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I know what you're all like when you get your noses into a story you like and how you can get snotty (with good reasons too) when they end up sitting unfinished.
I have such a story that has one poor lad (or is that lass) sitting on a ship in the middle (metaphorically speaking) of the Atlantic.
Currently, the Captain of said ship, is being kind enough to circle patiently until I have the time to complete or at least continue.
I know, I have been brow-beaten in the nicest possible way by a number of you to continue, but real life I'm afraid, has me well and truly by the short and curlies.
You see, both Penny (my better half) and I have become very disillusioned with our lot and have been musing for some time over the possibilities of a move. We have looked into the work availabilities and also the cost of housing here in England and have come to the conclusion that unless one earns far in excess of the wages I currently earn, there is no way we could even move to a 'like-for-like'.
Thus we have decided to follow our dream of a small French farmhouse, where we can raise some chickens - for the eggs only; I for one am too squeamish to kill them even if I was hungry and Penny's no better - grow some veggies and learn that all too familiar Gallic shrug. Perhaps our collective noses are too small to be real French jobs (thinking of Gerard Dippydoo and Jean Reno to name but two), but going for it we are. Our place is currently on the market and we are hoping for a fairly quick sale.
I look about this site and see someone who's just had surgery, is still managing to keep going and whose story has me captivated (thanks Angharad). I feel guilt for not having got to grips with the last chapter or two of Cruisin', but frankly with all I have to do before Christmas and the sale of the house, plus the impending move that WILL happen come hell or high water (I can swim, though I fear the cat may not like the cross-channel doggy paddle or is that pussy-paddle in his case?) but can't seem to keep my head on track.
So this long-winded diatribe is just to say sorry.
Cruisin' WILL end. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon - probably after the Christmas and New Year celebrations are over and done with. It IS only a month - well not even that now.
So I ask that you please be patient with me. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I had the best of intentions to finish my story, but well...
Shit happens!
Nick B
Comments
Stress works.
Sometimes I write best when I'm udner that kind of stress..... It can be a real killer for some, but there is that one percent chance that it inspires and you find that hour or two a week to pump out 20 pages per hour............ It could happen. :)
Good luck in your life changing decision. I'm happy for you if this is what you dream of doing.
Thinking of you.
A.A.
btw fresh eggs taste SO good....... but then again, so does fresh chicken. especially with onions and garlic with a touch of saffron, salt,and pepper. Mmmmmmmm.
With Saffron?
We already live rurally and get fresh eggs, many of them with double yolks. Damn they're good. I think the French will think us mad because of our squeamishness and complete failure to be able to kill anything we raise - except plants, we can do that perfectly well.
Try tossing chicken breast cut into inch cubes in seasoned flour and frying in butter in a large frying pan that has a lid or a lidded saucepan till browned lightly.
Remove from the pan and put to one side.
Chop bacon and add to the pan then add roughly chopped onion (about 1 inch pieces). Fry off until the onions are soft.
Add either a quarter pint of ruby port mixed with a quarter pint of water or half a pint of good red wine.
Bring to the boil and add a chicken stock cube, some thyme, a generous squish of tomato puree, crushed garlic and reduce the heat to simmer. Return the chicken to the pan, replace lid and continue to simmer for about thirty minutes.
Remove the lid and breath in - God that's good! Add quartered mushrooms or whole button mushrooms and replace the lid for further fifteen minutes.
Serve with Basmati rice or baguette.
Yum.
You Wimp
Only a quarter pint of port!! Are you a teetotaller? That will never do in France, your promised land. A litre for breakfast will get you set up for the day. Love it and live it, The great southern land for you,
Love,
Jo
How can you wish to leave Dorset?
I think all that chicken has gone to your head? It rains over there too ya know! It is better for cycling, I will admit that.
I suppose you know what your doing.... oh well good luck.
Hugs,
Angharad.
(Dorset, Dorset Uber Alles....)
Angharad
It's not a wish
Well I suppose it is.
Yes it's the chickens! We're clucked off with this country and want to try something new. We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket, so we're ready to shell out on some egg-streme Frogginess.
Uber Alles?
A German Dorset person. That accent will be near unintelligible...
Oooharrberallles?
Nick
But they'll kill and eat anything....
