This is the (French country) life!

You can picture the scene; Rick Stein (or a similarly affable francophile foodie) hops off his barge as it ambles along the Canal du Midi (or hops out of his 2CV which has perambulated its way up the drive of an old farmhouse in the Dordogne) and finds himself an impromptu invité as an extended family or group of old friends (preferably wine growers) share a celebratory meal. Have you ever wished you had a bit-part in that scene? Or even better than acting it out, have you ever wished that this sort of thing was part of life, even if it was only on high days and holidays?

As I watched that sort of place-in-the-sun-foodie-in-france sort of tele before we moved, I always wanted that bit-part, but didn’t think it was real life.

But last Saturday Jonathan and I took our places at one of the long trestle tables laid out in the late afternoon sunshine in the garden at the back of the ‘Tour Auditoire’ in Chateauvillain, we felt we really were living the real French country life.

It wasn’t the Midi or the Dordogne, and we weren’t among wine growers, but the late afternoon sun was still strong and the setting was as French as you could get. The ‘Tour Auditoire’ is one of the few remaining parts of the old Chateau – trials overseen by the duke took place in one of the rooms in the tower and it was here that a rabbit was famously tried in the Middle Ages (although I’m not sure what offence it had committed.)

The occasion was a celebratory meal (of course!) for the volunteers who had helped make the first Medieval Fair in the deer park at Chateauvillain a such a success. My small part was to make my first-ever rabbit terrine (I think this particular rabbit was innocent and thankfully my cousin Ed was around and boned it for me) and a veggie terrine Medieval style (lentils, chestnuts and mushrooms) and to help with the serving on the day (you might be able to spot me in action in one of the photos on the Chateauvillain website).

Instead of the estimated 800 people, we think maybe 4,500 turned up. No wonder the “Auberge” was so busy. We sold all the terrine and cleared the town of bread after having to send sorties out twice for extra supplies. I felt quite honoured when in the follow up meeting before the celebratory meal, it was agreed we needed more veggie terrine next time. In such a carnivorous country, that’s quite an achievement!

There were about 35 of us round the table and we were in great company; we ate fish terrine, ham, rice salad with olives, cous cous, grated carrot salad, potato salad with little pieces of sausage, and one of my favourites, beetroot in a creamy dressing – often served here and a million miles away from English-style beetroot in vinegar. This was followed by green salad (of course) served with Brie or Munster, which Jonathan said afterwards wasn’t as formidable as it can be, and then the biggest gateau I’ve ever seen. It was about half a metre square, layered with cream and covered with fresh fruit – melon, redcurrants, strawberries, peaches. I think it was specially made by the boulangerie/patisserie on the high street and it was as far away from English bought-in “gateau” than that beetroot salad was from its English counterpart.

The conversation at our end of the table was the sort of diverse chat I enjoy so much; how to rebuild sections of a stone wall, the unexpected pleasures of picking up hitch hikers and how the young generation have lost the art of being a good hitch-hiker (for a lorry driver it’s all about the conversation so putting headphones on as soon as you get in the cab is the height of ungratefulness!) and the pleasures of living in Tunisia in the late sixties, among other things.

No-one talked very much about plans for next year’s fair, although we’ve already agreed that there will be one. If you want to come, it’ll be on Pentecost Sunday. Let us know if you want somewhere to stay!

Switched on to the Seasons

A glass of white wine by the pool this week, watching the swallows swooping overhead and listening to them chatting to each other on the tv aerial, prompted some reflection on how much closer we are to the seasons than we were in our previous existence. OK, so Godalming station was much more pleasant at 07:23 once the clocks had gone forward, and we did enjoy the odd evening meal outside if we got home in time, but enjoying the summer and moaning about the grizzly winter was about as close as our lives got to the changing seasons.

Now we’re ending our third year here in southern Champagne, where even the local newspaper follows the seasonal rhythm, it's impossible not to be completely tuned in to the seasons. Even Jonathan, who’s desk-bound five days a week, is driven by the changing seasons. From about October, his main job (apart from the gainful employment, of course) is making sure there’s enough chopped wood on hand to keep the stoves stoked up. Off and on during the summer he cuts the wood which is delivered to us in metre lengths but the main effort is from Autumn to early Spring when he spends quite a bit of time lugging logs about to make sure the baskets by the stoves are loaded.

This week, though, as if by magic, the seasons flipped when the ‘piscinistes’ came to open the pool for the summer. Now Jonathan’s in pool mode. That means his main job until sometime in late September or early October (apart from solving his clients’ database problems, of course!) is making sure the pool is crystal clear, chemically balanced and free of nasty floaty things like bits of leaf or dead spiders.

This seasonal demarcation is a bit more complicated now the new wood boiler is heating our hot water all year round, requiring a load of logs every three or four days and meaning wood duty carries on all year. However, he’s definitely in pool mode now and is very excited that the recently-installed solar panels have already got the water temperature up to 19 degrees.

As for me, the chief washer woman, cook and gardener, I’ve always got at least one eye what’s going on outside. The first sign of spring is probably Circé’s fur starting to come out in handfuls and then once the clocks go forward the days are long enough to dry at least three loads of washing outside (provided it’s not raining of course).

Here in France even the most Tesco-like supermarkets don’t sell strawberries in February so it’s not difficult to develop a deeper understanding of what’s in season when, even if you don’t have your own vegetable garden. Since the end of April, and hopefully for a few more weeks yet, we can buy local asparagus from a farm a couple of kilometres away and it really won’t be long before I’m buying trays of fresh peaches, grown in the south of France, from my favourite fruit and veg shop.

