It's beginning to look a lot like Noel !

Well I started this blog pre-Noel and obviously didn't finish it before the big day, but that was because I had a lot of pre-conceptions about Xmas in France and I just wanted to see how the whole event “held up” under close scrutiny. I had been told, and I quote, “they don’t really bother” but I knew they ate their Christmas dinner Christmas Eve and opened their presents afterwards at midnight, that they don’t have a Boxing Day and only had one day off work (the 25^th itself) but I was eager to see how it panned out.

My findings: Well they DO bother but prefer to go for the old fashioned, decorations up for the week, leading to the big day approach. No light strewn grottos or floodlight house frontages, modest lights (white) and occasional wreaths. The shopping centre's go more to town but, as a whole, it’s less like the United States’ festive jamboree and more like the Christmases I remember back in the late sixties, low key and low budget. Therefore, in my humble opinion as chairperson of the WTF society of naysayers it suited me down to the ground.!!

I know a lot of people actively enjoy Christmas running from the 1^st November until 12^th night but save to say I am not one of them and Christmas morning found me out in the fields and woods behind my cottage playing “dodge the partridges” with my motley K9 crew of Phee, Kif (and this visit) Stitch, and having one of THE best Christmas mornings a washed up old agility crone like me could ever have.  Don’t get me wrong, I am BIG on Christmas, like it, love it, shriek with delight, cry like a baby, feel overwhelming joy, sentiment, nostalgia and love……….but can only manage it for about the same amount of time as the French it seems !  3 days MAX.

Glad I have Facebook, glad I have Skype, glad I have a husband that understands my need to keep in contact on both. It allowed me to enjoy the festive cheer with my (not so) near and dearest and be invited into their lives and homes. Did I miss my children ? (now adults) yes like crazy, but there always WAS going to be a first “none” children Noel( New Year and birthday), I just took a little longer getting round to it than most parents.

Thanks though to modern technology, half way round the world is no longer that far, and the South West of France is seriously closer. One of the oddest things to be missing was Olympia, as that was always part of Christmas to me. Groomed twice for Diane Graves in past years and had serious aspirations to get there myself but again modern technology allowed me to wish people luck, keep in touch with the goings on, AND to view the rounds themselves, thanks to the tireless efforts of those filming and posting. Thanks everybody xx  I will fix that next year of course, I will have installed Sky, Eurosport and with any luck will be grooming for my daughter, that’s if she’ll have me now I have deserted her !!

Anyway bonne fêtes, I am off to have yet another meal of the festive turkey I made my husband buy at an exorbitant price when it’s only me who really likes it. Oops !!

How the French “party”

Much is made of the divide between the English and the French. To be honest, my personal experience of the phenomenon reveals it’s the English that are to blame not the French. Personally I can’t understand why anyone would want to live somewhere if they didn’t want to embrace the local community and culture. To consider “living there” tantamount to accosting all the local English people and creating a ”Little England” mentality by surrounding yourself with no one else but your kinsman is in my opinion ludicrous  !!. Having droves of English friends that you are only drawn to because they speak your language is, I have to say fraught with problems. I mean would they be your choice of buddies at home? Probably not,after all if the average English populous were so bloody marvellous I for one wouldn’t have spent the last 20 years hiding from them in the happy shiny land that we call AGILITY…inhabited by like minded folk who DO give a shit about me and with whom I can carry on a halfway decent conversation without reaching for the nearest loaded gun.

So what is MY experience of the inhabitants? Well take the other day, Dominique our French friend (brother in law to Marie-Claude our original next door neighbour) was back from Bordeaux where he works these days. We had told him that we would be around for 7 weeks so we hoped he would come back into the area prior to our return to the UK so we could catch up. To clarify  in the last 8 years we have never encountered a French person who speaks fluent English, all our neighbours speak a little gleaned from school 40 years ago like my French, or none. So an ability to sport a smile, a dictionary, a good sense of humour and perform a passable Charade is a MUST. But remember this is a two way street, so do French people flock together and exclude the Brits ??? Do they heck. !!

Contact from Dominique was short and succinct. Meet me at the Intermarche Supermarket at St Amant de Boixe at 10 am on Sunday we're are having an Eclat. Fine, rendez-vous established…..Richard to me “What’s an Eclat? “ Me to Richard, after looking in a dictionary “It’s a bursting”….Richard to me “WTF” or similar.

