A shocking situation occurred yesterday when we were driving into Montauban, the capital of the Tarn et Garonne region, for a meal with some friends at our favourite restaurant, Les Relais d'Alsacienne. Although it's hardly 'down the road' for us, we all thought it was worth the 50 mile journey. The route is very picturesque along the D115 river valley road, through numerous old tunnels that trace a time when the road used to be a railway line.
We were almost at the junction with the A20 autoroute when a situation occurred which shocked all of us. A car coming in the opposite direction clipped a car which was jutting out of a side road, spun out of control on the wet road, momentarily flew through the air right in front of us and landed nose first in the ditch on our right! It was very surreal - almost virtual reality. No noise or screeching of tires, just a silent black car flipping up in the air and landing oh-so-slowly right in front of our car. I was driving. I pulled up and parked a little further on to a safe spot. In France, it is illegal not to stop and help at such times. By then, our friends' car and others following them had also stopped. The woman in the clipped car was O.K. so everyone went to try and help the man in the ditch. But, no-one could open the door. The man inside was conscious, sprawled across the front seats. People shouted to him that they had called the emergency services. (In France, the emergency number from a mobile is 112, annoyingly different from fixed-lines). It was surprising that, although the man looked O.K., he wasn't trying to get out, just continued to use his mobile phone. If it had been me, I wouldn't bother with the phone - I'd just want to get out of there in case the whole car blew up or something. But everyone felt that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to move him in case there was a neck injury. Eventually, we felt we'd done all we could so drove off again. We could hear the approaching sirens and felt that our lack of French-language skills probably wouldn't help the situation as there were plenty of other local witnesses at the scene.
Scary though. You never know what's around the corner - literally.
30th October 2008
French Health minister Roselyne Bachelot says she wants to reform the 1991 Evin law that regulates alcohol abuse. Dating from a time before the internet, it doesn't allow for promotion on the web - but now that's all changed apparently. For me personally, alcohol means just one thing: French wine. In cafes and bars over here it's usually served in small (petit) and large (ballon) sizes for around 1 - 2 euros and can also be ordered in a quarter-litre (25cl) or half-litre pitcher (pichet) for around 3 and 5 euros respectively. You usually order simply red (rouge), pink (rose) or white (blanc). But don't do as Him indoors always threatens 'I'll have it mixed!'. At home when I'm cooking for the two of us, I do something I would never have done in the U.K. Instead of using cooking oil, I use wine - lots of it. At the local Intermarche supermarket I buy 2 litre plastic bottles of vin rouge (just for cooking with) for 1.50 euros and use it liberally on everything, but especially chicken and rice dishes. It tastes superb, is cheap and I'm sure is healthier. But afterwards, I must remember not to drive! Another thing I use here is milk. It's great for basting scallop potatoes and garlic in the oven. I use a pastry brush and brush each slice with ordinary milk and then dust with black pepper before putting in the oven. Again, I avoid using oil in a desperate attempt to cut down my weight. Not sure if that works, but what milk does do is leave a crispy, tasty coating on the potatoes and garlic - which gives extra flavour to, say, bland fish dishes. Of course, the best wine of all is champagne - always great for celebrations, but at around 12 euros for a large bottle over here it's not too dear to cheer you up when the world gets you down. Cheap at half the price. Keep smiling and enjoy your life.
29th October 2008
I've always thought that men can't cope with pain as well as women. Yesterday proved that Him indoors is no exception. It was time for a trip to the dentist. Of course, knowing him as I do, I expected the usual array of jokes nonetheless. Tell them I want an appointment at tooth-hurty (2.30). No! So, we set off for the picturesque Cordes sur Ciel, a beautiful bastide village in our region, where our local dentist is situated. The terrain all around the cite is very high, stony lanes impossibly steep leading up in a circuitous route, past the inevitable ancient castle, high up into the hills. But the day wasn't the day for sight-seeing, even though Him indoors said we should look for the plaque on the wall!
