A surprise visit to Paris

We left La Chapelle-Gaudin, and Helen, on Sunday.  She drove us to Poitiers, bravely joining the taxi ranks to drop us at the door of the train station.  We said quick goodbyes, and know we will keep in touch.

Then the saga began.  Our TGV (fast) train was due to depart at 3:25pm but the departure board told us it was delayed by an hour.  Not as bad as the two earlier trains which had still not arrived and were expected to be two and a half hours late.  There was a nice man wandering around in a TGV uniform and we approached him and, firstly, asked if he spoke English as our French is limited, a lot.  We were in luck.  He was able to tell us that a tree had fallen on the track, halting all the trains using that track.  Our train would arrive about an hour late, which meant we would miss our connection at St Pierre des Corps, but we should be able to get on the following connection and arrive at our destination, Vendome, only an hour late.  I called our new host, Darienne, to let her know of the delay as she was due to pick us up in Vendome at 5pm, and said I’d phone again once we’d got on the connecting train through to Vendome – we didn’t want her turning up there at 6pm and finding we hadn’t been on the expected train.

Back at Poitiers station, we remained in the main hall until the platform number for our train was displayed, then followed a maze of signs to find the lift that would take us onto the bridge and over to our platform.  Having made it that far, we checked the diagram that shows where the carriages will be located on the platform – carriage 19 was the second to last at the back of the train so we headed in that direction and settled down to wait, standing along with most other passengers as there is little seating on platforms – not usually a problem because trains tend to run on time so you arrive just a reasonable time before scheduled departure and do not have to stand around for long.  In fact the TGV ticket recommends you are at the platform at least two minutes before the scheduled departure.  I think I’d be a bit stressed if I were to cut it that fine!

Finally, trains started arriving and departing and it wasn’t long before our one arrived.  But, strangely, our carriage wasn’t quite where we’d expected and we had to trot further down the platform to find it.  Having found it we left our big bags on the luggage rack (always a disconcerting feeling) and made our way to our seats to find a man seated in one of them.  Luckily, he spoke a little English and I showed him our tickets and he was just getting his out to check when an official looking man in a cap turned up and asked ‘Madame’ for her tickets.  He directed us out of the carriage and said we had to go to another, at the front of the train – to be more accurate he’d said a lot of something in French until I said “we don’t speak French”, to which he replied with those basic instructions, plus a tidbit about “the train leaves in two minutes so you’ll have to run” - these trains are very long.  Oh dear.  So we ran, heavy day packs on our backs, wheeling our big Kathmandu travel packs behind us, weaving around the people standing on the platform preparing to wave goodbye to their friends and family on the train.

I’ll divert a little in my story to tell you of a discovery I made early on in our time in Reading, and the decision I made following that discovery.  Where we were living in Reading was less than a half hour’s walk from the train station, and a couple of times we cut it a bit fine.  Often this was because it can take longer to get your tickets from the machine than you expect.  Anyway, we got into a pattern of me buying the tickets while Nigel checked the board to find out what time the next train departed and from which platform.  If we were running a bit late, we would then have to ‘get our roller-skates on’ to get to the platform – jogging through the station, up the escalator, along the bridge, down the stairs and then flying through the doors.  I think it was the next and final step which was the nail in the coffin, so to speak.  If there were seats available, we’d plonk ourselves down in seats to recover ….. and then my back would spasm, painfully.  It would usually only take a minute or so to recover, but it was scary (thrown on top of already being stressed about nearly missing the train), and altogether not very nice.  After the second time I decided it was a ridiculous situation and I declared that in future if we were running late for a train, we would miss it and we would get the next train. 