Next week we reach the days of the three ‘Saints de glace’ , one of whom, coincidentally, is Saint Pancras. This marks a real milestone in the calendar of French gardeners north of the Loire. After these days, the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th of May, the story goes that anything planted out in the garden or the veg plot will be safe from frost. Everyone here who grows their own veg, me included, will then be off the blocks and racing to get everything planted. I can’t wait, as it’s standing room only in the greenhouse at the moment!

A very special place

Until yesterday no museum featured in my list of favourite special places. My list does include a restaurant (Greens in San Francisco) , a stretch of road (the D6 between Maranville and Cirfontaines - at the moment this lovely curve around the local contours doesn't have a website), a house (Gerbestone Manor in Somerset), a garden (East Ruston Old Vicarage gardens in Norfolk) and a bookshop (Shakespeare and Co in Paris). But up to now there’s not been a museum. Until yesterday, that is, when we went to the new Charles de Gaulle Memorial museum in Columbey-les-Deux-Eglises, just a stone’s throw from home.

Mind you, this is no ordinary museum.

We’d been watching from afar for some time as this amazing building forced its way through the hillside, as on clear days we can see the site on our usual walk with Circé. However, it’s only when you get close to it that you’re struck with just what an achievement it was to construct and complete this amazing building and the exhibition it houses in just two years.

As we took the lift from the back of the limestone-lined entrance cathedral, we felt as if we were being elevated into the heavens through a backdrop of tiny twinkling blue lights. Then, like a scene in a science fiction novel the lift doors opened onto a small landing and an ignominious black door. Were we meant to go in, or had we been lifted too high?

We opened this door not so much into another world, but a familiar one; the landscape we love so much, the rolling hills, dramatic horizons and deep forests of our corner of Haute-Marne.

‘Chapeau’ to the exhibition’s designers who took us from beauty of the Haute-Marne countryside and back again via the trenches of the first world war, the north African desert and the streets of 1968 Paris.

What’s so clever is the detail which brings the man to life; not just the usual family photographs and extracts from letters, although there are plenty of those, but things like the opened trunk full of the necessities of itinerant life – with a detailed narrative to go with it so you know why among the dress-suits and military documents there’s a boiled egg and a thermometer.

Unsurprisingly, I was enthralled by the section on communications - the importance of radio and the role the BBC played in the drama, the underground newspapers and the people who put them together, the huge challenge of rallying the hopes of the oppressed French nation around someone who was, for the most part, completely unknown. Most people didn’t even know what Charles de Gaulle looked like. This makes my old job seem like a piece of cake!

By this stage of the journey I was used to being surprised and delighted so instinctively looked up after learning how de Gaulle’s sister-in-law and niece took huge risks to tackle this problem. And what was there but a 1940’s Parisian living room complete with sideboard and dining table suspended upside down above my head!

And through all this the landscape on the other side of the giant’s letter-box windows of this fantastic building is woven into the fabric of the story, whether it be a glimpse through a gate behind a pile of postbags or through the windows of a reconstruction of de Gaulle’s study.

And this was the best for me – how much the beauty and drama of the countryside I now call home was the central theme of the story. We were told at the beginning of that de Gaulle picked Haute-Marne as his home because its grandeur and austerity matched his personality. In a strange way, and I make no apologies for how this sounds, it gave me a kind of connection with him, knowing there’s something so fundamental we share – a deep love and admiration for this little-known corner of France.

It was so wet and horrible yesterday that we didn't bother to take the camera - thinking that we wouldn't be able to take pictures inside. However, photography is allowed and there's a brilliant Flickr set here. Joseph Melin has captured the essence of the place far better than I could ever hope to.

Rallying Round the Bend

Not many people know about the annual Historic Reims Monte-Carlo car rally. Even fewer know that pretty much every year it passes through our village, so only the Mayor and one of the local farmers were there when Jonathan and I pitched up on the bend by the Mairie just after 10pm last Friday.

It’s only by chance that we know about it. We were sitting in the front room one evening at the end of our first January in residence a couple of years ago when we realised there was an astonishing amount of very loud traffic going by for a late Friday evening. More than likely we were huddled up on the sofa wrapped up in blankets as that was before we had the wood-burner installed. It was a snowy night and neither of us could be bothered to leave our snug spot to go and have a look outside - one disadvantage of shutters is that they stop you sticking your nose through the curtains to see what’s going on. We just put it down to the local youths, who are usually pretty inaudible, being noisy for a change.

The next day the local paper filled us in. The town of Langres, about 50 minutes south of us, is one of the rally control points so the correspondent there could take pictures (much easier when the cars aren’t moving) and talk to some of the drivers, especially the ones from around here. It’s always been a mystery to me why the Journal of the Haute-Marne keeps so many events secret until after they’ve happened. Anyway, this belated coverage enabled us to find more details on the web and we realised that we’d missed the sight of old Porches and Ford Capris, among others, skidding in the snow on the D6 as it makes a wide curve round the Mairie.

After missing last year’s rally because of events back in England, we were determined to take a look this year and Jonathan was equally determined to take a few pictures. Just after ten pm we heard the window-rattling, throaty roar of the first cars picking up speed as they got round the bend just beyond our gates. That was our signal to don several layers of fleece, hats and gloves and head down the road. Circé very wisely decided that it wasn’t worth the effort.

