Time to Kill and other stuff

Time to kill

There‘s no doubt about it, when you move to another country there are elements of the local culture which take some getting used to. France, of course, is no exception. Double-parking outside the Boulangerie or the Tabac; not indicating on roundabouts and driving all the way around the outside of them; parking on roundabouts; surly and unhelpful shop assistants; the sudden disappearance - for weeks on end – from supermarket shelves of staple items; the inordinate length of time necessary to complete relatively minor road-works are among many things we’ve had to adjust to since we moved here but, except on bad days, we cope with them quite well now. However, there is one difference in particular that we, well at least Mr A, has not been able to adjust to: NOTHING starts on time.

Take last Friday as an example. We decided we’d go to a concert given by a Ukulele Swing Jazz Band. The concert was advertised to start at 8.30 pm. When did it start? At 9.10 pm. This is quite normal. In fact, our French friends often ask us if we’ve become used to ‘Le petit quart d’heure Creusois’ or ‘Le petit quart d’heure Limousin’ (the little Creuse/Limousin ¼ hour), their way of referring to the fact that nothing starts less than 15 minutes later than advertised. Well the answer, at least in Mr A’s case, is a resounding ‘No!’

Mr A, of course, is a well-known fighter of lost causes, a sort of modern King Canute who is unable to recognise that the considerable force of his will cannot change the ingrained habits of thousands of people. He therefore burns hundreds of calories and raises his blood-pressure pointlessly by fuming when a film starts late because people are still arriving, or when he has to sit in an uncomfortable and stiflingly hot/freezing cold church waiting for a concert to start.

‘Don’t people realise’, he is wont to rant, ‘that as long as they hold up the start for the late-comers, people will never learn to arrive on time?’

And as his words just melt into the air, Mrs A gives a little sigh and wonders how many more times in her life she’ll have to listen to this.

Migrants

They’re off. For the last couple of weeks the cranes have been flying overhead, heading towards North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. It’s always a wonderful sight but, of course, it heralds the cold days of winter. They’ll be back in February though.

A load of old bull

Mr A and Miss A encountered this fine figure of a Charolais bull when walking recently. Doesn’t he look friendly?

Nuts

Mrs A was amused to find some hazelnuts and nesting material in one of her hiking boots in the barn the other day. We doubt if this little visitor was the culprit but it would have been something equally furry and cute.

A Summer Summary – Not Too Summery!

I find that more than a month has passed since I last posted. I’ve no idea where the time has gone but here, to catch up, is a little summary of our summer.

June:- In the house the highlight was the replacement of 20 windows with new, wood-framed double glazed units. In the garden, in between spells of rain, we stood and watched all our tomato plants die from blight and listened to the grass growing at a rate of an inch a day. Socially, June is the pinnacle of the choir’s year and we sang in 5 concerts and had the end of year party. Mrs A played the ‘cello in a couple of ‘School of Music’, or ‘Conservatoire’ as we now have to call it, concerts, one of which Mr A attended and thoroughly enjoyed. Our friends Sue and John spent a night here on their mini-tour of France.

July:- In the house, Mrs A started staining the new window-frames. Unfortunately the new backdoor for the kitchen was not made before the factory’s annual closure in August so we had to spend the whole month with a mattress stuck in the gap with the consequent loss of light. In the garden, the wet, cool weather continued to impede the progress of virtually everything. However, we did have the compensation of finding a blackbird nest full of youngsters under the eves of the barn AND we saw two golden orioles flying around in the garden. We often hear these beautiful summer visitors but rarely see them. We also saw a hoopoe when we out in the car one day. We said goodbye to our cat of 20 years when we took her on a one-way trip to the vet. The quality of her life had deteriorated so much it was the kindest thing to do. Socially, we had David and Anne for a week at the beginning of the month and our mothers for fortnight later. Poor David and Anne. They’ve only been once before and had a week of rotten weather in the middle of an otherwise decent summer. This year they had a very patchy week in the middle of a rotten summer. As usual, our mothers had the best weather of the summer, not that that’s saying much.

Aug:- See previous blog.

Sep:- The backdoor is fitted. Whoopee! In the garden, we find that deer are now regular and unwelcome visitors. The garden is now festooned with dead CDs and carrier bags in an attempt to ward them off. We were delighted to find that we have a resident glow-worm. Not much by way of social life but we did have a GREAT week away in the Cévennes. It was sunny, hot and wonderfully relaxing. Discovered that Mrs A will be working again this year. We had mixed feelings about that but it does help us with the dominant issue we’re facing at the moment (see next blog).

There, you're up-to-date. Now watch out for the big stuff in the next posting!