Cinéma Français

I went to a French cinema on Friday evening for the first time. Les Cardinaux in Damgan is a small one-screen cinema that only shows films in the winter on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Les Cardinaux looks like a hut from the outside and is small with only 150 seats. It’s quite possible (as I did) to accidentally turn right rather than left at the entrance and end up in the projection room rather than the auditorium. Actually the entire audience could have watched it from the projection room as, apart from me, there were only two other people at the performance!!

 I don’t think I’m ready for a film in French quite yet so the trick is to look for films in VOSTF (Version Original avec sous-titres français) and so I went to see Four Lions. At least it’s called “Four Lions” in English but in French mysteriously the title became “We Are Four Lions” – I’d welcome any insight from the French readers as to why that should have been changed.

Watching a film in VOSTF is a bit confusing, do I watch in English and ignore the sub-titles or read the sub-titles and use the English soundtrack to fill in the words I don’t know? (We are) Four Lions didn’t make the Oscar nominations for good reasons and includes a lot of, shall we say, industrial language. So by reading the subtitles I did achieve my objective of expanding my French vocabulary – although not necessarily with words I’d want to use in social settings ……

Permis de Construire submitted

I signed the application for the permis de construire (planning permission for UK readers) for the barn conversion today. A big milestone. Here’s the architect’s impression of the south elevation after the work:

Return of the cows

« C’est beau, mais ce n’est pas printemps ! » Lucien, our neighbour from over the road, said to me last week during one sunny, pleasant but not yet warm afternoon. (A mes lecteurs français – n’hésitez pas de corriger mes mots français dans ce blog (par courriel ou comment) – et pardon en avance pour mes erreurs dans la langue de Voltaire ;o)

Living where we do I feel much more directly aware of the changes in the weather and the progress of the seasons than I used to be in Fleet. The farmers around us follow a specific pattern as well. This is mainly a dairy area and the milking herds follow a routine between being in the fields for twelve hours and then moving into the big élévages for milking. The herds are usually brought in by hand or quad-bike. Nicole, the wife of our local farmer Dominique, has a unique style when she brings the cattle in; shouting “Allez-y, allez-y” as she walks down the road. The sight of sixty cattle five hundred metres away pricking up their ears and then standing up and walking over to meet her at the gate always makes us smile. And then, after the snow came in December all the cattle everywhere disappeared indoors where they stayed until Monday this week when they appeared again in the fields of the farms all over our commune. Of course, the farmers are all reacting to the same things; weather, grass growth and the cost of feeding the animals indoors but, this being France, I really wouldn’t be surprised if there was a centrally defined calendar the farmers have to follow.

The backing soundtrack in our area throughout January has been the buzz of the chainsaws as the farmers use the quiet period to work on the trees on the boundaries of their fields. The oaks are pollarded in a way that leaves a single thin vertical branch growing upwards from the point of the pollard. The timber is then cut up and carried off to the woodpiles to become next year’s seasoned wood for heating.

The weather has been nice, tempting the cats out for brief periods sunbathing on the back wall before resuming their mouse patrols as the weather cools in the afternoon. But Lucien’s correct, it’s not yet spring.

Soft fruit and doctors

I wasn’t sure what title to put on this as there’s no single theme to this post – it’s more of a diary update. The settled weather (cold and frost overnight, sunny and pleasant during the day) continues along with my digging programme and I have now planted all the soft fruit (petit fruit) so raspberries, blackberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, white currants (groseilles) and gooseberries (groseilles a macqeraux) are all safely in. The apples (pommier), fig and grape vine are soaking ready to go into the ground today.

Working in the area that will be the potager at the front of the house is a good place for exchanging conversation with people as they walk past on the road. A neighbour (well, a kilometre away – which passes as a neighbour here) came in to see me this week, she introduced herself as Sue, is English and with her husband Steve and Stanley the dog she lives in a house that we have cycled past many times.  They have been here for eleven years and have three gîtes.