In the meantime a close friend from England who we had always asked to pop over did just that. Sent text to Dominique explaining, reply, bring him along. So on Sunday we set off for the village of St Amant de Boixe, met with Dominique and disappeared down into Centre Ville to shop at the outdoor market and go to a Bar/Tabac for coffee. The market was a typical French affair, wine,cheese,fruit,veg,honey,meats all locally produced and sold in the usual haphazard, relaxed,sqeeze it, smell it, taste it, shopping experience by two shopkeepers and a fabulous looking merle collie boy who didn’t seem to care if I didn’t speak French either. Nobody formed a queue of any description, no-one tutted, pushed, barged, or stormed off despite the fact that the simple procuring of a half dozen items took about 30 minutes !!. Next to the bar/ tabac for an Espresso, a bet on the gee gees and an opportunity to take in the feel of France on a Sunday. Every single generation was accounted for. Dad’s out with their under fives giving mums a well deserved Sunday morning rest, couples, youth groups and pensioners. No raised voices, tears tantrums just the gentle hubbub of general conversation. We sat by the door….SO obviously English I felt like I wanted to hide yet everybody coming in and going out the door said hello. We were watched with curiosity but never disdain and when we rose to leave were wished a good day by all.  

  

With that we were then taken to a town house close by. Greeted by the lady of the house,who was, I later learnt a Granny and yet looked so young and chic I could have poked her eyes out. We were lead through to the back garden, a back garden that was full of French folk young and old who greeted and kissed us in true French tradition and we saw… wait for it……..A table……A HUGE table surrounded by many hands hard at work.

Rather than try and describe the next two hours …. I will lay it down in pictures…..save to say we were treated to the most unbelievable traditional experience, the centrepiece being 15 kilogrammes of Mussels cooked in a most “original” fashion.

3 nails are hammered into the table, then mussels are “placed” with acute precision, having been selected and their beards removed (and any discarded that weren't up to scratch) This selection process interesting enough performed by the elders in the assembled group. The mussels begin to form a circle.

 The process takes a long time, as the circle grows to over a metre, but thankfully there are “refreshments” provided….for those that aren't designated drivers like me.  

Once the circle is complete it is covered in pine needles....cones and all !!

 A portion of the circle is covered in fig leaves underneath the pine needles as this creates a different flavour

Much discussion,(and alcohol ) is needed to assure correct placement of the  needles

Then you set fire to it !!!

At full flame water is poured on the perimeter to stop the table going up !!

Buckets at the ready !!

When the fire dies out (when all the needles are burnt) a card is used to fan away the ash

The lovely hostess, (the Granny,don't say i didn't tell you) arrives with rustic bread  and the feast begins.

Tradition at this point dictates that you rub your hands in the wet ash and plaster your  guests with it !!  Thats fun  if not somewhat mucky

Then you drink some more and sing a variety of  revolution anthems and football songs.

  

      At that point I left the party for a hour to pop back to the cottage to let the dogs out, leaving Richard and our friend to fend for themselves not realizing that I was still covered in soot as I walked back through the packed village square....Oops !!!     In my absence the "serious" eating and drinking started, apparently the moule were just the appetizers.  When I returned they had worked their way through the cold meats,jugged hare, pasta salads and rice and were stuck into a phenomenal array of desserts (the French masterpieces) flans,tarts and pastries......glad I made it back just in time. !!!  

Next the almost obligitory, boule de petanque which is taken with upmost seriousness and competitiveness whenever played. I myself have had some previous experience and success in the beloved French sport so was looking forward to being paired with a Frenchman to excel at one of their native games....... or so I thought. Colour me totally surprised when confronted with SQUARE boules !!!!!!!! Apparently historically when the playing surface is a "courtyard" not hard dirt ,gravel or grass, the square pieces allow the games to be played whereas round balls would render it impossible....who knew ??? I still got to the quarter finals but ultimately the finals became a French affair.

So there we have it.....A party that started at 10.30 and ran well past 6.30 pm which was when we stole ourselves away. Unique and priceless memories to join our countless other French experiences and THAT my friends is why I will keep hanging out with "le français" as long as they will have me !!   

Something Fishy

One of the big surprises about my time in France is my growing appreciation for the hobby of fishing!. It started when I begrudgingly went along and dropped my first “ledger” line into the Charante a few years ago, merely humouring my husband who was a keen sea fisherman and who thought he’d try his hand at river fishing in France. On that occasion, I had taken a good book, food, drink , binoculars ,camera, and mobile phone to while away the inevitable hours of boredom as the maggots drowned un-nibbled and the clock ticked silently away…..I mean it’s not AGILITY is it !  But this all changed upon the arrival of my very first catch….slowly, as the subsequent visits and fishing trips came and went, the book got left behind, then the binoculars, and before you knew it the riverbank became a “zone” for one thing, and one thing only, - catching “poissons”

Now in complete contrast, I am champing at the bit to get out on the bank for a bit of rod-action. My tally to date has an acceptable range of sizes and species, all returned to the water I hasten to add, once their (and my) photo opportunities have been fulfilled.

