I am The Booby

18th January
The competitive pétanque season will start next month and the club captain is keen that we go forth and win prizes. In order to develop our killer instinct, a tournament was played outside the bar yesterday, with prizes for the winner. Due to lack of talent I played spectacularly badly. My performance was so bad that at the end of the prize-giving ceremony I was presented with a booby prize for being the worst.

The pétanque club are pretty much the last surviving customers of our village bar which is dying a death. The newly married goth couple who are currently running it are fed up and want to go home - they complain that it’s just a village of old people. I’m not sure how they know because they only ever leave their house to get in a car and drive to town – Lord knows I’ve tried to get Courtney to come to yoga with me, when the postlady gets back from maternity leave there’ll be at least one other person under 50 in that class. Neither was Courtney interested in the village charabanc trip to Andorra*, and that was quite a hoot once we’d got everyone who needed lavatories sorted out, then rounded up the ones that had wandered off and got lost during the lavatory chaos.

Kurt has assigned himself the job of chef and lets his wife run the bar. Kurt rarely cooks though, passing his days mostly on the computer while his new wife opens up the bar and sits on her own watching tv downstairs. She’s missing her friends in Denmark and is sad about the marriage. Courtney tells me that she’s not even known her husband for a year yet. He invites his heavily tattooed friends over for poker evenings, the motorbikes parked outside until the early hours tell the villagers all they need to know about the place and Mme Bontette adds speculative layers of salacious gossip.

Kurt is British, his mother and wife (who don’t speak French) both think that Kurt can speak French quite well, but I know that he can’t - which might account for his refusal to be in the bar or write his bar flyers and menus in French. I also know that Kurt’s mother (who owns the place) has decided to come and pay a visit soon to see how they’re getting on.

*Andorra is a duty free principality in the Pyrenees. The French get very excited about going there to buy tax-free butter, I was very excited by the lovely big tin of olives I got for half the price I’d pay in France, that plus the big plastic jerry can of 'Port’ for 5 euros.

Boom Box Stalker

16th January
The optimism of the rural Frenchman in his sexual ambitions is irrepressible;

It is only the totally unsuitable who pursue me, usually very old, sometimes very young. If the man hitting on me is somewhere near my own age I’d put money on the fact that he has never actually been successful in wooing any woman.

I had formed a theory that these men think I will be dazzled by their exotic foreignness. But then I went for lunch at Jeanne’s café with Florence, her pregnant belly resplendent. She is stunning, a more gorgeous version of Audrey Tatou. Not surprisingly I was totally ignored by the gappy-toothed, the boss-eyed and the lame, they were all after Florence who had to fend off several attempts at inappropriate touching and general suggestiveness.

On a dull day before Christmas, Florence and I set out on a walk. When we heard the thump of a sound system coming up behind us, we looked back and saw a fat teenager with a massive boom box strapped precariously in a crate on the back of his bicycle. It was a funny sight and we danced and sang along as he passed. Naturally he took that as an invitation to have sex with him and cycled in wobbly circles alongside us, making encouraging noises and generally trying to tempt us.

Unconcerned, we walked off the road into the forest assuming he’d get lost. Half an hour later we came to another piece of road , it had started drizzling slightly now - Boom Box Boy was there waiting. We crossed the road and went back into the forest walking on for another hour or so ending up back at Florence’s village, it was by now pouring and we were freezing as we squelched our way down the tarmac - boom box man was there, waiting, when he spotted us he started pedalling hopefully towards us.

January Review

14th January
The Bar and La Salle des Fetes:
The rift widened over new year. The Salle des Fetes advertised a St Silvestre Dinner Disco. Kurt 'n' Courtney hosted an evening of New Year jollity with beer and pies at the bar, the bar posters were in English so it was interpreted by the villagers as being an exclusively British event – which it was.

The Pétanque Club:
still meets up at the bar for a weekly game – the club has now become registered and official, the first inter-club tournament will be played next month, we are summoned to start training in earnest this weekend.

The Cats:
hang out on top of a tall basket full of knobbly ropes in the back kitchen, if I walk in there, they shoot out through the cat hole to the wood shed but Kevin will immediately poke his head back through the hole to see if I’ve got food - he is excessively greedy.

Florence:
my friend is roundly and hugely pregnant. Yesterday we visited some thermal baths and wallowed around like a pair of whales then loafed in the Jacuzzi on the roof where it snowed on us. The big hole in the wall of her house has now got a window in it.

Dormant Creatures:
are now sleeping in a second fridge plugged in just for their use, currently only ants and butterfly cocoons in residence.

The Director:
is still editing last year's material in the UK he is expecting a visit from me next week.

Back Home

12th January
... On Saturday it was Freddie's turn for cooking, Saturday night is Spaghetti Night.

The Ranch is an extremely organised household - the month’s menu is fixed in advance and they do a monthly shop for everything in one go, this involves 4 shopping trolleys.

I didn’t see much of Nina, she works out a lot in the home gym, she is tiny, twitchy and boyish. Nina also has OCD and there are quite a lot of rules - I think my visit was quite taxing for her.

I got back to the Lovely House yesterday morning, the water fell from the attic which runs along the back of the house into a downstairs room which isn't used during the winter. The water did wash through into the main front room where the fireplace is, the unglazed terracotta tiles are placed straight on the raw clay which was scraped flat to build the house on (no foundations) so the floor is still damp but the fire is going and the weather has really warmed up now - it’s great to be home.

A Stay At The Ranch

11th January
...I’d not even washed my face when I arrived at the dinner party on Friday night, I nipped into the bathroom and washed off the dirt a bit but frankly I looked considerably worse when the full horror of my blotchy swollen face was revealed.

It was decided that Freddie and Nina should take me in for that night and then Freddie would help me sort things out at my place in the morning.

Freddie and Nina live in a huge new-looking house on a hilltop. It is regarded by many as a monstrosity with it’s glossy tan tudoresque beams criss-crossing neatly across a gleaming white façade. Freddie has built it around the skeleton of some farm buildings following Nina’s directions, she explained how they first found the place and the vision she immediately saw for it’s future;
It was just a fallen down barn - no roof, Freddie said to me 'This is too far gone for us Nina’ and I said 'Freddie. Look up there, that’s where we’ll have our corner bath’.

