It’s been about 10 days since our
last post and we’ve been busy .
We visited the French department of immigration last week, but I’ll let you read about that on Graham’s separate post as he wants to explain the process. At least we are now “official”.
Bastille Day is called Fête Nationale in France and was celebrated
in our town with a great fireworks display. While it wasn’t New Year’s Eve in
Sydney, it was an impressive display for a small country town and went on for
about half an hour above the river. Everyone seemed to be on the bridge opposite
our house to watch, but we had just as good a view from our window.
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| The chateau along the river from our house. I'm sure they loved having the fireworks go off overhead. |
We have spent lots of time
waiting for tradesmen (mostly English) to turn up to do work or to quote. Now
just have to wait for them to get back to us. Already overdue! As all of France goes on holiday in August very
little can be done because you can’t get materials (like January in Australia) so we
are not expecting to get any work started until September. Frustrating .
As an aside, we were told recently that frenchmen only wear shorts in July and August, never at any other time no
matter the weather. It’s true! Any man
wearing shorts in any other month must be english or, perhaps, australian….a
dead set give-away.
Since our last blog, we’ve been
to a few more brocante/vide grenier (empty the attic) markets and bought a few
interesting items including the drinks trolley. I know some of you will be
saying “why?” Don’t think it’s all that
old but just couldn’t resist such a quirky item. The basket in the photo is made of grape vine
cuttings and I am using it to carry my gardening tools . The two volumes of
Larousse’s Histoire de France are in
good condition and beautifully illustrated. Don’t know how old they are but
hopefully, one day, we will be able to read them.
Which brings me to our french
class. We have enrolled with a language school in our town and started with a
group of eight english women and men of varying degrees of competence. I think
we fall in the middle so we are pleased with that and hope our conversation skills
will now improve to the extent that we can at least answer the phone.
Last night they held a country
and western soirée in Port Ste Foy. It started at about 2pm and carried on into
the night with line dancing and live music and a barbecue, judging by the
aroma. Very popular from the amount of
people walking past on their way home and the cars parked everywhere including
the footpath outside our house. The no parking signs are only a suggestion, after
all.
We are saving ourselves for the
other music events in the area over the following month – blues, jazz, choral, chamber
music. Lots on now the tourists are in town. The Saturday morning market at Ste Foy was packed with people speaking everything but french, and the roads are crowded with mobile homes. You thought driving behind a caravan was bad ! Everyday we see number plates from The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and even one from Morocco.
While the weather has been hot
everyday it is lovely driving through the countryside. The sunflowers are now
showing off, everywhere is lush and green and the vines are luxurious. If this
weather continues I expect this vintage will be a good one.
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| parking at a brocante marché |
Which brings me to our cellar!
Graham has started collecting wine in the cellar, instead of drinking it all as
he buys it. A big step forward and I’m sure he is looking forward to many more
tastings and purchases.
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| Just the beginning of something great ! |
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