A is for Animals

A is for Animals

Let’s be honest, Henri is not the most attractive cat on the block. He’s completely black with a large, odd-shaped head. He turned up in our garden about 18 months ago. As he was wearing a collar, we assumed he had a home and was just out for a stroll. As time went on, the collar got ever more shabby until one day it disappeared altogether and was never replaced. We concluded Henri was a stray.

We don’t know what his real name is. We started by calling him “Intruder”, but then Gavin felt that wasn’t very friendly, so he became Henri. Henri pops round several times a day for something to eat. He comes into the kitchen and will even let Gavin stroke him. He then gives him a little squeak or a few soft purrs, but he won’t let me go anywhere near him. Our cats, Angus and Kandy, tolerate him but that’s as far as it goes.

Last winter, during the week when temperatures rarely rose above -10 Centigrade, Henri spent a few nights on a cushion in the lounge. But as soon as the thermometer rose again, off he went. We often see him patrolling up and down the road. He doesn’t seem to want to move in, he just likes to know there’s somewhere he can go for a meal. Problem is, of course, when we go away we put our two in Gill’s cattery. Last time, we had to ask a friend to come round every day to put something out for Henri.

On the subject of animals, I now have a bit of a dilemma. I started knitting an Aran scarf in our Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group. And very stylish it is too. But somehow I seem to have promised the finished item to George, one friend’s five-year-old grandson and Rupert, another friend’s Standard Poodle. I’ve been told both are eagerly awaiting the finished product and have been assured that it’s “just Rupert’s colour” and “George is looking forward to wearing it”. Good thing really that it will take me another couple of winters to finish it. I’m sure at least one of them will have forgotten all about it by then.

Then, the white rabbit from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland featured in a test I have just taken online. I discovered, courtesy of Staples, that, should I choose to do so, I would be able to read War and Peace in 20 hours 30 minutes. Since I have yet to read Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson for my English book club (brilliant title incidentally) and Pars Vite et Reviens [Leave Early and Return Late] by a lady called Fred Vargas for my French one, I think I’ll give Tolstoy a miss for the moment.

To complete this animal miscellany, everyone around me seems to be acquiring chickens. Today I met three that have recently arrived from Normandy to take up residence in a friend’s newly-built hen house. They journeyed there in a sturdy wooden box. Other people acquire their hens as chicks from a local market but have sometimes ended up with cockerels. Not much good if you want eggs for breakfast.

Now, anyone who followed the saga of the travels of my passport will be interested to learn that after it left Brussels, it took a little detour to Lyon before reaching Toulouse and then being despatched here. And now I have just received an email claiming to be from FedEx telling me that there’s a parcel waiting for me in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s apparently too big to be delivered free of charge, so I have been instructed to download a document which I should then take to the Post Office. I’m sure that will please the staff in our local Post Office in South West France. If I don’t do this, I have been warned I will be charged $9 a day for storage.  All things considered, they can keep the package. Something tells me it’s yet another scam… Still, it makes a change from bank workers in the Ivory Coast wanting to give me €10 million to set up a charitable foundation on their behalf.

P is for Passport

P is for Passport

I needed a new passport, so I had the requisite grim and unsmiling photo taken and sent everything off to the British Embassy in Paris. A couple of weeks later I received an email with the news that my passport had left the embassy, through the auspices of a nice-sounding lady called Nicola, and had been entrusted to the care of DHL. I could, if I wished, track its progress. I wished.

My passport started by having a little night-time tour of Paris. I wasn’t too jealous as I’m going to Paris myself in August, probably without the passport. It left Paris at midnight to go to — Leipzig. That puzzled me slightly as I think Leipzig is nearer Prague than Toulouse — its stated destination before coming to me. It stayed in Germany about four hours before heading off, at six o’clock this morning, to Brussels where it arrived at 15h09. I like Brussels, so no problem there, though it did seem a rather backward move. When I last looked, it was still there, so I thought it would spend the night in Belgium. Then, at about 17h45 there was a ring at the door. You’ve guessed it. It was the passport. All I can say is that it must have covered the 929km from Brussels to St Antonin with amazing speed. Still, I don’t have to worry about renewing it now until 2022 — and I have nothing but praise for the British Embassy in Paris and DHL.

P is for Puncture

P is for Puncture

The other day, I was driving along, looking forward to meeting a couple of friends for a visit to IKEA in Toulouse (that’s quite a shopping adventure nowadays), when there was a strange noise. I got out to investigate. This wasn’t just a puncture, it was ‘the entire tyre has disappeared and strewn rubber over the road for quite a distance’ type of puncture.

I stood forlornly by the side of the road in the drizzle, completely forgetting to don my smart fluorescent jacket and erect a warning triangle, as required by French law.

I made a somewhat hysterical phone call to Gavin. He couldn’t really do much as he was 15 kilometres away, it was 8.45 in the morning and we only have one car. Then a farmer on a tractor trundled to a stop, his load of fertilizer rocking precariously as he did so. He kindly moved my car to a somewhat safer position — we were on a main road after all — took a look at what remained of the tyre, frowned and declared it ‘mort’ [dead]. Then, having moved the five coats I keep in the car ‘just in case’ (well, the weather is quite variable here at the moment), a few books that didn’t make it to the recent local book swap, several recyclable shopping bags, a sack of pellets for the water softener, a folding chair and a map of Scotland, he still had some difficulty extricating the spare. He told me he would go and fetch his friend who lived nearby and was a mechanic.

