Other people's oddities...

 Are so much more interesting than my own - at least to me...As I eventually ended up in my 80th year, I was worried about any possible oddities in my behaviour....

Yes, alright, I gave up driving my car - that seemed sensible all round, not just because of possible accidents caused by me - but more seriously because the  occasional driver of my car (which he wants to buy) is a Very Attractrive Young Man...with blue eyes to die for..

Also he speaks Dutch - I was born Dutch over 80 years ago but I seem to be able to express myself, and understand what he  says, with very little problem...also he smokes Dutch cigars - just as my Dutch grandfather used to - and the odor takes me back to my childhood....Grandfather in his terrace chair, smoke rising from his mouth and the birds hovering for the grains from ....whatever he was eating.

So far, so good - but now I have found myself wondering about the difference btween two different types of breakfast  cereal....there are the rectangular blocks of mixed grains and there are also ones with rounded edges....I study the contents description..which is the better, are the tastes different....fortunately finding yesterday's newspaper usually distracts me from this absurdity...

And now this obsession has transferred itself to fire lighters which also come in different shapes....of which I use a lot as both my Rayburn cooker and the sitting room fire are lit by such...

And that is probably a comment on the quality of the TV programmes whether in English or French -  I now live mostly in France...

Fortunately there is always a glass of wine close by...

The France is still there..

 As I was wandering up the path to my post-box - strategically situated on the main road between Tocane St Apre and St Astier, almost equally between the the two. ... I stopped and looked - as a good Dutch girl I can recognise St Nicolas anywhere, the long white beard was perfect...But this was a little odd - he was coming from the Tocane end and it was not nearly official postal delivery time 

Now, take a breath every dear reader - France is no longer a casual, almost Latin like, form of administration. There are rules about what can delivered where - and when - There are rules about the delivery of bills - say electricity - and the date limit by which it they should be paid, with possible penalties. Demands are made for the customer to permit direct debits from their bank accounts.   My instinct says ' no way, not ever' - never mind the possible discounts.

Then the wood delivery man arrived just before lunch - trailing a large cart with chunks of coursely cut but very dry wood.    My own wood is not yet dry enough to use for heating and cooking - it  takes over two years at least.  We greeted each other as old friends - I buy from him regularly as my own wood dries.  

From behind his ear he drew a rather battered receipts book, thumbed over the pages until he found a blank one.   He then quoted me two rates;   one would be handwritten on dublicated paper and would include a charge for local tax, to be paid by cheque.  The other book would produce a different total - one without tax  - to be paid in cash.

We looked through my cash wallet and decided on the latter.  The real France is there somewhere.... 

Elephant give- away....

 Today I gave away two elephants....no ..obviously not the literal animal but in various materials and sizes.  The object was always the same:   to bring good luck, happiness...or at least comfort to the recipient?   Why elephants?  Reader, this story dates back to my very earliest days .....back to when about 6 years  old I sat at a strange desk, in a strange country with a strange language - and looked at the pictures in my 'Babar the Elephant' book....the original one published way back in the 30's...my first comfort in a strange country

A rural romance?

After some 40 years living in rural France, land and woodland in the deepest Dordogne I am gradually coming to the conclusion that one cannot own -in the proper sense of the word -  land in France.

This latest support to my theory is (I think) quite funny. Half of the land I 'own'  ( as widow woman)is deeply wooded land - the rest is scrub pasture that needs to be mowed by humans and shit fertilised by four legged  domestic animals of some kind.  

My most recent employee (Dutch like me, with blue eyes to die for) is in charge of both fields and woodlands. He uses chain-saws, electrical log splitters, 'my' tractor for transporting it all which I appreciate.....Then we sit side by side at the long kitchen table as we discuss things and scabble notes onpaper.  He says his litle prayer, thinks of his childrem

Today, as I opened my eyes I found him sitting at the head  of my table...looking at me with those blue eyes...I shut  my brain down very quickly....

Cars, tears.....and generally being sentimental - or stupid

 Deciding to give up driving cost me some hard moments - and not a few tears.  Some people even congratulated me on my decision.  There it is done and my beloved Audi is now in the (more or less) safe hands of Blue Eyes - my Dutch friend and occasional worker.  When he gets the money together he will buy it ....of course, one has to allow for French bureaucracy to get in the way of something so simple as a car sale and purchase...but there it is, under way. This evening, as I went to the woodshed where Audi used to be parked ....Reader!  there was annother black car!!!  And yes, I burst into tears...But at least I can now have a Large Drink without worry.... Tactfully the neighbours have parked their car elsewhere...

the eternal oak --- lifespan

 This winter day slowly comes to its close

I watch the fading sun disappear

behind the pine trees  across the valley

that makes the limts of my land..

It could be this world's end...

But nearer to my high stone terrace

Two aged oaka loom their heavy heads

to shade my glass of wine.

I sense disapproval - take another sip,

feel defiant as I lift my glass to them

....and to me...