It took a while for Jonathan to get the hang of photographing moving objects in the dark (the street lights in the village go off at the end of the evening) but after a few attempts he really got the hang of it and we’re both pleased with the results.

As the 127 competitors had left Reims in batches, watching an event like this is the polar opposite of the Tour de France. In that case you wait ages, being kept amused by the so-called ‘caravan’ and then, if you’re lucky, the front runners have separated from the péloton, so you get a good look at them before everyone else whizzes past in the space of 10 seconds.

Most of the cars on Friday night went past on their own or in ones and twos so Jonathan usually had plenty of time to cue up the camera, especially as they could be heard long before we could see their headlights. Seeing the camera and the little band of unexpected spectators, most drivers took their foot off the accelerator and flashed their lights. As you can see from the pictures, some even waved. They probably thought we were waving and jumping up and down because this was the most exciting thing that’s happened in Cirfontaines in a while. That might be true, but the fact is that it was well below zero and I for one had only put on one pair of socks, and I’m sure the other spectator was wearing his slippers.

While Jonathan adjusted important camera settings in between cars, there was plenty of time for me to chew the cud with our fellow-spectator (the Mayor having decided to call it a day at about 10.30). Among other things we talked about septic tanks, the wild boar population explosion, and, inevitably, how much better life is here than anywhere else. Every now and then we admired the latest fruits of Jonathan’s labours.

Just after midnight the cold finally got the better of us and as the gaps between cars was getting longer we decided to head home. It was quite a surprise to me how much I enjoyed myself. We’ll certainly try and do the same thing next year, hopefully encouraging a few more people to join in. What’s certain, though, is that I’ll be wearing at least two pairs of socks!

In the meantime, we’ve got even more sport to look forward to. Stage 12 of this year’s Tour de France is passing very close to us.

King for a Day

Last Saturday marked the first event in Cirfontaines’ 2009 social calendar – the annual serving of the traditional ‘Galette des Rois’ to the citizens of the village, with the compliments of the council. The local paper, ‘the Journal of the Haute-Marne’ is always packed full of pictures of happy people participating in whatever’s the current seasonal activity, be it catching an over-sized pike during the fishing season, kissing Père Noel at the children’s Christmas party or winning at skittles on the quatorze . The consumption of ‘galettes de rois’ is no exception and over the past week or so the journal has already been witness to the eating of many a galette in the area.

Although the ‘galette des rois’ party is the time when local Maires give their communities best wishes for the new year, traditionally it was served on twelfth night to celebrate the gifts of the three kings (hence the name).

So what is this French gastronomic delight? Well, it’s a round puff pastry pie with an almond filling, more creamy than frangipane and more almondy than confectioner’s custard. Between new year and the end of January you can find them in most supermarkets, though you’ll get a better quality galette from a patisserie. Wherever you buy your galette, it will come with a golden cardboard crown (more on that later). If you’d like to try making one there’s a recipe here .

We’re particularly lucky in Cirfontaines that one of the commune’s councillors, Hervé, trained as a patissière in the nearby town of Chaumont. He made the galettes we enjoyed on Saturday, just as he does every year, and very good they were, too. Lovely flaky pastry, not too buttery, with a shiny crisp glaze, and a moist almondy mixture inside. Incidentally, the patisserie where Hervé learnt his skills has gone the way of many others with the advent of in-supermarket bakeries (yes, it happens here too), and is now a dry-cleaner’s.

The thing that makes the galette de rois more than yet another fantastic example of French patisserie is the tradition of putting a ‘fève’, or charm, inside, a bit like the sixpence in a traditional British Christmas pudding. The word ‘fève’ also means ‘broad bean’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if in less prosperous days it was a simple bean rather than a fancy charm which went into the galette. The fèves in our galettes are usually tiny china figurines but according to the foodie froggy the poshest Parisien patisseries hide crystal or even gold charms in theirs. If you get the fève in your slice of galette, you get to wear the crown!

At our first Galette des Rois party three years ago Jonathan won not one but two fèves (giving away the fact he managed two slices!) and got another the year after, so he’s getting a bit of a reputation. As you can see from the picture I took yesterday, he was wearing the crown once again.

Adieu, Dad

His struggle and frustration with his deteriorating health is over. My Dad George, who many people knew as Stan, died in the Royal Surrey County Hospital just as the sun was rising over Guildford cathedral on 25th October. Thankfully, I was with him. He simply faded away in in his sleep, just as he wanted.

Given the pleasure he got from the internet after he had a PC for his 80th birthday eight years ago, it seems appropriate that I post these words from his brother John on these pages. I'm sure, too, Dad would have loved the idea that his friends and family in far-flung places (or closer to home) could add to this post with their own memories. John's recovering from an operation so couldn't be at the funeral so his eulogy was read by Jill, his wife.

We also read the final part of 'Hiawatha's Departure' as a reminder of Dad's love of words and the fun he and I had reading the 'Song of Hiawatha' alound when I was a child. I had to include 'Do not go gentle into that good night'; I don't think he knew this poem but it helped me understand his anger and frustration with what life had become for him.

BROTHER JOHN’S EULOGY TO GEORGE

"First let me say what a great sadness it is that I cannot be here myself to say farewell to my brother.

It is remarkable that we spent so much time apart. At age 14 he fell in love with Iris and became practically a part of the Rattray household, which I must say was jollier than ours and suited the outgoing part of George’s nature.

The war, of course, separated our family as it did thousands of others.

In 1938 the threat of fascism was in the air and at age 18 George joined the 9^th Battalion of the Middlesex regiment of the Territorial Army. He was embodied into the regular forces before the war began.