There are excellent dentistes throughout France, around 330 dentists per 100,000 inhabitants, but few in rural areas offer an emergency service. We were lucky to find one who speaks English, as most don't. However, 'Aaargh!' is the same in any language. Inside, the surgery was scrupulously clean. We found the salle d'attente waiting room and Him indoors insisted on practising his French through the tinny intercom on the wall. C'est Monsieur.......... A few seconds later, after some tinny shuffling of papers, came Oui, attendre un instant.... After the inevitable half-an-hour wait, trying to understand the many French magazines chronicling the Boer War (!), H was summoned by the tinny intercom. I waited for the inevitable Aaargh sounds, but surprisingly all was quiet. Maybe Madame la dentiste wasn't looking down in the mouth. Oh no, it's now getting to me too. Soon H came out, holding his jaw. What did she say? 'She said my tooth is cracked and I've got to come back again to have it taken out.' Oh no. 'Yes. I asked her why and she said it was normal at my age. But I told her 'all the other teeth are the same age and they don't hurt!'
Some things never change.
There are excellent dentistes throughout France, around 330 dentists per 100,000 inhabitants, but few in rural areas offer an emergency service. We were lucky to find one who speaks English, as most don't. However, 'Aaargh!' is the same in any language. Inside, the surgery was scrupulously clean. We found the salle d'attente waiting room and Him indoors insisted on practising his French through the tinny intercom on the wall. C'est Monsieur.......... A few seconds later, after some tinny shuffling of papers, came Oui, attendre un instant.... After the inevitable half-an-hour wait, trying to understand the many French magazines chronicling the Boer War (!), H was summoned by the tinny intercom. I waited for the inevitable Aaargh sounds, but surprisingly all was quiet. Maybe Madame la dentiste wasn't looking down in the mouth. Oh no, it's now getting to me too. Soon H came out, holding his jaw. What did she say? 'She said my tooth is cracked and I've got to come back again to have it taken out.' Oh no. 'Yes. I asked her why and she said it was normal at my age. But I told her 'all the other teeth are the same age and they don't hurt!'
Some things never change.
28th October 2008
Every Saturday morning when we walk to our tiny village market, I like to walk past the 15C castle and through the crumbling stone arch which heralds the ancient walled cite within. Either side of the arch are stone ledges at sitting level, their surfaces worn away by weary people taking a breather. Just above the right-hand ledge, looking out over the river valley in the distance, is a man-made vertical slit in the stone where, many centuries ago, brave men poked their bows and arrows in the war of the French v the Cathars. One of the original Cathar parfait vows was to live 'in community'. It was one of the great strengths of this region back in the 13C that the Cathar church functioned so smoothly in the heart of the Aveyron and Languedoc regions - until, that is, they encountered the inevitable 'tribal warfare' from elsewhere.
Today, as we enter the narrow cobbled street, each side is still framed by crazy, leaning houses that used to house the blacksmith and horse farrier. The windows either side of the street are so close, the occupants wouldn't have to lean out far to shake hands with one another. But shake hands with each other they do. Although yesteryear's wars were hard-fought and bloody, the eventual peace in this region benefited everyone.
I, myself, being a lateral-thinker, look forward to the day when we are all members of Earth, have an Earth flag, an Earth language and Earth currency. Only then can the world live in peace together. That is, until Earth has to fight alien invaders from another planet. That's me - ever the worrier!
Today, as we enter the narrow cobbled street, each side is still framed by crazy, leaning houses that used to house the blacksmith and horse farrier. The windows either side of the street are so close, the occupants wouldn't have to lean out far to shake hands with one another. But shake hands with each other they do. Although yesteryear's wars were hard-fought and bloody, the eventual peace in this region benefited everyone.
I, myself, being a lateral-thinker, look forward to the day when we are all members of Earth, have an Earth flag, an Earth language and Earth currency. Only then can the world live in peace together. That is, until Earth has to fight alien invaders from another planet. That's me - ever the worrier!
