We're not on holiday now

...which is something we keep having to remind ourselves.

Yesterday was market day, so like good French people we wandered up the hill to support our local traders. As well as a couple of day's supply of fruit, veg and meat, we bough six tomato plants from an old chap who regularly sells his garden excess in the market. These we added to the plants we bought on Tuesday - six tomato and three poivron ( sweet pepper, or capsicum) plants - and so yesterday afternoon we started gardening in France.


I doubt if this will keep us fed the next 12 months - but it's a start. Part of our lifestyle winding down is growing some of our own food, but our garden isn't suitable for growing vegetables because the "soil" is compacted gravel and dig resistant. Until we solve that issue we will be growing in pots, something we tried with varying success in London.

The other big event for the day was a visit from M. Douady, a mason from le Petit Pressigny. We are asking him to quote for replacing a couple of stone window and door frames which have eroded away, install a chimney and fireplace, and generally tidy up the appearance of all the stonework. We are pretty sure the price will take our breath away, but we are getting used to having our breath taken away by devis.

We have started unpacking, too. Not seriously, you understand, just the odd bits and pieces; wineglasses, cookware, wine and some electricals. At the moment we have nowhere to store anything so unpacking any more would be a bit of a waste. Still, it's a start. Next move will be to start using some of our furniture from London and relegate the furniture that was here to guest use. (Did I say relegate? I meant promote, of course.) This means shifting furniture. Again.

Simon

A tale of two belts

It was belts that very nearly meant we didn't catch our train to France.

First belt to cause a problem was the belt that makes the twirly brush thing wizz round in the vacuum cleaner. (You know the one.) Because the twirly thing wasn't doing twirling the vacuum cleaner wasn't picking up any dust off the carpets - and did we have a lot of dust! This made Jono's task even more difficult, because he had to use the nozzle and the furniture brush.

JB checks the vacuum cleaner's
lack of suck while Rosie looks on.

At 7.50 I decided it was close enough to 7.30 (our latest feasible departure time) to warrant shutting the house and leaving pronto. We said out thanks and farewells, climbed in the car and drove off. One hundred metres down the road there was an almighty flapping noise from under the bonnet (hood) of the car, which was slightly worrying as we had a fair distance to drive, and a deadline.

I opened the bonnet and all looked normal. Nothing out of place, and no obvious damage. I turned the engine over while Susan watched, and it became evident that the alternator belt was shredding itself and a strand of rubber was whacking bits of engine as it went round. I grabbed my trusty toolbox, took a pair of side cutters, and clipped away as much of the flapping bit as I could. After a couple of goes at turning the engine over and clipping more off I shut the bonnet, we jumped in the car, and decided to risk it. A couple of hundred metres down the road the flapping stopped, but the alternator light didn't come on so we assume that it was the shredded bits letting go and all would be OK.

Which so far it was been... which is nice.

We made it! The car on the channel tunnel shuttle

Yesterday we did a half day start to sorting out the house. The dishwasher and washing machine are attached and working, and the kitchen is organised. We also discussed the garden, and I have been looking at my options for getting the rest of our stuff here - there are 4 or 5 cartons and 2 dozen plants to bring (if we can). After checking the price of hiring a van and driving to London and back (which is more expensive that paying someone else to do the same thing) I have decided to drive back with the trailer, pick up what I can, donate the rest to charity and then drive to Preuilly. Again.

I had hoped that sort of thing was behind me.

We went for a walk yesterday evening.
This is the Lavoir, Preuilly sur Claise.

Last night we had a thunderstorm that seemed to go on for ever. This meant I had to walk all around the house checking the guttering hadn't blocked while we were away, and that the gullies that take the water from the downpipes were flowing properly. After that I had to check the barn to make sure it wasnt leaking on all our posessions, and then move some boxes away from where water was seeping under the front door (My woodworking last year was only 95% effective). At about midnight the thunder had stopped, but Susan says it returned later in the morning. I didn't hear that, nor did I hear the garbage truck arriving at 5.00am. I was sleeping the sleep of the just.

I am extra special chuffed by the fact I had washed some bathtowels yesterday and they were on the line during the rain. This means I get fluffy towels, something we never managed in London because we had to dry everything on racks inside the house.

Simon

From now on, it's Every Day on the Claise

That was exciting!

Susan and I arrived in Preuilly at about 1.30, having been delayed somewhat in Rouen. (More on the trip later.) John and Jill arrived and helped us unload the car, and about 90 minutes later David and James arrived in the truck.

Within about 10 minutes of starting to unload the corner of the barn I had cleared for storage was full, and as things progressed our belongings took over the whole barn. I am not sure whose stuff we are storing but we can't own that much stuff. David and James were brilliant, as were John and Jill who arrived again to help unload the truck.

