There's no point, really there isn't, why try to get stuff done, even
important stuff like putting your screaming with exhaustion child to bed when
you have more pertinent things to do like feed Local Service another glass of
wine or entertain the local stone mason (Who proudly declares he built our
leaking roof every time he comes round) and his (admittedly charming) 8 year
old granddaughter for 40 minutes a piece come 7 o'clock on any given evening.
Along with the visitors come a large amount of locally grown, fresh picked
fruit and vegetables delivered without expectation of anything in return
(Indeed the whole village knows we don't have a veg plot and I sense a little
bit of pity for this in the offerings!).
It would be the height of churlishness to complain but we are starting to
creak under the weight of the offerings. The other night Local Service
turned up with a small crate of Haricot Beans (Yellow variety!) when, not
halfway through his congratulatory glass of Rose, Proud Roof Man arrives with a
carrier bag of the same (Green Variety!). Much politically correct
complimenting and critical eyeballing of each other’s beans ensues over the
next two thirds of the rose bottle. Local Service pointed out, next day,
that yellow variety are far superior.
In the last 3 days, they have both stepped up their game and we have had a
handful of hazelnuts, six courgettes, three cucumbers, two lettuces, a marrow,
a red cabbage, another carrier bag of beans and a bucket of tomatoes. In
return Competitive wife is going to start stepping up cupcake production to
industrial levels.
Saturday 4 August 2012
Wednesday 20 June 2012
BZZZZzzzzzzz
It's be a while since I updated this blog, a lot has happened and that's
mainly why I haven't! I'll try to catch up over the next few days and
weeks and so fill you in on the various things that have been going on.
Just a recently a swarm of bees decided to take up residence in our garden, they were quite a sight as they form a house sized cloud above our roof buzzing like an armada of mopeds.
They settled in the corner of the garden wall (or the back of Retired Farmers house) about 20 feet up and we thought it a good idea to go and tell him. In an uncharacteristic flurry of activity he came straight around and insisted that we all went to his house for our safety! Competitive wife was expecting a visit from a hairdresser so he said it would be fine for her to stay indoors but I and Terrible two's girl really should come over to his and share a bottle of Rose (This is French Health and Safety practice in action) (Terrible two's girl did not share the Rose!).
Reluctantly I went and spent a lovely afternoon in next doors garden at the end of which Retired Farmer promised to be back at 8 that evening (When the bees had gone to bed!) to seal up the entrance as, in his opinion, they were not accessible for the local honey producer to come and collect them.
8pm came and went and we assumed that he had forgotten but a mere 2 hours later he turned up with his mate (one of the many non descript Frenchmen of a certain age who inhabit the village and have a repeating name, Jo-Jo, Ho-Ho, Fon-Fon, Lu-Lu etc, etc [that's not one]). Clearly they had spent the evening up to that point drinking as Retired farmer staggered in with a ladder and his mate just attempted to push, kick, poke or barrack him at every opportunity. Armed with paper and mastic he then set about closing up the entrance of the hive and by way of celebration insisted that I join them in his cellar for a bottle of wine.
3 hours later and 30 minutes after his mate had gone home we emerged from his cellar into utter darkness (The village lights were off) whereupon he looked at me and asked who I was! Laughingly I tried to respond by shining the light from my phone on my face whereupon he fell flat on his arse. Once I'd located him I helped him to his door where he once again asked me who I was and why did I have a bottle of his Vin d'Epine (which he'd given me an hour earlier as a gift) under my arm. I replied as best I could and went home.
The next day the bees were free again and that evening Retired Farmer turned up with his son and a can of expanding foam! I'm no bee expert but I didn't rate the chances of this plan working all that highly and funnily enough the next day the bees were free once more. On the 3rd evening he turned up with a local builder and a pot full of plaster!
At the time of writing the bees are yet again free.
Just a recently a swarm of bees decided to take up residence in our garden, they were quite a sight as they form a house sized cloud above our roof buzzing like an armada of mopeds.
They settled in the corner of the garden wall (or the back of Retired Farmers house) about 20 feet up and we thought it a good idea to go and tell him. In an uncharacteristic flurry of activity he came straight around and insisted that we all went to his house for our safety! Competitive wife was expecting a visit from a hairdresser so he said it would be fine for her to stay indoors but I and Terrible two's girl really should come over to his and share a bottle of Rose (This is French Health and Safety practice in action) (Terrible two's girl did not share the Rose!).
Reluctantly I went and spent a lovely afternoon in next doors garden at the end of which Retired Farmer promised to be back at 8 that evening (When the bees had gone to bed!) to seal up the entrance as, in his opinion, they were not accessible for the local honey producer to come and collect them.
8pm came and went and we assumed that he had forgotten but a mere 2 hours later he turned up with his mate (one of the many non descript Frenchmen of a certain age who inhabit the village and have a repeating name, Jo-Jo, Ho-Ho, Fon-Fon, Lu-Lu etc, etc [that's not one]). Clearly they had spent the evening up to that point drinking as Retired farmer staggered in with a ladder and his mate just attempted to push, kick, poke or barrack him at every opportunity. Armed with paper and mastic he then set about closing up the entrance of the hive and by way of celebration insisted that I join them in his cellar for a bottle of wine.
3 hours later and 30 minutes after his mate had gone home we emerged from his cellar into utter darkness (The village lights were off) whereupon he looked at me and asked who I was! Laughingly I tried to respond by shining the light from my phone on my face whereupon he fell flat on his arse. Once I'd located him I helped him to his door where he once again asked me who I was and why did I have a bottle of his Vin d'Epine (which he'd given me an hour earlier as a gift) under my arm. I replied as best I could and went home.
The next day the bees were free again and that evening Retired Farmer turned up with his son and a can of expanding foam! I'm no bee expert but I didn't rate the chances of this plan working all that highly and funnily enough the next day the bees were free once more. On the 3rd evening he turned up with a local builder and a pot full of plaster!
At the time of writing the bees are yet again free.
Monday 21 May 2012
Getting stuck in.
One of our main concerns before we moved was to ensure that we joined in
with the local community and integrated with the French speaking part of
it. We needn't have worried, the French speaking community have almost
insisted on welcoming us and getting us integrate with village affairs.
