A second French wedding

When we arrived the temperature was comfortable, reaching 22-25 degrees during the day and 12-13 at night. This was just right for working in. However, for the last few days the temperature has crept up into the mid 30s, reaching 39 degrees yesterday afternoon and not going down much below 26 at night. This has been pretty uncomfortable and made us reassess the need for some portable air conditioning for the bedroom!

Yesterday we went to the wedding of the farmer's son. Ian visits the farmer (M Mulatier) often and talks about tractors and machines. His son has two children and he and his partner were not married so I guess eventually the presuure to conform got to them, or it felt like now or never in terms of timing! In fact, it was a double ceremony with their wedding and the baptism of their second child. I hope it was a buy one, get one free deal!

This was the second French wedding that I have been two. As France is a secular state everyone must marry first at the Marie. So, following the trail of hedge clippings laid that morning (a tradition) we headed up to the Marie in Thenac in our Tranist van, with the air conditioning on full blast. In due course, the procession of cars arrived, with lights flashing and horns blaring. Following up behind was this tractor, decked in flowers and various banners!

The banner reads " convoy of happy angels".

Nothing was quiet about the arrival; there was lots of shouting and cheering and the wedding was conducted by the local Mayor. The bride and groom say "oui" and then the Mayor reads out a long list of relevant French legislation and law, things are signed and everyone leaves, heading for the proper ceremony in the church.

The church in Puyguihelm is spectacular in that it is perched right on top of the hill, with the doors opening onto the most wonderful panorama over the vineyards of the Duras region.

The searing heat make it look more washed out than it actually is.

Fortunately the ceremony was not a full Mass. As in the UK no one but the priest knew the words or the tune of the hymn but at least he had a wonderful voice! Being a dual event the service was still quite long and by the time it finished I was soaked in perspiration and longing for a cool drink.

As the couple left the church for the obligatory photos their friends had a special guard of honour with hard hats for her (she is the manager of a building site) and toy tractors for him. This was accompanied by heart shaped confetti (with no one complaining about who was going to sweep it up, the priest just being relieved that he had managed to save two more souls!).

The day finished with a 'Vin d'honor' in our village hall where I thought I was drinking grapefruit juice but alas it was a local cocktail containing something very alcoholic! I was served in a refridgerated fountain which meant that we all drank more than we should. However, I noted again the phenomenon that alcohol improves my French!

Coming home

Home now and back to work tomorrow! We had an interesting drive back, breaking the journey on the way up by staying at a bed and breakfast near Limoges. We have stayed there before and I can recommend it; especially the three course meal in the evening, which is exceptional value and very good. As we got to the Limousin the weather got worse and the snow started falling. However, we made it there quite safely and fortunately there wasn't much more snow overnight. Even if there had been there wouldn't have been a problem as the local farmer attached the snowplough to his tractor and cleared all the roads in the commune, making it easy to get up to the main road. The temperature did not go above -2 degrees centigrade all the way home but the journey was fine.

As we left the land we drove past the former mayor and his hunting mates butchering a deer that they had shot that morning. He called us over exitedly and told Ian that they had shot the animal on our land and amongst other things, that we could have a quarter of it! Ian nodded and we drove off. "We will have a quarter of that deer for our freezer when we are next here" he said matter of factly! "But we don't have a freezer or an oven?" I said. I felt a bit strange about it all as we love seeing the deer running across the land and although this one may have been older and in need of culling I don't feel that great about it. However, the creature is dead now and we should eat it.. Ian is planning to stop the hunters coming on the land when we are living there. It won't be a popular move but their presence with all their dogs is not good for the llamas or horses.

Snow is expected here for the next week. It is the coldest spell for 20 years. I remember the one in 1981. I was living in London and the cold spell  lasted 2-3 weeks  with the roads remaining  icy and snowy for most of the time. It was turned into a disaster by the media then and the same is happening now. It is just snow! We will survive.

Ian sent me this picture and said it was very sweet. I said it was unless you were a French hunter when you just see two meals with one shot!

A good cheese is worth its weight in gold.

