2010 brought a new dimension to our life here and that is our friends Lynn & Alan and Curtis & Dee. We “met” both couples through this website. They had both bought plots of land in Foussais and, while searching the web for information about this area, they came across La Vie en Foussais and got in touch. Prior to them moving here permanently, we met up during their various trips to Foussais, but nothing could have prepared us for the fun that was about to come our way!

We have spent many a happy evening, or Sunday afternoon, sharing “aperos” and enjoying our time together. Both couples are marvellous with our children and we are very lucky to have them around the corner from us.

One particular sunny summer Sunday afternoon we were having a gathering. Let me set the scene….

The location was chez Curtis and Dee, the drink – pamplemouse rosé.

(I should give a quick explanation. We discovered pamplemouse rosé while attending a free jazz concert at the Salle Polyvalante at the beginning of summer. We bought what we thought was our usual interval drink, a little glass of rosé. On drinking, we discovered an unusual taste; not unpleasant but not expected either. “Mmmmm…” we thought, “not bad”. It was only when we got to the bottom of the glass that the true wonder of this drink became clear. This was rosé wine mixed with a pamplemouse (grapefruit) liqueur *.  Well, let’s just say, a trend was set, and the rest is history. Summer had a whole new dimension!)

So, back to the story. Fuelled by aperos and pamplemouse rosé, talk turned to “Let’s have a party!”. Curtis and Dee were spending Christmas in Foussais, but Lynn, Alan and us Barleys were all heading to England. However, it turned out we were all going to be back for New Year, so the plan was made. New Year’s Eve party – our house – more friends invited – good times ahead!

Now, I’m still not so sure how this came about, but we decided fancy dress would be a good idea. We discussed Super-Heroes, Musicals or Films and Nursery Rhymes…and then Lynn said “We once went to a party dressed as gnomes…”.  Great idea! We could all take a character. Rosie loves 1940′s style, so her character was “Keep The Gnome Fires Burning”. Molly, who loves football, would be “Gnome Goal”.  Joe, our James Bond fan, would be “Double Gnome Seven”. The possibilities were endless! A phone call, along with an invitation to the party, was made to Jim and Val (our super-hero seamstress!)

So this is how Foussais became invaded by gnomes on 31st December. The gathering included “The Gnome-Coming Queen” (me), “Gnome On The Range”(Richard), a “Metrognome”, “Gastronome”, “Gnome Improvements”, a “Gnome Help”, “Twickergnome”, a National “Elf” Service Nurse, some “Gnomads” and a smattering of Smurfs!

The night was to be a relaxed affair. As is tradition in the Barley family, quizzes were written, games were devised, food was prepared, candles were lit and costumes were on. Friends arrived, and what a huge effort they had made! After much eating, dancing and chatting it was time for quizzes. A note to friends who will be joining us in the future – learn your Christmas tunes! Who would have thought quotes from really well-known Christmas songs could have been the reason for so many blank faces?

Of course, with the hour’s difference  New Year gives us a chance to celebrate twice. Our friends Annie, Drew and the girls, along with the rest of their party, joined us on Skype for our midnight celebration and then we joined them for theirs. We will never forget us being put on Annie and Drew’s windowsill to watch the chinese lanterns being set of in the street!

I love New Year. A time to reflect on the good times shared, good times to come, family and friends. A big thank you to Val, Richards Mum, for our fab costumes and a great big thank you to our lovely  new Foussais friends who give us such great times and happy memories.

* You can mix rose with pamplemouse syrup which is a little less lethal, but not half as much fun  (Back)

This was The Plan:

• We (Lisa and I) travel to London on Thursday for the TweetDeck Christmas party
• Rosie & Molly stay with Claire & Tony in Puy-de-Serre
• Joe stays with Kevin & Amal, also in Puy-de-Serre
• We return to France on the Saturday, collect the kids and go home
• We all return to the UK for Christmas with the family the following Tuesday

This post will cover the good stuff. The first half . The time when everything was going well and The Plan actually seemed like it was going to work. We wouldn’t want you to think that everything has been a disaster since we’ve been away!

With the kids all safely deposited at school, and our brilliant friends all lined up to collect & look after them for a couple of days, we set off for Poitiers to catch our flight to Stansted. This being the first time we had been away on our own, leaving the kids behind, we both had very mixed feelings. Even though I travel a lot, I am generally on my own and only have myself to think about. Travelling with Lisa was very different (in a good way, of course!) and I couldn’t be my usual businesslike self. Lisa was both excited and nervous about meeting the TweetDeck team, and, of course, leaving the kids behind felt very strange.

