Forecasts

St. Martial
Yesterday's weather: Mr Meteo got it wrong AGAIN!

Meteo.fr is the official weather forecast website for France*. You get a three-times-a-day forecast for 36 hours for the most localised weather and a 4 day overview for the whole of France or its regions. If you pay a subscription you can get a 'detailed' localised weather forecast for up to 4 days.

The weather is dear to our hearts. Not as much as to our neighbouring farmers, but we like to plan what jobs we can do in the morning or afternoon. If it is going to rain or be extremely hot (yes, it is sometimes) then we won't plan to do anything major outside. I have been putting off painting our gateposts for the right weather.

Yesterday we had invited friends to lunch. Mr Meteo, as we fondly refer to him as if he were a friend (not) had informed us that we would have mostly sunshine and a comfortable 22 degrees. The morning was glorious and we carefully set the table under the shade of the horse chestnut, not my most favourite of trees, but it does give excellent shade at lunchtime. By 12.30 our guests were expected, the sun went in, the temperature dropped and we were decidedly chilly under the tree. At 5pm they left. The sun suddenly appeared again and we had a beautiful sunny evening.

Question of the day: Would we pay a subscription for a detailed four day forecast? That's a tough one. If Mr Meteo can't get it right 4 hours in advance, then I think we will hang on to our money.

(Disclaimer)* Other weather forecasting websites are available

Cat and mouse games

Saint Pierre - Paul
Yesterday's weather : Well, at least it didn't rain - 20 degrees
Message of the day: There are no ordinary cats (Colette)


The kitten woke me up at 6am this morning scatching at the door asking to be let out. I tried telepathy to tell him to shut up and let me get some more sleep but obviously my telepathic powers were too weak. I should add at this point that we did not partake of the fizzy PF yesterday despite handing over a cheque to poolman, so despite my prediction, I am not sitting here wearing dark glasses.

The cats are a continual source of amusement, comfort and frustration since we moved to France. Those who know us well will be aware that they were house cats in their former lives and they have embraced the outside world with gusto - for the most part.

Take yesterday, for example. Jazz brought home a mouse. Not unusual in itself except that she thought she would share this one with us since she hadn't been home much for a few days and wanted to reassure us how much she loves us really. So Morris the mouse was brought into the kitchen. I was upstairs at the time so Jazz called me a few times to make sure that I would come down to meet Morris and show my due appreciation. Jon was in the garage listening to his garage music (this. I should mention was Handel on that particular morning it had been Tears for Fears earlier; we have recently been reunited with some long lost cassette tapes). You won't be surprised to learn that I did not immediately love Morris as much as Jazz obviously did, especially as he was currently running around the kitchen floor, trying to find a hiding place. Figaro, on the other hand was particularly keen to get to know him and thought a good game would be 'chase the mouse under the sofa and bat him around the floor'. Morris had other ideas, refused to join in and was last seen in Figgy's jaws being carted off into the garden to play hide and seek under the fig tree.


Later Jazz thought she would try out the new feature in the garden. Surely it's a bouncy castle put there just for her? She jumped on it to see how it worked. Unfortunately she found that the cover on the big paddling pool only floats when it doesn't have any weight on top of it and she also discovered that she can't swim........ I don't know how she found her way out but only her feet were wet.

Misty, of course, isn't a cat. Well, we think she is, but she is convinced that she is a grown up human being and watches the antics of the other two with the expression of a kindly grandparent. She is affronted when we have the audacity to put her in the kitchen with the other two at night because she should be allowed to sleep in her own bedroom (the study). She would really like to have her own dressing gown and carpet slippers for cosy evenings in front of the television and a nice cup of tea wouldn't go amiss right now because she was woken up by that noisy kitten too and it was just too early, a girl needs her beauty sleep after all. And so say all of us, Misty.

Planning - a secret to be shared

Message of the day: Wine a little, it makes you feel better
Sainte Irénée
Yesterdays weather - very mixed and just too cold for June! Must try harder....

Before we retired and moved over here our very dear friends let us into a little known secret. At the risk of excommunication from the Brotherhood of Retired Persons, I am prepared to share this secret with you all.

It is the secret of Planning Fluid.

It is a little known fact that the 'little grey cells' (Poirot fans will recognise the term) work much better when the body has been liberally lubricated with said liquid. The liquid can be white, pink or red (pink and white are preferable for hot days) and should be consumed with abandon before any decision is taken. We prefer the French variety of fluids, although Italian will do at a pinch. The fluid is produced in all areas of France, our own area is well known for a particularly heavy one, known sometimes as the 'black planning fluid'. Over-use of this one can result in the consumer taking to their bed and no decision being reached for several days.

My favourite planning fluid at the moment comes from Alsace (for hot days) and Bergerac (for the red variety). For extremely important decisions and when a final decision is imminent, we like to take the king of all planning fluids which comes in a big green bottle, is very expensive and is effervescent (I don't know when it effer vasn't - sorry, old pantomime joke slipped in there).

As we are about to pay a huge cheque to swimming pool man today, I think the fizzy type is called for later on. I suspect tomorrow's blog will be written from behind dark glasses.

