I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
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Tuesday, 3 November 2009
House, Garden, Family, Oct 09 (32 photos), by ann tarrant
I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos
A couple of years back, Uncle Arthur's house-hunting friends came looking in a rainy autumn week, like this one is turning out to be. They dismissed Aquitaine as grey, flat, featureless. They hated it, they said and wondered how anyone could live in such a 'desolate' place. It reminded me of how I felt once on a drive through the muddy fields of Picardy on a rainy day, and felt sorry for them, as the land had hidden itself until they had gone.
It is such a subtle landscape, huge and rolling, from the River Isle in the North to the Pyrenees, from the Atlantic to the Massif Centrale; its waves of hill and woodland need a teasing oblique light to show it off. The flat white heat of summer and the bleached out grey of winter rain often hides it from the brief visitor. It needs the nacreous light of spring when sunlight filters through the evaporating winter wet, or the Monbazaillac wine light of autumn to bring out the clear views across miles of rolling blue hills, fields and woods.
Once again we have had a stunning autumn. During a September heatwave, trees and vines faded and turned until a sudden surprise frost in early October tripped the change. Sumac, maples and poplars have blazed a trail across the countryside, chequered every so often by mottled rows of vines. The typical Lot et Garonne stone houses, longères, lie baked about the land like baguettes and in their gardens ornamental trees like liquiambers and kaki, (persimmons) entrance us. The sleepy green rivers have cleared to a black shine.
It is all so familiar now, after almost 6 years. Familiar, yet still difficult. Communication, for example.
Not so much the speaking with, although I shall never master the bavardage, I fear. But when I walk each week with the Randonneurs, I can at least follow the ripple of chatter that flitters from subject to subject and always comes back to food - how to cook a potimarron, one's favourite bit of a duck, which mushrooms are best to pick and fry. As Pierrette stoops to pick and eat a fallen medlar, Marie Claire injects one of her attempts to raise people's political consciousness. Last week her message was again environmental, the disappearance of bees, the use of pesticides on our food. Lips are pursed, heads shaken and it is not just Janine, an organic Vigneron, who murmurs concern and agreement.
Fast food is bemoaned, and obese grandchildren who sit in front of computers, (ahem), who text as grandpa is talking to them... I am asked if it is true that some British children eat school lunch in a PUB?!?
I try to explain about costs, the defunct school meals service, parents who have not learned how to cook... Yes, they sigh, it is going that way here too. People no longer know how cheese should taste, they buy the plastic-wrapped stuff in the Supermarché...
We pass some sloes and I explain how to make sloe gin. I am quizzed minutely, how much sugar? How long do you leave it? Why do you wait for a frost before you pick them? There is some scepticism as gin is not often drunk here. But they love their prunes in Armagnac, figs in cognac.
So the following week, as we meet at Monteton for a lovely walk around its ancient church on a hill top, through prune orchards, and since we park in an idyllic spot overlooking the Dropt valley, I produce a picnic. - Home-made-ginger-biscuits-thank-you-Delia, and a bottle of sloe gin from 2007. I am deluged with requests for both recipes, Rule Britannia.
Other communications are more fraught. The letters that arrive demanding access to inspect things. - fosse, meters, overhanging trees. Are they requests? Demands? Orders? Are we in trouble? Can I sort out the ne-que and aucuns and malgrés and donts (so many meanings, that 'dont') to decide? Is it in the imperative or do I spot a softer subjunctive mood? The signing off is no more helpful, with its flowery sentiments:
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, Madame, l'assurance de mes salutations distinguées,
or, Je vous prier d'agréer mes sentiments respecteaux.. Yes, yes, what's wrong with Yours Sincerely?
and this ps. from the EDF meter reader:
Information for happy, fortunate dog-owners:
Your companion is most certainly not bad, and as we wish to continue to have good relations with him, we advise you, to cover every eventualitie, to maintain the distance between us during our passage. Thank you for your understanding.
My understanding, shut the dog up.
And the phone! The cold calls from utilities companies that might be an important query; by the time you realise it is not, you're caught. The artisans calling to say the washing machine's ready/ he can't come tomorrow, so when..?/I'm at Sauvetat with your parcel, how do I get chez vous?, all delivered in an elided stream of rapid, strongly accented syllables.
