Christmas Letter 2010

Les Mousseaux

49490 Breil

France

Telephone : 0033 241 825360

Email: holidays@loire-gites.eu

Website: www.loire-gites.eu

To all our old colleagues, friends, family, previous guests of 'La Moussette' and others, 'bonne annee' and 'joyeux Noel'.

'Sharp Boreas Blows'

' Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours,' ' said Robert Byrne.

That quotation just about hits the nail on the head. It reminds us of our summer complacency when we are basking in warm sunshine and everything is bursting with life.

Here, as with many of you, we have had the coldest start to winter in living memory. Summer visitors tend to imagine that France is always sunny and warm (I think we used to think that), and they forget our winters are every bit as cold as yours. On the edge of a continental climate, temperatures can plunge as low as minus 20, and although the sun may return more frequently, winter is rarely any fun here.

Now in December with snow on the ground, we watch the herons, egrets and cormorants fishing desperately for food in the River Lathan, as the lake is frozen over, and flocks of birds disconsolately take to the air at dawn and dusk. Even the geese and ducks are miserable and cold. The dogs love the cold, perhaps because they know they have a warm house to which they can return, and they rush through the forest hunting deer, pheasant and partridge as if it was still midsummer. Then Billy, our hound, slumps down in front of the wood stove for the rest of the day.

Summer already seems so long ago. 'La Moussette', our 'gite', had its best season so far and we welcomed guests from all over the world: India, Australia, Ireland and of course the UK, including a Dane. True, a bath tap broke off between lets, flooding the workshop, and other water leaks caused by the previous cold winter appeared and reappeared. Even draining the system didn't prevent the frost damaging joints and valves in which water still sat. Thanks to the fantastic work of our Scots plumber, John, disaster was always averted when he rushed over to save us just in time.

Many guests fished the river very seriously this year and some had more luck than others. Their patience was rewarded, though the large carp and 'silures', which can always be seen lurking under the banks when the river is full in the spring, seem very hard to catch in summer.

Our Next Gite

Each year I write, 'Our cottage conversion will be completed 'next year'.'

But something always seems to thwart us: cold weather, hernia operations, polytunnel repairs and sheer indolence! But we have decided that 2011 WILL be the year we finish it. I produced a rigorous work schedule in summer, itemising each task that needs to be done before April. No sooner was the last dot put on the page when my back, already suffering the odd spasm from plasterboarding the ceilings, decided enough was enough. We were moving packs of heavy floor tiles into the boot of the car when something unpleasant happened. I tried to stand up again and found that was not on my back's agenda. I drove home from the DIY megastore, slumped painfully in the driving seat, wondering if I would ever stand to attention again.

I spent a week barely able to move with agonising shooting pains first in one leg, then the other. I never achieved the knack of moving suddely when it was between the two! We spent a week with friends in Asturias but my nights were passed sleeping on the floor and my days limping around bent double. But the Rioja helped a lot.

Two months later, my back is almost better, but the weather has turned so cold that I have found an excellent excuse not to work in a freezing cottage! Fate has intervened to delay the work again!

Summer and autumn were productive and we completed the 'tuffeau' stonework, making 'Bath stone' surrounds for the doors and windows. We also finished the bedroom and bathroom inside and by September had an effective solar hot water system and working shower. There is just the living room and kitchen to be completed and fitted out.

What's in a Name?

Naming our first gite was easy. We thought of a diminutive for 'Les Mousseaux' and came up with 'La Moussette'. We were astonished to discover that the word already existed and is the name of a small crab in the south of France. There is even another gite called 'La Moussette' on the Cote d'Azur.

But what shall we call the cottage? It was once a grazing ground for sheep, so 'Les Agneaux' is possible. (Would that make me the 'Seigneur des Agneaux', I wonder? Think of Tolkien if you don't get the joke!) It used to be surrounded by poplars, but 'Les Peupliers' is not very original, and would be misleading since they've all been cut down!

Being near the Lac de Rillé we could always call it 'La Rillette'. But that's a meat paté, and may not appeal to vegetarians.

If YOU can think of a good name for our next gite, we'd love to hear from you:

Victor Meldrew Rides Again

As we grow older, we all turn into grumpy old men (or women) and 2010 was no different for me. It's so easy to be irritated by poor customer service and ignorant and inconsiderate officialdom.

Customer service is a concept totally alien to France. I think it must have been outlawed in the Revolution and customers are expected to be grateful for being served at all. Here is a typical example from this year.