In the TA his officer qualities were noted and he was commissioned. After serving some time with Searchlight batteries of the Royal Artillery in this country, he was posted to join the Kings’ African Rifles in Kenya. He served with them through the operations in Burma and then returned to Kenya. Another part of the separation caused by the war, I joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 so we never met up during the war at all.

He was later awarded a Territorial decoration for long service in the ‘Terries’.

When hostilities ceased George was demobbed in Kenya and at the young age of 25 was given the job of running a huge estate in Kenya. He loved the job and the African people.

Having married early in the war, Iris joined George in Kenya and stayed with him until the Mau Mau atrocities so terrified her that they returned to the UK. George brought back with him his love of the African people and a facility with Ki-Swahili, with which later he entertained Sarah and me.

He then worked for the Income Tax department until the Broads called him where he and Iris joined Iris’s sister and her husband – Ollie and Vic. It was typical of George, that when his request to the Income Tax Department for a transfer to Norfolk was refused, he just went anyway and soon joined the Norfolk County Council’s local Education Administration Department where he stayed until retirement.

He, Iris and Sarah became an important part of the Catfield community and Sarah still has friends from that time. He was Parish Councillor and a very active member of the local British legion, regularly bearing the legion’s standard at local and regional events and being awarded a gold badge for his work. In 1971 he and Iris were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Legion’s golden jubilee year. George also became a mason. He really appreciated the fellowship and good works of the masons and in time he became Master of his Lodge. He was dedicated to the practical welfare of members of both groups and other local people in need, as was Iris.

It was here that Margaret and I, and later Jill , my second wife and I, were asked to stay and invited to Masonic dinners where we saw George at his most popular and outgoing self.

After Iris died George remarried and moved to a beautiful part of Scotland – which was his new wife’s birthplace. He had always enjoyed travelling – indeed he and Iris had earlier been pioneers of motorcycle combination travel and went to Spain with two friends.

In Scotland he saw my elder son Christopher regularly and a strong relationship developed. It is Christopher’s great regret that he is unable to be here today.

After his second wife died George came to Farnham to be near Sarah and lived in a retirement home until his recent illness. It was here that he met Florence who was a very good and supportive friend throughout. Jill and I visited them both several times and enjoyed their company. George came to life at family gatherings and was very popular with the younger members.

Even with the separations through our lives there was a strong bond of brotherhood between us - in fact he was ‘bruv’ and I was ‘uverbruv’ to George.

In fact as I have got older I have realised how much like him I am – in speech and mannerisms. Jill often says – gosh that was George!

George was a very loving father to a very loving daughter. Sarah’s devotion to him during the frustrating time when he was tied to his flat at the end of an oxygen line was a tribute to their mutual love. I must here mention how supportive Jonathan, Sarah’s partner, has been throughout. It was good to know that George, after a brief showing of his old self in hospital, died peacefully with Sarah by his side.

Sadly he always seemed to underestimate his achievements which were remarkable.

Throughout, George was always George. He was straight and open; you knew where you stood with him; and you always knew that he cared for you."

Charlie is our Darling

Circé loved having her first doggy houseguest to stay last month. Charlie is a three-year-old retriever who belongs to our friends Viv and John. He’s the strong, silent type (Charlie, that is); when he’s not bouncing about enjoying a game of tug or finding interesting smelly things to roll around in when he’s out for a walk, he likes to sit quietly and watch what’s going on.

Viv and John brought Charlie on his first trip abroad for a few days over Whitsun half-term. But he’s still with us because when they arrived at Calais on their way back to Cardiff the Pet Passport officials told them he couldn’t enter the UK until the end of July. There was no movement on this decision even after a fraught couple of hours on the phone so, given Viv had to be back in front of her French classes after half-term, their options were pretty limited. Either Charlie had to be quarantined or he could come back to continue his holidays with us.

Our rendez-vous on that gloomy Saturday afternoon was by a particularly mucky farm just off the A26 north of Laon, roughly half-way between us and the coast. Circé came with us and was very excited to see Charlie again; Charlie seemed completely unperturbed by the idea of getting out of his car and getting into the back of our Scenic with Circé. Viv and John, of course, were as distraught as Jonathan and I would have been if Circé had been the doggy sans-papiers.

Once they were back in Wales Viv and John were able to confirm with their vet and the UK authorities exactly what the problem was. Charlie had his first rabies jab a couple of years ago before he was micro-chipped. Even though he had been chipped by the time he’d had his blood test to confirm his immunity and has subsequently had a couple of boosters, the fine print of the Pet Passport Scheme is quite clear. The animal must be micro-chipped before being vaccinated against rabies.

I’m not sure I understand, though, why Charlie’s become a Pet Passport refugee. If the object is to prevent canine identity fraud, it’s easy to demonstrate Charlie’s no criminal. He has documentation bearing his microchip number which shows he’s immune to rabies and it’s not hard to check that it really is his microchip. There’s no doubt that protecting the UK against the ravages of rabies is a serious business but I don’t see how detaining an obviously immune dog in France for what seems like an arbitrary period (until the six-month anniversary of his last booster) helps in this fight.