The weather was lovely in France, so there were no delays to our flight. Everything went very smoothly and we were soon landing in a dark and gloomy London, feeling very pleased that we had managed a successful trip so far.

Our succes continued, with no problems on the Stansted Express at all and it delivered us into Liverpool Street in plenty of time. The team meal out was planned for that night, so the earlier we got there, the more time we would have to get ourselves freshened up and ready to party. The walk from the station to the hotel was a chilly one, as the icy wind had whipped up and there was snow in the air. But we got to the Travelodge in plenty of time, unpacked, changed and set off down the road to the office.

At the office, the wine was already flowing and there were even donuts left, so the party had definitely already started! Everyone made Lisa very welcome, as I knew they would, but it was great to have her finally meet the folk from work after 18 months. The evening’s fun began with a lovely meal at The Larder restaurant. It was a fantastic meal, and a great atmosphere. There was a “Secret Santa“, in which I gained a….delightful…pink microphone/shower radio…hmmmmm…..  But the evening really came alive with the opening o the mysterious round presents from Iain, which turned out to be big Angry Birds soft toys. We lined them all up behind us in the restaurant, which caused quite a few raised eyebrows among the other party-goers.

After lots of lovely food, and even lovelier wine, we ventured out into the snow-sprinkled streets of London in search of somewhere to continue the festivities. We ended up at a Belgian bar, drinking some very strong Belgian beer, but having some great chats. After a couple of far-too-strong-to-be-healthy beers, we staggered our way back to the hotel, feeling very lucky to have spent such a wonderful night with some lovely people.

The next morning was spent in the TweetDeck “Batcave”. I was working and Lisa was chilling on the sofas. The team were planning a trip to the BFI to see Tron:Legacy 3D at the Imax in the afternoon, so, as we hadn’t been able to get a ticket for Lisa, we were planning an afternoon on Oxford Street. However, with the weather closing in and snow falling, James decided that he wasn’t going to stick around for the trip to the cinema, so there was a spare ticket for Lisa, which was great news.

The film was excellent. I mean, really excellent. Because I have a lazy left eye, I wasn’t sure the whole 3D thing was going to work for me, but it certainly did! We both loved the film, and watching it on such a huge screen was quite special. To add to the excitement, we saw Jonathan Ross in the foyer! We were, sadly, too slow to grab him for a photo – he looked rather scruffy anyway… – but it was pretty cool to see him there.

Earlier in the day we had made arrangements to meet up with our old beach buddies, Kevin & Sylvie. They had left La Rochelle behind and moved back to England a year ago to help their work situation, and we hadn’t seen them since. So we were looking forward to meeting up for a curry on Brick Lane that evening. Before then though, we wanted to take a trip to Oxford Street to see the lights. Lisa had promised the French schools she helps in that she wold take some photos of Christmas in London, so we dived onto the tube and headed for Oxford Circus to take a few snaps before our rendezvous with The Dixies.

As it turns out, we literally did only take a few snaps, as, rather against form, they arrived at Liverpool Street ahead of schedule! So we ended up dashing down the street, taking a few snaps for the kids in school, and then jumping back on the tube again to meet up at the station.

As soon as we met again, it was just as if we had never been apart – the sign of being with true friends. We started chatting at the station and never stopped until we retuned back there again several hours later. During the evening we walked to Brick Lane, where Kevin negotiated us a great deal with one of the many restaurant touts who line the streets there. It was the first “proper” curry we had had for years, and it didn’t disappoint. Though we were all more focused on catching up with a year’s-worth of news than worrying about the food.

It was so good to get reacquainted with our old friends and we vowed to not make it another 12 months before saw each other again.

And so, after leaving  our friends at the station, and having had a wonderful day with the TweetDeck team, we went back to the hotel.

It had been a great couple of days and I was particularly thrilled that everything had gone so well. As you may have guessed, this good fortune didn’t last very much longer…

I lost my blogging mojo a little toward the end of the year and ended up somewhat neglecting you, my faithful readers. But fear not, for I am back and ready to update you all on our comings and goings over the last few weeks.

