the day, when I'm tired (and sometimes emotional), and then to edit it the following morning. Here's the unedited version from last night.
"Arrogance is an interesting word. Last night I described certain people that we know as arrogant, which then made me consider whether I am arrogant. Jan thinks I'm arrogant, or at the very least, very self confident. I'd certainly agree with self confident but not arrogant. My self confidence come from a previous life. A time when I (we) were faced with lots of problems, nothing insurmountable, but (business) problems nevertheless. After you had faced, and resolved, a raft of problems, many of them people related, the same old problems started to surface again and again. Problems that you had already faced, and dealt with, you instinctively knew the answer to."
When I looked up the word arrogant in my dictionary it said "Origin - Middle English via Old French from Latin arrogare (see arrogate). So there you have it, Jan is right, I'm arrogate from Harrogate.

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So much for an early start. Michel the builder turned up completely unannounced to start work on some fencing that Bryan and I had agreed we'd tackle. What was weird was, how he knew that the materials had just arrived? Then a lorry load of gravel arrived, that was supposed to have been delivered yesterday, so by the time that it was all sorted out we didn't leave until midday.

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The journey to Port Sainte Marie takes 4.5 hours but is largely uninspiring. H&E were pleased to see us, as we were them, and provided their usual lavish hospitality. We went to bed stuffed and tired.

Big duck country

Whilst round at the Lloyd's this morning, trying to sort out their pool (it rained very heavily the other day and the water level needed lowering), I looked over the wall into our joint neighbours garden. What a mess. The place had been wrecked. Kids had obviously broken in and filled the pool with everything that they could lay their hands on. There was also lots of other damage. It looks like we have some problem children in the village and the sooner that they are stopped the better. So much for a peaceful village life. Anyway, the Gendarmes are now involved and talking to neighbours it is well known who the trouble makers are likely to be. There aren't that many kids in the village.

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My interest in the English football club West Ham made me read this article about Icelandic business. For a country so small they are taking a sizeable interest in UK businesses generally. It makes interesting reading.

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We are going to visit friends near Agen tomorrow so most of the evening was spent organising for an early start. It's a 4.5 hour journey so we need to leave around 10.00 to drop off the dogs and then get on the road. There is so much going on at the moment that I would like to postpone the trip but we know we will have a great time because H&E have already lined up lots of interesting things to see and do (and eat). This is big duck country, so there's a good chance that we will be handing out duck related presents this Xmas. Place your orders now!

Getting to know you

Today is our anniversary. It is 10 years since Jan and I first met. Aaaaah, those were happy days. What happened? (She got to know you better - Ed.) The picture above is as close as I could get to something appropriate. (Like I said, she got to know you better - Ed.)

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I went to Quissac today to order the materials for the new bit of fence that I have to erect, but based on Max's recent behaviour it looks like I'm going to have to put up some more. His recent party piece is to clear the 1.5 metres fence near the bottom gate and go off for a wander. If he doesn't get fed up (and frankly I doubt that he will) then it looks like I'm going to have to erect some 2 metres fencing. It's always 2 forward and 1 back with Max.

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Will, sent me this. It's a very funny 1.5 Mb sound (wma) file. Guaranteed to make you laugh.

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We had a problem this evening, knowing where to eat. All the local restos were shut (we had this same problem last year) so despite the offer of a slap up take out (with extra toppings) from the pizza van, Jan decided that we'd eat in. Can't say I didn't try.

Gorges du Gardon II

In a drunken moment (there have been a lot of these in my life), I promised to show J, H, B & G (can't be bothered to write all the names - look at my face, do I look bothered?) the above walk. When I woke this morning it was raining. "Thank god," I said, "the walk's off." WRONG. This is over 3 kilometres of hard walking, with a 1 kilometre vertical section, up a cliff face. Kate, my TV heart throb, might do triathlons, but let me remind you that I walk the Gorges du Gardon. This must mean something to a super fit woman! (It probably would if your face wasn't purple and you hadn't had a coronary half way up - Ed.) Anyway, the bloody walk was on. We loaded the quivering dogs into the Jeep and set off. Max and Min are not good car travellers so they make it difficult to load them in the boot but determined not to be embarrassed by 2 poxy dogs, off we jolly well went.
Also, determined not to let Minnie drown in the fast flowing river we kept her on a lead until we started the climb up the other side. It was a bit tough on Min, never mind me on the slippery rocks, because we let Max run free, but there was no way that I was going to jump into the freezing cold water to fish her out, so a lead it was.
All went well, and all the more so because this time we found the correct path up the mountain which was much easier than last time but it still didn't prevent the old ticker complaining.

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I can't remember the last time I had a bath (or baaath as Jan would have me say). As a Yorkshire lad I was taught to use short vowels, non of your poncy loooong southern vowels. Do you say castle or caaaaaastle. Anyway, we rarely if ever have a baaaath nowadays, but after we returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Jan's suggestion of a baaaaath went down really well. In fact, it was soooooper, very relaxing and we both had our pj's on at 18.46. I think that we can now be classified as 'officially old'.