Competitive Wife has already been roped into a variety of local events and meetings, in two weeks she has sat on the committee for opening a new community library, helped make the local goats cheese tarts called "Torteaux" and baked them in the community oven and at time of writing is at her French class in the local town followed by lunch with the French class at a Creperie called "Le Marmite" (I think it's a big cooking pot roughly the same shape as the jars of savoury spread, must be a connection there). Last week she also went (with a friend who visited from the UK) to a soiree Tartines, which we came to realise can only be described as a toast topping festival! I’m working on her to write an account of "soiree Tartines" for my blog but true to her name she won't let me have it unless it's better written than my entries! (Not altogether difficult one would have thought).
For my own part I'm getting into French society through the medium of DIY and vegetables. We have started receiving vegetables from a variety of sources, in exchange for anything from furniture to cup cakes. Green garlic are particularly plentiful at the moment, we've received about 30 of them so far and are running out of things to put them in. Along with those, in the last week, we have had 4 lettuces and a bag full of what Local service calls spinach but which looks alarmingly like doc leaves, nice in an omelette though. On the DIY front I'm pushing the limits of what I can do on a daily basis, I've replaced windows with cut glass and putty, wired the barn with lights and set up/aligned a satellite dish all for the first time ever. The window and TV work fine so 2 out of 3 isn't too bad. I'm afraid I'll have to call 40 cat man to help with the electrics but he will then need to have a drink with me afterwards and he does smell of cat wee and doesn't say anything while he's having his drink leaving me floundering around to make conversation in basic French!
Well, onwards and upwards and let there be light next time I write.
Competitive Wife has already been roped into a variety of local events and meetings, in two weeks she has sat on the committee for opening a new community library, helped make the local goats cheese tarts called "Torteaux" and baked them in the community oven and at time of writing is at her French class in the local town followed by lunch with the French class at a Creperie called "Le Marmite" (I think it's a big cooking pot roughly the same shape as the jars of savoury spread, must be a connection there). Last week she also went (with a friend who visited from the UK) to a soiree Tartines, which we came to realise can only be described as a toast topping festival! I’m working on her to write an account of "soiree Tartines" for my blog but true to her name she won't let me have it unless it's better written than my entries! (Not altogether difficult one would have thought).
For my own part I'm getting into French society through the medium of DIY and vegetables. We have started receiving vegetables from a variety of sources, in exchange for anything from furniture to cup cakes. Green garlic are particularly plentiful at the moment, we've received about 30 of them so far and are running out of things to put them in. Along with those, in the last week, we have had 4 lettuces and a bag full of what Local service calls spinach but which looks alarmingly like doc leaves, nice in an omelette though. On the DIY front I'm pushing the limits of what I can do on a daily basis, I've replaced windows with cut glass and putty, wired the barn with lights and set up/aligned a satellite dish all for the first time ever. The window and TV work fine so 2 out of 3 isn't too bad. I'm afraid I'll have to call 40 cat man to help with the electrics but he will then need to have a drink with me afterwards and he does smell of cat wee and doesn't say anything while he's having his drink leaving me floundering around to make conversation in basic French!
Well, onwards and upwards and let there be light next time I write.
Nous Somme Arrivés
Well here we are, we've arrived in France and house in the UK is due to sell
any day now (the point of no return, so to speak). It’s all a bit chaotic, and flying by, so far so
just a few bits and pieces here, possibly a better written and more cohesive
entry will follow shortly!
The big house (there are 2 on the property, the other one we imaginatively call the little house) is coming along well, totally unrecognisable from two years ago when we first saw it. It fights us tooth and nail to remain as it is with every simple DIY task taking 2 or 3 times longer than you would expect due to years of abuse from previous owners, I mean why use the supplied fixings to put blinds on windows when a blob of super glue does the job so quickly? Changing things like blinds then becomes a far trickier job than advertised.
I seem to remember referring to our 18 month old as having premature terrible twos in my first post, well perhaps she thinks she should be living up to it. I had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be. If anything fails to go her way at the moment she has decided that spitting on the floor will get her the reaction she is after. Where exactly this new fad came from, neither Competitive Wife nor I are able to fathom.
Last week one of the local British imports of Prop Forward physique, asked me if I could help him unload a lorry bringing his sheds from the UK over here. I said I'd be delighted but had little idea (nor, I think, did he) that it would take six men a full (and full on) 3 hours to unload. At time of writing I'm rather sore. Myself, Prop Forward, Local Service, Grumpy Welshman, the driver and a local plumber/electrician with 40 cats (40 cat man) managed to shift the equivalent of a small copse of trees from the back of the lorry and in doing so consumed (between us) 1 cup of tea, 2 Oranginas, 12 cans of strong lager, 5 shots of whiskey and a Pastis. Apparently nothing can be done around here without offering an alcoholic drink afterwards or in this case during. Grumpy Welshman was on particularly good form, turning up in a hi-vis vest and making sure the traffic got past the lorry safely, I'm sure both cyclists made it home all the more safely as a result.
That's all for now.
The big house (there are 2 on the property, the other one we imaginatively call the little house) is coming along well, totally unrecognisable from two years ago when we first saw it. It fights us tooth and nail to remain as it is with every simple DIY task taking 2 or 3 times longer than you would expect due to years of abuse from previous owners, I mean why use the supplied fixings to put blinds on windows when a blob of super glue does the job so quickly? Changing things like blinds then becomes a far trickier job than advertised.
I seem to remember referring to our 18 month old as having premature terrible twos in my first post, well perhaps she thinks she should be living up to it. I had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be. If anything fails to go her way at the moment she has decided that spitting on the floor will get her the reaction she is after. Where exactly this new fad came from, neither Competitive Wife nor I are able to fathom.
Last week one of the local British imports of Prop Forward physique, asked me if I could help him unload a lorry bringing his sheds from the UK over here. I said I'd be delighted but had little idea (nor, I think, did he) that it would take six men a full (and full on) 3 hours to unload. At time of writing I'm rather sore. Myself, Prop Forward, Local Service, Grumpy Welshman, the driver and a local plumber/electrician with 40 cats (40 cat man) managed to shift the equivalent of a small copse of trees from the back of the lorry and in doing so consumed (between us) 1 cup of tea, 2 Oranginas, 12 cans of strong lager, 5 shots of whiskey and a Pastis. Apparently nothing can be done around here without offering an alcoholic drink afterwards or in this case during. Grumpy Welshman was on particularly good form, turning up in a hi-vis vest and making sure the traffic got past the lorry safely, I'm sure both cyclists made it home all the more safely as a result.
That's all for now.
