The issue of the bees

The concern at the loss of bees is becoming widely known. From press articles, and television coverage such as this there is a lot of interest. Unlike the 100 square kilometre monocultures of the USA, like for almonds, which require the transportation of bees all over the country for the flowering season, Normandy is mostly natural. There is not (yet) a disaster. But rears are growing, and explanations being sought.


This is partly because there is still an enormous number of cattle and other beasts which graze, and are fed on hay in winter, so that wild flowers are everywhere, and of course the apple and other fruit trees. In April, the apple tree over our terrace was in full flower, and a short spell of warmer weather meant we could have our lunch outside. The apple blossom was covered with bees, the noise of their buzzing constant. A bit like the World Cup vuvuzelas. As far as I could see the bees were mostly honey bees.

The bocage also - even though it is becoming less - is still a huge reservoir of trees, bushes and flowers. The local authorities in the country carry out 'fauchage' twice a year: a process of cutting the vegetation on the verges and the high bocage hedges. One man on a tractor with a sort of enormous beard trimmer attachment can do kilometres in a week. The result is that there is a continuing series of flowering plants: primroses, violets, orchids, cut down after going to seed, and then followed by foxgloves, scabious, knapweed, thistle etc. with ferns and grasses for seeds coming up in profusion. Recently, in many places they have delayed the first cut because the winter was so bad, and all the plants are late.


Bees, and all forms of wildlife thrive. No pesticides, no flailing to smash trees and shrubs, and respect for the cycle of the seasons.


Honey bees are not as common in general this year as the several varieties of bumble bees, but they usually appear in large numbers in late July and August. Apple trees are mostly laden with fruit, as are other fruit trees. All flowers are blooming and dying back very quickly, because they are very rapidly pollinated, which is a good sign in general, although indicative of a bad winter.


We have a path to out back door through a near jungle of herbs - mint, oregano, lemon balm, lavender, rosemary, tarragon, which will take over the path when they all flower in a couple of weeks. Apart from the wonderful scents when you walk along the path, brushing the plants, there are great clouds of bees and butterflies which rise up and settle back as you pass.

We are doing our best to help the bees, growing trees, bushes, plants with flowers throughout the summer, and for the solitary speciies placing bamboos and other open tubes around the garden for overwintering and spring nesting. No pesticides, herbicides, or paranoid weed free cultivation. We have hedges on all four sides of our garden (1700m2), with hazel, beech, oak, medlar, blackthorn, hawthorn and holly. We have two big patches of garden that are not mowed, just left to nature, and they are full of flowers at the moment. In winter, we can often see goldfinches hanging off the knapweed seed heads from our bedroom. We also have three fields, which are used for grazing by a neighbour, with a family of cattle there for two or three weeks, then moved elsewhere, to return in a couple of months when the grass has regrown.


Virtually a paradise, which will end if the bees go.

Another Fete

We are well into the season of village fêtes, vide greniers and celebrations. See previous post for more information. Bastille Day, 14 July, sees festivals and events everywhere. We went to one, and as always, encountered a few pretty unexpected incidents which we would never see in the UK.

Usually, the fêtes include a communal meal, most often served in a canteen style - line up with a tray and pass along the servers to get a starter, main course, piece of cheese, and a dessert. You then find a place on any of the long trestle tables under very large marquees; it rains sometime in Normandy. There will be a 'bar' where you can get bottles of wine at three or four euros, mineral water, and of course cider. There are variations, some feature mussels and frites as the main course, some grilled meat, some start with a rough - in the sense of not smooth, not low quality - pâté, occasionally served in very large terrines on each table to help yourself.

The fête we went to was called a 'mechoui' which strictly speaking is a word for a whole roast sheep, but locally is often used for a feast which may or may not include lamb. Here it did. There was a small vide grenier  which was literally stuff from attics, and a bouncy castle.

The village has a population of just over 600; there were 731 lunch tickets sold. When we arrived, there was a huge modern marquee set up. No guy ropes and tatty canvas, this was a light weight state of the art metal frame with canvas stretched over it. It has a proper wooden floor. There were two rows of tables, each table seating 20 people. This was the first time we have found proper plates and cutlery - usually it is all disposable stuff. Though at one you were supposed to take your own couvert (plates, cutlery etc) which we had not realised. Fortunately near enough to the home of one of our party to drive back and get enough for all of us from her house. Like all French people she had enough stuff to cater for twenty or thirty at a meal at home. Here there were glasses made of glass, and paper napkins of superior quality, and all the places were laid out before anyone got there. Top stuff all round.

