Peter in France

[WillowTheWhisp]

Hello Peter.

I love your pictures of France and the area where you live. Perhaps you could entertain us with some stories of daily life there.

Some friends of ours moved to the Limousin area a few years ago and the younger children go to school there. At first it was quite difficult with the language and I couldn't imagine trying to do the equivalent of GCSEs in French but the youngest ones seem to be coping very well now, having had extra language tuition. The parents and grandma also get by being able to converse with local people in their very English accents. One thing I did notice when visiting them was how friendly and patient the local people are. Although not many of them speak English and our French is really rusty we tried our best and people tried to understand us, if they didn't have a clue what we were on about at least they didn't get annoyed or frustrated with us. Do you speak fluent French?

The weather there is much nicer than here and the scenery is beautiful. I suppose it's even warmer the further south you go.

[mpprh]

I can see I'm going to get pushed into this.

Truth is I'm not disciplined enough to do a blog, so I don't. But others do : the-languedoc-page.com/articles/languedoc-articles01d.htm !


A few bits of info ......

We moved to Bare around 1958 and I went to Lancaster Road school. I then went to Morecambe Grammar School 1963 - 1970. Some may have met me in detention !

Over the years we lived in Fairlea Ave, Elms Rd, then Yealand Conyers, returning to Lancaster. I left home in 1971 to live in Kendal followed by Orpington, New Eltham, Chislehurst, Woolwich, Brent Cross, Wealdstone, Chalfont, Marlow, Bicester, Brussels, Gothenborg and now near Sommieres.

Sommieres is in Languedoc, France located about 25 - 30 kms from Montpellier, Nimes, the Med and the Cevennes mountains.

The Med coast climate is better than the rest of France, but we can get frosts when a Northerly wind descends from the mountains. However, that wind brings blue skies and sun because any moisture falls in the mountains. We live in a slight East - West valley meaning we don't get coastal humidity, or sea breezes. We are therefore a little cooler in winter and warmer in Summer. We have a little more total rainfall than London, but it falls in a few major storms, often overnight in autumn or spring. We rarely get drizzle. We have 300+ sunny days per year. Some years we have had no rain for 6 months in either winter or summer (but not both !). This is the Montpellier 30 year weather history

We are dryer, slightly hotter in summer and cooler in winter than Montpellier.

This about the hottest weather we get

although we frequently get several weeks with 35+C in the summer.

We can get 20C on nice days in January and December, but it is often cooler. Cyprus and Malta are warmer in winter, which is why we go there with Ryanair sometimes (also they have M&S, English pubs, fish and chip shops, etc).

We live in a small village surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. We buy draft wine at under €1.50 per litre from the wine makers property using our own jerry cans. For guests I buy bottled wine. Don't want to appear mean ! For special occasions I often buy from these local domains :
www.chateauroumanieres.com/source/accueil.htm
www.la-coste-moynier.fr/MenuOK.htm
www.domaineguinand.com
www.massereau.com/domaine.php

In the area there is some market gardening and fruit production. Last weekend we saw the first local strawberries and asparagus for sale at the local markets. This is probably 3 weeks earlier than the Loire valley.

Typical market scene


View looking NW from my village with vines in foregrounde :

This is a rather frantic video done by the regional tourist office to show as many facets as possible of the area : www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tZxOazYQ7g

What else would you like to know ?

Peter

[accykeef]

Many English people I have spoken to believe that foreigers are ignorant.

From my experience if you have a go at speaking their language, however badly, they will take you into their hearts, their homes and share their lives with you.
I have done most of my working abroad and travelling in Spain and have a reasonable grasp of the language.
My memories of France are a trip to Beauvais where nobody spoke English yet we spent every night in a bar, speaking to the locals and Montpelier, when on the way back from Spain by coach, we rescued some halfs drowned Coventry rats from a badly flooded camp site.

[mpprh]

Few people speak English here, so I have no choice but to speak French. Locals think I have an accent "seduissant" and laugh at the quaint construction and grammar (I have went, perhaps ?).

Mar 30, 2011 19:19:31 GMT accykeef said:

we rescued some halfs drowned Coventry rats from a badly flooded camp site.

Why

Maybe they caught an overnight storm. In the mountains these storms are huge ....

This is more than the annual rainfall in London.

This water can flood the lower reaches of the nearest valley with damage to property.

Peter

[accykeef]

This was no overnight rainfall, they had been there a week and it did nothing but rain. This would be in September 1988 or 89.
The campsite was completley flat and all we could see were tents which appeared to be floating on water. The people we collected had lived in the swimming pool changing rooms for 5 days. They were still smiling though, I expect it was luxury compared to Coventry

[WillowTheWhisp]

What led you to choose that particular area of France Peter?

My French is improving a little bit and I'm hoping to be able to communicate a bit better next time we pop over there. I fell in love with some of the rural villages in the Limousin region and would love to buy an old property there to 'do up'. Some of them are very cheap but you gets what you pays for. Our friends bought a huge place that they'd never have been able to afford here in England. I suppose I'm a bit of a romantic so the old rustic properties appeal to me more than a new modern build.

That market scene also appelas to me. It looks like a market should do. Ours here has been almost totally killed off by 'improvement'and Morecambe's looks grimmer every time I see it.

[mpprh]

We left UK in 1990 and lived in Belgium and Sweden with a few months in US.