Friday 27 April 2012
Sir Humphrey would be proud.
This is not specifically about French culture but it's all part of the moving experience.
As UK tax payers we were informed by various websites that we would be entitled to French healthcare, paid for by the NHS, while my family and I was living in France.
The process seemed to be, on the surface of it at least, fairly straighforward. You apply for a form, called an S1, which you then present to an office in France, called CPAM, whereupon your healthcare would be organised. Well that's the easy way of looking at it.
I have yet to reach the stage of presenting my S1 form to the French office, largely because I have yet to receive it. Initially you need to contact the correct department in the UK. After 2 days of phone calls each of which lasted just 30 seconds (preceded by 30 minutes on hold) I was eventually convinced by the Inland Revenue that my family was ineligible to claim healthcare abroad and would have to shell out for private cover. This was rather a large blow to our plans and we started to take stock of the new financial situation we would be in when we moved.
After several days of worrying about this we decided to seek some professional advice from a company called Siddalls (Whom I am delighted to be able to plug because of their fantastic advice and extremely reasonable terms). We were convinced by them to start the process again and this time to insist that we definitely were eligible and not to be put off. We re-commenced our efforts duly emboldened and several phone calls later I had our S1 application printed, filled out and in the post. The Inland Revenue assured us, indeed almost boasted, that once they had received the form it would take them just 2 days to make a decision, marvellous!
Ten days later and having heard nothing, I called the Inland Rev to enquire as to the progress of our application. I was told, as if some sort of prize should be awarded to them, that they had, with ruthless efficiency, received the form. It would now take a mere two weeks to get from the post room to the office where the decision would be made. The post room presumably being somewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Having given them another week and therefore the necessary time for our papers to cross multiple war torn borders and "No-fly" zones, I called them again to check on progress. "It has just arrived in the office" was the remarkably coincidental reply. "Great" I said" so it will now take you 2 days to process, yes?" I was assured that this was indeed the case, super stuff, progress indeed.
Predictably I called again two days later to see if the deed was done, "Not yet" (Equally predictably) came the reply. When pressed on the point that they had repeatedly told me that the process would only take 2 days, they floored me with a brilliant riposte "Ah but the decisions team only work one day per week". As stunned and disappointed as I was I couldn't help but admire the way that (At time of writing) a 6 week process had truthfully been described as taking just 2 days. Long live the civil service!
Wednesday 4 April 2012
The long way home.
This could be a lengthy one so brace yourself. Well in fact, if this
bit hasn't been edited out, it is.
One of our trips to the house last year saw one of my wife's longest serving friends (Penniless solicitor: PS) come over to visit us for the last 4 days (Thursday to Sunday) of a 2 week stay.
Our aim for the 2 weeks was integration with the local community and to this end we had arranged a little "Apero" evening, inviting our neighbours by knocking on doors and speaking at them in our best French.
The Apero was to be held on the Friday and we were as scared as kittens. We had no idea how many would turn up, each invitee had been asked to "invite anyone you think of who might want to come". This led to a bit of panic buying in the wine and glasses departments and at the time of writing we still have far too many glasses.
The evening was pretty much a success, about 25 locals turned up (Including about 10 ex-pats but the rest were French locals) and we managed to communicate fairly well and keep all of the glasses topped up. Other than a small groping incident the night passed off without a hitch but somehow wife (Against her own rule of not entertaining the night before we drive home) managed to invite Grumpy Welshman (GW) and his better half over for dinner the following evening. This was the first link in a chain of events that will be family lore for many years to come.
The following evening, after we had got dinner sorted, we received an invitation from GW to come over to his for a pre-dinner drink. It was a bit close to little one's bedtime to take advantage of it so, very graciously, wife offered to let PS and I go as long as we were sure to be home by 7.30 given our impending early start and 12 hour drive.
Armed with 45 minutes, we set off on foot for GW's house and had barely managed 60 yards when a van parked in front of us pulled away turned left and removed a large chunk of trim from it's side cutting a corner a bit too fine. The driver, either unaware or unbothered simply drove away! Several neighbours came out to see what the noise was so we smiled, practiced our best Gallic shrugs at the little bit of van on the side of the road and headed off once more.
After another 20 yards a rotund Frenchman (with a nickname derived from his father's job at the water board, we'll call him WB) we recognised from the Apero evening came running out of his garage and insisted we came in to see the work he was doing on his house. We explained we that we needed to get to GW's house but he simply explained: GW, "he's my brother" as if that settled any and all argument! "And so it begins" were PS's prophetic words at just that moment. A full tour ensued complete with much appreciation of wall finishings, window trim, flooring, electrical installation and understanding of the costs involved, not to mention a considerable amount of boasting that it had all been done outside of the tax system!
We finally got back down to his garage and were about to bid our farewells when he produced a half bottle of whisky with a hairy Scotsman on the front and 3 disposable plastic cups. Something of a movie style dream sequence followed with WB, who spoke no English, teaching me (A Welshman from the valleys) words in Welsh while we all downed neat whiskey. GW had clearly been coaching him for this moment for years. By the time we got underway, WB in tow, it must have been 7.20 and we had managed 80 yards. Further drinks at GW's meant we didn't arrive home until 8.15.
This didn't go down well with wife who had been dealing with the little one who didn't want to go to bed and trying to keep dinner edible. This was entirely fair on her part however I still couldn't see any way around the delay without being rude to our new acquaintances! Much drinking was done for the next few hours and I think we staggered to bed well past midnight with a 6am start and 12 hour drive home the next day.
To say we were in poor condition to commence the drive home would have been an understatement, three hangovers and a loud baby in a car at 7am on the autoroute, mixed in with a bit of leftover tension from the night before was not ideal. We had to give up and stop at the first services for coffee and a bit of a group hug (Or the British equivalent, a sensible chat around a table). This cleared the air and our heads somewhat and we got back underway having wasted about an hour. Now behind schedule and struggling to catch our ferry from Calais, we pushed on as fast as we dared for 6 hours and with the port just 20km away were squeaking in on time to catch our boat.
At this point the petrol light in the car came on along with a warning that we had just 45km of fuel left. Wife was asleep in the back of the car and after confirming the remaining distance with PS who had the map I said "Let’s risk it". These are the words that wife woke up to asking "risk WHAT?". I started to explain but before I could finish we had run out of petrol. So now we are on a service road near the autoroute with a baby, it's foggy, cold and occasionally drizzling. Having jogged the half km to the nearest SOS phone to find that it didn't work I came back and following the instructions on the SOS booth dialled 112 on our mobile. My mistake was to ask if anyone spoke English because they just hung up! Another 10 attempts later we finally managed to explain our situation to someone and get a rescue vehicle on it's way to us, perhaps from Paris as it only took 2 hours to arrive.
