Friday, May 12, 2006
Saturday 6 May 2006
The week-end with visitors went well I think, apart from appalling weather. The temperature went down to about 14 or 15 degrees, it was very grey and windy; and rained all day Monday. They arrived safely with N from the Gare du Nord at about 4.50 on Saturday afternoon, and we didn’t do much after that except visit the house and outbuildings, which took some time, and showed them their rooms; Issy in the smaller attic where Madeleine had stayed, Steve in the newly refurbished blue and gold Italian room - he said he felt very important sleeping in such a high grand bed - and Caroline in N’s study in the larger attic, where she was re-united with her old bed from Ainsworth Street.
It was nice to have five of us round the large dining table for Saturday and Sunday dinner and Sunday lunch; we had breakfast in the dining room. They took themselves out for a little walk round the village on Saturday evening and found that there wasn’t much to see; I went out with them on Sunday morning when the principal activity was fetching bread and patîsserie for lunch. They also had a good look round the supermarket and bought a few things.
In the afternoon we drove to a little town called Beaumesnil to visit the château. N and I go through Beaumesnil sometimes when we go to Bernay and always catch a tantalizing glimpse of a wonderful large baroque house at the end of a road. Only a very small part of it was open to the public, and included a museum of bookbinding with a filmstrip to watch. There was also - not surprisingly - a large library, and several impressive drawing rooms, with one or two features like ours. The gardens would have been impressive too, if only it hadn’t been so cold and windy; I had had to lend Issy a coat for most of the weekend. On the way back we had a look at La Ferrière-sur-Risle where we planned to go to the fair the following morning, but there was nothing happening there so far. Once back home we lit the fire, and had afternoon tea in front of it.
Monday was Steve’s birthday - part of the reason for the visit, as mine was the following Thursday - so he opened presents over breakfast and then we all got ready to leave as soon as we could, N and I preparing to leave the house as after visiting the fair we had arranged to take our visitors back to the Gare du Nord and then stay on in Paris. I was handed a large bag of presents to take with me!
The fair at La Ferrière-sur-Risle was billed as a « Foire à Tout » (An Everything Fair) so it had been a little difficult to describe to our guests as we had no idea what it was going to be. Unlike the day before the village was full of people and cars, and N had to park a long way out. There were many bric-a-brac stalls; some more professional than others, and real antique stalls under the covered market in the same way as a fortnight before. There were also a few selling produce and lots to eat and drink. It rained steadily the whole time we were there, and stallholders were having problems keeping everything dry, and no doubt felt that would have taken much more money on a fine day. At one of the antique stalls I caught sight of my friend the curtain lady from L’Aigle! The only thing I bought was a little wicker hanging shelf (for 1 euro!) but N bought a violin for 60 euros - mass-produced, but brand new with case and bow - and a book of walks though Normandy with quotations from Flaubert. Unfortunately I don’t Flaubert can’t have walked near La Neuve-Lyre very often, and we will have to drive a fair way in order to walk these routes. Still, it looks good on the coffee table, and N has already had great fun getting the violin into shape. (The wicker shelf has since been hung in our bathroom, and filled with spare toilet rolls.)
After some fortifying hot drinks in a café, we found the car again and set off for Paris, still not quite sure where, or of what nature, Steve’s birthday lunch would be. In the end we stopped at the Hotel de l’Ouest opposite the station at Evreux; it was a little early for a long lunch and we hadn’t got a lot of time, but ate very well in the brasserie, mostly Croque Monsieurs, for which our guests kindly insisted on paying.
We reached the Gare du Nord just nicely in time for them to check in for their train due to depart at 16.07, after a spectacular drive in via La Défense, l’Avenue de la Grande Armée and the Champs Elysées, and past metro Anvers where I visit the material shops. Usually when I drive with N to the Gare du Nord it’s me saying goodbye and going off somewhere, so it was nice to drive back together to Saint-Denis, where we arrived before 4 o’clock.
This was a short stay; from Monday afternoon to Friday afternoon. On Tuesday morning N was playing string quartets, so I decided to see if there was a free concert at l’Eglise Saint Roch; there was so I had a sandwich at the café next door while I waited and marvelled at the sunshine - the temperature had risen since the day before from 15 to 24 degrees! I felt sorry for my visitors and also for all the stallholders at the fair at La Ferrière-sur-Risle. A trio - violin, oboe and organ - played Bach, Handel and others which I enjoyed very much, and was pleased to see the church again after having read about it so recently as it in was in the 1830’s.