.... so don't stand still too long, and keep the chickens and the cat safe. They are partial to roof bunnies and things! I mean they eat dormice for heaven's sake and little feathered things! Okay I will concede they cook them well and their wine is better, but they're ffffffffrench for Godsake!
Still they like chickens, it's their national emblem which says a lot, after all.
Angharad.
(After twenty odd years in Wales and an equivalent amount in Darzit, I still have an accent like a BBC announcer! As for the anthem bit, could hardly do, 'My hen laid a haddock', here could I?) 8)
Angharad
But France is full of French people
Are you sure you want to willing move to a country where they use per capita roughly two and one half bars of soap per person?
And they worhip Jerry Lewis as a demi-god.
I will admit it is a pretty county, the landscape that is, and some of the women are Whoa momma! But if all you want is French cooking buy Julia Child's books.
As to noses, think Charles De Gaul.
Alsace-Loraine -- excuse the terrible spelling -- is French/German.
Good luck with the move. Maybe you can write a novel about living in France that the BBC will turn into a comedy.
John waiting patiently in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
I have a nose for these things
I like being clean, but then you didn't say how long those two and a half bars lasted...
I'm not that partial to wine (to whine perhaps, but that's another story...), preferring a good spirit (Jack Daniels, decent scotch that sort of thing) or a pint of lager (1664's quite passable when the English haven't brewed it).
They would have to worship Jerry Lewis as a demi-God - after all he's only half the man he used to be.
Wasn't it an American president who said that the one thing wrong with the French was that they had no word for entrepreneur?
Nick
Hum?
George Junior said that?
I'd have said Dan Quayle but half the folks here would go "Who?"
He's the man behind "potatoe" and "It's terrible to loose one's mind."
Ah the wonders of speaking off the cuff. But then I think it's the American pasttime to lampoon their politicians.
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. Say hi to your pet chickens for me. Be careful, them chickens is organized.
P.P.S. Per person, per year on the soap
John in Wauwatosa
Soap
I suppose I'm now back to writing soap?
That much soap?
Per year?
Goodness, there's clean and then there's CLEAN. I bet they do their teeth just as often huh?
Nick
Collapse of all my Illusions
A pint of lager!!!!
You jest surely? Tell me you jest Nick. Please.
I know that the stuff they brew, if brew is indeed the right word - (Surely any half decent brewer would never admit to being even remotely involved in the process?) - in France may be marginally better than the chemical, gut-bloating, brain-corroding, liver-rusting, kidney-destroying, swill that the ....well I had better not describe the people that drink it as such may give offence .... but no-one with any remaining taste buds would be able to differentiate them with any certainty.
But Nick tell me you jest. Please!
And as for the taste! Well it is many years since I have ventured to swallow any but I do recall that in my days of wandering in tropic climes, and in default of anything else to assuage the savage thirst that is an inevitable result of such activity, the only way to drink it was ice cold. So cold in fact that the taste buds were frozen into a happy paralysing insensibility.
So I am prepared to admit that it conceivably does have a taste but it is not one that I am would personally care to experience.
So tell me you jest Nick. Please.
A good, well cellared, English ale is a delight before both God and man. And whisky or whiskey has ensured the survival of the Celts through generations of oppression, and so has a proven track record. And I suppose that Jack Daniels is a passable substitute for those unable to source such Scottish/Irish delights, but as I have always managed to, I have never been reduced to trying it. Gin also is acceptable, preferably of the Plymouth variety, when judicially mixed with, but not drowned in tonic, with a slice of lime.
As for wine. I would never have encouraged you to venture forth if I had known that you "were not partial" to it.
For God's sake that is the sole reason that any sane man would go there.
But surely you must be jesting Nick? Oh please tell me you are!.
Please .................................
This message has been cut short by the collapse of the writer. Near relatives and close friends should address themselves to Fleurie's local psychiatric unit for further news which is expected as soon as the heavy sedation has worn off. (John Basketcase MD)
I jest - I jest!
Please Fleurie, wake up. I didn't mean to cause offense. Hello, can you hear me Fleurie?
I am actually partial to certain wines especially those that can be quaffed with the only limit being when one falls down.
I do like an ice cold lager when it's hot otherwise I stick mainly to spirits, occasionally with a mixer - like more spirits.