On arrival he tipped 2 litres of petrol in the car, stuck out his hand and said 185 Euros please, when questioned about this he shrugged, said "c'est Dimanche" and threatened to call the police. We paid the man leaving us a combined wealth of 1 Euro, and headed off once more.
Arriving at the port we were told that we needed to go to the ticket office to pay to change our ferry crossing, a mere 87 Euros. When I explained that this was more than the original return crossing cost the lady behind the counter cheerily said "I know", she followed this up by saying we were now too late for the next crossing and would have to wait another 2 and a half hours. "Merci" I said with as little real meaning as I could manage.
The waiting hall consists of a huge room filled with 5 or six vending machines. Having not eaten since breakfast we decided to spend our Euro a single packet of crisps to share between 3 of us. Never has a crisp tasted so good and collectively we were almost weeping with joy when I held up the little one to look into the packet and said "look crisps!". Showing a previously undiscovered talent for comic timing she promptly threw up straight into the packet. We really did cry with laughter.
One of our trips to the house last year saw one of my wife's longest serving friends (Penniless solicitor: PS) come over to visit us for the last 4 days (Thursday to Sunday) of a 2 week stay.
Our aim for the 2 weeks was integration with the local community and to this end we had arranged a little "Apero" evening, inviting our neighbours by knocking on doors and speaking at them in our best French.
The Apero was to be held on the Friday and we were as scared as kittens. We had no idea how many would turn up, each invitee had been asked to "invite anyone you think of who might want to come". This led to a bit of panic buying in the wine and glasses departments and at the time of writing we still have far too many glasses.
The evening was pretty much a success, about 25 locals turned up (Including about 10 ex-pats but the rest were French locals) and we managed to communicate fairly well and keep all of the glasses topped up. Other than a small groping incident the night passed off without a hitch but somehow wife (Against her own rule of not entertaining the night before we drive home) managed to invite Grumpy Welshman (GW) and his better half over for dinner the following evening. This was the first link in a chain of events that will be family lore for many years to come.
The following evening, after we had got dinner sorted, we received an invitation from GW to come over to his for a pre-dinner drink. It was a bit close to little one's bedtime to take advantage of it so, very graciously, wife offered to let PS and I go as long as we were sure to be home by 7.30 given our impending early start and 12 hour drive.
Armed with 45 minutes, we set off on foot for GW's house and had barely managed 60 yards when a van parked in front of us pulled away turned left and removed a large chunk of trim from it's side cutting a corner a bit too fine. The driver, either unaware or unbothered simply drove away! Several neighbours came out to see what the noise was so we smiled, practiced our best Gallic shrugs at the little bit of van on the side of the road and headed off once more.
After another 20 yards a rotund Frenchman (with a nickname derived from his father's job at the water board, we'll call him WB) we recognised from the Apero evening came running out of his garage and insisted we came in to see the work he was doing on his house. We explained we that we needed to get to GW's house but he simply explained: GW, "he's my brother" as if that settled any and all argument! "And so it begins" were PS's prophetic words at just that moment. A full tour ensued complete with much appreciation of wall finishings, window trim, flooring, electrical installation and understanding of the costs involved, not to mention a considerable amount of boasting that it had all been done outside of the tax system!
We finally got back down to his garage and were about to bid our farewells when he produced a half bottle of whisky with a hairy Scotsman on the front and 3 disposable plastic cups. Something of a movie style dream sequence followed with WB, who spoke no English, teaching me (A Welshman from the valleys) words in Welsh while we all downed neat whiskey. GW had clearly been coaching him for this moment for years. By the time we got underway, WB in tow, it must have been 7.20 and we had managed 80 yards. Further drinks at GW's meant we didn't arrive home until 8.15.
This didn't go down well with wife who had been dealing with the little one who didn't want to go to bed and trying to keep dinner edible. This was entirely fair on her part however I still couldn't see any way around the delay without being rude to our new acquaintances! Much drinking was done for the next few hours and I think we staggered to bed well past midnight with a 6am start and 12 hour drive home the next day.
To say we were in poor condition to commence the drive home would have been an understatement, three hangovers and a loud baby in a car at 7am on the autoroute, mixed in with a bit of leftover tension from the night before was not ideal. We had to give up and stop at the first services for coffee and a bit of a group hug (Or the British equivalent, a sensible chat around a table). This cleared the air and our heads somewhat and we got back underway having wasted about an hour. Now behind schedule and struggling to catch our ferry from Calais, we pushed on as fast as we dared for 6 hours and with the port just 20km away were squeaking in on time to catch our boat.
At this point the petrol light in the car came on along with a warning that we had just 45km of fuel left. Wife was asleep in the back of the car and after confirming the remaining distance with PS who had the map I said "Let’s risk it". These are the words that wife woke up to asking "risk WHAT?". I started to explain but before I could finish we had run out of petrol. So now we are on a service road near the autoroute with a baby, it's foggy, cold and occasionally drizzling. Having jogged the half km to the nearest SOS phone to find that it didn't work I came back and following the instructions on the SOS booth dialled 112 on our mobile. My mistake was to ask if anyone spoke English because they just hung up! Another 10 attempts later we finally managed to explain our situation to someone and get a rescue vehicle on it's way to us, perhaps from Paris as it only took 2 hours to arrive.
On arrival he tipped 2 litres of petrol in the car, stuck out his hand and said 185 Euros please, when questioned about this he shrugged, said "c'est Dimanche" and threatened to call the police. We paid the man leaving us a combined wealth of 1 Euro, and headed off once more.
Arriving at the port we were told that we needed to go to the ticket office to pay to change our ferry crossing, a mere 87 Euros. When I explained that this was more than the original return crossing cost the lady behind the counter cheerily said "I know", she followed this up by saying we were now too late for the next crossing and would have to wait another 2 and a half hours. "Merci" I said with as little real meaning as I could manage.
The waiting hall consists of a huge room filled with 5 or six vending machines. Having not eaten since breakfast we decided to spend our Euro a single packet of crisps to share between 3 of us. Never has a crisp tasted so good and collectively we were almost weeping with joy when I held up the little one to look into the packet and said "look crisps!". Showing a previously undiscovered talent for comic timing she promptly threw up straight into the packet. We really did cry with laughter.