Fast-forward to platform 2 at Poitiers Station.  We had run towards the front of the train to find that they were all first class carriages and were certainly not carriage 19.  The platform staff blew the whistle.  We’d just passed the third carriage from the front where the entrance to the carriage was crammed with people standing.  Left with little choice, and finding only two people in the entrance of the next carriage, we climbed aboard, and the doors closed.  Phew!  I was not in the best of moods.  'Angry' is a pretty accurate description of how I felt about what had happened.  I haven’t been angry for a very long time.  Anyway, there was a woman sitting on one of the fold down/pop up seats in the entrance way, with her stuff on the one next to her.  She moved her stuff and I gratefully collapsed onto the seat, still gulping for air after our run.  And had another of my ‘episodes’ – back spasms, a few moans and groans thrown in for good measure, tears in the eyes.  As usual, it settled down again, and I just wanted to burst into tears.  Luckily, Nigel was by this stage sitting opposite me and held my hand until I’d calmed down. 

We’d been looking forward to this train trip, but instead we were sitting on crappy seats with limited views of the countryside flying passed us.  But there’s no use crying over spilled milk.  We were at last on our way.  We would miss our booked connection, but hopefully we’d get on the next and we’d be in Vendome at 6pm.

A quick look at a map will show you the locations of Poitiers, St Pierre des Corps and Vendome.  From Vendome you would have to stay on the train another 45 minutes to reach Paris, so how does Paris fit into this story?  The trip from Poitiers to St Pierre des Corps takes 45 minutes, so 45 minutes after departing Poitiers we were mentally preparing ourselves for the imminent slowing down of the train, and disembarkation.  Except the train didn’t slow down.  We got out our phones, turned on the GPS and ran Google Maps to find out how far away we were.  They couldn't pin-point our location, probably because we had limited access to the satellites through our pokey window.  So Nigel bravely tried a little French on the woman sitting with us.  She spoke enough English for us to understand, so, without the added confusion of smatterings of French, I’ll explain...

We were on the wrong train and we were on a non-stop journey to Paris.  We could do nothing but join her in laughing at our situation!  We were very lucky though - she was a TGV employee and explained that this train had come in to platform two just before our train.  The trip number was one digit different from our one, but I hadn’t even looked for that – I’d just been looking at the carriage numbers.  She spoke to the ticket collector and he looked up the trains out of Paris back to Vendome and she wrote down the trip number and departure time for us.  He also wrote a note on our ticket to explain the error, to reduce the chance that we’d have to pay for the extra trip.  In the event, on our arrival in Paris, our ‘rescuer’, having pointed out the Eiffel Tower in the distance as we caught a glimpse of it in the distance between buildings, assured us she had the time to take us to our return train and ensure we got free seats.  She spoke to the men at the help desk on the platform next to the train and one of them asked us, in English, to follow him please.  We quickly said our goodbyes and again said our thanks to her and followed our guide.  He kindly pointed us to very comfortable seats in a first class carriage and we most happily settled back to enjoy our 45 minute trip to Vendome.  I phoned Darienne and said we’d arrive at 7pm.  Thankfully she was still able to pick us up and we’ve now spent a day in our new ‘home’, a beautiful French chateau ….. but that’s a story for another day!

French life

After being here just a month I can’t speak with authority on the French way of life, but here are a few observations …

All the little villages we have been through are generally well cared for, all but the tiniest have public toilets and a Mairie (town hall). Our village of La Chapelle-Gaudin, with just 65 houses or so, has a mayor, a two-story Mairie (where you must get married if you live in the area), one shop (for bread), a salle des fetes (a multi-purpose hall for the community to use), sports grounds, a recycling centre, and a school with 19 children. It also has a church which, like all churches in secular France, is owned by the state. The community pays a person full-time to maintain the village. There are also 18-odd wind turbines (each 130m tall!) nearby and the power company gives tens of thousands of euros to the community each year as compensation.

Today (Saturday) is one of the major travel days here (because families are setting out for their annual holiday). So large trucks are banned from the roads. Hence no mail is transported today.

On the down side are the public services. Though they work well they appear inefficient and a means to keep lots of people employed, though strikes are common. We have just tried out the postal service. I mentioned in a previous post that my camera lens is broken, so we wrapped it up in a box for sending back to NZ for repair.  Helen took us to the main post office in Thouars, the largest nearby town, as she warned us any local post office wouldn’t be able to cope. When a staff member finally arrived at the counter and looked at the parcel you could see that it wasn’t going to go well. The parcel was too well wrapped – it was too small! The various forms required wouldn’t fit onto it. They did sell standard postage-included boxes but they didn’t cover the insurance amount required. Plus he could give us two prices: 30 euros or 110 euros! A trip to the supermarket procured us a suitable box so we returned today with the various forms filled out – one in triplicate, the other just duplicate. This seemed to do the trick and the lens will duly be sent somewhere. 

