A Really Great Weekend

I woke up this morning with a slight hangover which soon disappeared. Why? Because the sun was shining (yes it was that late!), and I discovered ,when I came downstairs to make myself a cup of green tea, that my laptop,which I feared was gone to that great 'puter' never-never-land had returned from that place and was actually working, That would normally be enough to put me on cloud nine for the rest of the week,but the real buzz was the fact that England was through to the final of the Rugby World Cup. It really doesn't get much better than that.
The only downside was that England were playing France.
Hmmm....could have been a better draw. Well, for me anyway. Who should I be cheering for? The country of my birth, or the adopted country that I've committed myself to?
Last weekend it was smiles all round. After all, Les Bleues and Les Blancs had sent the antipodeans back to where they belonged with their tails firmly between their legs! How the mighty were fallen! Yip a dee doo!
But now it was going to be a battle with "the Old Enemy"
Oh dear, there was going to have to be a victor and a vanquished. Law of logic......50% of the players were going to be elated, 50% deflated.
We had some friends round(English, of course) to watch the match. They came armed and ready with beers and wine.
At nine o'clock you could have heard a pin drop in the village. Even the dogs were silent.
And then an hour and a half later it was all over......the neanderthal Chabal was crouching on the pitch in tears, the rest of the blues had got a distinct attack of them ! England was generous in victory, the old rivals parted friends, even though the nation was numb with disappointment. And in Paris the party had only just begun. The proprietor of the Frog and Rosbif bar which had become the unofficial HQ of the England supporters must have thought he'd won the lottery...and he'll be serving up full English breakfasts and pints all over again next weekend.
A few cars drove quietly back from town, having watched the match on big screens in the two cafes in the main square.
A week is a long time in world cup matches......there were no honking horns, no 'Marseilles' being sung from open car windows this Saturday night.......just a sad acceptance that once again France had failed to win the 'Tournament Mondial'.
They had been warned though. There had been a midday interview with the French mascot....the noble cockerel who had witnessed 48 French matches. Well, the interview was actually with the chook's owner...chickens aren't good subjects for profound pre-match statements. So M'sieu Le Coq stared balefully at the camera whilst his owner mournfully confessed that if 'Le coq chant( sings) ' France always won. Unfortunately he hadn't obliged so far !
I have a feeling he might have been the main ingredient for a Sunday coq au vin today. I just hope they started the casserole in good time. Looking at him I think he might have needed several hours on a low simmer.
So England (to pinch a word from the 'Marseilles') marchon to the final...and meet either Argentina or South Africa. By 10.30 tonight we shall know........Swing low, sweet chariot. But win or loose next week they can't take away this great Sunday in SW France.

I found these postcards at the annual cattle show in Boulogne sur Gesse last weekend. They have been printed by the Chambre d'Agriculture of the Haute Garonne.
I thought they were rather nice and are a good advert for the Haute Garonne producers.
The cattle show was awesome. There were rather a lot of bulls about for me, I still don't really trust being that close to a tonne or more of grumpy testosterone on the hoof.
But it was a great day out for the producers who treat it all very seriously. And the cows and calves looked nice. The sight of a whole cow being roasted in a wood fired spit was a bit off-putting, and what it's friends and relatives though I really don 't know, but I seemed to be the only one who thought it strange.

Snow! I don't believe it!

Arrrgh! When we woke up yesterday morning there was snow on the Pic de Midi. And when we went into town and could see more of the other mountains it was even worse! It must have been down to 1,000 feet, and it's only the end of September. What is it with the weather this year? After Christmas, which is the best time for skiing in the Pyrenees there was hardly anything to even toboggan on. The saving grace for the ski stations was a good covering for the February half term holidays, but that only amounted to about a month of serious skiing. And now this !
Well I just hope it goes away and comes back when it should.....the middle of November. I want a nice warm, golden autumn like we always have, or I'm going to demand my money back !

Figs and things

This week on the market: figs, quinces,a few mushrooms.

Yes, looks like Autumn is here.
So with all these lovely purple figs overflowing from the stalls, what's to be done with them besides just putting them in the fruit bowl for a quick snack?