We had loaded two huge trolleys with DIY supplies in a Tours superstore and were pushing them towards the till. I still had to load a dozen bulky sheets of plasterboard on to a third trolley, so I was relieved when I found a 'willing' assistant to help. We had loaded only three sheets when he glanced at his watch:

'Ah!' he exclaimed. 'C'est le fin de mon travail. Au revoir. ' And he left.

I was told nobody else could help, so I was left to load the rest of the sheets of heavy plasterboard with only a weak female (Sally) to help me.

The till girl irritably scanned all the goods. It was 5.15 and she went home at 5.30. How could customers be so unreasonable as to fill the last fifteen minutes of her shift with work? We pushed our trolleys into the growing gloom and were left to load the car trailer entirely on our own in the rain.

But our experiences in the UK in February were far worse.

The UK has become extremely unfriendly to dogs, and we'd taken our 'nearly' Breton spaniel, Bertie, with us on his first visit to Albion.

In Westbury, our old home town, we decided to have lunch at a pub. I asked the barman if I could bring Bertie into the bar, but he shook his head. 'Sorry,' he said. 'but health and safety rules are so strict nowadays and we are about to start serving food.'

We popped Bertie into the car and told him to contain his hysteria while we left him. He looked at me with his deep brown eyes and seemed to say, morosely, 'I understand, Papa. Ne t'inquietes pas!'

We were enjoying a bowl of soup, when from behind the bar trotted a large golden labrador. He came up to us, wagging his tail, and begging for a crust of bread.

We patted and petted him.

'Nice dog,' said a retired military type, the owner, strolling into the bar. 'We've had him for years. The customers love him.'

'We love dogs too,' I said. 'A pity your barman told us we couldn't bring our dog in the bar for health and safety reasons!'

Colonel Blimp went red and gurgled apologetically: 'Er, er ... he shouldn't have said that... '

I decided to forgive him, and we went on to discuss European attitudes to dogs and how you can take them into restaurants in France but not into a newsagents in Spain. We didn't realise then that Britain can be even more hostile to dogs than we remembered.

After lunch we planned to visit a small bookshop in Trowbridge, a good place for 'remaindered' books at low prices. It was at the far end of the Shires shopping precinct. A light snow was falling so we were glad to get into the warm of the covered area. Sally held Bertie on his lead while I visited the nearest loo.

When I returned, Sally said: 'A woman told me we aren't allowed to have a dog in the precinct. We have to leave.'

To get to the bookshop without going through the precinct we would have to walk about three quarters of a mile, through the snow, right round the building. We'd also paid to park in the precinct car park. My mind was made up.

'Tell them to get stuffed!' I snapped, and set out at a brisk walk dragging Bertie at my heels as I strode the hundred metres or so to the exit where the bookshop was located.

I went in and began browsing.

Maybe two minutes later, the door was thrown open. There stood a peculiar little man in a neo-Nazi uniform (well, ok it was actually a gaberdine mac). He had a tiny 'Hitler' moustache, and was grasping a walkie talkie in his gloved hand. He stamped towards me.

'You!' he screamed. 'We told your wife no dogs was allowed in the Shires, but you disobeyed our orders!'

I tried to keep calm despite being assailed in this way in public. 'That's true, ' I replied, 'But I've now left the Shires. Having paid to park, we weren't going to walk all the way round just to obey a stupid rule. Sorry. Goodbye.'

Instead of walking away, as I had hoped, his face turned vermilion. 'Don't you shout at me!' (he shouted). 'I'm ORDERING you to get out of this bookshop.'

I tried to explain to him that when we had last lived in the UK it still had some kind of democracy, and that as far as I was aware things hadn't changed that much, despite Gordon Brown, so he didn't have the authority to order me to go anywhere.

'The Shires OWNS this bookshop, ' he insisted, petulantly. 'I'm ORDERING you to go outside.'

With hindsight, I should have just ignored him, or thought of something really witty or legally unanswerable to say, but instead I thought discretion was the better part of valour, and so I followed him outside.

'Is it all right if I stand here on the pavement?' I asked, 'or do the Shires also own all the pavements in Trowbridge?'

Our argument continued as he demanded to know my name, which of course I refused to give, and at some point I lost my patience and told him (politely) that he was an officious and egotistical little man who was exceeding his authority.

'Don't you swear at me!' he responded.

I pointed out that neither the word 'officious' nor the term 'egotistical' are recognised as oaths in common parlance, so instead he began feverishly pressing all the buttons on his phone as he mumbled something about 'summoning assistance.'

