Shed Quest

22nd January
Over the winter I have been looking for potting sheds; we need two similar garden sheds for the filming. One to put in the kitchen garden to film exteriors and a larger one that could accommodate lights, cameras and people for the interior shots.

I imagined there’d be plenty of ramshackle sheds knocking around in France that the owners would like to replace with a new one and I started asking around. Scary Eena told me that Mr Potato Head was planning to pull one down at the woodyard, so I went to see him. The shed in question was currently housing two large agricultural vehicles, from what I could tell by the prongs and blades sticking out through the piles of newspapers, rags, pallets and plastic bags.

I realised that although I’d registered that there were sheds in the area, the ones around here were quite particular to the region, some had at least one stone wall and many had tiled roofs.

It wasn’t looking good in France and I’m back in the UK for a visit. Someone has tipped us off about a disused allotment that is sited alongside a motorway and is to be built on. Enquiries were made and we have been given permission to take away as many sheds as we like.

A disused allotment is a melancholy sight, the weedy plots still in neat rows and next to each the lovingly customised shed of it’s former gardener. Most of the sheds on this patch had started off with the same basic form but have branched out as successive incumbents added porches, verandah’s and windows. Some of these places looked as though they’d been lived in and it wasn’t hard to imagine the community that must’ve existed here once, annoying each other with their barbeque parties and letting their lots grow too weedy or planting something invasive.

We found a pair of fairly plain ox-blood red sheds one the bigger brother to the other and made an arrangement to come back at a later date and dismantle them.

Salmon Supper

8th January
We celebrated the first yoga class of the new year with an after-class supper, I attempted to take some initiative with this one, proposing that I could contribute a big tart. Mme B, astonished that I still misunderstood the etiquette of these events put me firmly in my place:
I will bring a whole salmon, we will have it cold with mayonnaise, Mme Bic can make her salad, Mme Eena will bring rillettes, you bring bread

We decided to hijack the maire's conference room for our meal this time - it has a nicer table, The Bontettes, The Bic Biros, Church Cleaning Lady, The Bank Manager, The Sheep Farmers, Scary Eena, The Instructor and myself all eating Scary Eena's rillettes under the gaze of Sarko. My neighbours are forthright in a way that some people might find rude, mostly I find it amusing. During supper the conversation turned to 'The English’, I’m used to this conversation now, it usually starts with someone asking me a question like;
Do the English eat soup?
The questions can get a bit repetitive and sometimes I answer in a way that amuses me but my flippancy will always come back to bite me and I will be informed at a later date that 'The English think soup has aphrodisiac properties’ or 'soup is only drunk at midnight in England’.

After the soup conversation we got down to the real business
The English certainly do like a drink don't they?

During Sunday's Tart Party, Bic Biro toured the tables constantly with bottles of cider, the village ladies have explained to me that the polite rule here is to accept no more than a glass or two, no matter how much the host insists. English participants, who don’t understand this game and wanting to be seen to join in properly will accept more than the correct amount of glasses - the side effect being that their French improves.

M. Bontette suggested that
The English are not a nation of alcoholics they are just Bon Viveurs

Mme B actually snorted at her husband
But they are incontinent in all ways … sex, drink, food, it’s all stories of bottoms with them … they don’t know when to stop

A Heffalump Trap

16th November
I’m flipping livid - I can’t believe that my spinelessness has led to me getting involved in another weird fib-telling scenario

This village is mostly populated with elderly people - I’m getting to know and love some of them. Funny, saucy women like Scary Eena and her best friend Hélene, the Berts and I’m even getting a bit fond of Bruno the Knob Destroyer.
And then there is Old Dad, I usually see him at the Saturday pétanque games with his long-suffering family who come every weekend to chop his wood, put food in his freezer and listen to his complaints. I was shocked to discover that Old Dad’s chronological age is only the same as my dad (78), I’d put him at least 10 years ahead.

I nearly ran Old Dad over during the week but I braked instead and then he’d seen me, so I had to stop and chat. When he'd finished describing his various ailments he suddenly invited me to lunch with him on Monday (tomorrow). Failing to think quickly enough I accepted. I’d just got philosophical about this, telling myself that it would be an interesting lunch - probably (in a tedious sort of way) and certainly wouldn’t do me any harm, but he turned up a bit later at the Lovely House with a request
If you see my son you mustn’t tell him that you’re coming to lunch on Monday
I protested, but the man wouldn’t go until I’d accepted not to tell.*

The idea of lunch turning into a conspiracy bothered me. At the pétanque game yesterday I chose a moment when Old Dad was standing alone to go and tell him I wasn't coming, then saw that his lip was actually trembling
But you’ve got to come
Sure – another time
What are you doing on Tuesday?
I paused a beat too long - he jumped on it
You’ll come Tuesday then?
I have no idea what’s wrong with me but I heard my mouth saying OK
Aaaargh

*In my weedy defense I’ll say that OD uses a lot of dialect, he is very difficult to understand properly - and I started losing the will to live after the discussion had gone on for more than a couple of minutes.