David, the neat removalist

David and James had suffered a poor ferry trip - it was REALLY windy so the ferry was a bit bouncy - then a long drive at not very fast speed in an overloaded truck, yet still managed to be really efficient and happy and chirpy. I am not sure I would have been capable!

James. It's good a see a man happy in his work.

Susan went up to l'Image and booked them a room for the night, and then she set too in the kitchen. After unloading we sat in the garden, listened to the silence, and took in liquid replenishments and a plate of saucisson, chevre and fresh baguette.

Then it was over. The truck was reversed all the way down the street, John and Jill departed to cook dinner for us (thanks again) and we were left, bemused, in a house FULL of stuff, to start our new life in France.

Reversing down the street

Everyone has been brilliant - from JB Rosie Kippa, Pat and Geoff, who cleaned lifted and encouraged like fury in London, John and Jill who volunteered to unload and then provided us with dinner, and David and James who were incredibly cheerful even though I am sure they were overworked.

Simon

p.s. I know we are in France and an hour in advance of ourselves London-wise, but we have decided not to change the time we post on the blog. This will give us a chance to write entries on the day they post.

Our Move, day 2, Part II

A quick one to say we arrived about 90 minutes ago. Internet is working fine, as are the removalists.

I am having a beer.

Simon

Our Move, day 2

Did we make it? Who knows - this is being posted as we are on our way from Calais to Preuilly. You will have to come back later to find out.

With any luck we slept well last night, but not too long, all the traffic in western France has mysteriously disappeared (especially in Rouen, which is my bête noire) and we are travelling at 3kmh under the speed limit towards our new life.

In the meantime, some of my favorite photos we haven't posted before and just can't fit into the greater scheme of things:

Neon lights in Incheon, Korea. 2005

Sacré-Cœur, Christmas 2004

My daughter Katherine in London, 2003

Simon

The Big Day Part II

Good News.

The Removalists arrived on time, and the truck is packed and gone.

The Bad News is that we own more stuff than we realised, so many of the plants won't make it. Nor will some of the stuff we sere sticking in the car. This is vaguely disappointing, and means that we will be storing stuff in London for a couple of weeks and I will be returning to pick it up.

I am taking this break to have a toasted sandwich and a cup of water, but the work is continuing as JB, Rosie and Kippadog (my brother, sister in law and nephew) have arrived to help and are doing cleaning (yay!)

Simon

The Big Day

Well - today is the big day!

The removalists arrived this morning* to pack all of our possessions into a truck and take them to France. We trust that everything will be packed by lunchtime, and then they are off to Portsmouth to catch the overnight ferry to le Havre, before arriving in Preuilly tomorrow lunchtime. In addition to all our house contents, we are taking a large part of our garden.

What our garden in London looked like when we moved in

As soon as the house is empty Susan and I will be doing a final clean, packing the car with the items we are taking ourselves, and driving to Folkestone to put the car on the 21.50 Eurotunnel shuttle to Calais, where we stay the night before trying to beat the removalists to our new home. It will be strange leaving London and I do it with mixed feelings; this is the longest (10½ years) that I have ever lived in one house, but strangely it has never really felt like home to me.

What our garden looked like in its prime

Over the next couple of days we will post some photos of the move that aren't (with any luck) too dull. They will probably not be photos of the roads we travel, because as you may have noticed in a previous post, the Autoroutes can be very ordinaire. This all depends on me getting a computer back on line after having taken it back to London to put a new hard drive in it.

The Garden last week - trimmed and ready to pack

Talking of computers, while I had all our computers in one place I decided to fettle them. They all ( 3 machines) got new hard drives and fresh install of windows (except the Mac, which is as solid as a rock, even 8 years later), new keyboards and mouses (mice?) and various little bits and pieces, all of which entailed ordering stuff online. Buying online is great, if you can stand the stress of having stuff home delivered. The Post Office have been brilliant - they always find our house. Parcel Force can be so-so, DHL have a propensity for getting lost lost, and there are companies I refuse to use because their delivery agents couldn't find us after three goes ("address does not exist", for crying out loud).

So here we go: On your marks...

Simon

*I am writing this before, as this computer is now in a box. I will not tempt fate by using the word "hopefully".

Violet Carpenter Bees

I am always amused when Australia is depicted as a land of gigantic man-eating insects. The truth is that Europe has some huge insects – stag beetles, hornets...and Carpenter Bees (Abeille charpentière in French). The four species of European Carpenter Bee, from the genus Xylocopa, are not the biggest bees in the world – that honour goes to a leaf-cutter bee from Indonesia which is 39mm long. Nevertheless, carpenter bees are amongst the largest in Europe and generally come in at 20+mm.