Freddie is ex-RAF and quite a bit older than Nina. He is a bit like my Nan and remorselessly hospitable
... would you like 3 or 4 sugars in your tea, or would you prefer coffee, I’ll make you cocoa, look lovely hot milk, are you warm enough, let me make you a hot water bottle...

Freddie and Nina have insisted that I stay at their place until I’ve got The Lovely House dried out. Their house is blazing hot and I couldn’t sleep on Friday night, I had a banging headache and everything ached yesterday morning. I dressed and wandered into the kitchen where Freddie reeled off breakfast options;
Do you like eggs? I could scramble you some eggs and I’ve got some lovely sausages, would you like 4 or 5 eggs, you could have 10 sausages, I’ve got loads. Or would you prefer fried eggs, I expect I can find bacon, or maybe you’re a cereal sort of person...

I started giggling at this barrage and then started crying again, Freddie made me a very sweet coffee and patted my shoulder, waiting until I’d dried out enough to make sense.

After breakfast Freddie put some paraffin heaters in his van and drove me back down to the Lovely House. I checked the cats, ants and whatever else is living in the fridge at the moment, then I waited until the electrician came. I spent the day there with the fires going and would have been happy to stay but Freddie had seen in my fridge and insisted that I go back for supper with them and stay at the ranch for a second night …

The Deluge

10th January
The freeze went on for a few days and wasn’t a huge problem. I was using the fire for cooking anyway, the ironware fixed in the chimney (the cremaliere) includes a hook to hang cauldrons of lake water over the fire to heat for washing with. A few days ago My Dutch neighbours came by to see if I was OK and stayed for lunch – Kitty is petite and has showbiz pzazz, her voice is a husky purr, her enormous husband has a champion moustache. As they were leaving Kitty told me to call if ever I needed a beer and a warm up with her and the Walrus.

Then mid-morning yesterday Bruno the Knob Destroyer turned up with a bag of beetroot. He found me working outside.

You frozen up then?
Yup
Landlord never wanted to pay to wrap up the pipes – happens every year. You got any leaks?
It’s still frozen, I don’t know yet
Better go and have a look then

We went into the icy attic and looked where the pipes run along the wall - there was a slow drip from one place, it didn’t look serious but I went and turned the stopcock off, Bruno identified the source with a chalk mark and I left a phone message for the plumber.

Bruno went off and I went back out to work until the plumber came, I got completely lost clearing another area of brambles to feed my ongoing bonfire. I wandered back to the house in a filthy state, starving for lunch, it was much later than I thought. Then I heard a gushing noise as I approached the front door. I ran in, saw the flood, called the plumber - a little more hysterically this time, then set to work sweeping the water out of the house. The plumber arrived quite quickly he fixed the pipe and I continued to sweep the water. It turned out that the damage was in the hot pipe, a whole tank of hot water had emptied into the house.

When the worst of the water was out of the house, I sopped up the last puddles with a big cloth, using my hands to wring out the water into a bucket. The house walls are made from clay bricks mixed with ash, the water was very soapy and I realised that the hot water had washed down the bricks making the water caustic, I didn’t notice at the time because my hands were numb with cold.

I worked manically for hours but it was under control, I couldn’t see any lasting damage, it had happened during the day … could be a lot worse etc.,

It was only when I sat down and waited for a kettle to boil that I realised how tired I was and that my hands hurt. I then discovered that we had no electricity in the main part of the house (the Landlord had done the rewiring here himself because he hadn’t wanted to pay to have it done). Suddenly the house seemed like a cold wet monster and it was dark by this time.

I went into the bathroom with a torch and saw my face in the mirror – I looked like I’d been blasted from a cannon, I laughed at myself – then I started crying. I pulled myself together, had a cup of tea and decided that if there was ever a time to call Kitty for a beer and a warm up - now was it, I picked up the phone;

Hi Kitty are you busy this evening?
Yes darling we have guests for dinner
Oh never mind, another time
Is everything OK darling?

I assured her that everything was fine but she couldn’t understand what I was saying through my gulping and snotty hiccupping tears. Within ten minutes The Walrus had come round and made me get in his car.

The dinner party was in progress as I arrived and everyone insisted that I joined them, the other guests were two English couples, I knew them slightly but my disaster bonded us all in a sort of Dunkirk Spirit and soon everybody was fighting over who got to take me home.

I’ve ended up at Freddie and Nina’s ranch and it’s quite funny there …

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

Not Enough Lagging

6th January
My pipes are frozen, I've borrowed and stolen as many buckets as I can lay my hands on and fetched up water from the lake (after cracking through the surface ice). The buckets all have to be in the living room to stop them freezing over, the ants are keeping warm in the fridge. I've been round Mme B's house filling bottles with drinking water (she's properly lagged of course). It's not too bad in the day because I can go off on bracing walks but once in the house I have to wear every item of clothing I own.

The cats are making me laugh though. Julie kills stuff and Kevin steals it, then parades around pretending it's his, this is Kev showing me a bit of the rat Julie just caught.

Epiphany

5th January
I took the Director to the airport last night so I was a bit sad and lonely this morning - and then the ants arrived.

Yup, this morning a lovely box full with test tubes of starter ant colonies arrived, here’s the email to explain everything;

Dear Lulu,

Best thing is to put the ants in the fridge, make sure they look like they are hibernating. They might look wrinkled, if they are moving around too much they will need to be cooled down gradually to 5-8 degrees C (don’t let them get affected by the frost). It is important to make sure they have enough water but not too much, most ants don’t make it through the winter because of either drowning or dehydration.

Best Wishes etc

I have been inspecting them anxiously all day for signs of wrinkling or death or life

Before setting off to the airport we had time to attend the annual epiphany tea party at the Salles Des Fetes; on the first Sunday of the new year the Maire invites our village and the two tiny communes next to us to join him for cider and special epiphany tarts, Gallette de Roi. Hidden inside each tart is a ceramic charm, the person who breaks a tooth on one of these charms gets to wear a crown and be king (or queen) for the day. We sat at the white plastic tables while smartly dressed village officials came around with trays of Galletes de Roi, chocolates and cider it is a polite sort of event.


