Tag Archives: France

Bellringers, Breakdowns and A Buffet Lunch

Posted on by Steve Higgins

The time has come round once again for Liz and me to bumble along in our little motorhome and take in the sights and sounds of la belle France.

Sometimes you make a big mistake and don’t realise it until months later. Many weeks ago we checked our diaries and searched through ferry websites looking for the best deal to travel over to France but it was only a few days prior to departure that we realised we had booked to travel on the August bank holiday. Well, how bad could it be? Really?

Things didn’t seem too bad as we motored down the M55, but then we hit the M6 and the nightmare began. All the way down south we encountered delays, accidents and roadworks. We were due to arrive at the friendly Jolly Boatman pub, where we had arranged to park for the night after some food and a few beers. We had anticipated arriving at about 5, giving us a good two hours to settle down and relax with a cup of tea before cleaning ourselves up and dining at seven.

A few days earlier I had begun to think that I should have booked an earlier slot and that perhaps 7pm was a little late. As it happened, we pulled up, had a quick wash and were out just in time to take our seats for that 7pm reservation.

After a lovely meal and a few pints of some excellent Cornish pale ale, we turned in for the night, secure in the knowledge that we weren’t too far away from the ferry terminal at Portsmouth.

Leaving Portsmouth behind

Cue another nightmare journey of roadworks and crashes but we managed to get to Portsmouth on time. It was a lovely voyage and we had booked a great cabin for the trip. The only problem was that even though we docked in Caen on time (10pm), French customs took so very long that it was well past 11pm when we were finally able to get onto the French highways and look for our pre‑arranged parking spot — a quiet car park just by a lovely old church.

One of the problems of parking by a French church is that during the night the church bells will be ringing the hours. I was awoken very early with the bells ringing for 6am. Later — I’m not sure what time it was — the bells rang again, with the local bellringers going through an impressive résumé of their bell‑ringing talents. Note to self: think again when parking near a church.

The queue for customs control

The next day we drove south through the French countryside and finally arrived at our rented gîte in the lovely village of Parcay‑les‑Pins. Normally, we would tour around in our motorhome, stopping at various places for a week or so and then arrive at the villa. This time, however, the gîte’s availability forced us to spend time at the villa first and then tour later.

On day two of our visit we decided to drop in for lunch at the Restaurant de la Gare, a short drive away. We settled in for a buffet starter and a main course of haché, a local dish of minced beef and potatoes served with bread, wine, water and cider. As the nominated driver I tend to drink the cider, which is very low alcohol. I finished with a cheese board and a dessert of île flottante.

Not long after leaving the restaurant we were travelling along a quiet lane on our way back to the gîte when the engine shuddered and stopped. The sun was burning down and there we were, stuck on a country lane where I had just managed to limp over to a grass verge. There was nothing to do but check our insurance — which happily included breakdown cover — and wait to be rescued.

Our stricken van by the roadside

We received various texts and on one occasion, a map which showed the location of the recovery driver relative to our position but after a closer look, our position on the map didn’t really match up with our actual location. I was rather worried but then an English couple stopped to ask if we were okay. It so happened they were the owners of a local bar in our village that we have not visited for a while — perhaps it’s time for another visit just to thank them for their welfare check.

I was thinking that perhaps we should call the recovery company to check on the driver’s location when our rescuer arrived. He quickly saw the fault which he said could be rectified, but the van would have to be taken to the local garage. He dropped us off at our gîte and we grabbed various things out of the van but it was only as he drove away that we remembered several other items: my books and a change of clothes. Liz’s sun bed and a whole raft of other things. Luckily, the contents of our fridge and various boxes of wine and other alcoholic delights had already been transferred to the gîte as well as our little gas barbecue.

I reckon we might just survive after all!

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More French Stuff

Posted on by Steve Higgins

When we get close to my publishing deadline, the usual one of Saturday at 10:00am UK time, my inner manager starts to mither me. I usually get things like Steve, it’s Thursday, has your proofreader checked your post yet? Have you got the graphics ready? Any pictures? What about video links? I get the same thing on Friday except in a slightly more urgent tone; STEVE! IS THE POST READY YET? And so on.

This week I seem to have arrived at Friday with only two partly written posts and one of those is a longer version of a post I’ve done before. I wasn’t sure what to do and then I came up with an idea. What about merging the two posts together?

Wait a minute, merging the two totally different themes into one stand alone post? Is that possible? Suppose I used all my writer/blogger creative authorly skills and actually did that? I’d be a sort of creative writing genius, well I would, wouldn’t I?

OK I said. Let’s give it a go.

Some weeks ago I thought it was about time I sorted out my water rates. They are pretty low but they are in my late mother’s name. She died many years ago and I did inform the water people. I mean they send messages to my phone, send emails to my email address. I had a feeling that they had mixed up Mr(s) Higgins with Mr S Higgins, just like they used to do years ago when I lived at home. Anyway, I called up the water people, put them straight and immediately they put up my water rates to a quite shocking figure. That can’t be right, I complained. Well, the only way they could reduce the bill further was by fitting a water meter. Could they sort it out before I left for France? As it happens, yes, they could.

As I don’t really spend a lot of time at home, I’m either up in St Annes with Liz or off out in our motorhome, I was hoping that the water meter could be a really big saving. Anyway, the guy from the water board (United Utilities in 21st century speak) arrived on time and he was really good, a really friendly, chatty and helpful guy, a huge improvement on the last person to come to my house to do work who had exactly zero people skills whatsoever.

I was a very happy guy but a few days later I got a text from the water people. It asked me to reply using numbers, 1-10, to rate the service I had received. Naturally I texted 10.

The response was instant. We don’t understand your message, please call 0800 blah blah blah. Text deleted. Why did I even bother?

Anyway, part of this blog is supposed to be about my holiday in France so let’s talk a little about that.

Our holiday was a sort of mixed bag. The first week we were away the weather was pretty good and then it went cold, actually really cold. The first week was spent travelling which can actually be really nice in a motorhome. My iPad and laptop come along with me as well as a selection of books so I have all sorts of things around to keep me entertained. Usually, we travel to places that have a plan d’eau, a swimming lake so we can have a dip and simultaneously cool down and enjoy a little exercise. This year we made straight for a house that we regularly rent in the village of Parçay les Pins and it was there, just as we settled down by the pool with the barbecue pretty much set up and ready to light, that the weather turned cold. It was like that for almost 3 weeks.

Although it was cold, our pool was heated so we could swim in it which we did, although the hard part was actually exiting the warm pool into a rather cold wind. Still, after a spirited swim and some equally spirited towelling followed by the quick popping on of a fleece, everything felt rather good. We even managed to barbecue outside, both wrapped up in our fleeces again although we were able to dispense with them when the sun came out and then quickly grab them when it went cold again.

One day, round about the beginning of our last week there, the heat suddenly ramped up very quickly. It was almost as if some unseen hand had switched on the exterior central heating and things went from cold -we were wearing fleeces and had the inside heating on- to T-shirt and shorts weather, in fact most of the time it was too hot for even a T shirt.

A typical day on holiday goes something like this. I usually wake up about 7am but as our motorhome has a fixed bed and my place is over by the window I either have to climb over Liz to get out or just turn over and go back to sleep.

