Music School Dinner.

On Saturday the 24th April we went to the Castandet Music School dinner. It is surprising that such a small village has such a group but I believe that it is very well supported and that many of the children in the area learn to play an instrument. We went to the event last year and several of the children showed off their talents. Sadly, this year, there was no concert. The event was advertised to start from 7pm but, having learned from past events, we went at about 7.45. On arriving at the village hall we saw that there were only a few cars there so we came back home for a while! We got there, again, about 8.45 and ordered an aperitif. Then several of our neighbours arrived and we finally got the chance to buy them an aperitif. It seems that on many occasions we have not been able to do so as they are all very generous. We sat down to eat, at beautifully decorated tables, at about 9.30. We were sitting on a table with our immediate neighbours and several other people from our part of the village. As usual we had a very copious meal, Tourrrin, which is a popular tomato type soup, daube de taurau (bull stew) cheese and green salad and creme caramel. Another pleasant village evening.

Birthdays

On the 11th April, Easter Saturday, we went over to Tajan for a joint birthday celebration. It was our friend Kates birthday and 2 days later it is Nigels birthday. Kate and Peter moved into their new house just a few weeks ago so we were looking forward to seeing the new property. It was a dreadful day weatherwise, very wet and at times I had to have the wipers on full. Being Easter there was quite a traffic jam in Aire sur l'Adour so the journey there took a couple of hours, 20 minutes longer than usual. We found the place without a problem and were very relieved to have arrived at last. Rambo had been invited too and he was very keen to get in the house as he doesn't like the rain! After a tour of the house, which is very nice with wonderful views over the valley to the mountains which of course were obscured in the gloom, we had a long, chatty lunch. The plan was to go for a walk in the afternoon but sadly the rain never stopped so we just had a quick look around the garden before settling down to carry on chatting before we had a cup of tea and some birthday cake. Kate has a bad neck at the moment and is having to wear a support collar and Nigel has the same problem so we had to have a photo of the pair of invalids in their collars!! Much hilarity! Just before we left we saw a couple of deer come out of the neighbouring woodland to feast on the new grass. A very good day and a good time was had by all despite the weather.

Back to Devon March 2009

After almost a year I had a trip back to see Steve and Sasa in Devon. I flew from Pau to Stansted with Ryanair as there were no other convenient flights available. Nigel took me to Pau and on arrival at Stansted I caught the bus to Victoria, tube to Waterloo and train to Axminster. London was quite a culture shock after life in Les Landes. So busy, so many people rushing here and there. A relief to get on the train and settle down with a book until I got to Axminster at 10pm. Steve was there to meet me and after a glass of wine and a chat it was good to get to bed after a long day. We had good weather whilst I was there which was a help. I saw many old friends and did lots of chatting. Steve and I went to see "Slumdog Millionaire" at the cinema in Lyme Regis. Last time I was there it was when the boys were young and we went to see ET! Before the film started we walked through the gardens and down to the Cobb where we sat and had a beer and a snack looking out over the bay. So many memories. On the Saturday I met up with Titch and we went to the meet of the Cotley at Blackhayes Farm, Stockland, Roger Parris' place. A beautiful day, glorious views and horses and hounds looked so well. Saw lots of old friends there, not many I know were mounted though. After that we went into Honiton and met up with Sasa and had lunch prior to looking round all the charity shops in the Hight Street. Saturday evening we went to a quiz at the village hall in Kilmington, a good evening but we didn't win!
Monday I went into Exeter, had lunch and a look around the shops before going to Annies where I spent the night. Next day Annie dropped me back at Steves and in the evening I had dinner at Maries along with Trish, Caroline and Gilly. Lots of chatting!! Wednesday morning I rode out with Dave, Sheila and Jan. Good to be on a horse again but certainly not as young or as fit as I was!! After an hour or so I had to ask Jan to stay at the back with me and walk back the last lap as I just felt that I couldn't do any more walking or trotting! Not helped by the fact that my mount was not the most comfortable of rides but he was very safe! Thursday we went to the Northcott Theatre in Exeter to see "Stones in his pockets" a very entertaining and funny play.
Friday was my last morning and Steve and I went for a long walk in Shute woods with Scout and then to lunch at Stockland before catching the train in the early afternoon. Always sad and difficult to say goodbye but once I was on my way was looking forward to being back home.

