Life in rural France

[Bullbasket]

At the moment, our life in rural France, is decidedly cold. We have a contract with. Antargaz, and that contract states that they will come to your house, when they think that you will need the tank topping up. For the last 15 years that's always happened around Nov/Dec time. This time it didn't. So I had to phone to order a delivery. For some reason, there is a shortage of gas and we were told that we couldn't have a delivery until the 17th Jan, and this was back at the beginning of December. So since then, we have been eking it out, only running the heating for 45 mins each night. Fortunately, we have electric heaters and three portable gas heaters, but I'm dreading the next electricity bill when it comes in, especially as 'er in doors has been using the tumble drier just about every day.

 

John.

[Biggles87]

As well as our wood burner we have oil fired central heating which is eye wateringly expensive so we try to limit it’s use to a few hours in the mornings. The CH boiler is in my ‘ man cave ‘ but is so well insulated that it gives off very little heat so I use an oil filled radiator which doesn’t do much either as the room is about 6m x 4.5m. At the moment I can just about manage an hour in the afternoon sitting next to the radiator before my fingers become inoperable.

 

John

[Biggles87]

A couple of pictures from our Winter Wonderland this morning when it was -04C

 

 

These do not do full justice the the actual scenes, they were taken on my Iphone as the battery was flat in my 'proper' camera, so I didn't get to choose the settings. The forecast for tomorrow is the same so I'll try to get something better.

I remarked earlier that I preferred cold to wet weather, but I have to admit that the novelty of filling two 50 litre water buckets for the horses from a couple of 10 litre containers is beginning to wear off. I forgot to unplug and drain the hose a couple of nights ago and it's still frozen solid!

 

Stay warm everyone.

 

John

[Bullbasket]

It looks beautiful John, and it was much the same here, but..........it's no fun when you have to drive past those trees. SWMBO and I had to drive 10kms to the pharmacist yesterday to get our boosters, and the majority of the route was through overhanging trees. It was like someone had opened up with a machine gun which fired icicles. They were clattering on the roof of the car, and some of them were big beggars. Thankfully, no damage done.

 

John.

[Biggles87]

Spring has certainly sprung in our part of rural France in the last few days and I’ve gone from wearing fleece hats to keep my head warm to baseball caps in the afternoons to keep my solar panel cool!

The blackbirds are practicing their courting songs, probably my favourite birdsong, and a couple of days ago I watched two  red squirrels playing  ‘ chase me, chase me ‘ in the tree tops. This is my favourite time of the year, pity about the nastiness to the east.

 

John

 

🇺🇦

 

 

 

[Biggles87]

We seem to be overrun by hares here at the moment, it’s usual to see a few at this time of year but they’re everywhere at the moment. I was walking with three of our dogs this morning ( the other one has been poorly and can’t walk far ) with two of them off the lead when I saw something on the track about 75m ahead, the dogs saw it too but I managed to get the two loose ones to wait until I got their leads on again. Yes, it was a hare which just sat and looked at us rather than running away so we went back the way we had come, much to the disgust of the dogs .

About 5 years ago when Rosie our youngest was 18 moths old, we rounded a corner to be confronted by a hare sitting in the middle of the path and despite out shouts/pleas Rosie took off after it into a field followed by SWMBO while I hung on to the other dogs. The result of the chase, across two fields and through a copse was a torn Achilles’ tendon for SWMBO, so we try to avoid hare chases these days.

Stay safe everyone.

 

John

[Biggles87]

It’s been very hot here for the last week with temperatures of 40C + on several days and we had a storm on Saturday night which didn’t do much to relieve the situation. Last night we were just on the edge of a huge storm, mostly north and west of us, which went on for about 3 hours. The Lightning was continuous and reminded me of the WW II newsreel film of the EL Alamein barrage, but it seems to have done the trick, the temperature at 0600 was 16 degrees as opposed to 24 the same time yesterday.

 

John

[Wez]

23 minutes ago, Biggles87 said:

It’s been very hot here for the last week with temperatures of 40C + on several days and we had a storm on Saturday night which didn’t do much to relieve the situation. Last night we were just on the edge of a huge storm, mostly north and west of us, which went on for about 3 hours. The Lightning was continuous and reminded me of the WW II newsreel film of the EL Alamein barrage, but it seems to have done the trick, the temperature at 0600 was 16 degrees as opposed to 24 the same time yesterday.

