Monthly Archives: September 2008

Just a perfect day…

Posted on by Richard
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Yesterday was, I think, the perfect day.

The location: Île de Ré. The company: perfect. The weather: beautiful.
Ile de Re with the Dixies
The children played all day with buckets, spades, body-boards and lightsabers.
Ile de Re with the Dixies

We relaxed, chatted and just soaked up up the sun as it continued to bake the west coast of France.

We introduced the Dixies to the game of Kubb [website].
Ile de Re with the Dixies
And,  most excitingly, our resident hunter-gatherer prised us some oysters off the rocks and both Lisa and I ate one for the first time ever!
Ile de Re with the Dixies

The verdict? Not actually as bad as we had anticipated. And these were lacking in any lemon juice, or white wine to wash them down. I think we were both rather chuffed that we had managed to crack another culinary fear.

Now, as for snails and frogs legs, that is definitely a different matter…

Ile de Re with the Dixies

See the full set of photos from the day [here]

Les vins des Fiefs Vendéens – actually not at all bad

Posted on by Richard
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A while ago I bemoaned the lack of nice, cheap Vendéen wine [here]. Well, my complaints met with a swift rebuttal from my friend Jon over at The Vendee Blog [link], who suggested that actually there were lots of Vendéen wines about and I agreed that we should probably try some before making such bold claims.

So, on our night out at La Rochelle we took along a bottle of Chaignée Cadet rouge, from the vinyards at Vix [map]. And, to be honest, it wasn’t at all bad. I have had much worse wines in my time (unsurprisingly) and it was very quaffable. I’m not sure if it made any difference that we drank it out of the worlds tiniest glasses [evidence here], but at least that meant that it lasted a long time!

Buoyed by our success with this wine, Lisa slung a bottle of “Vendée One” Rose, from Rosnay [map], into the trolley the other day, and, although I am yet to sample that one, she tells me that it too is a rather pleasant selection.

So it seems that, from our brief foray into the wines of our region, there is hope. However, both the wines we have tried were in the region of €3.49 each, a good €1 over what we would normally pay. I know this is down to volumes etc and as the market for these wines increases then prices will fall, but when one is more focussed on quantity rather than quality, unfortunately the mass-produced, cheap-and-cheerful will continue to be our main-stay.

So apologies to the master growers in the region. Your wine is nice and will no doubt grace our table from time to time. But please let me know when you start doing a 10 litre box for €12 :)

La Vie en Foussais in your inbox

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The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I now have a “Subscribe by email” link on the right-hand column. This is for those of you who are just so excited by the articles on La Vie en Foussais that you want to be the first to read them! If this sounds like you then click the link, fill in your email address and complete the spam-catching “type-the-letters” doofer. You will then get a confirmation email from Feedburner (who are providing this service for me). Click the link in the confirmation email et voila! You are now subscribed!

What this means is that any time I post a new item on the site, you will recieve it direct in your inbox – words, pictures and everything! 

Ah the wonders of modern technology eh?  If you get stuck somewhere along this process, just drop me a note in the comments here and I’ll try to help you out.  Otherwise, happy reading!

A simply spectacular soirée at La Rochelle

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Each year in the port at La Rochelle there is a huge boat show called Le Grand Pavois [website], which lasts all week and culminates in a spectacular show combining boats, fireworks and music. As you probably know by now, we love anything like that, so when Kevin and Sylvie suggested we go over and watch it with them, we jumped at the chance.

Crocodiles?…in France?

We started the evening with a stroll through the park near their house. La Rochelle is somewhere we have passed around and through in the car, but have never had chance to explore, so it was really good to see some of the parts of the city that attract thousands of people here every week. It was a very picturesque park, with the path leading us through the trees, alongside a river, over bridges, and finally delivering us to the beach. All very nice indeed – we can certainly see the benefits of living here.

On the beach there was an amazing sand-sculpture of a crocodile (dragon?) which even had real fire in his nose! Apparently it was made by a guy who sleeps on the beach in a tent. He is certainly very talented.
Grand Pavois - La Rochelle Sept 2008

Having walked along the walls of the old port, we spotted some empty places on the other side, our intended viewing position for the night’s entertainment. So we hopped on the little boat-bus that whizzed us across the water to the other side, where we found a good place to sit, right on the edge of the wall. No-one was going to come and stand in front of us!

Its Pineau time!

So we were settled in our spot with about 3 hours before the show was due to start, so what were we to do? Eat and drink of course! Out came the Pineau (naturally) and the snacks and we kept ourselves entertained by trying to pour the drink into the tiniest of glasses in a strong wind :) and watching the boys demonstrating their jedi skills to the passing french…

Grand Pavois - La Rochelle Sept 2008

While we waited, the boats that were going to take part in the show drifted past us into the port, and shortly after we were entertained (slightly) by some waveriders (like water-skiers but on a single ski) going up and down down the odd trick.  Rather strangely there was also a barge going up and down the water containing some Irish dancers, although there didn’t seem to be much dancing going on which was a bit disappointing.

Anyway, as the sun slowly dipped down behind the La Rochelle skyline, the time for the start of the show approached.

Grand Pavois - La Rochelle Sept 2008

Into the west

As darkness finally enveloped the port-side, it began. Firstly, all the boats, lit by simple torches, floated slowly from the port and out to sea accompanied by some beautifully haunting music and some lovely “gentle” fireworks. It was a really moving start and reminded me (geek that I am) of the ending of “The Return of the King” when the elves sail off into the west… anyway, don’t get me started on that!