And the food was served to the tables, starting with a rosé wine based aperitif. The first course was one of those sort of fish terrines on a bed of macedoine veg, and mayonnaise. Taken out of a refrigerated lorry at the last minute, and brought round to the tables. This was followed by huge platters of barbecued sausages, traditional herb and spicy merguez together, with really excellent frites. Next were grilled lamb chops, followed by slices of roast leg of lamb and more frites. The lamb was probably the best, most tender, lamb I can remember. We had earlier seen the meat being grilled behind the marquee. a dozen or so big square barbecues for the sausages, and two huge rotisseries for the lamb, each with I think eight spits, each of which had seven or eight whole lamb legs over fires of large logs. They were hand cranked, basted with home made basters made from long poles with a metal cup or bowl attached to the end, and a large tray under the meat to catch all the juices. The meat was also basted with a broom made of bunches of beech leaves tied to a pole.

After that, a little portion of camembert followed by an ice cream (industrial, but French catering quality). Not bad for 15€ each. There were 61 volunteers setting up, cooking, serving and washing up afterwards.

The after lunch had finished (about 4.30) entertainment was the donkey races. These donkeys are not the tiny things at English seaside resorts, or wavering under huge loads or very fat men in the Middle East, but Normandie donkeys, of which there are two races: the âne Cotentin, from the Cotentin peninsula (you probably guessed that) which is pale with a dark cross of St André on its back, and the âne Normande which is browner. Both are threatened species and you can - apparently - receive a subsidy for keeping them. These donkeys were ridden for four laps round a little oval hippodrome type circuit, with volunteers riding them. These jockeys were adults who had clearly enjoyed their lunch, and had taken some wine with it. The donkeys were like donkeys always are, reluctant to co-operate very much. The result was that half the riders or more fell off, and by the last lap the donkeys slowed down, sometimes turning round and going the wrong way. The fallen riders seemed not to get trampled, even when they fell near the beginning when the donkeys were trotting along at a reaonable pace. There were no helmets, no saddles or reins, no liability disclaimers to be signed, no elfin safety of any sort. No one was hurt, and everyone laughed.

A couple of other things were going on, including a raffle where everyone got a prize (otherwise it was gambling and required a licence), and something described as a lapinodrome. This was a low wooden circle with numbered holes cut in it. Inside the circle were some rabbits  (lapins), and the public bought tickets with the same numbers. The winner was the one who held the ticket with the number of the hole through which the first rabbit emerged. Similar games in the UK. The difference here was that the winner kept the rabbit. The event continued until all the rabbits had been won. They were not taken home as pets. Many country people keep rabbits as a food supply. They know how to deal with a live rabbit.

The other similar thing was fishing for ducks. One sees this at many events, lots of little yellow toy ducks with loops attached being caught by very young children with sticks with little hooks. At this feast, the sticks had three inch rings on the end, and the ducks were live. What they call cannettes, young ducks. And, as you might now guess, if you got a ring over the neck of a duck, you won the duck. One boy of about ten announced that he had just got his third duck, and ran off with it to put it in his parents' car. There was no likelihood that the duck would do any damage. Or indeed, anything by then.

Holidays, coaches, peasants

The older generation of - what they are happy to call themselves - peasants in France never had the chance, time, or reason to travel much. Many have never gone more than a few kilometres from their home village. We know quite a few people in our corner of La Manche who still take their annual holidays in caravans at the nearest seaside camp site - about 35 km from here, a little town we often visit just for lunch. Now there is a splendid health service, a lot of people have gone further afield for medical attention, to see specialists in the big towns, or have operations. Not travelling for fun and adventure, though.


It took a lot longer for the French economy to progress after the war than it did the British. This was particularly so in the rural, agricultural areas, such as Normandy. As late as the 1970s it was possible to see horse drawn ploughs and other implements occcasionally. Of course, the French standard of living is now well ahead of the UK in subjective terms, though UK, Germany and France are 19, 20 and 21 in the world by Gross Domestic Product per capita,  adjusted for relative purchasing power, according to the International Monetary Fund 2009.


However, in the last 10-15 years, many people who previously had neither the money nor the inclination to go anywhere, have discovered it is not only possible, but fun. With reasonable pensions, improved life expectancy, and families who have moved away, to other regions of France, or even other countries, a lot of the older people have begun to do a little exploring. Not by themselves, admittedly, but none the less going on trips. This has been facilitated by travel companies, so that it is easy, safe, not too expensive, and reassuring. In general, the travel companies organise one day coach trips to a particular destination, either a specific town, or around the region. These are arranged locally, and often start from about 6.00am with the coach going around several villages picking up the pre-booked customers. And off they go, returning at about 10 in the evening.


Being French, the price includes all meals. The first stop is for breakfast in a cafe on the way. We used to travel overnight to Caen-Ouistreham or Cherbourg from Portsmouth, and arrive about 8.30 at Villedieu-les-Poêles where we would have breakfast in a café. Most times, there would be a sudden influx of 30-50 elderly people, arriving at the same time, and obviously expected. They would be served café-au-lait or hot chocolate, a croissant or two, and in ten minutes they would all be off. Back to the coach. Lunch is usually at an auberge in the country - there are quite a few that now rely on pre-booked coach parties to keep going - with three or four courses and wine. Dinner will be somewhere else, and something similar. The expectations are that there will be proper meals, with proper traditional French food, at proper meal times.