Normal service will resumed as soon as possible

Bar, Geoff, Jill and Harry came for dinner last night. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but I've noticed recently that when we have certain visitors from the UK, Jan goes into 'typical English fayre mode'. Strange but true. So for dinner we had a lovely roast lamb meal. I can't quite figure out the logic of giving visitors to France something that they eat regularly at home but then, I'm just a bloke. To further add to my confusion, when Geoff asked Jan if she had developed a lot of different recipes whilst she has been in France, she said, *No." She changed this to, "Yes," when I spluttered into my soup and was questioned more closely by Geoff. Seems like I'm not the only confused person around here. (You're going to be a very hungry, confused person unless you shut up - Ed.)

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The latest Davis Cup score is CZ 7, F 7 and GB 9. I just thought that would like to know that I'm keeping my end up. The games get better and better and we're all competitive which makes it more fun. Roll on Thursday.

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The item on breakfast tv this morning was about babies' allergy to cow's milk. My attractive news presenter (let's call her Kate) was interviewing the 'professor' about the problem. She said, "Now tell me prof, are we talking about breast milk or bottle milk?"

As the whole point of the interview was centred on a cow's milk allergy the prof was slightly at a loss for words. Ignoring the stupid question he ploughed on and replied to the hapless Kate without a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

It looks like Kate and I will not be spawning intelligent children after all.

Sanglier

We're going to eat sanglier, wild boar. We had an old (well new actually) oven to get rid of because Jan didn't like it. We had offered it to Claudie, a lady in the village, for her new house (an old empty hotel with 400 m2 on the ground floor) in Aveyron, which she had purchased with her brother for 49000 euros. Whilst it was an exceptional price for such a large property with a lot of land, it is right on top of the Massive Central and it gets very, very cold up there in winter. Anyway, her hunter hubby, Jean Pierre, who famously got shot in his ass once, came to fetch the oven this morning and he said that they killed three sanglier yesterday, two on the hill opposite us and one elsewhere. By way of thank you they turned up with a carrier bag of sanglier meat. Claudie's first instruction was put it in the freezer for a minimum of 5 days to kill all the bugs. Great, sounds very appetising! Now all Jan has to do is figure out how to cook it. Probably with a lot of disinfectant. I can't wait.

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James and Pauline returned to England this afternoon and we're sorry to see them go. They both enjoy this part of the world and their enthusiasm for the lifestyle and countryside is refreshing. Max and Min got lots of walks as well, so I guess they will miss them too.

Wet and Dry

What a dramatic change in the weather this morning. At least I got the chance to survey the damage and make some repairs. The water in the garage was not reducing very quickly so it was just as well that we bought a wet and dry vac yesterday. These machines are great (it doesn't take much to keep you happy! - Ed.). The vac has a 29 litres capacity and by the time I'd finished I reckon that it had removed the best part of 80 litres of water. No wonder it wasn't evaporating very quickly. I bet you find it difficult to contain your excitement at seeing the picture of our new vac above.

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James, Pauline, William, Christine, Jan and I (strange but out of the five previous very English Christian names, one person is German and two are French) ate at Mas de Roux last night. And, whilst we are into statistics, five of us had the same fish and yours truly had a slab of meat. I should be able to read something into that? (Yeah, have you written your will? - Ed.)

Rain, rain, go away

If you want to know what I think is wrong in the UK, then look at this, it's quite funny.

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Boy, did it rain last night. We had flooding in the garden this morning and part of the drive and back garden were washed away. Tha garage and cave had flooded slightly and the pool has now filled up and will need attention again tomorrow. Assuming that is, that it stops raining. I don't understand why rainfall here is so violent.

Not really a thriller

Pierre the Poolman arrived as planned yesterday morning to show me what was involved in fitting the new pool cover and putting the pool to bed for the winter. There's a bit more to it than I imagined. At one point the cover, which has a narrow mesh running the full length of the cover to let rain water run through, was sitting over the pool, not secured, and started to fill with water. Now, the cover alone weighed something like 50 kilos and when it was weighed down with water as well, it was a nightmare to move. Still, we managed and eventually got it fixed in place. Thank god it's only once a year!

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You can call me an old cynic but when I read this I nearly choked on my cornflakes (actually it was Jan's home made muesli but cornflakes sounds better). The thought of Michael Jackson and a choir of 50 children in the same place can only be described as grossly inappropriate (but then these were the bad taste awards - Ed.). He was of course found innocent in a court of law and I have accepted that verdict (I'm thinking of lawyers here), but assuming that was the correct verdict, then there were an awful lot of people perjuring themselves. Why haven't they been prosecuted?

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I had a bit of a panic this morning. The Golf was in the garage having a new silencer fitted, and it wasn't going to be finished until this evening, Jan was out, and James and Pauline arrived this afternoon. How was I going to pick them up? William very kindly offered to give me a lift to the garage to see if I could get the car back a little earlier and it was amazing what his presence produced. His old mate and garage owner, Monsieur Calvetti, was suddenly able to bring forward the time that the car would be ready, to 11.30. Just like that.
Note: need to get William to drive me around a bit more!

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We had a bit of fun at dinner tonight by blind tasting five wines. James and Pauline are considering getting married in France next September, so for a bit of fun, Jan and I covered five different wines with silver foil and we all sipped away. It's amazing what you find out about yourself and the preconceptions that you have about individual wines. Try it, it's fun.