Old Boilers Feel The Cold

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Both I and my Chappée oil fired heating system qualify as old boilers. Regular readers will recall my feature “Old boilers like it hot” where I went to find Monsieur Gordeau at the house with the blue shutters in the place with no name. Yesterday, the boiler stopped working. This morning I called Madame Gordeau who took a deep intake of breath and explained they were very busy this week but she would phone me back  at a very specific time – that is to say “A la fin de la matinée”. No one really knows where the morning ends but she called me back at about 1 o’clock to say that her husband would call tomorrow at around “La fin de la matinée”. I was very thankful and genuinely appreciative. About an hour later he arrived. He had a few minutes to spare. With him was an apprentice. Monsieur G. removed covers and interrogated the trainee – What issues could he think through? What were the factors in analysing any problem? Now this was a life I understand! This was old fashioned on the job hard learning your trade. The problem was soon fixed. The fee? …..Nothing. He had serviced it last year and so it was free. Now – eat your heart out corporate gold star super cover mind at ease maintenance in the UK. OK – you phone a kid in Bombay who says something unintelligible about needing to pay extra to get the platinum cover that has replaced the gold because of commodity price rises. This is FRANCE. Small conscientious deeply honest businesses function here and you are a valued client. They have apprentices to learn the trade and their wives answer the phone and care. This is FRANCE. A while ago I read a book by E.F. Schumacher called “Small is Beautiful”. I think the strap line was “Economics as if people mattered”. Read this book. If you have a boiler issue in Charente Maritime call M. Regis Gordeau on 05 46 97 78 85. Thoroughly recommended.


I am not pre occupied with waste tips. However, Gilles and I passed through La Déchtterie today with some bags of mixed sand and soil. In the skip were several plates and soup bowls. Some had been smashed by having old tiles and stones thrown on top of them. A few remained and I grabbed one. An official approached. Gilles asked if he could take the remaining plates that were unbroken. “Non! Ce n’est pas autorisé” Said the fluorescent jacket guy. Gilles pulled a Gallic face. Other punters were coming in to smash them with building rubble. You have to shrug. Sometimes eco-warriors have to retreat to higher ground. It will gnaw at his soul. He was born poor. Should we go the barricades to prevent stupid waste? Come on you young folk – the MAN has got you trapped and just looking over your shoulder in fear for your job and credit rating. Aux Armes!(See photo of rescued plate with fig. Would you have let it be stoned to death?)


I picked a big bowl of succulent sweet figs today from my tree. I just want you to know that.


Emma thinx: Rubbish the waste. Trash the tip. 





















Big Chief I Spy.

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I think they still do “I Spy” books. In the days before the internet, such things were important sources of information. One of my favourites was “I Spy at the Airport”. I was not interested in tail fins and fire engines, but I thought one day I could be a hostess and jet around the world. One of the things not featured in the book was the automatic car park payment machine. Today I drove to La Rochelle to collect a guest from the airport. I paid the fee and returned to the car to see a British tourist break my car mirror by trying to lift a suitcase through a gap. I approached as the offender tried to twist it to some better shape. She did not realise it was my car. “Don’t know what happened there.” She quipped. I looked at her with curiosity. She did not look as if she suffered from any sensory issues. “You broke it with your suitcase.” I said. She was with a few quite well to do Anglos who hurumphed and looked at me with that superior “how dare you” expression. They quickly bundled themselves into their brand new Mercedes E class and shot off when they realised it was my car. Sometimes I really don’t like people. However, I got the mirror casing and managed to refit it – albeit a bit wonkily. Gilles will fix it I’m sure. The outcome of all this shamozzle was that I lost the ticket to exit the car park. I then put the car keys on the roof of the car, forgot where I put them and thought I had lost them. I went to the airport security and told them I had lost my keys. They took my phone number. I returned to the car and saw the keys on the roof. Much relieved I went back to the car park machine and pushed the enquiry button. SILENCE. I decided to see if there was a talk your way out of jail button on the exit barrier or if I could tailgate another vehicle before the barrier came down. There was a button. I explained my life story to a perforated grill which had slightly more personality than the folks who had broken my mirror. “Come to the Security Office”. Said the machine. I duly went. “You are the woman who has no car keys.” Said the guard. I think he was related to the machine because he sounded similar. “I’m sorry – I found them.” Several guards shrugged but looked friendly.”What is your name?” He asked. I told him…..and waited…..NOT A SINGLE GLIMMER OF RECOGNITION. Perhaps French security officials do not read Romantic stories for ladies written in English. “Go to your car and go…” He said. I drove to the barrier. I spoke to the perforated grill. It shrugged and the barrier rose. I rejoined the World. I must re-read some Kafka.