The most common species is the Violet Carpenter Bee Xylocopa violacea, but the exact species is very difficult to distinguish in photos. Usually the only way to narrow it down is if you have a photo of a male and can see the colour of the antennae tips. The Violet Carpenter Bee is the only one to have red tips.

Here is a male Violet Carpenter Bee feeding on the flowering succulent known in Australia as Pigface, but in Britain it is called Hottentot Fig (and Figues des Hottentots in French). You can see the red antennae tips in at least one of these photos if you click on them to enlarge.



Another specimen feeding on a Sweetpea. You can see that this flower, or some other recently visited bloom, has taken the opportunity to whack the back of the bee with it's pollen capsule so it will carry it away and pollenate a neighbouring plant.

Carpenter Bees nest in holes in wood. They will either chew out the hole themselves, or adopt a found hole.

Here is a bee investigating the possibilities
of the stable block at our place.

And here are the holes it set up home in.

Carpenter Bees will also investigate guttering and downpipes. You can always tell if you have a carpenter bee in your downpipe, as the buzz reverberates impressively. We don't have a recording of this sound, but Simon pointed out to me that Steely Dan demonstrate the noise admirably in this video clip:

Carpenter Bees pose no threat to your buildings, nor do they sting unless very severely provoked. They are a real pleasure to have around, and lovely to watch.

Susan

Glimpses 7

Preuilly sur Claise before midnight. For all but the main roads through town, the streetlights are turned off at midnight during the week.

Simon

p.s I am getting tired of cardboard boxes and shredded paper everywhere. Just so you know...

Cycling from London to Paris for Charity

Cycling from London to Paris is a popular way to raise money for charity. My friend Peter did just this over the May Day weekend. I mentioned it a few days ago and there were several comments from readers, so now I have a photo from Peter and a link to the website so you can make a donation if you wish. The charity in this case is the Shooting Star Children's Hospice, based in Surrey, which provides respite, palliative and specialist end of life care for children and their families, free of charge, and mostly funded by donations.

Peter says: '[The] Picture ... [shows the] Eiffel Tower and the gang wearing charity T shirts which we put on for the last 12 miles into Paris.

Thank you so much for the publicity. The donation site is here ( one of a number available). This should give information on the charity. It would be good if anyone kind enough to contribute could leave a message for me, to identify them from friends of Roy and I will do my best to send a thank you.

The comments are amusing and I like the stats puns. The common link between stats, bikes and guitars is of course 'cycles' as stato's study cycles in time series and cycles are a part of the wave forms which form when a stretched string is plucked.

I did make it to Paris, by Sunday, with a group of 14 other riders and John our superbly helpful van driver, generally 20 years younger and very fit and strong so I was pleased to hang in there, the pace was testing. I managed to stay on the bike which was more than many could say but no broken bones and Paris was beautiful on Monday morning.'

Peter is the chap on the far right of the photo, by the way.

Susan

Irises - Les Iris

Bearded Irises are one of the glories of Loire gardens in May. No wonder the most famous iris breeder of them all, Cayeux, is based in the Loire.

A gorgeous, almost black specimen from Coulon
in the Marais Vert near Niort.

A pretty lavender and white pair.

Rich cream and lavender, and an unusually
broad profile, at Giverny.

Everyone has these pale lavender irises,
but they are no less pretty for that.
These particular examples are opposite the Château in Preuilly.

At the Australian War Memorial near Villers-Bretonneux
the irises have fancy variegated leaves.

Susan

The Secret Valley

This place is amazing, and nobody knows about it! Well, actually, I suspect that the locals know about it, but the entrance is on a main road with dozens of travellers passing by each day. It's directly opposite a well known look out point, and people often break their journey there. But they don't venture across the road. You can't get down the track unless you are a reasonable bush track driver, and it is not signposted, so the emerald valley below is protected from the hordes so far. I don't suppose it will be very long before word gets out.

The sides of the valleys here are old growth wet Eucalyptus forest – great tall straight trees, in places logged for timber and pulp. The bottom of the valley is lined with moss covered boulders, at the base of which runs a stream. The banks are entirely clothed in huge tree ferns Dicksonia antarctica. You could not get a greener place. It looks like something out of a garden design magazine, full of special tender plants. It's part of a large and ancient forest complex. Some of it is protected as National Park and Nature Reserve, but there are also commercial logging activities.

If any of our readers are going to south-eastern New South Wales, I will tell them privately where this paradise is, but until then it can remain a secret.

