We have sold the Discovery at last – to a very nice English couple. I had advertised it on line, with very little response. I then tried a French website / publication something like Exchange and Mart used to be. Got the buyer from that, but also opened us up to a number of attempted scams. The best (worst) was definitely the e mail from the prospective buyer who wanted to but the car sight unseen for his father. He couldn’t view it himself as he is an oceanographer and at sea. He can’t speak to me because he is deaf. We can arrange payment through PayPal. No. I quickly responded to every reply by answering that I would only sell to someone who came to our house, and produced an ID and proof of where they lived. Well, at least the car’s gone. The Alfa is superb by the way.

Had a trip to Tulle, the Departmental capital a couple of weeks ago. We have never really warmed to the place, possibly put off by an friend who ran a hotel, and said they hated going there as it was the place you went to to pay your taxes. It is set in a valley, which gives it rather a claustrophobic feel. We gave it another chance, and we still don’t like it. We much prefer going to Brive – our favourite café near the large church in the centre has a new attraction. The area outside where we used to sit is now an archaeological site. They are pedestrianizing the area around the church, and as part of the work they have uncovered a graveyard under the café terrace. Hot chocolate and Time Team – excellent!

 

 

The weather has been reasonable – obviously it’s getting colder but we have had a few lovely days. Autumn seemed to last about 10 days – as soon as the trees started to turn in colour a storm took most of the leaves off.

 

The 1^st of November is Toussaint (All Saints Day) when the French try to visit their family’s graves and leave flowers – normally chrysanthemums. Round here it is pretty important and the cemeteries are full of lovely colours. If a public holiday falls on a Sunday, then that’s too bad (as Remembrance Day did this year). If it falls on a Thursday or Tuesday, then many people “Faire le Pont” – make a bridge and take the Friday or Monday off as well. Like it!

 

Talking of Remembrance Day we attended the small ceremony held at the war memorial outside the church in the village. Judy and I wore poppies which we were able to get for the first time this year. We were invited to join everyone for a small Apero (drink and nibble) in the Mairie afterwards, so I think we are becoming a little more accepted all the time.

The library is ticking over nicely. We have over 60 members and some 2,000 books, plus a load of duplicates. To raise a little money I organised a Pub Quiz at a small café/bar run by and English couple nearby. It seemed to go OK – and the team from the library won, so all the entry money went to our funds. We had a nice meal too!

I have had a few jobs to do drawing up floorplans and taking photos. The biggest job was an old stable complex which seems to be owned by the National Stud based in the local town of Pompadour. It was a very strange place – a house split into three parts and – not surprisingly, lots of barns and stables. I then drove down to the Dordogne to photograph some gites – the weather forecast had said we would have a nice sunny day, but it was pouring with rain when I got there. The dull weather and lack of leaves on the trees made for a somewhat muted photo collection. My last job was in the beautiful village of Domme – again in the Dordogne. Someone who had just bought a house there wanted a plan to enable him to work out what he might do with the place.

 

Some very old friends, the Makepeaces (well Dave is the very slightly older than me, so that’s pretty old) have bought a holiday place near us – they stayed for a few days while they signed the final papers. It’s a very nice little cottage just over the border in the Dordogne. A bit of work to be done, but it will make a smashing retreat for them and their family.

Judy has got the wood burning oven in our dining room working well, so I have been chopping wood for it – the remains of our walnut tree we had to have felled earlier this year. Sadly the other wood burner in my study appears to be past it, and putting a flue up the chimney could cost about €700 – so it is now a plant pot holder.

We were hoping to see Skyfall the new Bond film in V.O. – version originale i.e. English, but it wasn’t shown locally. Luckily our friend Diane, who lives near Sarlat in the Dordogne (about an hour away), called us to say it was on there for one performance. We went together and thoroughly enjoyed it – and supper with Diane afterwards. There are usually a few V.O. films showing every week in Brive – just rarely any we want to see.