How about Fig Tart with Orange Custard?

you will need:
1 packet ready-made short crust pastry large enough to line a 9inch flan tin (unless you’re a domestic goddess with legendary pastry making skills.)
12 to 16 figs as perfect as possible.
1 large egg yolk
1 tablesp light brown sugar
150ml crème fraiche
Juice and zest of 1 large orange.
Line a 9 inch flan case with the pastry, prick the base all over with a fork, and bake blind at 220C for 20 mins. De-stalk figs, wipe over with a damp cloth and slice in half. Make a custard by whisking the egg yolk, crème fraiche, sugar, orange juice and zest until a smooth emulsion has been obtained. Remove case from the oven, allow to cool, then layer ¾ of the figs on the bottom and pour the custard over gently. Add the remaining figs and bake, on a large baking sheet to avoid spillage disasters, for 30 mins at 200C or until the custard has set. Serve slightly warm, with single cream.


Figs are just made for savoury use too. Sliced, and arranged attractively on a platter of thinly sliced Bayonne ham, saucisson sec, and smoked duck breast, you have a quick and easy starter for a supper party. And a nice change from the ubiquitous melon with Parma ham.
For an unusual warm starter, try slitting 2 figs per person crossways about ¾ of the way down, stuff with your favourite blue cheese, and wrap each fig in a thin slice of streaky bacon and bake at 200C for 5 to 10 mins. Serve warm on a bed of mixed salad leaves
A soft juicy fig, eaten with blue cheese, is a marriage made in heaven. Particularly with Roquefort, the slight saltiness of the cheese is tempered by the sweetness of the fruit. Lining the cheese platter beforehand with well washed fig leaves really shows cheeses off. Use a good combination of soft and hard to suit your own personal preferences. Toss some salad leaves in mild vinaigrette, hurl into a big salad bowl, add some crusty bread and your cheese course is ready to be served…… before the pudding à la Francaise

Our House

"Our house......in the middle of our street" Well,I hope it's not quite the same house as Suggs sang about but its a nice house all the same, and yes it is in the middle of our street.
Its a distinguished looking house, taller than its neighbours, with a balcony on the top floor which gives you a great view of the Pic de Midi. Its' not for those who suffer from vertigo but for the rest of us its like being in an eerie.......looking over the surrounding roof tops, up and down the road, over to the river and the weir. There's the church spire one street over to the left, and if you lean out far enough(heaven forbid) you can just see the 'Vival' sign outside Stephan's epicerie to your right, and the tabac sign of the little bar and depot de pain is a few yards to your left. The boucherie of Paul Fontan is ten yards away in the Place Julien Olie, where the mairie has its home. So life in 'Le Village' is compact.
We have neighbours on a come- and- go basis. Because the village is so scenically attractive there are quite a few holiday homes right in the centre. The French laws of succession ( otherwise known as the Code Napoleonic) make it highly unattractive to sell the family home when parents have finally made the short, steep journey up to the village cemetery. The proceeds of the parental home must be equally divided between all the siblings....a recipe for family feuding if you ask me.
And then of course there is the thorny question of inheritance tax. So....the end result is either houses which fall into decay, or on a more positive side they are retained and used as holiday homes for all the family.
This isn 't a bad option. Especially here. There is trout fishing in the river, designated walks in the surrounding hills, and the ski stations of Super Bagneres, and Le Mongie when the winter snows arrive.
In August all the previously empty houses open up and the village population expands by at least a third.
Now they've left us, to return with the half term holidays, Christmas and the ski season....which is at it's best from January onwards. The Pyrenees may be slower to accumulate a good covering of snow but when it does arrive the ski staions are family friendly with good runs for all abilities and you don't get ripped off for a 'vin chaud' and a croque monsieur.

This Month's Village Event

September is a delightfully mellow time in the Haute Garonne. School's back...otherwise known as L'rentree and the Pyrenees are looking their best. No snow as yet and not expected until late November.


Now's the time for the villages and towns to chill out and organise events an smaller scale.


Classic and vintage cars are a bit of a passion down here. There' s a very active club in St Gaudens and there's nothing they like better than a warm weekend and a few quiet roads to let the old girls out for a run.


Our village is a regular watering hole for lunch, and last Sunday they arrived with a cacophonous tooting of horns and a fair bit of smoke. They parked on the mairie square and let the elderly vehicles cool of. The less sleepy inhabitants ( the French are late risers on Sunday mornings) wandered up to have a look, some in dressing gowns, but without a trace of embarrassment.More cars coughed and spluttered up during the course of the morning, then retired to the butchers who had obviously been expecting them, and partook of aperos and a long lunch.


They departed three hours later with an even louder tooting of horns.


What perfect day out.