As for the good old British ale, I know that finding it over there is going to be like searching for a needle in a several thousand square mile haystack, with just two chances of success - slim and none.
But it's all about new culture, new flavours and new experiences. so maybe I'll get more into wine. Don't know until I get there. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with a good German or Belgian lager that has been brewed properly unlike the swill they palm off on us Brits.
At least I'll have that as a safety net...
Does that assuage your fears?
Nick
Ahhhrrgh .....
..... Let me out! Take these straps and manacles off!
Mother .... tell them to let me go free! I'll sign anything .... anything.
But please ......
(Friends and close relatives of Fleurie will be delighted to hear that she is making steady progress towards a complete recovery.
Her last coherent message, in a fleeting moment of near lucidity, was that she knows of a bar in Brest where one can purchase draught Guinness. Just send a small gold ingot to the usual address, marking the parcel Alcoholics Anonymous Christmas Appeal .... John Basketcase MD.)
I might visit.... but I woulnd't want to stay
And I thought I was the only one who didn't like the French......wait a minute, I like French Fries. oh wait, they were invented by the Belgans. Oh I know.... French bread.... French bread is good.
OF all the people I have met who have been to France..... only one person liked them, but then of course he was an arrogant ass, so I guess he felt at home there. France is a place I might visit, but I woudn't want to stay there. It was, after all a country that just about everyone has invaded..... The Romans, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Norse, the Brits, American tourists..... As far as I know,the only people who were smart enough not to invade were the Spanish....... but then again, the spanish have pretty good food and wouldn't need to invade it.
A.A.
There's Dorset... and there's Dorset
Having lived close to the Purbeck Coast myself, I can see Angharad's p.o.v. It is an area that I am considering for my own retirement, if I can ever afford to retire after the all the financial crooks have had first dibs on my pension pot (my transoceanic sisters should think 401K).
But I also lived for a time close to North Dorset, and my school was actually in North Dorset, despite my actually living in Wiltshire. And that three-county area (where Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire meet) is okay, but doesn't drag me back like Purbeck does.
France I like. I've met (and worked with) many charming French people (getting treated to lunch at La Tour D'Argent tends to cloud the mind; getting treated there twice induces complete loss of critical facilities...). But The French? I'd prefer a different nation to be at the cross-roads of Europe, I guess.
Frieda
Don't forget the metre
What sort of measure is that 39point something inches? The size of a Gallic schnozz? And our currency went decimal (translated means bad ten!) cos the friggin' frogs couldn't count to 240! Sacre bleu!
Did you know the frogs legs they eat are imported from Thailand? And what about the Common Agriculture Policy, designed for french peasant farmers, and the buggers taking over our utility companies. Still, not to worry Nick, you'll be paying the same company for your gas and electric.
Personally, I think France is a lovely country, except it's full of ex-pats. Apparently 5.5million Brits live abroad, they can't all be Tony Hopkins and Elvis Costello.
hugs
(Everso tongue in cheek)
Angharad
PS happy birthday for the 15th, I used to get crappy birthday and Christmas prezzies too, bloody liars all of 'em!
Angharad
Berets
You must both get berets, and a little one for the cat, in order to disguise the fact that you are Les Rosbifs, and learn the words to "Ou est le papier" and ride your voiture on the wrong side of the road. And you must name your chien Dogmatix, not Obelix or Asterix, or you'll wind up like that poor teacher with the teddybear in Sudan. Pour la Gloire de France, face the rear and charge. Go for it kids.
Papier?
They never had any 'papier' when I was there*. It was all of a piece with the low rate of soap consumption, I suppose.
Frieda
(*Unless you took your own: I was quite embarassed on one business trip when LHR airport security made me turn out everything from my pockets...)
unintended sucour
Toss them a bone, the French I mean. Due to the extended drought conditions down here, general political ineptness and lack of will the Aussie grape harvest will be down by aprox 30% and wil remain so for a few years most likely. So those French grape growing types can breathe a little easier and try and regain some of their markets while the Chileans and the South Africans and The Yanks and the Italians maybe all try to grab their bit. We'll be back.. accented by a sort of Oz style gallic shrug... expressive innit.
