First off, I want to wish a happy birthday to our boys who turn 2 today. They are none the wiser of course but it’s notable so thought I’d mention it.
In my last post, I was lamenting temps as low as -7C but I didn’t realise how good we had it at the time. We’re still in the middle of an arctic cold snap that started last week and doesn’t show much sign of letting up. The high yesterday was -6C, and that’s typical. Today we’re enjoying a high -1C with sunny skies which feels downright balmy by comparison. The low for the previous and next few nights has been between -10C and -12C, freakish for these parts.
Also, I was wrong about the snow. We got about 5 inches on Saturday night, plus another dusting yesterday and although it melted a bit today, most of it is still here. They only plow/salt the main roads so our little lane and road are both still snow-covered with patches of ice underneath. School transport has been cancelled all week and we’ve not seen the postman nor the bread vans. Thankfully, I stocked up just before the snow but we’re now running low on supplies including booze so I plan to venture out tomorrow. I ran into Jenni, our neighbour who owns the equestrian centre and she recommended a route to get to St Pardoux, our nearest town with a grocery store. No matter how you get there, it’s about 100m lower in elevation so it entails going down steep windy roads and up them on the way back.
Lucien stopped by on Sunday morning to make sure we had enough wood and also to drop off some civet that he’d made. Civet is essentially a stew made with onions, flour, red wine and some sort of meat. Lucien’s version also had white wine and other herbs and then he slow-cooked it for 5 hours. The meat was wild boar, given to us by the local hunters who annually give a piece of their bounty to anyone whose land they might use during the season. They had given our portion to Lucien and he’d kept it in his freezer for us. He had previously explained that the best thing to do with boar was a civet and described how to make it but in the end, decided to make it for us. He also instructed us that the best way to eat it was to toast some bread, then rub a clove of garlic over it before ladeling on the civet (bien sur). We ate it for lunch the next day and it was very tasty, although Will was less impressed than I was.
We have been going through a lot of wood but stocks are still holding. Lucien came by and chain sawed the rest of our main stack so it now looks like we’ll make it through the next few weeks. This is most fortunate since the boiler has not been working well at all. The boiler man came a twice last month to give it a clean and fix the hot water. There is still a problem with the electric starter so he needs to replace another part for that and told us that if it goes out, we’ll need to call him or disassemble the thing in order to light the pilot. On Tuesday night, I went to turn it on and the pilot had gone out so Will and I removed the various covers and tried to light it ourselves. It would light but not stay lit, a typical problem for boilers.
We called the boiler man and thankfully, he agreed to come out the next “late morning” in his words. We waited all day and I have to say, it was miserable. Normally, the temp in our main room is 16-20C, depending on the time of day but yesterday, it started at 14C and barely got to 16C. We were relying solely on the fire for heat so we brought in a ton of wood and got the thing blazing but then in the afternoon, it was so hot that the wooden mantel started smoking. We rubbed a snow-soaked towel on it and that seemed to help but it also meant we had to let the fire die down to avoid burning the place down.
The boiler man eventually showed up around 7pm and spent about an hour replacing a part. It still didn’t work after that so he partially removed the side cover and said there was a problem with the line but after that, it started working so he left. About an hour later, I went to check it and to my dismay, it had gone out again. I tried to follow what he did with the side cover and thankfully, it started working again and stayed on all night but has since gone out again this morning. The house has returned to a sensible temperature for the time being and I will try to light it again soon. The man said he will try to stop by but he’s frantic at the moment, unblocking frozen pipes and repairing boilers so we’ve got to wait our turn. He had two more people to visit last night after he left us at 8pm.
Needless to say, we’ve not been up to much for the past few days although we did have one social event this week. We had both sets of our close neighbours over for coffee on Tuesday afternoon. Bryan and Carol know Lucien and Mauricette but they can’t really communicate since the former don’t speak much French and the latter, no English. They all showed up around 2:30 and we spent a few hours with Will and I translating the many questions they had for each other. It was nearly 5pm when L & M went home to tend their fire and B & C stayed for a drink before wandering back home. We feel like the neighbours know a bit more about each other now and we’ve done our part for Anglo-Franco relations.
On that topic, we’ve decided to start another business, essentially a help desk for expats called Port 80 Services. There are many people out here offering translation services and just as many doing computer help, but no one that offers both. Will has put together a web site explaining who we are and what we do. We’ll mostly be promoting it on the DVN, our expat network. We don’t expect it to become our primary source of income, nor do we really want it to be but if it generates a bit of spending money, we’ll be happy.
Ok, the boiler man and his assistant have shown up so hopefully, we’ll be back in business soon. The cold weather is meant to last until Monday and then warm up slowly from there. According to Lucien, there hasn’t been a cold snap like this for thirty years so we feel fortunate to be here to experience it. Not!