A neighbour sometimes looks after a baby – well a toddler. The child smiles – deeply and joyfully. It is a profound talent. Please World – let her exercise and keep her gift.


It’s 34 degrees and I’ve got the oven on to cook an English Sunday Roast. Mad dogs and Englishwomen roast in the midday sun. My guest brought me some English Bisto gravy granules. Back to the moules tomorrow.


Emma thinx: Break my car mirror – 7 years voodoo.

Staying on track.

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Some folk just seem to skim coolly above most of us don’t they? They float noiselessly between their past and their future triumphs. As they pass they give a regal nod at us mudlarks scrambling for pennies and scrabbling to pick up the shopping that has just fallen on the supermarket floor when our eternal shopping bag handle fell short of eternity. (Is this whole everlasting carrier bag lark just a way to get folk back to the idea of FAITH. Some of these churchy guys are pretty sharp at psychology). Anyway – back to the mud. Last night I went to a piano recital at one of my neighbour’s château. YES – that’s right – OK –  My neighbour has a château and I went to a recital. Now – In France I am foreign, therefore I am neither posh-oui nor posh-non. In England I could go to such an event but I would have to keep me gob shut cos one squeak of the old Sahff Lundin vowels would have me sent to the kitchens to put me uniform on. However, sometimes you come across a cool dude who just has to be admired. The recital was given by the superb Alice Rosset. She is a native of Charente Maritime and the region is rightly proud of her. She played Bach, Bartok, Rachmaninoff and Brahms. She was fantastic. I had not heard much Bartok before – I think it’s for very sophisticated folk who put their clothes on back to front and walk backwards in order to understand the shadows cast by the future on the fleeting present of appearance and expectation. SEE – I could be ARTY. Anyway – there she is playing this beautiful music and the 2140 hours to Bordeaux rattles past. Was she fazed? Non! She just played on. The girl’s a trouper and she walked on the stone driveway of the château with no shoes. If her everlasting carrier bag broke she’d just lift the shopping off the floor with a twitch of her eyebrow. Bravo!!


Now, the above ramble reminds me of some advice I received in bed from a very cynical guy. He told me that you could never beat the English class system – but you could merely side step it. You can never quite get the vowels and arrogance of the posh Anglo. So – be foreign. At first I thought he was joking but this guy used to take me to receptions and the like at places like embassies and the Foreign and Come on it’s all my wealth Office. There was no way I could pull off the My Fair Lady Act, so I went accent-uh-sexi-rissima. I don’t know what they thought – but no one asked me what school I’d been to or if I had been at the races when The Right Honourable Foreskin – Smythe had won the golden fleece.


Hair dryer humid wind here today. It’s a greenhouse of bursting juice. If you fell dead to the soil here you would decay in seconds among the worms and eat-you-pedes of NATURE. Life is sweet juice. The market will close with strangers hosing away to gutters whatever is left of what you nearly became….


Emma thinx: Drink deep the juice. In the hour glass is sand.