In between the meals, the coaches will visit whatever places of interst are the apparent object of the trip. We were in Rochefort-en-Terre, in Brittany, when three coaches suddenly tirned up, and hordes of elderly French country folk descended simultaneously, and divided into two groups - one to queue at the public toilets, the others to rush into the village to see everything and buy souvenirs. The noise was incredible. A hundred people all chattering at once in what had a minute or two before been a quiet, hot place. The sound was a sort of loud twittering, impossible to hear any words, because every one of the people was talking at the same time. The only time I have heard something similar was when a huge flock of starlings finished wheeling through the twilight sky like smoke and all settled into the same group of trees at the same moment. Within an hour, the coaches had left for the next site.


Most of these travellers are women of a certain age. Men in general, and farmers in particular, do not last as long as women when they retire. The coach trips allow groups of friends to go on  a trip together, without having to worry about making complicated arrangements, or finding places to eat, or having to drive. And being used to organised lives, they have no problems in starting before dawn.


There are also more and more package coach tours to more exotic places, lasting a week or even more. These work in the same way, but go to the further regions of France, and even other countries, and have hotel stays included.. The wife of a friend of hours finally made her husband go on a holiday to Provence this way, with some other friends, and it was the first real holiday away they had ever had. They were both over 60. When they came back, Yvon and Yvonne had different views of the experience. She enjoyed every minute. He found it interesting in a way, but was shocked that there were no cows, and that the land was all rubbish dry, stony, no grass. 


In fact this was their second long coach trip. When the euro was introduced, there was a period of a bout a year for people to change their francs into the new currency, which could only be done at banks, and who recorded the details of each exchange. This created an immense dilemma for farmers and other country people. Many of their transactions are cash based - buying and selling animals, fodder and so on, and the money nver goes near a bank.. They do not appear in any documentation, and of course do not get included in tax returns. That is one reason why France has a higher standard of living and more actbve economy than appears in the official statistics. The difficulty was of course that the state would want to know where they got all these francs from, and demand taxes. The tax demands would be calculated on the asumption that whatever cash was found now, it was only a fraction of what had not been declared in the past, and the tax demands would hurt.


The tiny republic of Andorra, between France and Spain, presented a solution. There were no border processes, and the banks there would exchange francs for euros with no questions asked. Very many rural French people suddenly discovered that they had always wanted to see the wonderful sites and people of Andorra, and there was a constant stream of coaches visiting there for one day holidays. I have no idea how news of this benefit was circulated, but inevitably the French government realised what was going on, and started making spot searches of coaches along the road to Andorra. Anyone found with more francs than a short stay needed, was faced with a tax demand, and a fine. The trips carried on for a while, but when one coach was stopped and all the luggage searched, and a number of suitcases opened to reveal bundles of francs which nobody on the coach claimed, the risks became too great.


But it introduced a lot of people to the idea of travel and visiting new places. One of our widow friends last summer went to Spain, the Costa del Sol no less, on a coach trip for a week. She went with three of four other people from the village, and they joined forces with some from another village. They had many interesting evenings planning the holiday, and discussing arrangements over dinner at each other's houses. The holidy itself started the evening before, when they all gathered at two of the houses, so they would all be collected together. The coach began its collection of passengers at 3.00 am, and then went all the way to Spain, arriving in time for a late dinner, stopping only for meals on the way. There was a toilet on board, of course. The coach apparently had two drivers who took it in turns to drive. A week in Spain in a decent enough hotel, organised excursions and two good, proper meals every day. It was perfect. 

Slow worms, and other lizards

Slow worms, anguis fragilis, are legless lizards, about nine inches/24cm long. I can only remember seeing one in the UK, where it seems to be getting rarer. Here in Normandy a couple of weeks ago I saw this slow worm in our garden, moving very casually through some grass. This is the fourth time I have seen one here, each time in a different corner of a half acre garden, so I think I can assume that there is a colony living here.

Looking at it clearly, it is easy to see that it is a lizard, not a snake. Its head is lizard shaped, and although it moves like a snake, it does so because any creature with no legs and a long body has to move that way. It flickers its tongue, but so do most lizards. Despite their name, they can move quite fast, and can disappear into a hole or under rocks pretty rapidly.


We usually find common lizards  in the garden at some time during the year, but not very many. We are not only fairly far North, but also our area is quite high above sea level, so we do not have as many as one would find around the Baie de Mont St Michel locally, and certainly not the numbers of individuals and different speciies that are common further south. The other reptile that we have is the salamander, and there is more about that here.


I also saw a quite large lizard, about 8 inches/22cm on a path by the sea on Morbiham, Brittany, a few weeks ago, but is scampered off into the undergrowth. It emerged a few minutes later, but imposible to get near. This photo is an enlarged detail, and not very good, but the best I could do. I do not know what species it is. 

(There are related posts here and here.)