Afterwards I went to the Monoprix in l’Avenue de l’Opéra and bought myself a dress for my birthday, black linen with a cross-over front, short sleeves and flared skirt, and reminiscent, I realised later, of at least two other dresses I’ve had in the past. I then went on to the branch of Leroy Merlin near the Pompidou Centre to get the last remaining curtain fittings for the sewing room, enjoying the masses of people in the sunshine, and having my first outdoor ice cream of the season from a nearby stall.
Wednesday morning I spent in various household tasks; washing, cleaning, taking both our winter coats to the dry cleaners, and ironing, including ironing the afore-mentioned black linen dress. N spent a lot of time reading the thesis he is due to examine in June; he now has the printed copy, which is approximately the size of a large dictionary or family Bible. He is also still involved in frantic communications with the bank regarding the missing money from the Italian house sale; the latest information is that the money should arrive in his account during the week beginning 8 May. When not doing either of these, he has been translating into English an article he wrote in French a few years ago about a painting called « Fête des Archers », to send to a Spanish early music magazine, which he keeps referring to as the latest episode of The Archers. I was involved with the proof-reading and checking of this too, on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, as sometimes his English is more French than it should be.
On Wednesday afternoon I went to Montmartre, probably for the last curtain buying trip. I bought fine white cotton for the landing window, helped by a lady with whom I got chatting; she said she was responsible for furnishing several flats, and always got curtain material at the Marché Saint Pierre, and had never been disappointed. I said I had been very pleased with them too, and these were the last curtains for a large house in Normandy which I had bought not long ago. The man serving me, rather disagreeably, I thought, said so we won’t be seeing you again, then?
All of this didn’t take long, so I walked further up to Barbès- Rochechouart and looked at all the cut-price clothes shops. There are often tourists in this area, even in the middle of winter, but that day it was full of them enjoying the sunshine; Russian women and Swedish girls all rummaging through the stalls and holding up skirts and T-shirts in front of themselves. I walked all though the different Tati shops (there is even a Tati bridal department - no doubt there are those whose ambition is to be married in a Tati wedding dress) and bought myself a little wicker bag for 3 euros 90.
Thursday was my birthday, and quite a different kind of day, a complete change of activity for us both. We went into Paris in the morning, me in my new dress - the weather so pleasantly warm no need to think of a jacket to go with it - and N in his new blue cotton suit. First we went to BHV where I chose my present from him, a much needed new watch, as the clasp on my old one kept coming unfastened. (The day before he had bought me a beautiful big white hydrangea in a pot; almost nicer than the watch. It has come back with us to La Neuve-Lyre where it is standing in a large white china bowl on the side table in the salon, until it’s time for it to go in the garden.) The choice of watch was determined by practicality in the end; I wanted an expanding bracelet so I didn’t have the same problem with the clasp again, and a dial with all 12 numbers as opposed to four spots - very difficult to change the time on these! So the one I chose has a large white face with clear figures and minutes marked off in between and is very easy to see without my glasses. It was also very reasonably priced!
We had lunch at a restaurant called Chez Julien, near the Pont Saint Louis; the only other time I had been there was on Good Friday last year, in similar lovely sunshine. Everything about the restaurant was exactly as it should have been; and I had a very good mixture of salmon and Coquilles Saint Jacques, the first time I have eaten the latter. Afterwards we went to an exhibition at the Hôtel de Ville entitled « Paris au Cinéma », with lots of stills, photos, interviews and posters, and clips of films divided by category - lovers, chases, bistros, Parisian women and the Eiffel Tower. When we came out we sat for some time in front of Notre Dame, watching the tourists, couldn’t decide what to do next, but not really ready to go home. I suggested we went part of the way by bus, so we managed to get the 24 which we discovered last autumn at Bercy; it goes all the way along the left bank, then crosses the river and terminates at the Gare St Lazare, on our metro line. It was a wonderful treat again like last time, and going along so slowly there was plenty of time to see everything.
One of the reasons for going out for lunch instead of dinner was so that I could go to the chorale, so after a good rest and a large bowl of strawberries each, I set off round the corner to the Conservatoire. A woman I had sat with before came and sat next to me again - this chorale sometimes reminds me of a class of 12-year olds, and she is definitely the bad girl who usually sits on the back row and calls out and all the others wait to see what she will say, so I suppose I ought to be flattered. She asked how I was, so I said it was my birthday, whereupon she asked my age and said I couldn’t possibly be that old. Once we were ready to start she announced to everybody that it was my birthday - though not my age! - and they all launched into « Happy Birthday to you » twice, with piano accompaniment.
