Bats!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by emmacalin

Bats – in St Savinien we have some very rare and endangered species. They live in the old quarry caves that pepper the town and also in our Préau (Charentais rustic car port/barn). Last night I sat in the garden being buzzed by dear little bats. Somehow the flap of their wings just inches from my face felt like a privilege. I just sat there, feeling the current of air created by their wings of stretched skin. It seemed like I was part of Nature. Then I went indoors to watch the world news. I felt that Nature was part of me and that I wanted to reject it. Kids under 10 years old out looting at 2am in Manchester UK. Tribal groups in Pakistan murdering each other when their enemy is poverty and lack of opportunity. I went back to the garden to see the bats and the stars.

Talking of stars – I woke up at 3 am and looked out of the window. In St. Savinien, Charente, 17350, there is very little light pollution. The sky at night in rural France is the most fantastic floor show. I remember it from mon enfance- before the cars and the madness of it all. Obviously it’s just a dome with holes pricked in to keep us fooled. All the same, I had to reflect on the painting by Titian in the National Gallery in London of Bacchus and Ariadne (Check it out here). I won’t bore you with the arty farty guff but it is a painting crammed with love and passion. Bacchus throws the crown of Ariadne into the heavens and above her it burns as an immortal constellation. If you’re able – go and see it. IT’S FREE. You don’t have to loot it or steal it. Several times a day you can get a free guided tour of selected works in the gallery. A deeply intelligent person will chat to you about the paintings. You will feel humbled and ashamed that you know nothing. At the end you will know more than you thought you could know. As a poor scum bag from darkest London with an average IQ destined for the honourless, wealthless drudge, I started to go see this stuff. It didn’t change the world but it changed me. Educators! Stop just jumping the kids through the hoops, then turning your back when they fall. Batter and discipline them until they know what they are worth! Just remember all those free tours and the sweet folk who lecture to anyone- ABSOLUTELY ANYONE – are part of civilisation and a law abiding world.

And finally a few words about La Bise – this whole Euro kissing thing but also taking in the hand shaking thing. If you were young and you were expected to kiss older folk and expect them to address you in a caring yet senior manner would you then go and smash up their home/shop/car/business? I tell you – you would not! Parallel so called communities have no hope. Community means everyone. Not this community or that community -teenage looters, ethnic rapists and Nazis are communities. In France the word has slightly more meaning…….but erosion and diversification do their work here too. Kiss before you smash. – Vive La France.

Emma thinx: Search for your darkness and see the stars.

Nailing it!

Posted on August 9, 2011 by emmacalin

To all problems there are several answers. Sometimes we have been shown the way to do things. Sometimes you already know instinctively or most often you put forward some idea based on your own life – whether or not it has worked out for you. Several callers today have raised the issue of the riots in England. Responses range between – “Oh yes – we have the same problems here – they put all the no hopers together and – bof – they smash the place up.. it is normal quoi?” An old die hard hippy assured me of the answer – “I say – put your sack on your back and go off to find the road….this works every time.” Watch out for petrol bomb throwing peace and love hippies coming your way guys. The fact is that no one knows what to do. The French suffer similar nonsense with about the same frequency. Very few problems cannot be solved with a shrug and a long lunch.

A tearful neighbour appeared this afternoon. For a while she chatted about kids and holidays. Suddenly she said “Fremus……is dead.” To my shame I had no idea who this person was. I looked at her with incomprehension. “The dog – he had an operation on his foot – he died.” Given the utter merciless savagery of the human species, it is always a surprise to me how badly we take the death anything close to us. The French are probably about 15% more sentimental about animals that Brits. They also stuff geese with corn by force feeding to create foie gras, eat horses and boil live crabs.

Everything I know about life is this – We favour what we know more than things we don’t know. We love whatever loves us but not necessarily in fair proportion. If you can’t love – don’t hate. If you still hate – know. If you can’t know – learn.

Plants arrive. Gilles has been in full “main verte” mode. He went to Intermarché to get something for dinner and came back with half the Amazon Rain Forest. You can’t take the soil out of these folk. A full set of horny handed digits trumps any boast, accolade or triumph. Who cares about your Ferrari? Look at my fingernails!

Emma thinx: Consistency – the thickness of our contradictions.

