My day out to lunch with friends who we hadn't seen since last November was a huge success. Eight of us sat in the garden of the restaurant, thankful that overhead shading protected us from a hot sun. A little stream flows swiftly at the bottom of the garden, and enters the old but well maintained lavoir. The food was lovely, although the house wine was of dubious quality, which is unusual for most French restaurants. The only downside to the day was that the youngest of us is suffering from the early stages of dementia, and has lost most of her very recent memory. Asking if she had enjoyed her holiday two weeks ago, she didn't remember that she had even been away, and had to ask her husband where they had been. Thankfully, she knew who all of us were as we go back before this current loss kicked in. You can see how it is taking a toll on her husband, and makes you realize how to be asked the same question over and over is quite daunting. She spent two days at the hospital in Poitiers for tests so they can tailor the best treatment for her, but although they can slow its progression, at present there is no known cure.
Lucky you. One of my favourite places that I have been to many times now, and really need to go back to explore more of the north. Enjoy it.
One thing you learn living here, is to keep all the paperwork that arrives in your letter box, no matter how long ago it arrived. I had to prove how long I had lived here full-time, so had to find paperwork going back to 2007 to get my residency card. This of course has storage and filing problems. Although more bills arrive electronically now, not all of them do. So you have folders for the main regular arrivals, but then there are the services you only need once in a while. As our sanitary arrangements are due to be inspected tomorrow, I had to find the bill from the last visit of the company that empties our fosse septic. After three hours, as I was about to give up, there it was in the unfiled section of my desk. So I now know that it is eight years since it was last emptied, and has been no problem at all. It will be condemned again, but as there is nowhere to put in a modern version, I will have to stick with it.
This strange looking young lady, with multiple tattoos and piercings, turned up to inspect our sanitary arrangements. Sticking a steel rod into the fosse septic, she declared it was working OK even if it did need emptying very soon. The grease trap, that the council installed, is not good enough as it doesn't separate chemicals from the water, and we don't want them in the rivers. If only she knew how rivers are treated elsewhere.
Four dry days and I finally managed to get to my shed in the fields. Sitting for a few minutes, I started to plan where to start clearing the shoulder-high grass and cow parsley from the vegetable plot, with the hope I could yet grow something. Today it is raining again.
Sadly the old man in our village who kept sheep has passed away, he must have been close to 100, but every year he lent a few sheep to some of the village elders to clear their plots. Worked pretty well!
One of my neighbours tried the same thing by keeping a goat. The trouble was he could jump the hedge, and would be found some distance away, going along a row of vegetables that didn't belong to the owner of the goat. He was then put on a long rope to restrict his travels, but instead of keeping the grass down, he ate the hedge. He was moved out to a local goat farm, where they make excellent cheese. I suspect he stopped his roaming with lots of ladies around.
It seems I picked up a bug somewhere that laid me low for 24 hours yesterday. Feeling a lot better today, although still on loads of water to drink, which will flush the system, hopefully. Received our postal votes today. To put a candidate up from outside the area, who knows little about the towns and villages she hopes to represent, appears to be taking the voters for granted. Still, there is a nice picture of her out with the hunt, that will appeal to some.
Two weeks have passed, and the warning signs about the low overhead cable are still there. With a lot of yelling and arm waving, the two gents who collect the rubbish, didn't look up, so carried on down the road, taking the cable with them on top of the dustcart. The performance then was worth a watch. One was rushing up and down the road taking pictures of the posts that carry both electrical and telephone cables, while the other one was on the phone to base reporting what they had just done. It is not apparent just what this cable did. As there were no sparks to see, it would not be an electric cable, and no one has complained about loss of their phone line. The cable is now rolled up behind the post opposite my front door. I will wait, but not hold my breath, to see which utility service deals with it.
