There's a Rat in Mi Swimmin' Pool with links

Well, it's been an eventful day. This mornng I went to look at the reflections of the overnight rain on the side of the (empty) swimming pool - the pic is from 2018 and my dog pose is probably no better now.  As I looked down into the empty pool, I saw something curled up in the corner.  Yes, it was a cute little RAT! What to do?  Well, we did what any sane person would do, fetched a sunbed, lowered it down so it made a ramp to the edge of the pool. Instantly, without any hesitation, the rat was out of there!  Reminded me of UB40.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5rCpAwrWFRGpsqc8wVVhql?si=M2536TV5TiSoaL023SldXw

Later that day: another walk in the olive groves with the self-written permit, a Greek lesson over Skype, a chat with Rebecca who lives in Italy, so further into the lockdown than we are.  

Second exciting event was a performance on YouTube of the 300 Strangers performance on YouTube - celebration of World Piano Day and a bonding excercise for self-isolated musicians everywhere.  What's the connection to us?  You really have to look at the YouTube where you will see our across the road neighbour, Phil Docking, who contributed  to the Piano day project by Christian Henson of Spitfire Audio by making a his rotovator into a musical instrument for the afternoon. You will really only get it if you follow the link, soon to go viral, I'm sure.
 https://youtu.be/enFB33SOo6k

Last exciting event of the day so far, we heard a Scops Owl just outside the house.  We opened the front door quiety just in time to see it fly off the roof and perch on an electricity pole.  They have a strange hoot, a bit like a radar blip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_scops_owl

Who knows what's to come. It's only 2130.

PS. Here are some tiny irises - loads of them 2 days ago
but none of them showing today.  They grow in the middle of paths and they are a really magical sight.

So tiny they look like they belong in a fairy world.
Just needed to show you those.
Καλενιχτα!

There's a Rat in Mi Swimmin' Pool with links

Well, it's been an eventful day. This mornng I went to look at the reflections of the overnight rain on the side of the (empty) swimming pool - the pic is from 2018 and my dog pose is probably no better now.  As I looked down into the empty pool, I saw something curled up in the corner.  Yes, it was a cute little RAT! What to do?  Well, we did what any sane person would do, fetched a sunbed, lowered it down so it made a ramp to the edge of the pool. Instantly, without any hesitation, the rat was out of there!  Reminded me of UB40.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5rCpAwrWFRGpsqc8wVVhql?si=M2536TV5TiSoaL023SldXw

Later that day: another walk in the olive groves with the self-written permit, a Greek lesson over Skype, a chat with Rebecca who lives in Italy, so further into the lockdown than we are.  

Second exciting event was a performance on YouTube of the 300 Strangers performance on YouTube - celebration of World Piano Day and a bonding excercise for self-isolated musicians everywhere.  What's the connection to us?  You really have to look at the YouTube where you will see our across the road neighbour, Phil Docking, who contributed  to the Piano day project by Christian Henson of Spitfire Audio by making a his rotovator into a musical instrument for the afternoon. You will really only get it if you follow the link, soon to go viral, I'm sure.
 https://youtu.be/enFB33SOo6k

Last exciting event of the day so far, we heard a Scops Owl just outside the house.  We opened the front door quiety just in time to see it fly off the roof and perch on an electricity pole.  They have a strange hoot, a bit like a radar blip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_scops_owl

Who knows what's to come. It's only 2130.

PS. Here are some tiny irises - loads of them 2 days ago
but none of them showing today.  They grow in the middle of paths and they are a really magical sight.

So tiny they look like they belong in a fairy world.
Just needed to show you those.
Καλενιχτα!

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

With thanks to Monty Python for the reference (You Tube). So although we knew about 'the Virus' when we left, we still hadn't grasped what it would mean for our stay in Crete.  I had expected this to be a blog about our search for a building plot and subsequent negotiations (with each other, the vendor, the builder etc.). Now I find it is about somethong else entirely.  We had also hoped to expand our social life here - maybe that is happening, but not quite in the way we envisaged.  