Well not exactly but we did find out how valuable and appreciated little gifts can be. We bought some Stilton cheese in little china jars to give as Christmas presents here. We also got a few baseball caps printed with the name of the farm on. These were not big presents and quite fun to organise. Yesterday evening we went round to see the farmer and his wife with the gifts and they were genuinely pleased to see us and delighted with the presents but concerned that they hadn’t got us anything. We weren’t expecting anything as the farmer has been really helpful and lets Ian leave his old tractor there. Never-the-less they invited us to stay to dinner. It was very impromptu but suddenly their duck casserole became a four course meal with pate, cheese and desert. All this was washed down with copious amounts of local wine. (Apparently last year was a bumper harvest and 2009 will be a good year for wine from the south of France; especially for the sweet whites famous around Monbazillac. ) As the wine flowed my French at first improved and then deteriorated! We came back and collapsed into bed, passing out into sleep and then waking again a 4.00a.m. We vowed not to drink tonight but then remembered that it is New Years Eve!


This meal was simple, unplanned but plentiful and better than many we have eaten in restaurants here. They didn’t need the likes of Gordon Ramsay to tell them how to cook!

Although this may be posted after the event, may your 2010 be all the things you want it to be.

Gordon Ramsay does French

Continuing from where I left off on the last post, it was amusing to see that the French seemed to be as obsessed with cooking programmes, and Gordon Ramsay in particular, as we are in the UK. Channel 9 was showing an evening of the Gordon Ramsay programmes where he visits failing restaurants to tell them where they are going wrong. The programme follows a set format. Gordon visits, tastes the food and spits it out making sick noises, looks in the kitchen and finds rotten food and filth and then within two weeks turns them round to become modern and hopefully profitable. All this is interspersed liberally with Gordon swearing at the chef and the owners and anyone else that comes his way. It makes for what some people might see as an entertaining programme but you can’t help thinking that what he actually does isn’t exactly rocket science. I was amused to see how they handled Gordon’s prolific use of swear words in French. Mostly where he uses them as an adjective (‘the f*cking sauce, the f*cking plates’) they just ignored them. Where he uttered ‘f*ck me’ under his breath, this was sometimes translated as ‘merde’ ( or sh*t) and when he called someone a d*ck head this was translated correctly as ‘connard’. On one occasion he told someone to ‘go f*ck yourself’ and this was correctly translated as ‘ va te faire foutre’.

No delays for us

We arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal bright and early, a little in advance for our crossing, only to see a sign that there were delays due to an earlier cancellation. We were resigning ourselves to a long wait when the woman in the check-in asked us if we had any animals or children with us. "No", We said." Well, in that case we are asking anyone with a van if they mind being transferred to the freight service today as we have some delays". We didn’t mind one bit! We got an earlier crossing, breezed through customs and security (they were not up yet!) and ended up in the little carriage that all the lorry drivers sit in, complete with a hot drink machine and working toilets!


The drive to Tours was trouble free and we had a brief stop near Rouen to eat our turkey sandwiches. We had booked a hotel that sounded quite nice, with a particularly impressive sounding restaurant. However, the restaurant was closed as there are only three other people staying here so we ended up walking to the local shopping mall where we had a steak and chips! On the way we passed MacDonalds, which was packed. Don’t believe it when they tell you that all French people are gourmets!

Tale of the tomatoes and mistaken identities

The problem with going to France for just brief periods is that they are very intense, both in relation to the amount of work that we have to get done and the amount of people we have to visit.

We caught up with Stephane and Stephanie, our neighbours from the village. In fact, we were able to return one of the many invitations that they have given us and invite them for an 'apero' on the terrace at the aperitif hour of 7.00 p.m. I spotted Stephane tending his garden one day while I was cycling home with lunch and decided to put my French to the test by inviting him up to the house 'one evening next week'..At least, I thought that was what I said! When I got back I told Ian. "I think that's what we agreed, but I'm not sure. Maybe you'd better phone them to check". A bit later Ian phoned and I was delighted that Stephane had in fact understood the invite. However, he had not recognised me in my cycle shorts and helmet and thought the invite had come from one of our other cycling neighbours! Turns out we are very confusing! There are three of us English women living virtually next door to each other, who ride our bikes wearing helmets (no self respecting French cyclist would wear a helmet) and other elements of disguise like cycle shorts and dark glasses. The Mayor's secretary calls us 'Les sportives'. We all speak pigeon French with a funny accent and strangely enough we all have blond hair so really the locals don't have much chance. Apparently when trying to distinguish one from the other they say 'you know, the blond one' and then laugh! Anyway, to this day Stephane still thinks he is owed an invite from one of the other blond ones!