There was a chance to get an early retirement deal and we had already thought of France. I'd visited places around the Med, and thought we could combine both ideas.

We put our furniture in store and spent 6 months living in tents, hotels, with friends and family. Leaving Sweden on 1 July 1999, we started by decorating an apartment we had near Brussels. then we visited France to register the tax free car before heading for UK where we put the UK house on the market.

We then went house hunting. I'd been looking at houses via the internet whilst still in Sweden and now started to search. We started by the Italian border, and moved West stopping every 50KM - 100KM for a few days to research different areas, travel, house prices, opportunities etc. Eventually we arrived at the Pyrenees and drove across Spain to the Atlantic where we continued checking out France from the border to Bordeaux.

After much thought, we settled on somewhere slightly inland mid way between Nimes and Montpellier. We drove back down to the Med around mid September and started house hunting. After seeing about 25 houses we put an offer in for our present house and eventually moved in on 24 December.

Markets are a big thing here. Even tiny villages have a "market day" even if they only have a local farmer selling veg.
The pic is of Sommieres. The market is Sat mornings and now spills out of the market square (first charter for the market in the 11thC ) along the river banks and the main road spreading eventually to the esplanade by the bull ring where there is a car boot sale (Brocante) with 80 ish stalls and across the river to a flower and plant market.

Market square :



Brocante (junk !) :


I usually have oysters and cold white wine from this bar :

There is always an English speaking table where Dutch, Swiss, Belgians, Brits etc meet to exchange crucial information about finding good plumbers, etc.

More pics of Sommieres : www.flickr.com/search/?q=sommieres and www.david-merlin.com/phototheque/photos_sommieres-v0.htm

The river at Sommieres can flood the low town when there are storms in the mountains. People are well organised and the town is normally operational the day after a flood.
Rather damp weather :


There are some notes about house buying here : the-languedoc-page.com/property/location.htm
Cheap wrecks for renovation seem to be further into the hills these days. In my village, the last two barns have been converted recently.

Peter

[WillowTheWhisp]

I love those archways in the market square. It looks really old fashioned and interesting, not the similar concrete blocks you find everywhere over here so you can never be sure what town you're in! I love the idea that it spills out all over the place too - sounds like a real market.

That flood looks a bit wet though. I wouldn't fancy driving along there!

[mpprh]

Some of the arches date to AD1050. They were extended in the 16thC to allow people to walk round the square on the first floors when the square was flooded.

The cars aren't driving. The owners parked there thinking it was pretty high and the river wouldn't reach the top of the bridge.

It did and most of those cars were written off.

Once a car has been submerged it is best to write it off. You can dry it out but , 6, 12, 18 months later different electrical bits will pack up due to corrosion. This is even worse with salt water. To really recover one of these cars you need to rewire it and replace all the electrical parts which is so expensive that the insurance companies just write them off.

In 9/2002 (the year of the bridge pic) there was a bad flood and 500 cars were written off in Sommieres.

More pics from 2002 : www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&biw=1024&bih=649&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=inondation+sommieres+2002&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

The market was cancelled this weekend :



The town has a fascinating history, and the roman bridge was once a frontier with people speaking different languages on each side.

Some more local pics :

Via Domitia (Italy - Spain motorway circa O AD/BC :


Via Domitia bridge (originally 11 arches and 2 until the 20th century ) :


Roman city of Ambrussum had 25 defensive towers :


Sur le pont .....


Papal palace, Avignon :


Calanques :


I'll do a few more photos each post, if that is OK?

Peter

[WillowTheWhisp]

Love the photos Peter. It's particularly interesting to see the actual pont d'Avignon. There seem to be lots of historically interesting buildings and ruins in France, or at least certainly in the parts where we've been. So very different to Accrington! We might only manage a day trip this year.

[mpprh]

Just copying some of the non building pics from Trev in Cyprus thread so that my French pics are all together.

Near my village :








We get excited by snow !



Driving the A75 route across the Massif Central (different trips) :





Forest fires :









Chez Nous :

[mpprh]

If Willow is OK with it, I'll just post a few pics from time to time, and answer questions as they arise.

This week I've mowed the lawn (we had rain a few days ago) and I'm hoping that is it until the rainy season in September / October. My problem will be adding enough water to keep it green, but not enough to need mowing )

So a few pics -

Abbey de Fontfroide



Agde old town



Aigues Mortes



Ambrussum










Peter

[mpprh]

Anduze (... on the edge of the Cevennes mountains and has a working steam railway)





Barcares



Bouzigues ( ...isolated fishing village specialising in shellfish culture and seafood restaurants ) :

www.the-languedoc-page.com/images/sete3.jpg [/img]



Calanques



Camargue ( ... wilderness area with pink flamingoes, black bulls and white horses) ;





Peter

[trevnhil]

I love all the pictures Peter. They are Brilliant.

Trev..

[mpprh]

I've got lots of them, but I'm not sure people are too interested in the pics.

Been busy with chores today. Temps are 26C and my car AC has packed up. It will be fixed tomorrow.

Took the cover off the pool tonight (usually I do it early April, but I've been away). Needs a bit of cleaning, but it'll be ready for next week, I hope. Other pools are up to 23C, so it is time. Summer is rapidly upon us, and I'm into summer mode - early to bed then up with the sun. The early mornings are cooler for getting things done.



Peter