Reverse Parking

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Sitting here in the late afternoon with the temperature at 28 degrees, it seems almost inconceivable that the Municipal Gardens in Bournemouth UK were nearly washed away yesterday. I know I’m supposed to be writing about Charente Maritime, France and writing novels but if there is one thing that can raise any UK nostalgia from me it is Bournemouth. To me, it is a magical place of sepia sadness and lollipop longing – a childhood of sandcastles lost, trodden and overwhelmed – of proud flags on sticks defiant as the holiday ended and the dark satanic life of subservience called you back in to be counted and controlled. (Ooh- I was a terrible pupil. Those guys were stealing my free life and replacing it with punishment.)  I used to live quite near Bournemouth and all my life I’ve gone back there, both with family and alone – several times to write poems in the course of loves and desires gone wrong, gone good or not going at all.  I turned on the late BBC South News on my planet Murdoch satellite and saw a fabulously Municipal spokesman telling folk that the show would go on. Of course it will! I know I put up a poem yesterday but here is another one about Bournemouth Park. Check it out here.


From out of a blue sky this morning at about 8 o’ clock a tremendous smack and shatter of thunder stunned the whole town. There followed monsoon style rain which lasted for about 2 minutes. My eco water butts filled and all day I’ve had a kinda full water not got dem empty butt blues feeling. Think I’d like to write a song one day. 


One of the things to get used to here in France is the difference  between cuts of meat. This evening I’m serving coeur de basse cote de boeuf. Now to be honest, I had no idea what this meant in English. It looks like rump steak and the price per kilo would be  that kinda  bracket in the UK. I’m gonna cook up some onions and grill it for a couple of minutes. I had a quick peak on the internet and I could not see a kinda multilingual cut of meat chart. If anyone knows different please let me know.(Might be a big enough pull to get some google gold). 


Gilles and I had a spin on the tandem. Dear Lord – we found a new hill near Les Nouillers. Dear Lord I’m getting old. I could hear his breathing was more or less normal. Sometimes the line between love and hate is very faint. Who said faint?


Emma thinx: Dribbling rivalry – oldies still wanna win.



Gravity – Figure it out.

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A fig fell on my head. Now – wouldn’t that be the most wonderful opening to a world changing novel. The thing is that in the garden at lunch time a fig fell off the fruit tree and bounced off my head. I ate it and it was delicious (first I took a photo). You have no idea how exotic it seems to me to have figs, grapes and lizards all around me. I feel like I should apply to be Snow White, but I’m afraid the dog ate my CV. It must seem that I am a trappy old trollop caught in a fecundity fire storm. If you were born with a concrete, tarmac and red bus shovel in your gob, all this rural paradise stuff is like – well – paradise. On the way to Intermarché, I detoured along a track that runs alongside La Charente. Bushes were heavy with blackberries and I must have eaten half a kilo. Swallows swooped and turned as they harvested their vital crop of insects to sustain their migration back south. The church tower chatters, clicks and whistles with mobs of starlings as they begin to cluster in that kind of sinister black cloak of Hitchcock un-realised fear. (Starlings are big on my poetry radar – check out my poem “Winter Starling” here.) The year has ratcheted its way up the roller coaster of time and now its pauses just long enough for your sense of joy and sorrow to mix into that stuff we call the human soul.


Along the river banks this afternoon were many guys with long rods. They sat resignedly watching the flow of water, I guess hoping for a fish – or maybe not. The fishing here seems to need merely long poles with none of those reel things that you can wind in and out and generally fiddle with. I was taken with the number of “fish wives” who had been taken out to the bank. There were knitters, readers and merely gazers. If they’d been English and if they had had Kindles in France, I would have stopped and told them how to get their pan sizzling just in case the old man didn’t catch anything.(Knockout! – by me).


Going back to the falling fig – it is said that maybe no apple actually fell on Isaac Newton’s head. Just imagine if a would be beautician from Tulse Hill Comprehensive had discovered gravity. Would the scientific world have taken any notice? Good job it was a clever old guy who knew some maths eh? Otherwise we might be floating about trying to write novels with the pen stuck to the ceiling. Might have helped the old boob droop I suppose. It’s daft I know but I’m feeling frivolous. At least if I’d have discovered it I would have hired lawyers to snatch the patent.


