Last week I returned to France to catch up with my brother's family and see how they were doing having lived in France for 2 months. Here are loads of pictures and a few of my thoughts on living in France.
First thing that struck me on arrival was that I was back in the slow lane. Back in a relaxed environment. Life is slower in France. It feels more grounded over there. I saw more beautiful hillside towns. I saw vineyards. I saw endless Chateaus. It was an artists paradise full of inspiring scenery.
This is Oliver in Puy D'Epique wearing his English primary school leavers sweatshirt.
Attending a French school in Belveze with his brother Samuel has been very different for them both. The whole school only has 12 students. The teacher and the cook are basically in charge of everything. When Aly and Vikky first visited the school they went over and introduced themselves to the cook thinking she must be the teacher because the young lady in the corner seemed far too young to be the teacher. Interestingly the cook has a major role to play. She is an older woman and all the kids know her and appreciate her cooking. Every lunchtime they are given a 3 course meal and come home excited to tell us how they ate a fresh tomato with salt as a starter. Or a meal of fish and rice with strawberries for dessert. Amazingly the boys are now eating fruit and vegetables without resisting. Oliver even cooks a 3 course meal for the family at the weekend because he is learning all about good food.
They are slowly picking up French phrases and Samuel has a great French accent and rolls his R's with excellent pronunciation.
It was wonderful to see Oliver getting on his bike every morning and cycling to school. He rides home in the afternoon and builds up a sweat which means he is ready to jump into the swimming pool as soon as he gets home.
More pictures of Puy D'epique. A good place to stroll along medieval streets, enjoy a good meal and strangely lots of children story book characters scattered around the town!
Pinochio and the carpenter.
Steak with a rich gravy, asparagus and baked shallots.
Ok, so I had to visit a Brocante which basically just translates as a second hand shop. I love French Brocantes. The photo below is taken outside the local one found on the outskirts of Montcuq. I was too shy to take a photo of the spectacular owner. A shabby but elegant elderly lady with a dark brown skinny cigar superglued to her bottom lip. She chain smokes all day but does it with a strange elegance. Maybe next time I will build up the nerve to request a photo. She was one cool character. I hope to see her again over the summer.
Now for a few of the unexpected experiences. A vintage car rally on a Saturday afternoon.
We were greeted with hooting and cheering as this line of old cars drove past in the lane outside Belveze.
I mean, is that safe? Doesn't the passenger receive a massive burn every time they exit the car? An exhaust pipe fitted to the side of this old Citroen!
On a hot afternoon we drove up into the hills above the Lot River and found this cute little cafe with a view.
Vikki noticing that Samuel is about to climb up and over the wall and drop down into the precipice below.
Who is that man in the field below? Obama? Ronald Reagan? No, this is France not America. Maybe Jacques Brel! How did they do this?
We did quite a bit of cycling while I was there. One day I did 3 hours in the drizzle, pouring rain and then sunshine. It was spectacular. The reason I was able to do 3 hours on a bike relatively easily is because there is so little traffic and miles and miles of glorious country lanes to explore. The pot holes get filled in as soon as they develop. Seriously, one morning we woke up to find a work team chugging down country lanes filling in every little minor shallow hole in the road with tarmac. Hooray for socialism. That would never happen in England.
Another thing I wanted to mention because it is a nightmare if you are quietly cycling down a country lane and it goes off .. the bird scaring technique used by the French farmers! Here at Loseley I am used to the loud popping sound that goes off to scare the birds away from the fields around us. But in France they use a cannon and it booms shaking the ground to keep the birds away from the fruit orchards. If you are cycling along and are not aware of the situation, you would be forgiven for crashing your bike when the first one goes off. It gives you a heart attack and makes you think you have entered a war zone and are being shot at.
Cycling gear is not obligatory. This is more my style. I took this photo in Toulouse.
I could go on but I will save some more for next week. So far my brother and family are doing well in their French relocation. They have an excellent message on the phone spoken in French by my brother that states ... "This is the Stevens family. Please speak really slowly & repeat yourself, our French is terrible." It makes the listener laugh. I received a message in really slow English from a French lady. I don't think she understood that we didn't need all our messages to be slowed down, just the French ones!
Al has been able to work from home and the French internet has been sufficient but not as reliable or fast as England. Vikki has adapted to him being in the upper landing area which is now his office and tries to keep out of any live video calls. She has mastered the art of a super crawl under the line of the camera to carry laundry to and fro in the background of the office.
So are there any negatives? Of course there are ...
Yes, the food costs can be higher than England. But if you are wise and shop seasonally, living costs don't have to be too expensive. Watch out for scrawny chickens with their heads still on! They are sold at the market for 'coq au vin' casseroles and don't taste too great as a roast as we mistakenly tried.
Yes, you will begin to get weary of baguettes and croissants and begin to really miss cut bread. Yes Cheddar cheese, good tea bags, Marmite and bacon will be missing from most supermarket shelves but if you know where to look they can still be found.
The shops in France only open when it suits them. Some only open for 2 hours a week. Some only until mid-day. There seems to be little reason behind the hours they choose except the priority is to find a time that suits the owner and not the customer.
Because the relatively new President Emmanual Macron is trying to streamline his country, the agricultural grant funding & level of subsidies are being looked at and this has caused loads of anger amongst the local farmers. Just before Aly and Vikki moved there were huge protests in the surrounding towns and villages with tractors being parked on every road junction to stop traffic passing and burning tyres set alight! It was impossible to ignore and any driving between villages in the farming areas was totally impossible.
Talking of militant protests, the mosquitos seem to be bigger, louder and more aggressive than their polite English relatives. I never knew that a mosquito could create a breeze with its wings until I went to Belveze!
Infact the mosquitos began to be a real problem, keeping us up at night and covering us in bites. So we bought a pot of yellow citronella jelly to repel them. It was left open in the bedroom and occasionally I began to find little pieces of yellow citronella jelly appearing in odd places. One morning I found a piece of yellow on the paving outside the kitchen. As I was about to head out into the garden to do some weeding I thought I would rub citronella into my wrists and ankles to deter the mosquitos. A few minutes later Poppy came over and began licking my ankles? I wondered why she was licking me so hard and examined what I thought had been a piece of yellow citronella jelly. It was then that I realised I had rubbed cheese into my wrists and ankles!
My final fight with mosquitos was on my last night in Belveze. I thought I might sleep next to the citronella pot and had it open on the bedside table. In the early hours of the morning when the loud whining of mosquitos was keeping me awake I decided to balance the pot on my shoulder near my ear. Of course that didn't last long and I awoke to find yellow citronella juice all over my pillow and dripping down my neck. The jelly turned out to be a huge messy waste of time. It never repelled anything. In the end mosquito nets had to be purchased.
I enjoyed my half-term week in France and surprised myself by viewing 8 properties that were for sale while I was there. Next week I will write about some of them. There were so many and so much choice it was overwhelming in a good way. I gave all the different houses names according to how they made me feel.
Next week ... Do I go for the Millionaires Mansion or Paddington Bear Town house. Will it be the Beatrix Potter cottage, the run down artists studio or Elisabeth's Swiss cottage?
