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.

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!

Gosh life has been busy over the last few months ! Lots of happy events and one sad one.

We had a meeting of our writers’ club at our place – Judy produced some wonderful food and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, oh and we did talk about writing a bit. In the following month we met up again at our American member’s Chateau – of course we aren’t snobs!

We have been to several of the “pie nights” run by the farming couple we get our bacon from. Very enjoyable to sit outside a bar in an officially beautiful French village and eat steak and kidney pies with chips, HP sauce and a glass of wine. They are featured in the ITV series “Little England” which is pretty awful and patronising. It is supposed to be all about the Dordogne – but Sophie and Ray live and work here in the Correze. Can’t you trust anything on TV?

The weather started off a bit wet and gloomy, but in the last couple of months it has been mostly really good, with temperatures on average in the high 20s. There has been a bit of rain (needed for the farmers of course), just a shame one of the very wet days had to be when we had visitors.

Talking of visitors we have three lots of visitors and met with another three lots in various parts of France.  

First we met the Allnutts in Sarlat – lovely lunch but make note to self that Sarlat is really busy in the summer.

Then we got together with the Wallaces – I flew with Martin on Hercules, and his French wife comes from a couple of hours North of us. We met at a microlight and balloon festival near them – sadly there wasn’t much flying going on, but we all had a good time at the archery demonstration.

Final lot of friends we met up with were the Makepeaces – they had taken a Gite in the Creuse (an adjoining department to the Correze) with friends and family for Dave’s 60^th (he’s so old – over a month older than me!). We were invited to a very enjoyable birthday party, and even our dogs behaved themselves.

Three lots of visitors have stayed with us – the Lockies, Ashforth-Smiths and Harrops. They all seem to have enjoyed themselves and Judy’s cooking rose to even greater heights!

Locally we had the Paris-Correze cycle race whizz through the village, not exactly the Tour de France, but they all took it very seriously.

The local historic town of Donzenac had a Mediaeval Street Fair on a lovely sunny summer afternoon. We took Faust as we thought he looks suitably period, and he was much admired. However mediaeval towns have narrow mediaeval streets, and filled with crowds, people playing drums and stilt-walking, it wasn’t really a suitable place for enormous dogs, although he behaved perfectly.

Judy and I were looking for something else to do out here – as if daytime TV is not absorbing enough! We have joined SSAFA (the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association), which has a branch covering France. I will be a case-worker and Judy a visitor, trying to help people with military connections, who have money or other problems. With the collapse of the pound against the Euro, many who moved here relying on pensions have seen their income drop drastically in the last few years.

As you may have surmised from above, I too was 60 a few weeks ago. My lovely children planned a party for me on the day, so Judy and I arranged to fly to England and have a few days seeing friends and family. Very sadly just before we left we learned that Judy’s brother-in-law Peter (married to her older sister Carol) had died after a long illness. The funeral was a few days after we had intended to return to France, but we were able to rebook our flight home, and extend kennels and car hire.

We were able to visit (and stay) with a number of friends, and special thanks are very much due to Rennie and Peter, Posy and Romney – all great hosts. We stayed in Essex (twice), Gloucestershire, Dorset and Oxfordshire, and caught up with a few old friends on the way. My birthday party was enormous fun and again thanks to Nick and Lisa and Rachel, Jake and Esme, Martin, Vicky, Tom and Flora. Thanks for all the presents too – we actually had to buy another suitcase!

Peter’s funeral was obviously a very sorrowful occasion, but it was nice that Carol’s family were able to attend – including a sister from Saudi Arabia and daughters from California and Vancouver. As I am sure he would have wanted, we tried to celebrate his life rather than just mourn his passing.

Back in France we had our latest lot of visitors the day after we got home, then I had two business jobs and we attended a party at Brive Rugby Club thrown by the Franco British Chamber of Commerce. No visitors for a few weeks, although I have to go to London for a few days in a couple of weeks to do a course with SSAFA. And we came here for the peace and quiet !