The English man that I have unkindly named Fat Dad was there with his offspring. The French children sat with their parents all dressed in their Sunday Best while FD’s kids careened around like banshees grabbing at chocolates, keeping their mouths full as they shrieked at each other. Fat Dad was beaming as I went to wish him Happy New Year.
We don’t allow any sugar or refined or processed food in our house, so this is a real treat for them – aren’t they having a great time

A Handy Guide To Oyster Measuring

4th January
I went to yesterday's market and bought celebrational food. Later, when we were in the bar, The Director asked me what I'd bought:
Me: Oh loads of things ... oysters...
TD: How many oysters did you buy?
Me: I can't remember
TD: Did it feel as though you were carrying one cat in the bag or two?
Me: Just the one
TD: You've only got a dozen then

Yessssss

3rd January
I was woken with a phone call from the landlord, he tells that he won’t be putting the Lovely House on the market until we choose to leave, and we can stay as long as we want, and yes he’ll put that in writing.

How did that come about you may ask?
After the landlord's call before Christmas to say that the house would be on the market and after I’d got the flames coming out of my nose under control, I deduced that he was hoping that we'd buy the house, and anyway it would be easier to sell while inhabited – and he’d still be getting our rent.

Clearly the man is a No Good Duplicitous Rotter. I asked Mme B. to help me write a letter explaining that due to the security risks of unknown visitors and the disruption ensuing we would have to find other premises forthwith – I now feel so euphoric, triumphant and smug I've just had to hang that dartboard and fling a few darts at this image, which is as close as I can get to a likeness of the landlord.

New Year - French style

2nd January
We were at the Village Hall for New Year’s Eve. My chum Mme B organised the bash and as she has fallen out with half the French people in the village and, as I'm a bit scared of her, I was press-ganged in to make up numbers. The Director isn’t naturally sociable and he doesn’t speak much French - he doesn’t like staying out late either so I realised that I wasn’t giving him much of a treat when I bought the tickets.

Mme B called me to make sure that we’d be there prompt at 8, this was so we could stand around drinking warm whisky and cheap port for two hours. At ten we noticed that the old people had sat down and were clenching cutlery in their hands, we followed suit and soon the the giblet salads appeared. We were just beginning to think that it might all be ok when the disco started - an elderly swinger in tight white pants and toupee put Agadoo on his decks and everybody got up to dance.

There was at least an hour of dancing between each course. The French people round here really like interactive dancing, Discoman played lots of brass oompah tunes and everyone knew what to do, all the arms in the air at the same time, kicking in unison, I suppose it’s a version of line dancing but I don’t know how to do that either. The funny thing was, how nobody noticed when midnight came, The Director looked at his watch and said it’s 12.30 in an incredulous tone that meant and we’ve only just had soup.

The main course (duck breast) arrived at 2am and still there was cheese, salad and dessert to come, then there would be bubbly and as there weren't many of us in the first place, there was no going home before the frizzante.

I had to sling The Director over my shoulder and give him a Fireman's Lift home. After I put him to bed I went down for breakfast and noticed that the dartboard I gave him two weeks ago is still on the floor behind the chair.

Insect Shopping

30th December
There are lots of things we need for spring filming, I’m searching the internet for suppliers of various insect species and their eggs or larvae. It's a strange world out there, here’s the Hot List of Top Ten best sellers at Blades Biological;
Acetobacter aceti-
Aspergillus oryzae
Blood Splatter
Analysis Kit
Ants
Black Ants
Flour Beetles Wild Type
Flour Beetles Wild Type
Larder Beetles
Human lleum
Aquarium Heater/ Stats

Do visit Blades: if you get there quick I see they have Diapherodes Gigantea on a special offer of £8.31 for 2.

It also seems strange to keep live things in the fridge, some butterfly cocoons were delivered the other day and I sent an anxious email to the suppliers who responded:

Dear Lulu
It’s fine that they’re just all loose in the bottom and there should be NO holes, so if you have made holes tape them up again. The fridge is fine too, it keeps them at a constant temperature until you need them

Also the black ones are not dead.

Best Wishes etc.


As far as possible we want to film things in the wild and there are some ant species we can’t find so we drove out to visit a chap who is famous for his work on the reproductive strategies of ants.

Our expert is a small elderly man with a sideways tilt to his head and a scuttling walk that is decidedly ant-like. His house is stuffed with ant-related art. I spent a swivel-headed afternoon translating while The Director and Antman got lost in myrmecological debate.


Cat update:
Since it’s been colder I’ve been putting food out regularly for Kevin and Julie - they’re still catching small furry creatures but now they leave the bodies on the back step for us to eat.

More Banquets

29th December
There was an unnerving incident back in October when we first met the Druids. In true British style we’ve all pretended that Mrs Druid's offer to give The Director some 'special' therapy never happened and we've become friendly in a neighbourish sort of way.

We agreed that the Druids would put their sheep on our land in the spring and Mrs Druid is clearly keen to strengthen our friendship further - suggestions to do social things together have been made. I find that her attitude towards me often has acidic undertones and The Director has said that he finds her greetings are a little more passionate than he would consider normal, but we are neighbours and it’s always nicer to be friends n’est ce pas?

The Director is worried about his weight, and I’d assured him that I wouldn’t accept too many social invitations over Christmas. My exact promise was that I wouldn’t get us involved in social eating events on consecutive days.

Earlier in the month Mrs Druid had invited me to the 'Great British Boxing Day Bash', a huge gathering for all the Brits in the area - I’d turned down this offer saying that I had a prior engagement, she'd pressed for details of my 'engagement' and then suggested other opportunities for us to get together. To her advances I offered a combination of truths, half-truths and outright lies but my general ineptitude at this sort of thing combined with her persistence somehow resulted in my acceptance to go to the Druids for supper on Christmas day, although that was the one day that I really had accepted an invitation elsewhere.

Christmas Day lunch at the Bontettes consisted of a series of super-rich dishes - Mme B very keen to impress us with the superiority of French cuisine had outdone herself. M. Bontette keeps an excellent wine cellar and was extremely generous with it. By the time the last caramel-stuffed date had been eaten, the last drop of Montbazillac consumed and it was a polite time to leave we simply tottered directly from their house to the Druids for more turkey - the evening passed in a drugged, overstuffed haze and I still have no idea how we got home.