Saturday 31 March 2012
Cultural handgrenade.
There were plenty of warnings from locals, expats, internet forums etc.
Always make sure you employ local craftsmen to work on the house if you want to
be accepted by the French speaking community, they told us. This turned
out to be true but not for reasons you might expect.
Late last year I spent a few weeks at the house (yes, totally ignoring warnings but a 3 month waiting list for an outrageously expensive artisan wasn't an option) with a friend/builder who was to help me build a bathroom at the house. Building rather than fitting is the correct term here as we had to knock through to the barn and construct the walls, floor, ceiling etc.
All well and good, although knocking doorways through 3 foot thick stone walls was never going to be straightforward and so it proved. The walls are held together with a combination of mud, gravity and light footsteps and comprise of two outer layers of meaty boulders filled with vast quantities of little stones, chaff and walnut shells. An interesting take on cavity wall insulation I presume.
During the course of these few weeks my builder managed to upset or offend pretty much every contact or friend we made since we bought the house. I have now heard 5 or 6 different plans of how the local residents plan to dispose of him from burial under patios to magic tricks gone horribly wrong. It seems no fate is bad enough and frankly, given that half of what he did is falling apart, I'm considering joining the queue!
Ultimately some good has come from the whole thing because the community seem to be pulling together in their mutual dislike of our Rhinestone Builder and no blame has been attached to us.
Hard to pick the moral out of that one but the cliché is easy, all's well that ends well.
Late last year I spent a few weeks at the house (yes, totally ignoring warnings but a 3 month waiting list for an outrageously expensive artisan wasn't an option) with a friend/builder who was to help me build a bathroom at the house. Building rather than fitting is the correct term here as we had to knock through to the barn and construct the walls, floor, ceiling etc.
All well and good, although knocking doorways through 3 foot thick stone walls was never going to be straightforward and so it proved. The walls are held together with a combination of mud, gravity and light footsteps and comprise of two outer layers of meaty boulders filled with vast quantities of little stones, chaff and walnut shells. An interesting take on cavity wall insulation I presume.
During the course of these few weeks my builder managed to upset or offend pretty much every contact or friend we made since we bought the house. I have now heard 5 or 6 different plans of how the local residents plan to dispose of him from burial under patios to magic tricks gone horribly wrong. It seems no fate is bad enough and frankly, given that half of what he did is falling apart, I'm considering joining the queue!
Ultimately some good has come from the whole thing because the community seem to be pulling together in their mutual dislike of our Rhinestone Builder and no blame has been attached to us.
Hard to pick the moral out of that one but the cliché is easy, all's well that ends well.
Mountain bike trials.
It's been quite a while since my last update but frankly nothing's happened!
We’re still waiting for the house to sell and the move to happen. Best guess;
it's still a few weeks away but in the mean time this little tit-bit...
One of our trips to France last year coincided with a mountain bike trial taking place in our village. It's quite a big deal apparently, a national level event where riders race over an insanely dangerous course which passed by the front of our house.
On the day we were visiting Grumpy Welshman (5 mins walk across the village) and, when the little one got tired, we made our way home to put her to bed. Arriving at our house we found the way cordoned off and various neighbours chatting with course marshals in the road. Retired Farmer from next door insisted that we hang on as the riders were due past in 5 minutes.
After 20 minutes of waiting and desperately trying to keep the little one happy we found that the only way she would calm down was to be put down on the road where she could play with stones and in the mud. Wife came up with the genius idea of getting everyone a glass of wine which left us in the bizarre situation of sharing wine in a country road with strange Frenchmen and the baby sitting down playing on the tarmac and occasionally attempting to crawl off into the path of passing mountain bikes!
Standard day in village life I guess! :)
One of our trips to France last year coincided with a mountain bike trial taking place in our village. It's quite a big deal apparently, a national level event where riders race over an insanely dangerous course which passed by the front of our house.
On the day we were visiting Grumpy Welshman (5 mins walk across the village) and, when the little one got tired, we made our way home to put her to bed. Arriving at our house we found the way cordoned off and various neighbours chatting with course marshals in the road. Retired Farmer from next door insisted that we hang on as the riders were due past in 5 minutes.
After 20 minutes of waiting and desperately trying to keep the little one happy we found that the only way she would calm down was to be put down on the road where she could play with stones and in the mud. Wife came up with the genius idea of getting everyone a glass of wine which left us in the bizarre situation of sharing wine in a country road with strange Frenchmen and the baby sitting down playing on the tarmac and occasionally attempting to crawl off into the path of passing mountain bikes!
Standard day in village life I guess! :)
Thursday 8 March 2012
Bastille Day and Mrs T's Knockers.
We had the great privilege of spending last Bastille Day (or Just "le
quatorze Juillet" as the local French seem to know it, I'm not sure they
worry to much about the storming of the Bastille, it's much more the party
preparations that dominate their thoughts) in France.
The Mayor puts on a party/ lunch in the village park and invites a local restaurant to prepare meals for all of the residents. The first time we met the Mayor, my wife, in a translation horror moment, managed to tell him that she was very aroused rather than excited at the prospect of moving. French speakers will know exactly the error that was made there.
We had come over especially for this event and had already paid for our ticket (to get our meal) but were unprepared for Grumpy Welshman (GW) to tell us, at 7pm on the 13th, that everybody brings plenty of food along to share with their neighbours. Now being a couple of very competitive people, keen to ingratiate ourselves with the locals, we couldn't possibly miss this opportunity so a mad supermarket dash had to be made. What we produced, to be fair, was quite good, 4 individual pastry sheets with savoury toppings of hams, cheeses, balsamic onions, roasted peppers etc in various combinations.
On the day itself we decided, on advice from GW to get to the park early to make sure we'd get seat, He'd assured us that the French were very punctual on such events. We should have known better.
We arrived at the park at 10.45 for an 11 o'clock start and were the first ones there! After wandering among the empty tables for a few minutes wondering if we had the right day, Local Service (LS) caught up with us and insisted that we come back to his house, adjacent to the park, for a drink.
So now we are drinking Pastis in LS's house at 11 in the morning with a varied collection of other old men sitting around his kitchen table, LS's wife scowling at us and all watching Nicolas Sarkozy giving his Bastille Day address in front of the troops. Not so much culture shock as shell shock.