We have been busy preparing for Christmas…

Joe had his concert (“Arbre de Noel”)…

we trecked back to Grimsby in the car for Christmas…

spent some great times with our family…

and friends…

returned home to Foussais to some very happy cats,

enjoyed a fun (and very long) new year party with our great friends The Dixies…

And to top it all, today saw our first proper snowfall

So that’s brought you all up to date. Now lets get on with enjoying what 2009 has to offer!

We gladly volunteered to help get the room set up for the night. The teachers all work really hard at these events and it’s only fair that we help out where we can. Plus it would be a great opportunity to have more of a chat with some of the other parents there. We must keep practicing our french!  So the whole family went along in the afternoon armed with scissors and selotape to transform the empty hall into a seaside extravaganza!

The afternoon was a frenzy of cutting, stapling and sticking with everyone pitching in to create a blue and white seaside ambience. The tables had candles in sea-shells and Lisa helped to make some little paper boats to sit alongside them. There were balloons to blow up and a fishing net to mount on the wall. There was even a full-sized sail from a windsurfer that took its place at the front of the hall.  I had the slightly dangerous job of climbing onto the wobbly steps to secure said sail and to tie up the balloons. Luckily I escaped unscathed and without any broken bones – quite a result for me!

It was a really good afternoon, topped off after a while by everyone retiring to the kitchen where those in charge of preparing the nights feast were cracking open the wine.  Never ones to shy away from a chance to socialise over un peu du vin, we joined in and met some really great folks. Of course we were far too polite to refuse a second glass, and the sangria just had to be tried. And how could we risk incurring the wrath of the locals by not sampling the red wine too?

All in all a very pleasant afternoon. Luckily we had walked down to the hall so the walk stagger home again helped to sober us up

Well aware that we probably wouldn’t be eating any time before 11pm, and mindful of the fact that the wine would once again be flowing, we had something to eat while we watched Strictly Come Dancing. If only we knew how the disco was going to be later we could have taken notes….

The do started at 8.30, so of course we got there for 8.30 and of course we were virtually the first people there. One day we will learn…

There were 8 tables, each with people assigned to them. We were  on the table closest the dance floor (they must have known…) with Nathalie & Thierry. Molly and Rosie were with us at the table, but Joe was able to have his meal early with the rest of the children on a special table at the front. This was very handy as it meant that he could eat with his friends before they all went off to another room for fun and games while the adults enjoyed the rest of the night in peace

With the kids safely off being entertained, we helped tidy away their tables and chairs and then it was time for the evening to kick off properly. The bar was open – more sangria anyone? – and the crowds gathered. We did feel a little out of it at first as we had arrived so early and established outselves at the table it felt odd to move and plant ourselves in the middle of the crowd at the bar just so we could try to join a conversation. We have come a long way in terms of being able to chat socially with people, but when in a crowd it is still really hard for us to keep up. So we hung back this time, slightly disappoiinted in ourselves, but promising that we would be more confident by the next event.

Our predictions proved correct as it was around 11pm by the time the food started appearing. We started with a lovely spicy onion soup, with croutons and cheese sprinkled on top. Delicious! This was followed by the main event – the paella. None of us had tried paella before, but we all like rice, chicken (apart from Lisa, being a veggie) and mussels. So it really wasn’t a surprise to find that we really liked it. The big prawns were a first, having only previously encountered them devoid of head, legs, tail etc. Nathalie gave me a quick lesson on how to eat them – essentially just pulling them to pieces to reveal the tasty meat in the middle. This turned out to be a rather messy task, falling under my “too much hard work for too little reward” heading of foods. But enjoyable all the same.

The whole thing was washed down with a very pleasant bottle of rosé, which once again confirmed our belief that drinking from really small glasses doesn’t make you drunk.

We could have had as much paella as we could eat I think – there was plenty left on our dish and extras were being offered around all the tables, without too many takers it seemed. Paella is very filling!  After all this came a lovely traditional apple tart with a slab of cheese (om nom nom nom…). All topped off with a coffee.

Suberb value once again for €9 each adult and we can’t fault the organisation. Everyone chipped in to help in some way – serving. clearing plates, washing up…. A great community event and we really enjoyed the chance to sit and chat with people.

Once the tables were cleared the disco began in earnest.

We hadn’t experienced a french disco before and therefore were unsure what to expect in the way of music. As it turns out it was, shall we say, an ecclectic mix! It ranged from The quickstep to “Achy Breaky Heart”…from traditional accordian music to “Tainted Love”, with Billy Ray Cyrus and Soft Cell being just about the only 2 recognisable sounds out of 2 hours of music 80s-style euro-pop.