Unlike England fishing is very inexpensive and easily approached, an annual licence (70 euros) and an opportunity to fish anywhere at all providing there are no Private signposts up. In other words the same country code applies to fishing as rambling in France, no trespass laws, just the insistence that common sense, courtesy and respect to the countryside is adhered to. We keep rods in the car and if we pass a likely spot we are ”good to go” but within 2 miles of the cottage there are 3 or 4 magnificent spots where you can fish in complete solitude in stunning surroundings so we tend to stick to those for now. I don’t think I have yet had a fishing trip that hasn’t come without the appearance of one or more kingfishers although I can’t say quite as much about the FISH I had one run of six trips without a single bite whilst my husband pulled them out left right and centre.!! Not that I’m keeping count (as it might infer I am competitive……who me ?? Laugh out loud) but at the moment I am having a bit of a “run” myself and there’s nothing like a few good barbel (good fighters) to well and truly get you “hooked” (pun intended). The dogs can come along too on cooler days although Phee has a habit of sneaking groundbait and Stitch thinks casting should be accompanied with a bloody good barking frenzy….nothing like the sound of a maniacal terrier to get those fishies flocking- not.

I shall close with a couple of shots of the lovely river Charante. Can’t wait til next time although I AM going to have to introduce my other half to the wonders of less than fair weather fishing…he tends to go off the idea as the clouds loom but I have a jumbo brollie and Regattas left over from a hobby that, as we all know tends to reserve itself for mud larks.

Tight lines everyone.

There's no smoke without fire

Well that 2 months flew by…..I am now writing the blogs that I promised myself that I would write at the time, but time itself got away from me!!!

So here I am back in England (for the time being) and recounting my escapades so that 1) I don’t forget them myself and 2) so those of you that know me,can get to enjoy my “big adventure” too.

Now, where was I ?

Fitting the Woodburner was a job and a half. As our bottom floor is below ground,the flue had to come through at head height in the lounge,and drop down to the fire itself via a system of flue adapters,corners,brackets and straight lengths.

Buying the flue system proved to be an absolute nightmare, as in France flues are made in many many sizes, and each piece has a male or female end,splayed or pinched in.  It just basically involved all three of us(Brother in law Ken, Richard and myself) on the floor of the local Ironmongers with a shed load of parts,trying to accomplish the correct linkage and doing our impression of the Krypton Factor or Crystal Maze. Our 1^st effort not only failed miserably,but also cost us more in the sum total of parts than the ruddy fire itself !!!

After returning to the shop with the rejects and a feasible plan B we finally managed to get a suitable flue system to vent the fire.

Our very nice French builder Mr Germain had by then built the foundations and had erected a chimney (complete with a traditional “table top”) adjacent to our car parking area. Our cottage now had two rising stairways on the same floor AND two chimneys (the original is bricked up in our toilet).

Richard and I then had the unenviable but surprisingly enjoyable job of building a “faux” chimney breast behind the fire, to protect the walls from the heat and staining and to make the whole thing look authentic. To my surprise you really can buy glue that can hold a pound and a half ROCK to the wall without slippage or, as my other half puts it “sticks it like shit to a blanket”….thanks for that one hun. Anyway, job done, you can see the fruits of our respective labours below. 

WE will be back to France in the Winter..."let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" We will be toasty !

Engines,guns and other French pastimes

French folk “live” for the weekends, they are very family orientated and there is something going on every weekend during the summer/Autumn period. It’s like us with agility,they just do “other stuff”…..who knew !!!

Richard and I took a trip to the lovely location of Vertueil (the Queen often stays at the Chateau there and it’s a truly beautiful town)

We went to see a Motorcross event organised by the local MotorX club. We didn’t know what to expect,but we should have realised that instead of a humble “club” meet, it was a full on Motorbike spectacular with riders from a multitude of clubs and regions competing in several rounds to find the winner of each age group. Girls competed against the boys too,so I was suitably impressed. It started at 8am and ran until 6pm and from what we saw, the riders were as young as 8 and rode like they had been astride a bike since birth. Whole families competed and the atmosphere around the “pits” was electric.

Ok, I have to say right here and now that my son Paul could have probably given the guys in the 18-25 category a run for their money in the 500cc class…..