Sometimes, still, I weep, thinking we will never cope, fear making some total error with father-in-law's medical appointments and instructions, or a complete, illegal, misunderstanding about tax. Will we be hauled off to Devil's Island for some bureaucratic misunderstanding?
A little image for you as I sign off to make P a cuppa. Lunchtime last week, a lay-by, a sudden shower. Two lorries, head to tail, one with one of those hydraulic tailgates backed up to the other, a tarpaulin spread from one roof to another, dipped headlights on.
On the tailgate, a table, with tablecloth, around which sat four drivers, one serving up something, one cutting bread, all laughing.
Vive la France.
It is such a subtle landscape, huge and rolling, from the River Isle in the North to the Pyrenees, from the Atlantic to the Massif Centrale; its waves of hill and woodland need a teasing oblique light to show it off. The flat white heat of summer and the bleached out grey of winter rain often hides it from the brief visitor. It needs the nacreous light of spring when sunlight filters through the evaporating winter wet, or the Monbazaillac wine light of autumn to bring out the clear views across miles of rolling blue hills, fields and woods.
Once again we have had a stunning autumn. During a September heatwave, trees and vines faded and turned until a sudden surprise frost in early October tripped the change. Sumac, maples and poplars have blazed a trail across the countryside, chequered every so often by mottled rows of vines. The typical Lot et Garonne stone houses, longères, lie baked about the land like baguettes and in their gardens ornamental trees like liquiambers and kaki, (persimmons) entrance us. The sleepy green rivers have cleared to a black shine.
It is all so familiar now, after almost 6 years. Familiar, yet still difficult. Communication, for example.
Not so much the speaking with, although I shall never master the bavardage, I fear. But when I walk each week with the Randonneurs, I can at least follow the ripple of chatter that flitters from subject to subject and always comes back to food - how to cook a potimarron, one's favourite bit of a duck, which mushrooms are best to pick and fry. As Pierrette stoops to pick and eat a fallen medlar, Marie Claire injects one of her attempts to raise people's political consciousness. Last week her message was again environmental, the disappearance of bees, the use of pesticides on our food. Lips are pursed, heads shaken and it is not just Janine, an organic Vigneron, who murmurs concern and agreement.
Fast food is bemoaned, and obese grandchildren who sit in front of computers, (ahem), who text as grandpa is talking to them... I am asked if it is true that some British children eat school lunch in a PUB?!?
I try to explain about costs, the defunct school meals service, parents who have not learned how to cook... Yes, they sigh, it is going that way here too. People no longer know how cheese should taste, they buy the plastic-wrapped stuff in the Supermarché..
We pass some sloes and I explain how to make sloe gin. I am quizzed minutely, how much sugar? How long do you leave it? Why do you wait for a frost before you pick them? There is some scepticism as gin is not often drunk here. But they love their prunes in Armagnac, figs in cognac.
So the following week, as we meet at Monteton for a lovely walk around its ancient church on a hill top, through prune orchards, and since we park in an idyllic spot overlooking the Dropt valley, I produce a picnic. - Home-made-ginger-biscuits-thank-you-Delia, and a bottle of sloe gin from 2007. I am deluged with requests for both recipes, Rule Britannia.
Other communications are more fraught. The letters that arrive demanding access to inspect things. - fosse, meters, overhanging trees. Are they requests? Demands? Orders? Are we in trouble? Can I sort out the ne-que and aucuns and malgrés and donts (so many meanings, that 'dont') to decide? Is it in the imperative or do I spot a softer subjunctive mood? The signing off is no more helpful, with its flowery sentiments:
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, Madame, l'assurance de mes salutations distinguées,
or, Je vous prier d'agréer mes sentiments respecteaux.. Yes, yes, what's wrong with Yours Sincerely?
and this ps. from the EDF meter reader:
Information for happy, fortunate dog-owners:
Your companion is most certainly not bad, and as we wish to continue to have good relations with him, we advise you, to cover every eventualitie, to maintain the distance between us during our passage. Thank you for your understanding.
My understanding, shut the dog up.
And the phone! The cold calls from utilities companies that might be an important query; by the time you realise it is not, you're caught. The artisans calling to say the washing machine's ready/ he can't come tomorrow, so when..?/I'm at Sauvetat with your parcel, how do I get chez vous?, all delivered in an elided stream of rapid, strongly accented syllables.