The other good thing about the evening was that an extra concert has been arranged, on 20 May, when N and I will be in Paris anyway; at the Saint-Denis museum, only a few minutes away opposite the Chinese restaurant. There is no rehearsal next week - another holiday - and the one just before the concert may be in the museum itself. As yet, it hasn’t been decided exactly what we will sing! (but we will wear red tops) We learned a few new pieces, gospel and traditional French songs. Where else could you go and sing Vivaldi and Charles Trenet in the same evening??
I also spent quite a lot of time typing out the Lexique during the few days we were in Saint-Denis, but have still only got as far as the end of the letter C - there were 9 pages of it. On Friday morning I fetched our coats back from the cleaners and bought some more cushion covers from the market, a little more luxurious than the first ones. We had fun unpacking five large glass cloches which had been stored in N’s garage for years, from the previous occupant, an antique dealer. There was finally room to take them with us in the car, and so far two have been put to work in the vegetable garden, one covering peppers and the other an artichoke.
Tuesday 9 May 2006
When we got back here on Friday afternoon we found a lot had changed in the garden in only five days. The blossom on the cherry tree was over, and on the apple tree it had just arrived. The daffodils, tulips and grape hyacinths were almost over, and the tulip-like bush had lost its flowers and got its leaves, and a very ugly mystery bush in the front garden (which was nearly uprooted in the winter) had become a beautiful pink peony-like tree. My pots of herbs had grown a lot and the petunia s were beginning to come out. The dark red rhododendrons are beginning to flower, very impressively.
Since then as always, there have been so many things to so. I have stripped all four beds and washed all the bed linen - over a few days, as it then began to rain again. During a wet afternoon N repainted the walls of the little lobby by the garden door and downstairs shower room, and finally painted the crépi over the bare patches on the veranda walls. I have also written thank you letters and e-mails and generally caught up with correspondence. Monday was another bank holiday like last week; this time it was the anniversary of the Liberation of France in 1945 and as I was leaving the market on Monday morning I was lucky enough to see La Neuve-Lyre’s own contribution: a procession led by firemen with a colourful banner, then one or two anciens combattants, followed by, it seemed, everyone in the village. This was just before midday; at 12 the church bell tolled for some time, and I think they had probably marched round to the war memorial, in the next square along, in front of the post office.
Wednesday 10 May 2006
We - especially me - have spent a lot of time over the last few days dealing with paperwork, having decided it really was time to chase up the social security offices at Bernay as I had heard nothing about the Carte Vitale, and to visit the tax office in Verneuil. This latter visit was as a result of a letter I sent them last November, with forms for the UK tax offices; to which they replied that they could do nothing before March 2006. (In order to get out of the UK tax system, and be refunded any unnecessarily paid tax, I need to get into the French system)
Fortunately before any of this happened, my Carte Vitale finally arrived in the post on Saturday, so I now have a social security number and a nice green shiny card, in case I need to claim money from doctor, chemist or hospital, and we didn‘t need to visit the office in Bernay again. The next thing to be done was to enrol me in a « complémentaire » (complementary medical insurance) which was done very painlessly over the Internet, but which will relieve me of several euros every month. This I found extremely strange as I have never paid for any kind of medical treatment or insurance before, but am assured by N it is well worth it, and I may see some of it back in the form of dentist or optician fees.
Another thing I achieved was a phone call to TPS, our satellite TV provider. We have now had this for three months, and had made our choice as to which « bouquet » of channels we wanted, only to discover that four of our favourites were no longer available to us: BBC Prime, RAI 2, Mezzo (the opera channel) and the History Channel. After much research on the website, I managed to phone, explain and find out which « bouquet » we would need to get them (not the most expensive, fortunately) and get this set up for June, the May payment having been made. I felt this was no small achievement, as the last time I called I had to wait ages, give my details several times and then speak to someone who only communicated in jargon.
On Tuesday, once everything was open again after the holiday, we drove to the tax office at Verneuil-sur-Avre, me with my dossier containing everything I thought they could possibly want to see. The office was an imposing building in the same square as the Hôtel Saumon where we had stayed last September. I can’t imagine an English tax office like this; because everyone has to fill in and submit their own tax declarations locally people were coming in for all sorts of advice, and sometimes being given it by others in the queue!
