Mother in Law arrives today. Lectures given to children to limit the amount of Nintendo usage… can they not play chess instead? Received withering looks.

Warned Mark that it if he dares to ’slope’ off to ‘research’ books for his new Kindle I will send his mother up to ‘help’ him. Received another withering look.

Dog blankets washed. House cleaned. Duck roasting. We are ready.

Phone rings. It was a mother of one of Iona’s friends. Iona went to her house yesterday. Iona’s friend has nits. I walk into the lounge Nintendo in one hand, head scratching with the other

NOOOO. Check Iona’s head. Yes, there are the jumping creatures.

Race to the pharmacy. On my way back, make the calculations in my head. Mother in Law should arrive in 30 minutes, that should give us all time to jump in the shower disinfect our heads and be ready and beaming.

Back home. Frog march Iona to the shower in spite of ‘Next level’ protests. Read the instructions.

Spray on dry hair and leave for 15mins.
Wash off with normal shampoo.
Use Repellant every day for next seven days.

We are all sprayed with the dubious liquid what is in this stuff? I emerge from the shower just as they pull into the drive and greet them as if it is normal for all four of us to have dripping hair.

My next dilemma, do I leave a bottle of nit repellant by her bed?

The reassuring sound of a boiler.

23rd December. Christmas preparations well underway. I needed a box from the shed. Our boiler is in the shed, no idea why, I think all boilers in France are in outside sheds or garages next to the oil tanks. I love the reassuring sound of a boiler. I collected my box, but there was a smell… what was it?.. Oil. I looked on the floor, it was wet, very wet. There was no option the boiler had to be turned off.


A plumber promised to arrive on Christmas Eve and he did. A repair was cobbled together but we needed a new pipe… which wouldn’t arrive until at least the 10th January !!… Would the repair hold until then?
No. Boxing Day morning the shed was eerily quiet and the ‘pipe’ was leaking buckets of oil.

I immediately rationed all hot water.. no showers much to my daughter’s disgust and my son’s delight.

For two days we have huddled round two gas rings in the kitchen and have only ventured to bed with hot water bottles and extra duvets and blankets.

The plumber returned yesterday. He has repaired the leak again but there was a lot of sighing, shrugging of shoulders and raised eyebrows.

‘How long will the repair last ?’ I ask

Gallic shrug.

‘My mother in law arrives on Friday.’

He grins. ‘Tell her to work in the garden.’

I look out at the frost covered grass. ‘She has nails.’ I reply.

Calendars

I do not use calendars but this year I have spent over 50 euros on some seriously tacky calendars.

I have 2 from the fire brigade, a Judo one, one from a Cancer charity, a La Poste calendar and two from our insurance company.

France seems to be a country of calendars and they are all 10 euros each. They are all such good causes and I am unable to say, ‘No’ when someone offers me a calendar. The only answer is NOT to answer the door any more until Christmas is over !!

Bouillabaise de Marseille in Brittany?

Lucienne was in the village shop when I called in for our lunch time baguette.

‘I’m glad you are here’, I say, ‘I need your advice.’

‘Ah bon.’ She replies.

‘My parents arrive next week for Christmas and my father likes fish soup / fish stew so I am going to make Bouillabaisse de Marseille  but I don’t quite know how to serve it. Do you serve the fish soup in a bowl and the fish separately, the receipe says serve the fish separately but the photo has the fish in the soup?’

Lucienne looks quite horrified. Oh no, another French gaffe… EVERYONE probably knows how to serve Bouillabaisse de Marseille.

‘Nicole, you can’t make Bouillabaisse de Marseille here.’

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘Because we live in Brittany, this is a dish made in the South.’

‘I know, but I can try.”

‘Impossible, you cannot buy rascasse here.’

‘Yes, but the receipe says 2kg of an assortment of fish, I’m sure I can get the other 7 types of fish.’ I stammer, now feeling very unsure about the whole thing.

Lucienne shook her head, ‘Non, non Nicole, it won’t do. You must cook traditional Breton receipes using local ingredients, the result will be far superior. How about Pot-au-feu?’

‘So you don’t know how to serve Bouillabaise de Marseille.’ I persist.

‘Oh, she tuts… If you must cook this dish, which won’t be anything like the real thing, you must stain the fish and put it on a warm plate, give everyone a bowl of the soup and let everyone help themselves to the fish which they place in the soup. You must serve this with bread and rouille.’

‘Merci Lucienne.’

Doing somethng useful

Giving to charity. Just over ten years ago we did a lot of research into various charitable organizations as we felt we should contribute to a charity… but which one?, and we didn’t want our donations being swallowed up in huge administration machines. We wanted to help people. We found a charity we were happy with and have been donating monthly ever since. But it is hard to know which charity to support and to have faith that the money you are donating is actually doing some good.

Far better to actually DO something, but this is very difficult as we all lead busy lives and quite often we don’t have the skills required.

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping in SuperU and as I entered the shop a lady gave me a yellow flier.
In France, every November there is a national collection for the homeless and for families on low incomes. The lady wasn’t asking for money.
Could I put a couple of extra things in my trolley and donate these so that they could be used in food parcels.

