Well now that feels better

Oui allo

See now Ive started I can't stop, and there I was thinking I had been cured!

I've just read an article in the Sunday Times ( highbrow or what eh ) by a journalist called Hortense De Monplaisir - I'll come back to french names at a later date - wherein she warns Parisiens of the 'horreurs anglais'. It's quite uncanny really that the hugely exaggerated picture she paints is remarkably like the reality that is Carmaux ( I do believe that I've mentioned the place before - shut your eyes and imagine the film Deliverance but with french accents and lots of dyed red hair and voila ). Although she, in a sort of french caustically humerous way - I'll come to french humour later, no I'll get past it here, they don't got much - slates nearly all aspects of english life and our social mores she omits any reference to english food, now I wonder why. I know that I have called into question before the almost spiritual reverence they have for anything offal or particularly noisome but in fact chance would be a fine thing to find a restaurant open round here over the winter months to sample a blessed thing. They take our money all summer and then bugger off! Now where do they go and what do they do, is there a commune somewhere in deepest france where they are taught to ruin vegetables and how to be incompetent at waiting on table yet whilst remaining diffident to your existence eagerly anticipate a tip. Why have a pizza restaurant that can seat 80 people with an oven that can only cook 2 pizzas at a time! Now I know that I have generalised a bit and that a few restaurants do open over the winter - maybe on a tuesday lunchtime or a thursday evening, who knows.

Now let's turn to french ' after sales service ' , or rather the lack of it. This is a particular ' bete noir ' of mine, and I'm sure many more poor frustrated helpless brits. I have never met a more pompous, stubborn, arrogant ( there are tons more epithets I could use but it will bore you ) person than a shopkeeper to whom you return faulty goods. There have been many occasions but one recent incident has burst a few blood vessels. I had bought a satellite decoder on behalf of a client who wanted to receive free to view channels. It was replacing an already set up but broken decoder; so merely a plug in. The bottom line was it didn't work properly, only receiving 4 out of hundreds available. I called in a local technician who pronounced my set up perfect but the machine faulty. I duly returned to the supplier and explained the situation. Without even taking the machine out of the box he told me in appalling french that there was nothing wrong with the machine and that it was my incompetence, 'kin' cheek. No amount of my limited french abuse would move him. He insisted that I needed the services of his technician who would set it up properly, under duress an appointment was made. After making sure he understood no english ( the buggers always say that ) I bid him a fond anglo saxon farewell. The technician eventually turned up, after 2 phonecalls to the shop, a week late. After going through 3 models of the same make he pronounced them all faulty and left me with a different make which I plugged in and it worked perfectly. Now here comes the unbelievable, I want to make soup of their gonads bit, they sent me a bill for 49€ for not setting up their broken decoder! Now please pardon my french ( children put your fingers in your ears ) but what the heck is that all about! Sorry I can't type the word!

Screwed my finger to the wall this week - not clever, not funny.

Thanks for listening.

Here we go again

Well well my lovelies here we are again, after a summer of love I am now heading for a winter of discontent, so absolutely in the mindset for a bit of good old grumpiness.
Firstly an enormous thanks to Nick for ridding my computer of a vicious virus called trojan, if you ever catch it fall to your knees and weep!

It's been a long time since I put my finger to keyboard and because I, for professional reasons, don't re-read my stuff, there may be a bit of overlapping - if there is please forgive me and put it down to the onrush of dementia.

The longer I live here in France it seems the more I am accepting their little foibles ( there's surely a joke in there somewhere ) but there are exceptions............ Now I know that after the revolution things changed a bit but I very much doubt that the population was given the inalienable right to walk into someones house uninvited so why do it to me. I was sitting on my sofa listening to music and eating my breakfast porridge ( for those who have not come across porridge it is a self prepared mastic that can be used to stick aircraft wings to the fusilage ) when a sharp prod in my shoulder sent my porridge flying , instantly creating a stucco effect on my woodburner and a rather nasty mess down the front of my jeans ( not too unattractive in an avant-garde sort of way , the stove that is! ) there behind me stood an old french guy neatly attired in cap, t-shirt, shorts and a dashed attractive pair of carpet slippers who without hesitation and eyes fixed on my bespattered groin asked if this was the mayors office! As anybody who has had the dubious pleasure of seeing my living room will know it's a bit like out of Africa with a hint of french irony ( my ex wife would cry if she saw it and confirm her decision never to let me anywhere near giving a view on decor ) and as such would be most unlikely setting for the mayors office. After explaining that he had in fact walked past the Mairie, you know, it's the building with the piggin' great French flag flying outside. Mon Dieu those amazing french.