Just to show how much I love the Alfa it’s been washed twice since I bought it – which is about the same number of times we washed the Discovery in all its long and serviceable years. Yesterday we took it out for a nice run to the Chateau village of Hautfort, about 40 minutes away. Lovely day and very pretty village. Sadly nothing open as the Chateau and a museum of medicine shut for the winter on the 11^th of November. This is actually much later than the average – many attractions don’t even open at Easter and are only open for the summer. In a neighbouring, very pretty, small village is a café which opens on the first day of July and shuts on the last day of August.

Anyway, night, night from the bustle of Voutezac!

 

 

Our English Library is growing steadily; we now have almost 60 members.  We also have a bank account and even better a cheque book and some money in the account. Janie, who owns the chateau in which the Library lives, has also started up Social Evenings, where we meet up and play cards, board games and generally have a natter – and we do have some French coming!

We went to the Voutezac Peach Festival again in July. As usual the actual Festival was a bit tame, but the evening meal was a hoot. Lots of singing and dancing, and the obligatory excellent firework display afterwards.

 

As I have decided not to do the elevated photography any more we decided to get a new(ish) car. After many hours on the internet I realized two things. The French don’t have as many second hand cars for sale – at least in the Correze. Probably due to their not having such a culture of company cars as in UK. And the ones that are for sale are pretty expensive. Eventually I found what I wanted in Bordeaux – about 2 hours’ drive away. It’s an Alfa Romeo 159 Sportswagon 1.9 JTD – big enough for the dogs and much more enjoyable to drive than the Discovery. All we have to do now is sell the Disco.

 

Buying the car was quite interesting in itself. I approached my bank and they said they were quite happy to lend me some money. Great. Please put it in my account and I can go hunting. Mais non! Tell us the exact car you are proposing to buy, and we will then, possibly, give you the money. We drove to Bordeaux and test drove the Alfa, and were very happy with it. The garage price included new tyres, paintwork touching up, a new CT (MOT test) and a year’s guarantee. Also to be paid was the tax needed to be paid to reregister the car and the new number plates – again sorted by the garage. I was told that the car would be ready in a couple of weeks, and on the appointed day I travelled to Bordeaux by train. A taxi to the garage got me there to be told it would be ready the next day. As I subtly hinted that this was not really satisfactory they sorted everything out and I was able to drive home in state.

Coming from metropolitan Bordeaux (pop about 1 million), the staff were slightly sniffy about us rural types. One of the staff remarked that I came from the Limousin. The other salesperson paused, looked thoughtful and finally pronounced “Ah, le Limousin…..tres calme!”. Not sure it was an accolade.

My brother Martin and his family came to visit when they came on holiday to the Dordogne. They stayed one night and we also drove down to see them at their holiday village – luckily it was the day after I took delivery of the Alfa with its air conditioning – the temperature hit 40 at one point.

 

We have a lot of duplicate books in the library, so I took some into the library in Uzerche, a very attractive town near us. They have a reputation for being very supportive of culture and cultural events, and I am hoping we may get some support from them for moving our library there – as it is a bit more central and easy to get to.

As I have probably said before, the normal market here is actually a farmers’ market. Many villages also hold evening markets in the summer, where there are stalls selling fresh or cooked food, and a lot of tables for you to sit at. Some even provide barbecues so that you can choose your steak and cook it to your liking. We managed to find one of these when I took my brother and his family to Segur le Chateau – a really beautiful peaceful village. The dozens of cars parked everywhere gave us a clue that it might not be so peaceful – we had hit an evening market. Bang went the quiet drink!

We went to another evening market in the Dordogne, where a friend had her birthday party. It was a really nice evening, as we made some new friends as well as having some good food.

 

On a further  trip to the Dordogne I drew a floorplan for a manoir belonging to an estate agent I have done some work for. It is a lovely place which she rents out as a holiday home and drawing up the plan was very enjoyable. If you want a really nice place to rent see http://www.homelidays.com/salignac-eyvigues/maison-villa435582fr1.htm.

