Fingers crossed it’ll be better than the last.   It was going to be a fairly quiet time over the Christmas period chez nous, my younger son Mish arrived from Jeddah on the 15th and even having allowed himself 2 hours to get from Charles de Gaule Airport to Montparnasse, still missed his train thanks to a taxi driver who insisted he could navigate the Parisian rush hour in time.    Yeah right, it’ll be the metro next time.   After the short flurry of snow and ice, we decided that as the best of our friends will be away or with their own families at Christmas we would have an ‘alternate’ celebration and invited them to a Winter Solstice dinner.   

I decided to do a curry night as our French friends don’t often have the opportunity of eating Indian food and our English ones enjoy it as much as we do – a real winter warmer.   Everyone had a lovely time and it gave us a nice start to the seasonal festive spirit.   

On the 23rd I finally went to see a specialist for my ’sacro-illiac’ pain only to be told after a thorough examination and x-rays that it wasn’t anything to do with the S-I, it was a nerve trapped in the last 2 veribrae.  This of course means that the last 2 months being painfully manipulated was a complete waste of time and money.  Great!   Still it is my own fault for not going to the spacialist earlier, I did have an appointment on 6 Nov which I cancelled as I believed the Osteopath in the UK and thought it was getting better.   Now I have a 10 day course of Steroids and a back support belt to wear and I can feel the difference already. 

We had a lovely Christmas day with other English friends, we brought the starters, cheeses and deserts – they did the turkey and trimmings so nobody was too stressed out to enjoy the day.  A walk in the afternoon sunshine finished it off beautifully all the better for being able to walk without pain. 

My older son Maz arrived on the 28th from the UK and then we had just a couple of days all together before Mish had to fly back to Jeddah on the 30th.   The New Year was a very low key event as neither of the ‘drivers’ wanted to go anywhere and be tea total and I have night blindness so even sober we’d have probably ended up in the ditch with me behind the wheel.    Well, that’s another Christmas over, I hope anyone reading this had a great time and we wish you the very best of everything in 2010.

We wish you a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2010

Has obviously never met me.   I think I have definitely gone over the average quota here.  So far in the space of a couple of months, my car’s died, the dryer stopped drying, my back improved only to be agrivated by a bus’s emergency stop in the UK, and now my latest emergency …

On Monday I noticed that I had a new floater, you know those funny virus shaped things that float around in your vision, only this one was more like a  greasy smear and I only realised what it was after several sessions of cleaning my glasses.    I got the message that it wasn’t on my lens when it followed my line of vision,  then that night after switching everything off and making my way upstairs in the dark I thought I’d left something on because I saw a light in the corner of my eye.   Turning my head to check – there was nothing, so then I just swiveled my eyes from extreme left to right and there it was again – a flash of light in my left eye.  

I have no idea why because I knew no one with it but ‘detached retina’ came to my mind.  In the morning I looked it up on the internet and went into a total panic, all the symptoms were there alongside warnings of imminent blindness and advise to get to a GP asap.   I didn’t need to be told twice, Ian took me to my doctor at 12 to see him after his last patient and before lunch – I needn’t have been so calculating, he took one look at my face, heard my anxiety about my eye and ushered me in immediately.    His brief look at my eyes didn’t reveal anything but he wrote a letter to a specialist and his receptionist phoned to make an appointment.   I was at the eye clinic in Redon at 1.30pm, was given 3 separate examinations and sat before the specialist for yet more tests by 2pm.   Although she spoke no English and my French is still sadly lacking especially in such a specialist language, she was patience personified and explained that I had indeed got a small detachment in my retina but not to worry as it was nothing that required immediate action.    She said that I should have a 6 monthly check up for the retina and the early stages of a cataract (boy, when you start crumbling…) but that if there was any deteriation in my vision before then I should come to the clinic immediately as an emergency case.   From beginning to final diagnosis was under 3 hours and cost me 70€ of which I shall have a 60% refund – what a fantastic medical service this country has got. 

I also had my first encounter with a French osteopath/kiné and that was certainly different to anything I’d encountered in the UK.   He looked like an aging hippy and scored 0 on the bedside manner scale however, he seemed to hone in on the problem immediately and after some eye watering manipulations asked if everyone was now OK.  Frankly I’d been in too much pain for too long for the recovery to be that quick – my name’s not Lazarus.   I said as much (omiting the Lazarus bit) and looking a tad petulant he set to on my back again.    This time he didn’t ask me anything and just said he’d see me again next Thursday.  I left feeling somewhat disappointed but in the morning I felt reborn and with more bounce than the average spring lamb.   We went out for the day to La baule and had a lovely lunch in Pornichet, watched the kite surfers in the howling gales, had coffee and a stroll in Croisic and went home in high spirits.  

Of course the following day – I had to overdo it didn’t I?   The one thing the osteopath told me was not to lift anything so what did I do?   I set to making mango chutney and beetroot chutney for the local Xmas fete on Sat.   Nothing like heaving huge pans of ingredients on and off the cooker to get the back agrivated again.   Still I got it all done and swore to take it easy until my next appointment.   The fete was nice but a bit disapointing, that’ll teach me to give my recipes away.  Hey ho, every man for himself I suppose, still I managed to sell 40€ worth and there are still a few more fetes before Christmas.   The photo is of Ian’s friends who came to visit him at the beginning of the month and who he hadn’t seen in 30 odd years.  A great time was had by all. 