Seeing my stricken expression, he reassured me that he would be back. Indeed, within 10 minutes the tractor returned, along with a car carrying the mechanic. I fear, judging by his appearance and expression, that he had been ushered out of the house somewhat precipitously. He changed the tyre, shook his head and said all my tyres appeared ‘mort’ or nearly ‘mort’. I must have driven over something even more lethal than the usual terrain.

In the meantime, I had rung a friend who kindly drove to my rendezvous to tell the others I couldn’t make it. Back home and off to the garage. There, everyone agreed, all the tyres were terminal. We were promised new ones of our choice of brand would arrive at 4pm. They did. Some €450 poorer (would I have spent as much in IKEA?), we returned home. But we did get a form to fill in that meant within six weeks or so a voucher for €50 off fuel would land in our post box. Every little helps, as they say.

W is for Writers

W is for Writers

My friend Carol Wyer is a famous author. It’s true. Her first novel, Mini Skirts and Laughter Lines, regularly features in the charts and at this moment is a finalist in the Indie Book Awards (like tiny Oscars). Carol got invited to go to New York to the ceremony to collect an award, but it clashes with her next visit to France. France wins and if Carol does too they'll post the award. 

On a visit to France last year, Carol agreed to come and give a talk to my creative writing and book groups. We gathered to welcome her in a friend’s house. No Carol. Unfortunately, I had given her the wrong house number and she ended up in the vicinity of the public swimming pool. Resourceful woman that she is, she tracked down the right house and was only a few minutes late.

You see, one of the problems here is that addresses don’t count for much. Yes, they can be useful if you’ve ordered some books from Amazon or knickers from M&S, but only the other day a friend recounted how Amazon insists her perfectly valid address doesn’t exist. Whenever you’re invited to someone’s house, you get given directions rather than an address — turn left at the bins, it’s the third house on the right with blue shutters and some chickens in the garden.

Lots of actual addresses include the words “lieu dit”, which roughly translate as “the place called” and invariably covers a multitude of dwellings. I have on more than one occasion ended up in the wrong driveway to the slight annoyance of the person who lives there and their dog. And I dread directions that include the phrase “You can’t miss it”. You’re wrong. I can. And no, I don’t have a sat nav. I fear, if I did, I would spend most of my time arguing with it.

But back to Carol. During her next visit, she’s going to give a talk at the English Bookshop in St Antonin Noble Val, which is pretty easy to find. I helped set up the event and have produced some posters to advertise it. A couple of days ago, I met some friends for coffee and one of them handed me a copy of my poster saying she thought I might enjoy going along. I’ll be there.

An A to Z of Life in France

D is for Doctors and Dentists

I liked my dentist in London. Even a lamp falling on my head during a check-up didn’t affect our relationship. But my dentist in France is the best I’ve ever been to. (Given that, like most people, I don’t include going to the dentist on my Fun Things To Do list unless absolutely necessary, that is quite a compliment.) According to my friend Dorothy, the dentist is also an accomplished jazz pianist, but that isn’t apparent when he’s working away on my teeth.

I had thought he didn’t speak any English, but gradually some dental terminology — ‘filling’, ‘crown’, ‘oh dear’ and ‘this might hurt’, for example — has emerged. He’s also become quite talkative. Of course, when a dentist speaks to you through their mask, it’s not always easy to catch what they’re saying. Add the French language to the equation and it all gets pretty tricky. Still, as I invariably have an implement or his hand in my mouth at the time, my strangulated responses are probably adequate enough. I did gather, though, at my last visit, that he was unhappy because he was the only dentist within what appeared to be a 50km radius. This meant he could only take 20 minutes for lunch and I couldn’t get a follow-up appointment for six weeks.

He also enthusiastically shows me the results of the x-rays he takes. I don’t like to point out that, as I remove my glasses during treatment, he could be showing me pictures of his piano and I would be none the wiser.


Incidentally, French is such an expressive language. On the first of my recent series of visits, I was told the tooth giving me problems was 'fatigué' [tired]. I know just how it feels.

The dentist’s surgery is in the same building as our two local GPs’ surgeries, which is rather handy. The doctors still run a system where, most days, you can just turn up and wait. The wait, it must be said, can be quite long. Patients have been known to arrive, look at the number of people already there, mark their place with the receptionist and then go off to do their shopping. When they come back, they will probably have progressed one place up the queue so have to resort to reading the large selection of old copies of Paris Match provided for their entertainment. On one occasion, a friend of mine was waiting… and waiting… She’d exhausted the magazines and the health care notices. The doctor emerged, with a patient. He smiled at the crowd in the waiting room and announced that he had to pop out to admire his patient’s new car. He wouldn’t be long. My friend went home for a cup of tea and some new magazines before returning and eventually being seen.

On another occasion, a nervous, elderly friend had got as far as the surgery and was sitting waiting for the doctor when he burst in dressed as a cleaner, clutching a mop and bucket. It was apparently a ruse aimed at relaxing the patient before he took her blood pressure. I don’t know whether it worked or not.

The convention at the doctors’ is that you say ‘bonjour’ to everyone when you enter the waiting room. They all say ‘bonjour’ back and you all chirp ‘au revoir’ whenever anyone is lucky enough to leave. If you know the new arrival well, you exchange kisses, which seems to me to be somewhat foolhardy as you don’t know what’s wrong with them.


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