Three minutes later a plump woman arrived, with an embarrassed Sally following morosely behind. The woman had clearly not enjoyed the same SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölze training as her colleague and so at last we were able to have a sensible conversation. It was agreed that walking your dog through a shopping precinct was not exactly the crime of the century. We bid adieu to the Shires and Trowbridge.

But as I walked away, I could swear I heard the little man softly humming, 'Das Lied der Deutschen'. As people often say when they are losing an argument, 'This is just how Hitler started.' But England! England! What is happening to you?

We did the rest of our shopping in nearby Frome. Here shopkeepers acknowledged Bertie as a 'nice doggy.' and welcomed him into their emporia. So it's just Trowbridge that has succumbed to the canine hating Stasi.

I have crossed the town off our list of future UK shopping venues. Love my dog or you must answer to me!

France: All roads at a standstill?

In January Sally's niece was getting married and we had planned to come to the UK for the event. However, 'Sharp Boreas blew and Nature felt decay'. The snow descended and it was far from certain that we could make it to the ferry port, let alone to the south east of England.

Instead we came over in February when the weather was warmer. (Though they'd left the church by then, admittedly). There was no more than the odd flurry of snow and we returned to Portsmouth a few days later in ideal conditions before catching the overnight ferry to Caen.

We awoke in our cabin at 7 a.m. to the strains of Dmitri Shostakovich - Waltz No. 2 to hear the announcement:

'Tous les conducteurs doivent rester á Ouisterham. La route á Caen est bloqueé.' (Drivers must stay in Ouisterham. The road to Caen is blocked.)

Leaving the ship, we were astonished to see the entire landscape blanketed with thick snow. Even the Norbert Dentressangle lorries laboured, wheels spinning, as they left the ship and precariously descended the ramp to the quay.

We crunched our way across the snow covered quayside towards the customs building at the edge of the port. Standing there, stamping his feet, a balaclava clad customs officer was checking the incoming vehicles.

'Bonjour,' we said, 'We are heading south towards Tours. Est-ce qu'il y a beaucoup de neige plus au sud?' (Is there as much snow further south?)

'Mais oui!' he shivered. 'Trente centimetres. C'est pas possible d'aller au sud. Il faut rester à Ouisterham aujourd'hui, peut-être pour quelques jours!' (There's a foot of snow. You can't go south, so you may have to stay in Ouisterham today or maybe for a day or two.)

Dismal and depressed we slithered through the half-deserted snow-packed streets to the main square in the port. We parked and went for some breakfast and a coffee at a nearby café which was full of marooned lorry drivers.

We found a spare table and sat down, listening to the conversations of the stranded drivers. The TV was full of scenes of abandoned lorries on snow-swept motorways and towns and villages covered in a deep blanket of white. As picture followed picture, the hysterical commentator from Meteo France spoke of a 'catastrophe'. We began to imagine France brought to a standstill and blizzards sweeping across the countryside from the Camargue to Brittany.

We spoke to a lorry driver who explained that it was 'impossible' to get to Caen as the road was blocked by jack-knifed lorries. It could be several days before the roads were cleared. Best to make ourselves comfortable and find a room for the night.

We sulked into our coffee cups and grumbled about what we could do. Bertie lurked under the table, wagging his tail and looking excitedly at every driver who came into the bar. Snow! Great stuff What was all the fuss about?

After an hour or two watching the same depressing weather news on the TV, we began to get bored. Outside the weather looked a little warmer now it was light; the deep snow in places was turning to sludge and here and there sheets of ice were sliding from car roofs and houses. On the road, one or two vehicles were now moving cautiously along the icy surface, and seemed to be leaving the village headed towards the motorway and Caen.

'Is it worth having a go?' I asked. 'With the heater on we will be just as warm as in here, and even if we have to turn round and come back, it will pass the time.'

Soon we were driving cautiously along the single cleared carriageway which led from Ouisterham, but ominously, there were no other vehicles travelling either in or out of the village. The going was fairly easy and we made slow progress for five minutes until we reached the dual carriageway twelve kilometres from Caen.

As we rounded a bend, we saw a long tail of traffic, bumper to bumper, stretching down the road as far as the eye could see. It wasn't possible to turn around, without crossing the blocked central reservation.

In front, the traffic began to move: one metre, two, sometimes three or four metres at a time. Then it stopped and nothing moved. Four or five minutes later, the same thing happened and we all moved forward, but only a few car lengths at a time.

I calculated that at this speed we might reach Caen by mid afternoon.

