Most people who read this will know that my first foray into French property was in La Trimouille, 12 years ago, now. For 8 years I had a tiny little terrace house in the village, before moving to a farmhouse 15 minutes away at Le Passedoux for two years. So for ten years I spent at least 4 weeks a year there. As a result I have made a few friends that it is worth the 500 km drive to visit when I can, now that I live so far away.
On Thursday morning I set out at 6:30 in order to avoid much of the record heat that was forecast for the north of the country. In Belesta, it was actually only 15 when I left, but it rose to 34 later in the day. In La Trim it got to 42. Incredibly, there was only 25 % humidity, so despite feeling like i was being baked in an oven, it was a lot more bearable than a Brisbane humid summer day. It was an unusual heatwave this week, in that the north of the country was a good five or more degrees hotter than the Mediterranean coast. I woke today to steady rain and a maximum of only 17 all the way back to Belesta. Quite a turn around in temperatures. Hopefully the rain is enough to top up the rivers and lakes around here.
Just past the Toulouse toll booths, on the way up, I picked up a hitchhiker. It is still relatively common here, to see people looking for a lift and i have given a few people rides over the years. twice it has been school teachers at the end of long hikes, getting back to their cars. So it is not something only the desperate undertake. It turned out I had picked up a sixty(?) something woman from the Netherlands, who was on her way home from three weeks at a new agey sort of festival near saint Giron. She had gone with her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. They had hitched the whole way and now she was doing it on her own to get home again. She said she had never done anything like it before!` It helped the time pass, chatting to her as we drove north, before I dropped her off in Limoges. Unfortunately, it appears her new agey ness has veered into conspiracy theory territory and in what I pointed out to her was quite an insulting thing to say about Buzz Aldrin, the day after he had given a speech about the moon landing, she let me know she thought the whole thing was fake news! I feel like i might have steered her a little way back from the edge of craziness by the time she got out of the car.
I was greeted to a wonderful lunch when I arrived in La Trim. My good friend Ellen, had put on lunch for me, and another friend, Will. Delicious.
I always feel like people in France eat a lot more seafood than in Australia, but maybe it's just me who doesn't eat much of it at home. While I have been here the last two weeks, I have eaten almost only fish- cod, salmon, bar, and trout.
in the evening I went to a quiz night at one of the ubiquitous English bars where expats gather to play trivia. The heat had driven all other team members away, so there was just another friend, John, and I. I liked the feeling of being back there after two years away. In fact, I had begun the La Trim team's run of success there. this night though, we had to be content with second. We actually got announced as winners, but we realised the bar owner, Kieran, had miscounted our score. We owned up. The highlight of the night turned out to be Kieran streaking around the main square, as a result of a dare to do with selling the bar, which he had done that day. It is in the village of Chaillac, 20 minutes from La Trimouille. Despite it being full of expats and a healthy french population, there is only one divey bar in La Trim now, and no restaurants.
Friday involved an exhausting round of visiting as many friends and acquaintances as I could. One visit was actually to someone I had never met before but Ellen was keen for me to meet her new friend, who has a gallery built into the walls of the medieval keep of the now vanished castle. Her back garden is the top of the keep. An amazing secret garden, with views of the village rooftops and the countryside, with vestiges of medieval wall poking up here and there. I loved it. And the No Brexit poster in her window. Nice annoyance for all the hyopcritical, pro-Brexit ex-pats who live there. Which is apparently most of them.
In the evening, the highlight of my visit was a performance of opera in a Medieval church in Montmorillon. I am always pleasantly surprised at the amount of cultural offerings there are in rural france, with performances of all sorts of things throughout the year- music, dance, theatre, comedy, opera. Once I saw the national jazz orchestra play led zeppelin. on this occasion, a children's choir, four opera singers, and an ensemble of string and percussion players performed for two hours. It was generally lovely, if a little long. The setting was amazingly beautiful.
On Thursday morning I set out at 6:30 in order to avoid much of the record heat that was forecast for the north of the country. In Belesta, it was actually only 15 when I left, but it rose to 34 later in the day. In La Trim it got to 42. Incredibly, there was only 25 % humidity, so despite feeling like i was being baked in an oven, it was a lot more bearable than a Brisbane humid summer day. It was an unusual heatwave this week, in that the north of the country was a good five or more degrees hotter than the Mediterranean coast. I woke today to steady rain and a maximum of only 17 all the way back to Belesta. Quite a turn around in temperatures. Hopefully the rain is enough to top up the rivers and lakes around here.
Just past the Toulouse toll booths, on the way up, I picked up a hitchhiker. It is still relatively common here, to see people looking for a lift and i have given a few people rides over the years. twice it has been school teachers at the end of long hikes, getting back to their cars. So it is not something only the desperate undertake. It turned out I had picked up a sixty(?) something woman from the Netherlands, who was on her way home from three weeks at a new agey sort of festival near saint Giron. She had gone with her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. They had hitched the whole way and now she was doing it on her own to get home again. She said she had never done anything like it before!` It helped the time pass, chatting to her as we drove north, before I dropped her off in Limoges. Unfortunately, it appears her new agey ness has veered into conspiracy theory territory and in what I pointed out to her was quite an insulting thing to say about Buzz Aldrin, the day after he had given a speech about the moon landing, she let me know she thought the whole thing was fake news! I feel like i might have steered her a little way back from the edge of craziness by the time she got out of the car.
I was greeted to a wonderful lunch when I arrived in La Trim. My good friend Ellen, had put on lunch for me, and another friend, Will. Delicious.
in the evening I went to a quiz night at one of the ubiquitous English bars where expats gather to play trivia. The heat had driven all other team members away, so there was just another friend, John, and I. I liked the feeling of being back there after two years away. In fact, I had begun the La Trim team's run of success there. this night though, we had to be content with second. We actually got announced as winners, but we realised the bar owner, Kieran, had miscounted our score. We owned up. The highlight of the night turned out to be Kieran streaking around the main square, as a result of a dare to do with selling the bar, which he had done that day. It is in the village of Chaillac, 20 minutes from La Trimouille. Despite it being full of expats and a healthy french population, there is only one divey bar in La Trim now, and no restaurants.
Friday involved an exhausting round of visiting as many friends and acquaintances as I could. One visit was actually to someone I had never met before but Ellen was keen for me to meet her new friend, who has a gallery built into the walls of the medieval keep of the now vanished castle. Her back garden is the top of the keep. An amazing secret garden, with views of the village rooftops and the countryside, with vestiges of medieval wall poking up here and there. I loved it. And the No Brexit poster in her window. Nice annoyance for all the hyopcritical, pro-Brexit ex-pats who live there. Which is apparently most of them.
In the evening, the highlight of my visit was a performance of opera in a Medieval church in Montmorillon. I am always pleasantly surprised at the amount of cultural offerings there are in rural france, with performances of all sorts of things throughout the year- music, dance, theatre, comedy, opera. Once I saw the national jazz orchestra play led zeppelin. on this occasion, a children's choir, four opera singers, and an ensemble of string and percussion players performed for two hours. It was generally lovely, if a little long. The setting was amazingly beautiful.
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