Twitching and, er, (how shall I put this...?) - droppings

Saint Fernand
Yesterday's weather - just worse and worse

We wish we could recognise birdsong. There is such a variety of it here. Of course we know the blackbird, magpie, cuckoo, but the various small birds are more difficult to spot and as we don't know their songs we have to take a guess sometimes. There is one bird with a very complicated and exotic sounding song, we would love to know what it is. Meanwhile we are compiling a list of those we have seen or heard and recognised: hoopoes and nightingales are the rarer varieties we have come across, robins of course, redstarts, bluetits, coaltits, great tits, chaffinch, bullfinch and wagtails are fairly common. There are birds of prey but we can't be sure what they are. Not kites, red or black.

We also have a huge range of butterflies who are probably grounded now because of the rain. On Sunday afternoon we counted at least 10 varieties in as many minutes.

We found a few 'messages' around the garden the other day - I have been trying to find out who (what) left them and enlisted the help of a friend. Unfortunately he requested a photograph, which I duly took and mailed to him. We think it is hedgehog, which will be very welcome as there is no limit to food for him here, the slugs are enormous; unfortunately it may be a marten which is not such a welcome beast, especially if it gets into the loft space at all as they are known to be very smelly. Potential guests will be warned in advance if the marten takes up residence. Meanwhile we are poo-free in the house at least.

Forms, forms, forms

Saint Anthelme
Yesterdays weather: I don't want to talk about it (18 degrees). Currently stair rod rain!

It is imperative that one of the first things you do when you move to France, or a new area within France, is meet the mayor. So after 8 years of holidays and 5 months of living here we did just that today (procrastination being one of our character traits since we moved here). Monsieur le Maire is a very nice chap, talks a bit too fast for me to keep up with but as long as I get the main substance of what he is telling me, if I miss a word here and there, it isn't too much of a worry.

We went to see him to find out whether we need planning permission for the shed/garden house. In France you need to fill in a form to exempt you from filling in a form, so we have to complete a declaration de travaux so that we don't have to complete a permit de construire.

We will have to submit forms for both the pool and the shed, separately of course. They are both completed in triplicate with plans of the village showing our location, plans of the property showing where we intend to build the pool and the shed and plans of the shed and the pool separately. Apparently this will take 3 - 4 weeks to be approved but it will be approved, no question. I suspect that it will be normalement 3 - 4 weeks but we will go ahead and buy the shed anyway as it is on a 4 week lead and all should come together at the same time (probably in November).




The mayor gave us some news - apparently the village is absolutely crowded with anglophones..... English, Scots, Irish and we haven't met one of them, so I don't know where they are hiding. But then, they haven't met us yet either and I know where we have been for the last 5 months. He also tells us that there is a soirée quiz held in the village store/bar which is well frequented by the Anglo-Saxons. He then went on to tell us all the social activities planned for this coming season, starting with the big fair for all the local villages in two weeks time. It seems we could be looking forward to a lot of late nights this summer.

Sheds, shopping and lunchtime closing

Saint Prosper
Yesterday's weather: Beautiful - 28 degrees
Message of the day: Happy Birthday, Dave G.

A stormy night - I had to get up at 1.30 and let Figgy in before he drowned. Jazz is still out even now and it is chilly and raining this morning.

We are going to look for our 'garden room' today. We are looking for a cross between a shed and a chalet - or we may even end up with one of each, one for the garden tools and one for the garden furniture and pool accessories. We've been tipped off about a supplier with lots of choice about an hour west of here.

That is one of the problems we have come up against - everything is at least an hour's drive, and most places are closed between 12 and 2 (how civilised, an old-fashioned lunch break). If you don't get up early enough you have to wait until the afternoon to be able to get anything done. Not that we mind, although it can be a little frustrating if I have forgotten it is Monday and the bakers are all closed - that'll be no bread for lunch today then, especially as I didn't get up in time to make bread.....

Hay update

Our friend did go without his Sunday lunch yesterday. He appeared with his tractor and re-whisked all the hay into piles and then came back with his other tractor attachment to roll it into bales. We managed 6 for our small field - it makes ya feel very proud y'know.

Flies, damned flies and whiskers (not on the cat)

Message of the day: HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA!!
Saint Jean-Baptiste
Yesterday's weather: mixed cloud and sun - no rain - 21 degrees (today is fantastic already!)

One of the most annoying things we have here is flies. They arrived at the end of May in their millions and I must say that the entertainment value of seeing who can swat the most has long worn thin. We have put up temporary fly screens at the windows and door so there aren't too many indoors now - although to give you and idea of what we are up against, even so we regularly swat around a dozen in the kitchen every hour or so and probably twenty before we go to bed at night. I'm sure that any Bhuddists reading this will be horrified, and much as I don't enjoy killing things, flies are our exemption. Outside is a nightmare. We can't sit on the patio without being hassled but luckily in the shade it is much more comfortable - they are sunbathing flies! At least they don't bite - my collection of insect bites is still quite colourful, I'm hoping that one day I will become immune - creatures don't think Jon tastes quite as nice as me. When our new windows arrive (normalement this will be in September but we are hoping before summer 2008) we hope that the integral fly screens will help solve the problem indoors - but if anyone knows of a good solution for outside, do let us know. Whiskers
Picture of the day is the field being whisked. Monsieur Deneux was busy yesterday afternoon whisking all his hay before it will be collected up into rolls. As rain is forecast for tomorrow we are wondering if he will forego his day of rest today - the weather is fantastic this morning, 22 degrees at 10am.