And on the subject of forms, when you send them into government departments they may return them to you with any mistakes or omissions highlighted so you can have another go.

People here do not seem particularly IT-literate. Helen’s two daughters went to school and college here. They would often shop online which was a mystery to all their classmates. Partly it is the general poor state of French websites – very old-fashioned.

France is still very insular and protectionist of their culture and economy. Many of the goods we’re familiar with buying very cheaply (because they come from China) are more expensive here because they are made locally. People do support their local shops and regional produce. They tend to holiday mainly in countries that speak French.

There are many empty houses in the countryside. The inheritance laws mean a property (land or house) is divided up amongst the children. This often makes farms uneconomic and requires all the children to agree on what to do with the property. As not all may agree on how to sell it and how to divide up the money, many are left in a state of limbo. Also, young people don’t want to live in the countryside where there are few jobs, nothing to do, and everyone around is ancient. The chance of selling a house quickly is not good - they may take years to sell. Unless a Brit comes along. There are a lot of ex-pats living here, either with a holiday home or permanently. And some, like our hosts, still work in Britain and commute. For a lot of them it is a way to realise a dream that is nearly impossible in Britain: to own a large house and land. Run down houses needing renovation can be had for 20,000 euros, larger ones ready to live in for under 100,000 euros.

Bastille Day

Monday 14^th July is a public holiday so we duly obliged by taking the day off (we worked the previous day, a Sunday, instead) and did some local sightseeing. Our host, Helen, is away for a week in the UK and has left us the keys to the house, wine cellar, and Landrover. Luckily summer has started to return; we have had warm but very changeable weather of late which is quite unseasonal. By this time of the year it should be very hot day after day, hiding from the sun in the afternoon and eating out late each evening. Sadly that has rarely been the case.

Old buildings are everywhere

Taking the Landrover for some exercise (it is quite a challenge driving a large right-hand drive vehicle, on the right, down little, wobbly, country lanes - though probably not as scary for the people in normal-sized cars coming in the other direction!) we headed to a pretty local town by the name of Airvault. Being a holiday it appeared abandoned, but there were quaint streets to meander down, lots of old buildings, the remains of a castle, and a medieval church to investigate. Like all the villages around here it is somewhat drab, all the buildings are shades of cream. Some are still stone, a few are half-timbered, but most have been rendered over all in a similar colour. At least all the towns are very tidy, clean, and well decorated with flowers. Totally un-Greek!

One of the better residences in Airvault

Covered market areas are quite common

Over-doing the flowers in Airvault

Airvault from the castle walls

Old farmhouses in town

Sadly at this point my wide-angle lens gave up on me so there won’t be as many images appearing until it has had a little trip back to NZ for repair.

Summer in France ...

Forget that little event called the [soccer] World Cup! Being in France and being Bastille day there was no better way to relax than sit back and watch the Tour de France ( on telly). Even if you don't like the cycling, the live coverage always includes spectacular French scenery, and plenty of sunflowers! Unfortunately there are no stages anywhere near where we will be so I have to rely on the telly.

After dinner we drove half an hour to Bressuire, the nearest large town in this region. It has a nice Chateau surrounded by old fortifications – and this was the backdrop to the ensuing fireworks display we had come to see. There were a couple of food tents, a dreadfully loud disco/rap with no one paying it any attention, a dirty-looking and smelly public shared toilet trailer, and a grassy hillside to sit with about 2,000 others waiting for the display to begin at 11pm when it was deemed dark enough. Despite the “attractions” the actual fireworks show was probably the prettiest we had ever seen. Some great old French music (and some not-so-old English!) and a 15 minute display.

And we mustn't forget the frog!  Yes - I said 'frog'.  A little brown guy, about five centimetres long, decided to take a hop through the throngs on this most auspicious of evenings.  We're not sure he made it through the evening, and would be surprised if he did!