A Battage to Remenber

This year the weather has been less predictable than in previous years. June and July saw a mixture of temperatures but it was dry so the corn ripened, the rain obligingly fell after five in the evening and irrigated throughout the evening, thus ensuring fat ears of corn and clean, juicy stalks for the cattle. Rain, in manageable quantities, is greeted with pleasure by farmer and gardener alike. Everyone that is except the organisers of the ‘fete locales’ whose programmes of ninety decibel rock music held in the open air were somewhat dampened.
Our own, held in early May was a soggy affair.
Spirits however weren’t dampened , so as usual the thump, thump thump of Le Rock (as only the French can do it) continued unabated until three in the morning. I am continually amazed that the street looks so untouched in the morning. Only a odd plastic cup perched on a window sill gives any indication that anything took place the night before.
But August in the French Pyrenees brings about a sea- change. In the weather, and the mood. Like a switch being thrown the mornings have an almost autumnal note to them…..Cool (verging on the chilly when you open the shutters in a thin nightie) and mellowly sunny in contrast to the brash brightness of July mornings. And there’s a calmer feel to the countryside. The endless churn of combine harvesters, the clatter of tractor and trailers as the harvest is gathered in is replaced by a gentler, less urgent pace.
Time, then, to celebrate. And what better way than with a ‘battage’? Something that in the UK might be referred to as a steam rally.
From eight a.m onwards, the ancient machinery begins to arrive, under its own power, or less frighteningly, on the back of a low loader. By ten o’clock a small hole is being made in the ozone layer as the engines begin to steam up for a day of undiluted nostalgia. The kitchens are steaming up too. Vast cauldrons of ‘boullion de poulet’ and mounjetade are adding their own aroma to the mixture of steam, oil and burning wood.
An enormous barn is the venue for the ‘repas de midi’(4 courses, aperitif, wine and digestif for the bargain price of 12 euros). The barn can easily accommodate thirty trestle tables, and the tables are laid for thirty people. Thirty times thirty? It doesn’t bear thinking about. There should be an air of panic, but no, apart from a dog resembling a hearth rug which has made a bolt for freedom from the back of a pickup and is chasing Madame Louge’s in- season spaniel everything seems to be under control.
People begin to drift in. Those who like a quiet wander, and a nostalgic wallow with plenty of time and space to take in the great Ruston steam engine, the seed drills, the ploughs, the threshing machines, which are silent now but at three o’clock…give or take an hour or two…… they will be chattering and rattling in a cloud of chaff, straw and dust. Accompanied by chattering and coughing from the spectators.
The gentle peace of the ‘chaum’ or stubble field is about to be shattered by the arrival of the ‘bandas….. this year, a group of young players from the Gers. Their enthusiasm knows no bounds as they hurl themselves in at the deep end with a frantic medley of Abba hits. The ‘ole boys in their black ‘pancake’ berets have to shout to make themselves heard.
Looking forward to a peaceful Sunday?…..no chance!
By twelve noon a long queue has begun to form outside M.Puzol’s barn, like souls awaiting admission for Heaven at the Pearly Gates. Despite the fact that no-one will be admitted before 12.30 it’s all very good humoured, with plenty of banter and an overkill of kissing.
At 12.45 the doors are flung open, not by St Peter, but the burly form of Bernard the butcher, now re-incarnated as ‘Security’. Those with the foresight to reserve ahead are wearing the smug expressions of the ‘haves and have nots’. They are already seated at their tables while the rest of us ‘Johnny-Come-Latelys have to mill about like anxious chickens trying to find seats next to each other. I resolve to be more organised next year.