Stephane's vegetable garden is very productive and we were given some tomatoes and peaches from their overspill! Ian happened to mention that I really liked French tomatoes and in fact did not eat the English ones. (This is true. To me the watery English variety are so insipid and acidic compared to the sweet, juicy tomatoes that you get further south). With that, Stephane promised to bring us some tomatoes to take back to England the day before we left and true to his word on the Friday evening he arrived with this enormous box of tomatoes!

As lovely as they were there was no way Ian and I could use up that many tomatoes before they went bad so last week I had my first attempt at making and bottling tomato sauce! I searched for recipes on the Internet and in the end decided to go with just putting the hot sauce into sterile jars with a tight lid that fortunately sealed as the jars cooled. Hopefully I have done enough to avoid botulism! Peeling the tomatoes took a while and I'm afraid I did not have the patience to remove the seeds but I have 16 jars of summer tomato sauce to remind us of France over the winter.

A belated post.. the journey down

The journey down to the house was not entirely uneventful. The roads were busy (for France) and although there were no traffic jams the services were full and finding a parking spot was difficult. We stopped for lunch in the ‘baise de somme’ which is in the middle of a nature reserve. There were very few parking spots and the only place we could park was on the grass. We set up our picnic in a place that didn’t smell quite so strongly of p*ss as everywhere else.
When it came time to leave Ian cautiously reversed the van out and went to exit just as Mr Frenchman in a Mercedes pulled in. There then followed scenes reminiscent of the standoff at the OK Corralle, with Mr Mercedes refusing to reverse or go up on the grass, the cars behind refusing to reverse back and Ian getting more and more grumpy! After a few minutes Mr Mercedes very reluctantly pulled over and we were able to leave. As I attempted to get in the van Mrs Mercedes said something to me to the effect of ‘it is a one way’ and ‘you stupid English’. Well, it wasn’t a one-way and Ian was now at the end of his fuse and decided to get out and have a row with Mr Mercedes, convincing him that although English his knowledge of French swearwords was indeed fluent.
Eventually I managed to drag Ian away, avoiding an International incident, and we continued South.

A French wedding

We had a very quick trip to France at the weekend to attend the wedding of Ian's friends Jacques-Paul and Madeline. Ian had only ever been to one wedding before in France and I had never been so it was a new experience for us.

We arrived at our hotel after lunch and checked in. We settled down to watch the penultimate stage of the Tour de France from the bed, showering and changing in the ad breaks. It was probably the most crucial stage but the Mairie was calling us and we could not be late so reluctantly we left half an hour before the end to make our way to Jacques-Paul's village. We arrived at his house just in time to join them in their 100 metre walk to the Mairie.

There was only room for about 20 people in the room so most of us stood outside while the Maire conducted the official ceremony and then we all escorted the couple back to their house.

After the signing of the papers (very important in France) the children appeared with carrier bags full of confetti, which they proceeded to throw over everything, with great relish, leaving a carpet of coloured paper all over the pavement.

There then followed something called a 'vin d'honneur', where we had champagne, sangria, brioche and sort of sweet chou pastry buns. This went on for about 2 hours with no drying up of the bar and then in true French fashion those that were invited to the meal got in their cars and drove to the 'Salle de fetes' (village hall) 4 km away. Well they had to drive since most were too drunk to walk!

There was then more drink and a few snacks and then a bit of a hiatus in the proceedings due to the non-arrival of the caterer with all the food! We never did find out what happened but when he eventually arrived at 10.00pm we were all relieved. A 5 course meal commenced with each course interspersed by dancing. Most people danced themselves sober. Unfortunately we let the side down and had to give up and return to the hotel before the cheese course at 2.30 a.m! Desert and cake were still to come!

