The Typing Fury

12th November
I needed help with letter writing a couple of days ago, so I paid a visit to my smart neighbours who live nearby. Mme B. is extremely bossy and when channelled into a project she’s a wonder to behold. If I've got past the phoning stage with French utilities companies, she whips out her typing fingers and fires off tart letters for me.

I have talked about the Bontettes here before (see labels) but since we have become good friends I’m in a mood to recap. Mr. B is ex-military and slightly obsessive about his workouts. Mme B, not wanting to risk being caught sans maquillage has had her eyebrows and lips tattooed on, the eyebrows are a little too high, so she looks permanently surprised. Her nails are frankly terrifying. She also has a major shoe fetish - there is a room in their house full of shiny high heels.

Last month I invited the Bontettes to come and help themselves to the walnuts that were falling off our trees, warning them that the land around the trees was very rough and brambley. Mme B arrived with a lovely big basket, I looked at her bare hands and offered my gardening gloves but she waved them away, she would not be actually attempting to handle the walnuts herself, she explained, merely directing her husband where to find them.

Then I noticed her footwear; not possessing any flat shoes Mme B was wearing slippers, the same lumpen plaid style that the old men wear. A very popular item, worn by many French adults. I’ve eyed up these devil slippers on the market stalls afraid to actually touch them in case I fall under their evil spell.

Last Monday at their place, once my letter was written I was invited to stay for lunch – we ate a tart so divine that I ran straight home and recreated it. Despite my resolution that this would not become a foodie site I will tell you how to do it, just in case you’re moved to have a go.

Chicory and Goats Cheese Tart Tatin:
The whole thing is constructed upside down and turned over to serve.

Coat the base of a quiche dish with caramel, cut some blanched chicory heads in half and place flat side down in a vaguely star-like arrangement on the caramel. Slice up a log of goats cheese into discs and place them evenly over the chicory. Drape a rolled-out circle of pastry over all this, tucking any overhang into the dish (brush a little egg wash around the pastry edges if you want to). Bake until the pastry is cooked. Leave to cool a little and then invert the tart onto a big plate. Add walnuts, herbs or nothing to garnish

Mice and men

14th August
Spotted Bruno hanging a bag of lettuce on my gate this morning, he was too unsteady on his bike to make a get away before I caught him up to thank him, he behaved like a schoolboy found smoking behind the bike sheds.

France Telecom now say that the road outside the house will have to be dug up. we are apparently scheduled for the operation next week.

There is clear evidence of wildlife activity in the Lovely House; scrabbling sounds, footprints in the frying pan and someone is eating the soap. I've been leaving humane traps and catching a field mouse most days. I take it to the furthest limits of our land to let go but it has occurred to me that it's the same mouse coming back so I have decided to mark it by clipping off a bit of it's fur. Today's effort was a big failure, I put on rubber gloves and removed the mouse from the trap, I tried to hold it still so I could snip it's fur but it wriggled free and ran off leaving half it's tail in my hand - it was horrific. I'm worried that it's bleeding away somewhere and will die a long smelly death under the floorboards.

Garden Envy

13th Aug
I have become afflicted with garden envy. Not for the leisure sort of garden with grass and flowers because most examples of that in the area are rubbish. I want a potager like my neighbours have. Great lush ranks of artichokes, beans, courgettes and potatoes flourishing next to high, burgeoning tresses of tomatoes. Bright lettucey things in neat rows and big bushy herbs lining the paths. The potager at the Lovely House has not been looked after for many years and is full of nettles and brambles. Digger Man tearing it up to fill a hole in the dam earlier didn't really help either. I've repaired the worst of the damage, cleared the weeds and started a compost heap, but apparently we're supposed to be making a film, so I’ve had to be content with gazing longingly over Mr Bert's hedge on my way to the phone box to call France Telecom (sigh, still no landline), watching him pick leaves off things and tie-up stuff.

I'm still picking mystery vegetable packages off the gate, Mr Bert claims no knowledge of who it might be.

If I go in the other direction towards the bar there are other gardens but I have to stand on my bicycle pedals to see them over the hedges as I wheel past. Arriving at the bar today people are playing pétanque outside, Mrs Strange is behind the bar, she tells me that some Dutch people have set up a pétanque club.

Out manoeuvred

5th August
We still don't have a phone line so I drove to the nearest France Telecom 'Boutique’ where a slab-faced girl told me that there had been a storm and no-one has a line. I confronted her with the fact that all my neighbours have functioning lines. She reluctantly turned on her computer, thought for a bit and decided to tell me that there is indeed a problem, but just with my house, and someone was on their way there now to sort it out, but if they found no-one at the house they would have to leave it until next week. Her tactics defeated me, I returned to base camp.

Destruction

20th June, France
A man with a digger turns up to mend a hole in the dam on 'our' land. He does this by scooping through the wire fence surrounding the potager and filling his bucket with topsoil which he dumps into the hole in the dam. When he’s done, the torn fence lies frayed at an angle towards the ground and there's a black hole showing the ragged roots of two espaliered pear trees left exposed by his work.

I go back to the phone box and call FT again but despite repeated tries I can't get through.

Filming and Phonelines

19th June
Confident that the Big Controller will give us a Deal, The Director goes off to film butterflies. We have no phone line yet and there's not much of a mobile signal around the house so I walk to the phone box to call France Telecom. I keep having to wait out the maximum time on hold before I'm cut off and have to start again.

There is a catchy little tune on that France Telecom hold system - it has formed a tinnitus-like loop in my head.

Setting up services

16th June
The Director and I go to the nearby town to open a joint bank account and I visit the France Telecom shop for a phone line and internet. I’m told this will all be operational in 48 hours