Planted Evidence

Posted on August 8, 2011 by emmacalin

Regular readers will probably have gathered that I’m some kind of soft liberal pinko pacifist. Well, that’s the way I like to think of myself anyway. However, hidden in every pinkofist is a raving authoritarian fascist. News of rioting and looting by mobs of thugs in London both saddens and outrages me. I am a South London girl. If anyone in my family had ever had a silver spoon it would not have been shoved in their gob. Seemingly people have been in looted shoe shops trying out the sizes and styles. Now, if this doesn’t show that the British are a higher class of thug I don’t know what does. Whole families are turning up at stores with trollies and wheeling away televisions and washing machines. Police are being attacked with petrol bombs and angsting community leaders are already on the radio telling us the cause of the problem. YES!!!! It’s all the fault of the POLICE. Well, I never doubted it for one minute. Of course the police are to blame. They didn’t arrest all the terrorists before they blew up London. They didn’t arrest all the journalists who were hacking phones. They were not sufficiently sensitive to the community before they tried to sort out gun crime/mugging/drugs/burglary and deception by politicians. Just ban the bloody police and we can all live in lentil land, loving all our gun toting drug dealing neighbours. Bref – London police have a tough job. I lived in Brixton (South London) when it was just an all day, every day septic crime scene. A friend was punched in the face by a robber while she was holding her baby. He got her gold necklace and sneered. No Buddhist lentils on the boil today. Just me.

In St. Savinien, there is calm. Since La terrace nears completion I set out to obtain the finishing touches…..that is to say, plants. Tomorrow I will call a meeting of le tribunal de terasse and reveal my policy of green appeasement. I know they have been muttering about my wall to wall pavé. I’ve put on a photo of my green cred. Do you think it’ll be enough?

Now a word to all you would be builders and DIY optimists. In France they have a kind of sand called “sable de Remblai”. Some people call it rabbit sand and it is sold for putting the levelling layer under paving and cobbles. If you think you need say – 10 cubic metres, buy at least 20. I once tried reading Stephen Hawking’s book ” A Brief History Of Time”. Well, being a fellow genius it was easy to follow until I got to the issue of everything being compressed into a “singularity” whereby there was nothing from which came ALL. Now, of course I fully accepted all of the intellectual aspects of his mathematics – but it was only when I encountered rabbit sand that the subject really spoke to me. Much can truly compress into nowt!

Emma thinx: Singularity – what is the point of it?

Do You Smoke After Entrée Course?

Posted on August 7, 2011 by emmacalin

The French smoke. The most accepted figure appears to be that 38% smoke compared to about 24% in the UK. On Saturday night I was at the Resto St. Savinien for their latin/salsa/paella dinner. The musicians were tres special but disappointingly didn’t do CDs or i-tune links. They are trying to catch up and catch on – they really are. Somehow here, the applause and bonhomie of the folks at tables is enough. A day is a day. It is lived, and the butt end trodden into the cracks of the cobbles. The other thing at the table was – well – smoke. We were seated on la terrasse, but covered by a gazebo. A lovely waitress asked if we minded if a few other clients smoked. To be frank, I cared not. The ambience of something not quite right with the drains, strong coffee and the throat catch of French fag is (for me) La France. That smoky Serge Gainsbourg voice somehow is Romance.(Check him out here) Gilles – being French and a muscular cyclist/patio layer was less keen. I patted his tough old thigh and he let me breathe in my pavement café, Sorbonne and early tragic death of poet fantasy. Just so long as I don’t live it out OK! I’m not a bloody artist after all.

What a lovely word FECUNDITY is. We don’t use it enough. Try working it in to your daily vocab. It sprung to mind today as I immersed myself in domestique subservience and abasement by making jam for my man. Who knows what the feminoids would do to me if they invaded. Nature has studded budded and spudded. The ripe bursting fruits are picked and the cycle of abundance pauses on the fulcrum between fullness and decay. Well, bref – forget the poetry and just say jam. A while later will come the pickles. In French supermarkets there are big displays of jam making sugar. I gave my man some confiture de mirabelles to try. His pleasure was like having a best seller – well, maybe not quite that….but it’ll do while I’m waiting.

A train track runs across the bottom of the road. I’m sure that there are regulations about the sounding of hooters as you approach the crossing. I think all the old guys kinda shrug and just plough on in silence. The newbie blasts his klaxon at each town crossing.OK – we all know you now…we won’t cross in front of you we promise. Just SHUT UP!

Emma thinx: Make jam. Preserve the future.