In the meantime, Circé clearly sees Charlie as a role-model and watches him carefully to see just how grown up Labrador retrievers should behave. She’s been much less excitable and puppy-ish over the past few weeks and I’m sure that’s much more to do with Charlie’s influence than any training we’ve been trying to drum into her usually deaf ears. There are inevitable lapses, though. Charlie is, wisely, more of a watcher than a doer and considers very carefully what activities he’s going to take part in. He clearly believes a supervisory role is more fitting for a dog of his standing and experience when it comes to most jobs around the house and garden. Circé, on the other hand, loves to muck in and get involved, especially when it comes to re-distributing the tools when I’m gardening!

Charlie, for his part, is getting into the swing of how things work at number 26. He’s acquired Circé’s taste for apples and melon and takes part in the dishwasher-loading ritual which involves looking out for interesting things to lick as the dirty plates and pans go in. However, I’m convinced he’s doing this to be polite, as if it’s the done thing round here and he doesn’t want to upset his hosts, rather than because he really thinks it’s a good idea. The expression on his face is as if he’s wearing the hat from his Christmas cracker under sufferance because he’s with people who do that sort of thing but it’s certainly not something he’d choose to do.

Of course having Charlie around has also shown us how lovely it is to have two dogs rather than one, as if we were in any doubt. As Viv’s daughter Rachel says, when Circé misses Charlie when he goes back to Wales at the end of July, there’s only one option. But with everything else going on, she may just have to wait a while.

It’s been a long time…..

It’s been, as the song (almost) goes, a long time since I’ve done any blog writing, not because there’s been nothing going on (if only!) or because I’ve been too busy. To be honest I’ve struggled to know how to set down on these electronic pages what’s been going on since the beginning of the year.

But there are so many happy things to write about that I must get over this hurdle, so here goes……..

A week after my Dad had a bout of pneumonia which put him in hospital for a few days in January, Jonathan’s Mum, Pat (pictured here with Circé last Autumn), who’s a very fit 74, was knocked over as she was crossing the road on the way home from a shopping trip. The car which hit her was driven by a 93-year-old who subsequently failed the police eyesight test. She had multiple and very severe injuries, including two broken legs, 10 broken ribs, a cracked vertebra and severe internal injuries. A nasty knock on her head was also very worrying. She was airlifted to the Royal London hospital (did you see ‘Casualty 1907?) where, frankly, the trauma team saved her life.

Three and a half months later, she’s still in hospital, thankfully a bit closer to their home in Farnham than the Royal London, and is making good progress. Nevertheless it’s a long haul and we’re still not sure when she’ll be home or when she’ll be walking again. Perhaps the most upsetting thing is that she’d worked really hard to get fit and mobile after her second hip replacement last June and was just starting to enjoy swimming, gardening and country walks again when she was knocked down; it wasn’t just a huge physical knock she suffered.

Needless to say this has had unimaginable ramifications for the whole family. Luckily we’ve found a fantastic live-in helper for Jonathan’s Dad, Dennis, while Pat’s in hospital as managing at home alone for such a long period of time would have been very hard for him. Jonathan’s sister, Alison, who lives in London, has inevitably shouldered much of the responsibility for overseeing Pat’s care and making sure Dennis is OK. Jonathan has spent quite a bit of time in away from home since the beginning of February but we’ve been apart more than we would have been if the UK authorities didn’t take such stringent precautions against rabies. This will be easier at the beginning of June, six months after Circe’s rabies jab, when she’ll be able to visit the UK for the first time.

As if this wasn’t enough, my Dad, who’s been increasingly frustrated by his state of health for several months now, was taken ill while on holiday with us in France. Although spending a couple of weeks in hospital is not the way anyone would choose to spend the second half of their holiday he learnt quite a few French words and I think he chatted up the nurses a bit, too. Since he came out of the French hospital I’ve spent a bit of time helping him settle back into life at his home and to be with him for his most recent hospital appointment.

So, that’s where we are. Whichever devil prevented me from writing about all the other things which have been going on is now expunged. Now I can tell you about the good things: planning the vegetable plot, enjoying Circé growing up, finalising the plans for the house and barns and last but not least the arrival of Circé’s first doggy house guest later today.

Fip’in Fabulous

So much for my new year’s resolution for more frequent blogwriting. January went by in a blur not the least because it included an unplanned week in England to help my Dad, who’s not been well.

As I said in our end of year roundup, we’re pretty well integrated into French life, or at least village life in this very rural corner, but we’ve completely failed to change our music listening habits. Or at least up to now.

If you know us well you’ll know that we’ve both got quite catholic (with a small ‘c’) tastes in music; one of our first conversations when we met was about Led Zeppelin and the last well-known band we saw live was Faithless, so that gives you a bit of a clue. Increasingly, we listen to music online – Jonathan’s aptitude for technology means he can make internet music miraculously come out of the hi-fi – and we’ve been listening to last.fm since the days when they told you how many other people were listening (and it was often less than a hundred or so). When we’re not listening to Radio 4 (as a former government communicator I can’t quite kick the ‘Today’ habit) or Radio 7 (I love drama when I’m ironing) we enjoy Paatan’s musical rickshaw on the BBC Asian network and Judge Jules and Pete Tong on Radio 1. I can’t bring myself to listen to Radio 2 although I know many people of my age do; I just can’t get the JY Prog and Terry Wogan out of my head, I’m afraid. It’s a bit like not being able to eat snails because I can’t banish the image of those eyes on stalks.

Our musical shift France-wards came about through the Guardian’s “Readers Recommend” column and blog. I’ve been a fan for some time, and if you’ve ever made lists of songs with a connected theme then you’ll love it too. There used to be a great, but small, independent record shop in Guildford which played the same game – I can remember spending a very happy wet lunchtime there about fifteen years ago when the staff played whatever songs the customers suggested about rain. Forget about work with The Rain Song – what bliss! Sadly, it went the way of many independent record (and book shops) when HMV opened in the Friary Centre. So much for progress!

