Absence, Love, Real Life.

This last ten days I have taken leave of absence from La Chaise. Of course, as a control freak, I could not go without leaving many, many written instructions. I don't know why I bother to bother my little blonde head with these instructions. Arnold knows perfectly well what he has to do – he does what is necessary and is a better judge of that than I am..

And Michelle, my 'housekeeper' to borrow the American term, is only to glad to see us out of the house, so that she can really get on with what she likes doing. This is mostly polishing everything that stands still, windows, copper, silver, floors and airing everything else – beds, bed-linen, sofas, chairs, rubbish bins. Oh, and I must not forget the plants, she takes them over totally, pruned, watered, brought in if the cold, in her view, is too great.

Clea and Jérôme deal with everything else, strange postal deliveries (usually JP's wine), hopeful money collectors for the local football team, the pompiers with their annual calendar of the local fire-brigade volunteers. They also deal with people who come to do things, such as M. Angibaud junior (!) who came to empty the main septic tank before the Christmas invasion. (One day I shall write a brief dissertation on septic tanks and the management thereof.)

A lot of this could be managed by telephone but it is a curious truth that people seldom telephone people who are not in the same country. In fact, in the Dordogne, very few artisans return telephone calls at all – M. Doly of chimney fame being the notable exception. The invention of mobile phones has made life a little easier for, without those, one was always telephoning at the beginning of meals – not good for the digestion of either party.

So the question is: will this absence make me fonder of La Chaise as the ancient proverb (which actually applies to people) likes to indicate? I don't know. Our return is always greeted by a pile of paperwork and old newspapers. The house will be warm, the bed and the fire made and the Rayburn lit. But there is still that slight sinking feeling of jobs left undone when one went away, jobs which get no easier for having been left to stew.

Comparisons are often apples versus oranges and, in the case of La Chaise v. Miramina (the flat in which we are staying now) this is particularly true. The houses at La Chaise are probably a couple of hundred years old; the flat block that houses Miramina dates back to the 60's. How can one contrast and compare views over a green valley with cliff-top views over a working fishing port? Or being woken up by the cry of sea-gulls as dawn breaks ('aaargh' or 'ow-ow-ow') with the screech of the white owl that tears through the night to let in the day?

But there is no doubt in my mind that a stay at Miramina in Sant Feliu de Guixols is a holiday. In other words, it is time off from real life. Real life happens at La Chaise.

Legal realities

Drama in Perigueux's courtroom! A woodland proprietor was claiming damages, with interest, from her neighbour who had carelessly allowed his bonfire to damage her trees. Claim: her financial loss was otherwise irreparable. (Yes, the price of wood has recently shot up.) Unfortunately her lawyer mumbled, so many details were lost to the entranced audience. Fortunately the defending lawyer had a strong sense of the dramatic, refuted all the claimants plaints. Not only was her claim untrue, the opposite was true – the 'accidental' burning of the 'rubbish' on the floor of her woodland had cleared and improved it. The judge hearing the case, a slight middle aged lady, consulted the advisors from the Ministry of Justice and, probably wisely, decided to withold her judgement till later.

Given that the lawyers were likely to cost the plaintiff and the defendant around 80-100 € an hour, one wondered why no court has been established on the basis of 'knock their silly heads together'. Bring on the Red Queen. This feeling was reinforced when a young man presented himself at the bar, determined to quarrel with the traffic police as to whether or not he had gone through a red light in the centre of Perigueux. The dispute centred round which red light was concerned, the police had one in view, he had another. The judge hummed a little and said she would deal with him later, too.

Then we came to the meat of the cases before her: cases brought by the département de l'inspection du travail. This was where we – officially Clea as the 'donneur d'ordre' for La Chaise – were involved. Most of the cases, including ours, were about the lack of 'correct' book-keeping. The early cases concerned restaurant owners with part-time employees, pregnant wives, new establishments the defence was generally boo-hoo-I-did-my-best. The judge fined them all.

And then came our turn. We, too, had transgressed the rules laid down, no daily attendance book, no regular monthly printed salary statements, just bank transfers. The charge was impeding inspectors from doing their work of inspecting the books. When I mentioned to Arnold that he had to note down every day his arrival and departure times, in an official book countersigned by his employer – aka Clea – he became unusually loquacious. Dutch can be a most descriptive language.

The visit of the inspectrice was rather a shock for us. We are used to dealing with the rigidities of the French administration which are usually skilfully managed by French bureaucrats so that it works. The inspectrice had no sense of proportion at all. I lost patience (I'm Dutch, too) and left her to the diplomatic tact of JP.

When called to the bar, a very innocent, very pregnant Clea explained that, as she had a full time job as well as the farm – which did not provide a decent income – her 'aged' parents did the paperwork. The judge asked how old were her parents. Mild panic as Clea turned towards to me to ask. The judge explained that the rules were for the benefit for both employer and employee and was Clea now en regle? Oh, yes! Fine 70€ each on two counts.

