Quick update after a good if largely animal free week. (Ok, there’s a cat and a kestrel type bird…)

Firstly the car is fixed on Tuesday and our impression of French garages is as follows – they patiently put up with my attempts at French and charge for how long they took not what they quoted.  I largely failed to explain the Bagheera in the garage was in my Trump Cards when I was a small boy, I start trying to say stuff and have to see it thru…  On Monday our car (aka car) had lost gears twice within a 100 metres much to S’s annoyance as she was driving and toots from passing motorists didn’t help.

Accordingly were more than happy to pay the rather lower amount than discussed.  What’s more it seems that I agree for once with Putin and Kim Il Sun in that there is a place for re-programming in modern society.  I now know it helps with car things but I think the other two approve of that sort of thing more generally.

Fiat Bagheera… COOL!

To test the car we had a run south to Excideuil in the Dordogne – where we had muffins back in early January from a nice chatty English bloke.  This time we spent a bit more time, having a look at the Chateau and wandering into said impressive building/grounds.  We think you’re allowed to in that there no signs indicating you couldn’t and no-one shouted at us.  In fact there was no-one at all.  There we watched a small bird of prey chasing off a couple of crows displaying some fantastic flying.  Funnily enough there was more life in the place than in the first days of January and the market was just finishing.  It isn’t as big as SYlP’s btw.

Anyway we had a wander and after deciding to not go to the same place a second time – not that there is anything wrong with it – we ate at the Hostellerie du Fin Chapon.  It had been shut up when visited the first time but you’d never have guessed.  I menu de joured – grated carrot starter with endive, nice bit of beef with chips and green beans followed by a very, very good bit of apple tart.  S had an omelette and wine!  Excideuil is a friendly place in our experience in that the hostellerie’s cat was trolling about quite the thing pausing by those with interesting smelling main courses.  Of course she was getting nothing from me – I have a developing reputation for being a glutton – however on her second lap of the room she decided to clamber, with a little help from her claws, onto my lap where she settled down happily.  S nursed her coffee that little bit longer as I was clearly not allowed to go yet!  Eventually I rose carefully lifting my new pal but the couple of diners behind us who’d also been meowed at were also going so the poor wee thing had to find another lap for herself.  The car was fine on this 60+ mile round trip which was good news.

I continued my assisting Jan and Keith in their spring gardening efforts.  The task this time was decapitating a Bay tree which despite the complexity of the task we all survived.  Some Bay leaves are drying as you read on the window sill as is some fresh Rosemary.  What better excuse can there be for lamb for tea?

I was dunted on the head with one of the larger branches moving them after we’d finished the difficult bit (don’t tell Jan!).  It’d smacked myself a cracker on the low doorframe the day before however there is no sign of any lasting damage/improvement.  Hopes for the later have been cruelly dashed…

On Friday I got a hair cut at the same place as before.  My barber had a colleague with a brilliant French moustache and I chatted a bit more successfully.  Explaining that I had a lump on my head and making clear it wasn’t the wife skelping me as he hinted.  What a very good judge of character he is.

We remained in SYlP for lunch going for a second time to the Creperie.  They do rotisserie chicken which is a winner for me every time.  Can you get a DVD of revolving chickens?  I know you can get fiery hearths and fish tanks but it’s an idea.  (I’ll have 15%, ok, 10% of any profits if either of you make a fortune out of that idea).

The reason for a second lunch was that very much to my surprise I’d had a cheering e-mail that morning.  There a few English language publications here available for free at various places.  The glossiest is Living Magazine, it’s bi-monthly and they had a writing competition in the Dec/Jan edition.  I had a little think and deciding late against a piece of fiction sent them a bit about the benefits of going to watch local sport as a way of getting into life in France and meeting people.  No surprises there I suppose but I didn’t think that much more about it.

Anyway on Thursday morning I checked my e-mail and there was one about the competition.  Our modem does its best but is often slow so I just saw the preview lines talking about the high quality of entries.  Eventually I managed to open the message at the third log back in and saw that due to the number of entries they’d shortlisted some before choosing the Winner and two Runners Up.  Scrolling down to check if I had sneaked into the short list I was more than flummoxed to see I was a Runner Up!

