posted on 10 July 2007 11:53
by
Christine Phillips
10/07/07 Summer Visitors
We are now well into our summer lets for the gite and all is going well thank goodness. Our friends from Marple had a good week in which they were able to relax and enjoy the countryside even though the weather was decidedly iffy. We now have a nice French family in residence who have two boys aged 8 and 5. It is really nice to see the children playing “cache cache”(hide and seek)and football in the garden. We are old softies at heart and still miss our kids!! Actually Chabanol is quite full at the moment as most of the holiday houses are occupied. We have to add 5-10 minutes on to each journey now so that we can stop and chat with our neighbours as we meet them on the little road out of the hamlet. The return of Paul and Suzette for the summer has been particularly welcome as it has meant the return of the boxes of produce from Paul’s garden and other activities, too! So far we have enjoyed a box of delicious new potatoes, 4 freshly caught trout, a box of wild girolles (wonderful nutty tasting mushrooms) and bunches of radishes. So along with the produce from Geoff’s little garden we are eating extremely well at the moment – and all for free!
The weather – as in the rest of Europe – has been pretty dire of late. We have had lots of rain and storms but have fortunately avoided the awful floods which have devastated the UK. Geoff was amused by the local farmers in the bar yesterday who were complaining bitterly about the fact that they were still having to wear wellies in July – a very uncommon thing apparently! The bad weather also affected the Fete de St Jean in the village. We had a good afternoon playing boules – well Geoff did – I as a mere female was relegated to watching! The fete committee were very taken with the fact that they could now refer to their little boules competition as an international event due to Geoff’s participation! However the traditional bonfire which take place in lots of French villages for the Fete de St Jean had to be postponed due to bad weather and high winds. The committee were afraid the fire might set light to the Marie! The impressive pile of wood is still there and I suspect it will remain there until the next Fete in August!
Whilst on the subject of wood, having given up on our quest to get someone to sell us logs again for firewood, we placed an order with the same sawmill as last year. The delivery came on Wednesday of last week which was not a good time really. The delivery takes up all of our car park and needs to be stacked into neat piles around the back of the parking area. Last year it took us 3-4 weeks of steady working to sort it out and stack it. This year, because of the imminent arrival of guests on Saturday, we had to sort and stack it in 3 days! To say that we were very stiff and sore would be an understatement! The only saving grace this year was the welcome retreat to a long soak in the bath each evening! However we do now have some very impressive woodpiles and the prospect of keeping warm in the winter!
Our activity in the car parking area, fortunately, did not stop the comings and goings of the redstart parents who are nesting there. We have really enjoyed watching the antics of the various families of birds who have nested in the garden this spring. We have had great tits (who have raised three broods), blue tits, coal tits all of whom have had nests in various holes in the outbuilding walls and now have a pair of goldfinches who have a chick in a nest in the ivy which covers the front of our house. Watching the parent birds frantically flying to and fro with food for the chicks and then seeing the babies fledge and attempt to fly has been really fascinating. Bill Oddie and Springwatch is not a patch on having the real thing happening in front of your eyes!! I have to add that Max has only managed to get one of the babies thank goodness- but then he has been spending a lot of time in his shed!!
On the business front we were a bit miffed to discover that the gite and B&B had not been included in the brochure which has appeared in a lot of the shops in Sauxillanges, despite Geoff having supposedly been co-opted onto the Syndicate D`Initiative committee! Fortunately, after we complained, this seems to have been rectified so we are hoping that we may get some B&B business from the little tourist office in the village after all. Geoff went to a meeting last week and managed to get us volunteered to help clear some woods nearby one Sunday and also to staff the tourist office one Sunday when the usual lady cannot work. I am quite looking forward to the latter activity although I’m not so sure about the first one!!
We have not been able to solve the problem of going to church since we came here. France is not really equipped to deal with Methodists such as us!! So apart from visiting some of the local catholic churches for a bit of quiet self reflection from time to time and listening occasionally to the morning service on Radio 4, we have not really done much about it. However, Geoff decided to try the one and only protestant church in Issoire last Sunday and found it an odd experience! I don’t get the impression that he was totally convinced by it and can’t see him rushing back. As for me, with my present level of French language skills I think I will continue as before! Sermons in English are hard to listen too at times and ones in French might just be a stretch too far!