The party did get going in the park and we were introduced to quite a lot of people and our pastries were even given the thumbs up by a local pastry chef. While our new neighbours circulated past bringing a selection of illegally produced forms of alcohol, one in particular went into a long story including a hand gesture (Which I'm fairly sure means "Madonna" in sign language) and, quite clearly "Margret Thatcher"!
Intrigued we sought translation and were told that he used to work security in Brussels and had to deliver Mrs T a message whereupon she answered her hotel room door in a skirt and bra. A further translation revealed he had used words to the effect of "Great knockers".
It would be a shame to write any more than that!
The Mayor puts on a party/ lunch in the village park and invites a local restaurant to prepare meals for all of the residents. The first time we met the Mayor, my wife, in a translation horror moment, managed to tell him that she was very aroused rather than excited at the prospect of moving. French speakers will know exactly the error that was made there.
We had come over especially for this event and had already paid for our ticket (to get our meal) but were unprepared for Grumpy Welshman (GW) to tell us, at 7pm on the 13th, that everybody brings plenty of food along to share with their neighbours. Now being a couple of very competitive people, keen to ingratiate ourselves with the locals, we couldn't possibly miss this opportunity so a mad supermarket dash had to be made. What we produced, to be fair, was quite good, 4 individual pastry sheets with savoury toppings of hams, cheeses, balsamic onions, roasted peppers etc in various combinations.
On the day itself we decided, on advice from GW to get to the park early to make sure we'd get seat, He'd assured us that the French were very punctual on such events. We should have known better.
We arrived at the park at 10.45 for an 11 o'clock start and were the first ones there! After wandering among the empty tables for a few minutes wondering if we had the right day, Local Service (LS) caught up with us and insisted that we come back to his house, adjacent to the park, for a drink.
So now we are drinking Pastis in LS's house at 11 in the morning with a varied collection of other old men sitting around his kitchen table, LS's wife scowling at us and all watching Nicolas Sarkozy giving his Bastille Day address in front of the troops. Not so much culture shock as shell shock.
The party did get going in the park and we were introduced to quite a lot of people and our pastries were even given the thumbs up by a local pastry chef. While our new neighbours circulated past bringing a selection of illegally produced forms of alcohol, one in particular went into a long story including a hand gesture (Which I'm fairly sure means "Madonna" in sign language) and, quite clearly "Margret Thatcher"!
Intrigued we sought translation and were told that he used to work security in Brussels and had to deliver Mrs T a message whereupon she answered her hotel room door in a skirt and bra. A further translation revealed he had used words to the effect of "Great knockers".
It would be a shame to write any more than that!
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Electric eccentric!
The standard for electrical installation in France is have armoured conduit threaded with individual wires for positive, neutral and occasionally earth. This is all good and well until one of two problems occurs.
Firstly where several connections have been made you can have upwards of 10 individual wires running through a single conduit. This makes making changes to the system very difficult because (even when correctly coloured) 4 blue wires will look exactly the same at either end.
Secondly it seems to encourage the amateur, have a go, electrician to, well... have a go! This time you can guarantee that no wire remains the same colour on its way into or out of a junction box. Wiring up a light with yellow and green wire for the positive gives you a distinctly uneasy feeling and becomes a journey into the unknown.
Firstly where several connections have been made you can have upwards of 10 individual wires running through a single conduit. This makes making changes to the system very difficult because (even when correctly coloured) 4 blue wires will look exactly the same at either end.
Secondly it seems to encourage the amateur, have a go, electrician to, well... have a go! This time you can guarantee that no wire remains the same colour on its way into or out of a junction box. Wiring up a light with yellow and green wire for the positive gives you a distinctly uneasy feeling and becomes a journey into the unknown.
Monday 5 March 2012
stop, Stop, STOP!!!
On the whole the French are very good at driving and seem to have a similar driving culture to that which I'm used to in the UK. This similarity however, seems to accentuate the differences which, while subtle, are still significant and interesting so please forgive my little bit of train spotting here. Alternatively skip to the next post, I'm sure it'll be out of my system by then.
Firstly, there's signalling on French Autoroutes. There is definitely a system but I'll de damned if I can work out what it is. here's what I do know (you may beg to differ, I'll take no offence!). Overtaking with a constant signal seems to mean "I'm staying out to overtake the next car also". If you are behind the overtaking car then constant signalling seems to mean "I don't want you to overtake the next car, I want you to get out of the way now". Not signalling when overtaking is a definite sign of weakness therefore you have no authority in the fast lane whatsoever so pull over sharpish. I have asked a Frenchman to explain these manoeuvres in detail but I (and he) ended up more confused than when we started.
Secondly there are the "STOP" signs everywhere which are apparently taken very seriously by the local Gendarmes (A tautology, I know!). This makes any accustomed driver hare towards the signs and slam the brakes on to come to a full stop before bothering to look and pull out. The effect is rather like a formula 1 pit-stop. The most disturbing result of this is trying to drive along the road which has the right of way and having the sensation that every car joining from the right is about to hit you.
Lastly (Not that this is a comprehensive list but still) there is the more "French" attitude towards health and safety on the roads. On one of our trips over we saw an autoroute sign saying incident in 12 km so we counted down the distance and sure enough approached blue flashing lights and a Gendarme waving us through in the slow lane. What he was waving us past however was a car in the fast lane fully ablaze! So we played the Gendarmerie's exploding car roulette, fortunately we found an empty chamber!
Buckle up and safe journey!!
Firstly, there's signalling on French Autoroutes. There is definitely a system but I'll de damned if I can work out what it is. here's what I do know (you may beg to differ, I'll take no offence!). Overtaking with a constant signal seems to mean "I'm staying out to overtake the next car also". If you are behind the overtaking car then constant signalling seems to mean "I don't want you to overtake the next car, I want you to get out of the way now". Not signalling when overtaking is a definite sign of weakness therefore you have no authority in the fast lane whatsoever so pull over sharpish. I have asked a Frenchman to explain these manoeuvres in detail but I (and he) ended up more confused than when we started.
Secondly there are the "STOP" signs everywhere which are apparently taken very seriously by the local Gendarmes (A tautology, I know!). This makes any accustomed driver hare towards the signs and slam the brakes on to come to a full stop before bothering to look and pull out. The effect is rather like a formula 1 pit-stop. The most disturbing result of this is trying to drive along the road which has the right of way and having the sensation that every car joining from the right is about to hit you.