Sometimes, still, I weep, thinking we will never cope, fear making some total error with father-in-law's medical appointments and instructions, or a complete, illegal, misunderstanding about tax. Will we be hauled off to Devil's Island for some bureaucratic misunderstanding?
A little image for you as I sign off to make P a cuppa. Lunchtime last week, a lay-by, a sudden shower. Two lorries, head to tail, one with one of those hydraulic tailgates backed up to the other, a tarpaulin spread from one roof to another, dipped headlights on.
On the tailgate, a table, with tablecloth, around which sat four drivers, one serving up something, one cutting bread, all laughing.
Vive la France.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
after a short interval..
Sorry about that.
I meant to write, I really did, all through a glorious early Spring that followed a busy January, but ... I must be on a well-paved path to Hell.
Some people still write to us imagining we are lounging around in perfect sunshine, ignoring the times I tell them how relieved we are that we put in a woodburner two years ago, that many nights in January drop below minus 10, that it can rain from November to January non-stop, and, that in the height of summer we shut the house up tight to keep out the heat and stay in like moles, if we can. Even our friend Ted, who used to take Naturist holidays in Croatia, was beaten indoors by our August sun.
May and June, then September and occasionally October are the lounging months, if we can ignore the ongoing work.
I can, Paul can't.
He is now engaged on the last big decorating job, the 50 foot Salon. He prepares, I will paint, and I look with trepidation at the acreage of wall. A later report may address the vexed question of French paint, (shudders and rolls eyes.)
It's cold today, after temperatures that nearly reached 100 degrees in May. I'm considering putting the duvet back, unheard of in June, and we have to dodge sudden downpours, - yesterday we had hail and a storm, and we picked a sunny interlude on Sunday morning to go and vote.
To be on the Electoral Roll, able to vote in National 'Parliamentary' elections, one has to be a citizen. (Images here of funny red hats, sans culottes and shouts of 'aux armes, citoyens'.) So we can't do that, but we have inscribed to the right to vote in local elections for the Maire and Council and in European elections. We have our 'Pli Electoral', a sort of voting identity card which is stamped each time one votes, so we found them in the filing cabinet, (that was a rare thing, being able to find what we were looking for in the filing cabinet,) and had a good look at the Party 'infos'.
These arrive in the week before the election. The poor post-woman hauls round to every household a bulging A5 brown envelope, stuffed with colourful, thin, re-cyclable papers which carry the information of all the parties, candidates, policy outlines and so on. Either you take a selection with you to the Polling Station, or you can collect a handful there. The shots of Sarkhozy on BBC news showed him collecting his handful. He seemed to be looking, puzzled, for his UMP leaflet; I wondered for a moment if some wag had hidden them.
Therefore, you walk into the booth with a handful of confetti and no-one knows which one you are going to use. For it is by selecting one sheet and putting it in the provided brown envelope that you register your vote.
No need to put a cross, a tick or press a chad while wondering if you've remembered a candidate's name and logo correctly or whether you have inadvertantly voted for the Monster Raving Teddy Bear's Anti-European Libertarian Front - yes they have a fair few of these in France too. Pop in the paper, discard the rest with the heap in the booth which the Officer is supposed to have removed but hasn't, happily a lot were Front Nationale, go to the box, pop in your brown envelope, sign your name et voilà, civic duty done.
And, had I chosen to, I could have taken with me a slip of blank white paper and put that in, to register one of many 'votes blanches', which are counted and declared.
The Maire then shook our hands and thanked us for exercising 'le droit et le devoir' - the right and the duty, and off we went with an au revoir.
Back then to an afternoon lounging watching the rain, fretting about the seedlings I want to plant out, the pots I want to re-arrange on the new courtyard... Oh well, I won't need to water them.
Speak soon.
At least, I intend to...
I meant to write, I really did, all through a glorious early Spring that followed a busy January, but ... I must be on a well-paved path to Hell.
Some people still write to us imagining we are lounging around in perfect sunshine, ignoring the times I tell them how relieved we are that we put in a woodburner two years ago, that many nights in January drop below minus 10, that it can rain from November to January non-stop, and, that in the height of summer we shut the house up tight to keep out the heat and stay in like moles, if we can. Even our friend Ted, who used to take Naturist holidays in Croatia, was beaten indoors by our August sun.
May and June, then September and occasionally October are the lounging months, if we can ignore the ongoing work.
I can, Paul can't.
