How and when ...

... to write about the story of these past weeks?  Maybe don't write at all? Just pick up the thread as if this hiatus doesn't exist.

But then, in time, we'll forget the details and wonder: "Did I really sell the car while you were in intensive care?"  So this is for us, in a few years time and we'll be able to say: "Oh yes, that's what happened, and we got through it".

A story that began some time last autumn - a visit to the GP following a weekend of feeling unwell, cramp in a leg that didn't go away and Tod's concern that, whilst wanting to lose some weight, he was now in something of a downward spiral.

The cramp?  A deep vein thrombosis, sorted with blood thinners and support stockings up until Christmas.

The losing weight?  Sufficient reason for an MRI scan.  The pleasant young man emerged with the results, no cause for alarm, but an interesting, somewhat unusual horseshoe kidney with a "mass" on the left-hand side that needed removing "at some point".

In a leisurely way appointments were made with a charming urologist who spoke good English and reassured us it would be very straightforward - the "mass" was external to the kidney and still on the small side. More scans were taken and blood tests, all of it to fit round the urologist's holidays and our own, intended to be a trip to Spain to see a friend in May, which we cancelled at the last minute.  The Spanish desert in May with temperatures already forty degrees was not going to be a pleasure.  We'll go in winter.

And finally we inched to the beginning of June - Tod's admission to hospital coinciding with the arrival of friends from the UK, staying for a week. I'd told them nothing before they arrived, fearing they would cancel, not wanting to be "in the way". In fact their being here kept me sane, someone to leave Bertie with as I set out, someone to talk to after I'd been to the hospital. They fed me, played silly card games and let me share my terrors.

The nice urologist promised to phone me after Tod's op and then left me with no news for all the afternoon, while I imagined the worst.  In the end, I got in the car and drove to the hospital an hour away and found my way to Intensive Care.  The friendly nurses on the desk said I could see him and I walked into something out of the worst kind of medical drama.  Tubes, wires, flashing lights, beeping sounds, bottles hanging from a stand, with clear fluids dripping steadily, bottles under the bed draining urine and blood and in the middle of it all an old, old man who looked like my father in his final days. Even more painful, Tod didn't want me there. The hardest of lessons, when someone is struggling that much, the last thing they need is a visitor. So I left and came home to the safety of friendship.

Gradually, over the following days, there were signs of progress and then, over the weekend, he told me he'd collapsed after having  his first shower - six people round his chair, straight to MRI for a scan, to discover he'd had a pulmonary embolism. That meant back on blood thinners and support stockings.  

Except that he needed to heal from his operation and suddenly he wasn't and he was bleeding internally. By Monday, he was back in the operating theatre being "cleaned up" inside.  And then back in Intensive Care again where he felt safe and I was back to driving home with my heart in my mouth and no friends to comfort me as they had gone home.  I sent cautiously optimistic emails to everyone and wished I felt as confident as my words tried to convey.

And selling the Skoda?  We took it in for service before Tod went into hospital and a few days later I got a call from the garage to come in and see them. I took our friends with me, he understands cars, she speaks good French.  In fact the message was stark and straightforward - one of us had put petrol into the diesel engine. The clear implication was it would cost a great deal to put right, with no certainty that long-term problems wouldn't emerge. Over the week we talked of the alternatives and I asked whether they would buy it, unrepaired.  In good nick, the car salesman said it would be worth 5,000 euros.  Unrepaired, he offered 4,300 euros. Tod, too frail to want to be bothered with it all, agreed to let it go and the view from friends was "bite his hand off".  We'd always had an uneasy relationship with the Skoda. I hope it found a good home.

Fresh guests arrived in the cottage and took care of Bertie as I continued my trips to the hospital.  The urologist warned it would all take longer as Tod had had two operations and two anaesthetics in a week.  Tod was weighed and he'd gained nine kilos in two weeks - this was a man who had been in intensive care for days eating nothing and then being offered not much more than potage.  His feet beneath the stockings were puffy and his thighs doubled in size.  Again, I feared for him. Phlebitis. But gradually the daily blood thinner injections and the support stockings did the job and he began to walk the corridors and the stairs with the aid of the kinesiologists. And he returned not just to his normal shape but someone a good bit skinnier.

They moved him into "rehabilitation" for more "kine" and he decided he'd had enough of looking at hospital walls and that he would heal better at home in his own bed, looking at beautiful countryside and being fussed over by his wife and his dog.  They let him go, reluctantly, the head kinesiologist saying "he won't do his exercises" not understanding that a walk down through our field and back up again, with Bertie in tow, would give Tod more joy and more healing than any hospital staircase.

For two weeks we were visited twice a day by local community nurses, for injections of blood thinner, to check the state of his foot-long scar and to reassure he was making progress, but it would take time.