Another really good day out was a drive to the Tours de Merle about 90 minutes south east of us. There a number of towers which, oddly, were all built next to each other by different noble families. Very impressive as it sits in its quiet valley. On the way back we stopped in Argentat, a beautiful town on the river Dordogne.

 

 

We had the trauma of a heating oil delivery a few weeks ago - €1200 to fill up. I think this is one of those times we tend to look back at what we paid in UK over 3 years ago, and gas prices have rocketed since then. But it doesn’t make paying all in one go any more pleasant!

We have advertised the Discovery – only one viewing so far – fingers crossed.

I popped over to the UK for a school reunion – it was a mere 50 years since everyone started in the first year of the Royal Grammar School in Guildford. The school is now private – it was in its very brief phase of being a state school when we went there. In it’s over 500 year history that was a very short period! It was very nice to meet up with old friends again, and I also got see our children and grandchildren. The only slight glitch was the kindly soul who ripped the wing mirror off my hire car.

 

The organiser of the writers’ club I belong to planned a writers’ weekend at our friend’s chateau. It was a great success, with some very interesting speakers – especially on self-publishing and a lady who has been a top journalist for 30 years.

I had a slight health scare last week. Our doctor ensures that we have a blood test every year. The laboratory spotted a slight rise in my level of the Leucocytes, which are something to do with the white blood cells produced by bone marrow. The doctor said that there was probably nothing to worry about, but he would pass it onto the Consultant at Brive hospital, who works on the Cancer unit. I had a jolly 4 weeks wondering what the verdict might be, but when we met the doctor, a consultant haematologist, she proved to be a very reassuring (and she spoke excellent English thank goodness).  I have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia, which is much better than it sounds. Basically it shouldn’t cause any real problems for at least 10 to 20 years, and there are already treatments available for that phase. In 20 years they will probably be able to cure it. Unfortunately I reassured my children rather too quickly, and before I could get too much sympathy (dream on) they were satisfied that I was OK. Looks like I’ll have to buy that Kindle Fire myself…..

Once again rather a long time between entries – a fair bit has happened so I had better get on with it….

We tried to set up a bank account for our Library in mid-April at the local post office. Should have been fairly simple? I got the letter opening the account a couple of weeks ago, after several exchanges of correspondence and urgent requests for documents for which we had never been asked. And we still don’t have a cheque book. The Library itself is moving along nicely – we have around 50 or so members and I hope to start planning more activities after the summer. Update mid-July – nobody knows where the cheque book is.

Quick medical update – eventually got over the shingles – not recommended at all. Apart from that we are both staggering along nicely.

We went to an “English Day” in a small village in the Creuse, the department just to the north of us – a mere two hour drive. It was actually set up by the local English speakers to show their French neighbours some of the highlights of British culture. There was a stall from our friend’s English library in the Creuse, some cricket videos, a local micro-brewery, British cakes etc. I felt that it began to lose the French with the welly throwing and the morris dancing.  The arrival of the fish and chip van helped save the day, but sadly we had to leave just as the folk singing really got going.

We had another Vide Grenier in the village - a car boot sale that takes over most of the centre of the village. Probably useful for childrens' clothes and toys , but we still haven't spotted anything very exciting.

I have completed my first case as a SSAFA caseworker! I am very pleased that I was able to arrange a sum of money from the RAF Benevolent fund to expedite urgent repairs to the roof of my “client” – I hope that we can help a few more people.

Rachel came to visit us for a few days.  Very enjoyable, although all the photos I took of her seem to have been in bars or restaurants – very unfair of me. We had a very good day in Sarlat where we met a friend Diane for lunch. It was a public holiday (there are a lot in May) and there was a country fair in the centre of the old town. Far too soon Rachel had to return to UK and work.

Very soon after this we flew to UK for a memorial service for our niece Theresa, who died in Canada. Judy and I stayed one night at the Mistley Thorne hotel on the Essex coast, and then had lunch at a wonderful pub in a small village called Pinn Mill.  