We came to a road bridge over the main road. A group of bored adolescents, freed from school, were standing at the railings, throwing snowballs at the slowly moving traffic below. They bounced off windscreens and self-destructed on the roofs of the vehicles below. As we crawled slowly beneath the bridge, a loud bang came from the roof of our car.

Already in a foul mood, I jumped out of the car and screamed in my best French, gesticulating towards the youths on the bridge:

'NON!! ARRETEZ!'

Instead of the expected jeers and abuse which life in the UK has led me to expect, the youths turned tail and fled, and the hail of snowballs abruptly ceased.

Instead of feeling triumphant, I felt like a miserable kill-joy. I slumped in my seat waiting for the traffic to move again.

Two hours later we came to the cause of the jam. The traffic had abruptly begun to move again, first a few car lengths at a time, then a crawl, then a steady ten miles an hour. As we reached a short hill, we saw a large lorry which had been dragged from the carriageway to the side of the road. It had jack-knifed and just one lorry had blocked all the traffic into one of the largest towns in Normandy.

We reached the ring road around Caen, and soon were crossing the Orne on the road bridge which leads south. Traffic was moving freely on the snow covered roads and there were no real hold ups.

Soon we were heading towards the town of La Falaise. Surely the deepest snow would be when crossing the high plateau at Alencon and facing the '30 centimetres' promised further south.

But at La Falaise, the snow was no more than a light powder on the surrounding fields and there were whole areas where no snow had fallen at all.

The sky was clearing and the sun pushed through the clouds. By the time we reached Alencon, there was only the odd drift of snow in dips and hollows.

We stopped at a roadside bar for a much needed coffee. 'What's happened to all the snow?' we asked. 'Isn't Tours 30 cm deep in it?'

'Neige??' said the barman. 'Neige? Non, nous n'avions pas un flocon de neige ici, toute la nuit.' (Snow? It hasn't snowed here all night!)

We completed our journey with only the occasional flake falling from the sky. We got home to find that all the snow had fallen in the far north of Normandy and Brittany and that near Tours there hadn't been a 'flocon' all day.

Boating on the Loir

Summer was quiet, apart from welcoming paying guests and playing host to a few of Sally's relatives. During August her 84 year old mother arrived, with one of Sally's sisters and her brother in law. One sunny day we decided a boating trip and picnic would be a good idea. We loaded the canoe on the roof of our Daihatsu van, coupled up the trailer with the rowing boat, and all set out to Vas on the Loir, the little river south of Le Mans, La Loire's 'little brother'.

There is a quiet stretch of river downstream from Vas, with wooded banks and water meadows on the other side, so the plan was to go downstream for an hour or two and then enjoy a picnic.

We parked near the launching point where a mill race rejoined the river. The canoe was unloaded, the rowing boat carried to the water, and arguments started about whether Bertie would travel in the rowing boat or the canoe. In the end, Sally and I took Bertie in the rowing boat, with her mother in the stern and me rowing. The others took the canoe.

Everything was ready to cast off until we looked for the canoe paddles. We had the oars for the rowing boat, but as for the paddles, where were they? Who put the paddles in the van? Was that REALLY up to me?

At first we thought the trip would have to be abandoned. Then some bright spark suggested that we could use the rowing boat to tow the canoe.

It seemed like a good idea, so the rowing boat cast off with Sally's half-blind mother in the stern, the dog in the middle, me rowing, and Sally at the prow. Following in the canoe, tugged along by a heavy rope, were Anne and Darryl with the vital cargo, the picnic.

Theory and reality soon parted company. Trying to row while towing another boat is extremely hard work and trying to manoeuvre both vessels is practically impossible. As the rowing boat headed towards the left bank, the towed canoe headed straight on dragging us back and round to the right. As the passengers tugged on the rope, the canoe even overtook the rowing boat and the whole flotilla spun round and just drifted aimlessly downstream. Bertie was having great fun, and dashed from one side of the boat to the other peering at imaginary fish, causing the rowing boat to lurch dangerously from side to side.

Eventually, we drifted into the bank a few hundred metres downstream and decided to have our picnic earlier than planned. The spot we had 'chosen' was where a large herd of cows had been drinking, a quagmire of liquid mud and grassy tufts. Darryl volunteered to jump out and pull the boats into the shore. He disembarked but his left leg immediately disappeared up to the thigh with a loud 'squelching' noise.

He sprawled over clutching at the grassy tufts and pulled his leg out of the mire. Covered in mud he grabbed the lines to both boats.