Besame Mucho

Posted on August 6, 2011 by emmacalin

Give a Frenchman a bath and what does he do with it? C’mon it’s obvious – he turns it into a wheelbarrow and keeps his grapes in it. The above photo was taken at La Foire aux Vins which is happening in St. Savinien this weekend. This guy was demonstrating an old fashioned method of distilling spirit from grapes that have already been crushed for wine-making. We stopped to speak to him and what a gent he was. His 50 year old tractor, his 25 year old Renault full of hand cut logs, his wooden clogs and bathbarrow all spoke of a pre internet age of toil and improvisation. No viruses in his hard drive. No inflammation technology. This was pure hardcore fixing things up. And here’s the sting – this ain’t no museum piece. Eat your heart out City dealers – this is real life. I know you can flick a button a millisecond before some other trader or hide some crumbling lie to cheat your friend and score a million. Not much profit in talking with patience and passion to an idiot Femme Anglaise who asks stupid questions. How the hell France survives I just don’t know. But we should all be thankful that it does. The merciless machine and the greed are here but the folk resist with a kind of passive militancy. Aux armes les citoyens!

Going out takes a long time. You are bound to meet all kind of folk who will want to kiss you, shake hands or even both. We did meet several sozzled citoyens. The tradition is that you do the cheek kissing the first time you see someone that day. Then you have done it and you can just wave, nod or merely get on with business. At La Foire Aux Vins you encounter several folk who simply can’t remember if they kissed you – or even who you are! Accordingly many multiple kissings have to take place. Not to kiss would be a kind of accusation of drunkenness or memory failure. It’s so nice to be wanted so often! One sweet guy had lost all powers of recall except that I was English and would be looking for pints of Guiness. “No Geeeenessss here.” He told me several times. In fact my own tipple is Pineau…and if you’ve not tried it- what the hell are you doing with your life?

In 1589 a wine-maker accidently stored some grape juice in a barrel containing brandy. The result was a fortified wine something like sherry, but utterly superior (at least if you live in Charente). It is smooth and more-ish. We bought a few bottles for Chateau Calin and for gifts to UK affectianados. All your Sainsbury and Tesco buyers appear to ignore it. We met some friends at the Pineau stall. “Oh yes – it is wonderful. No ‘ang ovairs. You wake up and you ‘ave no head pain. You look at your partner in zee bed and you say – oh yes- I spent the night with a film star. This is Pineau!” Now- if I could bottle that…..trouble is someone already has. Kisses followed. I felt like a film star. Check out Andrea Bocelli “Besame mucho” here. Slug a Pineau avec.

Emma thinx: Consume with moderation. Enjoy with every passionate shred and tendon of your soul!

You Can’t Fool the Bishops of the Revolution

Posted on August 5, 2011 by emmacalin

Highlight of my evening yesterday was a street theatre performance by M. Gonzales and other acteurs from le Treteau Savinois. To be honest I was not expecting too much. A few folding chairs had been placed before the church. We chatted to neighbours and all of a sudden a lady of the Revolution appeared, knitting and all. Now, may I just say that any kind of anything involving a something of the Revolution plunges me into T. Rex like a submarine spotting a destroyer….. you can’t fool the children of the Revolution can you now ? So – the lady explains that this is the story of the local priest of St. Savinien who was approached by the captains of the Revolution to become bishop of the whole area. As far as I could gather he wasn’t very religious and that is why they chose him. His sermons concerned le peuple and La France. Sadly, churchy type folks got rid of him and he lived out his days in a kinda gluttonous limbo. Now in England they would have made him Archbishop at least. The performance had genuine gravitas and humour and would not have disgraced any stage. My thanks to all concerned, particularly the dear young kids who were sent round with the hat afterwards……Added value methinks!

I also got to see another author. The writer of the play was there, and looked like a guy in a mauve sports shirt who helped serve cidre and sell a few of his books after the show. So that’s what a writer looks like! I had imagined that if ever I saw another writer that some kinda bonding would happen. He sold me a book but I could see in his eyes that no special recognition had taken place. Trouble is – everyone in France is an artist/performer/philosopher/thespian. I’m gonna start wearing a badge saying “Romantic novelist. Stop me and buy one.” Well – it used to work for ice cream.

Tonight is Salsa night at le resto St. Savinien. Tomorrow is La Foire du Vin. I should have done more training – I really should.

Emma thinx: All the world’s a stage – so where do we sit to watch?