While my general music knowledge is reasonably broad, my brain is no good at detail so I struggle to make the connections between the theme of the week and the music I know and love. If often trawl up lots of irrelevances and miss the bloomin’ obvious amongst my favourites. I hesitate to suggest things which have already been mentioned because it just makes more work for the long-suffering editor. So although I often feel like the little girl standing on the edge of the playground watching admiringly, I love the column and with a growing band of regular contributors, RR makes every Friday a day spent people I feel I almost know and would like to know better.

RR comments are as diverse as the contributors and increasingly there’s been a feeling that something else was needed – a spin-off somewhere in cyberspace for tangential discussions about obscure lyrics, where playlists could be posted and recipes for boeuf bourgignon shared (I jest not). So, since last month, thanks to the heroic efforts of blimpy mcflah there’s the overspill blog. And it was through a comment in a thread about Deezer playlists that the Frogprincess introduced me to fip (and Deezer, come to that). Our lives will never be the same again.

Imagine a public service radio station with no adverts and very little talk that’s brave enough to follow the White Stripes with a Fauré sonata, with a repertoire encompassing Fred Astaire and Frank Zappa and everything in between. On its webpage Fip describes itself as ‘Curious and demanding’ and as if to prove the point while I’ve been writing this it’s introduced me to a French singer called Juliette singing a recent thing called “Tu ronfles” ("you snore"), Kassav (I’d guess at a North African background but with French accordion influences) as well as a Charlie Mingus piece that I’d imagine was recorded some time before I was born. I always thought that French contemporary music would be rooted as much in Africa and the middle east as in Northern Europe and fip has proved me right. There’s so much more than the bland sing-along-a-pop that you pick up when you fiddle with the radio as you get off the ferry at Calais.

Ironically, although we’re in France we can’t get fip on the radio. Evidently, since French regional public-service radio was re-organised a while ago fip ceased transmitting from Reims and we’re too far away from Paris to pick it up. But that’s no hardship thanks to their online radio player which is far more reliable than the BBC’s, even since it’s been beefed-up and re-named. Even better, fip gives a real-time playlist and archive. No wonder there’s a strong attachment to fip in Brighton!

Listen to a few of the tracks we've recently enjoyed on fip radio (using a Deezer playlist):

2007 - a Good Vintage in Spite of the Weather

One of the reasons I started this blog was to save a few trees and use it at Christmas to keep friends and family up to date with our news. My motives weren’t completely altruistic, though, and were partly prompted by the slog of printing out 60-odd double-sided copies on our ink-jet printer, then folding them and stuffing them in the envelopes. So, if you got one last year, I hope you appreciate that it was a real labour of love!

However, the problem with avoiding the donkey work is that I’ve had more time to write this piece, so I apologise for it being so long. There’s no prize for getting to the end, and I won’t be offended if you give up half-way through!

It’s hard to believe we’re into our second year of our new life in France. We feel very well established in the village, with Sarah doing a spot of English tuition for friends’ children, and occasional sessions at the local primary school. Jonathan has also been helping village friends with the odd computer problem, and regularly plays tennis locally.

Through local contacts, Sarah has also started helping a lawyer in the nearby town to improve his English and is really enjoying it. We’ve also been far more involved in community activities than we were ever able to do in Godalming. Jonathan won third prize in the bowling at the village celebrations for the national day on 14^th July and as a result was pictured in the local paper. We’ve also both enjoyed being invited to classical piano concerts and French song evenings.

Probably our most important news this year is that we’re the proud (or should I say besotted?) owners of a girl golden Labrador puppy called Circé (pronounced ‘Seer-say’). We’ve both always been fond of dogs but it’s only been feasible to have one since we left the rat race; neither of us felt it was fair to have a dog while we were both working. Our feeling that it would be best to wait until after the building work was put to one side after we adopted a lost Labrador for a weekend last year. Although his owner retrieved him (sorry for the pun) after a couple of days, he left a big gap when he went and we decided we couldn’t wait; probably a good job as we’ve not progressed as much as we’d hoped with our building plans this year, but more of that later.

We were both very keen to find a reputable breeder and through the website of the French equivalent of the Kennel Club we tracked down a really nice Labrador breeder about an hour’s drive from home. We first met Circé when she was three weeks old and she came home at the beginning of October when she was almost three months. Since then, as you can imagine, our lives have not been entirely our own and we’re enjoying every minute of it. She’s settled down really well, is as bright as a button and has quite a penchant for brushes, as you can see from the picture!

The other thing that’s taken up much of Sarah’s time since the Spring is the vegetable patch she’s renting from friends. It’s about ten minutes’ walk away from the house in a lovely spot by a stream with beautiful views across fields to the village. From what people have told us this part of Cirfontaines could have been the vegetable farm for the monastery down the road at Clairvaux. It’s quite a thought that people may have been growing vegetables on Sarah’s patch since the 13^th century! It’s quite a big plot – 27 metres by 9 – and although Jonathan has helped in the evenings and at weekends, Sarah has done most of the graft. She’s found it’s been a great way to meet people, as her fellow plot-owners have given her lots of advice, much appreciated as the growing season here is completely different to what she was used to in Surrey. Her ‘brouette anglaise’ (a folding wheelbarrow she bought at a Hampton Court flower show several years ago) and the English tools she uses have been quite a talking point.

