Sunny France

In a moment of inspiration we have taken a house-sitting post in Embry, Pas de Calais, France for 5 weeks. It is in the region of the Somme and so has many historical sites from the two world wars. Having lived here I can appreciate the battlefields of the Somme (especially the mud) and the military difficulties.

The 36 hour bus trip from Lisbon to Embry wasn't as bad as expected. The latin lifestyle of late-to-bed, rise by lunchtime was rather wearing. We didn't stop for dinner until 10 and the "in-flight" movie didn't start until 11. It was classic American slapstick crap dubbed in Portugese with the sound up loud. Despite that I slept for at least 6 hours although Marg was not that lucky. We had a whole heap of food with us which was lucky as a coffee was Euro 2.65. We had to wait for a few hours in Gare du Nord, the dodgiest railway station in all Paris playing "spot the bag snatcher". It's amazing how long a single coffee can be made to last just to enjoy a seat out of the wind. Still mighty cold, we have been thankful for having down jackets almost everywhere because the weather has been unseasonably cold.  We saw one guy being marched out hancuffed to a gendarme with the other 3 gendarmes carrying his cargo of what looked like shopping bags of marijuana.

We are staying with a kiwi couple who have washed up here. Annette & Geoff are a couple of entrepreneurs whose business is to take bright software ideas to market. In the very small world in which we live, we have friends in common. Our job is to love and care for 5 cats while they are away for a month. In a huge house such as this, even finding all 5 can be a mission. Since cats are not team players, each has an area of preference and there is a small common area centred on the food bowls. But of course only certain combinations of cats can occupy the food area simultaneously. The cats are all definite personalities. One of them gets absolutely ecstatic when stroked, she wiggles and squirms and throws herself around until eventually exploding and biting the stroker!

The house we are staying in is rather extensive. We sleep in the gite but spend most of the day in the main house.

A view from the road. We sleep in the gite which is the nearest building with the 3 skylights

Most of the time we spend in the main house. The gite is on the left and the main house and stables on the right

This is a view of the sunny afternoon side (where the wine gets drunk). We live on the ground floor (well some of it) and the cats have exclusive use of the upper floor where there are offices and the owner's bedroom/bathroom etc

We  have bought a car, a 2000 Citroen Xsara 1.9 Diesel that I picked  up in England. We had always planned to buy a car but living 15km from the nearest shops spurred us on. I cadged a lift with a Brit from the village (over on the chunnel for nix) and then stayed the night in Rye. Spent the day buying the car, extracting money from English banks, buying the mandatory equipment for France and then ferrying back via Dunkirk. Definitely a longer term plan for saving money since insurance was £550 on top of £940 car + ferry + equipment. At least we now have transport sorted for the next year (new MOT, tax disk).

Les Citroen (hopefully not Citron)

Luckily there are a few minor items to be sorted on the car so I have been fiddling about and buying a few bits on e-bay. Noise in front suspension was as-suspected and cheap to fix, cleaned all the door seals which fixed a minor boot leak, cleaned out the scuttle of the cyprus foliage, oil + filter, airfilter.

Ian in his natural habitat, cooking on a primus and drinking coffee. Note the low-maintenance hair style.

Rolling fields of rape seed on the plains above our valley.