We have been here for a whole year now. I still find it hard to believe that we have made this great change in our lives and we are still surviving and loving every minute of living in this lovely part of the world. We have learnt such a lot and really feel part of the community here now. The fact that we owe four different couples (all French) dinner chez nous shows how well we have been accepted by the locals. For me the biggest breakthroughs have been finding Yvette and Angele (my French language improvement teachers), discovering Julie and her family nearby (a nice link with Geordieland) and joining the Croix Rouge which has opened so many doors for me. Geoff has also benefited from his involvement with the village fete committee and the local Syndicate d`Initiative, his trips to the bar (“to buy the Sunday newspaper”) and his Pilates classes. Also finding his first French client has proved to him that he can find work in France. Business wise, the gite is running nicely and we are starting to get B&B visitors too now, so although I might not reach my targets money wise for the business this year, I have exceeded the number of clients we expected to have by quite a bit. We feel that we have achieved everything we set out to do in this first year including making the improvements to the house and are very content with life in general.
It was the annual fete in St Etienne sur Usson - the famous Fete D`Anes (asses or donkeys) - this weekend and this year we were fully involved. We had set ourselves a target last year of knowing and talking to at least ten people and I have to say we far exceeded that! Geoff was quite an important person – well - he was on the jury judging the donkey competition! The jury was a fully international one this year with Geoff, our friend Davy (French), and an Italian guy who was the only one who knew anything about asses as he keeps nine of them at home and enters competitions like the one at the fete. He kept the other two judges on track, thank goodness, as they were totally clueless! It was a beautiful day and we had a really good time. It was very tiring though and by the time we had watched the fireworks we were ready for bed!
As I mentioned above, we have had our first B&B clients. The very first lot were a real baptism by fire for me as Geoff took the booking and then disappeared on his monthly trip to the UK leaving me to cope on my own. Fortunately the couple were very nice and spoke some English so all went well. Last week we had some friends from England staying with us as well as a French family in the gite, so it was all go! We had two of the competitors in the Fete D`Anes competition staying with us at the weekend too so we were pretty busy.
We are very keen to try and involve our visitors in any events which take place in the local communities, if they seem that way inclined. We had a lovely couple from England staying in the gite two weeks ago, Alan & Catherine. Catherine had told us that she enjoyed listening to some of her native French music but could only do so in her car as Alan was not a fan. Being good hosts, we invited them to accompany us to a concert of French songs and music, which was staged in the church at St Etienne sur Usson. It was dire! The guy who was “singing” would have been very much at home in a boozy pub in England and worse than that, he had a light show which had to be seen to be believed! The blood red face of the statue of the Madonna and the rainbow light and smoke effect of the finale will forever stay in my memory. Needless to say, Alan was less than impressed. When asked for a quote which Geoff could use when the locals wanted to know what our guests thought of the concert, he said he could honestly say that he had never seen anything like it before in his life!
Since my last blog we have also experienced our first Bastille Day celebrations. We watched the little military parade in Issoire and then in the evening we had our friends Julie, Jean-Luc, and their daughter Alice round for a pizza (not very French I know!). We all congregated at the end of the drive to watch the many firework displays which were going on in Issoire and all the villages in the valley. We all reckoned it was better value than going to just one of these displays – true Auvergnat thinking that i.e. too tight to pay entrance fees!
My recording of the English commentary for the church in Issoire went well and the church now has two sections of the commentary running daily on DVD in English and French. Geoff and I went to see it the other day and we were really impressed. The whole DVD has been done by amateurs but it is very good indeed. The photography, music and commentary all blend together really well. It is very worthy of a visit if ever you are in Issoire.
I have not had a chance to do much in the garden recently – mainly because of the torrents of rain we had at the beginning of August. Consequently all my tubs and flower containers look very bedraggled. I did manage to cut a lot of the lavender before the deluge and now have a very sweet smelling attic as I am trying to dry some of it. The rest is hanging in one of the outhouses where it is shedding its seeds into paper bags. I intend to give these to my friends at the Croix Rouge for putting into lavender bags for the Christmas market.
On a slightly sadder note, I have to announce the demise of my beloved Basil. Some of you will know that Basil is (or was) my lovely old rubber plant which I have had longer than Matthew! He got a bit neglected during all the bathroom work as he ended up in an inaccessible corner of one of the rooms and went into a terminal sulk from which he never recovered. As I write, I can see him in the corner totally leafless but I am still wondering if I put him into a sunny spot in the garden whether he might just revive! I am very unwilling to just throw him away!