An army of helpers in their red Basque berets descend on the tables with bottles of sweet ‘Muscat de Rivesalt’, the favourite aperitif of the South West and all points east. Those in the know give the bottle a nudge with the rim of their glass and are rewarded with a bigger measure. We’re frightfully British so we wouldn’t dream of doing anything other than murmur ‘merci beaucoup’ as we are poured half a small glass. Jean-Luc, our friendly neighbourhood plumber, notices the measly measure of My Significant Other and demands a top-up for him.
My own need has been lost in the general mayhem. Oh well, I’ll make up for it later.
The bandas troop in rarin’ to go. It’s ear drum-bursting time again. The volunteer waiters duck and dive between them with bottles and plates. They’ve obviously taken a crash course in avoiding trombone slide injury. The ‘aperos’ are drained to the dregs and the bottles refilled with wine. There are bottles of mineral water too, of course, but in a ratio of six to one…..in favour of the wine. There’s a choice…Red or rose. I opt for the rose….it’s a hot afternoon and there’s a long way to go before we reach the coffee stage. My neighbour takes a slurp of his red and pulls a face.
‘Pas bien?’ I enquire. Surely not!
‘Espagnol’ he replies in some disgust. What a crime! I quite like it but decide that discretion will be the better part of valour.
Soup trolleys appear to huge applause and the battle commences.
There is too much for everyone even though the grannies and granddads have pulled above their weight in trying to sop up every last drop. More bread would seem to be required, and lo, more appears; chunks cut from loaves the size of car tyres. It’s all vaguely reminiscent of the ‘Feeding of the Five Thousand’. Seeing the rate at which the wine’s disappearing some-one capable of turning water into wine might be needed soon, as well.
The band play enthusiastically between courses, but by the time we have reached the entrée it’s all getting a bit out of hand. But the waiters are still smiling and their dodging techniques are improving rapidly.
Outside the temperature is rising and the afternoon crowd are beginning to drift in. The threshing machines are cranked up and the ‘working’ part of the day is taking off. But in the barn we’ve still got two more courses to go, and the diners are getting cranked (and tanked) up as well. The entrance of the band for yet another ‘recital’ heralds the moment for ‘table dancing.’ Not the London night club variety I hasten to add but one or two of the younger ladies could probably audition for a job. I vaguely worry that the table will collapse but after three glasses of this ‘criminal’ Spanish wine I am becoming quite unconcerned.
With everyone happily sipping coffee and high octane brandy the waiters decide to celebrate the end of their labours with a boisterous display of high spirits. Half a dozen of them lie on their backs while the rest take it in turns to launch themselves over them and are passed hand to hand. Halfway across they are rocked backwards and forwards like a human rocking horse. All goes well until some joker (it looks like Tibaud Leger but all the boys look the same lying flat on the floor) decides to grab the trousers of one of the flyers The underpants come off simultaneously. Whoops!..…it’s inevitable I suppose…..the day’s stress has to be released somehow and a bit of ‘deshabille’ is as good a stress-buster as any. The previously respectable matrons on my table can’t get enough of it……it sounds as if several dozen parrots have been released and are all screeching together. It’s probably a long time since they’ve seen young, male buttocks unfettered. In an effort to recover his dignity the young ‘flyer’ leaps up and the grannies are treated to a front view. Mass hysteria seems about to break out.
We decide it’s time to go home. We haven’t the stamina of these sturdy Pyreneans. As we leave order has been restored, the young man has retrieved his trousers, and the tables are being cleared in readiness for the evening session. Another (thankfully smaller) ‘repas’ is to be laid out and the ‘bal musette’ will kick off at 22.00 …or there abouts. And the popular, ‘encroyable’ Nadua who are hot from the Zenith in Toulouse will relieve the hyper-active bandsmen who are still belting out ‘Guatanamera’ at full throttle. The battage is winding down for another year, leaving us with vivid memories of yet another date in the mountain calendar ticked off, and the grannies dreaming of the next one and another glimpse of a well toned ‘derrier’.