Wood.

Before the storm we had asked Alain, our neighbour, to deliver some oak for next winter. He said that we would need about 12 metres cubed and measured the wood burner so he could cut it all to the correct size. Although we had the 6 poplars that came down in the storm we still need the oak as it burns so much better and gives out much more heat. I went out one day and on returning saw Nigel, looking rather bemused, surrounded by a pile of logs. He had started to stack them and said that Alain would be returning shortly with another load. There was an awful lot of logs and it took Nigel almost a week to stack them. So no worries re heating next winter, no logs to chop as they are all ready to go straight on the fire.
The poplars took rather more time to sort out. First Nigel cut off the branches and we had a couple of days burning them. Then Nigel chain sawed the more managable bits of trunk. Finally Alain came over with the log splitter on the back of his big tractor and cut them all into smaller bits. Alain offered Nigel the use of his small tractor and link box to move all the logs from the field to stack them at the side of the hedge which was a tremendous help, it would have taken such a long time to do that with just a wheelbarrow. Now we wait until Dominique, another neighbour, can come over with his digger to push the stumps back into place. We are hoping that once the stumps are back that the trees will continue to grow.

Hunters Lunch March 2009

This year we didn't arrive too early, the invitation said from 12 noon but after last year we knew that there would be a prolonged session of pre lunch drinks before sitting down to eat! So we arrived at 1pm and managed to get away with just one aperitif before sitting down to lunch at 1.45. The tables were beautifully decorated and about a hundred people sat down to eat. I had Nigel on my left and opposite us was Mme Lamothe, the lady who sells Armagnac and lives at a farm in the village. Next to me were 2 men and opposite another 3 men who were all obviously keen hunters. I had seen a horse box going down our lane, most weeks, containing hounds and a horse. I had asked Alain, our neighbour, and he said that the hounds and horses were stabled in the village and that they hunted on horseback in the forest North of here. Listening to the chaps next to me I deduced that one of them was the master of this hunt. I introduced myself and said that I had hunted in the UK prior to coming here. They explained that it was very different to hunting in the UK that sometimes he was the only mounted follower and that most of the followers were on quad bikes! Apparently they cover long distances and they are hunting red deer. We had a very copious meal, lots of sanglier, wild boar, in all its forms and of course lots of wine flowed. The meal ended at about 5.30 with coffee and Armagnac. A very pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

Farewell to Luna

Luna was diagnosed with diabetes just after Christmas. I took her to the vets on Christmas Eve as I had noticed that she was drinking (and peeing) a lot. He said it could be diabetes or the start of kidney failure and took a blood test to discover what it was. When I rang later in the day he confirmed that it was diabetes and asked me to go in on Boxing Day (not a public holiday here) to discuss treatment. The upshot was that she had to have an injection of insulin each morning and 2 regular meals a day of a special diabetes diet for dogs. A bit of a blow for her as she was used to having her food down all day and being able to nibble as and when she wanted to, no more titbits either! For the first few days Nigel held her whilst I gave her the injection but she soon got used to it and it was no problem. In fact as soon as she saw me getting the syringe ready she was waiting for it as she knew that she got her breakfast afterwards. For a month or so this stabilised her condition and she was back to being the happy, lively Luna that she had been. Then her condition deteriorated again, back to drinking a lot, peeing a lot and rather lacklustre. Back to the vet for another blood test which confirmed that she needed a higher dose of insulin. Sadly after another couple of weeks she really went downhill, she had lost a lot of weight and couldn’t go out for a walk, just into the garden briefly. The vet confirmed what I thought, that her time had come. He said that we could up the insulin again but that it wouldn’t work for long so we agreed that he had to put her to sleep. I brought her home and put her in her basket and let Rambo see her for the final time before we buried her in the garden. It was obviously so sad to lose her but I had had time to adjust to the possibility of it since Christmas as we knew then that she was on borrowed time. I am just so grateful that the vet saved her last summer, when she was so ill, and gave us an extra few months with her. I think that everyone who came here, or to Carol, realised what a special little dog she was. We had her for almost 12 years (she was 13) and she gave us her undivided love and attention. Rambo seemed quite lost for a while but has now settled to being top dog!