After a very moving and tearful service in Stevenage we took Rachel home to London. We followed the car’s Sat Nav so had the interesting experience of driving down Oxford Street – albeit at 9pm. The next day we visited my brother Martin and his family in Kingston and then spent a very enjoyable night in Essex with Nick and his family.

When we got home the ansaphone was flashing, and I learned that one of our oldest friends, Juliette Lockie, had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sadly the prognosis of just a few days proved accurate, and I returned to UK on my own a couple of weeks later. The funeral was held in Marlborough, where we lived 100 yards from the Lockies for about 10 years. I saw lots of old friends from the RAF and from Marlborough – just as we had in Stevenage we all wished we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.

I stayed with an old friend Romney Pargeter who runs a very posh B & B in a National Trust property in the village of Buscot in Oxfordshire.  How she manages with guests, teenaged daughter, toddler and visitors like me (not to mention the dogs and horses) I will never know.

To keep myself occupied I have a little business which does photography and floorplans for estate agents and others. One of my main selling pints was to take photos from a height of some 50 ft using a mast I carried on top of our Discovery. Well, the first job this year I had a major failure – damaging the camera and the rotating head it is carried on. I have to say that I have never been very comfortable using the elevated gear – watching a camera wave about on top of a pole 50ft up was always a little worrying. Rather than repair the gear I have decided to retire it and concentrate on floorplans and ordinary photography. This also means that we can get a more modern car as we don’t have to tote the mast around. Unfortunately our choice is still somewhat limited as we have to fit an Irish Wolfhound into it.

Of course the day after I made this decision there was a ring at the door, to reveal a French lady who wanted some elevated shots…..Anyway see http://www.imageriedelapropriete.com/index.php in a week or so for my relaunch!

To advertise the Library we have attended a couple of very ex-pattish evenings in the lovely local village of Segur le Chateau – a fish and chips evening and a pie night. OK, not very Gallic, but sitting outside a bar in a mediaeval village with a beer or glass of wine makes the fried cod or steak and kidney seem charmingly cross-cultural. We also found a café bar not too far away run by a couple from Liverpool – hope to go there a bit more often.

Two of our oldest friends, Dave & Juliette Makepeace came over for a few days’ house hunting – having fallen in love with the area on a previous visit.  They found a delightful little place about 40 minutes from us – all the legal stuff is going through so they should soon have a really nice holiday bolt-hole.

Sadly one of our walnut trees dies last year, and as it was rather close to the house, we had a tree surgeon come and take it down. Pretty skilled work – and in a couple of hours you would never have known it had been there – apart from the huge pile of wood and branches I still have to clear up.

The Library had a stall at a Mediaeval Fair in the nearby town of Uzerche last week – I was selling duplicate books to raise funds and generally publicizing the Library. Luckily we were inside a building, because it was a rotten day weather-wise – with little sunshine and lots of showers – some really heavy. The fair itself was pretty good, lots of people in mediaeval garb – knights, priests, executioners, archers, jugglers etc, plus, for some reason, three full sized camels. I was interested to see while someone was giving rides on two Shetland ponies and insisting helmets be worn, rides on the camel just involved clinging onto a hump for dear life. We had been told to arrive by 7am and we left about 7pm – a long day but  a lot of fun.

When we bought our house we had a “plan cadastral” showing all the land we owned. We knew that there were a couple of plots away from the house – particularly a small isolated plot in the middle of the woods across the valley. What I hadn’t spotted was that we also owned a patch of land about 10m x 5m adjoining the stream bank by the watermill about 150m from the house. So when I got a letter from the Prefecture to say that the bank had collapsed and it was our responsibility to clear it all – bit of a shock. Anyway a friend of a friend is coming with his JCB next week. We wouldn’t want life to be too quiet….

It has been a long 4 months or so since I last put finger to keyboard, and a lot has happened.