I also thought I would start more or less on day one, but it is now approximately day 19.  I think that demonstrates how fast things have changed from day to day, as much inside our heads as outside.  It is a brush with a dark cloak at the supermarket, a vision of a chance meeting with death, for us, our friends and relatives.

Back to the reality I had expected, a sort of show and tell of the story so far:

DAY ONE: recovery from a ghastly day
when we missed our flight, and a second very long day when we caught one, arriving in Marediana on March 4th. But here we are!
 
The Spring was a little late in arriving - some cold North winds:
there is still snow on the 'white mountains' but not so much as when we arrived.  This was taken from an olive grove walk just opposite the house. There's some zoom in there, but we really can see them. I love seeing the flowers and trees changing here almost day to day.  This year the weather has also been changing from day to day, from cold enough to need the heating on, to warm enough to swim. Here's Al at Falasana beach. It looked so good, I swam too.

Our neighbour, Shehina was probably a botnist in another life - or maybe that's coming. She can tell us the exotic from the common.
Below are red anemonies, and I haven't a clue what the white ones are except that they look common and sort of cheerful.  Not a bad thing!

We have managed to do a few things before the curfew came down.  We ate at our favourite restaurant with our neighbours - roughly Translated as the Angel At My Table.  It's in the countryside, Cretan cooking by staff who usually work elsewhere in the season.  Needless to say, the season has looks to completely go missing this year. We've also managed a visit to the huge and wild Elafonsi beach, a lunch at 'Argentina' on Kolimbari market day, a walk up to the chapel on Polyrinia - a Minoan settlement on a hill we can see from our bedroom (below). Now our days will take on a different shape.  More about this next time.

 
I'm not quite sure where this blog will go, but I'd like feedback and I will try to find ways of making it more interactive.  Please subscribe, then you will know when I publish a new one.  Also open to suggestions - what you might want to know.
That's it, making supper now. 

 

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

With thanks to Monty Python for the reference (You Tube). So although we knew about 'the Virus' when we left, we still hadn't grasped what it would mean for our stay in Crete.  I had expected this to be a blog about our search for a building plot and subsequent negotiations (with each other, the vendor, the builder etc.). Now I find it is about somethong else entirely.  We had also hoped to expand our social life here - maybe that is happening, but not quite in the way we envisaged.  

I also thought I would start more or less on day one, but it is now approximately day 19.  I think that demonstrates how fast things have changed from day to day, as much inside our heads as outside.  It is a brush with a dark cloak at the supermarket, a vision of a chance meeting with death, for us, our friends and relatives.

Back to the reality I had expected, a sort of show and tell of the story so far:

DAY ONE: recovery from a ghastly day
when we missed our flight, and a second very long day when we caught one, arriving in Marediana on March 4th. But here we are!
 
The Spring was a little late in arriving - some cold North winds:
there is still snow on the 'white mountains' but not so much as when we arrived.  This was taken from an olive grove walk just opposite the house. There's some zoom in there, but we really can see them. I love seeing the flowers and trees changing here almost day to day.  This year the weather has also been changing from day to day, from cold enough to need the heating on, to warm enough to swim. Here's Al at Falasana beach. It looked so good, I swam too.

Our neighbour, Shehina was probably a botnist in another life - or maybe that's coming. She can tell us the exotic from the common.
Below are red anemonies, and I haven't a clue what the white ones are except that they look common and sort of cheerful.  Not a bad thing!

We have managed to do a few things before the curfew came down.  We ate at our favourite restaurant with our neighbours - roughly Translated as the Angel At My Table.  It's in the countryside, Cretan cooking by staff who usually work elsewhere in the season.  Needless to say, the season has looks to completely go missing this year. We've also managed a visit to the huge and wild Elafonsi beach, a lunch at 'Argentina' on Kolimbari market day, a walk up to the chapel on Polyrinia - a Minoan settlement on a hill we can see from our bedroom (below). Now our days will take on a different shape.  More about this next time.

