Tag Archives: France

A Place in The Sun

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s nice to be back home in the UK after a month away in France. In France the late summer weather was wonderful and warm and back in England it looked for a while as if we had brought that lovely weather back with us. A few days later though, the temperature dropped and it began to rain and suddenly England was back to its usual default mode: cold and wet.

I’ve often wondered if I could survive away from England, if I could successfully move to somewhere like France for instance. Moving abroad is a bit of a pipe dream for me although I do subscribe to a number of French property pages and Liz and I have visited some potential homes but so far I haven’t found one that I have really wanted to buy.

We looked at a really attractive house near the village of Champagne-Mouton while we were away. It was a little on the small side but certainly big enough for me. It had two bedrooms although the second one was only accessible through the first one. Outside was a delightful garden area and the owners -they were both English- had put together an outside bar area where they entertained friends and neighbours.

Across the road was a barn where the couple had a large freezer and a washing machine. Their old lounge suite was in there and it was clear the man of the house used it as a man-cave. Next to the barn was a huge garden area and a short walk away was another outside area full of fruit trees and vines and where they grew various vegetables. That sort of layout with a garden across the road or even a short walk away is typical of French country properties. A few years ago we viewed a property near to the village of Mouliherne which also had land across the road and as much as I liked that place it was just too far away from civilisation.

There are numerous properties for sale in the French countryside and most of them are really cheap compared to property in the UK. There is a saying though in the property business which is location, location, location and that’s the thing. Once you find a place close to shops, bars and restaurants, all three of which -especially the last two- are high on my list, then prices begin to go up. Perhaps I’ll find a place one day, perhaps not. Until then we’ll carry on renting our favourite place in the village of Parçay les Pins and touring about in our little motorhome.

Why would I want to move to France? Well as I get older I find I really want somewhere warmer to live. I hate the cold, really hate the cold with a passion so I want to live somewhere warmer. France of course is not universally warm, except further south and even there I suppose they must have cooler weather in the winter. I do like the relaxed lifestyle of rural France and I like the food. In particular I like the multiple courses and especially the cheese course. In France we tend to look for routiers or routiers style restaurants. These restaurants are primarily for truck drivers but I’ve noticed lately that more and more of the general public are using them.

We found a new routier this year, it was called Le Maison Blanc. We were able to park in the car park for the night alongside the wagons and for a mere 35 euros for two we had a bottle of wine each (rosé for me, red for Liz) and a bottle of water. Over on the buffet starter table there were cold meats, pâtés and salads and on one side was a section with crushed ice with a choice of prawns, snails, crab and oysters and on the other side was a warm section offering slices of pizza and different pastries. On Thursdays the restaurant has a steak night. Liz had a steak but for me I’ve never really been keen on the way the French cook steaks. They do it with the minimal amount of cooking which is not quite enough for me. Anyway, normally at a routiers there is a choice of about three or four main dishes. Here at Le Maison Blanche the mains, apart from the steak, consists of a hot buffet. I think we visited about three times while we were in the area and I went for the meatballs and pasta one night and on another I had Bolognese with frites. On the third visit I had a mixture of everything and ate far too much.

In the main the French prefer a big lunch to a large evening meal. Perhaps things are different in the cities like Paris but out in the country that seems to be the norm. In the town we used to visit a few years ago, Doué la Fontaine, you can be hard pushed to get a restaurant seat on Saturday lunchtime but on Saturday evenings, in the few places that are open, most of the diners are English tourists.

The pool at our rented gite in France

What would I do in France? Well I suppose my day would be pretty much like a day when I stay in our rented gite. I usually wake round about 9:30 to 10 and drag myself up to make a brew. We always bring a good supply of tea bags but now I think about it, are tea bags available in French supermarkets? Well I’ve never actually looked but I suppose they must be. Well, I hope so otherwise I’d have to take steps to secure a supply of tea bags from friends in the UK. (I can see myself having to send out urgent messages. Tea bag supplies low. Please send urgent PG Tips!)

Usually we’ll have a cup of tea in bed while we check our messages and emails then it’s time for a wash (no point in having a shower as I’ll soon be in the pool). We usually bring supplies of bacon for breakfast but when we’ve used that up or just fancy a change, I’m pretty partial to eggs on toast but a favourite breakfast dish when we’re in France is a bacon omelette. It goes pretty well with a French baguette which is good when you can’t get hold of a medium Warburton’s loaf. (Not usually available in France.)

You can of course get UK style sliced bread in France but it isn’t particularly nice and seems designed to last for ages making me think it’s full of preservatives. It’s ok toasted but that’s about it. Most of the time we’ll just fall in with the French and buy a baguette.

