Working with your husband… Good or Bad?

La Maison Bleue

Mark and I have been working together for 15 years. Before that we both worked for large corporate companies in the City.

So it was a pretty big change to give up our secure well paid jobs to work for ourselves..and just to make things more interesting, within days of stopping work in the UK we moved to France with a 1 year old to a house that had earth floors and only water and electricity to one room!

Fifteen years on, we have two French companies and we are still talking to each other!..

Working for myself came pretty easily for me, my grand parents worked for themselves, my father has always worked for himself and so has my brother. So when I was growing up life was pretty flexible, work hard when the work is there and enjoy the slack periods.

One of the first things that Mark did when we moved to France was to convert one of the outbuildings into an office for himself! He likes to walk across the drive to his office and escape from arguing children and me ‘reminding’ him the bathroom window is STILL leaking!.. He also works listening to music whereas I can’t.

I much prefer to work in the heart of the house. I have carved out a small space at the top of the stairs where I can hear EVERYTHING that goes on both upstairs and downstairs. When the children were smaller I could work whilst they were napping or asleep and now I can work early in the morning without disturbing anyone.

We disagree about stuff, of course we do, but there is usually some middle ground or after a somewhat heated discussion and then the necessary reflection, one of us may have to admit that the other was right. We have always had our own areas of responsibility, and I think this is very important. Mark has always designed, developed and maintained the gite website whilst I do all the administration and lettings. Mark has renovated all the gites and now maintains them whilst I do the annual decorating.

We do spend most meal times discussing the gites, how they can be improved, should we do more advertising, should they be rephotographed, which rooms should be remodelled or redecorated… and I’m not sure if this is good or bad!

On balance we work well together and I think the main reason for this is that Mark and his Pink Floyd are in a separate building!

French Plumbing!

Posted by Nicole on February 2, 2016 | Edit

French plumbing gets a bad press at the best of times.. add cesspits to the mix and it gets even worse!..

Most British households discharge the waste from their kitchen, WC and bathroom into a mains drainage system and it all goes away and you don’t have to think about what happens to it once it leaves your home.

In many areas of France, especially in the countryside where mains drainage is not available, sewage has to be treated your garden (well under your garden!) in a Fosse Septique (Septic Tank). In 1992 a new law was passed handing responsibility for overseeing and regulating old and new waste water installations to the local communes, i.e. the Marie. The new law stipulates that all household waste liquids have to be processed in the correct manner, by means of a Fosse Toutes Eaux (a septic tank that accepts all waste waters) and filtration system. In the past, many households, especially in rural areas, have allowed water from the kitchen and bathrooms to bypass the tank altogether, allowing the water to drain into the surrounding soil or nearby ditch. Now, thankfully (!) all waste has to be fully treated before it is released into the environment.

It is not just very remote houses that have to rely on septic tanks, many villages do not have mains drainage. Réminiac has only very recently moved over to mains drainage and not all of the houses in the village can benefit from mains drainage. There are twenty or so houses right in the centre, next to the church which cannot connect to the mains drainage as the houses are on a very slight slope!

It is a hugely complicated process involving grease traps, bacterial digestion, filter beds and filtration processes where toxins and chemicals are removed.

Septic tanks are inspected every 5 years and as the laws concerning the filtration processes are continually becoming more and more stringent and I don’t know of a tank that has ever past the test!.. It may pass but then 5 years later it will fail as the regulations have become tighter. Our neighbour has just has a new septic tank installed … and this cost him €12,000 !…

Sewage treatment plant in your back yard!

The importance of wifi?

Enjoy free unlimited wifi at La Maison Blanche

The question is, would you like wifi in your holiday cottage?

It could be argued that when on holiday you want to be free of emails and social media. Just think how much more time you would have if you couldn’t check your emails or social media!.

But, whilst on holiday why not indulge in social media, check out websites you normally don’t have time to look at and email friends you have been meaning to email but have never got round to.

So, a tricky one and on balance we have decided to offer free unlimited wifi in four of our cottages and leave it up to you to decide if you want to use it or not!

For full details of all of our cottages see www.frenchgites.com

‘Galette’ appears on the French menu… but it can refer to three different dishes…

It is easy to be confused when someone starts talking about ‘Galettes’.

There are three types of Galettes and they are all very different… :-

1) Best described as a freeform pie

Galette no.1 (Open fruit pie)

The key to this type of galette is the crusty pastry.

2) A savoury pancake.

Savoury galette. Raw egg is optional!

This savoury galette is usually made with Buckwheat flour. One of the most popular varieties is a galette covered with grated emmental cheese, a slice of ham and an egg cooked on the galette. In France this is known as a galette complete. Another very popular variety particularly in our part of Brittany is a hot sausage wrapped in a galette (called galette saucisse) and eaten like a hot dog. Go to any village fête and the only food on offer will be a galette saucisse!