It seemed to hit all the right spots with the locals though as most seemed to have a well coreographed dance for pretty much every tune that came up. We had never seen anyone jiving, waltzing or line-dancing to so many different styles of music before. It was very entertaining!

We basically danced for the rest of the night. Well, by “we” I obviously mean Lisa, Joe and I. The girls, being the ages that they are, could not bring themsleves to get up and dance at all. Granted the music wasn’t really very inspiring for them, but they did look funny sitting there sith their arms folded and their best bored faces on all night   Meanwhile we danced the night away with Nathalie, until we got to the point where the kids were just about asleep at around 1.30am. We wearlily dragged ourselves off the dancefloor and back home to bed for a big sleep and a long lay-in!

What a great day we had had. the afternoon had been an ideal way to meet some new people and for them to learn a bit more about these crazy english folks who keep turning up. And the evening was a huge success. We are now looking forward to the next event – we’d better get our line-dancing lessons booked!

It was a blisteringly hot day and we were very concerned that the kids would all get collapse under the heat, so we erected the gazebo and the parasol on the field to provide some shade. We filled the cool bag up with lots of bottles of cold water and planned games that were not too energetic.

Yes, thats right, games. I know Molly was 11 and, had she been in England, the idea of organising party games would have been laughed at. But here it’s the done thing, and how nice it is too. There’s none of the competition that there was in England about who can provide the most spectacular party, with the most incredible activities and the most wonderful party bags. Here there is just the child, their friends and some good old fashioned games. Throw in a bit of cake and brioche to keep their energy levels up and you’re good to go.

So we got sorted out for some of our favourite old party games, including:

• Drawing a person by folding the paper into 4, someone draws the head, then passes it on to the next person to draw the body…and so on
• The balloon race – stand in a line and pass the balloon alternately over your head & between your legs. First team to go through the line 5 times wins
• Carry a penny between your knees and try to drop it in a bowl. First team to get all their pennies in the bowl wins
• Spoon & string – tie a spoon to a length of string. The first person passes the spoon down inside their clothes, then the next passes it up inside theirs, then the next one down and so on. First team to get the spoon all the way through wins. Then another race to see who can pull the string back again the fastest.
• The chocolate game – roll a die, if you get a 6 you have to put on a hat, scarf and gloves and start eating a big bar of chocolate with a knife and fork. Meanwhile the die is still being passed round so if someone else gets a 6 they immediately take over. Much fun with this one as everyone is desperate to start eating the chocolate so, when they get a 6 they jump up and start donning the gear, only to have to give it up before they start eating as the next person has rolled a 6!

We also came up with a little anglo-french game which involved the kids being given an english word, then having to go find all the letters, which were hanging from the trees in the garden, to spell the same word in french. This worked well until we found that the wind had blown some letters away, and we had spelt one of the french words wrong. But hey ho, it kept them amused for a while!

In between games they were all content to eat, drink and jump on the trampoline. It was so hot that they didn’t really want to charge about too much, which was nice, as neither did we.

Molly really impressed us with her spoken french. We haven’t really heard her speak very much french, so it was lovely to hear her explaining the rules of the games to her friends in a super french accent. Very impressive and quite reassuring – we were beginning to think that she was having difficulties with it, but clearly not.

If there was one problem then I think it was that the party was a fraction too long. If it had been half an hour shorter I think it would have been perfect. We just felt it took a bit of a dip at the mid-point, although that may well have been due to the heat.

After everyone had left, our friends took pity on us once again and invited us for drinks, eats and a dip in their pool. A very welcome end to a great day.

On Saturday it was cutting-the-grass-on-the-field day.

My mission, should i choose to accept it, was to mow the grass on our 1000m2 field with just our little mower (sadly no sit-on loveliness for me…). I attacked the task with some vigour, taking the ever-decreasing-circles approach. I got into a good rhythm with it, emptying the grass box after each circuit. It is a pretty depressing task at first, as there always seems to be SO MUCH left to do. but I stuck with it. It was a lovely day and I was enjoying being out in the sun for once, after all the rain we have had. Having passed the psychological barrier of getting to the other side of the fruit trees things really accelerated. Finally, 3 hours later, my mission was complete and I have to say, although it may be “undulating” to say the least, it does look good when it is all freshly cut.