Usually, I just go back to sleep. Round about 10am is a good time to surface and put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea. Like any decent English man and woman, we believe that the day’s business cannot possibly begin until after a cup of tea. Round about 12 we might gravitate towards the bathroom for a wash and brushing of the teeth and for me, a shave. On this trip our water pump conked out so we had no choice but to fill up numerous containers with water and use one of those to fill up the basin.

Breakfast, this being France, is usually a croissant sliced in half and buttered and filled with jam. Then we are all set to either hit the road or relax outside and perhaps read a book or take a swim, assuming we are parked by a lake somewhere. This year we didn’t do much lake swimming but we did spend a lot of time in the pool of our rented house.

At the weekends and bank holidays we tend to go off in search of village fêtes and vide greniers. Vide greniers are the French version of a car boot sale and usually these events will always have a bar serving beer and wine as well as a food tent which will usually be frîtes (chips) and sausages. Little village committee members man the bar and food areas and sometimes things will be very organised although some will be the exact opposite. One fête we visited had a caisse, a cashier who sold everyone plastic tokens (jetons) and these tokens were used to buy drinks and food. If you had any left over you had to return to the caisse and cash in your tokens.

In the evening we would usually have a barbecue, made much easier these days by our little ‘Camping Gaz’ gas barbecue which means we don’t have to wait yonks for the barbecue to get going or have to have it relit (a common occurrence when I’m in charge of the coals). Yes, our little gas barby clips together in minutes, the gas bottle is slapped into place and we are ready for those burgers.

On our last week it was so hot I was usually a big sweaty mess after carrying out the cutlery, food, drinks and everything else so it was actually pretty wonderful to slip into the pool just before eating and cool down.

Stepping out of the pool into a warm towel and a cold glass of rose must be the height of luxury. I certainly thought so!

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French Stuff

Posted on by Steve Higgins

We started out on our usual May mtorhome holiday with a trip down to the south of England staying at a place we have stopped at before. The Jolly Boatman is a pub by the side of the Oxford canal which winds its way from the south of England all the way to Birmingham. The Jolly Boatman is a little bit pricey for us northern folk but even so, it’s a friendly place and the food and beer are nice.

After a stay there we made our way over to Newhaven ready to board the ferry to Dieppe the next day. We stayed overnight at the Hope Inn in Newhaven, another pub which allows motorhomers to stay in their car park as long as you eat or drink in their establishment.

As it happens Liz had done some very thorough research and found that not only did the Hope Inn serve food but also there was a quiz night on the very night we had arranged to stay. So, we ordered some beers and a nice selection of Tapas and as much as I’d like to say we won the quiz, we sadly didn’t. Even so it was a fun night.

The next morning it was a short hop over to the ferry terminal and a few hours later we arrived in Dieppe. From there we drove down to one of our favourite stopovers in France, the L’Escale restaurant just south of Rouen.

The manager always welcomes us and lets us park in the staff car park away from all the overnighting wagons and HGVs. On this night though the following day was a bank holiday and as the place would be closed we had to park in the car park. We got chatting to a couple of English HGV drivers there who told us that French wagons are not allowed to run on the bank holiday but they were still planning to drive on anyway and risk being stopped by the French police as their boss wanted them back home.

The next day dawned lovely warm and sunny. The bank holiday was to celebrate VE Day, Victory in Europe Day back in 1945. 81 years ago!

For tea we had salad and cold meats, one of my favourite meals for a hot day, washed down with plenty of red wine of course. Afterwards the fromage came out and we sat and ate our cheese as the sun gradually dipped down over the horizon. In the warm evening the soft French cheeses melt and take on a new consistency as we smooth it over our crusty bread. There is something so very exotic about having cheese and wine on a warm evening, something that happens only rarely in England.

My favourites are Rondelé Bleu, a commercial cheese found in various supermarkets in France and a good Tomme. Tomme de Savoie is my real favourite but today we are eating Tomme de Montagne which is really lovely.

It is really only in restaurants where my poor schoolboy French comes into its own and I can ask for a table pour deux and a cinqante centilitre pichet of vin rouge and by the way what is the plat du jour?

One thing I feel I do know in France are my French numbers although I do have a blind spot around sixteen; onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, something (actually seize) and then dix sept, dix huit, dix neuf and vingt. Sixteen gets me every time.

I’ve always thought that it is interesting how the French use numbers for instance in a telephone number. Let’s take a made-up number, 0161 932 4646 for instance. We English would just repeat the digits so we’d say oh, one, six, one and so on. For the French this is far too easy, they say the number in multiples of two so for that 0161 number they would say, zero one, sixty one, ninety three, twenty four and so on! The larger numbers in French are really odd. Sixty in French is soixante but seventy is soixante dix; sixty and ten. Ninety is even more difficult: quatre vingt dix; in other words, four times twenty and ten!

I do love the French way of eating, the entrée, plat, fromage et dessert and plenty of bread, I do feel though that French cuisine is a little over rated. The fact of the matter is, some of the things that the French like to eat, well, they are just a little bit odd.

If you think about it, you can perhaps imagine ancient man many thousands of years ago. Picture him now, taking a good look at something like a cow for instance and thinking, “you know, bet there’s some tasty meat on that animal. I could slaughter it, cut a thick wedge of meat off, slap it on a griddle over the fire, some salt and pepper and bet it would taste lovely!” Yes, that’s thinking that I can understand, especially later when that same ancient man refined his original idea by adding a baked potato or a few chips to the meal and maybe even a side salad.

The ancestors of today’s Frenchmen must have thought in a different way, well different to us Anglo Saxons that is. Just imagine some ancient Frenchman in the same situation but instead of checking out the cow he has his eyes on a frog, hopping merrily about and croaking, as they do, and he begins to think like this: “Hey, wonder if I killed that frog, chopped its legs off and cooked them in a little garlic, what would they be like?” A thought that would never occur to any right minded Englishman in a million years! Imagine another Frenchman, coming out of his cave on a damp morning and noticing a lot of snails wandering about in his back garden: “Hey, why don’t I cook those with some shallots and garlic?” he thinks. “What a great idea!” Wrong! Crazy idea! Take another look at that cow Monsieur!

A few years ago a worrying situation occurred when a random warning light appeared on the dashboard of our van. A quick check on Google showed it to be an engine fault. I started to worry that the engine might be ready to conk out so we went to a friendly garage and they plugged in their diagnostic equipment. They weren’t sure what the problem actually was so they suggested we go to a Ford garage as our van was of course, a Ford. The garage wouldn’t accept any money so we went off to a Ford garage and after what seemed like hours they emerged from their garage and told us not to worry, the engine was ok to drive but you owe us 150 Euros!

This year the same engine light popped up again even though the van had been serviced just a few days prior to us departing the UK. Once again I looked up the fault on Google and once again found the bland answer; engine fault. This time I noticed a YouTube video come up in the results and thought it might be worth a look. A slightly embarrassed Asian man told his viewers that the fault could be one of 4 things, the first one being that the diesel cap was not shut properly. Pause the video while I check the diesel cap and yes, I had not put it back on correctly. Cap sorted and I turned on the ignition and the fault had cleared! If only I had seen that video last year!