Galette saucisse

3) Galette des Rois.

My favourite!. Delicious combination of puff pastry and frangipane. Best eaten slightly warm and traditionally only on the 6th January, but I find that they taste very very good on any day of the year!

Galette des Rois

Wood a major heat source in Brittany

French chimneys smoking!

Right now, if I were to drive through any village or housing estate I would see chimneys smoking.

I can only speak for rural Brittany but I think more than 80% of the houses are heated by wood. Houses currently being constructed are still built with chimneys and wood burning stoves will be used to heat these homes. I wonder why? There are still a lot of woods and forests in Brittany but the price of wood is increasing which must indicate that the supply is being squeezed. I would like to know the cost comparisons of heating a house with wood and with oil fired central heating. With falling oil prices, I am guessing that the oil option may be cheaper but there you have a pretty expensive set up costs with a boiler and radiators compared with just a wood burning stove.

I am not even sure that other methods of heating are even considered. To heat by wood is to all the French the most natural way to heat your house. It is cultural. They have always kept themselves warm using wood and they will continue to do so.

It is true, nothing can compare to the warmth and smell generated by a fire. Something we see as a luxury the French just see as part of their way of life.

I have just discovered that the French have two Pancake Days

Crepes

Only in France could this be true!…

The first Pancake Day is called La Chandeleur  (Candlemas) and always occurs on 2nd February, which is 40 days after Christmas. This religious celebration recalls the Presentation of Jesus to the Temple, a decisive event that happened during the early years of Jesus.

The origins of the Chandeleur date back to a pagan feast: according to local customs, candles had to be lit at midnight as a symbol of purification. Chandeleur comes from the latin “candelarum” as does the English word ‘candle’.

It was also at that time of the year that the winter seed-time started. The surplus flour was then used without too much risk of shortage and crêpes were made as a symbol of prosperity for the coming year.

There are many Candlemas Traditions in France….

• One tradition was to light a candle in the church and carry it home without the flame going out. If you managed it, this meant that you would not pop your clogs in the coming year.

‘Celui qui la rapporte chez lui allumée. Pour sûr ne mourra pas dans l’année’

• To ensure that the crop would be plentiful for the coming year, it was an absolute must to eat pancakes. (If only I was a farmer….my crops would be very plentiful!)

‘Si point ne veut de blé charbonneux Mange des crêpes à la Chandeleur’

• If the elected tosser could flip a crêpe with one hand whilst holding a gold coin in the other, the family was assured of prosperity throughout the coming year.

• Quand il pleut pour la Chandeleur, il pleut pendant quarante jours.

If it rains at Candlemas, it will continue to rain for 40 days

• Quand la Chandeleur est claire, l’hiver est par derriere; Chandeleur couverte, quarante jours de perte!

If February is clear, winter is behind us. If the Chandeleur is overcast, winter will last another forty days.

The second Pancake Day in France is Shrove Tuesday which is just before the fasting period of lent.

As Shrove Tuesday varies every year depending on Easter does this mean that in France we must eat pancakes from 2nd February until Shrove Tuesday?…

Teenaged girls and Sport at School

Kayaking as a school sport

Sport is obligatory in all schools (up until 18yrs) in France but the amount of time devoted to sport declines as the child gets older.  Joe (12 years old) has 4 hours of sport a week, Iona (15 years old) has three hours per week and next year at lycée she will have to take 2 hours a week of sport.

The French Sport curriculum is not terribly focussed on team sports, and I am not sure if this a good or a bad thing. From my own perspective it is a good thing as I was pretty rubbish at sport and always the last one to be picked for any team sport!. This year Joe will do running, swimming, orienteering, judo, badminton, handball and circus skills. Yes, circus skills!!, quite how juggling and plate spinning can be deemed as a sport I have absolutely no idea!.

This year Iona can choose her sports. As with anything in France, this is extremely complicated!. Sport forms part of the brevet (GCSE’s) so you need to make a bit of an effort and not just stand at the back of the hockey pitch waiting for the bell to ring!  Iona does not enjoy sport (apart from swimming which she does religiously every weekend) so being able to choose the sports she does at school has really helped (well she doesn’t moan anymore about sport at school..which I take as her enjoying it…not the she would EVER admit it!). So this year, as part of her Brevet she will be tested on Badminton, Orienteering, Step, Kayaking, Table Tennis and Handball. The college also offers lunchtime Sports clubs which Joe goes to every lunchtime, but for the first time this year, Iona has enrolled in the Badminton class, so maybe having the ability to choose your sports does encourage girls in particular to do more sport… well, there’s a theory !