He is now engaged on the last big decorating job, the 50 foot Salon. He prepares, I will paint, and I look with trepidation at the acreage of wall. A later report may address the vexed question of French paint, (shudders and rolls eyes.)
It's cold today, after temperatures that nearly reached 100 degrees in May. I'm considering putting the duvet back, unheard of in June, and we have to dodge sudden downpours, - yesterday we had hail and a storm, and we picked a sunny interlude on Sunday morning to go and vote.
To be on the Electoral Roll, able to vote in National 'Parliamentary' elections, one has to be a citizen. (Images here of funny red hats, sans culottes and shouts of 'aux armes, citoyens'.) So we can't do that, but we have inscribed to the right to vote in local elections for the Maire and Council and in European elections. We have our 'Pli Electoral', a sort of voting identity card which is stamped each time one votes, so we found them in the filing cabinet, (that was a rare thing, being able to find what we were looking for in the filing cabinet,) and had a good look at the Party 'infos'.
These arrive in the week before the election. The poor post-woman hauls round to every household a bulging A5 brown envelope, stuffed with colourful, thin, re-cyclable papers which carry the information of all the parties, candidates, policy outlines and so on. Either you take a selection with you to the Polling Station, or you can collect a handful there. The shots of Sarkhozy on BBC news showed him collecting his handful. He seemed to be looking, puzzled, for his UMP leaflet; I wondered for a moment if some wag had hidden them.
Therefore, you walk into the booth with a handful of confetti and no-one knows which one you are going to use. For it is by selecting one sheet and putting it in the provided brown envelope that you register your vote.
No need to put a cross, a tick or press a chad while wondering if you've remembered a candidate's name and logo correctly or whether you have inadvertantly voted for the Monster Raving Teddy Bear's Anti-European Libertarian Front - yes they have a fair few of these in France too. Pop in the paper, discard the rest with the heap in the booth which the Officer is supposed to have removed but hasn't, happily a lot were Front Nationale, go to the box, pop in your brown envelope, sign your name et voilà, civic duty done.
And, had I chosen to, I could have taken with me a slip of blank white paper and put that in, to register one of many 'votes blanches', which are counted and declared.
The Maire then shook our hands and thanked us for exercising 'le droit et le devoir' - the right and the duty, and off we went with an au revoir.
Back then to an afternoon lounging watching the rain, fretting about the seedlings I want to plant out, the pots I want to re-arrange on the new courtyard... Oh well, I won't need to water them.
Speak soon.
At least, I intend to...
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Weather has returned from freezing to this year's default setting - rain.
Thassorl.
.
.
.
I should just say that those of you who have not been here for a while should scroll down two or three posts, for news update in correct order. In the New Year I shall play around with the site, try to put the blog in 'from earliest post' order & re-locate pictures.
Thassorl.
.
.
.
I should just say that those of you who have not been here for a while should scroll down two or three posts, for news update in correct order. In the New Year I shall play around with the site, try to put the blog in 'from earliest post' order & re-locate pictures.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Many of you will know how a sudden death, albeit not unexpected, can affect you. I was a little surprised to find how shocked, aghast, full of awe, I was. How I would wake in the night with a gasp. How I realised that things might change rather, now, in ways I could imagine but also in some I might not foresee. Several times a day, I needed to stop what I was doing to take a few deep breaths.
Gradually, a sort of peace crept in. On an early October day, I walked up a lane from Pardaillan through scented air, searching for the right spot for a particular photo. The white, flat, gable of the little church, surrounded by the autumn colours of the prune orchards was what I was after. But despite the blue sky, golden orange leaves, white tower, from which its bell was ringing, the picture wasn't right. It was better the day before. The day before when I hadn't had time to stop as I drove the back way from Sauvetat to Duras, and the sky had been prussian blue with an impending storm while the sun blazed from the south-east, behind me, onto the white gable jumping against the blue-black sky, firing the plum trees in layers of sunset colours.
But the light was different, the storm had blown away a lot of the leaves. I got some pictures, but they don't show the luminous colours I had seen.
But the sun was warm and I identified the scent in the air - warm, dessicated plums and aromatic dry leaves, hay and cut maize and fresh air. I waved to Christophe the carpenter who rocketed past in his van. The bells rang. Gathering swallows twittered excitedly on every fence and wire. I took a peaceful, deep breath.