We had another small issue with our van on this holiday which I hate to admit was probably entirely my fault. After getting the van up and running again now that spring is here I filled up the water tanks ready for our trip. One thing I neglected to do was shut off the tap in the bathroom when I locked up. (During the winter months I drain all the water and leave the taps open.) With the tap still running all the water emptied but happily still left open was the waste water drain plug otherwise I would have flooded the van!

Anyway, I shut off the taps and filled up again and everything seemed ok but the taps kept making a harsh gurgling noise. Later they conked out completely so when we get home I’ll have to get a new water pump and find someone to fit it. I’ve always wished I was one of those men that can fix things, you know like leaky taps, fit outside electric lights, knock down and build walls, sort problems out on cars and so on. There was a time many years ago when I could change the oil on my car, change the spark plugs and do other stuff. Those days are but a distant memory and once back home I’ll be surfing through Google trying to find someone who can help.

Surfing though, I am quite good at that . . .

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Travelling and Writing in France

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Once again Liz and I are in France in our small motorhome. This week I thought I’d talk about our journey and also about my personal journey as a writer.

We came over on the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen after spending the night in a small pub called the Jolly Boatman somewhere in the south of England, actually Kidlington, I think. We have visited this pub once before back in May and it was nice to find that the staff remembered us even after just one visit. The trip over on the ferry was good. We paid a little extra for a top of the range cabin and it was well worth it. We had a little balcony, a tv, kettle and various cold drinks in the fridge. After a bit of a sleep and a shower, we awoke refreshed and ready to find a place to stop for the night in France.

The great thing about France is that motorhomes are welcomed with plenty of free overnight stopping places with toilet emptying facilities and fresh water. Some places require a jeton, a token that can be bought in local shops to obtain fresh water but otherwise most places are free. In England, many seaside places seem to just complain about motorhomes parking up for free but surely those motorhomers are using local shops, bars and restaurants and bringing trade into these local communities.

The Jolly Boatman

The weather wasn’t great at first so we ploughed on south towards Bordeaux in search of the sun. Liz is a great navigator and a real master of google maps and she found us some lovely stopping places, one in particular with a man made beach and a lovely swimming lake. We needed that lake to cool down as the weather became seriously hot.

When I’m away I like to have a couple of blog posts written in advance as travelling in our van I don’t always have time to write. Not only that sometimes it’s hard to get a good wifi signal to upload my posts. Recently I’ve been not only lazy but actually struggling a little  for blog post ideas. A few months ago I met up with an old friend I hadn’t seen for a while and he seemed less than convinced that I could write a new post every week. I’ll bet you use ai to write them he joked. I wasn’t amused.

To be honest, I do use ai, not to write posts but to make the quirky memes and graphics that I use to promote my blogs. This is one over to the right. I had never even thought about using ai to actually write a post. Even so, I thought as I was a bit low on ideas it might be interesting to ask ai what I should write about. It came up with a plan for a post asking me to answer various questions about my work. Anyway, here are a few of them.

Share how you got started writing and what inspired your first book.

I can’t really remember what inspired me to write. I can only say that having been a great reader, I wanted to be on the other side of the coin, so to speak: Not just reading the thoughts and ideas of others but also sending my own thoughts and ideas out there too. I like the feeling of communicating not only to others but communicating over the years. I remember reading Homer’s Odyssey and thinking that here was this man, Homer, sending me his thoughts and ideas across the centuries that lie between us and that his ideas carried on after his death.

Talk about your creative routines (or lack of them) — do you write in bursts, or steadily each day? 

I’d like to tell you that I have a routine but actually I haven’t, although I do try to create a sort of routine. What I tend to do is think a lot about writing. I’ll think of a story or a blog, usually the time in a morning when I have woken up far too early and I’ll ‘write’ a blog or a story in my head. I’ll file that away in my head and then either go back to sleep or get up and after breakfast I’ll open up my laptop and write it all down. Sometimes I’ll spend weeks writing a story in my head and when I’ve got a lot of ‘copy’ I’ll start actually writing or typing it out. Years ago I used to use a technique by a self improvement guy called Jack Black who invented something he called Mindstore, a way of using positive thinking to improve your life.

It involved creating an entire imaginary house inside your head with various rooms, just like in a real house. In the bathroom for instance, you could take a breathtaking shower that energised and restored you ready for a big meeting or interview. One room I created was a room for storing my stories and when I’m not in front of my laptop that’s the room I use to write and save my work. My website and my one deadline of 10:00am on a Saturday morning gives me a focus to work at my stories and blog posts and get them ready for publishing. Writing this week has been difficult as Liz and I are working our way across France in our little motorhome although by the time you read this we will have arrived at the lovely gîte we rent in the village of Parçay-les-Pins.

Explore what you love (and what you struggle with) about being self-published.

I love writing and I love publishing my work. I write purely for myself and I write about things I like reading about but I do get a particular buzz every time someone hits that ‘like’ button. What do I dislike about it? Well, I did hope that I could actually make money from writing but so far, that’s just a dream although I do make a few pennies every time someone buys a copy of one of my books. Anyway, I enjoy writing and I’ll carry on writing my blog for as long as I continue to enjoy it. When I no longer enjoy it, I guess I’ll just have to find something else to do. What do I struggle with? Grammar and spelling mostly but luckily, Liz is pretty hot on both of those things and it is she who goes through my work and gives it a good checking over and she’ll correct all the bad tenses and spelling mistakes that appear frequently in my blogs.

A few days ago it was our anniversary. The day before we were parked in a really lovely place with picnic tables and a lake and I thought it would be a good idea to stay and move on the next day. Liz felt that she would rather have a good restaurant anniversary meal so we set off in search of a place to eat that night. Now, the thing about the Loire is that the French don’t seem to eat out much at night. There are plenty of restaurants but most only seem to open for lunch which is the main meal of the day for the French. We tried and tried to find a place but all seemed to be only open for lunch. We found one place, conveniently near a motorhome parking spot but the menu was not only very expensive but didn’t inspire either of us. It was getting later and later and eventually we decided to stop when we saw a kebab takeaway. Takeaways are few and far between in France so we bought a couple of kebabs, parked up for the night and poured us both a glass of vin rouge.

The wine was good but the kebab wasn’t but happily we had plenty of French cheese and bread to round off the meal!

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Motorhome Living

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Once again Liz and I are pottering about France in our small motorhome. I thought that this week I’d give you, my readers, a quick update on where we are and what we are doing.

As usual we have been travelling around the Loire. We really do love this area but the one annoying element is that in the Loire, the locals rarely venture out for an evening meal. Many times, Liz, the navigator in our travelling partnership, has spotted an excellent parking area not far from a highly rated restaurant and what do we find? The restaurant is closed.

Sometimes, that isn’t the end of the world. One of the great things about being in a motorhome is that we do have provisions in the fridge and the cupboards and I really do love it when we stop by the side of the road and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. If we happen to pass by a boulangerie or a supermarket we might pick up some bread or croissants for breakfast and the whole combination; croissants, teas, and a lovely picnic area is frankly, wonderful.

Time for something completely irrelevant: This morning I woke up with a really annoying song in my head. The whole tune was there but I just couldn’t make out the words. It was something catchy, something about dancing and something from the 1980s. Was it Dancing Queen from Abba? No.