Birds in spring

On a cold, but bright, afternoon in April, we were walking along the promenade at the beach at St Martin de Bréhal. There were very few other people about, and the wind blowing off the sea was fairly vicious. The tide was incoming, nearly high, but with a low coefficient, so a lot of sand was still exposed. In the distance, it looked as if there was a cloud of pale smoke drifting along the beach. As we got closer, it was clear that it was a large group of something running about on the sand. A bit like an enormous number of very large spiders. Closer still, and it resolved into about a hundred and fifty sanderlings chasing almost in unison along the beach. 

Sanderlings on the beach at St Martin de Brehal, Manche

Normally these waders run along the shore, following each wave as it recedes, and then scampering back as the next one arrives. Because the wind was whipping up fairly large waves, and there was very little exposed sand in between one receding and the next arriving, the birds were mostly looking for sand hoppers and other things ahead of the tide. There is another photo of sanderlings on the beach at Jullouville, in a more usual behaviour pattern, below.

Granville, a couple of miles down the coast from St Martin is on  a very distinct promontory, and is used as a navigation point by planes. It used to be that Concorde flew over the town, very high, at about 10.00 every night, accelerating past the sound barrier once it was well over the ocean. In theory. In practice, the sonic boom happened nearer to the land; we would hear it inland about 30k from the sea. Ordinary jet planes are usually well over 30,000 feet high, and not normally audible. Migrating birds also use it for navigation, and at Carolles, four or five miles further south, there is a thriving ornithological society which holds bird watching events spring and autumn to see the migrations. In fact, most of the west coast of the Cotentin, and especially the Baie de Mont St Michel, is a key annual migration site, as well as being full of seabirds, waders and others all through the year.

A couple of weeks after our walk at St Martin, we stopped off for a coffee in St Jean le Thomas, another of the coastal villages overlooking Mont St Michel, and as it was the first really hot day after the cold, we walked along the beach. The tide was way out, so to speak, with a high coefficient, and the edge of the sea was the other side of a couple of hundred yards of sand, and another three hundred of mud. At the water's edge we could see several hundred, maybe 1,000, largish birds. They were silhouetted against the sun, and imp;ossible to identify, but with the wind off the sea we could clearly hear that the larest were curlews, and some of the slightly smaller ones were whimbrels, confirmed when some of them flew inland over our heads, calling as they did so. We didn't identify any of the others. But a final surprise was that there were several shrikes hopping about on the large rocks dumped to protect the dunes. Had never seen the species before.

Sanderlings on the beach at Jullouville, Manche

River Vire walks

After weeks of snow, and heavy rain, we are now left at easter with high winds and vicious showers. Nonetheless, the weather is good enough to restart some proper country walks. Like most of France, Normandy has a lot of well marked footpaths (randonnées), and maps and routes can be had, usually free from tourist offices, or newsagents (Maisons de la Presse). For example, there are many easy, interesting walks along the Vire River, from Pont Farcy in the south, to Carentan in the north. 

Towpath

Towpath sign

The Vire is an appealing river, going though a long gorge north from the town of Vire, and running alongside the road for most of the way to St-Lo. For much of that part of its flow, it seems to me to be very much like the Wye in England. It even has an equivalent of the viewpoint at Symonds Yat, at les Roches de Ham. Just before St-Lo, at Candol, there is a very old bridge and weir, and well laid out walks along the towpath (chemin de halage) in both directions. 

St Suzanne Village

For most of its length, the towpath has now been improved and surfaced, so that it is easy to walk and cycle, but also accessible without many problems for pushchairs and wheelchairs. It is also well marked with the signs shown below, information signs at all the points where you can join or leave, and regular distance indications - in km and minutes - between points. 




There are obstacles and weirs along the length of the river, but it was even so used for water transport until replaced by rail and road. In a number of places the river meanders along, with rapids and weirs bypassed by old locks and short canal lengths, some just 25 metres or less. These locks (écluses) are mostly ruins, and in many cases the canal bit is silted up and overgrown. At Vire town there are waterfalls and rapids that effectively blocked the river traffic, and to the north it joins the Vire and Taute Canal. Interestingly, as many of these old lock locations are where the water flow is faster or over a weir, there are micro hydropower electricity generating stations - 11 between Pont Farcy and St-Lo alone. Each generates enough power to supply a few hundred houses. So not only has the river been turned into a valuable leisure amenity, but also a renewable energy resource creator.



We joined the river walk at Condé-sur-Vire; there are small car parks at most villages along the length of the walk. There is a base for canoe and kayak sports there (in summer only, of course). A week or so before, we had gone past the valley of the Sée at Tirepied, where the whole flood plain was under water, again. The Vire had also burst its banks then, with the water level up to three metres higher than usual. That meant that it covered the towpath, which is raised above the land, and burst into the fields the other side. There are permanent metal signs at each access point, which can be folded open to show that the path is closed because of flooding. Useful, because the flooding can be localised to where the river is narrower or the towpath lower. We walked a little bit along the towpath at Candol a few weeks ago, but most of it was under water and invisible. Now the waters have receded, and there were no problems; there were a lot of little rivulets still flowing into the river, though, and the ground was throughly waterlogged.