But we are in France. The judge pointed out that if the fines were paid promptly there would be a 20 per cent discount.

Is there a Doctor in the Woods?

Arnold is no longer simply 'the wonderful Arnold' but 'the wonderful, eagle-eyed Arnold'. Amongst all the leafless trees around, he spotted an oak that was dead, dangerously dead. Of course, sod's law – la loi de l'emmerdement maximum' – dictated that this particular tree had grown on the bank of the Black Pond in the Woods, the roadside bank. The road is a departmental one with heavy, fast traffic at breakfast, lunch and dinner times.

The metre or so wide roadside bank of the Black Pond is mostly ditch with some poor clay either side and it drops steeply towards the water. It is not the most stable of banks. Oh, and there is sheep fencing in the middle, to keep the sheep in and mushroom thieves out.

The ditch is cleared twice yearly by the departement d'equipement's services. A tractor equipped with bucket for digging out the accumulated rubbish and armed with a brasher for cutting back scrub growth of all kinds, proceeds slowly along. It is shadowed by a largish truck with flashing lights announcing debroussaillage driven by a half asleep man in yellow visibility garments. It is the kind of combination one always meets just on a right hand bend....We remind ourselves we are deeply grateful for the work for, as far as we know, the Black Pond is mostly filled by rain from the road side ditches. (It might have a spring, we are not sure.)

Of course the dead tree is leaning slightly and, of course, it is our responsabilité civile to make sure it does not fall onto the road, or onto any cars using the road. So it has to be dealt with quite soon.

Fortunately Arnold had pointed out the dead tree to me just as the gardener who had dealt with the dead elm and the dying willow was back to deal with the stumps. So JP and I, with M. Bernard went to look at the problem from the woodside where the Black Pond has a wide bank with a number of trees, created when it was last dredged. The dead tree is about sixteen or so metres high. In order to bring it down safely a large number of its branches will first have to be cut off. This means some agile person, plus chain saw, will have to shin up the tree. Then a rope will have to be attached to the tree and to a heavy tractor on the ground to make sure the tree falls in the right direction - not on the road.

M. Bernard started talking about light weight carp fishing boats, to get to the tree, then making the tree fall across the Black Pond and then pulling it onto the larger woodside bank with his Chrysler camping car. Only that bank is about three metres higher than the surrounding land. My eyes closed and I began to think, no, no and no. The last person to take a boat into the Black Pond was Harry when the intake valve of the irrigation system had got blocked (tadpoles). There is no jetty to reach the water in the Black Pond, the depth of the mud is horrendous. No, no and no. We need a tree doctor, not a gardener. It needs to be done on the roadside, with flashing red triangles and impressive trucks to guide its fall. The cost will be quite another matter.

men problems

Since last week I have been brooding about Ahmed, the fork-tongued, pointy shoed, fast talking, self declared roofing expert. Or rather I have been

brooding over the almost impossible task of selecting excellent, reliable artisans.

One way is simply to pick up a card near whatever till you are at and ask the cashier (usually a girl) what is known about the artisan who is advertising his skills. I did this at the Mensignac baker's only a few days ago and was promptly warned off: he's a drunk, his wife's a cow, and he's lost his licence . A pretty comprehensive indictment which confirmed my telephone experience, always a semi-comatose woman answered the phone with the refrain he's out.

References from previous clients should be reliable but are not always so. Work styles and attitudes that suit one person may not suit another – we have had at least two experiences along these lines. On the other hand, M. Doly, he who is repairing Ahmed's omissions, was recommended to me by the local fire-brigade. I had telephoned to ask for help with a wasp's nest, a service it no longer offered. But M. Doly, a part-time fireman, had taken over. And every time I call him in a panic, either for myself or for the holiday makers, because there are hornets – Asian or local – he arrives within the day. Sometimes, much to the joy of visiting children, he puts on his full anti-hornet/wasp gear, helmet with all round shoulder length veil, elbow length gloves, trousers tucked into lace up boots. Very impressive, very effective.

On the whole we have been very lucky with the artisans we have employed. Some have been more skilled than others, some develop businesses that outgrow our relatively simple needs. Indeed, apart from Ahmed (my fault) only once in the thirty plus years we have been here, have we been truly taken for a ride.

It was in the very first few years and seemed so simple. JP had always wanted to plant trees of differing kinds at La Chaise. There are two very successful cedars, also two magnolias, some holm oaks and an entire pine plantation. He had plans for putting more walnut trees in the fields, for the existing trees were getting quite old.