Lastly (Not that this is a comprehensive list but still) there is the more "French" attitude towards health and safety on the roads. On one of our trips over we saw an autoroute sign saying incident in 12 km so we counted down the distance and sure enough approached blue flashing lights and a Gendarme waving us through in the slow lane. What he was waving us past however was a car in the fast lane fully ablaze! So we played the Gendarmerie's exploding car roulette, fortunately we found an empty chamber!
Buckle up and safe journey!!
Monday 27 February 2012
Ranting with a Smile!
It must be said that I enjoy writing with a bit of a ranting style but please believe me I love being in France and this I knew long before our decision to move there. I see the challenges and culture clashes as succour to my soul and wouldn't have it any other way.
May France forever be France and may I live there as a courteous guest and never long to change it.
May France forever be France and may I live there as a courteous guest and never long to change it.
Bricomarché!! (Rules not Service!)
Perhaps it is through some national sense of unease at the rise of supermarkets and gradual decline of local shops that the French shopping experience in large national chains (Such as Bricomarché) is so utterly obtuse.
The amount of form filling, ticket holding, needless waiting, shoulder shrugging, rules and bureaucracy is staggering. It's not as if any of it is aimed at providing superb service or efficiencies that are passed onto the consumer (far from it, I could do my DIY shopping at Harrods for less). It seems to me to be uniquely aimed at ensuring, the shopper fully understands the immense privilege he should feel by spending his money at Bricomarché!
Last autumn, I had the misfortune of attempting to return four, four meter lengths of copper pipe and some valves to our local store, which I visit regularly and have spent a considerable amount of time and money in. Some of the process I was aware of, by studying how the locals did it, so I knew that as you walk into the shop, you need to catch the attention of the lady behind the counter who will give you a ticket. It turns out that the ticket says "4 x copper pipe" (Or words to that effect) on it. This served the purpose of allowing me through the automatic barrier to the customer returns department, without being accused of stealing copper pipes. The customer services department is the other end of the same counter where I handed my ticket over to the same lady, who then took the time to read the ticket she had, not ten seconds previously, written and actually checked to make sure there were, as she had just written, 4 copper pipes about my person.
So far so good, I was maintaining a sense of humour at being thrown into farce but then made my first mistake, I produced the 2 valves from my pocket. Oh dear god, if my hand had contained a live grenade, the look on her face could not have been more appalled. My French (lessons underway) is not what it should be but through observation of a particularly animated conversation between her and her colleague I got the impression I had committed a grave, possibly capital, offense. My broken pleas that she had seen me walk into the shop and was watching me the whole time were met with "but where is your ticket?", when I suggested that she write me a ticket now, she called the manager!
Further arm waving conversations between all three of them, intermingled with furtive glances in my direction (Still holding my four, four meter pipes aloft, like some contemporary jouster ready to charge, and the incriminating valves in a slightly more sheepish fashion) seemed to produce a bit of progress. I was not, it seems, to accused of theft (again!) and they would be happy to deal with my returns provided I had my receipt.
Ah!
My second mistake was to lose my receipt, more arms were waved (or possibly the same ones but more vigorously), further conversations were had and once again the manager was called over.
French or no I got the very clear message that they could not help me. Sense of humour gone by now, I thought to myself "I don't need Bricomarché as much as they need me, I going to go for a Franglaise rant". This I did and I rather surprised myself at how well I could make a point in angry French! Had my rant been song it would have had the title "Rules not Service". You get the idea.
As I prepared to storm out, not easy with my 4 meter pipes clattering into everything within a two meter radius, I was called back and told everything would be fine, full refund, no (more) questions asked just as long as I took the refund as a credit onto my loyalty card. So it seems the rules can be bent as a very last resort!
I'm sure this approach is not going to be the basis of my future transactions in France but hanging onto my paperwork will certainly have to be. That's all folks.
The amount of form filling, ticket holding, needless waiting, shoulder shrugging, rules and bureaucracy is staggering. It's not as if any of it is aimed at providing superb service or efficiencies that are passed onto the consumer (far from it, I could do my DIY shopping at Harrods for less). It seems to me to be uniquely aimed at ensuring, the shopper fully understands the immense privilege he should feel by spending his money at Bricomarché!
Last autumn, I had the misfortune of attempting to return four, four meter lengths of copper pipe and some valves to our local store, which I visit regularly and have spent a considerable amount of time and money in. Some of the process I was aware of, by studying how the locals did it, so I knew that as you walk into the shop, you need to catch the attention of the lady behind the counter who will give you a ticket. It turns out that the ticket says "4 x copper pipe" (Or words to that effect) on it. This served the purpose of allowing me through the automatic barrier to the customer returns department, without being accused of stealing copper pipes. The customer services department is the other end of the same counter where I handed my ticket over to the same lady, who then took the time to read the ticket she had, not ten seconds previously, written and actually checked to make sure there were, as she had just written, 4 copper pipes about my person.
So far so good, I was maintaining a sense of humour at being thrown into farce but then made my first mistake, I produced the 2 valves from my pocket. Oh dear god, if my hand had contained a live grenade, the look on her face could not have been more appalled. My French (lessons underway) is not what it should be but through observation of a particularly animated conversation between her and her colleague I got the impression I had committed a grave, possibly capital, offense. My broken pleas that she had seen me walk into the shop and was watching me the whole time were met with "but where is your ticket?", when I suggested that she write me a ticket now, she called the manager!
Further arm waving conversations between all three of them, intermingled with furtive glances in my direction (Still holding my four, four meter pipes aloft, like some contemporary jouster ready to charge, and the incriminating valves in a slightly more sheepish fashion) seemed to produce a bit of progress. I was not, it seems, to accused of theft (again!) and they would be happy to deal with my returns provided I had my receipt.
Ah!
My second mistake was to lose my receipt, more arms were waved (or possibly the same ones but more vigorously), further conversations were had and once again the manager was called over.
French or no I got the very clear message that they could not help me. Sense of humour gone by now, I thought to myself "I don't need Bricomarché as much as they need me, I going to go for a Franglaise rant". This I did and I rather surprised myself at how well I could make a point in angry French! Had my rant been song it would have had the title "Rules not Service". You get the idea.
As I prepared to storm out, not easy with my 4 meter pipes clattering into everything within a two meter radius, I was called back and told everything would be fine, full refund, no (more) questions asked just as long as I took the refund as a credit onto my loyalty card. So it seems the rules can be bent as a very last resort!