27th October 2008
I am always intrigued by how the French deal with their mainly Catholic faith and the secular nature of the government. So it was interesting to see the reaction of locals to the death of Sister Emmanuelle who died last Monday at the age of 99. She was a Franco-Belgian nun, who like Mother Therese, was known for her work with the poor in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere around the world. In her last minutes on this earth, a representative from ASMAE, an aid organisation she founded, said that Emmanuelle spoke of being tired but was not suffering from any particular illness. She died in her sleep overnight - something we all wish for ourselves when the time comes.
It's amazing that more and more people are living to a hundred these days. Sister Emmanuel was born Madeleine Cinquin in Brussels on Nov. 16, 1908 to a French father and a Belgian mother and spent her childhood in Paris, London and Brussels. In 1931 at the age of 22 she took her vows to become a nun at the Notre Dame de Sion congregation, choosing the name Sister Emmanuelle, meaning "God is with us". In 1980, she founded ASMAE, an organisation she described as "secular and apolitical", to provide health and education assistance to poor children and their families. Today, ASMAE is active in nine countries worldwide. Noted in particular for her work with garbage workers in the slums of Cairo, in 1993 her superiors asked her to leave Egypt to retire to France. A mass will be given in her memory in Paris. No date has been set as of yet.
And yet the locals living near us are quite reticent about their own faith. Every so often our local hardware store starts stocking pots and pots of chrysanthemums, which the locals buy to make pilgrimages to the cemetery up the road from us. But never a word to anyone. We just see them quietly buying the plants and that's all. I must admit I do like this way of living: keeping your personal faith to yourself, praying quietly at home if that is your wish, but expecting the nation's government to keep its secularity at all times. Hear hear.
It's amazing that more and more people are living to a hundred these days. Sister Emmanuel was born Madeleine Cinquin in Brussels on Nov. 16, 1908 to a French father and a Belgian mother and spent her childhood in Paris, London and Brussels. In 1931 at the age of 22 she took her vows to become a nun at the Notre Dame de Sion congregation, choosing the name Sister Emmanuelle, meaning "God is with us". In 1980, she founded ASMAE, an organisation she described as "secular and apolitical", to provide health and education assistance to poor children and their families. Today, ASMAE is active in nine countries worldwide. Noted in particular for her work with garbage workers in the slums of Cairo, in 1993 her superiors asked her to leave Egypt to retire to France. A mass will be given in her memory in Paris. No date has been set as of yet.
And yet the locals living near us are quite reticent about their own faith. Every so often our local hardware store starts stocking pots and pots of chrysanthemums, which the locals buy to make pilgrimages to the cemetery up the road from us. But never a word to anyone. We just see them quietly buying the plants and that's all. I must admit I do like this way of living: keeping your personal faith to yourself, praying quietly at home if that is your wish, but expecting the nation's government to keep its secularity at all times. Hear hear.
Bruno - extracted from 'Pensioners in Paradis'
Finale.
One sunny day Bruno and his master, or was it the other way round, went for a walk up the stony path around the back of our house to a very quite country lane which runs in front of a large densely-wooded copse. I had been used to taking Bruno off the lead, training him that I always had his favourite bits of cheese in my pocket, which he could have as long as he always returned to me instantly on command.
This particular day was the first time that this manoeuvre would be attempted by Bruno and his master. The lead was duly unfastened and the dog went haring off, as usual, into the wooded copse. In due course, his master called him to heel. No response. After several calls and whistles, his master, not known for his phlegmatic temperament, began to get rather irate.
‘Come here you little bugger.’
Nothing.
Eventually, Bruno was spotted chasing a rabbit or some such and his master edged ever nearer, the trusty Rambo lead in his hands. Just when the task was almost completed, Bruno went haring off again, this time along the shady lane towards the farm fifty yards away. In the fields which border our property, the farmer’s flock of woolly sheep and goats grazed peacefully, contentedly munching on their daily diet of grassy forage and hoary tree branches which were pulled down to their level by several intrepid goats.