Spring must be arriving, because we saw four or five swallows skimming the river in between the showers, and apart from primroses and celandines everywhere, there were a couple of clumps of marsh marigold in flower. On previous walks along the river, we have seen otters, an adult near St-Lo, and a juvenile a bit further south. We also saw this deer (chevreuil) at Candol, during the hunting season, so it may have been away from its usual place.

On yer bike?

The French of course take cycling very seriously. All through the year you will see cyclists in tight fitting club uniforms in bright colours, steaming along all the country roads, in ones and twos or sometimes a whole club of a couple of dozen identically costumed people, in a group, or spread out of several kilometres. Midweek, many of these cyclists are quite elderly men and women. While we no longer young English chaps never get much more exercise and excitement than discovering a new cardigan in Districenter or Gemo, our French equivalents are covering 100 km at high speed. For the fun of it. They may look wind battered and wiry, with faces like WH Auden in the sun, and wear hideously multicoloured nylon costumes and hats stolen from aliens, but my word they are healthy. Even sometimes into their eighties.


There are cycle races all through the year, big and small. The biggest of course is the Tour de France, and one of the second rank is the Tour de Normandie, which is happening right now at the end of March 2010. I don't read the sports pages in the papers anywhere, and haven't seen the local Ouest France for a a couple of weeks. I was thus utterly surpriased to find myself heading straight into  the Tour de Normandie last Saturday. We were driving through the Forêt de St Sever-Calvados on a road we often take, when suddenly a group of motorcycle cops with blue lights and sirens came screaming along the road towards us, and waved us to stop, and pull off the road. Not easy because there was a ditch, and very little else. They were immediately followed by a dozen or so other motorcycles with two up and signs saying 'Officiel' on the front, and then thirty or forty vans and cars, all covered in big ads, and most with half a dozen bikes on the top. That was when we began to think that the Tour was also going through the forest...


A couple of minutes later, more blue lights and sirens, and a group of about 15 cyclists in their midst, and then yet more vans and cars with bikes on top. We thought this must have been the end, and began to move off. More officials whizzed up and told us to stop again. After five minutes we could hear a roaring noise, like a train, and over 100 cyclists screamed by at full speed, throwing empty drink bottles, food pouches and other stuff as they passed.  They were so close together that it seemed that they could only be avoiding crashing by synchronising their pedalling. Five seconds and they were gone. Following them were more support cars, vans and bikes. And a group of people coming along picking up the rubbish the riders had thrown down. Two minutes later, it was all over, and we could drive on.


I had never actually seen a major cycle race up close, but the noise of the bikes, the speed at which they were going, and the closeness of the bunch were all quite extraordinary.


Cyclists having priority over motorists is not just something that applies to organised races, it is respected everywhere. Drivers will slow down, pull out to the left, and give way to cyclists as a matter of habit, whether the cyclist is a young racer training for the Tour, or an elderly lady coming back from the market, or a farmer who has already lost his driving licence wobbling home from the bar. Not like the UK, where cyclists are usually invisible, or if they are seen are perceived as two dimensional and need no space. Because cycling is respectable and respected, something like the Paris Velib system is very successful. Bike stands are everywhere, and the bikes are used by all sorts of people, from elegant lady lawyers with their briefs in the front basket, to elderly gentlemen with substantial bellies and award winning moustaches. Of course it also helps that Paris is much smaller than say London, and fairly flat, but the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, a cyclist himself, is planning a similar system. Whether the bikes will last more than a couple of days without being stolen, vandalised or destroyed is still unknown.

Tips on learning French

I am not a natural linguist, and it has taken me a long time to become reasonably confident in French. Along the way, I have found a few things that helped that might be worth passing on.


To begin, some sort of formal learning is pretty important especially at the very beginning.. It can give you concepts, grammatical insights, and the confidence of learning with others. Even if you can only manage the occasional hour of tuition at a further education college, it is worth the effort. If you live in London, the Alliance Francaise runs very good courses, and puts you into a very French ambience from the start. If not, there is always the Open University. I did one of their French diploma courses a few years ago, and it was very useful. Then you had to record middle of the night television programmes to help, but it is now all internet based.


Languages are about communication: to learn you need to communicate, and that really means speaking to others. Obviously, In France that is not too difficult, but may be more so in the UK, other than London. In France, make opportunities to talk to people as often as you can. As long as you are polite, and make an effort, just about everyone will help you out when you get stuck, and not laugh if you make mistakes. There is a piece on this blog about Getting on with the French, which might be useful. There was a documentary on French TV a few days ago (February 2010) about the French community in London. There are now somewhere between 300,000 and half a million French nationals living in London, which makes it the sixth largest French city by population. In my street in London, without about 58 houses (though many two or three flats now), there are four French families that I know by sight,enpought to say 'Bonjour', and probably others. In central and north London one can hear French being spoken every day.