Anyway, back to motor home life. One thing about restaurants in the Loire, as I said earlier, is that they will always let you down. One place that we know is always open is a restaurant called L’Escale. The owner always welcomes us and even asks us to park in the staff area where he knows we won’t be woken early in the morning.

Anyway, twice this holiday we have arrived at L’Escale and both times they were closed! We weren’t happy. Anyhow, on one of those occasions we drove on and supported by the motorhome app Park4Night, we found a wonderful parking spot by a French post office. There was a designated area for motorhomes and over by the corner of the car park was a river flowing through the town. Just by the river was a small wall and so we popped our small gas barbecue on the wall, set up a couple of chairs and barbecued a couple of burgers with some quickly made salad. It was lovely. There were quite a few French passers by who all wished us ‘bon appetit’. Yes, that was a nice evening.

Back to that song. Let’s Dance by David Bowie? No, I don’t think so. Where had that song even come from? It’s quite a few weeks since we have been to our local pub quiz which has an extensive music round. No, the song wasn’t a hangover from that, I was certain.

Over here in France I tend not to listen to the radio. In the UK I feel that I am very much an ‘automatic’ driver. That is to say I tend to drive on autopilot while my conscious mind thinks about things like blogs and what to write about next. Here in France when I’m driving on the other side of the road, I can’t let my mind wander like that. I actually think that here in France, I’m a better driver than in the UK just because I really concentrate, I really think about my driving. In the UK, most of the time, especially on familiar roads, I am mostly on autopilot.

I often wonder whether I could actually give up my home and live in a motorhome. I’m not so sure. Our motorhome is a small one based on a Ford Transit cab and chassis. It has a fixed bed, a small kitchen area and an even smaller bathroom. The bathroom can be made into a shower are area although we have only used it once and that was when we drove south through France and into Spain.

The cooker has only three gas rings and the main one has just lately declined to work properly. Most of the time when we eat we are outside in the sun with our small gas barbecue. Take a quick look at this short video from 2022, when we came back to France after the Covid epidemic.

A few years ago the film that won the Oscar for best film was Nomadland. It’s about a woman who has lost her job and decides to go on the road in her motorhome or RV as they call it in the USA, to look for work. She finds various jobs with companies like Amazon who allow their workers to park and live in their RVs. Being a temporary job the film’s heroine, Fern, has to move on in search of another job. She meets various other nomads at a desert rendezvous where she picks up various skills about how to live on the road. At the end of the film, she returns home to dispose of her other belongings that have been kept in a storage unit. Then she goes back to her life on the road.

It’s an interesting film told in a sort of slow documentary style and to answer my own question, no, I don’t think I could live in a van permanently. I like my creature comforts too much and being a pretty big fellow, the smallness of our motorhome sometimes grates on me.

Just to finish off that fairly irrelevant question about music I mentioned earlier. I tried harder and harder to pick up some words from that tune and eventually, after some serious mental exercising, I came up with a lyric from the song which was we can dance. Yes, the song was The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. It was a UK hit in 1984 when I was at the peak of building up my vinyl singles collection. Happy days!

What to do next: Here are a few options.

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Wet Weather Writing

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Liz and I have always been pretty lucky with the weather on our holidays. This year in Lanzarote we experienced the best winter sun we have ever had. In late January and February, we had five weeks of sun with hardly a bad day. Well, we did have the odd bad day but they mostly consisted of a few hours of cloud and once, a short rain shower. This year in France we weren’t so lucky.

I can remember a lot of wet weather holidays as a child. Days in caravans reading books and comics while the rain poured down. Fish and chips in seaside cafes keeping warm and dry. A few years ago Liz and I had a very wet holiday in France. We spent a lot of time indoors in our small rented cottage. I used the time to sort out the manuscript for my book Floating in Space. The manuscript has a very disjointed history. I began the book in the 1980s, writing in longhand in a notebook. Later, I updated the story as I typed it up on my typewriter.

Later still I got hold of an old word processor. It was called a Displaywriter if I remember correctly and had floppy disks the size of old 45 rpm vinyl singles. Then came the computer revolution and once again I copied the text onto my new device. I backed up my work onto standard sized floppy discs but then came disaster, a big PC crash. My PC was under guarantee so it was shipped back to the manufacturer and came back a few weeks later all nicely repaired, updated but without all my saved files.

The big problem was the back up files, I just couldn’t find them, so once again I started from scratch and put the novel together from my typed version and my longhand originals. When I’d got to the three quarter point of the novel I found my back up disc but then I had two versions, both slightly different. That’s the thing when a writer starts rewriting, you get new ideas, you take the characters into new situations, you tell the story in a different way. So anyway, I did the only logical thing I could at that time, I threw my hands up in despair and walked away.

Later, much later, Liz and I had the wet weather holiday in France mentioned above and that was when I decided to sort the whole thing out. I went through the two versions, deleted a whole lot of stuff, rewrote the ending and managed to knit all the different sections together. I was pretty pleased with myself at the time. I’m a fundamentally lazy person so when I manage to get off my lazy behind and actually do some good work, I always feel pleased about it.

This year in France the first week was pretty good, weather wise. I particularly wanted to visit a place in France called Lochnagar. It’s the crater from the biggest explosion in WWI. In 1916 in the First World War there were two opposing forces facing each other. The German invaders on one side and the defending Allies on the other. They fought each other with guns and artillery but they also fought in another more unexpected way. Both armies were tunnelling under the front and the British dug their way under the German lines, packed a huge amount of explosives in an underground cavern, lit the blue touch paper and boom! That was the biggest explosion of the war and it left behind a pretty big crater.

Today the resulting crater is still there. Back in 1916  the 179th Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers tunnelled under the German lines. Explosive charges were laid and detonated at 07.28am on the morning of July 1st 1916. The explosion marked the beginning of the battle of the Somme, the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. The British suffered 54,470 casualties on that first day including 19,240 fatalities. In return they gained just three square miles of territory. The offensive lasted till the 18th November and the total casualty list for the Allies topped 620,000.

The crater is a stark reminder of the First World War. Today visitors like me come to look and to remember. There are many memorials and even the wooden walkway around the crater contains elements that have been paid for by donations and the names of long gone soldiers are inscribed on its wooden planks. I had thought that perhaps the crater might have filled with water and become a lake but today, despite its covering of grass, it still looks an odd and unnatural part of the landscape.

Wilson44691, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The previous day we visited the nearby museum of the Somme battle. It was quite expensive to enter and there was a separate charge to go through and see the Somme memorial. I kept to the museum and wandered around looking at the rusty old shell casings and machine guns and helmets and thought of the young men who lost their lives in that terrible conflict. In another room I watched the old black and white films of the war which played in various languages and in a final room the last exhibit was a replica aircraft. It was a Nieuport originally piloted by Georges Guynemer during the battle of the Somme.

If I’d have been given a choice, I reckon I’d rather have been in that flimsy aircraft than down in the trenches.

After a week exploring the north of France we slipped further south to take up residence in our rented villa. As much as I love our motorhome I much prefer the luxury of a big house with a swimming pool. The weather wasn’t great but even so, the pool was heated and we did manage a few swims despite only having hot sunshine to dry us off on a few rare occasions.