Thinking back I cannot remember quite how the paysagiste who said he could undertake this job came into our orbit. But, like Ahmed, he was very plausible, talked knowledgeably of the different types of walnut – franquettes, parisiennes, – and was not dismayed when JP said he wanted the trees to be a double fin. That is, trees for wood as well as nuts, which implies a different way of pruning them.

The fields were selected, the emplacements for the young trees marked with a stick. The paysagiste suggested we employ a local entrepreneur with his own tractopelle (JCB). He said to give him a cheque for 3,000 francs, payee name unmarked, which he would take to his favourite plant nursery. Of course, we never saw him again, or our 3,000 francs, or the trees. And this is how we learned that cheques in France are sacrosanct, as good as money in hand. You cannot just stop a cheque because you are in a snit with the recipient. The upside of which is that one can accept cheques in all confidence – writing a cheque in France without the means to meet it is an offence which could deprive you of our checking account for several years. But it was an expensive lesson.

mothers and rain

What do rain and mothers have in common? Simple: whatever either does, someone, somewhere will say it is wrong.

A deluge came last week. It was mostly very welcome after the summer drought. But, of course, some of the rain got into the wrong places. Only a little tweak of the imagination and it is my fault.

Grass grew at the speed of day-light and fungi rose even faster during the night. The agarics were on steroids – caps of 8” across and more - much to the annoyance of the sheep, who seemed to enjoy kicking them over. Perhaps the wet, thin grass is not good for sheep digestions and so their temper. Especially since they had just got used to finding nice, dry chestnuts and acorns. Despite our many years of experience, we were dubious about eating the mega mushrooms as they no longer bore any relation to our habitual rosé des prés .

                                  Sheep one, mushrooms nil

One good result of the rain is that the last of the walnuts have fallen to the ground, ready for harvesting with the magic 'rugby ball' walnut sweeper. This is an amazing device, reportedly invented in California. It is made up of fine wires in the shape and size of a rugby ball, attached at either end to round discs. These are at the ends of a downturned V shaped shank which is fastened to a long handle. (Think of the old fashioned carpet sweeper.) This sweeper is rolled over the nuts which pop between the wires, then it is opened over a bucket by a cunningly placed hook on the bucket side. Now any elderly person can harvest fallen walnuts without bending down, which brings a whole additional harvest of nuts to market. Given that the size of walnut orchards is steadily shrinking, the price of walnuts consequently rising, this is a good thing. I claim credit for being one of the earliest to buy the walnut sweeper, even if not for me but for Arnold.

One bad result of the rain was a flood on the dining room floor in the Farmhouse. Heart in boots (actually boots on door-step so as not to dirty floor) I went upstairs to see where the problem lay. The wall behind the bath was sodden. Fortunately the new plaster board ceiling appeared dry. And then the probable cause occurred to me.

The wall at the back of the bath encases the tuyau d'evacuation des odeurs which is a much nicer way of saying 'stink pipe'. This is the pipe that carries the odours of fermentation from the septic tank, into the skies. (Theory, only occasionally fact.) It goes through a gulley in the roof. So it is highly probable that the seal round the pipe was destroyed by heavy rain.. Perhaps not properly sealed by Ahmed, he of the forked tongue and pointy shoes, self declared roofer, the last man up there.

My fault for not having it (or Ahmed) checked. There had always been a few patches of black mould on the plaster board when the rain had just come down gently. I had, apparently wrongly, always assumed it was due to careless use of the douche in the bath, or a poor seal between bath and wall, so that water would run down to the floor below. But this was the first time I had seen the bathroom wall absolutely drenched. Damp to that degree is not good for the bio-degradable walls of the standard Dordogne farmhouse. My bad. Waiting for M. Doly to come fix.

medieval musical hauntings

Integration is not all about accepting local hunting and eating habits. It can also mean involvement in local cultural happenings, however scary. The incomer will be secure in the knowledge that he or she will be seen to be part of the community, not least by the Maire,possibly the local MP. For me it might just upset other people's idea of me as an anti-social, tone-deaf, cook-only, bookworm.

It was in this brave spirit that I dragged my nearest, most musical, neighbour to a performance of medieval music in the medieval (translate: unheated) church of St Eutrope at St Aquilin, Sunday, October 14^th. The title of the concert was 'Jaufre Rudel, la Croisade d'Amour' or 'Jeffrey Rudel, Love's Crusader.' The ensemble performing was called 'Tre Fontane'* .

The second reason for attending was the story of Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaye, archetypal medieval troubadour (c. 1113 - 1170). We all know troubadours sang songs of 'courtly love' in which they adored unattainable ladies. The Prince of Blaye, with the help of the medieval equivalent of Facebook - men in tunics and tights on fast horses, carrying handwritten, wax sealed parchment reports - fell in love with the idea of the Countess of Tripoli, one Hodierne. He wrote many songs about far away love. Then he took the oath of fidelity and became a Crusader, embarking for the Holy Land.