Happy Christmas

24th December
Friday
concrete floor laid and paid for
Saturday
fill the car many times with piles of old planks from the woodyard
Sunday
fenced off the area that will become a vegetable plot for filming
Monday
landlord calls to say that he's putting our house on the market and that we should expect visits from estate agents in the new year
Today
I stopped frothing at the mouth

Back Story
Back in October our Landlord paid us a visit, shot at our cameramen, stayed for lunch and assured us that he had no plans to sell his property

Happy Solstice

21st December
Today is our wedding anniversary.
We got married on the winter solstice because:
1. The Man's work life is governed by moon phases - he’ll always remember the solstice.

2. It is the date when everything starts to get lighter and therefore better


We got married in Las Vegas because:
1. The Man works away from the UK a lot and filming dates are constantly changing

2. That year he was definitely working in California until mid-December

3. The Man had promised his children that we'd have a holiday together.

Mid-December 1999 saw the children and I flying to San Francisco, where we picked up a Winnebago and embarked on the Grand Marriage Tour.

First night:
Snowy Grand Sequoia National Park. Driving on the winding hill road induced the nine-year old to regurgitate an entire packet of Oreos over himself. His father had to strip him entirely and somehow hose him down before getting him into fresh clothing, we left the set of vomitty clothes behind.

Arrival at Las Vegas:
The hotel was old but had promised a pool, parrots and palm trees. When we got there half the pool was closed and children were forbidden in the tiny bit that was left. All the parrots and palm trees had been packed away for the winter - what was left was a sleazy lobby full of people who needed a stool per butt-cheek playing slot machines.

The wedding day:
A stretch limo dropped us at the sheriff's office where we waited in line for the processing window and a lady to bash out our form on a proper old typewriter. Standing with us were flamenco dancers, cave people and a few meringue-type wedding dresses, I was wearing the dress my stepmother had worn to marry my father in the sixties, a navy blue lace shift - very Jackie O. The one good thing about the hotel was the foul-mouthed Hispanic hairdresser who laquered and tethered my hair into a perfect Audrey Hepburn updo.

After the Wedding:
Once back at the hotel the Man, overcome with emotion, collapsed on the purple satin bed, stared at his reflection in the ceiling mirror and declared himself poorly. The Children and I went out on the town without him, the nine-year-old was the world champion air guitar player at the time and managed to persuade hotel bouncers to follow us down the road playing their air guitars too.

Challenge of the evening: the brownie and ice cream mountains at the Harley Davidson café.

Christmas 1999:
Dead Horse Ranch, Arizona camping among geriatric permanent residents who wore pastel leisure suits and carried or dragged poodles around. We parked under a leafless tree and on Christmas eve, while the children were sleeping, we wrapped small items in foil and suspended them from the tree’s branches with dental floss.

New Year 2000:
A campsite high above the Californian town of Escondido. We watched Escondido’s fireworks and the trying-to-get-there-in-time traffic jam. We met some hippies who had been arguing, but then they stopped and everyone made friends and we all had a bonfire and drumming party.

This year:
We are both erratic present givers, The Man tends to panic at the last minute and grab whatever he sees at the motorway services, in the past I have been handed a plastic shopping carrier and map bundled into a paper bag. This morning I was given a very beautiful necklace made from several strings of small grey-green jade beads clasped at intervals with pieces of silver.

My gift to The Man was a dart board and darts, which were received with a puzzled look.

DIY Decorations

19th December
My seasonal decorations have been fashioned out of stuff that I’ve found around the place so there’s a lot of pine cones and ivy going on. I’ve made a terrific garland using a coil of rusty barbed wire. It is heavy and, having attached it to the light over the front door, I now realise that there is something quite menacing about it, and I suppose it could actually be a bit dangerous.

Cat Update:
Cats are now much more confident here, or they were until I picked up The Director from the airport last night. They pay me scant attention but they’re fun to watch. Twice now I’ve seen Julie trying to sneak off with a limp rodent, Kevin always spots her and steals it. I’m identifying their catches by the remains which includes a dormouse tail and quite a bit of a vole.

Fancy Dress Bar

16th December
I am entranced by the weekly markets in France, after I've bought food I usually go to the hardware stalls where I buy little plastic briefcases for transporting my eggs, novelty plastic fly swats and jugs. I am intrigued by the bundles of small rectangular carpet pieces, hessian-backed and blanket-stitched around the edges - I guess one places them under the feet while watching TV or eating dinner. From what I can see most French people have ceramic tiles or lino on their downstairs floor - perhaps they’d rather have carpet. I imagine one starts off buying just enough to place a piece under each foot, gradually building up a collection that can be placed, like stepping stones, along popular routes around the house.

Women’s clothes on French market stalls are very particular, lots of strange hybrid things; two or three different styles and fabrics are spliced together resulting in the bastard offspring of, for example, a pin-stripe pencil skirt, a gypsy skirt and a lacy curtain. Last week, at the market with Mme Bontette I succumbed to a very cosy coat/dress (droat?) in two-tone green and black; fleecy on the inside, it has a mandarin collar and zips hem to neck on either side. It’s tunic-like and, worn with black tights and boots, makes me feel that I should be on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Down at the bar it’s all a bit depressing. The big supper last month must’ve used all their battery power because since then Kurt can’t be bothered to cook very often. He usually sits very close to the big screen watching car racing. The French people have been in a few times since the supper event but as Kurt refuses to take his eyes off the screen and his wife can’t speak French they’ve gone away again. Also Kurts friend Ed has problems with alcohol and frequently needs to make use of the bathroom as a vomitorium and keeps missing whichever receptacle he’s aiming for.

I went there for the weekly pétanque game wearing my new outfit this weekend, Kurt watching telly in a 'Satan Rules' t-shirt, Courtney behind the bar in full bondage gear and Mrs Druid sporting a colourful stripey jumper and rainbow harem pants, Mrs D. took a long look at me and said
What a curious garment

A Visit To The Lovely House part two

14th December
I've been working outside a lot these last weeks, it's getting slightly obsessive - as the ground around the quince, cherry, plum or whatever tree is cleared there are new views of the landscape. Also I really like making bonfires.

Visitors coming inside the Lovely House tend to keep their coats on. Sometimes we need to step outside to warm up. Once in the front door there is a terracotta flagstone hallway with stairs directly in front, there are doors to either side. The door on the left leads to a large square room with a mosaic floor, this room is cold damp and empty (in summertime it can be used for computer use), there is a door at the far end of this room to a small, mouldy bedroom.