Step This Way

Posted on August 4, 2011 by emmacalin

“I love the light from the East.” Explained a friend, showing me her East facing window. She is quite right. The dawn light has a pink texture and ambience which softens whites towards cream and deepens yellow towards orange. I wish I were an artist who could express this. You’ll just have to come and see it for yourselves. The pursuit of light by artists has led many a soul to this region and of course to France in general. The impressionists and pointillists captured for ever the light of their moments. And still they come. Yesterday I met some wonderful lady artists who had settled in St.Savinien. Naively I asked if they had sold many paintings. “Oh no – of course not, the French do not buy original art. They love photos and prints but we sell all our stuff in the UK.” This did not really surprise me. I sell “Knockout!” mainly in the USA. It’s about a Scotland Yard femtective and a French horn. Une femme never makes a profit in her own country. Folk want something from somewhere else. There are few Canaletto paintings in Venice. Now I should not have said that word. It is like the word Paris. Either concept fills me with longing to go there at least once more. I have had so much in life and still I want more and more. How I remember the Grand Canal and the conductors on the water-bus calling out the names of the stops in melancholy Italiano ….”Salute – Salute” (Sal ooo tay). The batobus in Paris where they call out “Notre Dame.” Excuse me but I was having a spasm. In “Knockout!” Freddie and Anna travel and kiss under each bridge on the Seine in Paris. It took me days to calm down!

In the UK there is a type of semi-business person who is a property developer. You know the kind of thing – buy an old house, tart it up, sell it on and do it all again. In France there is a type of long term property developer who buys a ruin, ruins it a bit more, extends the ruin to a far bigger area and sells it on as an even bigger project. It may be harsh, but my description of this business model is that of being a properly developer. Some brave innocent buys the ruin and then has to do it properly. The psychology is this….If it’s a ruin then it must be cheap yah? If you are buying out here don’t be seduced by the “potential”. The price may be set to match your dream. The seller is just as likely to be British.

Now, the naked plug! In St Savinien, Charente, 17350, we have a Maire. He is like the town prophet, clerk of works and manager. This guy has ambition and vision. He is passionate about keeping his town alive and that means Tourisme. Today’s picture is of some of the travaux. This is the most beautiful unknown Ville de France. In the UK there are towns like St Ives or Clovelly which attract millions of visitors. We have alleys and tiny higgeldy piggeldy pathways through romanesque clay tiled cottages. Bring your camera and pickle yourself a winter feast of sun filled ecstasy.

Emma thinx: Despair is merely a starting point. Sell the dream not the ruin.

Right Said Fred (..eric)

Posted on August 3, 2011 by emmacalin

Everything really is a question of scale. Maybe you have a problem. To you it is huge…..but what is the worst that can happen. Could you go to jail? Well, perhaps – but you would be fed and you could write a book and put it out on Amazon Kindle. BUT sometimes there is a problem that is so big that there is almost no solution. Generally such problems involve French furniture. Wardrobe problems are enormous especially if you buy a house agreeing to look after the wardrobes of the previous owner. Then you change the shape and dimensions of the house by blocking doorways, building walls, fitting stoves etc. Then you want to sell the house and move but no potential buyer wants huge wardrobes belonging to some third party. Hmmmm?

” Could you care for a few wardrobes for maybe some years until my children or grandchildren can take them?” Asks a most sympa and creative kind friend. I shrug and set out to see the problem. “You can rope them out of a window on ladders….Oh yes – I have seen this many times…it would be easy.” Much tape measuring and shrugging follows. A window almost big enough is identified in a room with a door too small to admit the wardrobe. ” Some parts maybe can be squeezed and then we can slide it over the tiles until it impacts with the plum tree and then with a few ropes…..” This one will run and run. Watch this slightly too small space. I want to help….I really do!

My neighbour’s daughter is camping in “The North.” Seemingly the whole Northern French experience is terrible. It is cold and wet. Sadly there is no Duke of Edinburgh award for holiday camping in France. I would invent it but I am neither Duke nor French. Travelling North for a holiday in France is like moths scrambling into the shadows. There should be some kinda prize.

Project patio is leaving less and less space and opportunity for la toilette of local cats. Nature abhors a vacuum we are told…..bet they still don’t crap in their own soil.

Emma thinx: Shit happens everywhere. Cat shit happens somewhere else.