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Ian then turned his hand to creating a Wendy house for our younger guests, of course this is no ordinary play house – that would be too boring and simple, so it’s in the shape of a Sussex barn – what else?   It has to be seen to be believed, complete with dormer windows, shingle roof and double doors front and back and all made out of pallets.  It’s not quite finished yet but I’m sure it will be long before our next seasons’ guests arrive.   I think the next project is going to be a gazebo so watch this space….

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Whenever I fly back to the UK and then return to Rennes airport, I have this overwhelming urge to kiss the tarmac.  Don’t get me wrong, I do love the land of my birth but hate what it’s become.    I stay with a dear friend in Bognor Regis twice a year and also visit my mother who is now living in a home just outside Chichester.  It never ceases to amaze me how long it takes to actually get to Chi on the A259 which no longer seems to have a rush hour, only continuous traffic jams.   How that road and its users will cope with the avalanche of new houses being built on the outskirts of Bognor,  God only knows.  It will be grim and no-one apart from the builders and future occupants is looking forward to their completion. 

On a personal note, I had a pretty grim time of it as well as I had a trapped nerve on my left side which  got progressively worse until I was forced to go to a osteopathy clinic in Oving, not the easiest place to get to without a car – in fact impossible.  Luckily Some very good friends gave me a lift initially and after a couple of sessions I could say I was almost pain free.   Unfortunately luck was not on my side as on my return by bus from visiting my mother,  the car in front of us swerved into the ditch forcing the bus driver to make an emergency stop.   It was a very controlled stop and no one on the bus was injured or even shaken (or so I thought at the time).  However, the next morning I tried to get up and suffered dreadful pain shooting down the outside of my left leg which was also very weak.  Back to the clinic and surprise, surprise – the jolt the bus had given me had been enough to cause the muscles higher up my spine to spasm and trap another nerve.   Oh joy!   So instead of being 100% by now, I’m almost back where I started, the only positive thing being that it would have been so much worse had all this happened in spring when the garden is so demanding.  At least I can take things easy now and hope my back won’t take long to heal.  After all, I’ve only got to plant my broad beans, garlic, daff & tulip bulbs, turn the compost heap and cover it, bring the outdoor furniture under cover, prune the soft fruit bushes, etc etc….. 

Anyway, I am very happy to be back and still have to pinch myself occasionally in case living my dream is nothing else but just that – a dream.   It’s not all a bed of roses and reality does impose itself on me – apart from my back, my car has given up the ghost (only 5 years after paying 400€ for it), the dryer also needs to be replaced and I want to replace a washing machine and fridge, ho hum shame it wasn’t me picking up that Euro millions cheque for 45,000,000€ this week.   But I can still dream …..

Well we can’t complain, we’ve had a super Indian summer but all good things come to an end eventually and while the sun is still shining and the sky is a deep deep blue, there’s a nip in the air and a chill in the breeze now.    What is sooo frustrating for me is that while there are a hundred jobs I should be doing in the garden before the rains come, I have dreadful pain in my left leg and several different anti inflamatories and pain killers later – nothing seems to be working.   It’s not sciatica and a week in bed didn’t improve it so it’s unlikely to be muscular, next step is seeing the spacialist on the 9 Nov after my return from seeing mum in England.   

So what to do if not gardening?   I can only work on the website for so many hours in the day and standing still kills so even the ironing is being done sitting down – time I think, to get on with a recently found interest in patchwork.   I joined a French Patch group a couple of years ago to try to improve my spoken French and it seemed an ideal subject as I’ve always been handy with a needle.   To say I am overwhelmed by their talent and size of their projects is an understatement,  from the smallest pin cushions to the king sized quilts, their work is exquisite.   As I tend to be a bit too busy in summer to do much I’ve only a few finished pieces to my name and 2 of those went as gifts to friends.   I’ve just completed a wall hanging in a method called ‘crazy’ and it is really addictive.   You just keep adding embelishements and embroidery over a crazy paving structure of different fabrics, lace and anything else you can get hold of.   It’s difficult to know when to stop or even to want to.  

I’ve also finished (bar the border) a massive hanging which I found to do on the internet and involved downloading a patch a month which was a great way to start as it didn’t overwhelm a beginner like me with its size.  One of my winter projects is to get the border done and hang it in one of the gites twin bedrooms  to brighten it up.  

One of my French friends Catherine is an avid patch artist and produces wonderful items which regularly humble me with their beauty and intricacy.  She recently finished an amazing piece made with hundreds of tiny patches created with a reverse appliqué technique, really incredible stuff.   She has been doing patch for years but I doubt I will ever rise to her ability or patience.  

I can’t say my conversation skills have vastly improved but I have found a great interest for those dark winter evenings and met a lovely group of ladies who couldn’t have been more welcoming and friendly.    If you haven’t been to France before, don’t let the bad press the French receive put you off,  they are a wonderfully warm, friendly, helpful, polite and patient lot and so long as you make a bit of an effort to at least say ‘bonjour’ they repay that a hundredfold.   Say bonjour  on your next holiday by staying here in our gites  and get the comforts of home with the excitement of a new country thrown in.  If  patch is your thing, there’s a huge show in Nantes every April that I was lucky enough to go to on my birthday this year,  we even met Kaffe Fasset so well known for his vibrant colour designs.  Another great event in Loire Atlantique. 

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