Salut à tous. We are growing very excited about our impending parenthood! It was back in late Feb that we first made contact with the cattery, and at the time, June seemed a VERY long way off – but here we are, mid-May and just 2 weeks to go until we are back home with our wee kittens! Where the hell did the time go?!
Matt’s mum, Jan, is with us at the moment, having arrived at Angoulême station last Thursday. She had a fairly gross journey – flight from USA to Paris, metro to the train station, then two trains from there to get to our neck of the woods. In spite of the ordeal, she got to us with no problems and we made good time back home.
To explain the unusual blog title, the weather out here has been pretty bad since the beginning of the month, very upsetting seeing as we were enjoying our first swim of the year back in late April. Having spoken to a few locals, we began to hear the same phrase being repeated over and over – “les saints de glace” (the ice saints). At first, we had no idea what anyone was talking about: we kep mishearing it as “son”, meaning “sound”, so we couldn’t work out why everyone was blaming the inclement weather on the sound that ice makes.
A little googling revealed what it was all about. Pretty much every day of the year in France is the day of one saint or another, and in May, there are a group of particularly pesky saints (whose days are the 11th, 12th and 13th of May), that are collectively known as the ice saints. They are saint Mamert, saint Pancrace and saint Servais. Mean buggers, the lot of them. Traditionally, farmers would not plant their crops until after the ice saint days had passed, as until then, you were not guaranteed that the last frosts were truly over. Every year, Farmers across France would pray to the ice saints – basically, asking them to stop fu*&ing about and let them get on with planting their crops asap. This being rural France, little has changed, and the ice saints still carry a lot of weight with the locals.
The moon is also a key player in French agriculture, so even though the last ice saint day was on the 13th, local wisdom stated that the weather would only improve this year as of Tuesday (18th), as by then, the moon would be in a different phase. As much as that sounded like a load of old boll*&ks to me, I have to admit it was very lovely out yesterday for the first time all month – and indeed, it is due to continue to be lovely from here on out. Hmm….
So, on with Jan’s visit. Due to being under the rule of the ice saints, we hadn’t managed to get up to too much – a few local walks, the obligatory trips to Brantôme (including lunch at cute waiter restaurant yesterday. His name, we learned, is Gregory. Hi Gregory!), and also a visit to a “vide-grenier” on Sunday – literally, “empty loft” – ie, lots of stalls selling a load of shite that really should have been thrown out aeons ago.
We also entertained “Ridigt”, as we have come to call Richard and Bridigt, as well as Mike and Jean Batty, for dinner on Saturday night. Ridgit are the English couple who moved out here at the same time we did and are doing up a property not far from Brantôme, and Mike & Jean are the ex-owners of Sharon’s property. We split the cooking between us – Sharon made a yummy cream of mushroom soup to start and a lemon and thyme chicken dish for the main. We also made a main dish – a favourite of ours called Tamale Pie (a spicy, cheesy veggie Mexican affair), as well as dessert – Matt’s fabled carrot-cake cookies, and Jan’s yummy biscotti. Despite the potential for a late night, we all somehow made it to bed at a sensible hour, so avoided any serious hangovers the next day.
Yesterday, after a fab lunch (served by Gregory), we took Jan to Saint Jean de Côle to enjoy the scenery and the sunshine. Miles, one of the grand-children, has a school project involving “Flat Stanley”, a book I used to love as a kid. The idea is, you get as many people as you can to print out a picture of Mr Staney and take photos of him in a wide variety of places. With the return of the sunshine, we did our bit yesterday – Flat Stanley has now been pictured enjoying the various bridges in Brantôme, the town square in St Jean de Côle and also the beautiful chateau de Puyguilhem in Villars.
Well, that is about it so far. As I write this, we are preparing for our 2 day adventure down to the wild, unruly, southern, coastal part of Aquitaine and the city of Biarritz – a stone’s throw from the Spanish border. Here, the locals speak a unique dialect totally unfamiliar to us, bears roam in the forests and surfers rub shoulders with businessmen. Can’t wait!
More news soon.