La tempete, the storm of January 24th

On Friday the 23^rd January we went over to Marciac to meet up with our friends, Kate and Peter, on the restaurant boat, La Peniche, on the lake at Marciac. We had had a lot of rain and went through some heavy rain on the way there. Many low lying areas were flooded and the ditches were full. After a very pleasant lunch we had a chat with the proprietors and Madame said that a “tempete” was forecast for the coming night. When we got home I thought that I had better see what the forecast was and was so pleased that I had had the foresight to do so. It seemed that our department, Les Landes, was under red alert. Strong winds and gusts of up to 160kms an hour were forecast starting at about 4a.m. Nigel went out and unearthed the gas cylinder and 2 burner camping stove and I got out the torches and candles. We also filled lots of receptacles and half of the bath with water as if the power were to go off there would be no electricity to pump water up to the water tower. We put the car in the shelter of the hedge and away from the house in case of falling tiles. Memories of the tempete of 1999, when we were at Carol, were still quite vivid and we were just hoping that it wasn’t going to be as bad as it was then.

I woke at 4.40 for my nightly trip to the toilet, the wind was howling but the electric was still on. Once I had got to the toilet the light went out, came back and then went out again permanently. Groping my way back to bed I found that Nigel was now awake and that it was impossible to go back to sleep again for the noise of the wind and worrying about what was happening outside. After a while Nigel got up and made a cup of tea, we were so pleased that we had got the gas burner set up before we went to bed. As daylight dawned the wind was still howling and on visiting the toilet again I looked out the window and saw that 6 of our 9 poplars at the back of the house were lying on the ground. Such a relief that they hadn’t hit the house. They had come out by the roots as the ground was so wet, a fate we were to learn that had befallen so many other trees in Les Landes(about 60% according to some reports). We had closed the shutters on all the other windows so it was only on opening them that we could see the devastation outside. Our big pine tree out the front was on the floor along with an old pear tree, thankfully the magnolia and the silk tree were spared. At the side of the house a cherry tree in the hedge had fallen, just missing the car. The big oak trees at the front gate were still standing but had lost quite a lot of small branches. The first time that I looked over the road I could see our neighbours beautiful silver birches swaying violently, the next time that I looked they too had fallen to the ground, pulled out by their roots.

Our only contact with the outside world was the battery powered radio and the local radio station was telling people to stay indoors until the storm bated which it was forecast to do at about midday. Roads were blocked by falling trees, all lorries had been banned from circulating and even the emergency services were unable to do a lot as they couldn’t get far because of the fallen trees. They were telling everyone not to try to get to work and that the whole of the shops in Mont de Marsan would be closed for the day. Of course the phone lines were down in many places and the mobile network was not working either. The storm did indeed calm down somewhat, as forecast, and neighbours emerged from their houses. I finally managed to get Rambo to go outside but with some difficulty, he was very upset by the noise of the wind. Luna, being deaf, had crept out earlier but was soon back in again. We inspected the damage in the garden but it was not until later in the afternoon that we saw the full extent of the damage in our part of Perron. Jeanette and Cristal who live immediately above us had a beautiful garden but now it was completely devasted. Several of their pine trees were lying across the road and had brought down the telephone line. Many others were down in the garden or lying crazily at half-mast on other trees. By some good fortune their house had not been damaged. Alain and Dominic were soon out with their chain saws clearing the road as best they could. When I walked up, with the dogs, they had made a way through the fallen trees and we had a chat. Phillipe, our neighbour and a fireman in Mont de Marsan, had been on duty since 6am the previous day and had only just got back, it had taken him 2 hours to do so instead of the normal 20 minutes. Cristal was telling me how frightened she and her mother had been when they heard the trees crashing all around them. Everywhere one looks there are trees lying on the ground or at angles against other trees which have been spared. Listening to the radio it became apparent that Les Landes had suffered badly from the storm. 3 people were killed by falling trees, 60% of the Landes forest, the biggest in Europe, is lying on the ground, camp sites and holiday villages on the coast are devastated and many thousands of the free range chickens have been killed. 200,000 people are without electric and many people without telephone. It was reported that the severity of the storm and the damage that it had caused was much worse than in 1999. So, as we settled down to the first night without electric and a meal cooked on the camping stove, we were pleased that the storm was over and that we had sustained no damage to the house or to ourselves.