 
I'm not quite sure where this blog will go, but I'd like feedback and I will try to find ways of making it more interactive.  Please subscribe, then you will know when I publish a new one.  Also open to suggestions - what you might want to know.
That's it, making supper now. 

 

The Dordogne

Canoeing on the Vezier

It seems like the obvious answer but the Brits probably enjoy the DORDOGNE for its eating and drinking opportunities - especially interesting if you don’t mind the means of production of Fois gras and charcuterie.  Apart from that, there are fairytale castles and slow moving rivers.  This really is the land of the Michelin guides, with pretty (or prettified) villages, woodlands, the occasional vista, many cultural experiences around prehistory, cave art and handicrafts.
It's very green - lots and lots of trees, and these tend to obstruct long vistas, so if you are a horizon sort of person, maybe this is not for you. 

Winter can be cold here - double figures below are unusual, but not impossible. We did have a look at a house that was for sale, and it confirmed the old saw about getting what you pay for.  Perfectly nice, and on the French market, probably worth the 200,000 € they were asking, but a long way from the 'dream home'.  As some of you know, we are thinking about relocation relocation, so this was a useful bit of benchmarking.
    We also visited LASCAUX IV - the huge, new International Centre for Cave Art.  As you may know, this centre mimics the famous cave paintings, reproduced on mouldings of the original cave walls.  Sure, it's not the real thing, but allows safe viewing of the images.  Lots of technology used to enhance the experience.  Actually, the most exciting experience was an interactive art display featuring painting that had some relationship to the Lascaux images.  Hard to describe this so here's a pic.

Lascaux IV

There are 6 different stations and you can use them to choose sequences to display, folowing different intuitions or logic or even dreams.  I could have spent all day here!  It was also air conditioned.

The only human figure at Lascaux - birdhead man

Returning via Chalais, the landscape became less wooded, but quite flat.  We're talking here about the area around Bergerac. We spent the night at Chalais, with Al's 87 year old 'cousine', Choute,  (don't ask.)  She has a summer home in Cognac - sorry no pix - it's an old 'pigoniere' or pigeon cote. Converted in the mid 80s, it's a place where she feels in contact with Pierre, her hsband who died 10 years ago.  It was clearly a place that the family came to stay - the empty bunk beds echo the passing of that time. Now her family have their own lives, even their own grandchildren, so the visits have fallen away.  At one time she was going to sell but now, fitted with a couple of stents, continues to make the 5 hour trip from Paris in her 12 year old Megane, which she drives like a teenage boy.

Thinking....

Back in Charron, playing a waiting game with the yard, who are doing some of the work that came up in the survey.  On the way back from Chalais, we revived the 'sell or sail' debate. These photos sum it up for me:

As you probably know, I like feedback, and please follow the blog, if you like it.  I only have 5 actual followers and that really embarasses me.

Incidentally, I am finding Google's Blogger offering a bit restrictive on layout - also writing on iPad seemed really clunky. 

Going Aganst the Flow

 

The Dordogne

Canoeing on the Vezier

It seems like the obvious answer but the Brits probably enjoy the DORDOGNE for its eating and drinking opportunities - especially interesting if you don’t mind the means of production of Fois gras and charcuterie.  Apart from that, there are fairytale castles and slow moving rivers.  This really is the land of the Michelin guides, with pretty (or prettified) villages, woodlands, the occasional vista, many cultural experiences around prehistory, cave art and handicrafts.
It's very green - lots and lots of trees, and these tend to obstruct long vistas, so if you are a horizon sort of person, maybe this is not for you. 