 

John

 

 

Friends of ours in the Dordogne caught a packet with that lot last night, hailstones the size of tennis balls, completely smashed their roof tiles up with water flooding through the light fittings, greenhouse and caravan smashed to pieces, tree down across the pool and other trees down in the garden. A scene of utter devastation repeated all through their village.

 

They're naturally heartbroken, they put so much effort into renovating the place but he's a stubborn Yorkshireman and won't be beaten, they will rebuild and recover.

 

Glad to hear you've avoided such a catastrophe.

 

[Biggles87]

We’ve been lucky so far Wez, there’s been some serious hail around. On Saturday night some friends about 20km north of us had lots of tiles on their garage roof destroyed by golf ball sized hailstones, and I don’t think our barn roof will survive intact if the same happens here, the tiles are very old and brittle.

 

John

[Bullbasket]

I know what you mean about the El Alamein bit John. Sat out on the veranda watching it around 10pm last night.  We had torrential rain for about 20 minutes, and it sounded like an express train roaring through. I'm glad to say that there were no hail stones though, as my caravan is exposed to the elements until I get the barn finished.

On Saturday the outside temperature was 39 degrees, but fortunately, the temperature in my hobby room was a comfortable 25. Bliss!

 

John.

[Whofan]

1 hour ago, Bullbasket said:

I'm glad to say that there were no hail stones though, as my caravan is exposed to the elements until I get the barn finished.

Back in 1978, I went to Austria with my wife and in laws, drove their with the FiL's caravan - stopped in it on the way - 1,000 miles, 2 stops..

 

One night we had the most stupendous storm I've seen, thunder rattling around the mountains behind us, and hailstones the size of golf balls. 

 

In the morning the roof of the caravan looked like a golfball, too. 

 

I'll say this, nothing got through the roof, nor indeed the roof of the relatives' house.

[Biggles87]

Our farrier came yesterday to trim our horses' feet.

Max is a volunteer Pompier ( fireman ) at his local station and also a full time Fire Officer in Limoges and had recently returned from his second three day stint in the Gironde helping to fight the wild fires. He told us that most of the area had originally been peat bogs before the mostly pine forest was planted so the ground became extremely hot and the the trees had a tendency to explode at about head height making a dangerous situation even more perilous. It was virtually impossible to put the fire out and so they tried to divert it where possible away from  villages and farms. They had a lot of help from the local population, the farmers and hunters marked their maps where there was access to certain areas and others where tracks marked on the maps were closed, and kept up a constant supply of food and drink for them day and night. He said the whole experience was pretty horrific and one he hopes not to repeat any time soon, and got quite emotional telling us about it, especially the part about the local help.

In our present difficult and often cynical times it's good to know that there are still people who care.

 

John. 🇺🇦

[Biggles87]

In La Rochelle with our visitors ( brother in law and wife ) for a couple of days. 
While walking back to our hotel from the Old Port at lunchtime, one of the buildings we passed had one high window in a blank wall through which could be seen several travel agent type airliner models on stands, assorted bits of ironmongery and what looked suspiciously like the lower end of a Harrier nose leg minus wheel!

Very curious.

 

John. 🇺🇦

[Alex Gordon]

40 minutes ago, Biggles87 said:

assorted bits of ironmongery and what looked suspiciously like the lower end of a Harrier nose leg minus wheel!

Very curious.

 

John. 🇺🇦

What was it stood on?

It might be a local misunderstanding of the phrase "leg over".

[Biggles87]

What a strange year we’ve had weather wise.

I cut our grass yesterday ( 1st Nov. ) for hopefully the last time this year, I don’t remember cutting it so late in the 16 years we’ve been here. When the weather was very hot and dry, from mid-June to early September, I think I cut it three times so that it wouldn’t all burn away in the sun. 

The locals say we might be in for a bad winter to compensate, on verra as they say.