Gradually, a sort of peace crept in. On an early October day, I walked up a lane from Pardaillan through scented air, searching for the right spot for a particular photo. The white, flat, gable of the little church, surrounded by the autumn colours of the prune orchards was what I was after. But despite the blue sky, golden orange leaves, white tower, from which its bell was ringing, the picture wasn't right. It was better the day before. The day before when I hadn't had time to stop as I drove the back way from Sauvetat to Duras, and the sky had been prussian blue with an impending storm while the sun blazed from the south-east, behind me, onto the white gable jumping against the blue-black sky, firing the plum trees in layers of sunset colours.
But the light was different, the storm had blown away a lot of the leaves. I got some pictures, but they don't show the luminous colours I had seen.
But the sun was warm and I identified the scent in the air - warm, dessicated plums and aromatic dry leaves, hay and cut maize and fresh air. I waved to Christophe the carpenter who rocketed past in his van. The bells rang. Gathering swallows twittered excitedly on every fence and wire. I took a peaceful, deep breath.
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Try again.
You'll have to have this mistakes and all, for while trying to edit a spelling mistake yesterday, I lost the lot. This time, it's publish and be damned!
So there we were with the long French summer party winding down and me making notes for this blog when life, or rather, in this case, death, threw up one of those surprises that turns all you expect to be doing upside down.
The whole early part of the summer seemed to be spent preparing for Owen and Kerry's wedding. At this end, we didn't have to do much, but I seemed to take for ever doing it. Calligraphy for the Menus and place-cards, champagne and wines to source and buy, a seemingly huge amount of cooking and cleaning for the post-wedding family visit and hunting for shoes on the 'net, progressed gradually. The rain that hammered down from March to July helped me get things done, but hindered our progress on the patio and pergola which was this year's biggest project and which was supposed to provide a lovely outdoor room for the Visit. At the beginning of July, gaps in the deluge enabled Paul to complete the huge task of digging back to the ancient wall we'd found, allowed us to get a pad of concrete down, and the gravel. The graceful metal pergola was in place, ready for the rampant wisteria to be trained over it, for a vine to be planted. Just the tiles we had bartered for to get down and it would be done. And a water trickle feature installed in one corner of the old stone wall would complete it. And plant pots of course. And steps. And...
After the wedding, visits, barbeques, chicken pox (Eva) nephew dropping in, friend's 60th, we were looking forward to the peace. There was an end-of-term atmosphere but still many late summer events to come. A friend and I sat at the open day at the Chater Domaine, eating bread and sausage and drinking their excellent Merlot at tables laid between rows of vines, and agreed that we needed to detach ourselves a little from the calls on our time. In the previous 18 days, she had been out for 14 of them. But before the longed-for hibernation season begins we agreed to make the last Marché du Producteurs at Soumensac on the last Sunday in August. There, everyone buys food and wine from the farmer's stalls and sits at white-clothed tables placed beneath shady lime trees overlooking the most fabulous view, which, when light conditions are right, reaches to the Pyrenees. Lots of us meet there, with our visitors, throughout the summer, it is such a delightful way to spend a lazy Sunday.
After Soumensac, everything slows. The summer events, meals and animations, music festivals and boules tournaments in Communes and hill-top villages stop. This despite September being an uplifting month. The weather can be lovely, cooler, sunnier, with crystalline light. Everyone is sleeping better. But since French social life in the ruralité is family-based, and the children are back at school, the artisans at work, (the farmers have never stopped,) the Comités de Fêtes stop planning summer events and turn their thoughts to the Craft Fairs and feasts that might persuade hibernating country folk to venture away from their woodburners. The Chasseurs and motocross fanatics will continue to drone and bang their way through the woods on winter weekends, stopping only for boozy lunches, but as the weather closes in, shutters are closed against the mist and people disappear.
So there we were, imperceptibly become accustomed to this rhythm of French country life, expecting nothing more than the slow-down, when Paul's mother took to her bed. Since she did this two or three times a year, always getting up afterwards back to normal and bored by my home-made soups, we didn't worry. But suddenly, we were, on the fourth day rushing to find an ambulance, following it to the hospital, sitting on hard chairs in a bleak waiting room, taking Paul's father home to his bed then taking the phone call to say she had died.