At Intermarché I bought a pain parisien (brief tremble of pleasure as the word PARIS brushes across my follicles). A lot of visiteurs to France think that the only bread to get is the baguette. Actually, le pain is bigger and often better. It’s a kinda supersize  Mc loaf. It was hot, crusty on the outside, soft and yeasty on the inside. I rode home on my bike nibbling at it. I often see even really old French folk sampling their bread on the way home with a simple child like joy. I love this place and my little time here on this Earth. I am so lucky.


Emma thinx: Love is free – provided you’re prepared to pay any price. 



















Punani,Panini,Pamina.

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Things are just so prolific here. I took a stroll through the allotments to check out the harvest. Pumpkins and tomatoes swell with joyful fertility. Peach and apple trees ache with fruit like filled breasts needing the suck of hunger and dependency. Nature here is swollen with it’s summer of passion, giving itself up selflessly, proclaiming its spilling lust and asking to be taken – NOW! It’s just so bloody sexy – but of course, that is what the whole show is all about. I’ve never really been a gardener – but is that the key? Did all those Capability Brown types feel the great undercurrent of sex in the shrubbery. All those manicured posh house gardens always kinda remind me of supermodels with waxed hollywood punanis. I must say I do love the word punani. I think it comes from an Indian laguage. I first heard it on the lips of Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen). I kinda love this guy – he is so outrageous. His movie “Bruno” had me laughing to a point of pain. If he’s reading this – please do a gardening movie.


Talking of punani put the great problem of panini into my head. A while ago during my big posho push I got into the operas of Mozart and decided to learn Italian. The French had driven off my husband but luckily I was with a Scotland Yard detective who tolerated my pretensions. At that time I was working in Central London and all manner of Italiano Eateroni were springing up. I used to saunter in and quip my order in over the top “ooh- just listen to my accent” passionato Italiano. Nobody noticed – well they were all city morons.(I could see they were ruining the world) . One day it occurred to me that I could not buy a panini. I could buy a panino because panini must be the plural. I wanted to ask in perfect Italian and even rehearsed the question……..Anyone help?


A mere 32 degrees today so I got my bike out and cycled to St. Jean d’Angely. There were mobs of Team Top Lycra loins in the boating lake by the park. I think a couple of them called out at me as I whizzed past. Ooh – I must walk past a few more building sites. Oh No – the correctoid police will be out gain!

Emma thinx: You yourself are a fruit. Be generous.

A mere trefle

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I wonder how many songs we encounter in a lifetime. Some just pass on through but others stick for ever – often to a point of ad nauseam. Some songs just sit there like unexploded time bombs waiting for some trigger years and years ahead. Such a thing happened to me today. The Angel of all Beasts passed by and came over for La Bise (four times remember). She rummaged in her sac and pulled a four leaf clover which she had found. She handed it to me with a sense of great delight. She then showed me one that she had mounted on a card and carried in her purse. Well, today is a bit of an anxious day because Gilles is on a long drive and we have kids wound up like crossbows waiting for various exam results. But now an angel has given me a four leaf clover and I know that all will be well. I just know. Anyway – the unexpected gift plunged me back to the tune “I’m looking over a four leaf clover” performed by Les Perry and his Banjo Maniacs. It was on an old 78 rpm record that my mother had collected from somewhere. I used to play it on my record player when I was a kid. It also had “Bye Bye Blackbird” on the same disc. I never told any of my contemporaries that I played these songs because I guess it was music from the forties or fifties. In any event, this music made me feel immensely cheerful and happy and now the bloody song – banjos and all, keeps playing in my head. The only good thing is that it has driven out “Are we human or are we dancer?” performed by the Baseballs.


A trip to La Dechetterie  had me queueing behind some English folk. Their car registration gave them away of course but I would have known they were not French merely on the basis of the things they were discarding. When French folk throw away junk – it is junk. When English folk throw away junk it is what the French call Brocante. All manner of old metal rods, bits that looked like they would make a plough, trap a ragondin, reinforce some concrete or fix up a combine harvester were crashing into the bin. If Gilles goes to the tip it’s 50/50  he’ll bring home more than he takes.