With Darryl tugging on the ropes, we managed to get the boats more securely on to dry land. As we struggled out, I glanced to my right and noticed that ten metres away there was a perfect dry landing place where we could all have stepped out with no problems. I decided perhaps I would not mention this to Darryl, who was still sponging the wet mud from his leg with his handkerchief.

We enjoyed our picnic, a bottle of sparkling wine, home made quiche, and smoked salmon. We waited for the usual picnic weather when the blue sky turns black, great anvils of towering clouds appear from nowhere and within 15 minutes there is torrential rain and a violent thunderstorm. But for once, we were lucky.

On the return trip we towed the boat with the canoe, using the oars as paddles. That worked far better. Next time we will always doublecheck we have both paddles and oars.

Gijon and a sunny November

Every year in late summer, Sally goes apple picking in the orchards near Parcay les Pins, our next village. Not only does it earn a little extra money, but the social taxes taken from her wages provides us both with French health insurance for the next year. I use the opportunity to get on with some hard work, of course, restoring the cottage But one sunny day, when she returned home early unexpectedly, I did get caught in a deckchair with a good novel and a glass of wine by my side! Don't I deserve the odd break?

That's why we take our 'holiday' very late in the season. We decided to visit Asturias again to see our friends, Roger and Sheila, who live there in a beautiful mountain village.

In the newspaper we read that a new ferry service was starting, between St Nazaire in Brittany, and Gijon in northwest Spain. Gijon was only twenty kilometres from our planned destination. Even better, the route was being heavily subsidised by the French and Spanish governments. It was part of the 'motorway of the sea' project, designed to get lorry traffic off the roads, and making it cheaper and less polluting for them to get from northern France to Spain and Portugal.

The overnight ferry left at 9 pm and arrived at 11 the next morning. A cabin was included in the fare, and there would be no problem with Bertie, who could sleep in the car.

I should explain that this was all Sally's idea. We'd experienced a particularly nasty voyage many years before from Santander to Plymouth, and she'd vowed never to do the Bay of Biscay again, so I was surprised at her nonchalance and equanimity in choosing this particular way of getting to Spain. I wasn't going to argue as I hate driving long distances, and the road trip takes a good day and a half with an overnight stop.

As our departure date approached we began to get very anxious. The French dispute over the retirement age (planned to increase from 60 to 62) had thrown the country into turmoil. The refineries had been blockaded for days and now the petrol stations had run out of fuel. We had no diesel for the car and we began to think we would never get to St Nazaire to catch the ferry. But a few days before we were due to leave, the government unblocked the terminals and the strikers began to disperse and go back to work.

French trade unionists are not prepared to let the government push them around. This is particularly the case when it involves removing any of their feather-bedded benefits which the French see as a birthright, such as early retirement, total security of employment, and generous sick leave and holidays.

What is less appreciated, is that there are other major factors at play when it comes to militancy. In Britain, strikers seem fond of using holidays as a good time to strike to cause maximum disruption to the public. So airports are closed, trains cancelled and ferries postponed. But in France, early November is the last chance for some good holidays before Xmas. And strikers and trade unionists expect to enjoy their holiday entitlement along with the rest of us. November 1st is known as 'Toussaints' or 'All Saints Day'. November 11th is Armistice Day, which is also a national holiday. If the days fall just before a weekend, on a Thursday say, there's a chance to make a really good long weekend, even a week, out of one (or both) of those days.

The trouble is, that if you are on strike, then you miss out on these holidays, and as people don't expect anyone to be working at that time anyway, striking becomes pretty pointless.

It was inevitable that all the national strikes would end just before the beginning of November, and then being so close to Christmas, there could be no question of continuing them.

We had no trouble filling up the car with diesel and heading off for St Nazaire on November 1st.

As this was both a Sunday AND a public holiday, there was virtually no lorry traffic on the roads. We found the ferry port, an industrial depot miles outside St Nazaire, signposted as the 'Terminal Sablier' or 'sand loading yard'. There was only a handful of cars parked in the small fenced car park and no lorries at all. The 'terminal' consisted of a tiny portakabin with a couple of bored ferry employees sitting behind a counter, and a gendarme lolling against the wall by the door. We got our boarding passes and asked about the state of the ocean.

'Elle est tres calme,' he soothed. 'La mer est tres tranquille. Pas de probleme. Ne vous inquietez pas.' (The sea's very calm, no problem. Don't worry!)

He smiled like the Sphinx, and we believed him implicitly.

We drove on to the boat an hour later, and took the lift from the car deck to the reception area five decks up. A Portuguese girl at the desk handed us our cabin key: 'Two floors further up, ' she explained. 'Right at the top of the ship.'