Village death

As we arrived at the land on Sunday Madame Delgrano appeared in her car, smartly dressed as usual and on her way to Mass. She seemed pleased to see us and stopped the car to get out and have a chat; mostly with Ian as he speaks better French and it is less effort for her to talk with him than for her to try and work out what I am trying to say! She had watched the various stages of the build with interest (in between bouts of illness) and said she thought the house was très jolie, which is fortunate, since she has a full view of it from her house! She told us she was off to Mass and said that the following day there was a funeral in the village for a local man who had died quite suddenly.

The road up from the village gets maybe 2-3 cars an hour along it and very few stop. On Monday at about 2.30 more and more cars started to appear. They parked down by the church, up the side of the road almost up to our house and then down the chemin rurale (track). By 3.00 there were hoards of people down by the little church seemingly standing around. The gathering was still there as we drove off at 5.00.

Later we found out that the man who died was in his 70s and had gone to bed and not woken up the next morning. He had 10 children and everyone had arrived an hour before the funeral so that they could meet and chat first. It made me think about the few burials that I have attended in my life (most of my close family have preferred cremation). They have been for elderly patients where no relatives could be found and the social worker had to organise the burial. I sometimes went to keep the social worker company and there would usually be me, her, perhaps a carer or nurse and the priest! What a contrast to the scene in the village!

The joys of travel

I am just back after a long journey! We left the Dordogne at 6.00 a.m. UK time, drove in the van to Calais, took the tunnel to Dover, arrived back at Ian's at 7.30p.m (with fish and chips for supper) and then I drove back here! There will be more posts over the next few days regarding the visit but in the meantime I must catch up with my sleep!

The new van was great. It is a brand new medium wheelbase Ford Transit with many features such as air conditioning , IPOD player, cruise control, luxury seats etc that make a long journey bearable. Even I managed to drive it in France much to the horror of the HGV drivers (of various nationalities) on the road! I couldn't quite bring myself to adopt their habit of p*ssing by the side of the road when there is a perfectly decent toilet a few metres away so I guess I could never be a proper lorry driver!

We were worried that we would be held up by Eurotunnel as when we phoned to check the new requirement to have no more than 3 cubic metres in the van we were told emphatically that all vans are checked before being allowed on and the officers were expert at judging the size of the load. We arrived promptly for our crossing, hoping that we had not exceeded our dimensions. The port was quiet and we managed to swap to an earlier shuttle. No one even looked up as we drove the van through and the French customs officer did not even look at our passports. We had a similar experience coming back. On the shuttle our van was next to an even bigger one that was stacked from top to bottom with old furniture (I suspect bought from a French Vide Grenier (car boot sale) to be sold off at a profit in a trendy antique store). We asked the driver and several others who were pretty obviously taking commercial goods across if they had ever been stopped and had their van checked and they all stated that they had never been stopped.

I must say the service on Eurotunnel was back to normal; frequent crossings, no queues, very quiet and all together stress free.

Campsite man 2

Ian was fully engaged all week building the llama house so while we were in France it was my job to run errands, do the shopping and generally be friendly to everyone. I made several trips to see campsite man (Pierre-Henri). It was his last week and there were three old camper vans on the site. On the first two mornings that I went there it was deserted and campsite man was nowhere to be seen. However, on the Friday I finally saw him. He looked tired and even thinner than I remembered him in the summer. It was cold enough to see your breath and he was clutching a bottle of wine under one arm and saying goodbye to the remaining campers. He didn't recognise me straight away but when he did he seemed generally pleased to see me. My attempts at communication were limited by my inadequate French but after a while he started speaking in a little English (something I never knew he could speak!) and then we communicated using both. He told me that he was finishing with the campsite all together. He had had enough of the local commune and had fallen out with them and told them that he would not do it the following year. He decided that it was too hard with too much stress to make it worthwhile. He was about to start a job in Agen in a factory repairing electronic goods. From what I could understand this was a revival of an old factory that had been set up years ago, where he had worked as a young man. I wished him well and felt quite sad a I don't think the campsite will be the same without him. When we were leaving the following day we saw him driving his camper van in the opposite direction. We tooted and waved at each other. I wonder if that will be the last that we see of him?