I still can’t quite believe it and am pretty chuffed to be honest.  I didn’t think that my choice of topic was the best for an all women panel of judges (2 authors, an ex-script writer & the magazine Editor) however they obviously saw something in what I did.  It’ll be on the magazine’s website along with the next edition and I’ll provide the link then.

Having written loads of match reports – the audience for which is pretty captive – this result has been a shock and means I should really try and enter a few more similar competitions.  However, I can only really do worse from now on…

Surprising result!

We saw most of Charlotte Grey the other night – Cate Blanchet playing an SOE (Special Operations Executive) person who is parachuted into WW2 France to help the Resistance.  Having seen it before we couldn’t help feel our perspective has been changed by being near where it was set and after seeing so many roadside and town centre memorials…

The village that part of it was filmed in is not too far away and we may go there at some point.

Despite my efforts to find a nearby match there was no fitba for me this week.  So like many I switched over from the rugger to BBC Alba where the Rovers beat Alloa 2:1 with Vaughan (aka Voghan) scoring the winner.

Next week we have a longer distance trip planned and S and I are going for tea/coffee at Jose’s house (my pal from the fitba).  To be frank I’m more worried about that than I was about the car being at the garage!

This time’s animals are a red squirrel and 2 coypu’s, (maybe)…

Sarlat

Sarlat de Caneda was the destination of our first trip since the last update.  We headed south down the D704 into the Dordogne and ended up by mistake at a place we plan to go to some other time.  Continuing we got to the right place and parked up after paying to do so!  This is rare here and wasn’t expensive.  Sarlat is clearly used to a visitor or two to its formerly walled centre.  There are a few foie gras shops, quite a few in fact but it is lovely stuff!  It was a little overcast and tried to spot with rain but we wandered about having a good look.  We went to a museum in one of the old 14^th Century houses which was rather more interesting than it sounds but that was after lunch at the La Regent.  I had an excellent comfit of duck as S ate an omelette; having passed on a starter we of course had puddings – chocolate fondant for me and chocolate mousse for the Mrs.

Gaggle & S

Sarlat is a nice place with lots of pretty old buildings and wee lanes in the centre and some interesting shops.  Again there was a War Memorial with a section detailing those deported but who didn’t return, over a hundred including a disturbing number of women and children…  😦

Sarlat local

Taking advantage of a rather nicer day we went for a wee run to Pierre-Buffiere where we had a wander – no sit down lunch but a wee trip to a Boulangerie for a light lunch of mini-quiche and cake.  Pierre-Buffiere used to be on the coach route between Limoges and Toulouse where they changed horses and stopped for the night.  There used to be two castles of which little now remains.

Pierre-Buffire’s most famous son, Guillaume Dupuytren, was a leading light in the field of anatomy and study of that sort.  He donated a wodge of cash to his home town resulting in a nice park with a fountain and then followed a statue of him.  They statue and the ornate fountain were both removed in 1942 by the Nazi’s no doubt to be melted down for less savoury purposes…  The old pictures of both made me think I preferred their original use – I/we don’t seek out these things but it’s something that I’d never have thought of despite knowing railings were taken in the UK for similar purposes.

Just outside Pierre-Buffiere S saw two animals trudging purposefully across a field – her first guess of moles was quickly discounted (she’s a city girl) but after some research we reckon they were coypu’s tho I didn’t see them.

Pierre-Buffiere

There was a superb sunset the other day; it went from pink to orange – very pretty.  The clear night’s mean you can see the stars clearly all the ones I’d seen before and many, many more.  The old line about evidence of intelligent life elsewhere being confirmed by this planet being ignored these other beings has always seemed reasonable to me…

Pretty sky

We went to see Kingsman in French, half of the four people there on the cheap night!  Was fun and Colin Firth doing fights was a change.  Not a massive plot to follow but we more or less kept up with things.

