This is not a lounging holiday

 

11^th September

More gunshots this morning. A hunter parked at the end of the lane, and I didn’t want to take Perla out while he was firing over the fields. The owners of the mill tell stories of hunters shooting each other more than the game they are chasing, which sounds both reassuring, thinking of the wildlife, and a little worrying when considering our own safety. We know the man who, with the help of his dog, tracks down the animals they do injure but don’t kill. He makes sure they do not suffer.

We’re starting on the roundup of “last tasks” – shaking out beds, cushions, sofas, sweeping floors, dusting, last minute washing of socks and knickers to get us home feeling clean. Dh has trundled the BBQ down to the Earth Room, (which I am told has now been renamed the West Room) and is currently out on the tractor cutting the grass. I am still dead-heading lavender. Tomorrow the Great Packing Adventure begins.

The heat has been so intense these three weeks with all but two days in the high thirties that working after 11.30 was impossible, so there are some things we did not get done that we would have liked to do. Our holidays here are not the lounge around the pool kind. Dh sanded and revarnished or Danish-oiled the fence around the pool and the balcony fence. I pruned the garden that skirts the pool (and got well and truly bitten doing it!) and we both hacked away at the vegetation so there is a wider view of the field from the bolly. The pictures are a Before and After record. We wanted to trim the laurels at the back of the mill, take some of the ivy off the trees and tidy the creeper in the east patio, but it wasn't to be. 

Change is Everywhere

In spite of the Brexit challenge, we have gone ahead and booked the Shuttle and the hotel in Abbeville to get to the mill in June. Tim has had his rabies booster and will have his blood test to ensure it has "taken" in a months time. 

There comes a time when  the only thing to do is throw the hands in the air and say "Sod it!" let's do it anyway. Who knows what will come from this political mess? We don't know what the vet in Vergt will be saying about returning Tim to England, but we will have to sort that out when we get there. From his point of view - the vet, not Tim - I cannot see much changing, except that no doubt his fee will have gone up.

 The pic is from 2005 and the mill has changed considerably since then. The large pine tree was taken down  because it was perilously large and close to the house and the west winds at storm force would have laid it right across the roof. Other trees have gone in various storms and of course, new saplings are shooting up everywhere. There is a swimming pool now instead of all the grass! Everywhere, there is change. Politics change, people change, nature changes. We can't stop it. Sometimes we can't even start it. 

France and Brexit

My blog has recorded holidays in France over the last few years and judging by the visitor numbers to the site, many of you like reading about them. But now we are in a quandary, because if Brexit goes through, how will the travel rules change?

If we have to pay more to get there, I'm not  worried much; I'll save a bit harder before hand. But what if all the nice rules about taking your dog on holiday (or your cat, mouse, hedgehog, whatever) suddenly stop and go into reverse?

So far there is no information about this.
There's no way any pet lover would put their pet through weeks of quarantine just for a few weeks holiday. Certainly I would not. So if the worst comes to the worst scenario, we won't be going to France again. Tim doesn't know there is any problem, but he loves the open spaces there, jumping in and out of the stream, hurtling through the woods.

What will I miss? The absolute freedom to do as we wish. The sunshine, the wonderful walks, the sightings of deer, foxes, ducks, fish and the occasional farm dog. Oh, and those big, big cattle in the next field, with their delightful calves. The kites that fly over the valley, the mice that escape the farmer's hay cutting, the lizards that run up and down the walls and even the occasional snake.

Come to think of it we've seen several snakes over the years: a small black one dropped out of the bolly roof and vanished down the nearby drain; we found a similar one in the balcony room and watched it wiggle its way out onto the balcony proper and then vanish. A small adder  near the stream, wiggling through tree roots, another on the wall where the old pound wall used to be and one year a much bigger snake we never identified, but about four feet long; it came to rest  at the top of the bolly steps at the side of the house, and I took a picture of it over the bolly rail before it slid off across to where the walnut tree hung over the grassy bank.  Then there was the time Tim jumped on a snake in the ditch beside the road; the snake retaliated and bit Bill in the calf before scuttlinng away back into  the ditch. Bill, I am happy to say, suffered no ill effects and we assumed it was a grass snake. Then there was the time we found two of those very large, muscular cattle in the field with us, ambling up to the house...but that is a story for another day!