Inevitably, they needed to see something I hadn’t thought of bringing - my pay slips from May to September 2005 - so today we went back there again after I had managed to find them packed in a file where they had been put into store, just in case they ever came in useful. Fortunately I managed to see the same woman again straight away, and she took all the information she needed and promised to send my forms to the UK office. Joining the French system also involves my becoming eligible for local housing tax, but according to N I will be exempt from a lot of things because of earning so little.
Because this second visit to the tax office took far less time than the first, and because it was warmer than yesterday, we spent some time looking round Verneuil. Apart from some very picturesque old buildings, we found two very interesting - and different - shops. The first was called « Vermillon » and was full of stylish red things for red kitchens and obscure food items such as Colman’s mustard powder, Wilkin’s jam and Tate & Lyle’s black treacle (which we bought) and Marmite and Bird’s custard, which we didn’t. We thought it was a good shop to go back to for Christmas presents - lots of chocolate, liqueurs, sauces, pasta and so on. The other shop was much more down-market but full of useful household things; we bought two black rubber doormats for two of our many outside doors, a padlock for the wine cellar (not that there is any wine in it yet) and some cushion stuffing, as I had been unable to find cushion pads for the satin covers I got in Saint-Denis market last week. I quickly made my own cushion pads in the afternoon using some of our seemingly inexhaustible supply of old cotton sheets, and am very pleased with the look of the cushions on the sofa and armchairs. Will see if I can get two more covers when next in Saint-Denis; there is plenty of stuffing left.
On the way home we took an obscure lane with a sign to La Neuve-Lyre, and came back a totally different way, through deep countryside, now beginning to look really summery, with trees in blossom just like the postcards and dark yellow fields of rape on all sides. We passed a village so small that there was only one name on the war memorial! I couldn’t help wondering if his family had had a struggle to get it put up…… The day before we had come home the usual way through Conches, and had stopped for the first time at the Champion supermarket, and found it much more impressive than we expected, with all sorts of non-food items. This is good, as in theory I can get there on the bus from La Neuve-Lyre, although the timings are a little strange.
Thursday 11 May 2006
A lovely warm day today, probably the warmest yet, it started yesterday afternoon. We have had lunch, coffee and two afternoon teas outside in the garden, and sit in our familiar old Italian chairs under the apple blossom marvelling at how our vision of a house and garden in Normandy seems to have come about just as we expected.
Yesterday evening N got chatting to Marie-Antoinette while sowing seeds by the front gate and asked her in for an apéritif, also in the garden. She was impressed (quite rightly) with how much had been achieved in the vegetable plot since she last saw it on a very cold and windy Easter Saturday. As usual there were things we had to ask her; about the new road we had discovered that morning (she goes that way often, was surprised we would go to Verneuil any other way) about the village doctor - I am wondering now I have my Carte whether I ought to go and see him to introduce myself for a chat; M-A was non-committal! We also asked her about the proposed Brocante sale in La Neuve-Lyre on Thursday 25th; she said it was smaller than the one at La Ferrière-sur-Risle, just a chance for everyone to have a turn out, like a car boot sale really. (I think we ought to have a stall, but N says best to wait and see the sort of things other people are trying to sell and have one next year.)
Wild life update:
Not much seemed to have happened lately in the nest in the garage, so N got out the ladder and put a finger in, and felt at least two warm eggs! We have since noticed the swallows (or maybe swifts) going in and out, so it doesn’t seem to have worried them. When we came back last Friday it was very warm and an attic window got left open all night. I went up to fetch something just before going to bed a couple of nights later , and found a bat flying round the room, obviously having mistaken our attic for a barn, and then having a nasty shock when the light went on. It took some time with two windows open before it finally flew off.
Friday 12 May 2006
Today M Boisseau the TV man is here again as the digital set in N’s attic is not working and also the heating technician is here to fix the timer and talk us through it. I have received a large envelope of papers from my complémentaire medical insurance, some of which I must sign and return. We will need to go to Bernay again, N says, as I must inform the social security office of the details of my complémentaire. He suggested going this morning, but I felt that two mornings out in a week was enough, and needed to catch up with the hoovering, which I’m glad to say has now been done. Have also cleaned two windows and taken photographs of lovely views of the lawn and flowers. We may go on Tuesday, as on Wednesday afternoon we will be going back to Paris again, ready for the weekend‘s events.