The other big drawback to this holiday was the intense pain from my back. I reckon I must have suffered a slipped disc or a trapped nerve. The pain lasted about two weeks and luckily, Liz always travels with a good supply of painkillers, just in case, so never again will I be asking ‘Do we really need all these?’

You might be thinking that because of all the bad weather I did something similar to what I mentioned earlier about sorting out my book. Did I sort out another book? Did I finish the sequel? Actually, no but I did do quite a bit of work on putting together my short story collection which one day might see the light of day on Amazon. The other thing we tended to do when the weather was bad was eat. Eat in restaurants. Yes among my many loves such as writing, reading books and watching classic films there is also my love of a good restaurant.

I love everything about a restaurant. I love taking my seat and looking through the menu and that first taste of a lovely glass of wine. There is a lovely restaurant near to our villa, Le Restaurant de la Gare. You are shown to your table and given a basket of bread and a bottle of red comes over along with some water and a bottle of cider. Once settled you can then serve yourself from the buffet where you will find various cold meats and pates and numerous salad items.

One thing I could probably do without though is the waitress who has a voice which wouldn’t be out of place on a British army sergeant major. It’s a voice that you can hear miles away and even when she is inches from your head, rattling off the restaurant’s main courses, she still doesn’t tone down the volume. ‘Poisson, porc au moutarde ou steak?’ she bellows. I had the pork which turned out to be braised pork and was rather nice.

Frites ou riz? ‘Frites’, I tell her thinking that if I was married to her I would be deaf within a week.

It’s usually sad to have to return home but this year what with back pain and bad weather I was actually rather glad to be coming home. We had the most wonderful cabin on the ferry back. A really comfortable bed and a door which opened onto the rear deck where I could watch and take photographs as we left the port. It was interesting to see the pilot’s small boat running alongside us as we left Cherbourg. I had always thought that the idea was for the ferry to follow the pilot out but in these hi tech days the pilot was probably just on the radio telling the captain to keep starboard or keep port or whatever.

When we returned home, I turned on the TV to watch the celebrations and ceremonies to mark the 80th anniversary of D Day on television.

Now we are back home I see the sun has finally come out in France.

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Wet Weather, Books and Back Pain

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Our little motorhome has been fuelled and packed and it’s time to take another drive over to France. We decided to go over to France via Eurotunnel. The big drawback of course is that travelling from the northwest, it’s a helluva drive down to Folkestone. Not just the drive itself but we have to contend with the perils of the M6 and the M25, two of the UK’s busiest motorways.

What we did was take a break and stop at a place called the Bricklayers Arms in Sevenoaks. We parked up, had some food and drinks and entered the pub quiz. The next morning it was only a quick trip down to Folkestone and soon we were chugging smoothly along under the ocean and over to Calais.

We drove across to one of our favourite restaurants, Le Mas Fleuri. It’s a quiet family run place and the simple food is always wonderful. I have to say I sometimes wonder how the place survives as, certainly in the evenings, it is always quiet. Anyway, this time we were dining at lunchtime and we found that not long after sitting down, a steady stream of customers began coming in after us and soon the dining room was full. The French do love their lunches.

We left Lanzarote a few months ago fit and well after five weeks of swimming and sunning ourselves but the trip back via Jet2.com was on the most uncomfortable aircraft I have ever flown on and since then I’ve been suffering with a sore back. I went into our local doctor’s surgery and they told me that they now have a practice physio. The physio, who I’m sure was a very competent fellow, didn’t seem to feel it necessary to actually examine my back in any way but even so, he felt confident enough to recommend that I take some over the counter painkillers and undertake a series of exercises which he thought would help. I have been doing the exercises, not totally on a full time basis but I have done them, well some of them, but the pain has been gradually getting worse.

That’s perhaps not the best time to drive a motorhome over to France and it has been challenging to say the least. My back soon went from sore to very painful and from then on to some moments of intense agony. The pain started in my lower back, then after a few days migrated to my right hip and now seems to be remaining in my right leg. At one point the epicentre of the pain moved to an area in my lower back from where it sent out electrically charged bolts of pain down both legs to a point where it seemed like my legs would collapse. I’ve still got a lot of pain but recently, touch wood, I have not had any what I tend to call screaming agony attacks.

Luckily, since then I’ve tried to anticipate when the bad times will come and gulp down an appropriate amount of painkillers. The bad times usually come in threes; the first comes at about lunchtime when Liz is doing our late breakfast. (Sorry I can’t assist Liz, I’m in pain.) Secondly about 6pm to 6:30 when Liz is making tea (Sorry I can’t assist again) and lastly late on about 1am, our usual bedtime (Liz, any chance of a back rub?)

It’s difficult to deal with certain situations now, situations that previously I wouldn’t even think about. I’ve dropped my handkerchief/tissue on the floor. OK. How the heck am I going to get that? I can’t just bend over. I can’t reach down. It happened the other day in a restaurant and I had to kick it over to Liz and she managed to raise it up with her collapsible back scratcher and I just managed to reach it. Situation (only just) sorted. Other situations arise that I wouldn’t even think about. I need to have a wee but an electric shock is going through my right leg when I try to move. What can I do? Just hang on until the pain eases, I suppose. I suddenly have a new respect for disabled people,

These last few days it is my right leg that is throbbing quietly with an ache that gnaws at the inside of my thigh and makes it difficult to walk and also to sleep. Another interesting thing is that while I’ve been researching the issue over on Google and YouTube, looking for exercises that might help, a number of those mysterious things called ‘cookies’ have clearly latched themselves to my iPad because everywhere I go on the internet, I find little adverts from someone who has discovered the ‘real’ cure to back pain and sciatica.

I can download their quick self-help guide and even sign up (for a small fee) to their regular pain free back sessions and discover the ‘secret’ to a pain free life.

The other thing about this trip is the weather. It’s cold! We have been coming to this part of France and renting this same property in Parçay Les Pins for a number of years but this is the first time we have ever had to crank up the heating. Week one, pottering about in our motorhome was pretty warm and week two was a bit of a mixture, some warm and sunny days and some cold and overcast. Today as I write this it has been cold and wet.

We drove down to a local fête and vide grenier this morning. As it is a bank holiday Monday in France, we knew that the local supermarket was only opening until 12:30 so we popped in to update our diminishing cheese supply. There was no bread of course, the locals had come in early doors and removed all that but at least we had a few ‘bake it in the oven’ loaves for later and of course, some cheese.

Just round the corner there was a local fête taking place. The roads were closed off as usual but from what we could see when we arrived, the rain had caused people to pack up and only a few solitary stalls remained. OK we thought, might as well drive down to our local restaurant for lunch.

The Station Restaurant which we both love was closed so as the rain was easing off we went back to the fête to take a closer look at the few stalls remaining. We found that on the other side of the village square there were some classic cars and motorcycles, all gleaming and wet. The bar was open and also a full multi course restauration was being served. All we wanted was the usual sausage and chips takeaway and a glass of red so we looked at the classic cars and motorcycles, watched the display by the local dancers and then went back home for some bacon and eggs.