Bienvenue en France

Southampton Airport

Flying out of a regional airport in the UK is so much more pleasant than the huge main ones. The train pulls up into Southampton airport just a few metres from the door. All is quiet and peaceful and, compulsory coffee and cake later, we are heading off into the blue sky across the Channel.  Not a lot to see until we fly over the Channel Islands and see how small they are. How Bergerac found so many cases to deal with is beyond me.

Likewise, landing at a regional airport is a quick process and soon we were meeting our new host for the next month, Helen, in the car park at Nantes airport. Not hard to spot a right-hand drive burgundy Landrover! The drive to the village of La Chapelle-Gaudin takes over an hour so plenty of time to acquaint ourselves with the flat arable countryside. Small towns, small villages and small roads hereabouts.

Day 1 - Vicki doing what she does best!

Our new home is an impressive three storey house (plus cellar) as seen from the street, though it is only one room deep, so there are only two bedrooms. There is a big garden and adjoining hay field, plus various outbuildings including a stone shed in the middle of the front garden accessible from the street –the only problem being it belongs to the chap across the road! It seems not uncommon for a house to have land or outbuildings across the road.

Helen and Nick

Helen, our host, is partially physically disabled so we are here to help around the house and garden and to provide some company as her husband, Nick, currently works in the UK and can usually come home only at weekends. There seem to be several English ex-pats in this region with one partner commuting to the UK for work. Helen’s hobby is cooking and she is wonderful at it. It is an opportunity for her to cook properly rather than just for herself, so we are having very large and complex lunches and dinners – wonderful but we feel the need to work hard physically to keep our waistlines in check. And did I mention that they have a well-stocked purpose built wine cellar? We’ve had a good introduction to the local wines.

As it is around the summer solstice we are often eating very late (after 9pm) and sometimes outside. A few thunderstorms but generally warm to hot weather. As I write this it is supposed to reach 35C later in the day! Luckily Helen and Nick have a share of a pool at her sister’s which is just a short cycle ride away.

Poitiers town hall

We have had one real day out when we dropped Nick off at Poitiers airport then we had a look around the ancient university town. As we arrived at lunchtime most of the shops were closed, but also the pay-and-display parking is free between 12 and 2pm. Though it drizzled most of the time, we had a good wander around the streets.

 Some scenes from Poitiers ...

We have also driven through a few of the local hamlets. There appear to be few people around but generally the hamlets are very clean and tidy, though there are also plenty of decaying buildings. Much effort goes into their vegetable gardens. The French, of course, love their food. We were taken to the next village for some groceries (ours has no shops) and there they have a co-op, a shop run by volunteers and one paid staff member. It is full of regional food, generally organic, and welcomes you with a coffee plus lots of samples of the local wines and cheeses: cow, sheep and goat. Even cupcakes made by a local English resident. As they are not out to make much of a profit it is very satisfying supporting the local community.

Remains of a local château ...

with its intact, though shallow, moat

Life is peaceful here with the only noise from the occasional traffic (mostly tractors) and the irregular toll of the bell in the church steeple. I say irregular as at certain times in the morning it appears to have a "snooze" function: about 5 minutes after the hour it repeats the chimes! Then once in a while we here 30+ fast rings - must be a code which we're not yet privy to. It seems a shame to spoil the tranquillity by firing the strimmer up, but I do get to wear green overalls, the official colour for farmers. Other types of workers get to wear different colours!

Life in an English city, part 2

Summer is here and the next part of our adventure begins, so the frequency of posts on this blog will increase! Firstly though, it is time for a recap of recent events in England. As we moved into spring we had more outings, mainly due to meeting up with a network of ex-pat Kiwis, many who are based in this region. Most are in their 50s and 60s and working and living on large estates.

Christine and Vicki in the fireplace ...

We firstly met up with Tony and Christine (who coordinates this network) and they kindly took us for a tour around Oxfordshire, with a stop at one of those ancient pubs that is so small that Vicki and Christine had to sit in the fireplace. Then off to dinner at their lovely cottage on an estate in a very pretty village. A good day out indeed, and a chance to socialise after a fairly quiet period by ourselves.