The week-end with visitors went well I think, apart from appalling weather. The temperature went down to about 14 or 15 degrees, it was very grey and windy; and rained all day Monday. They arrived safely with N from the Gare du Nord at about 4.50 on Saturday afternoon, and we didn’t do much after that except visit the house and outbuildings, which took some time, and showed them their rooms; Issy in the smaller attic where Madeleine had stayed, Steve in the newly refurbished blue and gold Italian room - he said he felt very important sleeping in such a high grand bed - and Caroline in N’s study in the larger attic, where she was re-united with her old bed from Ainsworth Street.
It was nice to have five of us round the large dining table for Saturday and Sunday dinner and Sunday lunch; we had breakfast in the dining room. They took themselves out for a little walk round the village on Saturday evening and found that there wasn’t much to see; I went out with them on Sunday morning when the principal activity was fetching bread and patîsserie for lunch. They also had a good look round the supermarket and bought a few things.
In the afternoon we drove to a little town called Beaumesnil to visit the château. N and I go through Beaumesnil sometimes when we go to Bernay and always catch a tantalizing glimpse of a wonderful large baroque house at the end of a road. Only a very small part of it was open to the public, and included a museum of bookbinding with a filmstrip to watch. There was also - not surprisingly - a large library, and several impressive drawing rooms, with one or two features like ours. The gardens would have been impressive too, if only it hadn’t been so cold and windy; I had had to lend Issy a coat for most of the weekend. On the way back we had a look at La Ferrière-sur-Risle where we planned to go to the fair the following morning, but there was nothing happening there so far. Once back home we lit the fire, and had afternoon tea in front of it.
Monday was Steve’s birthday - part of the reason for the visit, as mine was the following Thursday - so he opened presents over breakfast and then we all got ready to leave as soon as we could, N and I preparing to leave the house as after visiting the fair we had arranged to take our visitors back to the Gare du Nord and then stay on in Paris. I was handed a large bag of presents to take with me!
The fair at La Ferrière-sur-Risle was billed as a « Foire à Tout » (An Everything Fair) so it had been a little difficult to describe to our guests as we had no idea what it was going to be. Unlike the day before the village was full of people and cars, and N had to park a long way out. There were many bric-a-brac stalls; some more professional than others, and real antique stalls under the covered market in the same way as a fortnight before. There were also a few selling produce and lots to eat and drink. It rained steadily the whole time we were there, and stallholders were having problems keeping everything dry, and no doubt felt that would have taken much more money on a fine day. At one of the antique stalls I caught sight of my friend the curtain lady from L’Aigle! The only thing I bought was a little wicker hanging shelf (for 1 euro!) but N bought a violin for 60 euros - mass-produced, but brand new with case and bow - and a book of walks though Normandy with quotations from Flaubert. Unfortunately I don’t Flaubert can’t have walked near La Neuve-Lyre very often, and we will have to drive a fair way in order to walk these routes. Still, it looks good on the coffee table, and N has already had great fun getting the violin into shape. (The wicker shelf has since been hung in our bathroom, and filled with spare toilet rolls.)
After some fortifying hot drinks in a café, we found the car again and set off for Paris, still not quite sure where, or of what nature, Steve’s birthday lunch would be. In the end we stopped at the Hotel de l’Ouest opposite the station at Evreux; it was a little early for a long lunch and we hadn’t got a lot of time, but ate very well in the brasserie, mostly Croque Monsieurs, for which our guests kindly insisted on paying.
We reached the Gare du Nord just nicely in time for them to check in for their train due to depart at 16.07, after a spectacular drive in via La Défense, l’Avenue de la Grande Armée and the Champs Elysées, and past metro Anvers where I visit the material shops. Usually when I drive with N to the Gare du Nord it’s me saying goodbye and going off somewhere, so it was nice to drive back together to Saint-Denis, where we arrived before 4 o’clock.
This was a short stay; from Monday afternoon to Friday afternoon. On Tuesday morning N was playing string quartets, so I decided to see if there was a free concert at l’Eglise Saint Roch; there was so I had a sandwich at the café next door while I waited and marvelled at the sunshine - the temperature had risen since the day before from 15 to 24 degrees! I felt sorry for my visitors and also for all the stallholders at the fair at La Ferrière-sur-Risle. A trio - violin, oboe and organ - played Bach, Handel and others which I enjoyed very much, and was pleased to see the church again after having read about it so recently as it in was in the 1830’s.