Practicalities dictated a trip to the bank and another session with Sixteen which sorted out an address change in no time.  It’s been easier and more efficient each trip which must indicate some progress with the lingo.  We lunched in town at the Vice Versa where S was provided with what she said was a very tasty vegetable risotto which wasn’t on the Menu de Jour.  I had no such worries and piled into the salad then  Provencal pork with pasta followed by a light pear and yoghurt pudding.  All rather nice.

Wednesday and Thursday of last week were glorious.  Clear blue skies, sunny, bright and heading for 20 degrees, (a thing in town said 23.5 but it wasn’t that hot).  I did a walk to the re-cycling (on the 12^th) in a short sleeved top the first time since the 30^th of November.  It’s been a bit more overcast the last few days and the clear days have led to a slight frost overnight but it’s all very civilised.  My tan normally doesn’t begin this early.  Jan and Keith have been busy taking down a neighbour’s tree and I’ve been their trainee, junior assistant helping them clear up.  I wandered along the side of La Porcherie I saw a red squirrel scamper towards the pool bar.  Jan had seen one in eleven years here and Keith hasn’t seen one in that time – which made me feel a bit bad.

Is it me or has Lego got bigger?

The famous and tasty Limousin cattle were being judged at the Cattle Mart down the road.  We wandered along the line of bovines which seemed a little confused by rosettes that were plonked between their eyes.  A couple were obviously shy wearing blindfolds made of sacking.  Bullocks I hear you cry and you’d be correct.  Anyway they were all very well turned out, clean and brushed.  Some had been shaved a little along their backs, presumably to show off their physique.  We’ve seen a couple since back in the fields looking a bit overly done up.  All dressed up but nowhere to go poor lads…

Fitba bit

Sunday the 8^th saw me do the short trip to Ladignac le Long for a sunny afternoon some cup or other Quarter Final against Limoges 2.  There were about sixty people at the game and the full complement of, count them, three officials.  It was warm as far as I was concerned but I’ll admit to being the only person there in a short sleeved t-shirt who wasn’t on the pitch.  Limoges 2 unsurprisingly won 4:1 however the game was more even than the result indicated.  Limoges FC is the area’s biggest team by some way and their Second string had young talent aided by a couple of older, wiser players.  The visitors got an early goal and it was never in doubt from then on.  The home side were decent enough and created as many chances but lacked quality at the key moments.

Oddly one of the LlL midfielders looked the spitting image of a guy who goes to the Rovers now and again – it wasn’t him tho.

Last night (Saturday 14^th) saw my 7^th trip along the road to see St Yrieix.  Earlier in the day S and I were in a shop Le Caveau de Bacchus looking for a B’day pressie for no-one in particular (not that he’ll be reading this bit).  Anyway on previous visits I thought the chap looked like one of the SYlP players.  I enquired as there was only him and S to make a fool of myself in front of and sure enough I was right for a change.  He said that they were experimenting for the derby game with a couple of changes and agreed that goalkeeper had been a problem position.  He seemed pleased that some daft Scottish bloke had started going along.  The guy concerned is a decent player with good pace and a first touch that would shame a lot of Scottish Championship players.  Despite the low level I’m watching week in week out the players are often pretty good technically.

So to the match.  The visitors were La Roche L’Abeille 2 who are only a couple of k’s along the road from oor wee hoose.  It’s the ground I put some pics up on this electronic-tome previously.  Sadly I missed the away game just after we arrived not knowing it wasn’t very far away.  The Derby saw a larger crowd than normal of about forty and a reasonable number of away fans.  SYlP started on the front foot and the chap we’d spoken to earlier had the first chance.  My pal Jose wandered in after a couple of minutes and displayed his patience by joining me.

SYlP were the better side and despite numerous corners and half chances it was past the 40^th minute before the deadlock was broken.  Ricardo the ever dangerous home number 9 got a yard on the angle and fired past the stationary keeper.  This prompted me to say the guy was like a rabbit in the headlights which took a while to translate believe me!

In the second half the home captain sent a looping header up and over from a corner into the back of the net sealing the win 2:0.  Jose was a little surprised when I pointed out our colleague from the stand was now the SYlP guardien de but.  He however dealt with all he needed to without incident.