The door on the right in the hallway leads to another large square room with the same terracotta flags. This is our main room and is dominated by a huge fireplace - I also cook here. I keep a small fire going all day but it needs to really blaze to warm the room properly. A crémaillère is attached in the fireplace -  an iron contraption with hooks and an eye at different heights so cooking pots can be suspended above the fire.

All the furniture in the main room is wooden; the worm-ravaged settles by the fire are pine, but the dining table and the big cupboard are of a more vermifugal sort of wood. Against the wall by the entrance door is a wooden trough that was once used to scrape the bristles off dead pigs, a wide plank is covering this, I use it as a sideboard and stack the crockery on it.

On one side of the chimney one door leads to another  small, mouldy bedroom and another door, that won't close properly, opens onto to a vast bathroom tiled entirely in small dark blue tiles*. The suite is ointment pink, the effect is gothic. Next door to the bathroom is a scullery kitchen with a concrete sink and glass-brick window, mice eat the dishwasher cables so we can't use it. From the scullery is a door to a large rat-ridden 'back kitchen' - a damp, windowless room with thick cobwebs over all the old junk and the old bread oven, there is a door out to the wood shed from here.

Another door in the main room leads to a grand dining room. This has the best mosaic floor, intricately painted ceilings, wood-panelled walls and a built-in walnut sideboard. With it's tiny north-facing windows this is the coldest, darkest room and is impossible to be in, it stores camera kit. A door leads out to the big barn from here.

Upstairs the house has two large and two small bedrooms, all at the front of the house. the whole top back section is one big long attic full of ancient saddlery and farm machinery.

*That bathroom has recently been the cause of acute embarrassment. When on my own in the house I don't bother to wedge the door shut with a piece of heavy furniture anymore. The lavatory is several paces from the door.

The house front door has no knob or latch; entry is achieved by hefting a shoulder to the door until it gives way, getting the door open from the inside is more difficult. English visitors have developed a habit of bellowing out as they shove at the door and let themselves in. This happened last week as I had just got seated. Anxious to spare their eyes I hobbled too hastily across the bathroom to shut the door. Realising that I'd wet my knickers in the process, but safely behind a closed door, I slipped the knickers off, threw them behind the long mirror, pulled my jeans back on and sauntered out to meet my friends. Unfortunately they had brought their dog who wandered off while we were having coffee. Suddenly the mutt reappeared and with a big dribbly grin dropped my sodden underwear at his master's feet.

A Visit To The Lovely House part one

13th December
If it's your first visit to the Lovely House you'll have driven a long way along windy, ill-signed roads, when you suddenly see the house through the gates you have to make a sharp turn. If you get your vehicle through the iron gates without the stone pillars scraping a groove down the side of it you will be feeling relieved. You'll park alongside the big barn doors, look back at the stable block and thank the Jesus, Mary Mother of God person who is living in the niche above the stable doors.

You'll see trees in the yard; there's a big cedar by the gates, then some lime trees, a persimmon and some flowering bushes, including a big pink smelly rose bush that has been flowering since we got here.

Beyond the walls on this drawing is the 'park' (staff would lay out picnic lunches here in Ye Olden Dayes) with grand specimen trees; mature chestnuts, redwoods and cedars. There's a Giant Sequoia which has been struck by lightening - the resulting split houses a large bee community. Wandering further you would come across a couple of large ponds (mare), dug to provide the clay to make the bricks to build the house (which doesn't have foundations). The resulting pond fills with water from the many springs around here and provides irrigation for the farmland. Old Landlord dug the second, much bigger mare (it's pronounced 'mar') in the 'fifties, partly because he wanted more water to irrigate his expanding farm empire but also to fill with fish.

Beyond the biggest mare is a vast bramble-bound walnut grove and a hay meadow, Mrs Druid will be bringing her sheep to graze here in the spring.

Of Mice and Puddings

12th December
Mme Bontette took me to a market that I'd not visited before and introduced me to her favourite butcher who had a splendid display of boudins. I had no idea what to do with the Boudin blanc so decided to buy a couple along with a section of boudin noir artisanale*, Mme B has never tried the boudin blanc either. I felt we should try them out and invited the Bontettes for lunch, Mme. B's previous meal experiences at my house have been a bit chaotic, she was looking apprehensive as she accepted this invitation

And she was correct; although I had a nice idea involving caramelising apples to serve with the boudins along with a salad and lemon mayonnaise. It all went horribly wrong, I was too busy chatting and my boudins burnt.

* whereas we Brits usually use 'black pudding' fried up as part of a greasy breakfast, my neighbours serve the boudin noir as it comes from the butcher, sliced up and cold as part of the hors d'oeuvres.

After lunch Zeppelin man turned up with my dishwasher. He's just repaired the mouse-chewed cables. I have now made some paper 'mice' attached to strings and the cats are on an intensive training programme.

Floor Work

10th December
Three weeks on my own in the Lovely House and see what happens - I witter on about cats. You can probably tell that I'm not getting out much, I've spent most of my time clearing the brambles and thistles that filled the plum orchard - very satisfying but not a great story.

Yesterday though - life got exciting. The Tall Builder and his son started work on the barn floor. TB is a handsome man and his son is very gorgeous. Naturally I wanted them to feel welcome - thinking back though, maybe coffee at 5-minute intervals was a little excessive.

The barn is huge, there is a door to it from the back dining room, we are just concreting a third of the area. The floor is a bit lumpy so the men have knocked down the higher areas to level it out, made a wooden frame to contain the concrete and laid some plastic down as a membrane. The preparations are finished by lunchtime and they'll come back to pour concrete next week. See, things do happen here. (however if you're getting bored send me a meme or something 'cause I don't think I can stretch this kind of thing out all winter)

Cat update: Kevin, cock-a-hoop with his recent adventuring, will now eat from my hand, Julie stays well away from me.

Naming

9th December
Since the cats arrived, I started having my morning coffee on the back step which is in the wood shed. I usually ignore the cats and read. After intially just watching me from their hiding places they started playing together nearby, finally coming close enough for me to realise that the one I've been calling Janet has nuts and is dead cocky - obviously that was a ridiculous name for him - he became Kevin.