A long lunch and a long wait

Having decided to forgo the joys of Eurotunnel for our return trip, due to the fact that the only available crossing was at 6.00 a.m. on Monday, we booked onto the last crossing with Speed Ferries expecting to depart at 9.45p.m. Well, here we are sitting in a line, in the van, in the rain at Boulogne with a one and a half hour delay. Ian has just said that he now remembers why we don't travel this way normally! All the white vans are in one line next to the line with all the Range Rovers! Not a good choice. Mr Range Rover driver has just slammed his door open into Ian's van almost causing a violent incident!

On a more positive note, we took Mike out for lunch to thank him for his hard word this week. He suggested a restaurant in a nearby village called La Taverne Du Cochon Sale (the salted pig). We had to book and the restaurant was full. The food was definitely not for vegetarians but really excellent local recipes, well cooked and beautifully presented. I had scallops (cooked beautifully) to start followed by a stuffed quail, a selection of local cheeses and a desert called the Paris-Brest (maybe after the famous bike race!). It consisted of choux pastry, praline, chocolate sauce and a sort of local bread pudding. We arrived a 12.30 and left at 3.45! A proper French lunch at under 90 euros for three! I can recommend it if you ever find yourself in the Somme.

Freedom and occupation

We have brought Ian's friend Mike with us to assist with the arduous jobs, such as sawing, cutting and lugging wood and to assist with the technical aspects of the design, thus giving Ian someone to talk with and leave me free to be a 'domestique'; fetching the refreshments! Mike lives in Albert. Albert is in the middle of the Somme a few kilometres from the front line and after the first world war all but one building remained and a handful of people, living in cellars. Mike bought a house on the main road opposite the aerospace factory, in an area that was once a casualty clearing station for the French. The house was formerly a hotel and at one time a brothel and a bar. It was in pretty poor condition and Mike is painstakingly restoring and renovating it; turning it into flats and bed-sitters.

The history of the area is fascinating and depressing. Mike has found human bones when digging but unless they can be linked to a person by other artifacts no one is interested as there are so many to be found. On the first day of the battle of the Somme 60,000 young men were killed or fatally injured. That is more than 20 times the number killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Here in the Dordogne the history is not quite so tragic although during the second world war the border dividing occupied France from free France was a only a few kilometres away. Apparently the area where the land is was occupied and the older locals remember stories of villagers being taken to the woods and shot. There is still some animosity towards the Germans (although at the same time a gay German couple lived happily in the village for many years).

I don't believe it...

Bergerac airport is very small and the only flights that arrive regularly are those of Ryan Air. There is no air traffic control for landing so if visibility is too poor or it is too windy the pilots have to fly on to Bordeaux or Toulouse and that is probably the most exiting thing that ever happens..that is until last week. A British woman had been doing a bit of shopping in the local second hand shop and as a present for her military obsessed husband she bought an old World War 2 shell. She packed this into her hand luggage and as it passed through the rudimentary x-ray machine at Bergerac all hell broke loose! She was arrested, all flights were suspended and the bomb disposal team were called. Her suitcase and its contents formed part of a controlled explosion in a field. She later said that she didn't realise it would cause a problem and was not charged (although I would imagine she was a little embarrassed!). (After all, you can't even bring a bottle of water on, let alone explosives!) It does give me a few sleepless nights to imagine what we might have to put up with in the bed and breakfast!

To bissou or not to bissou

This refers to the French custom of greeting everyone with a peck on the cheek. Well, both cheeks to be precise. I was under the illusion that absolutely everyone bissoued as soon as they met and although it is something that doesn't sit so well with my Anglo Saxon upbringing I was prepared to indulge for the sake of entente cordiale. However, I noticed that this cheek kissing is not indulged by all and there is in fact a strict protocol as to who and when. As far as I can tell, never biss on a first meeting unless absolutely everyone else is bissing; never biss with anyone older or more senior that you until they biss you first (up until then the handshake is perfectly acceptable), never biss in any kind of business meeting. Biss with friends, people your own age, people who biss with you first and all the English living there who seem to think that now they are living in France they can biss absolutely everyone! I never have got used to it as way of greeting!

