Tuesday 15 November 2011

The Rugby World Cup was quite interesting – but I don’t think that when I was informed by a shop assistant that England had lost to France my cries of “Allez les Bleus” were totally believed.

We have found a lovely lake near the local town of Vigeois – it’s a great walk around it and the scenery is gorgeous. Last time we were there Faust made a new friend – she said that normally dogs didn’t like here as she is a post lady!


The weather has been pretty good – most days up to about 20 and generally sunny. It’s only in the last few nights that I haven’t been taking the dogs out at 11pm in my shirtsleeves.
Work-wise things haven’t been too busy – but I have several estate agents who say they might have work for me in the future. And if you can’t trust estate agents…..One agent I have done some work for and hadn’t heard from for some months, contacted me to say that she still wanted to work with me. I have also bought a compressor to pump my photo mast up – hopefully saving my young Dutch agent friends from offering to operate the hand pump due to my advanced age.
Poor old Faust had to have an operation – basically he had to lose his bits for medical reasons. He recovered incredibly quickly, and it doesn’t seem to have affected him at all. I was sure it was done as the vet produced the items in question as proof……
We attended a very enjoyable house warming in the nearby village of Lagruliere – a friend who runs my writing club had moved into a new house. We met a young couple who were having a quick weekend away and who were already amazed by our bit of France and I also met en ex-policeman who trained at the same training college as I did, and in the same year.
I am fascinated by the huge apple fields here, all covered in netting for half the year to protect them against hailstorms. When the crop is gathered, they are all neatly rolled up - but when a field is left to itself then chaos results....


I nipped over to London for a week for my SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) course to be a caseworker. Flew Ryanair, stayed next to Waterloo Station – what’s not to like? Actually it was pretty good – I stayed at the Union Jack Club, which is basically a large hotel / club for serving and ex-military personnel, with over 250 rooms. The course was very good, and I am very impressed with the professional way SSAFA is run. The people were very interesting – from an ex-Ghurka to a chap serving on 8 Squadron ! Now I am waiting to put it into practice. I also got to see Rachel, who was dying of the dreaded lurgy – but she’s OK now.
Our last lot of visitors for the year (apart from our lovely daughter at Christmas) were the Sparrows – old RAF friends. Mike was taught fluent French by the RAF and worked in Paris. He now has so many acquaintances in France that they agreed that actually buying somewhere here was not necessary – they can spend most of the year flitting from friend to friend.
We have been driving around the local area trying to get to know it better -amazing waht you find in the rural depths....


Now we seem to be in a period of relative peace and quiet – but there is always something. I sorted out a problem with my bank – fraudulent withdrawal, but the tax people here are trying to double tax us on our pension income – which is already taxed in UK. Luckily I have an accountant who is trying to sort it out. More happily the car passed its CT (MOT) last week, and it lasts for 2 years. Aaaah, ‘tis peaceful here!