Our next outing was with Alain and Anne who live at an exclusive private school where Anne is a matron of one of the boarding houses. Almost the entire village is now part of the school as the facilities are so extensive. There is even a pub for the older school students!

Our third visit was for a BBQ with a dozen of this network at one of their homes – that is, a very large home belonging to the estate owner. Once again plenty of glorious food, good NZ wine and great company. And a brilliant hot day which has been a rarity of late.

These trips out have been a good opportunity to see the local countryside, which we have only otherwise seen from train or local bus windows. We have had a go at cycling around the area but our bikes are really uncomfortable so we are disinclined to venture further. Pity though as the lanes are very pretty, except for the excess of cars. So our solution has been to hire a car.

Starting the climb at Caen Hill

We had a big day out with Izzie when we drove down to Salisbury and had a look around the cathedral there. Big, old and very interesting, including seeing a copy of the Magna Carta. Some interesting medieval buildings around too but we had to race off to get to Stonehenge. These days you have to book a time-slot in which to arrive so they can even out the influx of tourists. A brand new visitor centre has been built with a bus to take you to the actual site. Though you can only walk around the periphery of the stones – along with hundreds of others - you can see them very well. Next stop was the Wiltshire town of Devizes and the amazing sequence of locks on the canal nearby at Caen Hill. Twenty-nine locks in a row to get the boats uphill, or down, can take the best part of a day to get through. We continued on our way to Bradford on Avon, a very pretty town that looks like a mini-Bath. Highly recommended. So, with a final stop for a walk around the standing stones at Avebury, we toddled home.

Standing stones at Avebury

At Bradford on Avon

Our next big day out was taking the train to Bath and meeting up with my sister Gail and brother-in-law Janos for a drive around the area. Bath is as beautiful as its numerous tourists would imply. The warm stone is attractive even on a damp morning, and there are lots of little alleyways and shops to explore. We drove onto Wells which is a charming market town and famous as my birthplace. We were lucky enough to see the inauguration of the new bishop, which unfortunately meant the cathedral was closed. Wells has a beautiful “Bishop’s Palace” (no wonder he was smiling a lot) which looks more like a castle surrounded by a moat. It also has a 14th C street (supposedly the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in Europe).  Luckily, after a drive through the local villages we returned for dinner and a look through the re-opened cathedral.

The moat at Bishop's Palace - Wells

Royal Crescent - Bath

Vicars in 14th century Vicars Close - Wells

Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace

We made one further excursion and that was to the Cotswolds courtesy of Brian Lee, the programme director at the Witney Photo Group. Some time ago Vicki had a couple of her images accepted in the Cheltenham International Photo salon. She found that the nearest place the exhibition of the winning entries would be displayed was at Witney, so emailed them to find out the details. Brian kindly offered to spend the day with us prior to the show and duly did so, starting with a visit to the grounds of Blenheim Palace, then a meander through the Cotswolds for lunch at Bourton-on-the-Water.  An idyllic stone village only spoilt by the throngs of tourists. We were treated to a quick ride around the outskirts of the village in Brian’s Aston Martin DB9 (!) followed by the presentation of the winning images from the competition at the Photo Club evening. They kindly included Vicki’s accepted entries so there was a big round of applause. Another wonderful day out due to the generosity of Brian – thank you!

Poppy field in the Cotswolds

Leaving Reading was difficult for me as I was leaving my daughter Izzie who had to find a job and somewhere to live. It was also a little sad leaving the two cats that Vicki had become very attached to (ok, so maybe I will miss them too!). But it was a relief to start the next stage of our journey after a long hiatus.
We spent four nights with our friends Tim and Linda down in Petersfield where we traded some gardening work for wonderful food and great company. Again sad to say goodbye but we know we’ll be catching up with them again, partly due to leaving a huge bag of our overflow in their loft!

Our final day in England started with a delightful rail journey through the English countryside down to Southampton airport and the flight to Nantes in France ….

An ordinary life?