So, after my mornings toiling in the field, I just had time to scrub the chlorophyll from my fingers before taking Joe to his first French birthday party. We bought a present and a card, but needn’t have bothered with the latter – cards are just not done in France. It has taken quite some getting used to, as we have always sent cards on special occasions. But here we have really struggled to find any. In the UK you can call into any corner shop and you’ll generally find a selection of averagely-decent greetings cards. But here in sleepy Vendée it seems the locals have no need for such frivolity. Now, I am personally not a great fan of cards anyway, especially Christmas cards. I’m no Scrooge, but I think generally Christmas cards contribute so much misery and bring very little joy. People tend to spend weeks finding the cards, buying them, writing them, finding people’s addresses, buying stamps, sticking them on, posting them, waiting to receive them, wondering why they haven’t received one from so-and-so…..I really can’t be done with the hassle.

Although now, being in a different country, I think maybe they have a better purpose. As we won’t see the majority of the people who normally send us cards, it will make a lot more sense to send a greeting. Compare this with the normal situation when we send (or even worse, TAKE) cards to people who we see several times a week, it just seems ridiculous to me.

Anyway, I seem to have veered off the subject somewhat. Christmas can wait!

Back to Joe’s party – he had a great time. We went to pick him up and the very friendly (French) parents invited us in for “quelque chose a boire…”. Very nice it was too. We chatted over a coffee (tell me why, somebody, do French people not own electric kettles?) and we got to practice our French, as they spoke no English at all. This was great – just what we need – a friendly young French family to have a conversation with. All the people that we generally have cause to converse with are, shall we say, at the higher end of the age spectrum compared to us. It was a refreshing change to speak to someone of a similar vintage.

All hopes of a long-term friendship were quickly shattered though when they told us that they were moving away from Foussais in August due to work. Drat and double-drat! Ah well, the quest continues!

Our busy weekend didn’t stop there, oh no. On Saturday night we sat down to enjoy episode 2 of Doctor Who (Catherine Tate is growing on me…) and then it was the annual “Bal Folk” in the village – a folk dancing evening organised by the local school. We were determined that we should go as it was an ideal opportunity for us to introduce ourselves to some more of the local community and a rare chance for us to have a night out. So we arranged to meet some friends there at 9pm (quite why we said 9 I do not know…it only “started” at 9, which generally means 10). 9pm came and we arrived in the car park of the Salle Polyvalente. No sign of our friends as yet – no doubt they had added the obligatory hour to the starting time. So we sat and waited…

One by one, the cars arrived and out climbed a collection of people who I would have identified as folk dancers, even if I didn’t know that’s where they were going. A varied mix of ages (mainly from 50-80 needless to say) and various different dress codes. Some were clearly professionals in their full skirts and sensible dancing shoes. Some looked like they had just got out of bed and had not had time to change from their pyjamas.

We sat for about 20 minutes….no sign of our soon-to-be-former friends…if they didn’t come soon we would have a big decision to make. Do we go in, risk being the only non-French, non-folk-music-groupies, non-geriatric people there? Or do we go home and watch the next round of “I’d Do Anything” with several glasses of wine?

We progressed to the path outside the hall, from where we could see the professional dancers doing their stuff – it all looked quite complicated. Our procrastination was put to an end however when the school headmaster arrived. “Are you coming in?” he asked (in his rapid-fire French, so we assumed that was what he said…). Under such unbearable interrogation, we finally caved in and joined in the fun.

And what fun it was! We had the idea of just sitting and watching for a while to get the feel for it, but our fellow dancers had other ideas. We were dragged up to join in the dances, passed from person to person in a state of merry confusion. It took us a while to get the gist of each dance, but we made the best of a bad job and let ourselves get carried along by the rest. We had a whale of a time… even Rosie, for whom the whole parents-folk-dancing thing was just too much of an embarrassment to comprehend, managed to have a fairly good time. The people were great, we met lots more folks, spoke plenty of French (although “Zut! C’est difficile!” was quite a mainstay of the night) and had ourselves a really good night out. Although we left at just gone midnight, the dancing was due to go on for another couple of hours – us young’uns just couldn’t stand the pace!

Sunday came far too early and we spent the morning preparing for the arrival of some friends from England. They have a holiday home near Cognac and were over for Easter so they said they’d pop in to see us. We had a great time with them and it was nice to share experiences of the house-buying process.

So eventually our busy weekend drew to a close. We watched Tara hang up her Nancy necklace – a wise decision i think – and had a decent night’s sleep. All in all it had been a great weekend and we all felt rather proud of ourselves for our achievements.