Unfortunately, hygiene not being up to modern cruise-ship standards, he fell ill and was at death's door when when the ship docked at Antioch. The Countess, meanwhile, had heard of his devotion (see information transmission above) and made haste to the port. She took him in her arms, he regained consciousness long enough to look upon her face and die. She buried him with all honours and hied herself to a convent.

The third reason was a compelling curiosity about the musical instruments that would be played: (in French) nay, rebec, saz, luth, vielle à roue, bendir. It was not too difficult to work out of what a 'luth' and a 'rebec' might be – but a 'vielle à roue'? There were three male players, one a singer as well as an instrumentalist (nay, rebec, saz) and the songs in Occitan were interspersed with Andalusian/Arab instrumental ensemble pieces. The musicians, well into their second youth, produced a wonderful sound, high and clear, sometimes reminiscent of solo singers in church, not just because we were in a church. The instrumental pieces were haunting, sounds of far off, yet familiar lands.

The 'vielle à roue' was fascinating. It looked rather like a fat bellied violin laid across a player's knees. Aforesaid player then removed a couple of strings and replaced them with a single row of keys, above which there was a sounding board. The hand not on the handle was used to pluck the keys. I kept wondering what the handle actually did, whether medieval technology was up to shaping wood that accurately, how had the tunes been remembered before written musical notation was common.

The other instruments were less unusual, even to my philistine eyes. A 'saz' was just a lute (long handled lute or leather back turtle in Harrap's Anglo-French dictionary¹). The 'luth' was a standard lute and 'rebec' is rebec in English.

The 'bendir', looked rather like the tambourine musical inadequates are allowed to play in school orchestras, but without mini-cymbals. It was just, the dictionary loftily said, 'a percussion instrument'.

But, oh the disappointment with the English language! The wonderful vielle à roue' – caressed wood bellied violin shape with handle, strings, keys,the smoothest of sounding boards, creator of the most extra-ordinary sounds, romance personified in wood. The English call it a 'hurdy-gurdy.' I could cry.

leaving problems behind

The first thing one does when preparing to leave Paradise (aka La Chaise) for a holiday is to make lists. Lists of things to be done before leaving, of things other people should do, lists of things to be packed, lists of things to be put away.

So, the Saturday before the Tuesday that we were scheduled to leave, I had made my list of things about which I should make lists . I went down to the gîtes to see if everything was in order for my Thursday guests. The dead freezer in the Farmhouse was duly labelled hors service, the live one in the Shepherd's Cottage was firmly labelled 'svp pas ouvrir, contient produits congèles'. Both houses were supplied with loo paper, washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets.

I had a quick look in the sheep shed which the Wonderful Arnold had practically finished cleaning. It smelt a lot less of sheep and looked sufficiently hygienic not to upset urban people. The hornets, wasps and birds were occupied with the fig tree which was in full production and I hoped I had remembered to suggest my guests would take careful advantage of its bounty.

Then I saw Madame Landraudie coming down the drive. She was carrying a black rubbish bag. As she came closer I noticed that the bag dripped. It dripped blood and my heart sank. Madame Laundraudie is the only lady member of our chasse of St Aquilin which has the right to hunt in our woods. In recompense, every year, we receive some game. Obviously she was coming to deliver the usual Percival tithe.

We exchanged polite enquiries about each other's healths, that of our respective husbands and, on my part, on the success or otherwise of the beginning of the chasse season. Apparently it was not too brilliant. The frantic wood cutting that had been going on all around us has disturbed the game. Possibly a little too much enthusiasm the previous season had also reduced numbers.

So she apologised for the size of the piece she offered me, a very young chevreuil. We hoped the season would improve. As my mind raced frantically to work out what I would do with this piece of meat, and no freezer capacity, we moved to discuss the nuisible situation. I raised the question of the foxes that the W'ful Arnold had seen gambolling with the lambs in the fields; foxes that would stop me from keeping ducks or chickens again.

The good news, for me but not the foxes, is that the specialist fox hunter has been contacted and he will come with his specialist pack of hounds that will raise the foxes. (English country people skip the next bit, please.) Hunters will be stationed in the woods and, if we would be so kind as to bring the sheep in for a day, in our fields as well. Then the hunters would shoot at the foxes. We shook hands and I took my prize to the kitchen.

It was the forequarter of the chevreuil and I doubt if, alive, together with the other three quarters, it weighed as much as 30 kilos. I looked at it and copped out. No way could I joint, bone, roll this meat and not least because it had been very recently skinned and was still bloody. What to do?

So, on the way to Spain, car carefully we packed, we stopped at St Astier and I took the chevreuil to my butcher. I said 'please'. He said: vous inquietez pas, Madame, vous inquietez pas.' So, here I am in Spain, not worrying.