Yesterday we had a lovely swim when the clouds parted for a short while and a burning hot sun appeared. Somehow I don’t think today will be swimming weather.

As usual on holiday I always come armed with a stash of books and this year is no exception. A few of the books are ones I have dug out of a box at home and are ones I haven’t read for a while. One of them was Toujours Provence, a sequel to the successful A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle.

A Year in Provence has long been one of my favourite books. There are no gunfights or car chases. It’s a very gentle read, about the author and his wife deciding to move to Provence to live. The story of how they settle into their new home and their new country is told in a very easy going and humorous style. They have problems with their heating, they have a new kitchen built, they buy a great stone table for outdoor meals, the author describes the personalities of the locals as well as the restaurants and the wonderful meals they have there.

The follow up, Toujours Provence, is a slightly different book. There is no story linking the chapters together. Each chapter is like a short essay about all things French. Some are interesting and some are not and sadly, many fall into the latter category. One exception however is a chapter about writing that fits in totally with my own thoughts on the subject.

For most of the time, it’s a solitary, monotonous business. There is the occasional reward of a good sentence -or rather, what you think is a good sentence, since there’s nobody else to tell you. There are long, unproductive stretches when you consider taking up some form of regular and useful employment like chartered accountancy. There is constant doubt that anyone will want to read what you’re writing, panic at missing deadlines that you have imposed on yourself, and the deflating realization that those deadlines couldn’t matter less to the rest of the world. A thousand words a day, or nothing; it makes no difference to anyone but you. That part of writing is undoubtedly a dog’s life. What makes it worth living is the happy shock of discovering that you have managed to give a few hours of entertainment to people you’ve never met. And if some of them should write to tell you, the pleasure of receiving their letters is like applause. It makes up for all the grind.

In Peter Mayle’s case, various people have decided to not only write to him but sometimes to even seek him out and ask for his autograph on their copy of his book. One couple of complete strangers even arrived and made themselves comfortable in his house while the author himself was out on the patio. He only found them when he came inside for a glass of wine.

As for me, I’m happy with the occasional ‘like’ either on Twitter or Facebook or even here on WordPress but wait a minute, is that some sunshine breaking through the cloud? Time for a glass of wine on the patio!

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Some Thoughts from a Francophile

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s been a little chilly this week although here in the north west we had one rather sunny day in which I was able to give the lawn and the privets a final trim before the winter.

That brief glimpse of the sun got me looking back through some of my older posts and I started reading about and remembering our recent trips to France this year. I do love the French countryside. I like the quiet country lanes, the swimming lakes and the many parking aires for motorhomes. Occasionally we will find a parking area well placed for a nice restaurant. In many ways French food is for me a little over rated but what I love is the relaxed French way of eating. Lots of small courses rather than one big course.

We spend most of our weekends in France at vide greniers and brocantes. A vide grenier is literally a loft sale, the equivalent of a UK car boot sale.  A brocante is slightly different, a cross between a flea market and an antique sale. Many of these events in France are combined with a village fête and have a bar and a food area which can range from merguez (French sausages) and frites (chips to UK readers and fries to you in the USA) to a full three or four course French sit down meal.

As I mentioned above, there is always a bar, hey we are in France after all. Eighty cents for a glass of vin rouge, two euros for a glass of beer, and nothing stops these events. Rain shower at a UK car boot -forget it! Event over! Everyone leg it to your car and pack up. Are the French bothered by a downpour? No way! Put a bit of plastic sheeting down on your goods and quickly make way to the bar for a glass of red. Stalls soon open up again when the skies clear.

Bric a brac at a brocante

Now, here’s another thing; All these events are pretty well attended which means there must be plenty of people about in the local area but- and this is an important question. What do the French do when there isn’t a village fête on? Where do they go? What do they do and where do they do it!

Liz and I have spent many years travelling through France and here’s the thing; French towns close at 12 midday on the dot. Shops close. The only places open are the restaurants because nothing, and I mean nothing, interferes with the French lunch. Nothing! Everywhere shuts down until 2 pm. Okay, I’ve noticed in recent years the supermarkets have started to stay open, which is a good time to shop for all us UK tourists. But even in the late afternoons French villages are still and quiet. UK villages are full of people, cars, traffic and kids. Where do the kids go? Why aren’t they kicking balls about in the middle of the street like normal kids? Where do the people go and what are they doing? If you know the answer, let me know!

Parked up at a french aire

This is what we need to do. Not so long ago on BBC there was a pretty interesting documentary about cats. The BBC team wired up all the cats in a village, had cameras and tracking devices on the cats and worked out what the cats did, where they did it and in fact the whole pattern of their behaviour. What the BBC need to do for a follow up programme is to attach cameras and GPS tracking to a village of French people and report the results as soon as possible!

We need to know!

In previous posts I’ve wondered about what I would do if I was ever lucky enough to win a large amount of money. After the usual new car and new laptop, next on my purchase list would be a nice house and perhaps a holiday home in France, somewhere towards the south of the country because I really don’t like the cold.

Come to think of it, a great purchase would be one of those large French canal barges. I could spend the summer in the lush Loire then chug serenely south when the weather cooled keeping an eye out for suitable bars and bistros along the way. A change of blog might be in order. Letters from an Unknown Diner sounds pretty good!

The starter at a french restaurant

The French departments, similar I suppose to English counties, date from Napoleonic times and there are 96 departments in France today which are further subdivided into cantons.

In the Cher region which we visited a few years ago, there are some lovely rural communities. Still and quiet villages, almost haunting in their silence can be found everywhere.

What I’ve always liked in France is the simple tabac. As the name suggests it’s a place where you can get your tobacco and in some places it is also combined with a presse so you can also pick up a newspaper. One thing you will always find in the tabac though is a bar, similar to the vault of an old English pub where French men chat and drink coffee, sip wine or a pastis. In the village where Liz and I stayed, Germigny l’Exempt, there is a small sell-everything shop, a combination épicerie, depot de pain (the lady owner explained carefully that they are not a boulangerie, but a pain depot) and of course, a bar! An interesting combination.

You can imagine the situation if a similar establishment was available in England: The wife happens to mention to the husband, sitting in the lounge watching sport that they are a little short on veggies for the coming Sunday dinner. The husband jumps up; “need some vegetables love? Well, I’ll just nip down to the local shop and get you some!” And have a few beers while he’s there no doubt! Frenchmen, at least those of the rural Cher countryside, are clearly made differently here because I’ve yet to see anyone in that bar!

One Friday night, Liz and I went down to a nearby town, La Guerche sur l’Aubois, and had a meal out. The only place open appeared to be a rather nice looking pizza place so we went in. There were only two other diners and at the small bar –this was Friday evening remember- were two or three French guys chatting. We had our pizza, had a beer at the bar and by nine pm they were ushering us out! What do the French do ‘au weekend’? I don’t know but it’s certainly not a beer and a pizza! One really nice thing about that bar though, every time a new customer came in, he said hello to all at the bar and shook hands with everyone in turn, including Liz and me, two English strangers. As for eating out though, that is something the rural French do of a lunchtime, not an evening.

You can’t go to France and not have some fromage!

