France, Summer 2010: Week 11

Sunday 8 August - Saturday 14 August

Things became more relaxed this week after a rather hectic time and on the Sunday we did very little. On Monday we went to Serignan Plage, stopping for fruit at the stall near the beach on the way home.

In the morning on Tuesday we went to the prayer group, which was supposed to be in a chapel at Puissalicon. But the key holder had forgotten and was not at home, so we went to a little chapel at the religious community just north of Puimisson, only about 10 minutes away. Then Alison Kane invited us for coffee at her house in Puissalicon, so we went (the film evening on 9 July was at her house). She mentioned various British people, including a couple from Neffiès, Diane and Nick McKnight.  On the way home we shopped at the Intermarché at Magalas, which is bigger than the Pézenas one.  The rest of the day we did house cleaning.

After a short early morning walk on Wednesday, most of the day was spent getting ready for Val and Linda, who came to dinner in the evening.  At 5.30 a builder came to have a look at the courtyard, in order to do a quote for fixing the damp in the cellar of the man on the square.  Although I (Roger) was feeling that my French was not bad, I couldn't understand him at all.  I blame the Midi accent.  This visit by the builder followed a visit by André and Thérèse, whose house windows look into our courtyard, the day before.  Their visit followed a visit, just after I came back from England, by the owner of the house on the square whose cave is below the soakaway in our courtyard - he who came to tell David and Simon when they were here last year that there was some sort of problem that they didn't fully understand (or want to know about).  These meetings have all been very amicable and it's been good to meet Thérèse and André.  The saga continues and André is dealing with it.

Dinner on the terrace seemed to work quite well, even if it was a little laborious to keep carrying things up and down.  It helped that the slow cooker could be plugged in upstairs.

John Westwood (priest-in-charge of Rothwell etc) had e-mailed whilst we were away, saying that he needed to be making plans for October and asking if I would be available.  So it was time to make our big decision about whether to move to France or not.  Meeting Val and Linda for a long talk was the final part of our summer-long plan to gather information and experiences in order to decide.  We went for a longish walk, over the ridge to La Rouquette and back via the valley with no easy way back to Neffiès, apart from the "hidden path".  As it happens we found another, shorter, way back, which somebody had marked with paint sploshes.

During the walk we decided that we should move to France.

Next day I e-mailed John Westwood and the churchwardens to tell them what we had decided.  In the afternoon Diane and Nick (who it turns out lived in Rothwell during the 1970s) phoned and invited us for tea: Alison must have told them about us.  We went and had a nice chat.  Not sure about the "house church" that they run though.  On Saturday we did not do much except e-mail friends about our decison and we also phoned Mum and Aunt to tell them.