A character in a Julian Barnes novel says,
'Never be ill in a foreign language,' and coping with death in a foreign language is pretty challenging too. No arrangement was made without a misunderstanding, without something going wrong. Getting the family back barely 3 weeks after some of them had left, to comply with the French regulation of burial within 6 days of decease, was a nightmare. But there we all were, back together, and Des took comfort from the support.
Two months on, he is coping really well, enjoying learning to cook, planning to come and stay in the hotel when we go skiing with Jan, Bob, Sheila and Trevor, perhaps going away for Christmas.
But we seem to be in a sort of limbo now, wondering, 'what next? What plans should we make?'
You'll have to have this mistakes and all, for while trying to edit a spelling mistake yesterday, I lost the lot. This time, it's publish and be damned!
So there we were with the long French summer party winding down and me making notes for this blog when life, or rather, in this case, death, threw up one of those surprises that turns all you expect to be doing upside down.
The whole early part of the summer seemed to be spent preparing for Owen and Kerry's wedding. At this end, we didn't have to do much, but I seemed to take for ever doing it. Calligraphy for the Menus and place-cards, champagne and wines to source and buy, a seemingly huge amount of cooking and cleaning for the post-wedding family visit and hunting for shoes on the 'net, progressed gradually. The rain that hammered down from March to July helped me get things done, but hindered our progress on the patio and pergola which was this year's biggest project and which was supposed to provide a lovely outdoor room for the Visit. At the beginning of July, gaps in the deluge enabled Paul to complete the huge task of digging back to the ancient wall we'd found, allowed us to get a pad of concrete down, and the gravel. The graceful metal pergola was in place, ready for the rampant wisteria to be trained over it, for a vine to be planted. Just the tiles we had bartered for to get down and it would be done. And a water trickle feature installed in one corner of the old stone wall would complete it. And plant pots of course. And steps. And...
After the wedding, visits, barbeques, chicken pox (Eva) nephew dropping in, friend's 60th, we were looking forward to the peace. There was an end-of-term atmosphere but still many late summer events to come. A friend and I sat at the open day at the Chater Domaine, eating bread and sausage and drinking their excellent Merlot at tables laid between rows of vines, and agreed that we needed to detach ourselves a little from the calls on our time. In the previous 18 days, she had been out for 14 of them. But before the longed-for hibernation season begins we agreed to make the last Marché du Producteurs at Soumensac on the last Sunday in August. There, everyone buys food and wine from the farmer's stalls and sits at white-clothed tables placed beneath shady lime trees overlooking the most fabulous view, which, when light conditions are right, reaches to the Pyrenees. Lots of us meet there, with our visitors, throughout the summer, it is such a delightful way to spend a lazy Sunday.
After Soumensac, everything slows. The summer events, meals and animations, music festivals and boules tournaments in Communes and hill-top villages stop. This despite September being an uplifting month. The weather can be lovely, cooler, sunnier, with crystalline light. Everyone is sleeping better. But since French social life in the ruralité is family-based, and the children are back at school, the artisans at work, (the farmers have never stopped,) the Comités de Fêtes stop planning summer events and turn their thoughts to the Craft Fairs and feasts that might persuade hibernating country folk to venture away from their woodburners. The Chasseurs and motocross fanatics will continue to drone and bang their way through the woods on winter weekends, stopping only for boozy lunches, but as the weather closes in, shutters are closed against the mist and people disappear.
So there we were, imperceptibly become accustomed to this rhythm of French country life, expecting nothing more than the slow-down, when Paul's mother took to her bed. Since she did this two or three times a year, always getting up afterwards back to normal and bored by my home-made soups, we didn't worry. But suddenly, we were, on the fourth day rushing to find an ambulance, following it to the hospital, sitting on hard chairs in a bleak waiting room, taking Paul's father home to his bed then taking the phone call to say she had died.
A character in a Julian Barnes novel says,
'Never be ill in a foreign language,' and coping with death in a foreign language is pretty challenging too. No arrangement was made without a misunderstanding, without something going wrong. Getting the family back barely 3 weeks after some of them had left, to comply with the French regulation of burial within 6 days of decease, was a nightmare. But there we all were, back together, and Des took comfort from the support.
Two months on, he is coping really well, enjoying learning to cook, planning to come and stay in the hotel when we go skiing with Jan, Bob, Sheila and Trevor, perhaps going away for Christmas.
But we seem to be in a sort of limbo now, wondering, 'what next? What plans should we make?'
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