In January our lovely niece Teri, who lived in Vancouver, had a stroke. In hospital it was discovered that she was suffering from cervical cancer, and despite a really tough fight she passed away a couple of weeks ago. The whole family is devastated as you can imagine, and our thoughts have been with her mother, Judy’s sister Carol, and her sister Lesley.

In Corrèze we have come through another of those “never known one like it winters” – apparently it was one of the coldest on record. At the start of March the weather perked up and we have just had a couple of weeks of lovely sunny days with temperatures in the low to mid 20s. Judy has been sitting on the balcony watching the squirrels and doing her crossword. Of course now, getting into April – it’s pouring with rain and the temperature has dropped.

The cold spell caught a lot of people out – especially those with holiday homes. A friend who has been restoring two houses just South of us in the Lot called in on her way back to UK. She had arrived at one of her properties to find burst pipes and radiators, frozen waste pipes and a ceiling down. Even some friends who live in a new build had problems with frozen pipes – we must have been very lucky!

Our library venture has actually reached fruition. We had a fascinating time registering the library as an official Association, but we eventually managed it and I am now a President! Quite proud that the others had asked me to take the top spot until I discovered that the only person legally responsible is…..yup. We had been offered the books as duplicates from the library a friend runs, but had to find somewhere to put them. At this point Janie, who is in our Writers’ Group, said that she had a spare empty library! No, seriously, Janie has a lovely chateau which she runs as a B & B / Gites. After lots of work we moved a huge number of books into the library, and Janie and her granddaughter Ashley catalogued and shelved everything. We had an Open Day a couple of weeks ago, which went very well, and we opened properly the following Saturday. See https://sites.google.com/site/englishlibraryinthecorreze/ 

We have had the normal day to day excitements and expenses. Judy had an enjoyable shop at the Sales in Brive – remember in France they are only allowed real sales twice a year for a few weeks at a time and during a period the government decrees. Slightly less inexpensive were new springs and shock absorbers for the Discovery – badly needed but not cheap.

Occasionally one of the local cinemas shows a film in VO – Version Originale. The French protect their language as much as they can, so nearly every non-French film is dubbed into French. Anyway there was an afternoon performance of George Clooney in “The Descendants”, watched by an audience of three including us. With French sub-titles it was actually quite a good learning experience. Picking up a kebab in Objat on the way home was also a learning experience, though perhaps not quite so enjoyable.

Our American Chateau owning friends were invited to as small ceremony in their village used to welcome newcomers. Representatives from all the Associations in the village turned up to tell anyone new what is available – from rambling, bird watching, petanque, hunting and lots more – very impressive.Their village also hosts a wonderful travelling still, the local farmers bring their nuts, peaches etc and take away the liqueurs. Apparently the permission or licences held by the people who are allowed to do this will die with them – didn’t think that modern bureaucracy could cope with something like this.

Our village already has a Mairie (from which the Mayor and his staff run the commune of 1400 souls) with a small Foyer Culterel (hall) attached, and a large new village hall on the edge of the village. However apparently we need a new Marie, so a nice new building is rising up in the rear of Place de la Republique.

Every Sunday there is a really good market in our local town of Objat. I decided to take Faust for a walk around a couple of weeks ago and he thoroughly enjoyed it. The most popular dogs here seem to be the tiny “handbag” Yorkshire terriers and toy poodles, so I think he may have come as something of a shock – although he has a number of admirers.

Last month SSAFA Forces Help France, the charity I work for as a caseworker held their annual conference and training day in Bergerac – about two hours away in the Dordogne. There were about 80 people there, and we stayed a couple of nights in a local hotel. It was all very enjoyable, and I learned a lot. It was nice to meet other people from all over France and to learn more about the charity as well.

Judy and I both had flu a few weeks ago – so bad I actually completely lost my appetite, and for me that is serious! A few weeks after that I found I had shingles – chickenpox for old folk. Really quite unpleasant, and although I am well past the worst it’s still very uncomfortable. Poor Judy – thought she was past nursing old people!