As I write this I don’t know what the other scores are but the league is likely to remain tight at the top.  SYlP’s win will do their efforts no harm. Ominously the SYlP captain was wearing strapping on his left thigh and the coach was playing – neither were very mobile to say the least.  Anyway it’s better for my wee team to be in the running for some silverware late in the season even if the Rovers aren’t.                                                                                                                                                                               End of fitba bit.

Car news!

The car has been being a bit odd gearswise.  Which has been a bit of a concern.  Jean-Mark one of our neighbours was unable to assist not having the kit to check it out as he works at a VW garage.  So we went to the local Ford place and sorted a rendezvous for it (it’s never had a name).  This sort of discussion is a bit different from the normal ones we have out and about but the initial assessment wasn’t too bad and further work – a not much cost – will hopefully sort out the issue.

The car!

To see what happens next see the next update – he said feebly trying to generate suspense and intrigue, etc…

Our latest news is that we don’t have flu, fitba has proven somewhat elusive and election fever has not quite broken out here.  This update is brought to you by a zebra, several llama’s and a tame looking peacock.

Of late S and I went to the Cinema to see The Joker – a Jason Statham film – in French.  The choice was in part as, no disrespect to him as an actor, his films tend not to be too complex plot wise.  It was an experiment and went ok in that we enjoyed the film tho probably wouldn’t pass any quizzes about the exact details.  Options for another trip will NOT include Cinquante Nuances de Grey or Bob l’eponge…

The language is proving a bit difficult to pick up without a formal informal scenario if you see what I mean.  We are getting dab hands at transactional stuff, getting food for a veggie and trips to banks, vets and such.  However opportunities for a proper blether in French seem more difficult to find but the quest continues – they can’t have all been warned off me already can they?  We’ll however keep you posted on this.

The weather has been decent here, rumours of snow last weekend came to nothing – the impact of this is in the fitba bit…  Limousin has the flu, or rather it has 50% more cases per 100,000 than the second most snotty, achy and coughy bit of France.  Which strikes me as unusual especially as this bit of France has a low and spread out population, but I’ll stop before start speculating and get all geographical.  This situation is not a proud boast for our adopted home and Keith has been struck down poor bloke.  Pleasingly he’s now on the mend.

Our excursion since my last missive took us to Bourganeuf, north east of Limoges.  We took a less direct route than we could have but were able to stop and have a look at Ambazac which was nice but a bit lacking in the Chateau department!

We pootled onto Bourganeuf just in time for lunch.  We dined on pizza after the door to the place (La Strada) had tried to fire S in and up the stairs.  I of course forgot its curious operation and departed the place with a loud bang.  We’ve not been barred as far as we know…

Bourganeuf is one of the places I had surveyed via Google Streetview on a break or while talking on the phone to a boring mental person or paedophile when I was working for the Council.  This helped guide our visit, the town was one of the first to have electric streetlights but the museum detailing this is only open in July and August foiling our seeking of further knowledge and a handy comfort break before the drive home.

Old Bit

As is not uncommon there is a Medieval core to the town and it’s a nice place, we liked it – shut museums and rapidly opening doors aside.

More time and effort than there perhaps should have been has been spent scouring chocolate aisles in Supermarkets trying to find dark chocolate with Pear.  This glorious culinary delight was discovered by accident in Lion-sur-Mer in Normandy (AKA Sword beach) a couple of years ago.  We found some in Bourganeuf at its Carrefour Market – if you can try some sometime we’d recommend it.  However yer no getin any o’oors!

Great building

On the way back we paused for the below photograph – Tim you are (nearly) immortalised here!

For Tim

He’s a lovely bloke and frankly deserves it.  It seems the kids there are a bit lively…  We got out ok, it must be my Community Safety background.

Otherwise we’ve continued to potter along happily.  On Friday past Gideon Osbourne bought us lunch.  Ok, not really but much to her initial concern and the bafflement of her employers HR team S has been getting money each payday.  It’s been identified as partial tax refunds and we decided to celebrate the latest with lunch in SYlP.  We went on Friday past which was the day of the fortnightly market – regular readers will remember this but fret not there is no quiz.