A while ago the church bells stopped. They have now been repaired and I have been able to take off my watch. Francophiles will already know that in general church bells sound twice at the hour with a 2 minute gap. Explanations are numerous, but it’s probably so that workers get the chance to check twice on the time.It  would never do to miss lunch.


Emma thinx: Someone will need that junk. It may be a long wait for their birth.

The Terrier of Terroir

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Today is the 15th August – a national holiday here in France. It is quiet, so very quiet. The holiday is to denote l’Assomption of the Virgin Mary into heaven and seemingly was not part of the religious system until the sixth century. However, this day and the wider period has many attendant notions and sayings. Most important is the one that says that the cuckoo loses his voice…although I haven’t heard one since June. Other sayings relate to such things as “Lift a stone at this date and you will find the cool beneath.” It is a general belief that Summer is now on the wane and the cold darkness begins to close in. Well – these  guys know nothing. Even in southern England it is dark until 9am and dark again at 3.30 pm in winter. If the Charentais had to live there they would have reason to be pessimists. And on this matter I must say that I believe that French people are more pessimistic and more accepting than Brits. A Frenchman thinks things will get worse for everyone and that they will bear it. An Englishman thinks that things will get worse for everyone else and it is their own fault if they cannot bear it. 

I planted my grape vines. Gilles dug up areas of his terrasse – not without some muttering. Each of his 2,100 stones were placed by hand and carry his blood and DNA. Since he is French he can scorn le Tribunal de Terrasse because only if you are one of a certain group can you mock them. An ex-viticultrice swung by to denounce my vines and the possible positioning. Luckily she was distracted by some Leylandii conifers in a neighbour’s garden. “Oh yes – there are zee regulations and you will be needing zee courts of law…” Actually I needed a drink. I will sit in the darkness of the Leylandii shadow as my withered vines fester with very complicated diseases unknown to Anglos. I will drink to the Virgin Mary as she ascends into heaven and voiceless cuckoos fall dead with frost at my feet. I believe that the hunting of a bird called La Caille opens today. They’re a bit like grouse or quail. Bon courage les oiseaux.

When does some awful event pass into legend and the opening of the whimsy season? Time is a healer they say – but is it? A few days ago I was rabbiting about Boadecia fighting the Romans with toilet rolls. Now, those were bloody times of unimaginable suffering and yet Boadecia jokes do not appear to arouse passions, denouncements or have social workers kicking down doors to take away the children. In France, the ghastliness of the Revolution does not prevent all manner of guillotine references. A few days ago you may recall a lady of the village told me of the death of her dog. Now, apparently the mother and father of the dead dog have combined again to produce an identical litter. The grieving owners agonise over whether or not to try and replace their dead pet. I asked some English folk if they had any views about re-incanination. The shock waves of horror had them staggering. If ever there was any chance of ascending into heaven I’m afraid I blew it. Lift off will have to be from some place without pets.

Emma thinx: Re-incanination – it’s a dog’s afterlife.

Marie Andouillette

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There are many types of folks. Stern warnings about stereotyping from chairpersons of the non judgemental, well paid, busy-body community seriously disturbed my ability to tell the difference between a looter and an impulse buyer. Accordingly I have had to look for areas away from the front line of correctness to spot tell tale signs of discriminating differences between groups and individuals. The most obvious has always been the like or dislike of olives. Now – I make no judgement – but aren’t the olive lovers passionate, witty, sexy, talented and probably related to various Greek gods? Aren’t lovers of anchovy stuffed olives actually Greek gods in themselves?  Luckily my tribal pheromones repel non olive eaters so I am unable to judge them. A similar thing applies to sausages. Most folk can eat a sausage. Only those born poor or divine choose sausage over all other food. “Would you like the fillet steak Madame? – It is the finest cut in le monde and will be paid for by your publishers.”