‘No, no Bruno. Come here,’ in increasing velocity. In response Bruno, with a wild, wall-eyed Marty Feldman look to his eyes, ducked his head underneath the farmer’s electrified fence wire and galloped towards the grazing herds. In France, farmers are legally entitled to shoot any animal that endangers the lives of their flocks. Back at the house I had heard the commotion. I had been washing up in the kitchen which faces the distant back lane and with mounting alarm took in the scene unfolding directly in front of my horrified gaze. I dashed outside, frantically pulling on my garden shoes and chased up the lane.
By now, the farmer had rushed outside and was running towards Bruno who had by this time managed to do a rugby tackle on an unfortunate sheep, felling him heavily to the ground. By the time both men had arrived breathless on the scene, Bruno was busy biting one of the creature’s back legs. The farmer and the dog’s master between them managed to pull the now salivating dog off the poor sheep and Bruno’s trusty lead was firmly clipped to his collar again.
‘In France your dog must always have his lead on, always,’ said the irate farmer, even though we saw his own dog regularly wandering up and down the lane, clearly having to exercise himself. Anyway, at least that was what we understood of his statement. There seemed to be a few ‘merdes’ and other unfathomable words which our dictionary didn’t for some reason contain.
Sheepish faces all round.
Thank God the farmer had not used his gun, but he looked none too pleased. What a start to my dreams of making friends with our new neighbours. That evening, the offending dog and his master in disgrace in the sous-sol (cellar), I collected our windfall of sweet plums from our garden and took a carrier-bag full around to the farmer’s wife. I had noticed that in this southerly part of the world, the fruit crop is plentiful but ripens much earlier than in the UK. The farmer’s wife was busy in her garden, evidently planting and weeding. I coughed to attract her attention, whilst leaning on her garden wall. She looked up.
‘Je suis desolé pour mon mari et pour mon chien. Les deux sont maintenant dans le sous-sol.’
The farmer’s wife stared at me, incredulous. Surely I hadn’t meant that the dog and his master had been sent in disgrace into the dark dungeon that was the sous-sol? She suddenly started laughing until tears streamed down her face. Her bony, liver-spotted fingers scrabbled in her apron pocket and hastily dabbed at her face with a well-scrubbed handkerchief. Another neighbour came over, an old lady of over eighty years, whose large whitewashed stone house was just discernible from our kitchen window. The farmer’s wife gabbled something pretty incomprehensible to her, and she too laughed hysterically. Oh well. At least they hadn’t shooed me off their land. So what if we have become the amusement spectacle of the region? I handed over my peace offering, and there were smiles all around. I told them as best I could that in future there would be no more running of the dog without a lead.
Quel catastrophe, mais c’est la vie!
One sunny day Bruno and his master, or was it the other way round, went for a walk up the stony path around the back of our house to a very quite country lane which runs in front of a large densely-wooded copse. I had been used to taking Bruno off the lead, training him that I always had his favourite bits of cheese in my pocket, which he could have as long as he always returned to me instantly on command.
This particular day was the first time that this manoeuvre would be attempted by Bruno and his master. The lead was duly unfastened and the dog went haring off, as usual, into the wooded copse. In due course, his master called him to heel. No response. After several calls and whistles, his master, not known for his phlegmatic temperament, began to get rather irate.
‘Come here you little bugger.’
Nothing.
Eventually, Bruno was spotted chasing a rabbit or some such and his master edged ever nearer, the trusty Rambo lead in his hands. Just when the task was almost completed, Bruno went haring off again, this time along the shady lane towards the farm fifty yards away. In the fields which border our property, the farmer’s flock of woolly sheep and goats grazed peacefully, contentedly munching on their daily diet of grassy forage and hoary tree branches which were pulled down to their level by several intrepid goats.