Grand Pavois - La Rochelle Sept 2008

After the parade of  boats, the fireworks started in earnest, with an incredible display. The walls of the port and the buildings facing us were all lit in a variety of colours to tie in with the fireworks and there was music piped across the port. I know we say it every time we have been to a fireworks display, but we all thought that this one was simply the best one yet. I think the combination of the location, the music, the lights, the fireworks, and sharing it with great friends, made it such a breathtaking end to the day.

We were all very numb after sitting on the port-side for so long, but the wine and the pineau helped out there, and it was all worth it in the end.

France Telecom – just one nightmare after another

Posted on by Richard
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I have a hate-hate relationship with France Telecom. Here’s why…

Once upon a time…

It all started when we first arrived in France. I visited the office in Fontenay-le-Comte to request my phone line and internet. No problem there. I struggled to explain my requirements in French to the lady in the shop, who had an air of “Why did I get this customer…?” about her. But explain I did and she gave me my LiveBox in a bice big “Orange” bag. “In 10 days it will be ready” she said. So home I go, plug in the live box and wait 10 days…

…10 days later I turn it on. Aaaaaaaand – nothing. Nada. Zilch. Oh, okay, I fib a little. I had lights on my Livebox. Red lights. Flashing lights. Unfortunately, in the world of LiveBoxes, flashing lights are A Bad Thing. So off I trot back to see the lady in the FT shop. Sadly, the “assistants” (I use quotes, as they didn’t really assist at all) didn’t understand me. “Come back tomorrow, talk to the lady who speaks english”.  Well, that all sounded rather encouraging. A helpful english-speaking employee who would tell me in a language that I fully understood why my link to the outside world was just blinking at me like a sad little grey alien.

So back I went, full of enthusiasm that I would get to the bottom of my problem. “I’d like to speak to Madame whateverhernamewas please” (sorry, her name has been burned from my brain with my rage). “Over there,” said the “assistant”, pointing to….the same unhelpful person I had spoken to when I first arrived! Argh!  Why, when I was clearly struggling to explain what I needed 10 days ago, did she not speak english then? Jeeeeeez!

Anyway, I calmed myself with a few blows of  the head against the wall, and made my pitch to the “english-speaking lady”. “My livebox doesn’t work. I cannot get the phone or the internet.”  ”Oh let me check.” Tappity tap on Big Master Computer System. “Ummmm….no, you can’t have the internet. Only dial-up. Go find a CD and use that. Goodbye.”

“….errrrrm…….what?…..”

“It is impossible”

“Why?”

“It is impossible”

“What do I need to do to make it work?”

“Nothing. It is impossible”

 

The end of the road…?

So there was me, having moved to rural france in order to work from home for my INTERNET-based company, facing the prospect of only being able to use dial-up?! I think you might be able to figure out my state of  mind at this point. Selling the house after 1 month a was a distinct possibility.

Now, this was all happening in the week running up to Christmas, so this left us without a land-line and without the internet over Christmas and the new year. Really not good. We had planned to join with family and friends on Skype over the holidays, it being our first Christmas away, but that was now out of the question. As mobile reception is sketchy to say the least, anyone wanting to contact us had a very small chance of actually getting through to us. Not a good situation.

Anyway, I will try to move on otherwise this post will last forever…  

Marion to the rescue!

Luckily for us, we had a great estate agent marion, who speak fluent french (and english, luckily :) ) and she got on the case for us, calling the central FT number. I was also trying things out via the web channel. Between us we figured out that everyone else thought that we should be able to get up  to 18mb broadband, so why didn’t the FT shop? Well, it says a big red IMPOSSIBLE on the Big Master Computer System, so there’s no need to look into it any further. Fortunately, the nice people on the phone arranged for an engineer to visit.  Several days later, he arrived. He looked at the LiveBox. Sucked the air through his teeth. Went back out to the van. Fiddled with something (we know not what) and came back in. “There you go, all working”.  Lights no longer flashing. All systems go. Total time to fix was 15 minutes. 15 minutes!!!! We had been without phone and internet for about 2 months fort the sake of 15 minutes!

 

Ding ding…round 2

So anyway, thankfully that little episode was behind us. Now skip forward several months to September 2008.  We’ve been here 9 months and we’re all getting on well with the language. The kids are settled into school and have plenty of frineds. We feel its about time they watch a bit less English tv and start watching some french programmes at last.  The location of the house rules out digital tv via an ariel, so I am reliebly informed. So I have 2 options. Stick another satelite dish on the house, alongside the one currently pointing at the english satlelite. Or, hang on, what’s this? TV via the LiveBox. Oooh, now that would solve a problem. no second dish. No more unsightly wires across the front of the house. Good option. So I tap our phone number into the little widget on the Orange website to find out which options are available on our line. Woopee, it says it will work! At last, something is going right!

So I summon up the energy to head on over to the FT shop and ask for them to do their thing and make it happen. Let me have some of that french TV loveliness if you please monsieur.

“What’s your telephone number?”

“blah-dee-blah blah-dee-blah…” (I hate the way you have to say it in pairs of numbers or no-one understands you :( )

Tappity tap on Big Master Computer System. “Ummmm….no, you can’t have TV via the LiveBox Only through a dish. Go find a dish and use that. Goodbye.”

“….errrrrm…….what?…..”

“It is IMPOSSIBLE“

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!