Paul's CR500

but then he’s wired wrong and has a crazy arsed(his words) Honda CR 500 that has hospitalized all it’s previous owners, so I was sort of glad he didn't “rock up” on the day. He apparently was sticking to the relative safety of a F2 sidecar that day at Castle Combe……………Safe????…….Why didn't he stick to agility ??? !!!

The following weekend hailed the dawn of another French obsession “La Chasse”.

France has a very long and very keenly followed hunting season, the 1^st September until the end of March. Much has been written in Ex-Pat papers about the perils and horrors of the brigades of lone hunters and group organised shoots. They go much along the lines of they are all a bunch of gung ho murderous bar-stewards who kill anything and everything at the drop of a hat, and you take your life in your hands to be out and about anywhere in the countryside, coz they shoot 1^st and think afterwards!!  I have to admit I have always taken precautions when out and about. It’s no idle co-incidence that my long-distance herding (potentially deer chasing) kelpie-X "Kif" dons a Hi-Vis Florescent jacket when off our property. Similarly  I dress in bright colours take an audible whistle and a non-stop barking spaniel(thanks Phee)when approaching woods.

I can’t say I approve of hunting but I accept that, like in England, it is long standing traditional pastime that once put the meat on the tables of our ancestors. Any form of cruelty disgusts me and baiting,trapping etc is barbaric. But organised shoots where dogs are used to cover beat into the open for the gunmen …. Nope,I hate that too, but I live here at the moment and appreciate, unlike Britain, how much countryside there IS for the wildlife at large to hide in. Yes the hunting/shooting IS keenly followed, but in the 8 years I have been coming here I have not noticed any drop in the numbers of local fauna.

If my opinion as to the average Frenchman’s attitude to “game” was altered,it was when I found an injured deer on a path near the house the other day. I couldn't see whether it had been shot but assumed it had- it couldn’t stand and had a very large swelling under it’s chin. To be honest I could see there was no hope,and it was suffering. In tears I went to my neighbour Rosemary’s house and garbled in Schoolgirl French about what I had found,and how I just needed someone to end it’s distress.

Phone calls were made,and within 10 minutes I went with Rosemary’s husband Jacky,and a member of the local "Chasse" back to where I had found the unfortunate creature. I assumed they could,and would, just “dispatch” it with no care, concern or remorse, but I have to say, considering they were both huntsman, they made several phone calls to try and get someone out quickly with a lethal injection to put it to sleep humanly before finally having to admit that the quickest, and therefore the kindest way, was to do it themselves rather than continue to let it suffer.They handled the whole situation,and the deer itself,with compassion and respect unlike anything I would have ever imagined. The French may have a bad reputation but my first hand experience showed just the contrary.

It turned out that the poor deer hadn't been shot but had been hit by a train which had shattered his jaw.In this long spell of hot weather the deer go to the Charante river to drink, but this means that they have to cross a local rail line. Somehow in coming back it had been struck,this made me reflect that you often dwell on mans inhumanity in shooting wildlife but you often forget how much wildlife is also lost as “roadkill”. Man has a lot to answer for all round I guess.

Anyway on a happier subject altogether, another French passion, preserving, and the use of natures natural abundances.

Every where you seem to go in France it’s foragers heaven countless roadside bounty in the form of Plums,cherries,damsons,apples,chestnuts,walnuts,and……..wait for it……sloes, all free and readily available,growing down every woodland path and backlane. Sign me up for the W.I. folks, let the jam making begin!!

No actually,on this particular occasion I had another thing in mind. -Queue hasty text to Brother Mark,the recipe meister himself. So how DO you make sloe GIN ??. That’s more like it folks. 

Now having MADE the aforementioned Sloe Gin(some of them picked in my garden) I have only to wait until Xmas to test it out. Thanks Bro, I will be raiding your Blackcurrent and Port Jam recipe in the near future…..be warned.      

Log blog

One thing the French get really excited about is their log piles. When you drive through the countryside there are 100 metre x 2 metre high piled logs at every turn in the road. With the lack of natural gas most people heat by wood burners and “old wood” is sold for 40 euros per cubic metre. Now until this year,the nearest I have come to my very own log pile is the mish-mash of felled wood from our jungle of a garden. Not any more.

As some of you will know we have brought out our own wood-burner which is hopefully being installed with an accompanying chimney,flue and hearth this month(Sept). In anticipation of this much awaited arrival we have used a contact that my brother in law has,to supply us with 3 cubes of wood for the forthcoming winter/s. 3 cubic metres doesn’t SOUND like a lot of wood, we have only had 1 cube delivered so far….but it looks tons!!. Now what better way than to cut said wood than with a chain saw,.....and an axe…”gotta have an axe” I said.