Decisions

One storm over and another to come So far I have not noticed any damage to property in this area, but there were plenty of broken branches, some very large scattered around the perimeter of the fields where I walked Tim yesterday. Windfall apples  - yes, plenty of those. Acorns scattered far and wide anywhere there was an oak tree, so I picked up  a few and lobbed them into the hedgerow where a tree had died or there was room for it to grow. I don't suppose many of them will, but it is a nice idea that even if only one grows, it will be there three hundred years after I've gone. That's if the world is still turning. I say that because right now we seem to be in a hell of a mess, Brexit wise.
On a personal level I'm off to get a hair cut at lunch time. I mention this because I have not been to a hairdresser since my long time friend abruptly closed his shop due to medical reasons immediately after Christmas 2017. My hair is now quite long and very annoying as the short bits that were once a fringe are forever in my face! But over the year I must have saved £250 or £300. Time fo a splurge? Possibly, but my immediate problem is explaining to the new hairdresser what it is I want her to do. An even deeper question is what exactly do I want? Who knows what I shall look like by 2pm?

Odd world.

The world is a strange place these days. First Brexit and now Trump. It is difficult to know if one is wise to book a holiday next year in case by then the world will have changed out of all recognition. People are talking about the feeling of the country being like this before the outbreak of the Second World War, but maybe that’s being just a tad too pessimistic.

I hope so. I’ll just plod on doing what I normally do and hoping for the best.

Twitter and Facebook are  awash with comments. Everyone now voices their opinions and expects the world to agree. Lately we’ve watched the arguments develop between rival political groups both here and in the US and it seems that s/he who shouts the loudest often wins the argument. (Of course, that doesn’t mean they are right. Only that they shout loudest.)

Reading social media statements is often a hoot because I’m convinced that some swig a bottle of wine (or the equivalent – insert your brew of choice) and then get busy with their ipad or iphone. Grammar and spelling are forgotten (or never learned), and it seems to me that those on the left of the political centre shout loud and often. Those on the right of the centre maintain a stiff silence for the most part, probably because they don’t want to receive a van load of rude tweets and posts.

I suppose the silence makes the lefties think a) those on the right are cowards b) they know they are wrong anyway and c) I’ll say it again, louder just to see if I get a response.

People argue about tennis players and actors, not to mention rape scenes on Poldark. They’ll probably argue about a whole lot more in arenas where I never venture. Strictly is argumentative enough for me – and I do wish that Tess would stop interrupting the judges, and that the silly shrieking with glee that goes on would stop, too. Sometimes it sounds like a kid’s party. Oops! Now I will  have everyone descending on me complaining that I dislike spontaneity and the sounds of happiness. It's not true!

It's OK. Tim (above  right) will keep me sane.

Kicking Back

Had to be brave and use some French today. We’ve run out of recycle sacs and needed more, so off to the Mairie we drove. Every small village/commune has a Mairie which runs the place and we’d been told that we could get more sacs there. I used Google translator to get a nice, polite sentence in French, copied it down on a piece of paper, and marched up the steps of the smart new building in St Felix de Villadeix. I came back down flushed with success and clutching a big roll of yellow recycle sacs. My prepared sentence worked beautifully, and I adlibbed the rest!