Winter can be cold here - double figures below are unusual, but not impossible. We did have a look at a house that was for sale, and it confirmed the old saw about getting what you pay for.  Perfectly nice, and on the French market, probably worth the 200,000 € they were asking, but a long way from the 'dream home'.  As some of you know, we are thinking about relocation relocation, so this was a useful bit of benchmarking.
    We also visited LASCAUX IV - the huge, new International Centre for Cave Art.  As you may know, this centre mimics the famous cave paintings, reproduced on mouldings of the original cave walls.  Sure, it's not the real thing, but allows safe viewing of the images.  Lots of technology used to enhance the experience.  Actually, the most exciting experience was an interactive art display featuring painting that had some relationship to the Lascaux images.  Hard to describe this so here's a pic.

Lascaux IV

There are 6 different stations and you can use them to choose sequences to display, folowing different intuitions or logic or even dreams.  I could have spent all day here!  It was also air conditioned.

The only human figure at Lascaux - birdhead man

Returning via Chalais, the landscape became less wooded, but quite flat.  We're talking here about the area around Bergerac. We spent the night at Chalais, with Al's 87 year old 'cousine', Choute,  (don't ask.)  She has a summer home in Cognac - sorry no pix - it's an old 'pigoniere' or pigeon cote. Converted in the mid 80s, it's a place where she feels in contact with Pierre, her hsband who died 10 years ago.  It was clearly a place that the family came to stay - the empty bunk beds echo the passing of that time. Now her family have their own lives, even their own grandchildren, so the visits have fallen away.  At one time she was going to sell but now, fitted with a couple of stents, continues to make the 5 hour trip from Paris in her 12 year old Megane, which she drives like a teenage boy.

Thinking....

Back in Charron, playing a waiting game with the yard, who are doing some of the work that came up in the survey.  On the way back from Chalais, we revived the 'sell or sail' debate. These photos sum it up for me:

As you probably know, I like feedback, and please follow the blog, if you like it.  I only have 5 actual followers and that really embarasses me.

Incidentally, I am finding Google's Blogger offering a bit restrictive on layout - also writing on iPad seemed really clunky. 

Going Aganst the Flow

 

Survey arrives, so does Al

The Sevre Niortiase at Sunset

Here's the sun setting over the River Sevre the day before Al arrived.  The river is very, very tidal - here's an evening high tide, so all the boats are floating.  There's a small summer-only restaurant, La Ponetere, under canvas (apart from the kitchen).  This is the view.  Their speciality is seafood, particularly mussels from the region.  They say that this year is particularly good for mussels, because there was so much rain in the winter.  It makes them plump and juicy. 

Snork Maiden's Beautiful Stern

 The survey was pretty good, all things considered.  Now waiting to hear from the insurance company.  The biggest job is dealing with the headlinings.  It took just over a week for me to bite the bullet and decide that I have to strip out the old stuff from the aft cabin and start from scratch.  The forward cabin is fixable.  I washed the lines and half of the hull, and the stern - you can see how good she looks - apart from the wonky ladder and jolly bucket!
 I'm afraid I have't really kept you up to speed.  I went to the doctor, afraid of chest infections. Saw not just one but two (one was an itern).  So my chest was comprehensively examined and declared free of infection.  Just a nasty cough left over.  Interesting - small practice, seen without appointment.  Discovered that everybody whispers in the waiting room.

The old Niort Canal at Marans

Al arrived on Thursday and we decided to check into an AirBNB - hard to live and work on the boat at the same time, especially when there are two of us.  Not made any easier by a total absence of any bathroom facilities in Philippe's yard.  Difficult at low tide.  Of course it has also been an emotional time - are we sailing or selling?  We have missed our usual June slot - it gets very hot and busy in July. We have decided to go camping in the Dordogne for a few days, after which I am going to Cambridge for a yoga course.  I will fly back to complete the work and drive home.  We have wept, laughed and remembered all the good times and some of the hard times we have had with Snork Maiden.  But we feel that the time has come for her to move on to new, adventorous owners.  She really is a boat that could take you anywhere.  We will probably advertise her soon, in England and France.  The survey pronounces her a sound vessel in good condition, and that's the very least we could say about her.  We put our dreams in her and lived them out.  

Next: Why do the British so love the Dordogne?  We take our tiny tent, face a heatwave  and find out...