Afterwards I went to the Monoprix in l’Avenue de l’Opéra and bought myself a dress for my birthday, black linen with a cross-over front, short sleeves and flared skirt, and reminiscent, I realised later, of at least two other dresses I’ve had in the past. I then went on to the branch of Leroy Merlin near the Pompidou Centre to get the last remaining curtain fittings for the sewing room, enjoying the masses of people in the sunshine, and having my first outdoor ice cream of the season from a nearby stall.
Wednesday morning I spent in various household tasks; washing, cleaning, taking both our winter coats to the dry cleaners, and ironing, including ironing the afore-mentioned black linen dress. N spent a lot of time reading the thesis he is due to examine in June; he now has the printed copy, which is approximately the size of a large dictionary or family Bible. He is also still involved in frantic communications with the bank regarding the missing money from the Italian house sale; the latest information is that the money should arrive in his account during the week beginning 8 May. When not doing either of these, he has been translating into English an article he wrote in French a few years ago about a painting called « Fête des Archers », to send to a Spanish early music magazine, which he keeps referring to as the latest episode of The Archers. I was involved with the proof-reading and checking of this too, on Monday evening and Tuesday morning, as sometimes his English is more French than it should be.
On Wednesday afternoon I went to Montmartre, probably for the last curtain buying trip. I bought fine white cotton for the landing window, helped by a lady with whom I got chatting; she said she was responsible for furnishing several flats, and always got curtain material at the Marché Saint Pierre, and had never been disappointed. I said I had been very pleased with them too, and these were the last curtains for a large house in Normandy which I had bought not long ago. The man serving me, rather disagreeably, I thought, said so we won’t be seeing you again, then?
All of this didn’t take long, so I walked further up to Barbès- Rochechouart and looked at all the cut-price clothes shops. There are often tourists in this area, even in the middle of winter, but that day it was full of them enjoying the sunshine; Russian women and Swedish girls all rummaging through the stalls and holding up skirts and T-shirts in front of themselves. I walked all though the different Tati shops (there is even a Tati bridal department - no doubt there are those whose ambition is to be married in a Tati wedding dress) and bought myself a little wicker bag for 3 euros 90.
Thursday was my birthday, and quite a different kind of day, a complete change of activity for us both. We went into Paris in the morning, me in my new dress - the weather so pleasantly warm no need to think of a jacket to go with it - and N in his new blue cotton suit. First we went to BHV where I chose my present from him, a much needed new watch, as the clasp on my old one kept coming unfastened. (The day before he had bought me a beautiful big white hydrangea in a pot; almost nicer than the watch. It has come back with us to La Neuve-Lyre where it is standing in a large white china bowl on the side table in the salon, until it’s time for it to go in the garden.) The choice of watch was determined by practicality in the end; I wanted an expanding bracelet so I didn’t have the same problem with the clasp again, and a dial with all 12 numbers as opposed to four spots - very difficult to change the time on these! So the one I chose has a large white face with clear figures and minutes marked off in between and is very easy to see without my glasses. It was also very reasonably priced!
We had lunch at a restaurant called Chez Julien, near the Pont Saint Louis; the only other time I had been there was on Good Friday last year, in similar lovely sunshine. Everything about the restaurant was exactly as it should have been; and I had a very good mixture of salmon and Coquilles Saint Jacques, the first time I have eaten the latter. Afterwards we went to an exhibition at the Hôtel de Ville entitled « Paris au Cinéma », with lots of stills, photos, interviews and posters, and clips of films divided by category - lovers, chases, bistros, Parisian women and the Eiffel Tower. When we came out we sat for some time in front of Notre Dame, watching the tourists, couldn’t decide what to do next, but not really ready to go home. I suggested we went part of the way by bus, so we managed to get the 24 which we discovered last autumn at Bercy; it goes all the way along the left bank, then crosses the river and terminates at the Gare St Lazare, on our metro line. It was a wonderful treat again like last time, and going along so slowly there was plenty of time to see everything.
One of the reasons for going out for lunch instead of dinner was so that I could go to the chorale, so after a good rest and a large bowl of strawberries each, I set off round the corner to the Conservatoire. A woman I had sat with before came and sat next to me again - this chorale sometimes reminds me of a class of 12-year olds, and she is definitely the bad girl who usually sits on the back row and calls out and all the others wait to see what she will say, so I suppose I ought to be flattered. She asked how I was, so I said it was my birthday, whereupon she asked my age and said I couldn’t possibly be that old. Once we were ready to start she announced to everybody that it was my birthday - though not my age! - and they all launched into « Happy Birthday to you » twice, with piano accompaniment.