My licence has been approved by Féderation Français Hockey and I was asked to play in La Baule’s next fixture on Sunday provided I could get a medical certificate. One thing I’ve been slow on is transferring into the French Health system (been saying “I must do that next week” since August) so I went to the Caisse Primaire Assurance Maladies (CPAM) in Vannes first thing to register – it was all very efficient and took about a minute; 45 seconds of which was trying to get a good photocopy of my birth certificate. I’ll receive my Carte Vitale (health card) by post. Then I went into the doctors to get an appointment for 17:45. The maison medicale is very new and next to the Mairie – I think the floor tiles are the same make as ours but all one size. When I went back for my appointment there was no receptionist and only one doctor left who was seeing patients and answering the phone at the same time – everything was very relaxed and very different to the manic Fleet surgery I’ve been used to. I saw Dr. Ambroselli (she is the third and newest doctor in the practice starting in September 2010) and she was kind enough to allow me to speak in French right until the end when she said: “Vous parlez Français bien. It’s a pity, I was hoping to practice my English!” she has very little accent, has friends in Southampton and knows Hampshire. Anyway, after rechecking my blood pressure twice she’s given me a certificate for hockey, tennis and cycling (but not competition cycling – I need a different certificate for that) so that should cover most things I choose to do. €23 for fifteen minutes and I’ll get 70% back when I get my Carte Vitale which I thought was a bargain and about a third the charging rate of my dentist in the UK.

Over the years we’ve made a little use of the French health service; Trégunc when Adam had a sickness bug (very good); St. Nazaire when Adam had viral meningitis (excellent) and Vannes for Barbara’s head injury and helicopter evacuation (emergency response good but hospital poor). Our surgery in Fleet had six doctors, various nurses and clinics and always reminded me of a busy London station. Maybe it’s just a numbers game, Fleet had six doctors’ surgeries, maybe thirty GPs in all serving a population of 20,000, Noyal Muzillac has two doctors’ surgeries and four GPs serving a population of 1200.

Our friends Kevan and Gloria who run the chambres d’hôtes in the village have sold up and are moving to rented accommodation up the road in Limerzel while they get pet passports for their family of four cats and work out where their future will be; in France or the UK. I’ll be helping them on Tuesday to move their big items with a van from Intermarché.

Digging and more digging

The weather this afternoon was glorious; 13C, sunny and clear and I was down to just a tee-shirt for most of the afternoon. The birds seem to think spring’s on its way as they were signing really loudly, I worked until just after six pm and the sunset was red in the west and the full moon was just rising over the barn as I finished – it all looked great.

I’ve been digging all day, the ground that’s been rotovated is nearly all neatly turned over now by hand and looks great, the soil is good I think. The rotovator breaks up the soil well but, where it’s going into rough grass, it just cuts up or buries the couch grass roots and dandelions which is why I decided I needed to turn it over again by hand. I took out two big barrow loads of couch and weed roots but, of course, it’s only necessary to do this the once and in future I’ll be able to use the rotovator to keep it clean, The raspberry canes (framboisier) and blackberries (murier) are soaking overnight ready to go in tomorrow, they all look good and the currants (groseille) are shooting away in their temporary pots so this week is gardening week!

Sport – a universal language?

Yesterday I did something that I hadn’t done for twenty-nine years ; I played my first game for a new hockey club. Having played for such a long time at Camberley and become well-established within the club it has been a very different experience being the new player again. Especially in a different language that I’m still struggling to link more than two sentences together coherently.

La Baule Olympic Hockey Club (BOHC to its friends) is the club situated the furthest west in the league Pays de La Loire; it may also be the most westerly club in France. So it’s a bit out on a limb and I wasn’t at all sure what I would find when I made contact with Adrien on Facebook. After a friendly and enthusiastic message back I went along to training on Thursday, instead of the 15 minute drive I’ve been used to I had to cover 48km to get to La Baule. I had a worrying moment when I couldn’t remember where my sticks were but I managed to find them under a lawnmower in the barn. And, of course, I haven’t done any competitive exercise for well over six months – not exactly the best preparation for a two hour session that seemed to be all running. Friday was not a good morning.

