GOING, GOING, GONE!

 The view at the back of the house has improved no end!

Yesterday morning Enedis vans turned up in convoy and one by one removed the long since redundant pylons.  The electricity supply was placed underground two years ago.

The first job was the removal of all dangling wires then the digging of the concrete pylons out of the ground.  A man on a tower tied something round each pylon about half way up and it was lifted up in the air then lowered carefully to the ground.  Clever stuff.

It was a nervous moment when they set about the one immediately behind the house as it would definitely have taken out the landing and kitchen if it had fallen the wrong way. But these guys knew what they were doing and it was safely on the ground in minutes, stripped of its glass and metal crown and taken away to join the others now piled up at the side of the road.

Maybe now our farmer will finish the work on the field.  We can hope!

The other thing that happened yesterday is that I had my MRI scan on my head.  I was dreading it but as always, although not exactly pleasant, it was not as bad as I expected.  The amazing thing is that I left the clinic with a CD of more than a hundred scan images and three hours later the results arrived by email, being sent to my GP at the same time.  It makes an interesting contrast with the experience of a friend who had an MRI scan in the UK in July and has been told he will have to wait 10-12 weeks for the results.

It's baffling why there is such a difference.  In France there was clearly somebody assessing the images immediately after the scan was done and produced a fairly comprehensive report, presumably filling in a pro forma document online and sending it by email to both patient and GP.  Why on earth can that not be done in the UK in these days of technology?  I'm sure somebody out there knows why but I would guess that the images are sent to someone who looks at them and sends the report on in just the same way.  Is it because there are not enough trained people to assess them and there is a huge backlog?

The good news is that the scan revealed nothing of significance.  Which is good news especially when added to the blood test results which all came back normal too.  The bad news is that so far nothing has been found yet to explain the weird situation with my ears - the tinnitus, the snuffly cold and the headaches I've been having for the last seven months.  I have however managed to secure an appointment with a different ENT specialist one month earlier - in October.  The previous appointment should have been in July but it was cancelled by the clinic at two days' notice and I had to go to the back of the queue for another one.   The earliest available with that person was late November.  Still, at least when I do eventually see someone I will be armed with all significant tests done.

In other news, we have had a busy week.  On Monday morning Nick went to the GP for his prescription review and in the afternoon he drove me to Chatellerault to collect my Harley from the garage complete with a service and a CT (MOT) good for three years.  On Tuesday afternoon Nick got a haircut then I drove him to Chatellerault to collect his Harley with the same and it's good to see them both back in the barn, gleamingly legal and fettled for riding.  On Wednesday morning at 7.15 the nurse arrived at the house to take blood samples for Nick's annual review and we met up with friends for a pizza in the evening.  On Thursday (yesterday) I got my MRI scan and by the time we got home the last few pylons were being removed.  This morning (Friday) we had six stères of logs delivered  at 8.30 and we had stacked all of them in the wood shed by lunchtime.  (A stère is roughly a cubic metre and six of them makes a big pile of logs!)  It was jolly hard work but we were glad for the light drizzle and to get it done before the sun came out!

Last but not least, as I write this Yvonne is corralled in the bedroom because we are going on holiday tomorrow.  We shall use the dish of tuna method to trick her into the cage but she clearly has already sussed that something's afoot.  Then she will be trying out a new cattery.  The one we usually use was fully booked so it's fingers crossed that she will be ok with the new one.  Fingers are however already crossed that we can actually get her into her cage!

Then, tomorrow morning, Nick, Hugo and I are off to the seaside.  We have booked a gite near the north coast of France in a region called Finistère.  We have never explored that area before but it looks beautiful.  It will be the first real holiday we have had since our wet week in Norfolk in May 2021!

STRANGE FARMING

At last, sunflowers and summer weather.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend came round with his drone and took some aerial photos of our house.  It was only after looking at those did I realise that we really do live in the middle of a very large field.  It's all owned by a farmer in a nearby village.  The tarmacked lane between the main road and the next village cuts through roughly the middle of it as it winds its way between farms and small hamlets and we live alongside that road.