This article first appeared in www.lettersfromfrance.com

Market Day

It was market day today. We are lucky enough to have three market days a week…..Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. All in different towns and all about the same distance from our village.
The Thursday one is a slightly smarter, less rural affair than the other two. The clothes stalls are more expensive, for a start. Not as trendy, but the sensible skirts and ‘Aunt Maud’ twin sets are probably all made in the EU. As opposed to the younger, flashier stuff on the Monday market which has almost certainly arrived in a huge container ship from the Far East.
So on the Monday market you can buy cheap stuff at cheap prices, and look pretty cheap in it .
Today was even more cut-price as we’re nearing the end of the season. The lowest price I saw for a pair of shorts was €3. Tee shirts were going for €2.
There was a whole stall selling Che Guevara tee shirts. Dear old Che….. the face that launched a thousand business opportunities.. Think of all the royalties he could be clawing in if he hadn’t been killed. But after all this time even if he had lived no-one would be in the least interested in a geriatric guerrilla. No, dying when he did, as with Elvis Presley, was a brilliant career move.
There was a stall selling a nice line in big girl’s bras and knickers. A complete ensemble for €8 in garish shades from sizzling orange to passionate purple. I would have bought a set but they were all too large (I lie!)
It was a hot as hell on the market today. The indoor market (which is actually a covered car park for the rest of the week) was even more crowded and pungent than usual. Live fur and fowl, raw meat and sweaty bodies aren’t exactly a happy mix.
I scurried past the ‘bucherie de cheval’. After all this time in France I’m still terribly English and ‘woosie’ when it comes to horsemeat. I was relieved to see there weren’t many live chickens and ducks being sold in this heat. I never like to see their sad faces as they perch uncomfortably on long wooden benches waiting for someone to buy them. They always remind me of village ‘wallflowers’ at a weekly ‘hop’ in the ‘50’s. Desperately hoping someone will ask them for a dance. But the poor old chucks will be bound for the oven, not the dance floor.
A small boy was cuddling a baby rabbit that his father had just bought. I hope he was going as a pet, not a future casserole of ‘lapin aux pruneaux.’
I’m not a tree hugging veggie, but there’s part of me that doesn’t actually want to look my dinner in the eye. It’s sheer cowardice, I know.
After the claustrophobia of the indoor market I was pleased to be out in the fresh air. The aroma had changed for the better too. Freshly roast coffee, peaches, melons and bread baked in wood-fired ovens.
I bought some ‘jardin’ tomatoes and two melons from a local producer. That was all he sold. I’m very ‘anti’ food that has travelled hundreds of miles to reach the customer. The melons and tomatoes had only come from the Gers…..our neighbouring department, no more than 30 km away.
I bought a locally grown lettuce and some cheese, and that was it. The cheese was produced in the mountain pastures by sheep that are born and die in the Haute Pyrenees, or the Pyrenees Atlantique.
So my carbon footprint was very small today. I felt very civically responsible …saintly almost !At the end of the week the great homeward trek begins. The schools open again at the beginning of September, so the market should be a little less crowded next Monday. And in three or four weeks it will be back to normal. Ho

This may sound a strange title for a Blog. I suppose it does appear to be bit negative. But whenever there’s a gathering of expat Brits this seems to be the opening topic of conversation.
Not in so many words of course. The phraseology may be different, but it all amounts to much the same thing: Is living in France all its cracked up to be?
Well that depends on what sort of day you’ve just had.
Take today for example. It’s a yahoo, definitely bang-on day ! The sun is streaming in through the kitchen window, the temperature is hitting the mid thirties and there’s a free range chicken, stuffed with a whole lemon and a bunch of tarragon, roasting in the oven.
There will be a bottle of good wine as well, it being a Sunday. Not the daily ration of ‘vrac’wine, bought straight from the barrel and decanted into your own personal plastic jerry can. No, this will be a bottle of merlot, or a sauvignon costing a mighty 3 euros. If we’ve had a foray across the mountains into Spain it could be a tempranillo, or hopefully a rioja, for even less.
Life doesn’t get much better.
But if someone had asked me how I was enjoying ‘la vie en rose’ on the day my cat was splattered on the road outside my house I would have treated them to a long and vitriolic diatribe against not only French drivers but the nation as a whole.
So, as in everything, it’s all relative.
Uprooting yourself from family, friends, and your native soil takes a bit of doing. The fact that you may have spent God knows how many years dreaming, hoping, and planning the whole daft venture amounts to nothing. When the last of your earthly possessions have been loaded on the removal van, and the rose-coloured spectacles are firmly in place you take on the persona of a pioneer.
Exactly why is a mystery. Thousands have made the journey before you, but as far as you, and your incredulous friends are concerned you are the only ones. Others may fail, sell up after a couple of years, but you are different. You know exactly what you’re doing.
After all haven’t you got an O level in French? And that dates you, for a start!
You’ve also got a small pension. Too small to live decently on in the UK but it’ll be a fortune in France. Well, it's true it will go a bit further than in the uk, and if you're in receipt of a state pension despite M. Sarkowzy's new legislation on immigration you'll be okay as far as the health service is cincerned. You'll need top -up private insurance, but the two thirds that the French CPAM pays towards medication is paid by the UK Health service as part of a reciprical service.And if you are unfortunate enough to develop a serious illness which is life- threatening like cancer or heart disease your treatment is 100% covered by CPAM. At least, that's how I read it but as in all things Fench there are dozens of interpritations!
Moving to France is a a lot like marriage. The honeymoon period is idyllic. Then the cracks begin to appear. It all depends on how you view the cracks. Are they endangering the foundations, or just a minor inconvenience?
At the moment our new president M. Sarkowzy is enjoying just such a honeymoon. I know how he feels.
When France comes back from the summer hols it’s all going to sink in. But as for today, well it’s still August. The country is still ‘away’, summer has finally arrived this year (almost too late but let’s hope for a brilliant autumn)
And France are hosting the Rugby World Cup. God’s in His heaven and for a while all seems right with the world.