Letter from Loizé

28th November 2004
It has been a week of successes, our car is now completely French, It has a French number plate complete with the European symbol. We have a French doctor, who speaks English, and June is conjugating her group 1 French verbs.

On Friday we heard a concert in a fifth century church. I would say that It takes about sixteen centuries to get the acoustics right. Gregorian chant needs to be heard in a church with old stone walls. You also need a hot water bottle so that you don’t freeze.
There were two parts to the concert. As we left the church I turned round to see a painting of Christ looking down on Rock Around The Clock being played by a brass band. For the French this is not a problem. It is a novelty. France moves with the times. If the English have brass bands it is worth investigating.
The church was another photogenic masterpiece with arrow slits in the walls. In the sixth century churches needed defending. Especially with a brass band playing Rock Around The Clock.

Saturday was a truly bi-lingual evening. It was a cultural event organized by the Chef-Boutonne language group. The organizer teaches English to the French. She says that teaching French to the English is too difficult. As usual there was a sing-song. It was in both languages. The songs included Love Me Do by the Beatles and Vive Le Vent (Jingle Bells) in French. It was an indoor picnic.

Recently we were negotiating with a digger company to move several tons of earth and rock in our back garden. In fact it was necessary to move several tons of earth, rock and rubbish.
June said that she wanted to drive the digger. Her tractor driving at Waterers was not encouraging. The tractor arrives next week.

21st November 2004
Friday was like a summer’s day here. It was 19 degrees C with clear blue skies. But we woke up to our first frost on Saturday morning.

We went to the Salle Des Fetes on Saturday for a cider and crepes evening. We were watching the Mayor’s slides of previous coach trips that had been organised for the people of the village to places like, the Massif Central and the Atlantic coast in the summer, and the Pyrenees for skiing in February.

Each of these trips seem to consist of endless picnics. The Mayor collects the money at the door and organizes the coach trips. The Mayor’s wife cooks the crepes. That’s the kind of politics we like. We are in fact quite interested in his coach trip to Biarritz in June next year. We might give the skiing a miss.

The Politics are very local here. The Mayor asked me if I went hunting. You can stop laughing please. This was because he had been discussing hunting with his electorate for half an hour earlier. He might find his vote plummet if he doesn’t join in with the local pastime.

Today Sunday we went to a local wine and gastronomy fair. You can eat and drink like a pig for nothing. We didn’t however try the Champagne. This was not for want of trying. I think that we were bloated and paralytic by the time we reached the Champagne stand. It’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to investigate the Bordeaux stand either.

I did however investigate the Beaujolais Villages Nouveau. “Beaujolais Villages is a better quality Beaujolais”. I quite agree hic!
Since Beaujolais day on the 18th we have tried two and they have both been very good.
We will of course be visiting the vineyards.

Our local church

We found a photogenic church today. which is being renovated, I will use my customary half a roll of film as usual when they have finished rebuilding it. The French are at last looking after their national treasures. Our local church dates back to the 11th century.

13th November 2004
There is good news and bad news. The good news is that if we stay in France for four years and show a good understanding of the French language we can apply for French citizenship.
The bad news is that I have found a market stall that sells guns. You can buy shotgun cartridges in the supermarket.
You are safe though there is no chance that I will buy a gun.
I have always felt if their driving is anything to go by, the French are not safe to have guns.

There are two police forces in France, the local Police and the Gendarmerie. The local police are the equivalent of parking wardens. The local police do not have guns. The Gendarmerie drive BMW’s. They have guns.
The C.R.S. are riot police specially trained to club Chelsea supporters with their gun butts when the cameras are not watching. They have machine guns.

We have decided to cancel our French credit card. You have to pay for credit cards in France and the full amount owing is automatically deducted from your current account at the end of the month. This explains why the French write cheques. However if you write a cheque and there are not funds to cover it, your account will be monitored and possibly closed.

If you buy a house in France, you get included in the deal, two or three barns.
One of the joys of a hot sunny day is watching the local aircraft club practising mock dogfights, from one our barns that we use as a garage, they are very realistic, especially the sound effects. No machine guns though.