Biss Biss

The studio and the commander

I have mentioned before that Hazel and Peter are musicians. Peter is also a record producer and as he informed us last time we were there

"you don't need a great big orchestra and a recording studio to make music now, its all done on a computer"

With that in mind his plan was to build a small studio room in his house and continue his recording work in France. Well, the state of the housing market in the UK put paid to that and has put their extension on hold, so Peter decided to erect a temporary studio where the garden shed was. When we arrived building was at a frantic pace as some musicians were expected the following week and the 'studio' (still looking very like a garden shed) had no roof or soundproofing. Still, where there is a will there is a way and over the next few days the 'studio' was soundproofed with an old mattress and some polystyrene trays from Herman's herbs, the electrics were connected and we arrived while Peter was trying it out with another neighbour we call 'the commander'. The commander runs some nearby gites and in his previous life held a very important and responsible position in the transport industry (something that you are made aware of early on in your acquaintance). The commander also likes singing and I must admit I had imagined him doing some light classical songs, so I was a little taken aback to hear his renditions of John Denver and the like emanating from the 'studio'. (The trouble with a studio is that although the singer hears the backing track those outside don't, so what you hear is the bare vocal with all its imperfections!) Anyway, it seemed to work, apart from the fact that the studio had no air conditioning (and it was 36 degrees at this point) and still no roof, and you couldn't run the pump for the swimming pool at the same time as the recording equipment (so as it was like a sauna you could not stand more than 5 minutes in there at a time). After his 'session' the commander had a beer and lamented about the fact that his 16 year old son couldn't communicate with him any more.

The following day we were planting our trees on the land when Peter and the commander turned up in their cars, each containing some young lads, who were obviously musicians by their indie and underfed look. (In fact, they looked just like most of the students on the arts courses at work!) The lads were pleasant and polite, and looked a little bemused (but then they had spent an evening with the commander after driving 10 hours from Calais). I imagine they were struggling to cope with the reality of the situation! They were promised a recording studio in France, with its own pool and what they got was a shed with no air conditioning, and the company of a John Denver impersonator. I bet it was never like that for Sting!

Night time calm

While on holiday we called in several times to see our near neighbours Peter and Hazel, who have now been living there on and off for 18 months. You couldn't really ask for more pleasant neighbours. They are kind, warm, friendly and their house seems to always be open. One of my nicest memories of our two weeks there was a warm evening where we popped in to see Hazel after we had been working on the land. (Peter was back working in the UK for a few days). We sat outside chatting and after a while we saw Herman's shape emerging from his land and wandering up the path that he had cut to Hazel and Peter's house. (Now we know why he was cutting back the hedges!). We had some tea and some cake, chatted about Madame Delgrano and the local gossip and then we had a glass of wine. Hazel offered us some dinner, just noodles and vegetables but it tasted delicious, and we sat talking some more and watched the moon rise up over the land. We had never been out there at night before and it was so lovely, calm and peaceful except for the sound of the crickets. After a while the peace was shattered when the cat appeared with a large green lizard hanging out of its mouth! We removed the lizard and hopefully it lived to see another day. The cat was cross for a while but soon recovered. We sat there for a bit longer and then Herman left to go and water his herbs! We watched his figure disappearing off into the dark of the field.

France holds some surprises!

One day on holiday we cycled out to Sigoules, a nearby village/town. As we were entering the town I had to do a 'double take' as walking towards me up the road was a group of Buddhist monks and nuns. It really wasn't what I was expecting to see in the middle of rural France! We ended up having lunch in a little cafe in the town (not as lovely as it sounds as the only place we could find was opposite the petrol station in a little arcade). Our fellow diners included two men who were obviously studying something, a couple of younger men on holiday who paid the bill with the French equivalent of luncheon vouchers that are given to the lower paid to help them pay for their holidays and an English group, dressed very smartly, that were waiting for the Mairie to open as two of them were getting married! As we left I asked the chef/owner about the monks. He told me that there is a community in Thenac; a neighbouring village.