Or do you think I over-egged it, and this is the reason people don't come? I dunno what their problem is...I only encountered one of the creatures on the list (leaches, if you want to know).

I did, however, encounter the biggest ant I have
ever seen – a Giant Bulldog Ant Myrmecia sp.

But some of the forest inhabitants are charming,
like this Silver Xenica Oreixenica lathoniella.

And anyway, the tree ferns are truly spectacular.

Although everything is extremely green
and it's surprisingly difficult to photograph well.

I cannot tell you what a thrill it was to see mature tree ferns in such abundance in their natural habitat. Sadly, that's another reason for being coy about where it is. My parents tell me they visited a well known tree fern valley not so long ago, and discovered that every one had been sawn off, presumably by thieves supplying the garden trade.

Susan

Tours Opera House

It is always difficult to find information about the city of Tours online - filtering out all the sites that google brings up about tours rather than Tours is REALLY difficult. The easiest way to do so is to use google maps and the aerial photos to identify the building you're interested in and then search using the street name. Then all you need to do is some link clicking until you find a page that gives some proper information. Having said that, however, I can't find anything of real substance about this building. It is quite impressive, in that very 19th century French way.

This is Tours Opera House. We didn't know this building existed until quite recently. I found it* when I was waiting for a bus on Easter Monday and had 6 hours to spend carting my bag around looking for interesting things. (The sacrifices I make for this blog.)

I do know that when I was there they were advertising a performance of Tosca - but I can't even find any information about that, either. I have a pamphlet here. Somewhere. It has probably been packed though. In the fullness of time we will unpack and I will post more info.

Talking of packing: we are getting there. Most of our books, all our paintings and photos, most of our clothes and a couple of boxes of various computer cables and bits and pieces are packed, as are most of our electrical stuff. Tomorrow I will start on packing the computers (or at least some of them), and dismantling some of the larger items of furniture. Most of my musical instruments have road cases, so it's just a case of putting them in their own case and adding to the growing heap.

Simon

*this may come as news to the good citizens of Tours, who probably didn't realise it was lost.

Fred the Shred*

We have been living in London for 12 years. Being prudent (and hasn't THAT word gained some overtones in the past couple of years!!) people we have kept all our paperwork during that time.

Now we are moving on we can't see the use for our 12 year old phone bills, bank statements and payslips, so we have bought a shredder and are busy making packing materials. This has been rather a liberating experience, especially when it comes to letters from the tax office. This has been the best part of packing to leave for France, all the rest of it is hard work and stressful and we are not enjoying spending our long weekend (and the coming week) up to our necks in cardboard boxes.


We now have 5 or 6 bags of shredded paper to cushion our valuables (as it were), and then when we are in France we can compost it all for the garden. I am quite pleased with the concept of triple recycling, so will spend the next 15 seconds in "smug" mode.

Simon

*Fred from the shed was a semi-mythical person we used to talk about in my band in Queensland. It just seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Curing Bacon

One of the nice things about France is that you can buy good substantial pieces of pork belly in the supermarket. And one of the nice things about pork belly is that you can cure it and make bacon!

As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says, curing bacon is so ridiculously simple, it's a wonder more people don't do it. We've been curing our own bacon for a while now. Usually Simon does it, and it is a matter of no more than rubbing salt into the meat every day for a few days.

This time I decided to get a bit more fancy, and made up a rubbing mixture of salt, chopped bay leaves, crushed juniper berries, soft brown sugar and Ducros 5 Baies pepper. The meat was rubbed all over with a few handfuls of the salt mix every day for 10 days, then rinsed, wiped dried and cut into portions for different uses.

On the left are cubes for adding to home made baked beans. In the middle, rashers of bacon, and on the right, thick slices for petit salé aux lentilles.

If you are in France and missing pork crackling, an alternative treatment for a piece of belly is to roast it. It makes superb crackling because of all the fat under the skin, and the meat will be rich, but juicy.

Susan

Glimpses 6

This cat has been a permanent fixture of this window ledge (or sometimes the next window ledge along) ever since we have been going to Preuilly.

Simon


Note from Susan: Les Amis des Chats, who operate a trap, neuter and return programme for stray cats in south west France would be delighted if you checked out their website to learn about their work. They also visit schools and educate pupils about responsible cat ownership. Don't hesitate to get in touch with them or me if you can help in any way.

Also my jazz guitarist statistician friend Peter is cycling from London to Paris today to raise money for a children's hospital. He has promised to send photos, so I will post them when they come.

Events in and around Preuilly for May 2009

The first photo we have of our house,

taken on 29 May 2006.

Friday 1 –
May Day, a public holiday.