At every restaurant or bar serving food you will always see a sign for the ‘plat du jour’ or the dish of the day and one thing I love about French restaurants is their menu deals. You might see something like, for instance, a starter, the plat du jour, and then fromage (cheese) to finish. I do so much prefer small courses to one big meal!

The great thing about France is the wine and my personal rule about French wine is this –buy the cheapest, it’s always the best but then, I like my wine cheap and cheerful. In Intermarche, the Asda of France, you can buy a 10 litre box of merlot for about 22 euros, that’s about £19 in UK money, an absolute bargain. Forget expensive French wines, a nice quaffable French red does it for me every time!

Whisky in a french supermarket -and this was only one section!

Another thing about the French, especially regarding drink. You’d think that France, the country that created brandy would be a haven of cheap brandy, after all, this is where the drink is made! Sadly that isn’t the case, in fact, brandy in France always looks to me to be pretty expensive. However, when you come to whisky, a product of Great Britain, there seems to be an incredibly vast choice, far bigger than you would find in the UK. Perhaps the French are a nation of secret whisky drinkers!

Another thing I miss about France is when we rent a place with its own pool. Recently we have rented a regular place in the small village of Parçay Les Pins. It’s an old house with great thick walls and a lovely pool. It’s great to relax in the sun reading and then when you warm up you can just take a dip and cool down. Later in the warm evening we might light the barbecue for our evening meal and sip a glass of wine while the sun slips slowly down.

Of course if I did win the lottery and buy the barge I spoke about earlier, where could I swim? Yes, I may have to rethink what to do with my lottery win!

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Noel Coward, Pools and Flying Creatures

Posted on by Steve Higgins

This could really be a Sun Lounger Post  but for clarity I thought I’d give it the title above because it’s actually mainly about Noel Coward and his autobiographies.

Here in the quiet village of Parçay-les-Pins, Liz and I are having a relaxing time. The weather is good, well actually, it is fantastic. Sunny and warm, perhaps a little too warm but either way, the perfect weather for barbecues, eating outside, reading by the pool and relaxing.

Here’s the itinerary: Up at whatever time we want. Breakfast later, usually before 12 noon but not always, a quick washing up of the pots and then out to the pool. I’ve spent most of this holiday reading the autobiography of Noel Coward and it’s actually three books in one. The first part is his first autobiography, Present Indicative, part 2 is an unpublished segment of his unfinished third autobiography, Past Conditional and finally his second published autobiography Future Indefinite.

Book one, Present Indicative was published in 1937 and concerns Noel’s early years, his childhood and his first tentative steps into the theatre. It’s an account of a vanished world of repertory companies, writers, actors and actresses who have long gone and whose names mean little today in the 21st century. Even so it is hugely fascinating and interesting and as always enlivened by Noel’s supremely witty text. Noel was a homosexual in a time when homosexuality was illegal and most of his private life he keeps private although armed with a little knowledge of Noel we can read between the lines and assume that Jack Wilson who comes to live with him at his home, Goldenhurst in Kent, was presumably his lover.

It is pretty hot here in Parçay-les-Pins and after a little reading it’s time to slip into the cool waters of the pool and have a swim. Just lately, on a physical level I’ve been very inactive. I keep meaning to cycle or take a walk every day but I can never get around to it and I’m conscious my health is suffering. Now, every 20 minutes or so I slip into the pool and do 8 to 10 lengths and go back to my sun lounger for more relaxation and reading.

Book two, Past Conditional is an unpublished and unfinished autobiography that was intended to fill in the gap between his first two autobiographical books. It starts where the first one finished off, in the early 1930s and differs considerably in tone as it was written much later in the mid-1960s and Noel was able to look back at himself in the 1930s and examine himself from a more in depth perspective. Such a pity it was unfinished.

An interesting segment concerns the death of his brother who is scarcely mentioned in the text as he and Noel were never close. The brother was clearly never part of Noel’s theatrical world and the family sent him off to South Africa only for him to return and die of cancer.

In Parçay-les-Pins, we have been tempted to visit our favourite local restaurant however, a couple of things have stopped us. Firstly, it is very hot and the Station Restaurant is only open at lunchtimes so we have decided to wait until next week when the weather forecast is not looking so good. Why waste all that precious sun-bathing time?

Tea time at Parçay-les-Pins

Round about 6 pm or sometimes later, we tend to move from the pool back to the house and crank up the barbecue and decant some wine and eat in the warm evening. One of the great pleasures in France, at least for me, is to sit outside until the sun slides over the horizon and then in the darkness, a darkness here in the countryside so velvety and complete that the view of the sky and the stars is uninterrupted by any ambient light such as traffic or streetlights. Then I can look up at the great vista of the night sky, the heavens displayed above us in such a way that can never been seen from a great city like Manchester in the UK.

The big problem I have found is that this is just the time for the insects of the night to come out and nibble at my legs. One night Liz mentioned that she had some of those citronella candles that are supposed to deter the bugs so at once I dug a few out and lit them. It was rather nice for a while sat in the dark with the candles fluttering away with a rather nice scent. What happened was that the rather nice scent seemed to encourage even more bugs, especially a great number of what I can only describe as hornets. They were two to three times bigger than a UK wasp and then seemed to be honing in on the scented candles. Luckily, Liz is a master of the fly swatter and after a short while a whole flight of the hornets lay dead on the windowsill although by then, I had shot inside to safety.

The final book in the autobiographical series was Future Indefinite in which Noel recounted his time during the Second World War. He seems like many to have had a very low opinion of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, although to be fair to Chamberlain, he was doing his utmost to avoid the horrors of war. Sadly, and clearly unknown to Mr Chamberlain, Adolf Hitler did not want to avoid war, he was in fact wanting war very badly and happily it was Mr Churchill who understood this only too well.

In June of 1939 Noel who was a great globetrotter decided to take a tour of Europe in the light of Mr Chamberlain declaring ‘peace in our time’. He visited Warsaw and Danzig, Moscow, Leningrad, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. He found that many of the people in those places were just waiting for Hitler to invade, particularly the Poles. In Russia he found a state that declared it had found freedom in Communism but was in fact quite the opposite as the Stalinist regime had choked any kind of criticism or free thinking whatsoever.

When war was declared Noel was asked to be part of an Anglo-French PR unit in Paris which he seems to have enjoyed for a while and then become a little bored with. He was sent on a tour of the USA to gauge opinion there on the war and was on his way back when the Nazis invaded France. He also did a tour of Australia and New Zealand to entertain troops and did charity work for various organisations helping those who were bombed out in London.

By far the most interesting part was his account of the filming of In Which We Serve, a very patriotic film showing the activities of a ship in the Royal Navy and the lives of those who served in her, all the way through to the ship’s sinking. In his very first autobiography, the names of the many actors and actresses he worked with meant very little to me but now I began to recognise a few names, John Mills and Richard Attenborough for instance and David Lean who co-directed the film with Noel although in actual fact, Lean directed most of the film when Coward became bored with the long-winded filming process.

Lying by the pool after a lot of reading and swimming I invariably start to feel tired round about the 4pm mark and tend to nod off although I’m usually awoken by flies buzzing around my ears. What insects seem to find fascinating about my ears I will never know but they always seem to strike just as I am nodding off.

Books, Sudoku and a pool. What could be nicer?