I can just imagine what it must have been like watching the battle of Britain. I prefer steam trains myself.
We saw a gory film (which I thought would be romantic) about the First World War yesterday at our local cinema. It was in the days before world wars had numbers. Part of the footage was about the area where we live. Before the film started a local worthy stood and explained that his father was there. Yes, this is our community and you should you to be interested. I quite agree.

I will ask my aunt about La Grande Guerre. My grandfather was gassed in it.

6th November 2004
The sun bathing season is over in The Charente, unless you have a fur bikini. Let’s face it, it’s November.
You can smell the wood burning stoves starting up as you arrive in Loizé.

Philippe is happiest when he is driving his tractor. That means he is selling firewood. We tell Annette and he is there next day, with a load of logs. Annette’s cat has gone missing. She thinks the hunters got it. The idea that shooting cats is a local pastime seems a bit odd.
Apparently her three legged cat was chased by hunting dogs. I will have to find out the story. It seems that it is a tough life being a cat around here. June thinks that she saw Annette’s missing cat hiding in a hedge. I would say that in Loizé, cats are tolerated as long as they catch mice.

We are now members of the French health system. We were proudly told that we can visit any doctor we like. The secretary seemed disappointed that we were not amazed. I knew that. I also know that the French are paying for their paradise by copying English taxation methods. I thought that there would be riots when the French realised that they would be paying English prices for cigarettes. I just gave up smoking, I’m happy to pay for paradise so long as they don’t copy British Rail or the N.H.S.

31st October 2004
There is something special about an open wood fire. It goes with gundogs barking in the distance and a glass of good red wine.
We are still working on the glass of red. Normally we buy in the Rhone valley. Rhone reds are good value.

Considering the quality of Châteauneuf du Pape that is also good value. Buy it from the vineyard.
We should be loyal to our area and buy Haut Poitou, which are good wines but in my opinion too expensive.

We were lucky last night, we were at the Salle des Fetes at Gournay to celebrate Halloween.
We were treated to classic French music and their mangled version of Rock and Roll., Jail House Rock with words missing and in the wrong order. I prefer the poetic beauty of Edith Piaf.

The French like a good sing song and they know all the words, apart from Jail House Rock.
We will be going to Lotto soon. Let’s be honest. It is Bingo. It should be interesting.
Our sister village of Gournay has 390 people, we in Loizé have 230. In fact 232 because the Gregorys had twins.

Winter is moving in on us. In the summer we can hear the Cicada. We are just far enough south. We can also see the Milky Way. We are free of light pollution.

25th October 2004
We had our cooking lesson. It involved Mousse au Chocolate. We also met Catherine’s friends. Danielle has a good life that involves living six months in the Charente and sis months in Paris. Jacky does not speak English and makes really good paintings of birds. They are not for sale. The big ones anyway. The other friends included painters and decorators but no builders. Builders are at premium here, if you have got one, chain him to the wall, with a bowl of bread and water.

The shallow end of the pool of our hotel in the South of France was used for gossiping and looking stylish.
Here at St Jean D’Angely the pool has no shallow end. It is 2 metres 20 cm deep all the way round.
If you use the disabled bay you get harangued, and the Sauna is on the top floor.

I should have thought it strange to see tractors driving past the end of our garden.
They are driving where the road used to be.
I will ask the mayor. He will probably say that we that we didn’t use the road anyway.

We are still awaiting the decision of the Architect about our Velux windows. The Mayor does not hold great hopes. The problem is that our roof is in sight of a historical church in the area.
I don’t quarrel with the attitude of the Architect. We have seen another old church near us that looks worth visiting.
The Architect is a powerful man in the area, the Mayor obviously resents this.

We have quite a few projects to consider on our property, including ; the pool, the vegetable patch, the orchard.
The barn is a problem. We can’t afford to rebuild it. I have been advised to demolish it, by our odd-job man, an ex-marine. The Charente is popular with ex services personnel who have accumulated the required 30 years.

Han and Van should have arrived for their stress buster, from Stanstead to the Charente, as I type this. Part of their stress busting involves cooking Moules à la June,
June had injured herself in the market. Vanessa learnt how to clean how to clean and cook the mussels while Hannah chopped the parsley.

Now It is back to reality and our French homework.

