Living on site means that you often have a lot of contact with guests – it is par for the course to be asked to book restaurants, horse riding, golf, or go with guests to the doctors, hospital, and on occasion, a police station to translate. Last week, however, I had an unusual request. An anxious guest knocked on the door,  quite upset, who said that his little girl had been playing with his wife’s wedding ring and it had fallen through the little gap between the floorboard and the wall (the walls are open stone wall and therefore unpointed). Would it be possible to look for it?
I called my man who can and we managed to take up the floorboard next to the wall. To our horror, there was a hole underneath between cavity wall and we thought the ring would never be found. We then decided to take up a little more floorboard and low and behold, the ring was there on a little ledge, together with a comb that was a previous victim of the gap and also fallen through it at sometime in the past. If the ring had fallen 5cm to the left and it would have disappeared, possibly forever. It was one of the best moments I’ve had since starting running the gîtes when I gave back the ring to the delighted and very relieved guests.

Postscript: The slight gap between the floorboard and wall has now been filled, to prevent any further occurrences of this nature happening!

Well, today the last of the guests left – I think it is the first time that all the gites have been unoccupied together since March. The last lot of guests were all French – the Armistice bank holiday fell handily on a Tuesday this year, so quite a few people also take the Monday off (faire le pont – make a bridge) to extend the weekend and go away for a short break). Although there are a lot more bank hoidays (jour feriés) in France, they aren’t always beneficial – whenever they fall on a Saturday or Sunday, there is no day in lieu given. Some of them always fall on the same day too – for example May 1st and May 8th, victory day, which is also the same day as Christmas and New Year. So some years when they all fall on a Saturday or Sunday, you feel a bit robbed.

Anyway, apart from a few weekend/short break bookings, that is it until Christmas and New Year. I quite miss not having people around – apart from the inevitable knock on the door as soon as you get in the shower or put on a facepack, it is very nice having extra neighbours to chat to. But it will be nice to have Saturdays off again, no cleaning or waiting in all afternoon/evening for people to arrive. Today’s departures left me a couple of bottles of wine from their region, which was very kind, and of course the usual beautifully written and phrased comments in the guest book. The French language is wonderful and some sentiments just can’t be translated to give the same effect. One of my favourites:

“Charmant accueil à la délicatesse anglaise, rien ne manquait, nous sommes ravis. Mille mercis!”

“Charming welcome with Engish grace, nothing was missing, we are delighted. Thankyou a thousand times.”

It just doesn’t have the same ring to it – and the words ‘grace’ and ‘English’ are rarely found together!

Don’t get me wrong, I love all reviews (touch wood they have all been good) but the French do have a wonderful way with words.

My 7 year old daughter, Kristen, is off to yet another birthday party this afternoon. Children’s birthdays in France are not such big events as they are in the UK – well, at least here in the sticks, anyway. Instead of competing to ask the most number of other children possible, only a handful of friends are invited, usually about 8 maximum. Much easier to cope with (and cheaper!) for the parents. In many cases, it is just an opportunity for the kids to see each other and play together, party games are rarely organised. Food is usually just sweets, or sometimes crêpes. The first time I hosted my daughter’s party I made a real effort with sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes (I wasn’t stupid enough to inflict jelly on them) but hardly anything except the sweets and crisps were touched. It was almost as though I was offering them poison – I’m still not sure whether the kids were really not hungry, or they’d been forbidden by their parents from trying food chez les Anglais (English food still has an ill deserved reputation in France for being terrible). At least the party games I organised went down well – pass the parcel, musical chairs and statues – the children loved them, so at least I did something right!
Last year the trend seemed to for be having the parties in Mcdo’s – which is a pain for me as it is always on a Saturday (changeover day) and Mcdos is in Fougères, about 25kms away. By the time I’d dropped Kristen off and come home, it was nearly time to go and pick her up again. And of course, I can guarantee that any guests arriving will do so when I’m on the drop off or pick up journey.
This year, however, most of the parties have been at the house again, which is easier, although it isn’t always to find the houses when they are out in the countryside (like ours!). And during the last couple of parties, the parents have organised little activities for the children to do too – decorating pencil cases, making halloween outfits, etc. Still no food though, except sweets, thank goodness my daughter doesn’t have any E allergies.

I get my annual delivery of firewood about now and of course once delivered, it has to be stacked (neatly of course, we have to keep up with the standard of the French neighbours) to dry out for use the following year. I usually get through about 5 or 6 cordes of wood (depending on how cold/long the winter is) and that is quite a lot of wood! A corde is roughly 1 x 3m3, but this varies according to the type of wood, where you live and often who is supplying it. The locals around here are quite obsessed with wood – it is still one one of the more economic ways of heating, but wood prices are now increasing along with all the other fossil fuels as more people are using it to heat their houses instead of fuel, gas or electricity. Trying to explain that to gite guests isn’t always easy as there are so many trees around here I think everyone assumes it is free. In fact I pay more for wood here than my father does in the UK, 160€ per corde this year, for mainly oak (la chêne) with a little beech (du hêtre).

Anyway, the delivery fortunately ‘coincided’ with the visit of OH, who is an expert wood stacker (over 6 years experience now), so as a tribute to him, here are some photos showing How to Stack a Woodpile Properly:

Of course you also have to be careful of the snakes – there are vipers about and they often hide in the woodpile. I’m not sure if they are protected in France as they are in the UK, but my old neighbour shoots them if he sees them, regardless of any legal protection the snakes have. He took great pleasure in showing us one of the dead ones he shot earlier this year – the trick is if you see one, look again the next day in the same place, at the same time and it will be there, and a sitting target, so to speak. Apparently snakes are creatures of habit, very much like my neighbour.

Not just for the wonderful weather we enjoyed here yesterday – 25°c and very sunny . The oldest resident of the hamlet came home today for the first time in 2 months. Maria Garner is 82 and had a second stroke in August. Since then she has been in a nursing home since then having also fallen and broken her leg. La Mancelière has been her home for over 50 years, she gave birth to 5 children here and it was very emotional for her and her familu when she came back for the day. We were invited over for an apéro and lunch and it was such a pleasure seeing her again. She has had a pretty tough life, married to a Breton paysan who is still incredibly chauvanistic, but she has never complained. She used to go on a bike ride every afternoon before her first stroke 5 years ago, then afterwards when the weather was OK she would go out for a walk every afternoon and I often met her on the road during my daily dog walk. Everyone here hopes that she gets well enough to live the rest of her life in her own home, enjoying the wonderful view over the valley that she has from her house.