January, 2010

Chateau Trecesson

Built in 1440, it remains privately owned

Home away from home

We don't read the local paper so we often find out about local happenings after they have occurred. Recently we heard that the mayor was going to offer his New Years greetings to the village residents at a town hall meeting of sorts so we decided to attend. It is a great way to meet neighbors we don't know well and to catch up on all the big community plans for the coming year.

Our house in the village
The next picture is taken from the top of the church
steeple towards the back of our house and garage

We sat in rapt fascination as he explained how wisely the budget had been spent under his stewardship while displaying slides of the new bus stop adjacent to the village phone booth. More importantly were the photos of other critical capital acquisitions such as a new riding lawn mower and energy saving street light bulbs. No matter that the village street lights are turned off at 10 PM and that our house entry light is the only light on in the entire village after this, we raved about it also. This was made easier by the fact that the entire meeting was conducted with an unlimited amount of champagne for the thirsty constituents.

Its good to know that our French tax dollars are hard at work.

A few observations
on life in France

OK, OK, so I have not been shy about sharing critical observations between the cultures and lifestyles of France and life at home. For anyone who thinks that the only thing that France is good for is smelly cheese and cowardice, I am here to tell you that there is more. Much like FOX news, I try to be objective. I report, you decide.

One of the things that I have come to recognize is the retro lifestyle. Life here is like a page out of a “Leave it to Beaver” or “Father knows best” TV script. (If you are old enough to remember them) There is great security for families raising their kids in an environment free of gangs, drugs and by and large, life in the fast lane. Kids are like 1950 era ‘respectful’ here. They greet you with a handshake, look you in the eye and call you “sir”. Coming from California it’s a little creepy… but quite refreshing!

Store clerks greet you with a handshake. They make Wall Mart greeters look like rank amateurs. I used to think it was all so formal but it is not, it is old world ‘polite’…. life in the slo-o-o-o-w lane.

On the other hand, there have been new developments since our last visit. As of September 1st past, regular incandescent light bulbs are no longer available for sale anywhere in the EU (European Union). This is all about global warming, saving energy, reducing greenhouse gasses, blah, blah, blah.
Europe has really gone bananas over this whole topic, and France has enacted a carbon tax effective January 1st. We purchased 4 of the new energy efficient light bulbs. Advertised to last up to 8000 hours, the first burned out in two weeks. The second takes almost 3 seconds to “turn on” and the last two turn on right away but take a full minute to go from dim to full power.

I frequently enter a room, turn on the light and grope my way in near darkness to get something then leave the room before the bulb warms up. It would seem that the energy savings come from the fact that they hardly ever actually turn on. The bulbs run from $10. to $40. each. Yes, each.

I am not a fan.

Of course with mercury in all of them, there are very few legal places to dispose of a broken or burned out bulb. Our nearest is a 20 mile round trip and with gas at $8.00 a gallon I would love to have Al -“I am a moron”- Gore explain to me just how much my carbon footprint is reduced.

Finally, many if not most customer service departments for corporations here charge you to call them and discuss your problems. They can only be reached by the equivalent of a 900 number, kind of like if you were calling a phone sex service, and charge you by the minute to talk to them. I once used up and entire ‘pay-as-you-go’ allotment on my cell phone card calling customer service trying to get my phone card activated. That was handy…

Aside from the accepted notion that the whole country takes the month of August off, I have just recently realized that a staggering number of manufacturing businesses take two weeks off at Christmas as well. The French work 35 hours per week and by law, get 6 weeks’ vacation per year. The new president Sarkozy fought long and hard to pass a law permitting (not requiring) workers to work 40 hours per week. In exchange, they get paid for the ‘extra’ 5 hours AND get an additional 5 hours of vacation time. Add to this religious holidays, sick time… Life under a socialized system is ‘different’.

Life on Janice's
chain gang

This was a slow quiet month for us. This is the first time in memory where we had none of our kids visiting us for Christmas. We planned to lay low but some of our friends would have none of it and insisted we join them for Christmas Eve, Christmas day, New Years Eve and day. Typical was Christmas Eve dinner which began at 8 PM with cocktails, champagne and 'hors d’oeuvres'. A starter was served, followed by a boneless turkey main dish. Several wine varieties were introduced between courses, followed by cheese platters, salads, 2 deserts, chocolates and coffee. Dinner was over promptly at 2 AM. That was early. New Years eve dinner ended at 3 AM. Man, do these people know how to live!

Since we were not doing any entertaining at home ourselves, in between all the partying we managed to finish our little modification in our dining room. This was something we decided to do 2 years ago but it took a while to find the ‘perfect’ beams as seen in the picture below. As I mentioned last month, they are twisted, warped, partially rotten, gnarly pieces that we got out of an old ‘Manoir’ nearby.

Perfect, huh?

In short, I smashed a 4’X10’X2’ foot hole in our dining room wall, embedded the beams to create a niche and put custom cut mirrors on the recessed walls. The wall was a mixture of stone, mortar, dirt mixed with horse hair and various bits that created so much dust all over the house that Janice threatened to go to a hotel until it was over. The ‘before’ picture below was the intact wall prior to my brides latest great idea was put in motion.

Our dining room before....

During.... (Note my Muslim co-worker)
Oh wait, That's Janice!
The image is fuzzy due to the amount of dust in the air.

It is hardly a secret that she is a great fan of home decorating shows. I have tried repeatedly to cancel those infernal DYI magazines but I suspect that she has told them to disregard any such requests. She keeps coming up with great new ideas and the next thing you know we are at it again…

TA-DA! Finished product.
To see more detail, just click on the picture

Speaking of being at it again, after repainting parts of one of our bedrooms, and building custom bookshelves, we turned our attention from the dining room to the kitchen where I got to smash our crappy kitchen sink, counter and cabinet. (We have so much fun here!)

Over the past 3 years, we have brought parts and pieces over from the US that were either exorbitantly expensive or simply unavailable here. As ridiculous as it sounds, (go on, go on, have a good laugh at my expense) we brought a stainless kitchen sink, a food disposer and a R/O (reverse osmosis water treatment system) over in suitcases.

The time finally came to put it all together and build French styled cabinets and a butcher block counter top. I will save that for next month or I will absolutely nothing to tell you about....

Finally, continuously adding to my skill sets, I was invited by a friend to help bottle his Bordeaux wine. Its a small operation so we only bottle about 100 bottles at a crack and we will begin building a small reserve to age the wine. Next month, we will bottle apple cider form the 1 ton of apples that he pressed in November. Why, this is more fun than hanging out with convicts!

Aircraft assembler, Stone mason, blacksmith
and now bottler and master corker!
Is there anything this man can't do?

As I said earlier, we had a slow and quiet month here.