Oh, get the finger out Nick, poor Kim...cast adrift as it were. Impatient foot tapping mixed with gallic shrug and a disdainful sniff...see I can do French.
Kristina
Well, we're going and that's that
I am quite into the idea of the beret and even have one of those hooped jumpers like the onion sellers wear. I have been learning how to tie onions and garlic and can ride a bike, so I'm half way there already.
Okay, so the French have their faults, it's not like the rest of us are perfect and the countryside IS pretty amazing.
Truth to tell, you Yanks didn't want us, neither did the Canadians eh? The Aussies gave us the bum's rush too, twice, so where are we supposed to go?
I'm partial to garlic, onion soup, coq au vin, croissants (no-one can make 'em like the French), Gauloises blonde (on occasion though Camel are my favourites) and houses we can afford to buy outright, so there's no stoppin' us.
Anyway, we'd only be a couple of hundred miles from where we started so it's not even like going from New York to California is it?
C'est Bon!
I for one applaud your adventure. I think you're going to have a great time! And as far as what folks here are saying about French condescension and national arrogance, that might be true; but I'm not sure the American "melting pot" has much right to call the kettle black...
And after that statement I might be forced to join you :)
~~~Laika
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Aussi? C'est tres bon n'est pas
Well you'd be most welcome.
I got a phone call lunchtime to say that our friends had found us a house to rent before we get a place of our own.
"Tell me more." I said.
"It's nice, it's big and it has a swimming pool..."
I have to say, my ears went deaf after that. He doesn't seem to understand that we're not made of money and somewhere along the line we have to be able to pay for this luxury!
Don't get me wrong, if we can afford it, well take it of course, but I'm not holding my breath.
Still it's like you say, we think we're going to have a whale of a time since we have never had a problem with the French, hence our desire to go there.
Nick
Hypocrisy ...
I may have been a little harsh about the French.
I thought I had better own up. I worked for them for years and currently have a small house there. Which I even go to on occasions.
I only mention this because Nick knows and I am seized with a feeling of vulnerability. Suppose he were to reveal this secret of mine to the Wide World that is encompassed within this site?
Best I tell you myself.
Their beer is quite foul though. But they do know a lot about living. And the countryside is breathtaking, and the wine .... and the women .... and the food .... and the gin is cheap .... and the climate in the South is ideal and .... houses are ludicrously cheap by UK standards and ....
But their beer is foul .....
No! Not the needle again!!!!!! ....................
(Close friends and obscure relatives of Fleurie will be overjoyed to hear that her recovery continues apace, although the long expressed doubts about her sanity which have so coloured these last few years have taken on a new and more urgent dimension.
Her mind remains as lively as ever though and the most recent IQ tests show her to be fully capable of engaging an adult newt in conversation for several minutes. John Basketcase MD)
Several minutes?
Is that before or after a beer (or several)?
I have to ask this as I have personally never found the newt to be the earth's most communicative of creatures. I know a spider goes deaf if you pull its legs off (sorry, old and probably frowned-upon joke), but newts. Just to set the record straight, I have never seen a pissed one either.
Fleurie is right though. Had she not owned up to having tried to pull the wool over all your eyes, I would have had no alternative but to tell you all with a "ner, ner, n-ner, ner", a vicious poking out of the tongue and a Paddington hard stare (see Michael Bond for the reference there).
Well, the first viewing of our house went okay. Actually better than that. The bloke's coming back with his partner on Monday, so hopes are high.
Nick
Lost in Translation
Observing a newt that is pissed,
Nick claims is something he's missed.
Mais pour ça mon cheri
il faut un esprit
beaucoup plus joyeux que triste.
(Debtors and forgotten relatives of Fleurie will rejoice to hear that her steady progress towards some state of human existance continues. She has however brief lapses of 'speaking in tongues' of which the above is a typical example. John Basketcase MD)
Lost? Not at all...
But for that my sweet
You need a spirit
Much more joyous that that!
I suppose it would depend upon how much was drunk to become that joyous, wouldn't it.
Still, to think I am your sweet makes me warm and fuzzy inside, or is that the Merlot?
Thank you anyway to my Poet Lariat (yeah I knew I'd get you roped in somewhere)
Nick
A Lost 'te'
Belatedly I note an error in transcribing Fleurie's delirium. I omitted a 'te' in the 4th line, without which Fleurie informs me that the scansion is incorrect. Not to mention the sense.- but who cares about that? Now or ever?