Anyway that brings me to around 12 and it’s time to get out there to the pool and do my first ten laps. After that Liz and I will usually compete against each other to solve a sudoku. I don’t like to admit it but she usually wins. Then we’ll spend the afternoon reading and swimming which is altogether very relaxing. Of course to continue this lifestyle when living in France I’d have to buy a house with a pool or at least a house with space to build a pool.

Various things on the barbecue, Liz’s salad and of course, a glass of wine.

Later on we start to think about food and round about 6pm it’s probably time for me to decant some wine and get the barbecue set up. We have a small portable gas barbecue which when it comes down to it is really more of a grill but it’s really handy and cooks the food pretty well. If I lived in France, I reckon I’d be wanting a proper barbecue, you know, one with real coals. I do like a proper barbecue.

Anyway, we’d be eating pretty healthily, Liz makes a fabulous salad and although we drink a lot of red wine over there, red wine is supposed to be good for you. Later on when our steak, burgers and sausages have been eaten and everything has been cleaned up, it’s rather nice to sit out on the porch and take in the night sky. Out in the country where there is little light pollution, the night sky is a great vista of stars. I reckon that living out in France I’d be doing quite a lot of sitting out on the porch, with a glass of something naturally.

So, I could deal with the two possible issues, the tea and the bread situation. A bigger problem might be getting to grips with the French language but I’ve noticed in places like Parçay les Pins there is a pretty close knit English community so I’m sure I’d get help there and it’s always easier to learn a language when you’re actually in the place where that language is spoken.

The only real problem would be if I happened to want a donner kebab on a Saturday night when the nearest takeaway is 20 miles away and they don’t deliver.

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A Writer on Holiday

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s always great to get away from things and to take a break. Writers though just cannot stop writing even on holiday. Well at least I can’t. I’m currently on holiday in a motorhome in France so how do I mix relaxation with writing? Let’s see if I can successfully answer that. Here we go.

Morning.

It takes me a while to get used to sleeping in our motorhome. It’s only small and there is a little dip in the bed just at the point of my lower back which has given me some backache in the past but lately I’ve learnt to either avoid it or just live with it. Another issue that affects our sleep is the way the van is parked and parking properly is very important. A tilt to the left and Liz will be rolling over and crowding me. Over to the right and I’ll be crowding her. A slight tilt forward and we tend to slide off our pillows and down the bed. If we have to have a tilt it’s better to tilt back toward our pillows but we do have chocks which we can slip under the wheels to level us up. My place on the bed is over by the window and there is no way out for me except by climbing over Liz so one of my rules is to not have beer prior to going to bed. Otherwise I’ll be waking in the night wanting to wee and struggling to get out.

On holiday I find myself waking up pretty early. I’m not totally comfortable sleeping in the motorhome but I usually wake up with my head full of various thoughts for either a blog post or a short story. I tend to lie there and get those thoughts in some sort of order before dragging myself up.

I’m usually the first one up so I’ll shuffle over to the small bathroom for a wash and a shave.

Despite being late September it’s still very warm in the Loire so in a morning I can handle a wash in cold water but when the warm weather comes to a close I’m less inclined to do that. I can switch on the water heater but usually I just put a pan of water on the hob.

Despite the bathroom being small, actually very small, there is a basin, toilet and even a shower in there. To shower it’s important to switch on the water heater first, pull round the panels that keep the water away from the toilet and basin and then switch on the water. In a motorhome I’m always aware that there isn’t an endless supply of water so a good idea is to apply shower gel liberally to the body, switch on the water and get washed as quickly as possible using as little water as you can.

Note to self: Don’t drop the soap as it’s pretty difficult to bend down and pick it up in these cramped conditions.

Shower over, towel yourself down, get dressed and get the kettle on before hanging your towel out in the sun on the bike carrier to the rear of the van.

Next I’ll check my emails while the van chef, Liz, gets herself ready too.

I’m a big lover of breakfast, in fact I’m even tempted to say it’s my favourite meal of the day and I love a standard English breakfast. Bacon, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms, tomatoes and eggs, preferably poached, served with toast. That can be a little difficult on the cramped three ring stove in the van so lately we’ve been having a bacon omelette with some French bread. I’ll either walk to a bakery if there is one nearby or we usually have some bread in our little freezer which always keeps pretty well and defrosts quickly in the sun.

Noon

Another option is to not have breakfast at all but to save ourselves for lunch. In France there are many places that serve a cheap lunchtime menu which will consist of a buffet starter, a simple main meal, a cheese course and a dessert.

We found an excellent restaurant near to Parçay-les-Pins called the Restaurant De La Gare, the Station Restaurant. The buffet starter is always my favourite and I fill my plate with pâté, cold meats, coleslaw and various salad items. A basket of French bread will appear and is usually topped up when it gets low. Vin de table is provided as well as some chilled water and a large bottle of cider. Not bad for 15 euros each!