‘No, no Bruno. Come here,’ in increasing velocity. In response Bruno, with a wild, wall-eyed Marty Feldman look to his eyes, ducked his head underneath the farmer’s electrified fence wire and galloped towards the grazing herds. In France, farmers are legally entitled to shoot any animal that endangers the lives of their flocks. Back at the house I had heard the commotion. I had been washing up in the kitchen which faces the distant back lane and with mounting alarm took in the scene unfolding directly in front of my horrified gaze. I dashed outside, frantically pulling on my garden shoes and chased up the lane.
By now, the farmer had rushed outside and was running towards Bruno who had by this time managed to do a rugby tackle on an unfortunate sheep, felling him heavily to the ground. By the time both men had arrived breathless on the scene, Bruno was busy biting one of the creature’s back legs. The farmer and the dog’s master between them managed to pull the now salivating dog off the poor sheep and Bruno’s trusty lead was firmly clipped to his collar again.
‘In France your dog must always have his lead on, always,’ said the irate farmer, even though we saw his own dog regularly wandering up and down the lane, clearly having to exercise himself. Anyway, at least that was what we understood of his statement. There seemed to be a few ‘merdes’ and other unfathomable words which our dictionary didn’t for some reason contain.
Sheepish faces all round.
Thank God the farmer had not used his gun, but he looked none too pleased. What a start to my dreams of making friends with our new neighbours. That evening, the offending dog and his master in disgrace in the sous-sol (cellar), I collected our windfall of sweet plums from our garden and took a carrier-bag full around to the farmer’s wife. I had noticed that in this southerly part of the world, the fruit crop is plentiful but ripens much earlier than in the UK. The farmer’s wife was busy in her garden, evidently planting and weeding. I coughed to attract her attention, whilst leaning on her garden wall. She looked up.
‘Je suis desolé pour mon mari et pour mon chien. Les deux sont maintenant dans le sous-sol.’
The farmer’s wife stared at me, incredulous. Surely I hadn’t meant that the dog and his master had been sent in disgrace into the dark dungeon that was the sous-sol? She suddenly started laughing until tears streamed down her face. Her bony, liver-spotted fingers scrabbled in her apron pocket and hastily dabbed at her face with a well-scrubbed handkerchief. Another neighbour came over, an old lady of over eighty years, whose large whitewashed stone house was just discernible from our kitchen window. The farmer’s wife gabbled something pretty incomprehensible to her, and she too laughed hysterically. Oh well. At least they hadn’t shooed me off their land. So what if we have become the amusement spectacle of the region? I handed over my peace offering, and there were smiles all around. I told them as best I could that in future there would be no more running of the dog without a lead.
Quel catastrophe, mais c’est la vie!
25th October 2008
France seems to like having special 'weeks'. Last week was a new one - the Semaine de Gout - a national event aimed at promoting kids' taste-buds. Sounds like the producers have heard of our own Jamie Oliver's food programmes. (Let's hope the kids aren't encouraged to watch Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen series, or they'll be learning something entirely different - *!!!). Strangely, in a land famed for dismissing anything culinary coming from the other side of the Channel, there's a new kid on the block in France. I'm talking about Trish Deseine, a 44 years old, Irish divorced mother of four. The daughter of a beef farmer and a teacher from Ballyclare, Co Antrim, she moved to her sixth floor Paris flat after meeting her French husband at university, tried cooking when she lost her job as a press officer and worked her way to the top of Gallic gastronomy. She now writes a bimonthly cookery column for French Elle and her practical recipes have been acclaimed by French dinner-party hosts weary of complicated recipes by Michelin-starred chefs.
This Irishwoman may have taught the French how to throw a dinner party, but getting them to shed some of their many other prejudices may take rather more time.
P.S. Don't miss tomorrow's episode of the 'Bruno' serial.
This Irishwoman may have taught the French how to throw a dinner party, but getting them to shed some of their many other prejudices may take rather more time.
P.S. Don't miss tomorrow's episode of the 'Bruno' serial.
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