As we approached we were handed a leaflet by a bloke from Debout La France for the coming elections here in March.  There were also some Terre de Gauche folk with leaflets who I had to ask for one from rather to their embarrassment and some people we took to be UMP who were similarly less than pro active in giving out their propaganda.  Having myself tried to avoid spending time gossiping with colleagues when meant to be connecting with the non-committed it was nice to see it’s just the same here.

S stocked up on fruit and veg and I got some smoked duck wrapped around fois gras which is superb and well worth the 50e per kilo price, (I only got a small bit).

After the market with its barely visible political undertones we went for lunch.  S was catered for at the La Bonne Cave as she was last time –  there is still nothing for her on the menu!  I Menu de Joured as always which started with Tete Pate which was good if perhaps best not thought about too deeply.  A large lump of Salmon with a very fine sauce followed then the meal finished strongly with a light fluffy pudding that had fabulous cherries lurking in it.  Cheers ya Tory git!  S has asked that I point out we haven’t put on weight, which pleasingly is true.  J

Fitba

On Saturday the 21^st I managed to get to fitba.  SYlP equalised with a last minute re-taken penalty against Solignac making it 1:1.  The League table is shaping up for an intersting second half of the season with SYlP in the mix.  Champnetery – who’s ground we happened across the other day – seem rooted to the bottom of the table having lost 17:0 recently!  That could bring some consolation to any passing Cowdenbeath fans.

My normal pal wasn’t at the match, the cold (for here) reduced the crowd to about 9 and I’m pretty sure one of them was the Referee’s Dad!  One of my normal compatriots in the wee stand wasn’t there and I realised he was actually in goals for SYlP.  He played well having no chance with the goal conceded and doing very well to carry on after the visitor’s number 9 tried to kill him with a horrendous challenge.  Thankfully you’ll be pleased to hear he’s been playing for a smaller village side and that it wasn’t just his ‘turn’ to go in goals.  If that was the case my turn would no doubt make Champnetery guffaw wildly at a 20+ goal defeat for SYlP…

On Sunday past, the 1^st, I whizzed up the road to see SYlP in a top four clash v Moyette in Limoges.  Confused by the sudden disappearance of match details that morning I persevered and found the right place but no match.  It turned out the Haute Vienne had cancelled all the games in the region on the Friday fearful of the non-appearing bad weather!  Annoyingly I wasn’t aware of this but did get an unhealthy lunch and have a look at Limoges FC’s ground plotting a future visit to see them.  It was thus a bit less of a wasted trip.

I was last night welcomed to the Limoges FC fans group on the Facebookness and sure enough details of the whole scale postponements were on that…  Hindsight is a sod sometimes.  I got a message from the Admin chap and replied briefly which meant I got a mention on the main page as did the mighty Raith Rovers.

I have my eye on Limoges next home game on the 28^th – they are bottom of the League they were promoted to last year – and it will be interesting to go to a higher level game.  I bet you all can’t wait to hear about that…                                                                                     End of fitba

I know that you both will be wondering at the Dr Doolittle like reference at the top of this times blethers.  Well the circus was in town the other week and we happened to go past when a zebra and some llama’s were getting their tea.  Circuses are common here with animals, tigers, perhaps lions and even bears.  Oh my, I hear you.

The cat is living somewhat grudgingly on hypo-allergenic food the collection of which involved me helping a woman get her massive dog out her people/dog carrier and into the vet’s office.  The beast wasn’t very keen to say the least but inside the monster was weighed and it was 46 kilograms which is rather more than 7 stone in old money!

On various trips we’ve seem other llama’s who obviously didn’t make the showbiz grade (Peru’s Got Talent?) and a peacock that seemed to be more than at home on someone’s patio.  It’s not a problem when a cat or dog is the living room between you and the TV but a peacock would be much more of a problem.  Perhaps they could be trained to block out Ant and Dec or guff like the Scottish Premier League and River City…