Afterwards we drove to St George de Montclard by way of Rabard, and drove slowly by the house we almost bought about ten years ago. We couldn’t sell our own at the time, so the deal fell through, but it was a lovely house with lots of land. Actually, the recession of 2008 convinced us we had done the right thing in staying in England, and now Brexit is about to reinforce that. There are 129 houses for sale in this commune at the moment, prices ranging from 73,000 euros all the way up to 900,000 euros. No doubt a lot of English who’ve chosen to live here will now be thinking of returning. 

Lots of things that were easy and good in the EU, for travellers and those who chose to buy homes here, may now not be so good – medical attention when required, travel insurance, UK pensions that don’t rise with inflation – in other words, an income that is decreasing rather than keeping pace with the cost of living which is not now that much cheaper in France than in the UK. (Just as an aside I bought a tin of Heinz baked beans in the Intermarche the other day. In the UK it would cost me somewhere in the region of 35p; here it cost me the euro equivalent of £1.25.) The French don't do that kind of bean, though there are lots of other bean choices.

A journalist on the Daily Politic show today called Jeremy Corbyn’s 500,000 supporters “a group hug” which I though a nice way of putting it. His people keep quoting this figure as a reason for staying put at the head of the Labour Party but just don’t seem to realise that he has to get a substantial number of the other 60 million people of voting age in the rest of the country to vote for him as well.

Local news

Tim doesn't like the pool

While I was saying the haymaking has not yet begun yesterday, the local farmer must have been studying the sky and maybe the calendar, because just around the time Federer faced 770 ranked Willis across the net, we heard the roar of the tractor. That would be about five thirty in the UK, but around six thirty here. (I have to keep reminding myself that I’m an hour ahead of my friends in the UK. Plays havoc with tv programmes!) Anyway, he spent the evening cutting the hay in two of the three fields and I am not suffering the effects of hayfever!

This is pay-out time for Amazon authors and I’m happy to say the electronic transfer of funds seems to be working very well indeed. Once again there is a small payment via Indian rupees, which makes me very curious as to who in that vast sub-continent is reading my books. Though several people in Australia have bought The Gybford Affair, no one has read it yet. It is amazing the way independent authors can keep track of their business.

We are keeping track of the Brexit fall out via the tv, too. As I’m typing this I’m hearing that Michael Gove has just stuck a knife into his pal Boris, metaphorically speaking, by saying he doesn’t think he can do the job. 

Referendum blues

If the referendum proves anything at all, it is that the country should not have referendums, because people don’t vote on the simple, yes-no question they’re asked. They vote with all sorts of things in their minds, in reaction to all sorts of things in the past and with no real appreciation of the thing they're turning down. There are many hinting now that they wish they had voted the other way, because they never thought that the outcome would be to leave the EU. Duh! They thought they were the only ones to think like that? Really?

What a mess the UK is in now. The PM has all but resigned and wants no part of steering the country through something he never wanted, and why should he? Those who wanted to leave should be the ones with plans ready to take over, but it seems the Gove-Johnstone pair don’t have a plan between them. Farage is nowhere to be seen, but possibly lurks at his local with a pint in his fist. Jeremy Corbyn shambles around saying nothing much and leading no one to the vexation of his Shadow Cabinet who are resigning in droves – 15 up to this point. Corbyn insists he is staying on, no doubt convinced that the Labour Party loves him and will vote him in again if and when there is a General Election, touted as possibly November. It will be a nightmare come true if he is, because it is doubtful he will be able to form an opposition government.

Lawyers are now arguing over Nicola Sturgeon’s gleeful claim that Scotland could veto Brexit because Scotland wants to stay in the EU. South of the border some folk are saying yes – save us from this mess and keep us in the EU. While I might want that, I find it astounding that such a small population could overturn a decision made by a much larger population. Not much democracy there, is there?

Only George Osborne is standing firm, a steady figure in all this chaos. Come on Ms May, and any other suitable Conservative candidate – don’t let either one of that dreadful Brexit pair take over, otherwise we’ll be the laughing stock of Europe if not the world in having a journalist, who fell into politics by mistake, for a PM.