I'm sure this approach is not going to be the basis of my future transactions in France but hanging onto my paperwork will certainly have to be. That's all folks.
Thursday 23 February 2012
Actually buying a house in France!
Perhaps this should have been my first post but maybe I've been trying to forget the wholr tortuous process. Seriously it really does seem to take forever. Considering we were first time buyers, buying a house with no chain, I'd have to say that 8 months between agreeing the price and actually owning the house is a little excessive. It only took Henry V 6 months to take Rouen by siege (Although 5 months of that could have been taken up by trying to work out the road system!).
For the entirity of this process we had only the most tenuious grasp on exactly what was happening. I won't bore you with details but I do feel the need to say that between my wife and I we had to provide nearly 1000 signatures! That's one each for every piece of paper in the contract (twice as there was an ammendment) and every page of the surveyors report!
Ultimately what we have is, or at least will be, amazing. There are 2 houses around a courtyard-garden and an enormous barn space that we have no idea what to do with but will provide sumptuous accomodation for Monti (Our little 1972 Fiat 500), not that he requires much in the way of space. All this for less than the cost of our 3 bed semi in provincial England.
For the entirity of this process we had only the most tenuious grasp on exactly what was happening. I won't bore you with details but I do feel the need to say that between my wife and I we had to provide nearly 1000 signatures! That's one each for every piece of paper in the contract (twice as there was an ammendment) and every page of the surveyors report!
Ultimately what we have is, or at least will be, amazing. There are 2 houses around a courtyard-garden and an enormous barn space that we have no idea what to do with but will provide sumptuous accomodation for Monti (Our little 1972 Fiat 500), not that he requires much in the way of space. All this for less than the cost of our 3 bed semi in provincial England.
Builder's advance!
Well it hasn't taken long for something odd to happen.
We have a father and son builders team working on the french house. Originally from deepest Essex, they live in the area and work for €10 an hour each (doesn't cost us too much though because they only manage to work 4 hours at a time and a full Monday to Thursday would be a very good week!). If ever you thought the term "salt of the Earth" was a cliche then you need to meet our Clacton builder and his octogenarian dad complete with matching roll up fags, tattoos and a beaten up old car as a works van.
I heard from my wife (She's over at the house with my mum for the week.) last night, that they were going for a pizza with the builders and a couple of other friends we have met over there. Not so surprising as it seems to be difficult to work with/employ someone in rural France without socialising or becoming friends, which for all it's wonderful positives, adds to the whole culture shock thing.
After they got back the word was that my mum had a few hand squeezes with octogenarian builder and would accept a dinner invite if he asked! Oh good god, it's uncomfortable writing about it sitting in another country. At least they are home tomorrow, hopefully both of them.
We have a father and son builders team working on the french house. Originally from deepest Essex, they live in the area and work for €10 an hour each (doesn't cost us too much though because they only manage to work 4 hours at a time and a full Monday to Thursday would be a very good week!). If ever you thought the term "salt of the Earth" was a cliche then you need to meet our Clacton builder and his octogenarian dad complete with matching roll up fags, tattoos and a beaten up old car as a works van.
I heard from my wife (She's over at the house with my mum for the week.) last night, that they were going for a pizza with the builders and a couple of other friends we have met over there. Not so surprising as it seems to be difficult to work with/employ someone in rural France without socialising or becoming friends, which for all it's wonderful positives, adds to the whole culture shock thing.
After they got back the word was that my mum had a few hand squeezes with octogenarian builder and would accept a dinner invite if he asked! Oh good god, it's uncomfortable writing about it sitting in another country. At least they are home tomorrow, hopefully both of them.
Welcome to the village.
One of my early trips to the houses was a week of intensive cleaning and painting of the little house. I came on my own without knowing anyone in the village and with rather a single minded objective that would never withstand events in the village!
On about my third afternoon 3 gentleman approached the house and introduced themselves as the retired farmer from next door, "Local Service" (See below) and a grumpy Welshman (GW) who could do some translating for me (My French is probably better that school boy but not a lot) especially for Local Service (LS) as he speaks a local Patois which is barely French.
It was explained to me that as a welcome to the village I was to be taken into Retired Farmer's (RF) cellar. Once safely ensconced there I was thankfully served alcohol and none of the other things which came to mind. Drinks (Given this was mid-afternoon) included with wine (2 bottles), pineau (Eau de vie and grape juice) and some rocket fuel made from blackthorn shoots.
During my stay I was shown RF's collection of corkscrews and given a crash course on the local patois the LS regularly saying incomprehensible things followed by "Traduction!" as instruction for GW to translate. This game was fine and perfectly normal until he grabbed a topless calendar and proclaimed loudly "titties traduction!". There are after all many similarities between the English and French languages.
After this bewildering afternoon we emerged blinking into the sunshine and all piled into LS's car (Yes I know but still!) and drove about 200 meters to LS's house where he insisted that we start on the Pastis. GW had bailed by this stage and I was left to fend for myself for 40 minutes of stuttering French/Patois and sign language.
After I'd staggered back I have to confess I didn't get any more painting done.
Wednesday 22 February 2012
How did we get here?
So it came to pass that after a couple of holidays in remote European villages. We decided we would like to move to France.
Long story short, we bought a house last year are now just a month out from moving in, our house in the UK having sold to the only bidder. This means we have reached the point of no return.
It might be considered a rash decision for all of us: me, my wife, our 18 month old baby girl with premature terrible twos and a cat with a closed door complex but decision made so here we go!
Anyway, so much has happened just owning the house in France and popping over when we can to try to decorate, repair or build bits of it that I'm just going to throw in random topics for my first few entries. This should (I make it sound like there's a plan!) get the background sorted before I do anything chronological. That said if it's happening now I'll let you know.
Long story short, we bought a house last year are now just a month out from moving in, our house in the UK having sold to the only bidder. This means we have reached the point of no return.
It might be considered a rash decision for all of us: me, my wife, our 18 month old baby girl with premature terrible twos and a cat with a closed door complex but decision made so here we go!
Anyway, so much has happened just owning the house in France and popping over when we can to try to decorate, repair or build bits of it that I'm just going to throw in random topics for my first few entries. This should (I make it sound like there's a plan!) get the background sorted before I do anything chronological. That said if it's happening now I'll let you know.
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