There has however been a brighter note recently. I was returning home late at night from dinner with friends, I was travelling a narrow country road, I could see headlights approaching so slowed down and pulled onto the verge then the dreaded blue flashing lights were switched on above the headlights - bugger - so I stopped and sure enough the Gendarmes pulled up beside me peered into the car and asked where I lived, in my best french and with a voice a bit squeaky from alcohol induced tension I duly said Montirat, with that they wished me a good evening and drove off. Now if that is the french equivalent of our breath, remembering where you live, then it can't all be bad.

Ta-ta for now.

Bienvenue

PARENTAL WARNING - Those of a nervous dispotition may be offended and/or feel slightly nauseous.

A low moan rose deep in Letitia Dunmuff's throat as Gordon Backscuttle started to ( sorry wrong blog !)

I would have thought that after a good few years here I would have developed a certain, I don't know, perhaps 'je ne sais quoi','laissz-faire' or even 'entre chacun deux Rodney', but no I have just seen a sight (can one say that?) that has fair taken my breath away.
A few times every year the local supermarkets have a ' foire du porc ' ( pork fair ) where you can buy an ear, a foot or even half a pig, head included of course, wouldn't want to miss that would we, at silly cheap prices.
Voila, there I was rooting through the cabinet holding the various delicacies when horror of absolute bloody horrors I was holding in my my hand the full on genitalia of a male pig. Now as you will know there are many parts of the pigs' anatomy that are similar to those of the human, th heart being one of them, and I can now reliably inform you that its meat and two veg are three of the others!
Now I can barely comprehend eating boiled cows' stomach for breakfast, a regular treat hereabouts and apparently the more visceral and 'gutty' the flavour the better - pass me a bucket please, but please and I really do mean but please - a pig's willy! Even Hugh Fearnley - Foreskin, that well known consumer of all of everything (can one say that?) that bleeds has no recipe for porcine todger à le gonads, braised bulls balls yes, poached pigs penis no.

Bon appetit

Felicitations one and all.

Now I have often pondered on the conumdrum that is french manners, as you well know by now, encompassing as it does; apparent rudeness, peeing in public, the aggresive staring, kissing all and sundry, et al. but the one that intrigues here is their general lack of understanding when it comes to courtesy.

I was making a purchase at Darty, a largish electrical store on the outskirts of Albi ( yes - needless to say I was replacing a broken piece of electrical kit - maybe I have a luddite poltergeist in residence ). Before carrying on with this tale I must just tell you about the piece of electrical kit, it was infact a satellite receiver gizmo which had gone wonky meaning that I couldn't get my 'Archers' fix ( sad man ). So off I trot to Darty for new gizmo, speak to helpful assistant, supplied with new gizmo, off to cashier and paid the princely sum of 70€. I took the gizmo home in eager anticipation whereat I had a look at the carton, the blighter was for terrestrial and not satellite reception - bugger and it's ho hum and back to Darty. I explained the predicament, was supplied with correct gizmo, many apologies from assistant, off to cashier to claim the 30€ difference in the price, I was presented with a credit note, when I asked for cash because the fault was not mine you would have thought from the look on her face that I had asked her to use de-odourant. I swear that ' gallic commercial indifference ' must be on the curriculum in their education system. Anyway back to the tale; I approached the rank of 3 tills to claim my ( ha ha ) refund. The only till with a cashier was empty so I stood at the counter whilst the cashier finished her lengthy telephone call, 4 people behind me now. At the till beside me was ' the woman ' who had in fact been standing at one of the other tills when I arrived, she had, I imagine, stood there anticipating that one of the five staff cloistered behind a smoked glass screen would attend to her needs. It was not to be so. My cashier finally ended her phone call and prepared herself for dealing with customers; couple of taps on her keyboard, shuffle a few papers - you know the score. Being of a certain age and demonstrating English courtesy I stood back and indicated to ' the woman ' beside me that she could go before me. Oh woe was me on a couple of fronts. As I shuffled back I received a poke in the back together with a hissed " were you not next ", there were now 7 people in the queue in the vanguard of which was a tiny french woman, my hissing poker, with a face that had sucked too long on lemons. There now followed that syndrome of queues everywhere when faced with empty tills and the random appearance of a likely looking official, the line sways towards the till that looks likely to be manned but in inevitable disappointment sways back again, like a snake on an ant hill, until you are all line abreast across the tills, now this is nervewracking for the next in line as you will appreciate. This together with the fact that by letting ' the woman ' go before me I had opened a portal for all of her immediate family. It was reminiscent of the long gone days of hitch-hiking when there would be a bedraggled person thumbing a lift by the roadside, after stopping there would appear, as if by magic, their partner, their shaggy drooling incontinent dog, a guitar, a rucksack the size of a small appartment building bedecked with half the contents of an average kitchen and a five foot long didjeridoo - bastards! Twice the daughter appeared with batteries, husband then appeared clutching pieces of paper, after much scrutiny, keyboard punching, another phone call for crying out loud, 3 aborted card transactions and final cheque writing the cashier finally dealt with ' the woman ' Throughout this saga the woman behind, no beside me now, continued with her hissing through gritted teeth until she seemed to have rictus, quite intimidating really and very very anattractive and I swear that if I hadn't moved like greased lightening she would have pushed in front of me!

