It's been a while, hasn't it......Life in France seems to plod along and before you know it Bonfire night (my birthday), and Christmas have been and gone and we're headlong into a new year.
Our one year anniversary in La Trinite Porhoet was passed at the end of November, so we can no longer use "being newbies" as an excuse for getting things wrong, and my poor French. But looking back I am amazed at how quickly we've become accustomed to the French way of doing things. Nothing being open on Sundays, fine, in fact I like it. Shops closing for lunch, not a problem, having the cheese course before the sweet, comes naturally now. Actually I'm a little concerned that if I went back to the U.K. and went into a pub I would wander about trying to shake hands with everyone before I bought a drink. And parting with money for each individual round....I think not.
The only thing I still find slightly alarming is French drivers. Their habit of drifting on to my side of the road when negotiating even the slightest bend, and needing to over-take me no matter how fast I'm going, I don't think I'll ever get used to. And as for those strange little 50km per hour "cars", don't get me started.
One of the major additions to Maison Driscoll this year will be the introduction of our vegetable patch. We prepared the ground at the end of October last year and then covered it over for the winter. The plan is to rotovate the plot once more at the beginning of March in readiness for planting. We did have an allotment in the U.K, which we kept for three years, so hopefully that should stand us in good stead for this coming summer. But even if our crop fails the plus side is I have less grass to mow.
The end of last year also saw the arrival of a rather lovely piano. It used to belong to my Grand mother who died back in the late 60's. I, unfortunately never heard her play, but word has it she was very good, and my Mother and Aunt would sing along with her. I'm not sure what they would have made of it being transported all the way out here but hopefully they approve.
Bookings for this year seem to be going fairly well, helped by the presence in Brittany of the Tour de France. Also this year the Paris-Brest-Paris is being staged. Held every four years competitors have to complete the 1200k distance in 90 hours or under. Sleeping and eating wherever they can. Happily several of them have chosen to do that with us and we are fully booked for two nights. One chap is coming all the way from the U.S.A. Bizarrely there is even a sweet pastry named after the event, anything to make a euro.
One note of sadness blotted an otherwise perfect year. One of our two cats, Riley, was knocked down and killed outside our house. I'm not sure how he managed it, considering how much traffic we see, but manage it he did. I find it even more sad as we brought them here to enjoy the French country life with us and he didn't get much time to do that. His brother Arthur took a while to adjust to not having his playmate about, but he's settled down now.
We miss Riley much.