Etiquette to ride

Posted on August 2, 2011 by emmacalin

Of course- it is the holidays at last and it is pouring with rain. Gilles and I went to Saintes to see le monument historique of the Carrefour hypermarché. One day these places will need guided tours and tourists will send by mind mails to their 10,000 friends on brain book by just swivelling their eyes. Remember where you heard it first. However, no shortage of tourists today. I reckon about a quarter of the shoppage was being done by peeved Brits. I spot them and then saunter up to check see if my detectors are correct. I loiter like a dispossessed store detective to catch a snatch of their conversation. I’m rarely wrong. I always wondered how waiters in Paris restaurants knew you were a Brit before you spoke. I still don’t know but it’s something to do with a kinda pressed clothing and over casual formality. The French are casually formal since they are shrugging people living out a book of etiquette. The Brits are formally casual since they are stiff people living without etiquette. You may need to read this twice – but it is true. Today in Carrefour we spotted 2 guys who live quite nearby. In the UK we might have waved or just given a nod. To a Frenchman this is impossible. They came over to us at the check-out since we were in mid conveyor panic mode and could not meet half way. People waited behind us while kissings and hand shakings were carried out. An exchange of news between Gilles and the lads had me glancing at the till operator and the waiting queue. In Peckham or Bermondsey (proletarian parts of London) there would have been uneasy shuffling and even some verbals. Everyone shrugged. Some things are necessary and have to be done. It is expected.

The same situation applies to French car driving. It is anarchic and pushy. All other drivers are fools who have to be defeated. Simply, driving of cars came after the main social etiquettes were formed and also in a your own tin box you cannot kiss or shake hands. Personally I would equip them all with very small cabriolets so that their normal impeccable etiquette would triumph over human nature as they came close enough to open their default behaviour mode.

Now for cuisine advice. You may recall my plan to cook curry on Sunday. Well, I did so and decided to use French curry powder in my lentil dahl. This was an expensive experiment at at about £2.50 for the normal sized jar. In UK ASDA I would pay about £1 at most. It was pale and weak. If you’re coming on holiday bring your own curry spices. There’s more tickle than massala.

Emma thinx: When you get home – put the car in you away.

Butcher Baker Soldier French

Posted on August 1, 2011 by emmacalin

To be one of the professional classes in the UK is a kind of shorthand for having a posh job as a lawyer, architect, doctor or dentist/headteacher etc. Now, I am sure that in the great cities of France, snobbery and all that “I’m better than you” stuff goes on. I’m not an expert on social class here but I can tell you that here in rural France the feeling is entirely different. Many moons ago in London when I was divorced and looking to get a life together I drove mini cabs, worked plucking turkeys and as a cleaner.(Check out my story from those days here).Some folk are great wherever they are. Some folk are arrogant pigs wherever they are. I can say that in the UK the “upper classes” generally treated me with surly superiority. The difference is embodied in the idea of respect. Quite simply tradesmen are still respected here. A plumber is a guru of plomb. A lorry driver is a guru of judgement and shunt. An artisan boulanger is a guru of cuisine and life.The French bemoan the fact that that there is a shortage of electricians and car mechanics. They believe that the reason is that less and less respect is shown for “trades”. They are right of course. One day there will be a super rich elite class here who will just buy underlings, snap commands and point at them with superior brusqueness. But it won’t be for a while I can tell you.The reason I got on to this is because today a further delivery of sand and cement arrived for Chateau Calin. My ex husband was a lorry driver and he was a sweet straightforward guy. (The world treated him like a piece of merde). We broke up when a lot of my posho pretensions (French speak, ART, Opera etc) pissed him off. The VM driver guy who brought the materials is a gent. He is a solicitor of sand. He is a guru of gravel. He is an accountant of aggregates. As the rasta boys used to say in South London – “Hey – RESPECT man”.

It has been hot. A couple of kids are here and they went to the young folks club. They went swimming in the river Charente. They don’t go to school locally and didn’t really know anyone. They were treated with friendliness and a sense of welcome and interest in them. Sometimes France gets a bad press from Brits. It’simple OK. In France the best and only thing to be in the world is French. So – Duh- be French. You’ve cracked it.

There are many mysteries of life in St. Savinien. One of them is the yellow recyclable waste sack. There is a rota. There are days and times for the collection of the sacks. Everyone thinks they know when these days are. Nobody says they got it wrong. It’s a French thing. I need to shrug more…..

Emma thinx: The world’s oldest profession is respect.