So be warned, when faced with a situation where you could exercise courtesy tread carefully in a land wherein they bemusedly have sympathy for this peculiar quirk only when it helps them and not when it hinders.

I noticed this week that the speed camera between Carmaux and Albi has been sprayed over again - power to the people right on!

Salud

Now where was I.........But first of all ; may everyone have at least some joy during 2007 , I shall certainly be hunting some out.

Sorry for the delay in updating the jolly old blog but I got a bit ' blogged out ' , it was becoming somewhat of an obsession and I didn't want to add to the list of my traits for which I will have to eventually seek counselling , so I planned a bit of a break but in truth not this long - bloody computers again !!!! They're such a joy aren't they?

In the words of ' Max Bygones ' - I want to tell you a story : I have always coveted a decent wristwatch, something that may become something of an heirloom, so after my mum died I bought myself such a watch, nothing too special but I do cherish it. One bright sunny day in early summer number one son and me went fishing in the canoe. For some inexplicable reason [ we both being, of course, expert piddlers - I think it's genetic ] the canoe overturned. We had naturally, being mentally challenged piddlers, laid everything out neatly on the bottom of the canoe. Howsomever I consoled myself, whilst frantically trying to retrieve our possessions which were gently floating downstream and calmly untangling Tom who for some reason had his trousers around his ankles, with the thought that at least my ' seamaster ' - get the name! would be ok; Would it buggery, within seconds there was enough water inside the watch to sustain pond life! Now to the essence of the tale.
Taking wise counsel I took the watch to a recommended jewellers in Albi. This was in the middle of july. The delightful assistant told me that there was no point in leaving the watch now because the annual one month holiday started in 2 weeks time and that I should return at the beginning of september - er I'm sorry, pardon, I didn't quite catch that, 6 weeks before you will even look at it!! Needless to say it was to be a case of, voila, accompanied by that oh so expressive gallic shrug and highly attractive pursing of the mouth until it resembles that of a grouper fish.
Watch duly deposited at the beginning of september, I was telephoned some days later by a kindly sounding old gentleman who told me that ( and this without even a catch in his throat or embarassing cough) the cost would be in excess of 400€, the work would take 2 weeks and that he would telephone me when the watch was ready. Needless to say the promised call didn't materialise. After 4 weeks I called the menders, they told me that they were very busy and that ' I should know what the swiss are like ' - er no! I shall not bore you any further with the visits and calls. Finally on the 13 december ( I should have known shouldn't I! ) I had the call; my watch was ready ta ra. I checked the bank balance, maybe enough, off to Albi, joy in heart, light of step, pulse racing, blue spots in front of my eyes ( note to myself - up the medication ).
I should have known by the look on his face, shouldn't I. He calmly explained that although the watch looked sparkly and kept perfect time one couldn't actually alter the time or date and in fact the watch was now broken rather than doubling as a fish tank. By the look on their faces I don't think that the three of them had seen a grown englishman cry before.
The kindly old gentleman's parting words as I shambled through the doorway were " I am sorry monsieur but you know what the swiss are like" - Now I bloody do, and a certain jewellers - bastards.

Just a final observation before I leave you. My new computer was bought here because I was fed up with getting broken ones back to England for guarantee repairs. Now I was quite prepared to cope with ' windows ' in french, but for crying out loud what is the french keybord all about? I really do despair sometimes. I had just achieved a degree of 3 fingered fluidity, now I'm back to one finger, muttering " where's that bloody m "

Bye y'all.

Donc

I`m getting really, really pissed off with crappy French plumbing techniques [pardon the unintended pun]. My shower again smells like a sewage farm. When I installed the shower I used a local French plumber for the pipe-work, after the installation I queried the apparent lack of any U bend or silt/smell trap, bearing in mind that all my waste goes into a fabled fosse septique [cess pit], I say fabled because nobody knows where it is! The reply from the noble plumber was " zehr ees no problem, ere eet ees in zee douche drayn ". Is it balancs, all I have is a hair catcher, because eef it waz zehr I obviously wouldn`t be living with the smell of a rotting goat. Why in ye Gods name can`t they get their training in England, say, instead of the Congo.