15th October 2004
It is a well known fact that the French are natural linguists and speak perfect English. But they don’t tell you that, until you have spent half an hour explaining, in French, that you want the plate that fits under the shelf over the fire to keep the draughts out.
There were those among you who were concerned that June would have problems in France because she doesn’t speak French. Our French teacher said recently, “my god you’ve got me speaking Franglais".
I am interested in learning how to use the subjunctive. June is interested in learning how to shop in French.
Our teacher does both. She is private by the way. She too has chickens, and rabbits, and dogs.

We will be having lunch at her house tomorrow. It will include a lesson in cooking, in French
My mother was French, I’ve forgotten the recipes that she taught me, I didn’t know that the meals that we were eating were French. I thought that it was normal to have steak and chips for lunch.
My aunt took round her allotment one time showing me where to find the best snails.
By the way they don’t need to be drenched in garlic and olive oil. They are a bit like whelks.

We are still waiting to have our kitchen installed. It was designed by computer. The French have them as well.. If you know a builder who wants to get rich, tell him to come here. The Brits are waiting for builders to turn their pile of rocks in the sun into
"Des. res. in the sun" with a swimming pool.

11th October 2004
Annette came round two nights ago. She had a parcel. It was a fresh cleaned duck for the oven.
I have no doubt that she cleaned it herself. It was one of her ducks.

She quoted a French proverb that went right over my head, the gist of it was that this was the duck that had been eating your lettuces.
I’m not saying cause and effect or swift country justice.
Or don’t go messing with len’s lettuces. But that duck was delicious. With a good Gaillac.

The dogs are very noisy around here. They are hunting dogs.
I know that they are hunting dogs because one of them came into our front garden chasing one of Annette's chickens.
It eventually grabbed the chicken and disappeared around the back of the house.
Later I asked one Annette's nephews what happened to the chicken.
“We got it back”

You see a good hunting dog does not damage the game. The chicken was shocked and missing a few feathers, but relatively undamaged.

3rd October 2004
We don’t have television. We cannot drag up the enthusiasm.
Why do we need television? We saw a local musical event at our cultural centre. La dame de Chambrille with Genevieve Charlot.

The Lady of Chambrille:

Berthe of Fouquerré was married against her will to the baron of Chambrille, childhood friend of her father. But she was in love with her friend Guy Trémont (who had saved her from a wild boar attack), he became her lover and every night they met in the forest. The baron discovered what was happening and one night, he found them in the arms one another, he stabbed them with a dagger. Guy of Trémont was able to stand up and went to look for help, but he collapsed in the grass through loss of blood. These drops of blood that he lost explain the number of valleys in the area. Berthe of Fouquerré also stood up but was changed suddenly to stone, inclining the head toward the valley where rests her beloved. Legend or history... Besides the number of valleys, some garnets have been found on the mounts of Chambrille, Fouquerré and Trémonts which correspond well with historic residence and a rock of human form remains.

We do have an oyster stall that is open on Sundays.

Our orchard is progressing well, the land has been cleared in preparation. It will have peaches, plums, nectarines, pears, apples and Mirabelles. We also know where the swimming pool is going. Not far from the vegetable patch.

We are not sure what to do with the barn. Anette’s geese seem to be happy grazing there. They will be not be happy if I catch them eating my lettuces.

Annette has three cats, two twins and one that has only got three legs.

She also seems to have relatives in every part of the village. Some of her relatives came in the back garden today carrying shotguns. The family go shooting regularly. Could be why she has a three legged cat.

18th August 2003
Annette our neighbour has agreed to tell her son to move his farm machinery from our back wall so that we can paint the wood supports for our guttering.
She is building a new chicken run to house her various breeds of chicken, and ducks, and rabbits.

Her cockerels wake us up at 6.00 and we wouldn’t have it any other way. It is not “Cock a doodle doo”, more a sort of strangled squawk.
We have been welcomed to France three times including by the post man.

We have met the mayor.

We have a garden the size of a football pitch, normal lawn mowers don’t apply. We have two kitchens, two bathrooms, two of everything.
Pigeons are roosting in our garage, not for long!

There are combine harvesters at the end of our garden. The road has been destroyed by tractors.
Our barn is on the other side of the road.