Weather-wise 2007 wasn’t a good year to be a vegetable-growing debutante but we’ve been in good company as even the older people in the village thought this was the worst and wettest summer they could remember and, following a very mild winter, this made for a plague of enormous slugs. The worst thing was losing the whole tomato crop (more than 70 plants!) to mildew, but the consolation was that so did most other people, even those who had less compunction about using all sorts of chemicals.

However, the courgettes went mad in all the rain (even the slugs couldn’t keep up with them) and Sarah’s very proud to have grown such a wide range of vegetables on the plot, including fennel, peppers, chillies, sweetcorn, broccoli, carrots, celeriac, cucumbers, parsnips, French beans and squash. The spinach is still going strong and we only picked the last of the lettuces a few days ago. So who knows what’s possible if we have a good summer!

Circé enjoys going to the vegetable patch and has been a great help with the harvest, as you can see!

Jonathan’s also done his fair share of gardening, and has enjoyed it even more since he bought himself a tractor-mower and trailer at the end of the summer. Although Sarah wasn’t convinced at first that he needed one, she was won over after Jonathan nobbled one of her friends to tell her how much he needed one! He was right as it’s reduced by half the time it takes him to cut the grass.

The wet summer means we haven’t enjoyed the pool this year as much as we did last year, although when Jonathan’s nephew, William, and his friend Coryan visited in September they were determined to swim every day! We were very hopeful when we had the pool opened up for the season at the end of April, as we’d been enjoying what turned out to be some of the best weather of the year in the early Spring. We were foiled, though, when the pool maintenance men (or piscinistes) spotted that the plastic liner had cracked and would need replacing. Without boring you with the technical detail this meant draining the pool of all 100,000 litres of water, removing the old liner and its felt ‘underlay’ then getting a new one fitted before re-filling the pool. Mind you, when we bought the house the former owner told us that it had already outlived its 10-year life expectancy so the last two years have been a bonus.

After all the sun we’d had in the spring, this was very disappointing, but a couple of days after this news the weather broke and it rained for pretty much all of May and early June. While this compensated for our disappointment, it also delayed the fitting of the replacement liner which can only be done in completely dry weather. Normally the removal of the old liner and the fitting of the new one would take two days, but after having one fitting appointment rained off, we decided to remove the old liner ourselves, meaning the specialists only needed one dry day.

Taking the liner our was the easy part but stripping off the underfelt from the concrete pool walls was a devil of a job, made more unsavoury by the swamp of green slimy rainwater which had collected in the deepest part of the pool. We only achieved this with a lot of help from our old friends Lis and Will and their two girls, Josie and Pippa, who came over from Switzerland for a working weekend in May.

Picture: Josie, William and Jonathan scraping the felt by the swamp at the bottom of the empty pool.

Eventually we had a few days respite from the rain in the middle of June and the piscinistes fitted the new liner in blazing sunshine. Of course a week later, by the time we’d re-filled the pool with another 100,000 litres of water (and yes, we’re metred!) the rainy weather had set in again.

The frustrating thing is that we had a really good Autumn and if the pool had been heated we’d probably have been able to swim until mid-October. Unfortunately the water never had the chance to get properly warm during the summer so while the air temperature was warm later in the year, the water was far too cold for any but the hardiest swimmer. In fact we do have the means to heat it using the central heating boiler but as this is powered by propane and you could probably see the dial on the tank moving steadily down as the temperature of those 100,000 litres inched up (or should I say centimetred up?) we’ve never attempted it. This has spurred Jonathan to research other means of heating the pool and, given we’ve got a huge almost south-facing roof at the back of the house, we’re planning to have solar heating installed.

This is only one of Jonathan’s plans to save the world. Since a friend bought him George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat’ for his birthday in January (at my suggestion, I have to admit), Jonathan’s been a man with a mission. He’s replaced all our light bulbs and is in the middle of his insulation programme before the winter sets in. He’s becoming an authority on alternative energy and I expect by this time next year we’ll have a log-fuelled central heating boiler and will be selling electricity to EDF! I jest not.

This brings us, finally, to news of our building work. We engaged an architect to draw up plans for the house and both outbuildings in September 2006. By March we’d got plans for the house but not for the two barns which we also want to renovate. Worse, the proposed costs were around three times the budget we’d set. While we’re canny enough to know that projects like ours typically go over budget and we had allowed a bit of a ‘cushion’, we were disappointed that all this had taken so long. The cardinal sin from our point of view was the fact that this news was communicated in a letter rather than in person! Sacking him, in French, was one of the hardest things Sarah has done, especially as he and his team were so nice. So we found ourselves back to square one in the Spring with no plans and no architect. Once again we turned to the internet, found the website of the French professional association of architects and got on the phone. After organising on-site meetings with three local architects, we’ve found one who’s easy to communicate with, understands what we want and is very enthusiastic about the project. So as we come to the end of the year we have plans for all three buildings including creating a two-bedroomed holiday cottage from one of the barns as well as adding a bedroom, more bathrooms and an office for Jonathan to our house. The outline figures look much better, too, so we’re hoping we can get going with the planning approval and tendering for builders in the new year.

We’ve had a lot of pleasure from the visits of friends and family this year; Sarah’s dad has enjoyed several visits and helped her paint the front gates in March. Although he’s not been in the best of health recently, he’s looking forward to spending Christmas and new year with us. Jonathan’s parents have had the best of the weather, coming in both April and then September – probably the best two months as far as sunshine was concerned. We love welcoming friends and family to our home and exploring with them this lovely and unspoilt corner of France.