The other good thing about the evening was that an extra concert has been arranged, on 20 May, when N and I will be in Paris anyway; at the Saint-Denis museum, only a few minutes away opposite the Chinese restaurant. There is no rehearsal next week - another holiday - and the one just before the concert may be in the museum itself. As yet, it hasn’t been decided exactly what we will sing! (but we will wear red tops) We learned a few new pieces, gospel and traditional French songs. Where else could you go and sing Vivaldi and Charles Trenet in the same evening??
I also spent quite a lot of time typing out the Lexique during the few days we were in Saint-Denis, but have still only got as far as the end of the letter C - there were 9 pages of it. On Friday morning I fetched our coats back from the cleaners and bought some more cushion covers from the market, a little more luxurious than the first ones. We had fun unpacking five large glass cloches which had been stored in N’s garage for years, from the previous occupant, an antique dealer. There was finally room to take them with us in the car, and so far two have been put to work in the vegetable garden, one covering peppers and the other an artichoke.
Tuesday 9 May 2006
When we got back here on Friday afternoon we found a lot had changed in the garden in only five days. The blossom on the cherry tree was over, and on the apple tree it had just arrived. The daffodils, tulips and grape hyacinths were almost over, and the tulip-like bush had lost its flowers and got its leaves, and a very ugly mystery bush in the front garden (which was nearly uprooted in the winter) had become a beautiful pink peony-like tree. My pots of herbs had grown a lot and the petunia s were beginning to come out. The dark red rhododendrons are beginning to flower, very impressively.
Since then as always, there have been so many things to so. I have stripped all four beds and washed all the bed linen - over a few days, as it then began to rain again. During a wet afternoon N repainted the walls of the little lobby by the garden door and downstairs shower room, and finally painted the crépi over the bare patches on the veranda walls. I have also written thank you letters and e-mails and generally caught up with correspondence. Monday was another bank holiday like last week; this time it was the anniversary of the Liberation of France in 1945 and as I was leaving the market on Monday morning I was lucky enough to see La Neuve-Lyre’s own contribution: a procession led by firemen with a colourful banner, then one or two anciens combattants, followed by, it seemed, everyone in the village. This was just before midday; at 12 the church bell tolled for some time, and I think they had probably marched round to the war memorial, in the next square along, in front of the post office.
Wednesday 10 May 2006
We - especially me - have spent a lot of time over the last few days dealing with paperwork, having decided it really was time to chase up the social security offices at Bernay as I had heard nothing about the Carte Vitale, and to visit the tax office in Verneuil. This latter visit was as a result of a letter I sent them last November, with forms for the UK tax offices; to which they replied that they could do nothing before March 2006. (In order to get out of the UK tax system, and be refunded any unnecessarily paid tax, I need to get into the French system)
Fortunately before any of this happened, my Carte Vitale finally arrived in the post on Saturday, so I now have a social security number and a nice green shiny card, in case I need to claim money from doctor, chemist or hospital, and we didn‘t need to visit the office in Bernay again. The next thing to be done was to enrol me in a « complémentaire » (complementary medical insurance) which was done very painlessly over the Internet, but which will relieve me of several euros every month. This I found extremely strange as I have never paid for any kind of medical treatment or insurance before, but am assured by N it is well worth it, and I may see some of it back in the form of dentist or optician fees.
Another thing I achieved was a phone call to TPS, our satellite TV provider. We have now had this for three months, and had made our choice as to which « bouquet » of channels we wanted, only to discover that four of our favourites were no longer available to us: BBC Prime, RAI 2, Mezzo (the opera channel) and the History Channel. After much research on the website, I managed to phone, explain and find out which « bouquet » we would need to get them (not the most expensive, fortunately) and get this set up for June, the May payment having been made. I felt this was no small achievement, as the last time I called I had to wait ages, give my details several times and then speak to someone who only communicated in jargon.
On Tuesday, once everything was open again after the holiday, we drove to the tax office at Verneuil-sur-Avre, me with my dossier containing everything I thought they could possibly want to see. The office was an imposing building in the same square as the Hôtel Saumon where we had stayed last September. I can’t imagine an English tax office like this; because everyone has to fill in and submit their own tax declarations locally people were coming in for all sorts of advice, and sometimes being given it by others in the queue!