Saturday 2 – Tir aux Fantômes – Ghostbusters

Saturday 2 - Martizay - Foire aux Oisons
Gosling fair in Martizay, also brocante and new goods

Friday 8 – 8 mai
Victory in Europe Day Ceremony to honour the dead and celebrate the end of World War II in Europe. A public holiday.

Saturday 9 – Cinéma

Tuesday 12 – all our worldly possessions are delivered and we start our new life in France fulltime.

Saturday 16 – Repas de l'Amicale des Pompiers
Friends of the Firemen Dinner.

Saturday 16 – Concours officiel de Pétanque
Official French Bowls Competition.

Pétanque practice, May 2008

Thursday 21 – Ascension*
Ascension, a public holiday.

Thursday 21 – Ferrière-Larçon - Grande Brocante et son Marché Gourmand
Second hand market and specialist food market

Tuesday 26 – Théâtre – APE des écoles Publiques

Satruday 30 - Chaumussay - Veillée de contes, feu de St Jean
Fairy Tales - the fire of St John (?)

Market days in Preuilly are Thursdays and Saturdays. The market is held in Place des Halles in the morning.

On Saturday nights there is a pizza van in Place des Halles.

*corrected after an anonymous comment. Thank You

The Open Road

Ask any Australian, and they will tell you the received wisdom is that the roads of Europe are crammed full of traffic all going nowhere fast.

These photos were taken on a recent drive back from Preuilly to London. You could probably put them in order for yourself just by looking at the grot accumulating on the windscreen.



There is no trickery involved here - this really is how the roads are in France - IF you're not driving on the first (or last) day of the school holidays, a Sunday afternoon, or in Paris. The way to check out what the traffic conditions are likely to be is on the Bison Futé website. Not only is there a map showing problems in real time, on this page you can download a prediction for the rest of the year about how much traffic is likely to be on the roads.

Simon

Sydney

At the end of my recent visit to Australia, I had a day in Sydney. I arranged to meet a friend at the Powerhouse Museum, and we mooched around the Rocks (visiting the Craft NSW Gallery), Darling Harbour and Circular Quay and the Botanic Gardens.

At the Powerhouse I learned about the remarkable Lucien Henry, a Frenchman exiled to New Caledonia after the political upheavals of 1871, who then made his way to Australia, where he became an influential artist, designer and teacher, one of the first to encourage the use of Australian imagery.

Can you tell we are not in France?

Spot the icons.

Australian White Ibis Threskiornis molucca amble freely around Darling Harbour.

A Folly for Mrs Macquarie. Notice anything peculiar? A detail of the 'ceiling' can be seen here.

There is a large, smelly and vociferous colony of Grey-headed Flying Foxes Pteropus poliocephalus in the Botanic Gardens. Mostly they just hang around sleeping during the day, but you can usually see one or two on the wing.

Susan

La Roche Posay

The village of La Roche Posay is about 12km from Preuilly sur Claise, and sits on the bank of the Creuse river at its confluence with the Gartempe.

The name will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever visited a cosmetics or skin care counter: the local water is high in selenium and has been used for many years for skin care. A spa was founded in the village in the 19th century to treat skin disorders, and had grown into a huge cosmetics firm by 1989, when it was sold to l'Oreal.*

The Original Etablissement Thermal

The village itself is attractive and is still a curist (health tourist) destination, with many visits paid for by the French welfare system for the treatment of various dermatological ills. Because of this it has a huge number of hotels, lodges and apartments available compared with any other French village of the same size (population 1400).

The Hotel Europa

There are a number of spas dotted around town, as well as parks, a golf course, and a good scattering of cafes and restaurants. There is also a casino and horse racing course. They hold various music festivals during the year, based around the town square, and during summer it is a very busy, bustling town.

The Town Square

During winter, however, most of the spas close (I believe that of the 3 spas in town, only one remains partially open), the hotels, cafes and restaurants take their holidays and the town reverts to being a quite little backwater.

Despite the signs forbidding it, these boulists
play most days of the year in the town square

These photos of La Roche Posay were taking at Christmas

Simon

*La Roche Posay is not to be confused with Roche Pharmaceuticals, a completely unrelated Swiss/USA company.

Note from Susan: La Roche Posay is pronounced like 'lah rosh-pozzeh' if you are Australian (the 'o's are soft, as in 'cot', not hard as in 'coat', and Roche and Posay treated as if they are one word). If you are American, La Roche Posay apparently sounds more like 'luh rush-puzzeh' though – see Ken's post on the pronounciation of another nearby town, Loches, on his blog Living the Life in St-Aignan. (See Ken's comments below if you want to know how it is really pronounced.)