'There's nothing worse than being down in the bowels of the ship,' I said. 'How good it is to have a cabin high up in the ship'

How wrong we were!

The ship was already suffering from an identity crisis. Called 'The Norman Bridge', it had been cruelly and abruptly snatched away from its normal Channel route to alien waters which took it from Brittany to Spanish Asturias, via the perilous Bay of Biscay. In confusion, it lurched out of the harbour and straight into the Atlantic swell, trying to decide which direction to go in.

Normally there are many lorries parked on the lower car decks. This adds ballast and helps with stability. Because of the holiday, there were only a few cars and caravans on the car deck, and the ship was bobbing about on the water like a cork.

'Bit rough', said my wife, peering anxiously through our cabin porthole. 'Just a little swell, ' I reassured her. 'Further south it will be like a mill pond.'

We got into our bunks and listened to the boat's engines labouring against the waves. From time to time the ship rolled rather more than we'd expected, but it was nothing exceptional.

We slept far better than we'd expected, but around 5 a.m. awoke to a strange sensation and a noise like Thor fashioning thunderbolts on his forge. The sensation was like shooting up several floors in an escalator. It's fun, but your stomach gets left behind. Then the feeling was one of going into free fall, with your stomach still somewhere near the ceiling, followed by a loud crash and clang as the ship's hull struck the surface of the water again with what sounded like metal-rending force.

'I don't like this, ' complained Sally, petulantly. 'They told us it was going to be calm!'

We napped for another couple of hours, doing our best to ignore the storm, but then I sat bolt upright. I had just remembered that Bertie was locked in the car on the car deck. He'd been there since 9 o'clock the previous night. He would be terrified by the storm. He'd be miserable and scared, in need of water, of food, of comfort. We HAD to go down to the car deck and make sure he was all right.

We'd been told we could visit our dog at 'a reasonable hour', and I hoped seven a.m. wasn't unreasonable. I woke Sally again and insisted she got out of her bunk. Bleary eyed and complaining she made her way to the cabin's loo and shower room.

Two minutes passed, then three. 'Come on!' I shouted, hammering on the door. 'Bertie needs us. He's been alone in the car for ten hours.'

From behind the door came a strange strangled sound.

'Don't be like that,' I snapped. 'You agreed we'd go to see him first thing in the morning. Hurry up!'

Another peculiar sound, like a large buttered turnip being pushed through the thin end of a funnel, came through the door. At this point, Job 20: verse 15 came to mind.*

The penny dropped, and I don't mean for the toilet door.

'Are you being sick?' I asked irritably.

'Yeuksssk!' came the retching reply.

Finally, she emerged, and I wondered why her face had turned the same light green colour as the cabin's metalwork.

'But it's not THAT rough,' I insisted, inconsiderately.

'It's horribly rough,' she wheezed. 'They said it was going to be calm!'

But my true sympathies still lay entirely with Bertie. I pictured him, cowering in the car, terrified by the turbulent ocean, the strange sounds, in desperate need of food and water. He would think we had deserted him. We HAD to act.

Dragging the unfortunate Sally with me, we stumbled down two flights of stairs to the reception area as the ship rose and fell alarmingly. The Portuguese girl was still there, and I wondered for a moment whether she had been standing there all night.

'Can we see our dog now?' I stammered. 'Quickly, as my wife's not feeling very well.'

To prove the point, Sally disappeared from view hurling herself towards the sick bag dispenser attached to the wall. Grabbing one of the paper receptacles, she collapsed to the floor, imitating the noises made when you pull the plug from a large sink full of dirty washing up water.

The girl peered accusingly at Sally, but picked up the phone and summoned aid. 'Someone will come for you, ' she said. 'Soon. You will be able to see your dog.'

A few minutes later a tall Polish seaman appeared. He spoke broken English but agreed to lead us down to the car deck to check on Bertie.

'Can we take the lift?' I asked.

'Oh no,' he replied. 'It's storm... it would be dang'rous... it would... rock around. It could...er... plummet!'

Instead we made our way slowly down the eight flights of stairs leading to the car deck, with Sally clinging desperately to the rails.

'Your vife is all right?' he asked, looking at Sally as she continued to perform a good imitation of a sealion which has eaten too many mackerel and then overdosed on squid.

'Oh, she's fine, ' I said. 'Just a little 'mal de mer'.'

'Ah, I 'ad that too, ' he said. 'for the first six months on LD Lines. But I get better. Ve work for two months ... no breaks.. and then we have new contract, or be sacked... now it's better... twenty days non stop.. then three days holiday... then we come back.... Much better now! But not good as I no zee vife and family back in Poland.'

