Life In 79

As I write the ground is frozen, the pond iced-over and we're about to start our seventh stere of wood, and it's only the first day of 2021.  My wife sold me the notion of moving to France by endless talk of the long, hot summers but nothing was mentioned about the long, cold winters. I'm not even sure the last five winters have been that cold. A friend of ours often tells of winters past, when ice formed on the inside of his windows. Being a sensitive soul I feel the cold more than my hardened, Scottish wife. When in the car there is a constant battle between us over the temperature control knob. She is always too hot, whereas I like to crank the dial up to 'eleven' and enjoy the blast of warm air. I often invent reasons to go on short excursions in the car; to the dé chetterie or a supermarché , just so I can whack the car heater on and defrost.  Our log burners can create a satisfactory level of heat in the room they are situated, but as you walk up the wooden hi...

Anna, my wife, doesn't like having 'the big light' on of an evening. She prefers 'mood' lighting, which involves having several lamps dotted around the room in strategic places ratcheting up our electricity bill. Some nights the living room can resemble the lighting department of BHS and it can take several minutes to turn off all the illuminations at bedtime (who was it who thought putting the on/off switch halfway down the flex was a good idea?).   On top of a lamp, next to the TV, a small beetle can often be seen walking around the rim of the lamp-shade. In a never ending journey the little fella goes round and round throwing a giant Kafkaesque shadow onto the wall behind. When it first happened it scared the bejesus out of us. Whether he thinks he will one day arrive at his destination or is content to beetle in a never ending loop I do not know (this is where I might suggest the beetle is a metaphor for our own lives; wandering in eternal circles until one day ...

Occasionally I will get an 'urge'. An urge to build something.  Many years ago when our children were young I got the urge to build them a tree house. Like Noah constructing his Ark, it took several days to build, cost an absolute fortune and was far too big for our small terraced garden (it probably should have had planning permission)...but when I had finished, it was a thing of beauty and I was very proud of it. Having been sated, my urge disappeared for a few years; it didn't go away, it just lay dormant somewhere inside me. One morning I awoke with a start, the urge had returned! I needed to build a wall. An extension to the house was far too ambitious (and planning permission would definitely be required for that), I had to build that day. I needed to lay brick on brick, I needed to use the handle of my trowel (which I would purchase) to tap each level and gracefully scrape away the excess mortar... it always looks so effortless on the telly.   Days later, after great...

I t started with footprints in the potager. No. It started when I was perusing my young vegetables; seeing if they had grown in the last three hours from when I last looked. Such was my life during lockdown. As I was contemplating why the carrot seeds I planted weeks earlier hadn’t appeared, I noticed a patch or dollop of brown something on the lawn. On closer inspection it looked like a cowpat, which was confusing as we don’t have a cow. It was then I noticed hoof prints, several of them criss-crossing my freshly hoed earth. I looked around to see if I had missed a cow in the garden...nothing.  When recounting my Arthur C. Clark happening to Anna, my wife, she said there was also a big cowpat at the front gate too. We have a large section of garden, running parallel to a lane which is not fenced. So, using my powers of deduction and the direction of hoof prints, I surmised the cows had entered from the lane, had a poo, danced on my leeks and then left via the front gate only stopp...

We have been working our way round our French farmhouse, renovating a room at a time and last month it was the turn of the bathroom. It wasn’t much to look at with its painted tiles of Lisbon and a galleon on the high seas, champagne coloured bath and OSB walls. But I have spent many a happy hour in that bathroom, soaking myself in the tub, polishing off a chapter or two as my skin begins to wrinkle and my fingertips resemble sultanas. Then Anna put her interior designer hat on. On these chilly nights I like to constantly top-up my cooling bath with hot water. I became adept at doing it with my foot. Now, instead of a bathtub against the wall, with tap at one end, the bath is like a small rowing boat in the middle of the room, with a tap positioned halfway down the side. If I want to top-up now, I not only have to use my hand, but also arch my midriff away from the scolding water in a very undignified fashion. It gets worse. On the old bath, the plug used to be at one end, near the tap...

I have always been a keen gardener. I don't know any of the latin names (couldn't identify a Alopecurus from a Zannichellia), but I love being in the great outdoors, getting some gentle exercise and creating attractive areas in the garden by mixing and matching plants.  I have a basic knowledge of some plants that like shade and others full sun, but I know nothing about the pH of soil, other than it can change the colour of hydrangea flowers. I decide where a plant would look good, dig a hole, shove it in and if it thrives, fantastic, if it starts wilting, I'll move it somewhere else. Our gardens in the UK have always been small (no bigger than a tennis court). I have been able to weed, trim and mow them in a day, but since moving to France gardening has taken on a new meaning.  We now have an acre of land and when I tell Anna, my wife, I'm going out to do some gardening, I really mean I am going to dig up brambles in various quarters of the estate. I have become obsess...

Booking a table at a restaurant, buying a cup of coffee, or delivering a pre-rehearsed speech at Franglais is one thing (for those of us who struggle with the language). But when a situation comes at you from out of the blue it is a different matter. So when I was reversing out of a busy market square I had no business being in, in the first place, and hit a mobile charcuterie van and damaged his rear indicator, I reached for Michel Thomas (the French gentlemen from the language CDs), but Michel wasn’t there! He was a big chap (the van owner, not Michel) and quite angry, rightly so; one minute he was bagging up some pâté and the next minute his whole mobile meat wagon was rocked...literally. I kept repeating how sorry I was as he picked up the plastic casing of his reversing light from the car park. He went into a controlled tirade and all I could say was ‘I’m English, I don’t understand, but am very, very sorry’.  I have spoken of the ‘French stare’ before in this publication, but...