... not exactly ordinary, but certainly settled compared with the previous phase of our ‘adventure’.

There’s a reason why you haven’t seen much of us on here …. There hasn’t really been a lot to say!!  Having said that, we have been out and about quite a bit and we’ve made further plans for the year, so here’s a bit of an update.

As Nigel indicated in his February post, Reading is only a half hour on the fast train to London.  We usually manage a trip into London, or somewhere, each week.  On at least half of those trips to London I’ve spent a few hours at the Westminster Archives Centre, furthering research into my family history.  It’s been quite special to find records of where my ancestors lived then to go and wander off through the back streets of Westminster to find the street.  A couple of my ‘wrinklies’, as I call my ancestors, got married in St Margarets, at Westminster, where the likes of Winston Churchill married.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s any indication that they were famous or wealthy, but it was quite neat to step inside and know they’d been there too, nearly 200 years ago.

My preference for family history research has left Nigel to enjoy hours, reading every word, in various museums and galleries. The first time we separated in London to do this was a bit traumatic for me …. My first time on the tube (underground) on my own – but I only needed to be rescued once – another tube traveller pointed me in the right direction as I turned in circles trying to understand where I was supposed to catch the next connection.  It’s still a bit daunting sometimes to work out how to get to where you want to go, but so far, so good.  Travelling on the buses provides a better view, especially if you can get the coveted front seats upstairs in a double-decker, but when you don’t know the names of the destinations and their routes it’s pretty hard to work out which bus you need.  Travelling with Nigel it’s so much easier (he lived in London for years) – as long as I can keep up.  On one trip we dashed down some stairs to hop on the tube and as he raced through the doors ahead of me, they closed!  I waved goodbye and turned around to work out what to do next.  The next thing Nigel’s telling me to get on – the staff on the platform must have seen me and opened the doors again to let me in.

One of Nigel’s daughters, Izzie, arrived here a month ago for her own ‘up-over’ adventure.  Luckily for her we have a spare bedroom so she’s been staying with us since she arrived.  Izzie’s as impressed with Reading as we are, but with her cousins living here it’s a convenient place for her to live and work.  As I write this she’s off to Morocco for a few days with her cousin, Stephanie.  They’ve even booked an overnight trip which includes travelling by camel.  Sounds fantastic!

We were in London a couple of weeks ago to see a show in the evening.  Unfortunately, our trip coincided with a tube strike.  Our train from Reading arrived at Paddington, as usual, but instead of most of the people then streaming down the steps to the underground, they were all walking out the doors to catch buses and taxis.  We were there mid-morning, and it was hopeless.  It must have been far worse earlier in the morning.  We quickly dismissed our original plan to catch the bus and we walked instead.  After visiting a couple of photographic galleries (anyone heard of Getty Images? J) went our separate ways and planned to meet at Hammersmith station late in the afternoon.  I left the archives centre, jumped on a bus that arrived at a perfect moment, which then got snarled up in traffic.  Two thirds of the way along the route the bus driver told everyone to get off – with no explanation – another passenger suggested the driver must have reached the end of her shift.  I started walking, and should have kept walking, but hopped on another bus, which got held up again. Meanwhile, on the other side of London, Nigel and Izzie had arrived at their bus stop and the electronic sign said two minutes until the bus arrived.  Then it said five minutes.  Then the sign went blank.  Forty-five minutes later the bus turned up, and got stuck in traffic.  Despite running for half an hour after they got off their bus, they were just five minutes too late for us to get into our show, but we were given priority tickets for the following week.

Which leads to my next ‘story’.  Walking the streets and entering most museums and galleries are free activities you can enjoy in London.  Another one is being in the audience for a TV show recording.  You have to apply for seats; they issue more tickets than they have seats because they have a lot of ‘no shows’; then you queue to get in.  If you miss out on getting in then you are offered priority tickets for another show, which is what happened to us.  I’d requested tickets for QI, Graham Norton, Top Gear and Alan Davies Untitled.  Many of you will recognise the first three.  The last is one of the comedians who regularly appears on QI with Stephen Fry.  He has a new show and we attended a recording.  It was an interesting experience.  We’ve learnt to not stand in the queue next to very large people.  If you’re standing next to someone in the queue, it’s quite possible you’ll be sitting next to them in the audience.  The audience seats are narrow.  As I went to sit down I noticed that only half my seat was available.  The other half was supporting a sizeable portion of my neighbour’s behind and thigh.  It was a bit uncomfortable.