And then I remember it - a flat circle of a oak

its rings suggest an age beyond the human

perhaps more than 300 years in th earth

rings beyond human counting...

Had it beem left unencumbered

to die its potential span...mass destruction

of younger trees, of homes, cars, gardens

all human clutter

would have been buried for all eternity..

An inconvenient or a good decision?

It was only a few months ago - just shortly after the great bathroom disaster - that I pulled into a parking space, turned off my beloved Audi's deep rumbling engine  and allowed a decision to be born.   I would no longer drive. This decision was mulled for at least a good 20 minutes before I decided to get home and let everyone know. 

By the time I got home I was shaking., I gave myself a glass of Chardonnay - in one of the lovely green crystal stemmed glasses inherited from my grandmother when she opted to no longer drink, then died at eighty.

And there it is - the evil figure - I am now 80 years old. In the past few months  I was finding driving more and more frightening.   Was I driving the Audi - or was it driving me?   Had I become a bad driver - or was everyone else behind a steering  wheel  dangerous ?  The rumour went round that I was prepared to sell my Audi... 

This decision is, of course, an imposition on my children as now my transport has to be organised.   However, an earlier decision - that I needed carers to help in my daily life - proved very useful.  Most of the carers have their own cars and are happy to take me shopping or to the pub.    My favourite outing is now a trip down to St Astier where I collect my usual papers and some cash - New York Times and Liberation - and then sit in the cafe with a glass of wine.

Oddly, one of my favourite drivers is the painter - a Dutchman with blue eyes to die for - who is fixing the upstairs bathroom.  He takes me down to St Astier in the Audi (which he is hoping to buy), we collect our newspapers - The New York Times, Liberation, Sud-Ouest, sometimes The Economist - and settle into the cafe - outside usually. He lights up his cheroot - an odour that reminds me of my Dutch grandparents - and , in the middle of the Dordogne, talk to each other in Dutch.   

As so often in the country - this story is about stones....and the importance of roof tiles....and the eveil of rain

 Some weeks ago there was a thunderous descent of stones into our upstairs bathroom...struggling with swearing about the non visiblity of my slippers...I was nearly flushed back by the flow of water down the stairs.   Disaster laughed at me - wetly. 

The  bathroom upstairs had just melted into gludge which itself was soakiing the wooden floor that was the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom.  Hopelessly I tried to push the flow into the sanitary loo bason..

Then gave up in order to find as many buckets to catch the water below...Eventually my battered mind remember where the mains water intake was.......yes, in the glass veranda outside where it was also pouring with rain.

The upstairs bath had become detached from its wall, tilted crazily to the floor. Fortunately the loo was still  more or less upright - but unsteady.

Enough sordid detail, the Gread Tidy Up had to start.    Fortunately I knew a couple of local men who were used to this kind of operation.  I let them use my beloved Audi break and a remorque to take 'stuff' to the local dechetterie (= official dump site).

As the site got cleaner, as I was again able to use my downstairs bathroom, shower loo and all...we all gathered round the kitchen table to speculate on the origins of this disaster.

The plasterer suggested a possibility: that there had been a minute rain leak between a couple of roof tiles over the years which penetrated into the plaster of the bathroom.  This weakend the plaster walls in the bathroom which then dropped into the bath...and so everything fell over...

It seems plausible - no point is summoning the insurance - but definitely a revision of the roof - and general restoration of the upstairs bathroom, bath, wash basin and loo. All the plaster and wood would be covered in a heavy, shiny dark blue paint - new lights would be installed and  all porcelain or china objects disinfected and re-installed.

It has been done.....I am waiting for my first summer guests to come...and be brave.

The impact of an 80th...

 It is only three months or so - from today (24.01/) that I made the fateful decision to give up driving...I gave it up because at times on the Dordogne rural roads that I have known for over 40 years - I felt unsafe -  incompetent....and definitely worried about the speed of others on the road...

My nearest shopping town is some 12 kms or so down hill from my house....the road width is not up to the super size lorries and wild trees keep falling into the road - when not actually being cut down.

Why did I give up you might want know ...because I had just passed my 80th birthday is the simplest answer. But the cherry is that I have found a very charming, good looking, local part time driver who will take me anywere I want....using my car. Or perhaps that is the real reason.

Good by Audi - good by independance

 Dear Readers!   

prepare yourself for a shock - even if it is only the one that hits me...some months earlier this year, in deepest rural Dordogne I woke up in my warm country bed whilst in my early 80's - warm because its mattress was covered with an electrical heated stretch sheet. (sorry readers, such is apparently NOT available in France).  I went to the kitchen, refilled my water bottle and brought back of a cup of tea....somewhere under the bed was whatever I was reading last night...and I began to think....

Thinking led to the decision to give up driving....whilst I still had all confindence in my Audi I no long had in my judgement behind the wheel.

I decided I would no longer drive....unsafe for me, unsafe for others on the road. My decision has been well accepted by all who are affected by it - with great kindess and some comfort - and a lot of help.