In the 60s I read an article about the then famous cyclist, Tommy Simpson, who was based in France as that was the only place where professional cyclist could earn a living. He did not speak much French, but got on perfectly well with his cycling team mates, and the world in general, by using the word 'faire' (to do or make) as his only verb, followed by a usually relevant noun. So he would say 'je fais velo' - I will ride my bike' - or 'je fais dejeuner' - I had lunch, or 'je fais gagner ' - I am winning. Everyone understood him, and he had a very successful career, until he died in a race from the effects of performace enhancing drugs, probably the first famous sports person to do so. My point is not that you should avoid performance drugs, though of course you should, but that you can talk effectively and happily in France in French, however little you know, as long as you try.


If you are not in France, it might prove useful to find a way of establishing contact with French people learning English - or indeed another language - via the internet, and set up a regular online conversation. With the internet the way it is, there is no problem in being able to talk to and see someone anywhere in the world. Just do a bit of research around the concept of 'chat'. Asking a teenager you know to help explain it is best if you are over 30  - all teenagers seem to be in perpetual conversation with all the others. There are a number of sites where you can find people who want to help and be helped learning English and French. Try Total France, ExPat Blog, educational sites, and some social sites (beware wierd people and places, though). There are a lot ofpeople who are happy to help you with your French, in return for your help with their English.


Reading French newspapers really does help. The national papers such as le Monde are available in most British towns, and if not local libraries might often be able to get them. They do provide exposure to a lot of words you won't come across in textbooks, especially colloquial everday speech terms, and technical stuff, not to mention the sort of thing you will find in the advertisments. The virtue of a newspaper is that you can take your time, you can stop and start when you like, and look up things you don't understand. It will also demonstrate, if you are undergoing formal education in French, that the seemingly dozens of tenses that are part of French verbs, but not English, are rarely used, and you can do without them.


It is widely believed that television in France is generally dreadful. Not really true, though their rubbish is even worse than British rubbish. They do have more arts programmes, political discussions, and other serious stuff, and those programmes are often up to three hours long. Here is a really useful tip: watch documentaries, especially about the arts, on the French/German channel Arte. Everyone speaks very clearly, and steadily, unlike drama and popular shows where there is shouting, gabbling and slang that you will never grasp. As the programmes are usually shown in both countries, they are made with the need to be translated either by dubbing or subtitling, in mind. That means that speech is more measured, and more careful, and for someone learning the language whether French or German, this helps enormously. It might also be that arts programmes tend to feature intellectuals, academics, and the higher bourgeoisie, all of who usually think before they speak, assume that others will be interested in what they have to say and want to think about it before replying. And of course, a lot of it is being read from scripts, carefully.


For example, last night I watched a programme called 'Un Soir àu Musée' (an evening at the museum), which was about a new exhibition of JMW Turner paintings in Paris. Apart from the fact that the pictures are stunning - one can see that Turner put up the scaffolding on which the Impressionists hung their work - the programme was hugely interesting, with some extraordinary filming in Venice to back up the paintings. The commentary, and all the interviews, were clear, obviously correct French, and easy to understand. This programme was actually on France5, but is typical.


Another tip is that many digital channels (and all French television will be digital only soon- March 2010 in lower Normandy) often have the option to have subtitles for the hearing impaired members of the audience. This can be really helpful to learners of French, because you can see the words being spoken written down simultaneously. Of course, it cannot be word for word, but the gist will be there, and it is surprising how much this helps learn more of the language. A big problem for learners of any new language is elision, the running of words together, so it is very hard to tell where one word ends and the next starts. Seeing it as well as hearing it makes that much easier. It also helps with pronunciation, and interpretation of what you hear. A good illustration of this is the phrase 'la vie en rose', which means 'life in the pink' or the good life. When spoken, it can be hard to tell the difference between that and 'la viande rose' - pink meat - or 'l'avion rose' - the pink aeroplane. Context helps, but confusion means thinking about what was said, and then missing the next bit of speech.


If you are not in France, many programmes on Arte are available to watch on the internet at Arte.fr for a week after broadcast, for free, as are some programmes on the other French channels, so you can watch them from other countries.


For immediate translation of words and phrases, I have put Babel Fish on my always visible bookmarks, so I can very quickly copy paste a fragment of text on the internet to get the meaning. The software is free - there is a link on this blog. Not perfect, but as good as any other translation by machine.


One last thing that I found positive: learn some key common phrases that can both give you time to think if you add them into a sentence, and suggest to the person you are speaking to that you are a bit more fluent than you really are. That second point, strangely, means that people are more relaxed, and less likely to expect that they won't understand you, so conversation becomes easier. The sort of phrase I have in mind is 'c'est à dire' - that is to say -  which gives you the chance to find the words you need without looking if you are really struggling, 'comme ci, comme ça' - a bit/more or less/maybe/average, and is useful to cover the situation where you just cannot think of anything specific to say, and 'ça fait du bien' - that will do very well/ is fine. But above all: practice speaking, listening and communicating. No substitute, and it is more enjoyable that you might think.