On my first solo trip to the Westminster Archive Centre I was following my route from the tube station through the back streets of Westminster, using the map on my phone, when I discovered my planned route was blocked off by police and spectators.  I was checking out an alternative route when I noticed a black car leaving from another side street.  The car passed slowly, just a metre from me and deciding it must be someone important I looked into the back seat to see a little old lady in a hat with a slim old gentleman sitting next to her.  One of the spectators confirmed it was the Queen and Prince Phillip, and as my route was now clearing I continued on my way and saw Prince Edward standing at the door to a building.  I later found out that the Queen had been bestowing some awards.

Much of our spare time here has been spent building a couple of websites - one for one of our hosts from last year, www.villaitaliamarche.com, and the other for a group of photographers, www.agathering.co.nz, of which I'm a member.  Our host, Alex, has a large collection of books and DVDs - we haven't watched many DVD's but the books have had a lot of use. 

Bailey

Bentley

Another large part of our spare time is not really spare time - it's the one thing we live for! ;-)  Bentley and Bailey.  They're the Siamese cats we're looking after while Alex is away.  They are such characters - very talkative and demanding and entertaining.  Bentley loves being rubbed - he'll lay on the floor forever, being rubbed on his sides, on his tummy, under his legs (his leg-pits!), under his chin - and he never attacks.  He's never used his claws or teeth on us.  Bailey, however, has a thing about feet and has on a few occasions grabbed a foot and wrapped herself around it and kicked - all for fun, of course, but a bit uncomfortable for the foot.  Their favourite game is to run around after a long piece of string.  Bailey's particularly funny as if we set the string to travel in a small circle she'll follow it around and around, until she topples over from getting giddy.

Not long after we arrived here we were alerted to the external speaker on one of our neighbours’ phones, or perhaps it was a door bell.  Luckily it never sounded at night.  We assumed they must turn it off.  Anyway, it always sounded just a few notes and is uncannily similar to the Harry Potter movie theme, so I’ve been humming the theme on and off for three months.  Just another month to go!  Anyway, we were headed into town last week, walked up the road a little way and turned the corner just in time to see Gaz’s ice cream truck pull onto the side of the road, and sound his ‘I’m here, come and get me’ jingle.  We just looked at each other and laughed!  Now every time he rolls up and we hear the Harry Potter jingle we just smile.

Something that always amuses me is the view from our backdoor on calm, sunny mornings.  As long as there's no wind and a blue sky, you can look up and see the sky criss-crossed with jet trails!  At home we'll see one or two in the sky occasionally, but here, with Heathrow so nearby, it's common to see a dozen or more.

 

Something I noticed straight away here, and continue to notice, is the amount of litter.  At home they’ve pulled out most, if not all, the public rubbish bins in parks and on streets, except those next to shops.  We’re encouraged to take it home, and I think it’s fairly effective – not that I’m suggesting we don’t have litter.  But here there are rubbish bins everywhere.  We’re in a quiet, no-exit, tidy residential street of fairly nice and substantial homes, though many, like ‘ours’ have been converted into flats.  Ten metres from our door there is a rubbish bin perched on a lamp post.  Another twenty or thirty metres away, around the corner, there is another.  And yet there is also litter, though not so much on our street.  Creeks are choked with it.  Railway lines are lined by it.  It lies around in parks and forests.  Plastic bags flutter along streets.  Cans, bottles and takeaway wrappers are dumped anywhere and everywhere.

But it’s also very green here.  We always think of New Zealand as being green, but despite the huge population here there are paddocks and hedges and huge trees and forests seemingly everywhere.  Even the towns and cities have trees and parks poked into every little corner.  Huge apartment complexes will have parks and play areas – lots of green.  The country roads are very narrow and plant life (mainly what we would call weeds!) grows as close to the road as it dares.  They leave all this growth as protection for the wild life, of which there is much.  Deer, foxes, badgers, squirrels, hedgehogs (which are not considered a pest here), birds galore – there is space kept for them all.