I couldn't think what to call the other, much shyer, dark grey cat until yesterday when Kevin disappeared. I'd gone out for my morning coffee and saw her on her own, trembling and looking hard at me, I sat down and she came close letting me stroke her. Her funny half tail was straight up and quivering and she did a lot of meowing - I chatted back in what I hoped was a reassuring manner and she became 'Julie'. She spent the day following me around (as long as I stayed outside). At intervals during the day I went and looked around the place, including the road for a flat, or otherwise distressed, Kevin without luck. Then in the evening suddenly he was back and they were twining around each other. Julie seems embarrassed by her earlier behaviour and is now staying further away from me than ever - women eh, who can understand them?

Repas de Chasse

6th December
The Association of Hunters held their annual meal for the commune last week. Herisson hunts boar, he is short and stocky, ruddy-faced, very shy and keen on Vera. He asked her to accompany him to the meal but Vera is a minx and can’t decide whether to deter or encourage him, she felt that it would be best to say that she has already arranged to attend with me.

Vera came to my house first so we could arrive together at the Salle des Fetes then she found her French lover and sat with him and his family, their affair is a (not very secret) secret. I’m not sure how I ended up sitting next to the semi-comatose guy who spoke not one word all evening. Close by are some inebriated men and the adolescent daughter of one of them. The meal was relentless and lasted until 2.am, eaten under the full blaze of fluorescent lights so we could properly see the feast laid before us. The food came in mountainous quantities with interminable waits between courses; two fish courses followed by roast deer and bowlfuls of wild boar stew, the meal does not include vegetatables and ends with cheese, dessert (and a heart attack). At half time the old lady opposite has pulled up a couple of extra chairs, lain across them and is snoring, the drunk men are throwing food in each others drinks. The daughter is embarrassed by her father’s behaviour and I'm getting splattered in the crossfire, the two of us headed to another table - which just happened to be laden with frozen vodka sorbets.

Cat Update
I am being stalked from ground level now - still from a safe distance, they have realised that I am the source of multi-coloured fish-shaped biscuits.

Fame

4th December
Mme Bontette filed her first stories for the local newspaper a week ago, This is the newspaper most commonly found in the bars around here, there is also a regional daily paper, these two papers are the only ones I've seen in the local people's houses.

Having just missed  one deadline Mme B has put in a bumper amount of village news this week; the film show, the weekly yoga class and a rivetting piece about the day last week when it rained and Vera and I went out and played pétanque with a couple of other people (that's me in my new yeti jacket).












Tha has pretty much used up all available local stories. Mme B doesn't approve of the new people running the bar, so she won't write about them, and since the elections she's at loggerheads with quite a lot of the rest of the village. Next week could see an exclusive 'Woman Re-homes Two Cats' story.

Yes the cats are still here, they flee the moment they catch sight of me and find places to spy on me, so I still haven’t seen them properly yet, there is a grey stripey one and a dark grey one, they share the distinguishing feature of only having half a tail each. I feel they should have names - I’m trying out Brian and Janet

Catnapping

28th November
I went back to the Gardeners yesterday. The whole cat thing has got me a bit anxious. As a child I went on and on about wanting animals and my parents drummed it in to me that pets are a Big Responsibility, and have a habit of either living for unfeasibly long amounts of time or, conversely, dying just when you’ve got very fond of them.

As an adult I’ve been far too unsettled for pets although years ago I did keep animals that I planned to eat. I loved scratching the pig’s bellies and spent hours watching them make straw nests. My first pig was a very sociable gingery Tamworth called Urquhart. When the time came, I got him in the back of my Morris Minor (my first car) for a trip to the butcher, he scoffed the nuts that I'd put in the car for him then worked out how to push the front seat down and get into the passenger seat next to me so he could look out of the window for the rest of the journey.

I’d asked the butcher to simply halve the dead Urquhart longways, but when I went to collect him his legs were sticking out all stiff, I had to manoeuvre the pig halves into the car diagonally, poking the extremities out of the front window and drive home with my head cocked to one side and Urquhart’s head rolling around in a plastic bag on the back seat.

Now, temporarily here in a French farmhouse, I'm still not settled enough for actual pets but wood pile cats seem an ideal arrangement for all concerned. Being old enough to fend for themselves I’m simply offering them an alternative place to live that won’t involve too much emotional investment on either side (will it?). My neighbours advised me to keep the cats shut in a shed for 3 days when I get them here. There is a pigeonnier and some odd little outhouses next to the Lovely House which seemed a good place to keep the cats initially. The pigeonnier is linked to the house with a tiled roof and a back wall making an open-faced barn where we keep our piles of firewood. There are various openings through the walls and lots of perches and hiding places. I think it must be cat paradise.

This time the Gardeners had managed to stuff a pair of yowling cats into two baskets, which I quickly put on the back seat of my car and drove carefully home, they growled like that girl with the revolving head in The Exorcist all the way. My heart was pounding as I placed the baskets on the new straw in the pigeonnier and left them to calm down for a while.

To release the cats into the shed without having to open the door and risk them escaping, I’d devised a cunning plan of attaching strings to the basket lids which I pulled from the outside through a little hole in the wall, this worked great, the lids flapped open, the cats shot out of the baskets like bullets, there was a very high up window - they bounded up the walls, through the window and escaped like rockets.

I thought that was the end of it and figured the cats would be well on their way home but a few hours later I went to clear away the food and water that I'd put out for them and caught a glimpse of a tail disappearing, I saw some eyes watching me from a high perch this morning - I think they are considering staying - I put out a dish of chopped ducks hearts.

My internets are being taken away tomorrow - who knows when I'll be back online…

Wading Through Cement

27th November
Life has gone all turgid. I’ve been trying to get some quotes to lay a concrete floor so we can set up a studio in the barn adjoining the house. The landlord has agreed to pay half the costs and I want the job done before Christmas. I’ve completely failed to get a French builder to turn up. A very tall English man came, measured and sent me a quote but I need at least one more. The only other person vaguely interested in the job used to be a hairdresser in the UK before he moved here. He made and cancelled several arrangements but finally turned up this morning. Unfortunately he didn’t bring any measuring instruments with him. He seems to have learned the building trade by watching car mechanics - a sharp intake of breath, then gravely shaking his head and telling me what a difficult job it’ll be.