Inevitably, they needed to see something I hadn’t thought of bringing - my pay slips from May to September 2005 - so today we went back there again after I had managed to find them packed in a file where they had been put into store, just in case they ever came in useful. Fortunately I managed to see the same woman again straight away, and she took all the information she needed and promised to send my forms to the UK office. Joining the French system also involves my becoming eligible for local housing tax, but according to N I will be exempt from a lot of things because of earning so little.
Because this second visit to the tax office took far less time than the first, and because it was warmer than yesterday, we spent some time looking round Verneuil. Apart from some very picturesque old buildings, we found two very interesting - and different - shops. The first was called « Vermillon » and was full of stylish red things for red kitchens and obscure food items such as Colman’s mustard powder, Wilkin’s jam and Tate & Lyle’s black treacle (which we bought) and Marmite and Bird’s custard, which we didn’t. We thought it was a good shop to go back to for Christmas presents - lots of chocolate, liqueurs, sauces, pasta and so on. The other shop was much more down-market but full of useful household things; we bought two black rubber doormats for two of our many outside doors, a padlock for the wine cellar (not that there is any wine in it yet) and some cushion stuffing, as I had been unable to find cushion pads for the satin covers I got in Saint-Denis market last week. I quickly made my own cushion pads in the afternoon using some of our seemingly inexhaustible supply of old cotton sheets, and am very pleased with the look of the cushions on the sofa and armchairs. Will see if I can get two more covers when next in Saint-Denis; there is plenty of stuffing left.
On the way home we took an obscure lane with a sign to La Neuve-Lyre, and came back a totally different way, through deep countryside, now beginning to look really summery, with trees in blossom just like the postcards and dark yellow fields of rape on all sides. We passed a village so small that there was only one name on the war memorial! I couldn’t help wondering if his family had had a struggle to get it put up…… The day before we had come home the usual way through Conches, and had stopped for the first time at the Champion supermarket, and found it much more impressive than we expected, with all sorts of non-food items. This is good, as in theory I can get there on the bus from La Neuve-Lyre, although the timings are a little strange.
Thursday 11 May 2006
A lovely warm day today, probably the warmest yet, it started yesterday afternoon. We have had lunch, coffee and two afternoon teas outside in the garden, and sit in our familiar old Italian chairs under the apple blossom marvelling at how our vision of a house and garden in Normandy seems to have come about just as we expected.
Yesterday evening N got chatting to Marie-Antoinette while sowing seeds by the front gate and asked her in for an apéritif, also in the garden. She was impressed (quite rightly) with how much had been achieved in the vegetable plot since she last saw it on a very cold and windy Easter Saturday. As usual there were things we had to ask her; about the new road we had discovered that morning (she goes that way often, was surprised we would go to Verneuil any other way) about the village doctor - I am wondering now I have my Carte whether I ought to go and see him to introduce myself for a chat; M-A was non-committal! We also asked her about the proposed Brocante sale in La Neuve-Lyre on Thursday 25th; she said it was smaller than the one at La Ferrière-sur-Risle, just a chance for everyone to have a turn out, like a car boot sale really. (I think we ought to have a stall, but N says best to wait and see the sort of things other people are trying to sell and have one next year.)
Wild life update:
Not much seemed to have happened lately in the nest in the garage, so N got out the ladder and put a finger in, and felt at least two warm eggs! We have since noticed the swallows (or maybe swifts) going in and out, so it doesn’t seem to have worried them. When we came back last Friday it was very warm and an attic window got left open all night. I went up to fetch something just before going to bed a couple of nights later , and found a bat flying round the room, obviously having mistaken our attic for a barn, and then having a nasty shock when the light went on. It took some time with two windows open before it finally flew off.
Friday 12 May 2006
Today M Boisseau the TV man is here again as the digital set in N’s attic is not working and also the heating technician is here to fix the timer and talk us through it. I have received a large envelope of papers from my complémentaire medical insurance, some of which I must sign and return. We will need to go to Bernay again, N says, as I must inform the social security office of the details of my complémentaire. He suggested going this morning, but I felt that two mornings out in a week was enough, and needed to catch up with the hoovering, which I’m glad to say has now been done. Have also cleaned two windows and taken photographs of lovely views of the lawn and flowers. We may go on Tuesday, as on Wednesday afternoon we will be going back to Paris again, ready for the weekend‘s events.
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 7:28 AM 