I tried to engage Sally about the abuse of workers' rights and the exploitation of low paid immigrant labour, but for some reason she seemed to lack interest in the subject. Typical! No interest in political issues.

Finally we reached the car deck and crept towards the vehicle where I fully expected to find Bertie hanging from his lead, with a hastily scribbled note pinned to the dashboard saying, 'Sorry Papa, but I could stand the isolation no longer. Adieu!'

Instead, there on the front seat was a ginger shape curled up in a tight ball. From the inside of the vehicle came a loud snoring sound. The little ingrate! He was fast asleep and unconcerned.

I opened the car door and tried to coax him out for a brief walk around the car deck and a sip of water. He looked at me and yawned. 'Do we HAVE to? What time do you call this? Are you MAD?'

We closed the car door again, and he snuggled back into the comfort of the front seat.

'I told you!' snapped Sally. 'We didn't need to disturb him. I told you he'd be fine.'

Embarrassed, we left the car deck with the Polish seaman and clambered back up the eight flights of stairs, stopping at each landing for Sally to vomit into her brown paper bag.

We arrived at Gijon (pronounced 'Hee-hon', a bit like a 'burro' braying) at 11 a.m. promptly. Sally's complexion slowly turned from aqua-marine to deathly white.

Our friends met us at the port and soon we were heading up the coast to Villaviciosa, where we would find coffee and a welcome glass of Rioja. Finally, Sally's complexion had almost returned to normal.

Holy Mary!

The previous year the weather had been unexpectedly good. November in Asturias had been like September in France. There had been warm, sunny, balmy days and we'd been able to walk along the beach and cliffs in comfort, and sit outside at cafes and bars. The weather this November seemed to be equally good and the sun was shining. It was far warmer than the France we had left the day before.

My back injury was still causing me a great deal of pain, so we couldn't envisage any long mountain walks or plunging down ravines and up cliff paths. We decided instead on some cultural visits.

Our friend, Roger, has developed a passionate interest in Romanesque architecture for which Asturias is famous. So we welcomed the chance to visit the ruins of an ancient palace and church, Santa María del Naranco at Oviedo.

The building is located high up over Oviedo, and is reached via a steep track.

When we got to the church, the interior was locked and barred and the guide was nowhere to be seen. The last visit of the morning was due, according to the schedule on the door, but a Spanish couple was standing outside complaining bitterly. They had been trying to find the guide for almost 50 minutes.

While they disappeared to search for her one more time, she arrived with a couple of other visitors in tow. Unsmiling, she took our money for the visit and we asked if we could bring Bertie into the ruin with us.

'No!' she snapped. 'No perros!'

Roger agreed to look after Bertie while we went inside, but asked the guide if she could give us any information in English or French as our Spanish was very rusty.

'No!' she snapped again. 'No Ingles. No Frances! Solamente Espanol!'

Reluctantly we followed her into the church while Bertie, looking panicky, sat outside with Roger.

The Guide began her history of the 'palacio' but had no sooner started when the couple who had disappeared returned from their search for her.

'No!' she snapped, as they entered the church. 'No! Esta demasiado tarde. La visita ha commenciado.' (Too late! The visit's started. Go away.)

There followed an interesting argument with a few incomprehensible Spanish expletives, but the Gorgon finally relented.

So far, we had still been visible to Bertie who was sitting gloomily with Roger near the entrance, but the door was now closed and we went upstairs to the main part of the church.

'La palacio......' began the Gorgon. 'La palacio de Santa Maria....' Suddenly, her voice was drowned out by a gut-piercing howl from the 'perro' outside. 'La palacio...' she tried to continue. 'Ouaaah!' came the screech from Bertie, wondering where we were. 'Ouuuuaaaaaaaah!'

This continued for several minutes and each time she tried to speak, most of what she had to say was drowned out. She glared at us, and we glared back. After all, whose fault was it?

The visit ended, rather more rapidly than normal, I suspect, and Bertie rejoined us with boundless joy.

There was a second old church nearby to be visited. The Gorgon sent us up the hill to the ancient building, keeping her distance from Bertie and casting him evil glances. She jumped into her car to drive the two hundred metres to the church while all the visitors laboured up the hill.

The second building was another ancient Romanesque church though a great deal of the original building had disappeared. We followed her inside. Bertie again sat balefully outside glaring at the Gorgon.

'No!' she snapped, looking at Sally who had our digital camera grasped in her hand. 'No photos. Forbidden. Interdit. Verboten. Prohibido!'