On the trot

If you ask a British person what the words 'trot', 'trots' or 'trotter', you will usually get one of these replies: Montezuma's Revenge, Delhi Belly or some other acute digestive disaster, a member of the Militant Tendancy, Socialist Workers Party or some other doomed 1980s far left group, or a cockney chancer played by David Jason in a long running tv comedy programme. In France, it refers to a very popular form of horse racing.


Le Trot consists of horses pulling flimsy two wheeled vehicles along race tracks. The wierd bit is that the horses cannot gallop, but must trot, in a prancing, slightly absurd fashion. They race round tracks, quite fast, but not as fast as normal horse racing, and of course the chariots take up more room, so there is quite a lot of jostling and confusion. I think it is a very silly process. I believe in North America they call the little carriages 'sulkies' for some reason. I know of three or four bars called 'le Trot' or 'le Trotteur', and Normandy being a very horsy sort of place, there are often horse boxes being towed around, with the little carriages attached to the back, their shafts sticking up into the air.


Out of season, and sometimes on summer evenings, you might find trotteurs exercising on some of the beaches. Apparently, apart from having long flat stretches to practice on, the sea water is good for the horses, so they sometimes go through the shallow water.


A good example is the beach at Jullouville, where at low tides there is a very long, wide and sandy beach. Here are some photographs of several trotteurs on a January afternoon.

The naming of inhabitants

The other day I half noticed the word 'canisiais' in the headline to a small article in the Ouest France paper, and had no idea what it meant. Reading the piece showed me that it referred to a person from Canisy, a small village near Saint Lo. The French have names for the inhabitants of just about every town and village, but I have not been able to discover any logic in how they come about.


In Britain, we tend to talk about a Worcester woman, or a man from Southampton, or a person from Porlock. I can only think of Londoners as a similar form. Glaswegian, Liverpudlian and Mancunian are surely not really used by the inhabitants as routine. There are a couple of usages derived from Roman names, such as Exonian for Exeter, or Salopian for Shropshire, but they are not much used. Stratfordian and Oxfordian are not related to the inhabitants, but to those who believe the works of Shakespeare were written by the chap from Stratford, who signed his name most commonly as 'Shagspeer'  - if six examples can be called common - or who believe they were written by the then Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. 


Most of the French terms seem to be of two types. The most frequent is to add -ais to the end of the name, such as Granvillais, Caennais and so on, and the second to add -ois, as in Niçois or Virois. Then there is Parisien, but it then gets very, very confusing. Here are a few examples: Vannes: Vannetais; Avranches: Avranchinais, Saint Lo: Saint Lois.


It can get very strange: the inhabitants of Manvieu-le-Bocage are apparently les Mévéens, the people in Manche les Manchots (though this is being replaced by Manchois). The people from Villedieu-les-Poêles -God's Town of the Saucepans - are called most often les sourdins, the deaf ones, from the centuries of hammering copper, but also les Théopolitains - theos from the Greek for god, politi for town. Those from Lisieux are les Lexoviennes from the Roman name of the town.


My favourite is that for Pont l'Evéque - Bridge of the Bishop, where the splendid cheese is made. There is a Bishopsbridge Road in London, near Paddington Station, but it is utterly anonymous. The people of Pont l'Evéque are known as les Pontepiscopiens or, sometimes, les Episcopontains! That is just strange, but it does imply some knowledge of Latin.

Jazz in Granville

A recent jazz concert in Granville was another illustration of the way the arts are flourishing in Normandy. The musicians were the Indigo Trio, from Chicago: Nicola Mitchell on flute and voice, Hamilton Bankhead on bass and Hamid Drake on drums. The venue was the tiny 64 seat Théatre de Presqu'Ile in Granville. I have been to this theatre before, and this time it was also completely full. In fact there was not just standing room only, but the eight or nine children in the audience were moved onto the sides of the stage to make more room. Brilliant performance by a terrific group, who were clearly not used to playing such a small place, nor to the different ways of a provincial French audience. 


After a 45 minute starting piece, and a couple of shorter numbers, they took a bow, and then looked at each other in bemusement, because the audience applauded enthusiastically, but nothing else. French audiences are very respectful towards the artists, and assume that the artist decides what he or she will do, and that decision is the right one on artistic grounds. Not up to the audience to question that, so there was no expectation that there would be encores. However, after a minute or so, an English voice in the audience (not me) called out 'Could we have another please?'. The musicians were greatly relieved, and started another 45 minutes.