To give you some idea of the standards applied to our ablutions let me introduce you to my original bathroom here, I use the term ' bathroom ' loosely. The Mayor who showed me around the house was inordinately proud of the ' refurbishment ' they had carried out in the ' bathroom ' . Originally there had been a shower tray in the corner and a wash basin but no loo. Now I had a wash basin attractively splattered with dark blue paint, in the corner was still the original shower tray still with the broken curtain rail above, dangling like a pair of dislocated arms. Into this room they had imported an old cast iron bath, seemingly salvaged from the local rubbish tip, sadly with only three legs, the fourth corner was delicately balanced on a block of wood. The bath had obviously been in such a state enamel wise that they painted it with a dark blue gloss paint, including the piece of string that was the plug chain which interestingly didn`t actually reach the plug hole, but, and this is gospel, to cap it all they didn`t actually ' plumb in ' the bath, merely stood one leg of the bath in the shower tray to let the bath drain into the shower tray and, and, and the filling was to be done via the shower head. Truly Congo!

The second indication of their flair for innovative plumbing techniques came when one day I opened my kitchen window to be greeted by the smell of not one but a whole herd of rotting goats. So descended the precipice which is the access to my back garden, using the required ropes and crampons, and discovered that the stench pipe, which takes the foul aromas to roof height, had come adrift from its mountings and snapped where it was joined to the loo pipe and voila, I`m sure you wouldn`t want me to paint a picture, but the noisome thing was that it wasn`t all mine, my neighbours system apparently meets mine at my downstairs loo, another interesting configuration eh.

So I called a plumber, a different one this time, silly me to imagine he would be an improvement Now I know that the original stench pipe followed a tortuous route, avoiding outcrops of rocks, I imagine the path a mountain goat would take, there were 5 bends in the pipe, but it had worked! The plumbers solution - remove the old stench pipe and cap off the hole it had created, and there you have it, awesome. On querying how the stench of decaying goat was going to disperse I was given that famous Gallic shrug where the shoulders hunch. the chin comes out and upwards, the mouth takes the form of a bored grouper fish and the eyebrows meet the hairline. " Pas de problem ". I`ll give the montfessal pas de problem, that`s if he turns up.

I`ve got to take one of my pills and lie down.

" Aurevoir ", he said resignedly.

Bon apres midi

Time to talk of finer things,
of love, hope, beauty and butterfly wings.

Come with me to my valley, well not really mine because I don`t own it, but mine in my heart, a truly magical place. I only wish my limited prose would do it justice.

I stumbled across it by accident in the early spring of this year whilst walking my dog Mila. It is to be found at the end of an overgrown track which is not a ' right of way ' so is only known to a few local collectors of responsous [a wild climber whose young shoots resemble asparagus] and wild mushrooms, and a couple of friends who I knew would appreciate it as I do. As I came to the end of the track I was just rooted to the spot, my breath taken away with the absolute beauty of it all. It was as if I had walked into a glorious painting. The far hillside was a tapestry of colour as varied as an artists palette. Carpets of blue and purple heatsease, the pink of ragged robin, the deep magenta blue of forget-me-nots, purple orchids, stands of tufted hyacinth and wild flowers I know not of, it was truly a carpet the like of which I had never seen.

To my right was a strong flowing stream, edged in places with what I can only guess were a kind of marsh orchid, clumps the size of saucers, thrusting up white fingers tipped with the most beautiful flowers, like a diva with bright painted nails trying to escape the earth, stunning.

In front of me the valley began in earnest. I was immediately confronted by the incongruous sight of a mill stone on it`s edge standing in a grove of, what appeared from the blossom, to be apple trees.Taking the small path which ran alongside the stream I began to pass signs of long ago habitation, the tumbled down remains of a small building, gaps in the landscape now mere echoes of what might have been. Further along the track, always with the stream chattering to me, I came across an outcrop of rock. As I approached It took the form of the head of a beaked turtle. Untrammeled by the passage of time or water it sits there moss covered, brooding, jutting out over the stream. It has become my ' rock of contemplation '. I often sit there and ponder the whys and wherefores of why I am here, not in the spiritual sense, but physically here in this place which is Montirat

I did not make a life changing decision to leave England for a ' better place ' , I learnt some time ago that grass is just as green everywhere. I suppose I am what you could call an emotional refugee. I had gone through a separation which for me was extraordinarily painful, and the bottom line was that I could not cope with being amongst it all. The cost has been, I sometimes think, maybe too high in terms of love lost, relationships severed. Which is why my ' rock of contemplation ' is there. When I am feeling low or alone I sit on my ' rock ' , take in the awesome beauty of what surrounds me, listen to the bird song, talk to Mila, think on the changes that the passage of time has wrought on the valley, some for good some for bad and maybe shed a tear for things past, but always when I leave my ' rock ' I am uplifted. As I said a truly magical place.

A bientot.