Food - and Yoga

23rd October
My reasons for not mentioning my background as a cook to French people are different from my UK reasons;
a) They will laugh heartily at the idea of an English person cooking. French people from all regions and in all age groups absolutely love recounting stories about their friend's old auntie, who once went to England and how terrible she found the food.

b) French people like the idea of 'stability', people who chop and change careers, are instable - and if you do use that word in a sentence when you're discussing someone, say it with a shocked upturned note.
I let my neighbours assume that I have the correct insectologist and fluffing qualifications and have been doing this job constantly since graduating.


I’ve joined the weekly yoga class that takes place at our Salle des Fetes. Half the class are couples; The Bontettes the Bic Biros and the Sheep Farmers, then there is a pregnant postlady, the lady that cleans the church and Jeanne who runs the lunch café in the next village. My bank manager takes part and Scary Eena does the session in her slippers. The instructor is lovely and helps Eena and the Postlady into reclining postures while the rest of us find new ways to stand on one leg.

The evening always starts with lots of kissing and lengthy greetings. After this week's session Mme Bontette declared that next week we should have a group picnic supper after the class and that she will provide fish soup, Scary Eena immediately volunteered her rilletes, Mme Biro offered a salad and Mme B then told the rest of the class what they must bring – having failed my tomato-chopping task at last month’s sports day I am appointed bread monitor.

I find out where all the sausages come from

25th August
A woman who the French would describe as costaud cycled into our yard this morning, I've passed her place and watched agog as she worked; wielding a chainsaw, hefting sacks of animal feed and tending an impressive potager.

Today Mme Costaud mumbled something about whether I'd like to look at her cobwebs and I pedalled with her back up the road to look at a great barn hung with huge webby drapes. I now don't know whether to feel better or inadequate about our cobwebs in the Lovely House.

Mme Costaud, has very badly fitting false teeth, the little she says is virtually incomprehensible, she gave me a tour of her smallholding. She keeps a few of every kind of beast including hares which are set free when they reach maturity, to make up for the ones she shoots when she's out hunting, she also raises pigs for other villagers and when the time comes... she showed me the pulley and hook where the pig is hoisted, throat cut, the blood is kept for boudin noir. The body is carted off by it's sponsor to be turned into chops and charcuterie. I happen to know that Scary Eena always has a couple of the Costaud pigs and is famed for her rillettes. Remembering that the sideboard in the Lovely House is actually a pig scrubbing trough with a board over it, I asked whether I could pay to keep a pig at her's for next year, Mme Costaud was blunt on the issue and responded simply, non.

The Costaud family were against the construction of the Salle des Fetes and, until recently, have all boycotted the place. Her son has now become a double agent visiting both the Bar and the Salle - the family is riven, father and son are no longer on speaking terms.

Supper at the village hall

17th August
We're usualy too tired to go out in the evenings but last night The Director and I went to the Salle des Fetes to join in with the annual summer dinner party. Bic Biro, the Bontettes and Scary Eena were there, and Bruno the Knob Destroyer, drunk, he simultaneously sprayed me with the cracker he was eating while bashing my left breast as he gesticulated. The dumb smiley girl I washed bottles with last month was also there with a man I took to be her twin brother until she introduced him to me as her boyfriend. I watched The Director gradually nodding forward as the evening wore on, he straightened up with a jerk now and again until he finally gave in and dropped off. His snoring drew a bit of attention but not as much as I would've expected, no one pointed and laughed like they do in England.

My humane trap stayed empty for a couple of days, then yesterday, sitting happily in the cage with a walnut in his hands, was a half-tailed mouse. Clearly none the worse for Thursday's adventure, this time I took him a good mile up the road to let him out.

Village Fete

19th July
The village is en fete this weekend kicking off with an opening night supper. Last night I found myself in the kitchen at the Salle des Fetes washing wine bottles with a dumb smiley woman in bright lipstick. People buzzed around chopping tomatoes, making salads and above all chatting. A woman stirred sausages in a large cauldron placed on a gas burner. The sausages emit so much water that they are stewing not sizzling. Smiley Woman and I filled wine bottles from large plastic containers, helped fuss around with tables, chairs and decorations then went home to get dressed up. Later, when guests arrive they are given two thin plastic trays, one with a salad in it and the other containing the grey sausage and lentils. I took mine and joined three elderly ladies on one of the plastic tables outside. One of them - a fierce-looking lady in slippers is a reincarnatation of Eena Sharples  for half an hour I am a member of their coven as they exchange gossip and sharp observations. It’s huge fun. Suddenly clouds scud over and there’s clearly going to be a storm. Two of my companions have finished eating and head inside but seconds of sausage are coming round, I correctly judge how much sausage I can eat before the raindrops start falling but Eena doesn’t  I dash in to shelter as she struggles manfully on in the rain.