Thankfully we had had the insert, wood-burning stove, installed at the beginning of the month so we were able to keep warm. Had the storm been earlier it would have been much worse as of course we couldn’t have used the central heating.

On Sunday Nigel started sawing up the trees that had come down in the front garden and I dragged the branches up to the bonfire. The normal sounds of the countryside had been drowned by the sound of chainsaws and generators. A few birds appeared but it soon became apparent that they had dropped in numbers. I walked the dogs around the village and numerous trees were down and sheets of corrugated iron lying in the ditches. The houses all seemed to be without major damage apart from the loss of some tiles from the roofs.

On Monday morning I went into Grenade, our nearest small town. The main road was littered with branches and in one place a tree was suspended across the road, it’s top branches supported by a tree at the other side of the road. The forest at either side of the road was hardly recognisable, many of the trees pulled out at the roots others snapped off half way up their trunks. I had to go the vets to pick up some insulin for Luna and when I got there I saw that the large plane tree in front of the clinic had fallen across the roof of the clinic. Both vets had just arrived and were carrying a generator inside. The town was without electric and most of the shops were shut. I went into the paper shop to get a local paper and asked if there was any bread in town. Apparently Le Clerc was open but another customer told me that they had no bread.

As the week went by, slowly things got back to normal or as normal as it was going to be for some time. Alain brought his generator over on Monday morning so that we could keep the freezer going. He continued to do so for a couple of hours each morning and we were also able to heat up the hot water tank and, by Wednesday, to have a welcome shower. On Wednesday we went into Aire as Nigel had a dental appointment. We weren’t sure if the dentist would be operational but he was as the electric had been restored there. In the afternoon we went into Mont de Marsan and toured the town looking for candles. We finally found some in Carrefour, it appeared that they had had a special delivery of candles and nightlights. Such a relief as we were running low. Dining by candlelight had lost its romance by now but there was no option. The first couple of days, without electric, seemed a bit of an adventure, days 3 and 4 were the worst and then it seemed to become the norm. The lack of TV was a pain but we played Scrabble and cards in the evenings and went to bed relatively early. Cooking on the camping stove wasn’t a problem, after all I did it for 3 months when we were in the camper van!

The mobile phone had been working somewhat erratically for a few days and I had been able to get the odd text through to friends and family to let them know that we were OK. By Friday it finally seemed to be more stable. I had texted Kate and she asked us over on Saturday for lunch and a shower and also to take some washing to put in her machine. They live near Lannemazan, about 1 ½ hours from here and although they too had had the storm it was much less damaging than it was here. On Saturday morning we had just got up when Alain came round to tell us that the electric was on again. Apparently it was restored at 10.30 on Friday evening but by then we were in bed. What joy!! We still went over to Kate and Peter’s and had a wonderful roast lunch and a long chat before making our way back to our newly restored electric.

3 weeks later we finally got our phone line restored and the area is slowly getting back to normal. In neighbours gardens the trees have been sawn and lie in neat piles around their gardens. However for many people who live on the other side of Mont de Marsan it will be a long time before the damage that the storm caused will be sorted out. The holiday villages and camp sites may not be able to open this year. The forest will take a generation, if it is ever replanted, to get back to what it was.