As well as the flies a great horde of swallows seem to be fascinated by our pool and round about 5pm they gather on the telephone line above us, divide themselves into squadrons and make various sorties down to the pool, skimming just above the surface or sometimes dipping into the water with either their wings or their tiny feet. This performance is very remarkable indeed and quite a few times I’ve had to duck as the swallows make their dives from just behind my head.

It actually reminded me about the Dambusters, the raid by 617 squadron of the RAF on the dams of Germany. They had to drop low over the waters of the dams and hit a consistent height of 60 feet before dropping their ‘bouncing bombs’.

Coward goes on to talk about Blithe Spirit, my favourite of Coward’s plays which was made into a film in 1945. Coward was not keen on the resulting film. David Lean added an ending in which Charles Condomine played by Rex Harrison dies and joins his ex-wives in the spirit world. Coward complained that David Lean had f**ked up the best thing I had ever written!  Personally, I loved it.

Final verdict of the Noel Coward biographies; fascinating, always interesting and hugely entertaining.

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Thoughts From A Sun Lounger (Part 15)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

This year we arrived pretty early at the Eurotunnel check in at Ashford. We’d spent the night near the Bricklayer’s Arms, a pub in Kent that has a quiz night combined with a special food offer and it was a short hop down the M20 into the Eurotunnel terminal. We were pretty early and fully expected to be upgraded to an earlier train but no, it wasn’t to be. So we relaxed for a while, made a cup of tea and then finally drove down to the customs. Both the English and French customs are over here in England. We passed quickly through the English passport control and then on to the French where they take a much longer time. I’m not sure why, after all it’s not as if anyone is trying to smuggle immigrants into France, that happens on the way back.

Finally, after a cursory check by the French we drive down to the loading area and soon we are driving onto the specially built trains that take us under the channel and into Europe. Once we arrive we are free to drive off into France as of course the French customs have already checked us out.

A couple of years ago we came into France pretty late, drove for about an hour and stopped at a small motorhome stopping place which was part of a farm. We had found the place in our motorhome stopping guide and although it looked a little unloved, there was everything we required, a nice pitch, water and a place to empty our toilet. Liz had brought along some leftover Bolognese and we heated it up and it went down well with a glass of red wine which as you may know, is compulsory in France.

Parked by a lake in France

As I walked around, I noticed a sign which mentioned a ten euro fee for the night which I hadn’t seen in our guide but I guessed as the place looked a bit run down, that notice was probably an old out of date one. Next morning though at 9am (8am UK time) I realised that wasn’t the case when the farmer’s wife came hammering on the door wanting her money. She looked and sounded a little fierce so not wanting to upset her I coughed up the ten euros.

Last year we had a late night crossing and parked next to a crematorium and this time it was free. We usually get ready, have a cup of tea and then drive off and search for a picnic place or an aire where we can get breakfast under way. I’m not an early riser and breakfast is for me probably more of a brunch than breakfast. My personal rules are that breakfast must contain (A) eggs and (B) toast. After that I’m pretty easy going but secondary items must be things like bacon and sausages and tomatoes but really, I’m not fussy.

I’m not really a lunch person but the other day we decided to dispense with breakfast and have lunch. We took ourselves down to a French restaurant we had visited before. Their lunches come complete with a basket of bread which usually gets refilled when the supplies get low, a bottle of water, a bottle of vin rouge and a bottle of cider. The cider is fairly low alcohol so as I’m driving that’s what I tend to go for.

The starter is a buffet with things like salads, pâté, cold meats and so on. The main course was a choice of four dishes. Choice one was roast beef. Now I knew this wasn’t going to be roast beef that we know and love in England so that was out. Choice two was fish, no thanks. Choice three was something I didn’t understand even when the waitress repeated it so that was out also though Liz later said it was some kind of turkey dish. Choice four was steak.

Now the problem with steak is that in France, French chefs don’t like to cook a steak too much. If you ask for medium rare you usually get rare. If you ask for medium, you’ll get medium rare and if you ask for well done, well that’s an even bigger problem. When the chef hears well done, he immediately realises the customer is a dreaded ‘Rosbif’, an English tourist as clearly, no Frenchman in his right mind would order a steak well done. Now the chef might be eager to teach the unsuspecting Brit a foodie lesson, so you might find your steak arriving pretty much like an incinerated burnt offering. (It’s your own fault, you asked for well done!) Now some French chefs will go the other way and give you a medium steak but now I think about it, you’ll probably find it’ll be medium rare because the French chefs just don’t like cooking their food too much. This is where I made the fatal mistake. Faced with those food choices, I went for the roast beef. It came in a tasteless red wine sauce and it looked like it had hardly seen the inside of a roasting oven when the chef decided to whip it out and slap it on my plate.

The good news though was this; the resourceful lady in my life, Liz, slipped the beef into a plastic bag, we took it home and she fried it up later with some onions, a little seasoning and served it up on a slice of a French baguette.

Of course this being a French restaurant I didn’t starve. There was still the cheese course and then the sweet which customers help themselves from a plentiful choice displayed in a glass cabinet. Lunch? Think I might just stick with breakfast in future.

The first week of our holiday the weather wasn’t great although it was pretty warm in the sun but cool, very cool in the shade. Afterwards things got hotter and we were able to spend many relaxing hours swimming in lakes or relaxing in the countryside.

Here’s a pretty crazy random thought that came to me in my sun lounger. Before we left the UK, I trimmed my hair with my trimmers but the other day I looked in the mirror and after only a week in France my hair had grown quite considerably. It is Spring of course and everywhere in the French countryside, things are growing. On our travels we saw fields of poppies and other wildflowers blooming, could it be then that people are linked in to the forces of nature? Does my body know that the season of Spring is upon us and has reacted in sync with the universe?

Or perhaps I should just have given myself a number two cut rather than a three?

After two weeks away some sad news came to us, my mother died.

She was 93, suffered with dementia and lived in a nursing home and although many times during my visits to see her I was able to put a smile on her face I knew she wasn’t happy. She always asked me to take her home even though she was no longer able to remember where her home was. Death was a release for her, something that has set her spirit free again.

She was a tough lady and very, very determined. On one particular visit, many months ago we spoke about the warm weather and the rose buds that were on the bush outside her room. We talked about her sister Ada who was a keen cyclist and was sadly killed in a road accident many years ago. I asked her how she was sleeping and she gave me a big smile and said ‘you know I never have any trouble sleeping!’

As usual I asked her to recite some multiplication tables in the hope it would get her to use her memory and exercise her brain waves. We did a simple one, the three times table. One three is three, two threes are six and so on. Round about nine she began to falter and looked suddenly distressed. ‘I can’t remember anymore’ she said sadly.

We talked about other things and then I told her it was time for me to leave. I felt a little disappointed as my attempt to get her to use her memory had backfired when her memory failed her.  The disappointment of not being able to remember such a simple thing was evident in her face. We said our goodbyes and I went towards the door. As I turned back for a final wave goodbye, she said something and I stopped to listen.

‘Ten threes are thirty’ she said. ‘Eleven threes are thirty-three, twelve threes are thirty-six’. She looked back and smiled. ‘I remembered after all’ she said. Like I said, she was a very determined lady.

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