I thought that it was only a few weeks since my last entry – but it’s been ages ! A fair bit has happened, so I’ll pinch Judy’s diary and get it all down.

To get the basics out of the way the weather has been pretty good – mostly sunny and warm, although enough rain to keep everything green. The temperature hit 39 at one point, perhaps a little too warm. We haven’t been out an awful lot – with quite a few visitors over the next few months we are saving ourselves!

My business has been intermittent as usual. One big job involved me actually staying away overnight in the Tarn et Garonne near Montauban. I had to draw up floorplans for a very large restored and updated house (5 garages, two guest cottages, cinema room €2.1m) and a small and rather disappointing chateau (only visited by its owner for 3 days last year). Details by return if interested.

I also did a few elevated photography jobs for a local agent, and hope to get more work from them.

We had an interesting visit from the local water board a few weeks ago. We think that the chap wanted to fit a new water meter, which is situated in one of our spare bedrooms. We were not too happy with his signs which seemed to indicate that they might have to dig up the floor inside! Anyway he apologised for not speaking English, as it is now “the international language”! Very un-French. He left, and we haven’t heard anything since.

The village held a Vide Grenier about a month ago – that’s effectively a car boot sale, without the cars….There were stalls all over the main street and in the car park/petanque area/market square. Lots of junk, as always, but we did get a couple of nice rugs very cheap.

About a month ago I drove up to Picardy, about an hour North of Paris and picked up a new addition to our family – Faust, a one year old Irish Wolfhound. I found an ad on the French Irish Wolfhound Owners’ website – his owners had split up and couldn’t keep him. As we have had four wolfhounds before they were happy he was going to a good home. He has settled in brilliantly, and he and Bertie get on pretty well, although it might be stretching it a little to say Bertie actually welcomes his arrival. He is a great ice breaker with our French neighbours as well!

Our first visitors of this period were Helen and Alan. They were caravanning in the Dordogne, and came to see us for the day. We then returned the visit, and went to their rather posh caravan park. As you can see, Fuast, whom we had for about a week, had setlled in pretty well! If he could learn to lie down in the car,though, journys might be a little easier.



After them came Verena and Brian - two separate friends if you see what I mean. They seemed to have a good time, and we had a couple of good days out. It was made a bit more interesting when our car broke down on the day we were to pick Brian up from the airport. Luckily it was outside our house, and our wonderful local garage owner Jean-Louis came and picked it up on a trailer. I was able to hire a car in Objat, although I was quite surprised to find that the hirer would not take cards – only cheques! One good trip was to Les Eyzies, which is the centre for many of the prehistoric caves with the ancient paintings and sculptures. We went to one cave, which was firmly closed, with a very smalls sign to say tickets could be bought at another cave a couple of miles away. We drove there to find that at this time of year it is recommended that you book at least a few weeks ahead – of course none of the signs mentioned this. We visited the prehistoric museum in Eyzies, which was quite good, but probably had about as many flints on display as I want to view in the foreseeable future.

Socially we have had a few nice days out – friends to lunch and dinner and back to theirs later. A garden party in the grounds of a very up market Chambres d’Hote for which I did some photography last year, and an invitation to an evening’s horse racing at Pompadour racecourse which was very enjoyable.

 Finally we have just had the Voutezac Peach Festival. Another evening meal with a peach-centric menu, and a firework display part of which was set off in our garden.

In the last blog I gave my guess as to what the door markings on a village house meant. We met the owner of the house a few weeks ago, and he is a keen local historian and also speaks excellent English. What they actually mean is: the hearts are to try and keep the plague away, and the crosses indicate that the family in the house have already supplied soldiers to serve the Bishop of Limoges when he was the local ruler. So, close……

By the way, if you couldn’t get your copy of June’s “French Property News”, that rather good article entitled “A Happy Twist of Fate” and about Voutezac, was by me. Copies can be sent on request.