It has, and it will.  It's only two months.  He's had the ok from his urologist that he can "resume normal life" - which for him is getting back on the mower, keeping the pool clean and walking Bertie.  Forty-five minutes, up through the woods and then back down across Alain's and Phillipe's fields. This is a man who five weeks ago was just able to walk the length of the ward corridor. He is healing.

Spring Sounds

The wooh-wooh, wooh-wooh of a hoopoe, somewhere up behind the house.

The trills from the trees alongside the stream in the valley, as the nightingales sing their hearts out.

Bertie's outraged barking at yet another loud "thud" from the bird scarer in the adjacent field. Monsieur F. has planted sunflower seeds and is trying (without much success) to keep the pigeons off.

The thrum of the sit-on lawnmower as Tod weaves it round the flower beds in our garden, ducking to avoid stray rambling rose stems and the lower branches of the cherry tree behind the pool house. 

He is out there for the first time in a month after his cataract operation.  He is doing well.

The Plum Trees ...

 ... that have self-seeded in what I laughingly call "the orchard" have never carried so much blossom.

Ukraine came to our small town last night ...

- a small, insignificant town in the middle of France Profonde.

For some strange reason the Grand Kyiv Ballet chose us on their European tour.  A town that could do no more than offer them the "salle des fêtes" with its too small, noisy stage without scenery, a ropey sound system (no orchestra) and an audience on hard stacking chairs.

They danced Sleeping Beauty - the choreography and the costumes so musty and classical that it felt like we were seeing the first performance.

The girls were taller than the boys - and we think they were just boys (the male principals being otherwise occupied). Young boys, not yet with the strength or experience to lift their partners effortlessly. 

At the end, following a somewhat subdued curtain call (no curtains as such of course) the young prince ran off-stage and re-emerged waving the Ukrainian blue and gold flag and the audience rose to its feet and applauded and applauded.

At Last!

The sun has reappeared after a fortnight of gloom and I make the most of it.  Time to brutally prune the vine that runs virtually the length of the terrace.

I realise as I do it how much my father would have loved this.  He was a robust pruner - much to my mother's horror, as she watched through the kitchen window yet again most of the long stems of the clematis montana disappear into the wheelbarrow before they'd had a chance to flower.

I think our French acquaintances also look with some horror on what I do with our vine.  Ours is much more of a tangled mass than the neat, compact structures in the vineyards.  We were told when we bought the house that the previous but one owner - Serge's aunt - had planted three vines, one for each of her sons.  By the time we moved in the vine at the far end of the terrace had died and the one in the middle (a white grape) was struggling.  But the vine nearest the kitchen was doing superbly and remembering the Great Vine at Hampton Court I decided to let it weave its way along the dead branches of the other two.  Over the years it has almost, but not quite, reached the far end.  And the white one in the middle has coyly put out new tendrils and gives us a few modest small bunches among the overly abundant red.

As I prune another memory of my father comes to mind. He loved France and things French. My mother recounted an occasion early in their relationship - both barely out of their teens.  He and his (female) cousin spent the entire time speaking French to each other and ignoring my mother.  I think he was hoping to impress. I think my mother showed great generosity of spirit that she forgave him his rudeness.  I'm glad she did - somehow, over the years my father passed on his love of France to me. 

(Mind you, I could do with his language skills!)

Twelfth Night

As we are leaving the mayor's "annual" get-together, being held for the first time in three years, I tell our neighbour Laurence I am going home to take down our Christmas decorations (as is customary in the UK) on Twelfth Night. She says: "But you are in France now!" and we laugh.

In fact, little is left of the evening in which to complete the task after the mayor has introduced every single person involved in running the commune to the rest of us, in the process forgetting a few individuals, being reminded, probably saying at least four times that is all he is going to say, then thinking of something else.

For our "new" mayor (Covid having intervened) it's the first time he's had a chance to be centre stage in front of all of us and he makes the most of it. 

The place feels smarter under his guiding hand. An enormous new TV on the stage at the salle des fêtes has a continuous slideshow of how money is being spent in the village. The salle itself has been redecorated with better insulation and new heaters on the walls. Those of us who have come well wrapped up are too warm by the time his speech has finished and there is a slight sigh when he hands the mike to the local priest and then to the elegant blonde who is our representative from the  Assemblée Nationale. She knows her audience - her first words are about protecting the local "chasse".

The equally elegant man in the dark cashmere coat and black mask (one of the few in the room still concerned about Covid) from the local Commune of Communes has the wisdom merely to give us all New Year greetings when it comes to his turn to speak.

The small, elderly retired farmer who introduced himself to us when we arrived writes down his address and elaborate details as to where to find his house. He tells me his father was a "domestique" to a previous family who owned our house many years ago. It sounds like things did not end well and I'm not sure I want to know more details. He is also trying to persuade us to join a country dance group he goes to - he talks about "Scottish dancing" - I am briefly excited about the thought of the Gay Gordons and Stripping the Willow - not danced for fifty years - but reality and Tod's two left feet bring me back down to earth.