We refer to the farmer as "our farmer" and we can differentiate between farmers by the colour of their tractors.  Ours has the only blue one, the others are red or green.

We have been frustrated that for two whole years the bit of field that actually surrounds our house has not been cultivated at all.  Last year our farmer dumped four huge dung heaps strategically around us, causing an annoying problem with flies, and grew a crop in the bit across the road but nothing else.  This year, he did some weedkilling and sowed something over the road but then left it all.  The crop, whatever it was meant to be, was soon swamped by weeds and our house has been surrounded by huge triffid like nasty weeds.  Once the weather warmed up we were a bit concerned that they might be a fire risk.

Nick had already strimmed a border around our property then with an actual heatwave lasting several days forecast he went out and strimmed some more, hoping to create an effective fire break.  The other farmers were up and harvesting from early in the morning, around six am, stopping at lunchtime because of the fire risk in the afternoon heat.  It only takes one spark caused by a tractor striking a bit of flint in the earth to create a crisis.  There has been no sign of the blue tractor for months.

Nick's strimming activities were not without consequence as he ended up with an absolutely hideous rash on his arms.  The redness and blistering were caused we think by the six foot high hogweed that's one of the numerous plants that have flourished all around us due to the lack of actual farming.

Then, completely out of the blue, the blue tractor turned up a week ago and our farmer cut down all the weed-ridden crop in the field across the road and also a bizarre pattern of mowing around and behind our house.  It crossed our minds that he too was concerned about a fire risk.  He widened the clear path around the house that Nick had started and also cut around the abandoned neighbour's house.

Then, he turned up yesterday, on the major bank holiday known as the quinze aout, when all of France is partying (or so it seems) and baled it.  It was half done while we were out during the day and we came home to find him hard at it, creating the usual puthers of dust, and he came back during the evening when we too were out partying and finished it.  The field is now full of very neat brick shaped bales.  I have to wonder what he can do with them as they are ninety percent nasty weeds rather than wheat.

It has improved the view from our house no end but we hope he comes and finishes the job at the back of us as it now has a bizarre crop circle kind of pattern where he mowed some of the weeds down. 

SOAP

These are some of my favourite English and French soaps.

Now this probably seems a weird post to write in the middle of summer when you were expecting pictures of sunflowers and châteaux.

It came about because Nick recently explained why he prefers a bar of soap to liquid soap.  Having been together for over thirty years I previously never knew the reason!  I assumed it was because he thought it was more manly!  He said he couldn’t get on with liquid soap because as soon as you run the tap the soap gets washed off.  

"Does it?" I thought.  

In our French house we have four sinks, or handwashing stations.  One each in the kitchen, utility room, ensuite shower room (or actually the bedroom as the "ensuite" doesn’t really have much in the way of walls around it) and the family bathroom.  Each sink has a bottle of liquid soap next to it and three of them also have a bar of soap. Two of them have two bars of soap, his and hers.

So why this obsession with soap and what about the thorny topic of soap dishes? 

I feel compelled to expand and explain.

Personally I'm a fan of liquid soap.  No more slimy bars of soap sitting in nasty puddles of gloop on the side of the sink, the stuff of nightmares from my childhood.  The worst you might have to deal with is a grubby thumb print on the plunger!

Don’t even mention the wall mounted soap on a stick I first encountered in French restaurant toilets.  Thankfully I haven’t seen one for a long while although it seems you can still buy them.  I used to shudder at the sight of one that was three quarters used, full of deep ugly cracks, and where you really had to wash the soap first before you could wash your hands. Ugh.

These are some of my favourite English and French liquid soaps.  

Now for the enormous variety of soap dishes available.  It has taken me years to find one that actually works; that keeps your soap dry and out of a puddle of slimy gloop. Consequently I have quite a collection of them.