The really big news in Objat is that Jonny Halliday   is playing a concert there in July. The signs have been up for 6 months already. If you haven’t heard of him he was France’s answer to Elvis – sort of a gallic Cliff Richard. He is 68, has been very ill and vowed to stop touring a few years ago – yet here he is hitting Objat!

Apart from a short frenzied spell at Christmas – no we didn’t totally avoid it this year – it’s been a pretty quiet few weeks. The weather has been reasonable – a couple of frosts, but no snow – yet. Quite a few grey rainy days, but mustn’t grumble. Judy has taken some lovely photos of different days in our valley.

In November our Writers’ club met in La Souterraine, a town in the adjoining Departement of the Creuse, and a mere two hours’ drive away. One of our members runs an English Library in the town, and we met there. It is very impressive, with over 6,000 books, DVDs, CDs etc, and the premises are provided free of charge by the local council. Before anyone thinks it is simply an ex-pat amenity, its real purpose is to provide a central point for English speakers to obtain information and help, to host French (and English) classes and to act as a meeting place.

On our (long) drive home, Sue (who founded and runs the Writers’ Club) and I thought how useful such a facility would be to us in the Correze. When will I ever learn not to volunteer………? So as President elect of the Correze English Library (or whatever we call it), I can say that we already have 1500 books, duplicates from La Souterraine, and we have decided to start off in a simpler way, utilising the empty library in the small chateau owned by another member. Being France we have to register as an Association, so that is my next task. Watch this space.

We had a new water meter fitted a few weeks ago – done very promptly and efficiently. Happily the new meter is just outside the house – the old one was in the bedroom with the bunk beds and was tight squeeze to read. One of the men from the water company who was explaining what was going to happen apologised for not speaking English as “It is the international language.”!! Funnily enough a builder who did a small job for us turns out to come from Swindon, and worked repairing mains for Thames Water when I was with them – so remembers my team calling him out.

Talking about Franco-British relations – I have been asked a few times whether David Cameron’s “Non” has led to any friction. Well as far as we can see the locals hate Paris and everything that comes from there anyway – so as long as the farmers are subsidized I don’t think they care. And they still don’t like Germans round this way. Francoise Hollande, the socialist presidential candidate is the Deputy for Correze – so we might have national leaders in our old and new homes. Hollande is apparently not as rabid an EU supporter as Sarkozy as well. Chirac was from the Correze too!

We posted early for Christmas, and got all our cards off. We have a small artificial tree which we put up a couple of days before the big event. We sent everyone gift cards. Really into the spirit I am. To put me right our daughter Rachel arrived on the 23rd, and decorated the tree for us. As she took us to a match at Twickenham last year, we took her to watch Brive lose to Clerment-Ferrand the evening she arrived.  Not the greatest game ever, but the fans were all very vocal, and the steak et frites after tasted extra good.  Rae had to leave on the 28^th – but she seemed to enjoy herself. And we did leave a stocking at the bottom of her bed. We had some lovely presents and Judy cooked some super meals, so I suppose it wasn’t too bad.

We had a bit a shock a few weeks ago when we thought that the boulangerie just up the road from us was going to shut. In fact it did, but reopened the following week with new owners. They run several shops in the area, so I don’t think the bread is baked on the premises any more. Anyway it is good to know that we can still get basics just a few metres away.

After doing my SSAFA course I have my first case. Obviously can’t say anything about it, but hopefully we can help.

New Year was celebrated very quietly – just the two of us. At one point we had thought of going to an organised party in a friend’s village, but they decided that €70 a head was a bit pricey, and we agreed. The French seem to take the New Year – or the festival of St Sylvestre almost as seriously as the Scots!

Took the dogs for a walk by the Vezere this afternoon - its a wonderful river which eventually joins the Dordogne.

Further downstream from us the "Valley of the Vezere" is where a large number of traces of early man have been found. Anyway the boys had to have a rest afterwards!

End of the year – seems a good place to stop.