When we arrived here our home owner, Alex, offered us the use of her push-bike so we considered buying a secondhand bike so we could get around on them.  We had particularly nice weather when we first arrived so it seemed like an excellent idea.  But wandering home one afternoon we decided to take a different route and came across a bike leaning against a fence with a sign saying 'FREE'.  According to the note, it was surplus to requirements and just needed a new tube.  We decided we were extremely lucky and pushed it off home.  We bought a repair kit and 99p ($2) later we were the proud owner of a pretty good bike - other than a bit of paint-fade it's in as-new condition.  Our first ride was up the road to the local canals.  The area was still recovering from the big floods and our route involved riding through a stream that was running along the gravel road, and wading through a less-fresh large puddle guarding the entrance to a foot bridge.  But it was nice to be out on bikes.  Our first 'big' ride was to Wargrave.  The trip was supposed to take 45 minutes, but it took us over an hour to get there.  Anyone who knows us will know we're not typically slow on bikes, and we were pretty fit at that stage having laboured our way through the summer and winter.  We were not looking forward to the ride home.  We'd discovered we were on two heavy bone-shakers with very uncomfortable seats.  The weather deteriorated after that so we forgot how terrible they were and went out on a second jaunt a couple of months later.  This time Nigel wrapped a towel around his seat, which helped, but was still bad enough for us to decide that our cycling in Reading days are over!

In July last year Mum and Dad decided they were going to come to Italy to see us, since we were having such a great time and they’ve never been to Europe.  Their timing wasn’t great as we’d just booked ourselves up for the rest of the year.  We also had to make sure they were there in spring or autumn as summer would be too hot.  Moving on several months, holiday dates were finally settled and Dad’s staying home and my sister is coming with Mum.  We’ll spend most of September and a few days in October with them.  Once the dates were decided we started planning the holiday and our other travels for the rest of the year, and a week ago we completed our plans, which is quite a relief!  When we finish here in mid-June we fly from Southampton to Nantes, France where we have two Helpx hosts keeping us occupied until the end of August.  Then we’ll fly from Paris to Nice and catch trains back to Taggia, where we return to the first host we had last year.  We’ll help Sue there for a few days, then she’s taking off on holiday with her sister for a couple of weeks, leaving us to take care of the house, garden and pool and to entertain Mum and Julie from there for two weeks.  Then we’ll head towards Florence then Rome, where Mum and Julie depart for home.  We’ll return to another of last year’s hosts, Pauline, to help her and a friend, Corrado, with their olive harvests.  In early November we’re ‘penciled in’ to head back to another of last year’s hosts, Tim, who is on the eastern coast of Italy.

Ideally we’d like to find a house/pet-sit for the European winter, somewhere in southern Italy or Spain where it stays quite warm, so we’re keeping our eyes open and fingers crossed.

I’d better stop rabbiting on now and get this posted – it’s already a week since I started writing!

Vicki

Life in an English city, part I

After a week living in Reading it is time for some initial thoughts. Whenever someone asks us where we live- and we reply “Reading” - they go “oh” in a very underwhelmed manner. All anyone can then say it that it is convenient for getting to places. By this they refer to it being on the main rail line to the West Country and Wales, half an hour from London, with good connections heading down south or north to Oxford. It is also on close to several motorways. When a city is best known for how easy it is to leave then it is time to look harder for the benefits. So far all I can say is that it is also convenient for other things too:

• ·       It is a nice size, about 200,000 people, so it has good facilities.
• ·       The main shopping street is car-free and there are two big malls.  All the usual British High Street chain stores are present. Sigh.
• ·       The centre is only about 15 minutes’ walk from where we live and the train station is another 5 minutes.
• ·       There is the Thames flowing through town – not quite literally though it must have been close recently. If it ever recedes then there is the promise of some walks along the banks of the river.

I’ve run out …. But surely as we spend more time here well find more highlights.