Life In 79

It was yet another Bank Holiday in France and we were discussing how beautifully clear the roads were compared to the UK. We were on our way to the Île de Ré for the day. We had visited La Rochelle many times (with a long list of friends and relatives) and seen the promised land in the distant, but had never travelled that extra 2.9km over the bridge linking the two. As a family we had always been intrigued by the notion of the donkeys in pyjamas, who inhabited the 30km by 5km wide island and although we had a long list of reasons for the trip, secretly we wanted to see a donkey in PJs.   “The larger than average breed of donkey was used to work the land, particularly the salt marshes. To protect them from mosquito and other bug bites, their owners made them special 'leggings”. Proir to the trip I had done some limited research and was nonchalantly throwing facts and figures into the conversation, for example   “Île de Ré was originally an archipelago consisting of three islan...

We said goodbye to central heating and comprehensive insulation when we moved to rural France permanently in March, we now have to rely on log burners. Okay it’s December...but it’s not really cold. Anna has become obsessed with the log burners at either end of our house. She is like Casey Jones on the footplate stoking the engine, or both engines in our case. As I look out of the window, I watch her going back and forth with barrow-loads of wood. We are going to get through our winter supply of logs within a fortnight! Being Scottish you would have thought she would be used to a chill wind. The log burners have replaced the remote control for living room-based disagreements. “It’s a bit nippy in here” she‘ll say “I’ll just pop another log in”. I plead with her not to, the dog has passed out. The log burner in the lounge is a sizable beast and when it gets going it cranks out some serious heat...like the fires of Mordor it rages. When I look through the glass I can see Shadrach, Meshac...