Adrien told me that La Baule had fourteen adult players registered (at Camberley we had seventy) and so I was really pleased to find a very good standard of play, excellent facilities and, best of all, very friendly and enthusiastic people. All sports players at any competitive level in France have to be licencié and as I am un jouer étrangére I have to have a special foreign player’s licence. The licensing process is sensible (it includes a doctor’s declaration that I am fit to play and not likely to keel over in the middle of a match) however, this being France, it’s not simple. So I had to sign a declaration d’honneur that I hadn’t played abroad in the last 30 days and that I wouldn’t play abroad at the same time I was playing for a French club. My French isn’t up to “you must be joking, what do you think my legs are made of” so I signed and Patrice, the club chairman, had to countersign. Then it goes to the Féderation Français Hockey for authorisation (I have a vision of them solemnly checking for my International playing record ……..).

BOHC had a competitive tournament on Sunday and I went along to watch and sign my forms. I’ve noticed that often, at least in this part of France,  people are very proactive at introducing themselves to strangers and a series of players I hadn’t met on Thursday, supporters and relatives of players came over and spoke to me. The President of the La Baule Sports Club (Rugby, Basketball, Volleyball, Handball …..) came over and welcomed me in English - I was really made to feel part of the scene.

BOHC played well in their first game and beat Le Mans 3-1. Their second opponents, Rennes, didn’t turn up so a match amicable was arranged against Angers. As it wasn’t competitive, and I did have my playing gear in the car, I turned out for La Baule wearing my new blue kit. Despite my linguistic limitations (I know only stick, ball, pass, goalkeeper and tackle in French) I was able to contribute fully and play within the team. I’ve read before that the rules of sport transcend language and that’s always been an abstract concept for me, yesterday I found out what it really means.

Allez Les Bleus, allez BOHC !!

Springtime !

Our barn was built originally in 1789 – I think. We make this judgement based on the slightly shaky inscription in the stone lintel above the window on the south side, this was probably made by the original maçon who almost certainly couldn’t write so shaky numbers are understandable. Certainly the building is shown on the Cadastre  Napoléon (=Land Plan) drawn up in the early years of the nineteenth century. Of course we’ve no idea who the original builder was or much at all about the history of the property. La Basse Cour means “the lower court” in French and more colloquially usually means the poultry yard (often of a farm or chateau).  There’s even a mixture of poultry food on sale in the local Gamm Vert called “Mélange La Basse Cour”

There isn’t obviously a chateau or upper farm that we were the lower court for – although there was a chateau just along the road at Grand Carné. Nothing remains of this building although a house locally is called La Chapelle de Carné and the Grand Carné farmhouse has a rather grand bastide look to it.

We are, however, the lowest house in the area and our land sits below a field and a 5 metre talouse (bank). One of the attractions of the property when we bought it was the spring that rises at the edge of our land. It has water all through the summer and will become a mainstay of our garden irrigation this coming summer. But now it’s winter and Brittany had a heavy rainstorm earlier this week before I came back. So now we have a very wet terrain and the open dutch barn has developed a pool where I was planning to make my timber handling area. At least, I thought it was a pool. Now I’ve looked at it carefully I can see that it’s actually a small spring as the water is flowing gently out of it and across our driveway and this is happening at several places along the driveway above the house. This water then runs down along the wall of the barn and eventually out into the field. Now, if you remember your geography you’ll know about springlines where springs appear at the same level along the slope. So my barn pool is really a seasonal spring – that could cause problems for my proposed sawmill area let alone the subsequent refurbishment of the barn walls.

I think if I had been here in 1789 I’ve have got the builder to put the barn somewhere else (La Haute Cour)! Yet another thing I have to talk to M. Palou the architecte about when I meet him next.

Retour á Bretagne

The 22nd crossing this year was memorable – memorably bad. LD lines are shuffling their boats around (the Seven Sisters is being refitted, the Côte D’Albatre has been moved onto the Dieppe-Newhaven Route and the Norman Leader has been dragged out from somewhere cold and wet to do Portsmouth –Le Havre. It’s truly run-down, designed for lorries and didn’t have the sleeper seat that I had booked. So I slept on the floor – pretty well as it turned out but also there seemed to be no heating on anywhere in the boat.