The Film Show

24th November
I’m still reeling from going through a year's worth of dramas these last two days. The Director spent Saturday morning setting everything up at the Salle des Fetes – and nothing worked. The speakers were duff, the screen turned out to be puny and the projector wouldn’t work until we figured out how to screw the bulb in properly. Sometime during the afternoon we ditched the tiny screen and wiggled stuff in the right way to make sound happen.

On Sunday while The Director was doing last-minute adjustments I put out some chairs, I wasn’t sure who’d turn up so I put out about 50 and started fiddling around with bowls of pretzels. Our friends set up the drinks table and we realised that Mme Bontette, who is a bit distracted by her new job, had made us a tooth-achingly sweet rum punch so we collected up all the supplies of lemons and limes we could lay our hands on and squeezed them into the mix. Then people started coming - and they kept coming and we were all pulling out stacks more chairs because the hall was filling. The advertised start time was 6.15 but by 6pm there was a room full of people looking expectantly at the bit of wall where the projector was pointing, they weren’t interested in rum punch or Ricard they were just waiting. So we rolled the film which was a shortened version of the pilot with subtitles (thanks Florence!), followed by a series of sequences that we’d filmed over the last few months. At the end everyone cheered and asked to see it again immediately.

Mme Bontette is loving her new job as a reporter for the local paper and has bought a new set of reporter’s outfits which are very glamorous and seem to be mostly furry-edged, she was taking a lot of photos.

Then we cleared up and went down to the bar which was heaving. The Goths had gone to town with candles and drapes and stuff, the tables were put together to make a big U shape and set with pitchers of wine and baskets of bread. Trays loaded with glasses of Cava were passed round. The meal was great: bowls of salad and the famous cassoulet – and they’d even done the crispy crumb thing on top. The really fantastic thing though was that there were people there who’d told me they’d never be in the same room together and there were French women there who told me that they’d never go to a bar because it wasn’t ladylike. Anyway the whole thing went on late and it was a great party. And now The Director and our friends have returned to the UK and I feel completely discombobulated.

Cat Fail

21st November
I went to collect some cats from a market gardening couple who moved in to their property recently and discovered an extremely fecund feral cat living in their woodshed. They doped some food and managed to get a batch of sleepy kittens to the vet to be sterilised but the wiley mother slipped away and hid (and then got pregnant again). The cats are now eating all the dog's food and I have agreed to take a pair to see if they'd like to live in my wood pile. When I got there the Gardeners had failed to catch any. We've hatched a plan and I'll come back next week.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for The Director, some friends and a projector to get back from the airport. Then we're all set to do the film show in the village hall on Sunday. I'm having a lesson in making rum punch from Mme Bontette tomorrow, she called this morning in high excitement - she has just secured a job as a reporter for the local newspaper. Our film show will be her first assignment.

Heffalump Trap Part II

18th November
Early this morning I was washing my hair when I heard loud rapping on the front door. Thinking it might be a delivery I ran to get it and found Old Dad there.
Come early - before midday, I don’t want the postman to know you’re there. We’ll shut your bike in the garage and then I can close the shutters and lock the door and it’ll look as though there’s no one in.
That’s ridiculous
No really if the postman sees you he’ll tell every one
Why would we be worried about that?
Well I don’t want the postman to know
(What are we talking about here?) Well I won’t come then

My hair was dripping and I was caught off-balance. Old Dad just repeated that he’d see me before midday. Then he walked off.

I spent the morning slashing at swathes of thistles and thorns but by noon I was still feeling thoroughly disgruntled. On the way to Old Dad’s house I passed the bar which was open - that stopped me in my tracks. Being a nosey parker I wandered in. A strange young man was sitting at the bar, his hairline has receeded right over the back of his head the remaining strands have been grown long and combed-over. I also think he might have gained weight recently because his clothes don’t meet in the middle. Kurt (up already!) introduced him as 'Ed from Toulouse who has recently moved near the village’.

Last week I put flyers around advertising our upcoming film show at the village hall and the cassoulet supper in the bar afterwards. I learn that the supper is already booked up. The event is this Sunday, I got Kurt talking about cassoulet and it became apparent that he had neither eaten nor made a cassoulet in hs life, I started panicking, then Ed said
I’m from Toulouse I’ll show him how to make a cassoulet

My brain didn’t know what to think then, so I left, and went for lunch, I was late, the postman had been and gone and I insisted we left the shutters open and the door ajar as usual.

I sat down and it was all a bit tense, Old Dad handed me a large tumbler of neat Ricard
Thanks but no, water will be fine – I need to get back to work soon
Glasses of various sorts of alcohol were poured for me over the following long hour, they lined up untouched across my side of the table.

Conversation didn’t flow easily. I resorted to asking him about his upcoming heart operation - he can usually go on about that at length, but today he didn’t seem in the mood to talk about that or his bad leg, or the way he’s a martyr to heartburn.

Finally, as I pushed back my chair and made leaving noises, he said in exasperation
what do women like - how can someone like me give a girl a good time?
I suggested that he pop up the road and ask our lovely neighbour Hélene
Old Dad roared at me
Hélene – she’s nearly 80, what would I be wanting with her?

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.

Choosing Colours

14th November
The Director has gone back to the UK where our house has become a production office. Over there the bedrooms are now editing suites and the living room is full of people writing scripts and arguing about contracts. I am going to (hide in France) stay here and prepare for next year’s filming. We need a studio to film things that have to be contained (like cockroaches) and slow things like butterflies emerging from cocoons. I’m currently trying to persuade builders to give me a quote to lay a concrete floor for the studio. The outside project is the 'film set garden’, I’ve started clearing a large overgrown piece of land where we will put a shed, fencing, plant flowers and make a vegetable patch. I’m a bit hampered by the all the rubbish the Landlord has dumped here, hacking back brambles I keep dinging into bedsprings and bits of rotten furniture.

For light relief I go and visit my new friend Florence. On Tuesday I took the fabulous chicory tart over to her place. Florence is expecting her second child in the spring. She has recently moved into a small village house that needs some work. We picnicked amid the rubble from a big hole that has just been knocked through the end wall. Turning our backs on the view of a suppurating septic tank in the middle of her garden we perused paint colour charts for the baby’s bedroom.