“Non – I will have the saucisse de Toulouse with some ketchup.”  This has never happened but I am planning. In France we have SAUSAGE. The choice of sausage is so great that I am afraid of geting caught in a hypermarché vortex of infinite choice and be trapped in a condom shaped time cocoon for ever while I choose my sausage. While I await recognition by the Romance reading masses, my choice is often a reflection of price. There are dried sausages, garlic sausages, chicken sausages, horse sausages and I’m sure that somewhere there are sausages made entirely of old minced up sausages. Enough of this trivia – my choice for today is that of Andouillette. Strangely for a poet this word rhymes with the French word “Toilette”. Now you can see why I am a poet. The Andouillette sausage is made from the bottom end of the pig’s bowel. As I said – only those born poor or divine…….Let them eat Sausage!

I’ve been married. I’ve been a mistress. I’ve been a tandem cyclist. But – at last the French Government have given me an official status. I am a concubine. WOW – my legitimacy and heritage go back to ancient Greece and Rome- (and probably modern Rome if anything they say about Berlusconi is true). I am a concubina. This status is enshrined in the register of tax payers and residents. My relationship with Gilles is described as a concubinage. I always knew that some day I’d be a something.

Peach Jam. Today it rains and I have taken to La cuisine. I know – I know I should be writing a romantic novel, but there is something about the sweet more-ish-ness of jam that is so sexy. Gently she let  the jam spill  from her engorged lips between the ruthless hard muscles of his pecs. It mixed with the salt and musk of his recently spent passion.
“Oh, Emma,” he gasped as he still shuddered with lust….”Why…oh why the jam…”
“Because – my hero – my rock hard man, jam just won’t set without pecs in….”
See – women can multi-task!

Emma thinx: concubine – sexy but prickly.

Paella Fitzgerald

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It was Jazz night at the local restaurant. It was to be a barbecue because last week for the Salsa night it was Paella. We had booked to barbie but as we took our seats by the musicians table they were eating large amounts of what looked like – Paella. I had guessed that they were jazz musicians because one of them was wearing an arty winter scarf, a T shirt and jeans. Le patron appeared. “Oh dear – you booked the barbecue – oh yes- but it is Paella – it is just as good.” Two of our party were not seafood fans. We ordered Paella without the seafood.  The musicians munched on – even asking for more. Perhaps they don’t get paid. Suddenly a DIVA trotted in from somewhere across the street. She dashed around a little, then took the micro to explain that she was exhausted because she had been so busy with important concerts at places she described as “Blah blah blah” and another equally important place called “Blah blah blah.” She told us not to worry and that after some red wine she would be her normal fantastic self. She sat with some friends and chatted and then sang a little before going back to her friends to smoke a cigarette and take some medicine. The band played on – she had been in mid song – but such conduct is normal among indoor scarf summer time wearing folk I believe. We munched the non barbecue, partially non seafood Paella. The music stopped. The Diva explained “Now – important – MONGE.” She sat down with her friends to eat. We paid up and left. Some shows are better than others. Last week’s singer was fabulous. I suspect that Monsieur Le Patron has had better days.

As I write we are expecting folk for lunch. It is 2.30 pm. This is the weekend of 15th August and is a major holiday. All routes South are blocked with traffic……

We ate at about 4pm. It was hot. These guys are old work colleagues and are just so modern and clever. They know about things like machines that build micro chip machines that go inside computers. I kinda know how to heat up chips in a microwave. She speaks French/American. He speaks Franglo-americano. The kids sound American but adore baguettes. It’s called evolution. They had to go – but I wish they had stayed.

I want to talk about saving the world, conserving energy and recycling carbon footprints. All of this is embodied in a single concept. The photo today is of a wonderful product that will turn you into a paragon of preservation. The idea is to recycle the kernels of maize into barbecue fuel. I walked from Carrefour with a kinda eco-warrior maiden swagger- a bit like Boadecia-pelting the Romans with re-cycled toilet rolls.  We lit the barbecue. Flames shot skyward. Some red embers remained. We semi cooked 4 sausages. The fuel ran out. The future looks – well-cold and raw. Probably best to just eat the fuel.  

Emma thinx: If you’re singing for your supper – ask for an advance. Folks are fickle.