The crew was Portuguese but the captain British. This showed an interesting – possibly cultural – Anglo-French difference. British ferry captains always make a passenger announcement at the start and end of the crossing (ready to leave, weather, timing etc) but I’ve never heard one from a French captain (eg on the Côte D’Albatre). I would be quite happy with an announcement in French – I’ve noticed the same thing flying Air France, it’s a member of the crew who talks to the passengers but not the captain.

Uneventful drive down although weather was dark and damp all the way. House fine and the cats seemed to remember where they were.

Onto that list of projects …..

Vingt-deux and counting ……

Tonight will be my twenty-second channel crossing since we bought the house - some 54 weeks ago.

They’ve ranged from the memorable to the unremarkable to the ones I’ve quite honestly forgotten. Both cars know their way from the house to Le Havre so well that I can take my foot off the accelerator at exactly the correct point to slow down to exactly the correct speed by the time we get to the speed limits. Quite sad ….

Memorable crossings:

• The force 7 wind coming out of Le Havre before Christmas. I love rough and bouncy crossings – Barbara less so ….
• Sitting on the deck in the hot sun coming out of Le Havre in June. We managed that for nearly two hours until we picked up the British weather mid-channel.
• The utterly beautiful morning when I left Portsmouth with the cats in July. The sun was bright and clear and the sea flat and all the stress seemed to melt away as the Norman Arrow fast boat sped out of the harbour.

Most of our crossings have been on the Côte d’Albatre (LD Lines) on Portsmouth-Le Havre and we got to the point of being recognised by the bar staff. Ironically the only time we used a different route (Dieppe-Newhaven in January 2011) the Côte d’Albatre had been moved onto this route temporarily so we said hello to the bar staff again!

The best crossings have been on the fast catamaran Norman Arrow, this has been dogged by bad luck and two collisions that caused significant damage (not when we were on it I should add). At present this boat doesn’t appear on the 2011 schedule which would be a great loss. We’ve signed up for LD Lines Advance Purchase scheme again which gives us crossings at big discounts – after an abrupt withdrawal from the Dover-Boulogne route and a reduction in the Portsmouth-Le Havre crossings I do hope that LD are financially stable after paying them in advance for my crossings.

So, back to La Basse Cour and two new things this week: I have a language assessment at a training company in Vannes for French lessons and I’m hoping to re-start my hockey career as a “jouer étrangére” with a French club. Also a visit to the Mairie, a meeting with M. Palou the architecte and another car full of plants to put in.

Bon and Bonne ....

Some of our new Vocabulary:

“Bon Courage” – there are lots of French phrases with no real direct translation into English, many of them start with Bon(ne) (bonne route, bon appetit etc.). Everyone who’s been to deliver anything, give us a devis (=quote), read a meter, install anything or just drop in to see us has left by saying “Bon courage”. At first I thought it meant “good luck, keep at it”.

Now I know it means “You Rosbifs really are crazy doing all this yourselves” ;o)

From last week I also have another interesting example of adding bon/bonne to a phrase:

"Bon plantation" - at the checkout of the local nursery after buying the first ten fruit trees. Literally (I think) "good planting".

A long list of projects .......

Back from France on Thursday and a long day today as I took Barbara to Heathrow to catch her flight to Johannesburg and on to Windhoek in Namibia at the start of her 13 week placement with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas - VSO Namibia Programme ). She's working as an Education Management advisor in Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip - about the most distant and rural part of Namibia. You can read her blog here: Barbara working for VSO in Namibia


I then drove up to Barbara's sister in Suffolk to pick up our two cats after their long Christmas break (we left them there on 28th December when we retuened to La Belle France)  which they mainly spent catching mice and putting dirty pawprints on Judith and Steve's car :o( 

I'll be back to La Basse Cour on Tuesday evening with the cats and a long list of projects to complete in the next 12 weeks that Barbara will be away. I'll be mainly focussing on constructing the first phase of our garden. Michael Wright wrote in C'est La Folie (his account of moving to the Limousin region of France)  that one of the things that attracted him to living in France was the opportunity to use manly and noisy machinery. I have to confess to similar feelings with a long stint of chainsawing, rotovating and lawn mowing ahead of me .........