OK, breakfast (or lunch) over it’s time to grab my laptop and tap out in rough form my ideas for this week’s blog post. Sometimes I can’t be bothered to drag my laptop out of its safe place in the boot so I’ll just write notes in my notebook. The notes you can see here in the photo are typical notes for a one of my Film Connections posts.

We will usually be parked in an aire in France and these special parking places, reserved for motorhomes, tend to have all the necessary things we might need. A very important thing is a place to empty the van toilet. It’s not a pleasant task but I tend to empty it whenever we get the opportunity. A lot of French aires have a water tap to help you rinse your toilet cassette but many require a token, a jeton that is usually available from nearby local shops although there are many aire de camping cars that are completely free.

The van navigator (Liz) will usually have perused google maps for a plan d’eau, a French swimming lake and we’ll be off to find it. We usually factor in a stop for some French bread and some more French cheese as well as a box of wine. This year is probably the first in which we haven’t really been interested in cheese, having said that I’ve still enjoyed the cheese course in a restaurant.

It’s important of course to keep a check on our fuel. We usually fill up with diesel at French supermarkets as they tend to be cheaper than the usual petrol stations, however we were chatting with a couple of English people in a restaurant one evening who told us that ‘TotalEnergies’ petrol stations were considerably cheaper than the supermarkets. It seems that they are under the control of the French government and they are keeping prices lower, approximately 20p a litre for diesel, but consequently most of them had run out and those that hadn’t had long queues.

Our fridge and cooker are powered by LPG, liquid petroleum gas and we always keep a look out for stations that provide gas. The big problem when we first came to France was finding a petrol station with LPG. There didn’t seem to be any until eventually, we realised that in France it’s called GPL! Duh!

Swimming

Over the years we have made a note of our favourite places to stop. A typical camping spot we prefer will have a swimming lake and a parking place for camping cars, (that’s what they call motorhomes in France) and at this time of the year they usually won’t be too busy.

The locals usually arrive around 12 noon with picnic baskets for lunch and few might have a pre lunch swim. I’ve noticed that this year the water levels in many lakes have been low due to the hot summer and in one particular lake we visited the water was only a couple of feet deep.

At another lake we watched a couple of fishermen dip their rods in the water and wait patiently for the fish to bite. We read our books, competed against each other to finish that day’s sudoku and then it’s time for a dip.

Later on we need to find somewhere to stop for the night. Usually, we will stay by the lake or if we are trying to make our way to somewhere in particular, we might get a few miles under our belt before stopping again.

The sun going down after a day by a plan d’eau

Evening

When evening comes we will have sorted out a place to stay the night. I usually get out our little gas barbecue and we will cook some sausages, burgers and maybe a steak to have with our salad. A glass of red wine is always good to wash the food down with and after clearing up I’ll go back to what I’ve written earlier and develop it a little and tidy it up.

I happened to notice something on the internet this week about Ian Fleming and the way he used to work at his holiday home in Jamaica. He was up at 7:30, had breakfast and then at 10am he began writing. He aimed for 1500 words before going for a swim at about 12:15. Later in the day at about 5pm he would write some more, put the pages in a folder and it was time for a drink. Perhaps that is what I need to do, plan my day like Ian Fleming’s day. Then again, I think I prefer things my way!

This year one of our stops was at La Meilleraie-Tillay. It’s a place we have stopped at before and one of the great things about it is that there is a toilet block with hot water. Sounds pretty normal doesn’t it but believe me, when you have not washed with hot water for a week, having a wash and shave in hot water is wonderful.

In the park next to the motorhome aire, a circus had set up, the Zanatteli circus and one night as we sat outside in the twilight we got chatting to Rico, the circus clown. He told us that he was the latest in six generations of his family that were circus people. After that first meeting Rico came to see us every night and told us stories of the circus. Despite a huge array of vehicles and equipment, there were only five people in the circus; him, his wife, his two sons and a daughter. The two sons were jugglers and acrobats. The daughter did some acrobatics too. Rico was the clown and his wife ran the box office, gave out tickets, sold refreshments in the intervals and also acted as a scene arranger. We attended their first afternoon performance before moving on to pastures new.

We usually relax in the evenings with a book but a problem this year with our leisure battery meant that our lights faded very early. If I’ve got a good internet signal I’ll transfer this week’s blog to wordpress then access it on my iPad and refine it a little more before passing it to my proofreader Liz for a final check up. Then I’ll add the graphics, pictures and videos and everything is ready for my publishing deadline of 10am on Saturday.

The next problem is what shall I write about next week?

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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!

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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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