 

John. 🇺🇦

[Bullbasket]

Weekend just gone was an "interesting" one around here. There is some government scheme in place to dig new reservoirs in various locations, so that the farmers have got water in the dry periods to water the maize. To me this seems like a good idea as they wouldn't then be using water from the mains, which is what happens now. But not apparently to some people. Last weekend, we had the road in and out of the village blocked off by the gendarmes. Swmbo counted 16 "paddy wagons" charging through the village, and why?? Because just up the road from us, about 2-3 miles, one of these reservoirs is being dug, and several hundred (some reports say it ran into thousands) protesters decided that they didn't want said reservoir. Apparently, all hell broke loose and the upshot was that dozens were arrested and there were some serious injuries amongst the gendarmes. Fortunately, none of this spilled into our village. Who said that life was quiet in the countryside?

 

John.

[Admiral Puff]

8 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

What a strange year we’ve had weather wise.

I cut our grass yesterday ( 1st Nov. ) for hopefully the last time this year, I don’t remember cutting it so late in the 16 years we’ve been here. When the weather was very hot and dry, from mid-June to early September, I think I cut it three times so that it wouldn’t all burn away in the sun. 

The locals say we might be in for a bad winter to compensate, on verra as they say.

 

John. 🇺🇦

While down here, I've just started again. We've had so much rain over the past six months (and it's STILL coming down - over 100mm already this month, and it's only been November for three days!) I'm already mowing twice a week! God knows what it will be like when it starts to warm up!

[Des]

Turned out my last cut was in early October , between rain , dew and the sun dropping that little bit lower keeping the grass in shade it never dries out so that will be it until around April 2023.

[alt-92]

On 11/2/2022 at 5:49 PM, Bullbasket said:

Because just up the road from us, about 2-3 miles, one of these reservoirs is being dug, and several hundred (some reports say it ran into thousands) protesters decided that they didn't want said reservoir.

NIMBY's?  Or professional malcontents?

[Bullbasket]

27 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

NIMBY's?  Or professional malcontents?

A little of both I think. The Great Unwashed, also known as Rent a Mob. I drove passed there yesterday and it all appears to be back to normal, apart from the half dozen or so Gendarmes in front of the entrance.

 

John.

[Biggles87]

Also known as the Gilet Jaunes. They had a large group at our nearest A20 junction a couple of years ago they even commandeered a corner of a field nearby and built a hut and fenced it off. They managed to stop the traffic to and from the motorway a couple of times until the Gendarmes got serious. I never did find out what this particular group was protesting about ( if anything ), they’re gone now but the hut is still there with a padlock on the door!

 

John 

[Bullbasket]

They probably didn't even know themselves.

 

John.

[Biggles87]

Remembrance Day is a public holiday here in France, and the War Memorials will be well attended as usual. I will try to make it to my local one but if not I will have my own 2 minutes silence at 11AM wherever I am.

About 45 minutes away from us is the small town of Oradour Sur Glane in which 642 men, women and children were slaughtered on 10 June 1944 and is now itself a memorial. I took an ex army friend to see it ( at her request ) a few years ago and as we stood outside the church looking over the burned out buildings she told me that she had seen places like it in Bosnia a few years before, and it’s still happening. Will we never learn?

 

John

PS: When we arrived here 16 years ago every thing closed on November 11, but now we’re starting to see supermarkets and shops opening for a few hours. A sign of the times I’m afraid.

[treker_ed]

@Biggles87 My wife works for a charity here in the UK, and back in 2015 she celebrated 10 years with them. To say thank-you she was given a 6 week sabbatical, on to which we added 2 weeks of her annual leave. We spent 4 weeks in the USA, and a little over 2 weeks in France during the late spring, early summer of 2016. A week was spent in Limousin Region, and we visited Ouradour Sur Glane. It is certainly a sobering place. The youngest that was killed was something like 8 days old! The rest of the time was in Provence, and getting ourselves ready for the trip, and sorting ourselves out after the trip. If anyone is ever in the area, this is a place to definitely visit if you are even remotely interested in history. 

 

The entrance to the old village has a very appropriate message and one that we should all take heed of on this day of remembrance:

 

 

 

[Bullbasket]

I went there with my son about 7 years ago, and came away feeling angry and sad in equal measures. One thing that did make me angry was to find that the only person ever to be convicted of this crime, never actually served any prison time.

 

John.