It should read, 'il te faut un esprit'.
By the way 'triste' translates as sad. Any further elucidation can easily be obtained, and without loss of time, by sending a small gold ingot to the usual address. The parcel to be marked 'Adieu Tristesse Christmas Appeal'
John Basketcase MD.
AAH France, oui, oui,
Nick,
No matter how many people razz you for your decisiion to move to France. It is your decison. I'm sure they are jealous that you have chosen to move to France.
Chicken ranchings not har all ya need is a tough little doggie to keep 'em in line. I'm sure you can teach the dog not to eat the chickens.
I am with you in killing things. I'm too squeamish to do so. I'm sure you can trade live chickens for those already primed for cooking.
One does not have to drink alcohol to live some where. The mere fact you don't over imbibe means you may fare far better than the French.
As for your writting , get settled in first then come back to your story. We will all understand the sabbatical as it is needed to improve your well being.
I'm sure you will be a curiosity when you go shoppiung and buy soap more then twice in twelve months.
I was in Brest, France many years ago. If you get the French drunk you can pulkl the wool over their eye quickly. I traded my US NAVY (Dixie Cup) Hat for one of theirs. It was a deal that was a win win for me. I paid sixty nine cents for my hat, they were punished severely for not having all of their uniform items
I will admit there is some very fine wine served in th bars in France. When I was in France I was a die hard drinker. Now that I'm older and wiser I do not imbibe at all
Jill Micayla
May you have a wonderful today and a better tomorrow
Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.
Hats off
I don't think I'll be swapping hats unless I know the head was clean to begin with!
I don't know if jealous is the right term, but I'll go with you on that one.
I DO enjoy a glass or two it has to be said, but I wouldn't say I was a die-hard drinker and if the wine proves to be as good as the Merlot we had over there a few years ago, I'm sure it will be fairly regular for me and the misses to imbibe with lunch or dinner, who knows?
We have more info on the possible rental and I have thirty pictures to drool over. We might end up in it yet...
What a way to start eh... swimming pool and a house that looks like it should be on a picture postcard.
***Sigh***
Oh well, back to dreary Dorset with its never ending rain (at the moment anyway).
Nick
An excellent choice.
If I were going to live anywhere other than the UK, France would be my choice without a doubt.
We spend at least 4 weeks over there each year living in our small camper van (camping car en francais - RV in USA) and cycling on the best roads (ie small beautiful, and quiet) I've ever cycled on anywhere in the world. (from here, to the USA, to Nepal, to New Zealand etc etc) The people (like most people I've ever met) are great. On one occasion an old man insisted that A went into his garden and picked a huge bunch of flowers to decorate her handlebar bag because of 'le guerre'. I admit he'd a few 'grand rouge' at lunch time but ... Another time an elderly guy stood and applauded us as we climbed a steep hill on the tandem into a village. Mind you, we've had experiences like that all over the world but the French just seem to appreciate 'la petite reinne' that little bit more.
The only real problem is finding restaurants that serve decent vegetarian nosh, but that's offset by the huge variety of excellent vegetables and fruit available in both street and supermarkets. We've even had good experiences in Paris, though big cities are places we avoid, even here.
The mapping is second only to our own superb Ordnance Survey and as walkers and cyclists we value maps highly. We found it impossible to get decent maps in the USA. All they seemed to show were the main roads (this is in New England) and once we tried to wander off onto the back roads we quickly got hopelessly lost. Both here and in France 1:50,000 and 1:25000 maps are widely available, even in small towns, and the Michelin 1:300,000 are more than adequate for most of our expeditions awheel.
True, it rains there. We had a pretty wet time this year even as far south as the Pyrenees, but it wasn't excactly dry in the UK this Summer was it? Never the less we'll be there again next year, although we may venture south of the Pyrenees and have a look at the Pecos de Europa in northern Spain. We love cycling in mountains. We can't quite manage several cols/days as we used to, but the old bones just about cope with one.
Yeah, we like France and the French, too. I wish you both the very best in your move but it'll be a lot of hard work as I'm sure you appreciate.
Geoff