With this in mind Ian, Richard and myself disappeared off to La Rochefoucauld (marvellous Chateau there by the way)to purchase a chain saw. We were in luck there was an amazing “promo” deal on a petrol chainsaw that looked as though it would do the trick (plus a really neat axe that I could pretend to wield about and look like a lumberjack) Voila,sold to the Brits all ready, and up for a good afternoons chopping, or so we thought.

Now the problem with some machine assembly is : that it’s pretty difficult to follow the instructions in your native language but try it in French !!! how hard can it be?,you try it!! Well armed with a dictionary it proved do-able, it just took a while. Glowing with pride,some hour and a half later we fill it with fuel, and chain oil and ….putt……putt…….putt……putt…. nothing. “@%*~#” Said the boys(direct quote) They had it apart(again) and fiddled(and cursed) and fiddled again(where’s mechanic Paul when you need him) and finally deduced -No spark… and the “kill” switch is wonky so basically …it’s…… that word again…..!

So,the afternoon of wood chopping was dropped in favour of the two boys taking the thing BACK to the shop to get a replacement by explaining it all to the Returns section in French.Tee hee, I meanly left them to that, alright I could have gone, but I figured it’s about time their training wheels came off their command of the language. Oh,to have been a fly on the wall !!. However,amazingly they managed to achieve A RESULT,as some 2 hrs later with a freshly boxed(to assemble again)chain saw, and 6 bottles of Charante Pineau(blended Cognac and wine), sold directly from a local producer, they returned triumphant.Just where the Pineau came into it, I wasn't too sure. 

It was now too late for logging, as we were going out for a meal at 7pm, but had just enough time to build it and fire it up…. thankfully, it worked.

Over the meal it was revealed that on their travels they had identified the problem all along. It  was….wait for it…..MY fault !!!!  They had remembered that when Ian had picked up the Original box in the warehouse he had added,(as he knows me too well) “Is this one ok Sis or do you want a different one??” I, of course DID want a different one, as the box he had chosen had minimal damage to one side. You can’t be too careful folks, so I choose a perfect box,Whoops, it’s just a shame it had a broken chain saw inside,had I gone for Ian’s selection, I would have had a log pile by teatime. Still, what’s the hurry, the sun will be shining again tomorrow.  

 It was 

Merrily, merrily, merrily, down the stream

What do you do when one of your older brothers pops in for a few days ?, well you start by kayaking down the Charante river…..who wouldn’t.!!!

My brother Ian lives in the Channel Islands, he has been a resident there since the early 70’s when he met and married my long suffering sister in law Maureen. He is my oldest brother and he had a few days holiday he needed to use up,so proposed to drive down from St.Malo. Ian and I have regrettably seen fairly little of each other over the last 20 yrs….maybe this has more than a little to do with my involvement in agility, and the associated lack of free time and money.In fairness, he has always done his part regularly, dropping in to England from time to time with his family,and keeping up his fortnightly phone calls, but to get him on the doorstep at Le Tardis. I was a happy bunny.

Now not a lot of you know this but our family come from a “yachty” background. My father was a sailing instructor on the Solent in Hampshire and spent his early retirement sailing around the Mediterranean on a 4 berth yacht,Ian studied traditional boat building and raced yachts in his youth and as for other brother Mark and I, well we took more holidays in yachts in the 70’s than we took caravan hols. So in summary, life on the water featured largely for the Ruskins.

Living now as closely as we do to the Charante river,and fishing it’s banks each visit, I had always held a secret desire to “row row row my boat” so I took the arrival of my nearest and nautical dearest to hire a canoe for a couple of hours and paddle around(well get HIM to paddle me around,I'm not stupid !). They say you can never go back in time…..but arsing about on the river as we did,we may as well have been back in our youths, it was a blast…so thanks for that big brother, the image of us struggling to go UP a weir (and accomplishing same) rather than take the boat out of the water and go round it will stay with me forever.

 A note to any intrepid river canoeists out there, when you launch off at the canoe base and find out you have left your waterproof map behind and you are offered it by the base manager…..paddle back and get it !!! The “how hard can it be” approach may not possibly get you up the creek without a paddle, but can prove interesting when the river keeps splitting and you can hear fast moving water. PS: who says you can’t blackberry pick from the water ??? I have a big brother that will try anything once…..silly bugger.