We listened to her script for another five minutes and finally rejoined our friends, and Bertie. We waited until the guide had finally left for her lunch, having been very careful not to tip her. But then Sally crept round to the narrow slit windows.

'Look!' she said. 'We can take photos after all.' And sticking the camera through the windows she proceeded to take numerous photos of the interior.

Revenge is sweet.

There's an old mill by the stream, no esta bien?

Over the next few glorious days, we enjoyed several dishes of fabulous fabada, numerous glasses of rare, rich Rioja, plates of scrumptious squid and other choice crustacea, as we luxuriated in the welcome sunshine.

Living in Les Mousseaux, an old watermill, we have a particular interest in old mills so were particularly interested when Roger and Sheila told us of an ancient one in a wooded valley not far from Santa Eulalia de Cabranes where they live.

It was extremely remote, accessed from a precarious single track road, and finally we came to a halt at the end of a precipitous narrow track leading down into the forested valley. The track was next to some farmhouses and outbuildings, but the only turning point had been blocked off with a wire fence.

'This is where we normally turn round,' explained Roger. 'I don't know why there's a fence.'

A moment later , the grizzled inhabitants of the farmhouse emerged. The old man had spent some time in France, so we tried to explain in a mixture of broken French and Spanish that we wanted to visit the ancient mill. This was no problem, he said, but the couple had had their firewood stolen and therefore had fenced off the turning point to stop the thieves. Could WE turn here, we asked?

'Si,' said the old man. 'I'll take down the fence'

'NO!' said the old woman, his wife, definitively and finally. If an exception was made for us, they would have to allow everybody. It was tough luck, but we'd just have to reverse along the narrow track.

We put the immediate problem out of our minds and walked down the footpath to the ancient mill. The mill building was beneath a waterfall fed by a mill race carved into the rock face twenty feet up on the side of the rocky valley. Above this was a mill pond where kiwi fruit were growing in the forest. It was beautiful and spell binding, and the mill may even date back to Roman times. We came away feeling we had seen something really special.

As we returned to the car we began to appreciate that leaving might present more of a problem. The track was barely a car's width. To one side was a steep bank falling precipitately away, and to the other, various walls, sheds, buildings and trees. There was also the odd rusty old car and tractor parked protruding on to the track. It meant reversing carefully for a hundred metres or so, until there was a steep slope dropping abruptly away to the left, where, theoretically, it would be possible to turn around.

While Roger and Sally tried to guide me, I reversed a centimetre at a time along the track, looking carefully to my right where the road ended and an eight foot vertical drop began. 'Left, left, left!' they screamed at me, as to my left the car scraped against concrete walls and banged the wing mirrors of parked vehicles.

As I manoeuvred the car gingerly back along the track, one by one, other local residents emerged from their hovels. The air was full of their shouts: 'No! Izquierda! No! Derecho.' Or simply 'No!'

More and more embarrassed, I imagined the locals preparing to beat their fists on the roof of the car. 'Estupido gringo! Ingles loco!' I could almost hear their shouts as they grew angrier and angrier.

But centimetre by centimetre, the Doblo reversed until I was finally able to back drunkenly down a 45 degree camber and carry out a bizarre three point turn to point the car in the opposite direction.

My companions rejoined me in the vehicle.

'Were the locals furious?' I asked. 'They must have been so annoyed by a stupid foreigner banging into their vehicles and buildings!'

'No, not at all,' said Roger. 'I explained that their neighbours at the end of the track had stopped us from turning, and they said, 'Oh no! Not those old idiots again. We only stole their firewood as we can't stand them!'

A few days later we made our way back to France. The day we left, a huge storm swept across Asturias bringing torrential rain and strong winds. I'd wanted to take the ferry back to St Nazaire, but Sally threatened both divorce and going alone by train via Madrid rather than face another trip through the Bay of Biscay. I reluctantly agreed to drive.

Bonne Annee

A new year beckons and who knows, perhaps both of our gites will be functioning next summer. The vegetable garden already beckons as we read the seed catalogues and sow a few impossibly early seeds in the polytunnel.

Will the rest of winter be as bad as November, or will we be able to sit out on the patio in the sunshine in January or February as we have done occasionally in previous years? We shall see.

To all our friends and guests, there will always be a warm welcome here should you want to come to visit us and stay. It would be wonderful to see some of those of you who have never made it here yet.

And to everybody, a Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Best wishes,

Adrian and Sally,

*' Job 20: verse 15 He swallows riches, But will vomit them up; God will expel them from his belly.'