I relayed my story a few days later to Herman, who claims he is a Buddhist.
'Yes, there is a community nearby..but they aren't proper Buddhists. They're a bunch from Vietnam. I've been there once.'

I left it at that but on return looked them up and found that there are from a community called the plum village and are pretty much our neighbours, owning several plots of land nearby. I mentioned this to a colleague at work who is a Buddhist and teacher of mindfulness meditation. Far from being a bunch of improper Buddhists it seems that they are a pretty influential and important group!

I like the quote on their home page:
If your cup is small, a little bit of salt will make the water salty. If your heart is small, then a little bit of pain can make you suffer. Your heart must be large.
Thay Nhat Hanh

The ghost machine

Each time we went to land we passed a field with this machine in it. It looked like an abandoned piece of junk from a distance but every time we passed the field I swear it had moved from one side to the other and yet we never saw anyone near it. I decided that rather than a piece of agricultural equipment it was really a ghost machine and once it got dark it moved itself up and down the field in the moonlight. I later decided that it was probably a space probe and moved around to get better communication with the mother ship.

Ian had a much more practical explanation and said it was a thresher cutting strips of hay for animal feed. I like my explanation better!

Ian is quite keen on agricultural equipment and we could not go past a tractor shop without a stop while he had a 30 minute conversation with the owner about the price of tractors and toppers. I used it as an excuse to sit in the van and sleep! I did notice however that he was not the only man looking lustfully at large pieces of equipment!

The village fete

While we were in the tourist information office in Miramont we picked up a leaflet advertising a summer fair at a nearby vineyard. We were looking for something to do the following day and so decided to cycle out to it. The leaflet was in French and English but I must admit the whole thing did have somewhat of an English feel to it. The entrance fee went to support a charity and stalls selling local produce were promised.

The following day was warm so we set off on the bikes in the morning and got to the vineyard at about 2.00pm. Things were just beginning to take off.. We started with a long conversation with the man selling tickets. He had been a keen cyclist and had organised bike races and events in his home town in Lancashire for most of his life. He had also driven the press car for the Tour de France and had once picked up some cyclists from the airport only to realise he had 5 Tour de France winners in the back of his car! After a pleasurable conversation we parted with our 4 Euros and went in. The farmyard was set out with various stalls with arts and crafts, second hand products, books, paintings, tombola, 'fish the grapes out of the bucket' game, and a food and drinks stall selling quiches, salads, ice cream etc. We got a plate of salad and sat at the tables set out in between the vines to eat (and overheard the resident English contingent discussing how busy they were what with the line dancing classes and art class there was just no time for them to go to their French lessons!). After eating we wandered round the stalls. There was a young English chap there who had set up one of the first free-range pig farms in the Dordogne, raising English pigs and selling English sausages made to a recipe he got from the Heston Blumenthal book (Two shelias take note!). He had a whole pig roasting on the spit for an evening hog roast and was selling sausages and home made pork pies and had already been written about in the French Press, as the English farmer showing the French how to develop the free-range market! Unfortunately as we had our bikes with us we couldn't really try the wine but were offered a proper tour on another day. We cycled off with thoughts of strawberries and cream and Morris dancers floating around our heads!

The following day it was raining and I wanted to buy some wine so we decided to take up the offer of a tour and drove over in the van! I expected a half hour tour and a quick tasting, but no.. we got the full 2 hour tour and explanation of the history of the vineyard (bought by an enthusiastic English IT consultant who invested in setting up his own wine making shop and was now forced to work back in the UK to pay for the investment). The vineyard was going organic and the enthusiasm and commitment from everyone was apparent in every detail. The cuves were spotlessly clean and our guide (the owners father, a former chemist) knew exactly what was in each barrel and at what stage it was at. We then got to taste all the wines. I am no expert but I have to say that they really were well worth what they were selling them for. They are not filtered, use no chemicals in the processing and are made with love and enthusiasm from an Englishman the in the wine growing centre of Duras! I bought quite a bit and I must say I can recommend them as they are available via their online store at not much more than we paid for them in France.

You can find out about them here!