The group's other concerts in their tour were in much bigger places, like the theatres at Caen and Rouen, but I think the intimacy of the Presqu'Ile made for a better concert than many in the bigger places. The performers were closer to the audience, and the audience could see exactly how the musicians played. This was for me particularly interesting watching the drummer, who had a number of personal techniques. It was fascinating watching some of the more intricate pattern making, and the use of a variety of sticks and brushes. By coincidence, I saw him again on television a week ago, playing with the 77 year old jazz musician Arche Shepp. This was on a programme on the wonderul France-German channel Arte. Shepp was interviewed, and spoke in English and fluent French at random, sometimes switching in mid sentence. The CD with that music is available here, and is a fascinating mix of jazz and - as unlikely as it might seem - rap music.


The Théatre de la Presq'Isle has now been renamed the Théatre de l'Haut Ville, and has become associated with the othert theatre in Granville, the modern Archipel, which has 443 places. Compare Granville, population 14,000, with a similar size of British town, and see if you can think of one with even one functioning theatre, never mind two.

Lac de la Dathee

[This post has attracted many visitors, for some reason. I have created a new one with additional and more recent pictures here]

In the seventies, the need for an improved water supply for the town of Vire led to the damming of a valley fed by a little river, La Dathée. This is now a lake, of about 45 hectares, and has been turned into a leisure resource as well as a water reservoir. There is also a large nature and bird reserve.


There has been a facility for hiring canoes/kayaks. pedalos and so on for some years. There is also a solid, if not formally paved, walk (randonnée) of 6.25 km all the way round. There are a couple of steep slopes, but the path is good for pushchairs and wheelchairs, as well as joggers. As this is France, at the start of the walk by the carpark, there is a little sign describing the creation of the path. It cost 49000 euros, funded more or less equally, by the Basse-Normandie Region, La Manche Department, and Vire town. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, public spending is identified and defined in France.


France is a bit behind the UK generally, in providing wheelchair access, though it is improving. At this lake there is a special car park for wheelchair users, leading on to a purpose built dock for angling from a wheelchair. There are anchorage points, appropriate level barriers, and of course a flat access lane. There is also a picnic area (this is France), but with a couple of specially designed picnic tables: a bench on one side only, and slightly higher than usual, to allow wheeelchair users to share a tables with other people. Not seen that before. This was funded by the same parts of the state, plus a grant from the Credit Agricole bank.

The last time I went to the lake was after the weeks of heavy rain, in early December 2009. The dam (barrage) itself was fairly spectacular, as in the picture. Normally there is no water flowing over the top.The river flowing away from the dam was over its banks. The lake itself has burst its banks all round. The Dathée and another smaller river were overflowing as they entered the lake, additional drainage ditches had been cut all round to prevent the paths being flooded.

2009/2010 - such a winter...

December 2009 and the first week of January 2010 have been unremittingly awful, and therefore highly unusual. Not as dramatic and destructive as the Great Tempest of Boxing Day 1999, but long and continuously depressing in different ways. It started with ten days of virtually constant rain, when the daily rainfall was more than the average for the month. Rivers overflowed their banks, and everywhere was sodden. Then the weather went dry, and often sunny, but day after day below zero. The first two photographs show the valley of the river Sée near Tirepied, between Avranches and Villedieu-les-Poeles. This is a flat valley where normally the river gently meanders along, but in times of heavy winter rain can flood. This year it flooded almost completely, and before the flood waters had all gone they froze. Before there was any chance of a thaw, the snow fell. That was on 17 December. and the picture with cattle was the view from our bedroom window the next morning. And the snow is still here, being renewed every four or five days, just as it looks like the last is going from the fields.

We were marooned in our house for four days. On the second day, a farmer used a tractor with a shovel to try and clear a way out, but once we get out of our little rural lane, the road has a sharp incline, and I could not get all the way to the top - 50 metres - even though my foot was to the floor in first or second gears, the car stopped moving. Downhill ended in a T-junction at the bottom of the valley, with sharp climbs in both directions. The last photo is the walk to the village after three days of snow.

New Year's day, and the snow fell continuously, another foot or so. It was gardually reducing until yesterday, 6th January, when another foot fell. It is snowing again as I type, and of course we cannot get the car out and are marooned again. Fortunately, there is a small epicerie (grocery) we can walk to in the village, and a depot de pain as well, though the two mornings a week butcher hasn't been able to get there.

I know there has been a lot of snow in the last few days in the UK, and it seems the bad weather is stretching all the way to the south of France. Must be the climate change - global warming leading to a shift which in the short term is very cold, before overheating. It is also interesting that we in western Europe have had unreasonably good weather, compared with North America, for centuries and longer. Toronto in Canada is on the same latitude as Madrid, and they have snow for six months every year. Snow is really pretty for the first day, but ther magic wears off. I found that in Quebec a few years ago, when the temperature was minus 25 without counting the wind chill, and there was no free running water anywhere. The Saint Lawrence river at Quebec city is about a kilometere wide, and was entirely frozen except for a single little channel kept open by an icebreaker chugging up and down 24/24. We have not got it that bad, yet, but ten years after La Tempete, another bad winter. Is a pattern developing?