This is the least effective kind.  The little bobbles in the bottom barely lift the soap above the water that runs off it and it soon goes soggy.  Yuk.  They do however make good trinket trays for your earrings!

I found the one on the right in a local French DIY shop several years ago.  It’s brilliant at keeping the soap dry but you obviously have to wipe up the drips on the surface underneath it and give it a wash occasionally.  It's made from plastic coated metal with rubber tips on the feet that stop it from skidding around.   It’s by the sink in the utility room where Nick prefers his own knobbly soap bar.  

Having found how good this soap dish is I went back for another one but they had all been sold and I have never seen one since.

The knobbly soap is an artisan kind of soap, very hard, full of bits of seeds to tackle hardworking gardener's hands and I have only found it on market stalls.  

Next to the gardening soap I keep a bar of girly soap on a different kind of soap dish.  The slots in the tray keep your soap more or less dry and the drips collect in the dish underneath, out of  sight.  The top separates from the bottom easily for cleaning of the dish.

This one was a much recommended internet purchase but I soon abandoned it to the box of spare soap dishes under the kitchen sink.  It works well enough, just about, in keeping your soap dry and out of the puddle, doesn't skid around, but soon produces a slimy residue on the side of the sink.

The same goes for these two, found in French supermarkets.  They keep the soap dryish and don't skid about on the side of the sink but a glurp of slime soon builds up in the dish and underneath.  They're very cheap so as a budget solution not too bad.

Remember these?  Yes, you can still buy them, mostly in old fashioned ironmongers or cut price homeware shops. The only good thing about them is that they are good for sticking your bar of soap to a sloping surface, but the soap is kept barely dry and the holder becomes disgusting rapidly.  Yuk.

These are my current favourites.  The rack is nice and deep and keeps the soap well out of the puddle and perfectly dry.  The puddle can be poured out of the dish until you're ready to clean it.  The rack clicks in and out so you can give it all a good scrub and the base has little rubber feet to keep it from skidding around.  They are made by a company called Joseph Joseph and I got mine in Sainsbury's.

Last but not least, I finally succumbed and invested in two glass refillable liquid soap dispensers.  Some of these can be very decorative (and pricey) but fiddly to use.  Mine came from Ikea, are very functional and not expensive but wouldn’t work on anything other than a very flat worktop surface.  They hold about twice as much liquid soap as a regular plastic bottle and are ideal for use with the cheaper bags of soap refills.

Now back to the original question.  If the liquid soaps run straight off under the tap how do I find them so easy to use?  I had to think about it and analyse how I perform a task that I do many times a day automatically.  I put a good dollop of soap on one hand, turn on the tap to wet the other hand then rub my hands together to lather up before putting them both under the tap.  Works every time.  Simple!

~~~~~~~~~~~

I have written this post using my new laptop and photos taken with my new camera.  It's been an interesting adventure.  The camera is a tiny Canon Ixus and replaces my lovely pink Panasonic FX33 that was in my bag when it was stolen in Barcelona back in 2016, our annus horribilis.  I have missed that camera so much and attempted to replace it by buying second hand ones on Ebay, none of which worked for very long.  Consequently I have two other excellent cameras, one a compact(ish) Panasonic (a generous birthday gift from my brother) and the other a slightly smaller Sony (a birthday gift from Nick).  They both take excellent pictures and I can't complain about them at all.  

However, when my cousin and his wife came to stay he, as a photography enthusiast, brought two cameras, his "proper" camera, which he was constantly adjusting and checking, and his little Canon Ixus which he would occasionally just whip out of his pocket to snap a picture.  It reminded me so much of my beloved FX33 that I decided to get one.  I think the photos taken with my newer Panasonic or my Sony are probably better but I just love how small and light the Ixus is, the smooth feel of it and how easy it is to slip into a bag or pocket.  It is of course a doddle to use.  Horses for courses, as anyone who enjoys taking pictures will know.  (And the same goes for soap!)