What a fantastic idea. By actually donating a packet of sugar, a bag of pasta and a box of soup I actually felt I was doing something useful.

Bravo

Paid to look after a sick child

 

Monica has called this morning, ‘Nicole, could you do me a favour?. Gwendal has a temperature and severe earache, I have an appointment with the doctor at 8.45, could you let Marie (his teacher) know.’

‘Of course, I call round later to see how he is.’

Later that afternoon I called in to see Monica, she is the only French woman I know that is truly passionate about Earl Grey tea… but that is another story!!..  Gwendal has antibiotics and has to be off school for 2 more days.

‘But you have to work tomorrow’, I say,’Gwendal can stay with me I’m desk bound tomorrow’, I offer.

‘Thanks, but I have a certificate from the doctor, Yann will take the day off to look after Gwendal’

I look puzzled.

Every mother and father has the right to take ten days off work, paid, to look after a sick child as long as they have a certificate from the doctor.’

‘Wow, that’s brilliant.’

‘C’est normal.’

That system certainly didn’t exist when I worked in the UK… but maybe things have changed…

Tomato Pride

Francois, the French teacher has just called round on his way home from work.

I just called in to give you these, and he put a paper bag full of tomatoes on the table.
‘From my garden, I am still picking tomatoes.’

Amazing.. all our tomato plants had blight in July and I had pulled them all up by 1^st August.
‘I am very proud of my tomatoes, this is the first year we have has tomatoes in December.’

‘Show off,’ I replied.

‘Oui, je sais, je crâne, je crâne.’

A cake with vegetables and cheese?

The Reminiac Christmas Fair was a success !!..

At the end of the afternoon the unsold crafts could fit into one small box, the cupcakes sold well… but the French were a bit unsure about the carrot and orange ones with a marscapone topping.

‘Non, non…. a cake with vegetables and cheese. Do the English eat all their courses at once?’.

There was a puppet show for the children and Father Christmas arrived at 5.00pm.

A good time was had by all.

Health service efficiency

Yesterday, frustration with the French’s lack of foresight… surely they can see that motivating people to set up small businesses will kick start their economy and will ease the pressure by :-

a) Removing the necessity to provide jobs for them. I forget the percentage now, but a horrifyingly large percentage of the French population work for the state,

b) Reducing the number of people claiming unemployment benefit.

Very political for a Wednesday morning. Watch out Mr Sarkozy, I’m after your job !!

What a totally different experience today. Had my first mammogram. In France you are not asked to attend a mammogram screening, it is every woman’s responsibility to arrange her own screening and at intervals she is happy with… another debate entirely.

Anyway I arranged my first screening a couple of weeks ago and arrived at the radiological centre at Ploermel at 9.30am.

Firstly I was introduced to a vice like machine which tilted bizarrely at 30 degrees, then to another room where I was given an ultra sound and fifteen minutes later I was sitting opposite a consultant who has my xray and ultrasound results in front of him.

‘Everything is normal Madame Harrington. We recommend that you have another screening in two years time.’

By 10.00am I was on my way with my xrays, prints outs of the ultra sound and a report from the consultant.

Such efficiency. Perhaps the ‘people’ in charge of the health care should move to the ‘encouraging new small businesses’ department !!

Can Christmas crackers be eaten ?

The toilet roll theme continues… as I move simultaneously from advent calendars to crackers !!

The Reminiac Christmas fair is now only a week away and the organisers are keen to have all the ‘crafts’, (in my case the word craft is not really appropriate as I don’t think painted toilet rolls can really be described as craft!!) in the village hall by Wednesday. The advent calendars were finished yesterday evening.

Now for the crackers. I have tried to explain that crackers are an important part of the Christmas Day table, but the French just look at me as if I’m slightly bonkers, and ask what is the function of a cracker?, can it be eaten?

Brain training

I am a great list person. I have lists for everything. I even have a ‘To do’ list on my computer and each morning a list of tasks pops up in front of me.

I was reliably informed this morning that this was not the way to keep one’s mind agile.

I ran out of potatoes this morning, (obviously the shopping list isn’t functioning as it should !!), so I popped into the village shop and stopped for a coffee with Lucienne. I mentioned my reliance on lists. She tutted.

‘Not good Nicole, to keep your mind young and agile you should keep all your lists in your head. If you write everything down your brain will become like cotton wool.’

I try to argue, that if I write lists, then I can forget about what I need to do and concentrate on other things.

Lucienne is not convinced. ‘Your brain should be able to do both.’

Perhaps my years of list making has already turned my brain into semi void.

I wonder if it is possible to train my brain to retain more information. French children learn poems from the age of 6. Throughout primary school every child is given a poem to learn for the following week. This is designed to train their brains to memorise information. Older children have to memorise grammar rules, geography and history lessons. These lessons must be remembered word for word.

I wonder, if as a nation, as a result of this early ‘brain training’ the French have better memories than the English?