Lots of interesting things happened in 2007 which never made it onto these (electronic) pages so one of my resolutions for 2008 will be to update this blog more often. If you’d like to get more of our news by email, use the ‘Subscribe’ option on the right hand side of the screen near the beginning of this newsletter (underneath the photo of me!).

We hope 2007 was a good year for you, too and that 2008 is at least as good for you and everyone close to you.

Lunch by the pool and seven jars of mincemeat

Yesterday was rather a special day. After a week or so of heavy grey skies and rain, during which we felt as if we were spending most of our time wiping Circé’s feet or washing her undercarriage, the sun shone, we opened the shutters and Jonathan cut the hedge in his t-shirt (look, no fleece!).

Although there was a bit of a breeze we had to have lunch outside, so we briefly got back into our summer routine of loading up a couple of trays with bread, cheese, and salad, put on our sunglasses and headed for the pool terrace. Even though the pool was closed a couple of months ago it really did feel like summer. Actually it was even better than most days last summer. As I munched on home-grown salad, still growing strong in the veg patch, I was thinking how awful it would be if we were only on holiday and would have to pack up and go back ‘home’ tomorrow. Jonathan broke the silence; “I’m really glad we moved here. Aren’t you?” Great minds think alike.

Meanwhile, Circé was enjoying her usual pastime of getting into trouble. In spite of our emphatic shouts of “no” and “come”, she was having great fun walking on the pool’s winter cover. The best thing is that it’s made of a very fine mesh which means that as she walks over it, the pool water wells up pleasingly between her paws. I can understand why she likes it so much because it takes me back to childhood memories of watching the sand wash between my feet as the sea came in and out at Waxham beach. While the cover holds her weight at the moment as a huge dog who’s temporarily a reasonable size, things won’t be the same when she’s a big girl, so this palaver had to stop.

Actions speak louder than words, all those puppy training manuals would have us believe, so after a couple of episodes of pool-cover paddling and shouting “no”, we banished her from the terrace, very pleased with our decision to go for a fence rather than a pool alarm when the legislation came in. We half expected (and feared) that she’d spend the rest of our lunchtime either whining or peering in accusingly with her pink nose stuck between the bars of the fence. The so-called punishment was obviously not effective, though, because she simply wandered off to amuse herself with the watering can.

It’s no surprise we’re having mixed success with her training because she’s far too clever for us. She sits nicely before we present her with her food and she understands ‘stay’ when we put her in the back of the car and pull down the hatchback. She’s also got the hang of toilet training, and has worked out how to outwit the stupid humans by pretending to wee or poo so she can get extra treats. The worst, though, is that when she’s doing something interesting she wilfully ignores everything we say. What chance a miracle next week when we’re off for her first proper training session?

And what about the mincemeat?

What really made this an exceptional day was that this surprising treat of a lunch outside wasn’t in April or October but today, Tuesday 5^th DECEMBER. The day I also made seven jars of mincemeat (far later than if I had been an organised cook with no Labrador puppy, I know) AND we had our first two Christmas cards in the post.

Of course today, it’s raining again.

Circé est arrivée!

She’s certainly made her mark on our lives since she arrived almost two weeks ago. Our golden Labrador puppy was eleven weeks old last Monday and she celebrated with her favourite activities – helping with the housework (she especially loves sweeping the kitchen floor, loading the dishwasher and re-arranging the slippers) and the gardening - mostly picking flowers!

Circé is the name she was given by her breeder, Evelyne Bourgoin. As her mother is Athena, her sister and brothers are also named after gods and goddesses, all beginning with ‘c’, as that’s evidently the letter for dog names this year. In spite of the goddess Circé sounding like a rather tricky character we decided that it’s a pretty name which suits her well. Besides that, it’s much better than any of the names we could come up with – she just doesn’t look like a Clarrie or a Carmela!

Even the most assiduous buffing up on the essentials of bringing up a happy, well-balanced dog isn’t preparation enough for the life-changing experience of getting your first puppy. We bought every dog manual we could find in the Oxfam book shop in Farnham, and a few others, but none of them told us how scary it is to think that her life and well-being are entirely in our hands. If we don’t get the toilet-training right she might grow up to be a delinquent and judging by the size of her paws if she is going to be a delinquent then she’ll be a big one!

But even in the few days we’ve had her she’s gained in confidence and has already learnt to ‘sit’ before her meals and to come when she’s called – in two languages. We’re trying to teach her to be bilingual so she understands our French friends as well as us. Mme Bourgoin told us that she has come across other Labradors who understand both English and French, and that the Labrador is one of the few breeds intelligent enough to cope with this. Maybe Circé has a head start, though, as her father is English.

Regardless of the language, there’s still a way to go as far as her training is concerned. Her toilet habits are a bit erratic, but that’s probably more about us not reading the signs properly. Why is it she can spend an hour chasing about with us outside and then five minutes later do a wee on the doormat? The good news is that she can be completely clean during the night -provided the day starts at 5:30.

But in spite of all of this, there are many unexpected pleasures in being a puppy-owner; the sweet doggy smell made fragrant with lavender when she’s been sauntering around the bushes in the garden; her joy every morning when she realises we didn’t really abandon her overnight and the delight on her face as she bounds towards us when we call her, ears flapping – who says dogs can’t smile?

Take a look at our Flickr pictures of Circé and her family.

Labradors de la Tour Farmina

What the Wikipedia says about the goddess Circe