And I'm back down to earth again this morning - the dining room table is covered in decorations that need putting into boxes and up into the loft. At least I managed to get them off the tree last night before bedtime.

And French Christmas decorations? Some will still be seen in situ at Easter. No Twelfth Night superstitions here.

Where did it go?

 Only one more day to 2022.  

I meet the jolly lady who retired from the mayor's office at the last election in Leclerc, by the large open chill cabinets that are being stocked with platters of finger food for thirty. She catches me leaning over the small cakes drenched in dark chocolate, which look delicious.  I regretfully turn my back on them. After all, what would we do with thirty small chocolate cakes on New Year's Eve when there will only be the two of us?

She tells me they had a family Christmas, but - like us - their New Year's Eve will be a party-free zone.  We share the experience of an "other half" whose view is that this is only a day like any other.  She and I, on the other hand, will be keeping an eye on the TV to count down the final minutes.  I might even raise a glass to absent friends - we have a somewhat strange orange Martini that Tod bought with the intention of adding a suitably festive flavour to the carrots on Christmas Day. We both agreed next time we'll use Frank Cooper's Oxford marmalade which has a suitably tangy bite to the oranges. As usual, we over-catered - after all how big a capon did we need just for the four of us?  The meat from  the bones of yesterday's stock sits in the fridge looking at me reproachfully every time I open the door.  Maybe a curry in a day or two?

The jolly lady and I seem to be the only shoppers in Leclerc not stocking up for tomorrow night's celebrations.  Shopping trolley loads of alcohol are being wheeled through the check-outs.  There is a special counter set up with an assistant just for the oysters and the seafood section has never looked so exotic. Do the French in France Profonde really buy sea urchins and if so, what on earth do they do with them?

Even though we will be having quiet nights in, we wish each other "Bonnes fêtes" - the traditional greeting for this time of year - and agree we will meet again shortly in 2023, at the mayor's annual shindig on January 6th, where he will give the commune his annual overview - his first for three years.  No doubt it will be a very crowded and cheerful affair - whatever he has to impart.

So, whether you are happily letting 2022 quietly slip away or sending it off with an exuberant celebration, may I say "Bonnes fêtes" and wish that 2023 is happy and healthy and that we all find at least some small measure of sanity and hope in the year ahead.  

"What is a parsnip?" ...

 ... the hairdresser asks me (in French).

I go into town early in the hope that I can have my hair cut before the Christmas rush.  I am lucky - a man getting a final whisk over with the hair dryer and otherwise the place is empty.

I practise my limited French vocabulary on her and ask her what she's doing for Christmas and the New Year. Not surprisingly perhaps, given her job, she will be busy.

So, the conversation turns to what I am doing.  A Christmas Day lunch with friends.  Would it be a "buffet espagnol?" which (if I remember correctly from an club evening some years back) is where everyone brings a dish.  Not quite. But they will be bringing the Christmas pud.

So, of course, it being a French conversation, we are now discussing in detail what the meal will include.  Are we having turkey?  No, a capon (tastier than a small, scraggy turkey).  And what will we be having with the capon - green beans?  This is where we get into deep water. I volunteer the word "parnais" which is a mistake, as the word had no "r" in it.  But even saying it without the "r" elicits a blank look.  So now she's confused and I'm confused about this French word and how it's spelt / pronounced, which in English is "parsnip".

I volunteer "like a carrot, but white". "Ah, navet". "No" I've seen the word, but I know it's not that (it's a turnip I discover later).  I try adding, "cooked in the oven with rosemary", but that's just adding to the confusion. 

So we decide to discuss the first course.  I don't even attempt to describe what we are really having - butternut squash soup - and substitute "potimarron" (another kind of squash, round, bright orange and lacking in taste) which she does know.  But it goes downhill again when I tell her I will be adding ginger to the soup. She is very suspicious of this culinary practice.  Fortunately by now my haircut has reached a stage where, with some relief for both of us, we can return to the topic of "more off the back or is it fine as it is?"

And the reason for this immense confusion over "panais" (parsnips)?  And the no-go area of butternut squash?  Fifteen years ago, when we first came here, neither were to be found anywhere, except occasionally at a farmers' market where the Brits shopped. Butternut squash was unknown and not grown.  Parsnips were grown, but only to be fed to animals. And why not for humans? Because during the Second World War that was the diet the French were reduced to eating. 

Nowadays, much to our delight, butternut squash and parsnips are to be found everywhere. But these essential additions to a full-blown British Christmas Day lunch with friends quite elude the comprehension of a young hairdresser in France Profonde.