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

Kurt's First Supper

9th November
I went down to the bar for a game of pétanque yesterday. My fellow pétanquers are stunned by the sudden, unannounced disappearance of the senior Stranges. Their replacement by Goth Rockers feels like we’re suddenly extras in a remake of Village of the Damned as directed by John Waters .

Courtney opens up the bar at some point in the afternoon. Wearing a black satin mini-kimono (= instant forgiveness by lingering male population for missing lunchtime) she clears up the remains of the previous night’s party looking a little hungover.

Kurt gets up a bit later, he has announced himself as the new chef and we’re all curious to see what his food’s like. The Director put down his computer to join us for the after-pétanque supper at the bar. The man had made a big effort and it really wasn’t bad at all. After supper we all said it was great, he unscowled and became really rather friendly.

French Markets Are So Marvellous

8th November
Despite the fact that filming is over and we are on a break. I can’t actually prise The Director away from his directing tools - he is still compiling 'selects reels’ (putting key sequences on dvd) to send to the writers. He never remembers that he always works through holiday periods and is perpetually amazed by the work he still has to do. Our parents have got the hang of this phenomenon by now and just as they deal with the fact that they have to visit us in cold, uncomfortable houses, they understand that their son (in-law) will only be sporadically visible.

Overcompensating a bit, I took my in-laws up into the mountains to a market I’d not visited before. It was a long drive, the town was bigger than I realised and the market very popular, finding parking was difficult. Fighting our way through the crowds we were soon exhausted and felt the need to return home, but I couldn’t remember where I’d left the car. When we did find the car, it was blocked in by a bigger vehicle which had been obscuring it from view.

We did finally get home, lit a fire and started preparing the cépes that we’d bought at the market - they were full of worms.

Territory Marking

6th November
My parents went back home to recover and The Director’s parents arrived yesterday so I took them out for lunch. A café in the neighbouring village offers a 4-course lunch with as much wine as you dare drink for 11 euros, it is run by Jeanne, whose elderly father potters around the dining room pouring the leftover wine into fewer bottles, (I didn’t pay too much attention to this until the last time I came and poured a large, purple hornet into my glass). The clientele are mainly blue-overalled men who work for the utilities companies. A lop-sided man is always there, he eats with his friends, clears all the tables and stays to help with the washing up, I think he's sweet on Jeanne despite her alcoholic husband who sometimes turns up to stand behind the bar and steal money from her till.

Jeanne finds the animosity the British residents show towards each other very funny, and tells stories about her English customers getting on each other's nerves. I have now had the good fortune to witness this comedy first hand.

Yesterday lunchtime my in-laws and I sat near another table of English people, they were getting up to leave as we were served coffee. A lady from their group detoured to us and placed a single small cup in the middle of our table, saying,
We didn’t want this so I thought you might appreciate a real coffee

There was something wonderfully ridiculous about the idea of us taking turns to sip at the tepid coffee. I pulled my face straight and asked why her coffee is more ‘real’ than ours.
We come here every day – the owner here spoils us with coffee from the espresso machine, yours will just be from the cafetiere.

The encounter has made my in-law’s visit, with any luck it will obliterate the experience of finding themselves trapped in their room after having unsuccessfully tried to repair their door handle.

Is There Life On Mars?

4th November
I feel peculiarly isolated out here in my feverish anticipation of the US election results. My French neighbours are not interested in events happening beyond their borders, in some cases this means their garden gate, for the more cosmopolitan the border can be as far as the departmental edge.  The newspapers here have blurry photos on the front page: a car stuck in a car park or some schoolchildren in fancy dress. For most of the population Europe is a fuzzy blur and the US is a sort of gaudy magazine someone's told them about.

I think this might be the case all over France, I was working in Provence on 9/11 when the Twin Towers were hit, I heard the news on my car radio and stopped to ask a few passersby if the news I was hearing was correct, no-one had any idea what I was talking about. I finally managed to find a bar with a telly tuned into a news channel, I was the only person watching the images of planes hitting buildings. That evening I spoke to the man who ran the local taxi company, he hadn’t heard about the events yet. I looked in the national papers the following day, significant coverage only appeared in Le Monde a couple of days later.

I’d got used to all this woolly introspection - then a couple of weeks ago I went to work for some Americans with access to digital tv, commentary on the US election was constant. It jolted me into a world I used to inhabit - it’s very strange coming back to this bunker.

New Blood At The Bar

2nd November
The filming really is done for this year, the Camera Boys have returned to the UK - we are now in visiting season. Since Bruno's August visit we have been without doorhandles - he replaced the original knobs with a set that can’t be made to stay fixed on. My parents arrived here a few days ago. They have known me long enough not to expect much in the way of comfort but I bet they had hoped for door handles. No matter - once given a pair of pliers and a monkey wrench they soon got the hang of getting in and out of their bedroom. My mother hasn’t really got the upper body strength to haul the front door open on her own yet though.

We were also suffering from a smelly drain problem. Our squalid kitchen has a concrete sink with a hole through the back wall. The water, and whatever else you put in the sink, washes through to a concrete gutter running the length of the back of the house. Over the years it has silted up and grown over with weeds, the autumn rains have made the area behind the kitchen swampy and putrid. My repeated calls to Landlord and plumber have been ignored. Mum put her foot down, The Director and my father got out the shovels and a wheelbarrow, dislodging unspeakable hideousness to make a drainage channel.

As a further treat for my parents I took them to the bar for some of Mrs Strange’s gin. The Senior Strange’s have already slipped away. But Kurt the tattooed son has returned from Copenhagen with his wife and turns out to be perfectly good at serving gin with flat tonic in a dirty glass from the iceless bar.

Kurt’s wife, Courtney has translucently pale skin, she has only recently started her tattoo collection, they both dress exclusively in black. They tell me that their band had split anyway and that they are going to liven up the bar with 'live bands, gourmet food and that kind of stuff'. Courtney is animated, she says that Kurt’s great in the kitchen - I’m not sure if she means he can cook. Buoyed up with enthusiasm for their plans (and feeling guilty that I’ve now booked to show our film at the village hall) I suggest that they put on a supper for after the film show - I’ll publicise it on the flyer I’m going to put around the surrounding villages next week. Kurt is a sullen kind of chap, he asks what sort of thing I have in mind,
I suggest casserole-type dishes; a daube, coq au vin … a cassoulet?
I’ll do a cassoulet
Something about his response is not putting me at ease.