The beauty of freedom, one week post confinement

The beauty of freedom

We have now been free for a week and what a week’s it’s been.

Monday began with a rather rude awakening at 3.00am when our ‘friendly’ local stone marten (fouine) clattered over the bedroom roof and in its search for sparrow eggs sent a roof tile crashing to the ground. This is its second night-raid on our resident birds and the second time it has destroyed a roof tile as it foraged for food. I’m not sure whether I am annoyed or impressed that something that only weighs around two kilograms can make such a racket and has the strength to move roof tiles. They might be great to have around to control snake, rat and mouse numbers, but their lack of care for our property is beginning to grate.

  

By 11.00am, when the accountant called for a year-end Zoom meeting, we’d walked the dog, hung out the washing and had a picnic packed and ready to go as soon as the meeting was done. With no work for over six months, it was no surprise that the accounts showed a loss for last year, but at least we saved over 11,000€ (based on the previous year’s figures) on flights, trains, hotels and food, as Adrian wasn’t traveling for work. It’s always good to look for the positives.

 

A slice of apple tart on the V93 cycle path in Brioux-sur-Boutonne

With no restrictions on where we go or how far we can now be from home, lunch was on a bench about fifteen kilometres into a fifty-eight-kilometre bike ride, that took us way outside of the ten-kilometre radius we have been confined to for the last month. Freedom was beautiful, as were the deer we saw in a field right next to us, the field of buttercups, the dragonflies and butterflies, and the afternoon patisserie on a bench by the Boutonne river.

 

In typical sods law fashion, the weather then took a turn for the worse with wind and rain battering the garden on Tuesday afternoon and pretty much all-day Thursday. Freedom was curtailed once more and bike rides were limited to quick loops from home, squeezed in around work and breaks in the weather.

Updated vaccination information

 

President Macron spoke on Thursday about changes to the vaccination programme. From 10^th May anyone aged over 50 can have an appointment for a vaccination and from Wednesday 12^th May anyone aged over 18 can look online for availability of last-minute appointments for the following day, to ensure vaccination doses don’t get wasted. A quick check on the vaccination availability website showed almost 5000 vaccination within about 100kms from home, which was great news until I checked Adrian’s work calendar. Having had many weeks of not much going on earlier in the year, we are now in the position where he potentially has work scheduled all the way through to 8^th June. When you are the trainer, running a course and having to talk coherently all day, the possibility of having a fever or flu-like symptoms isn’t something we can risk. We know from experience that his work schedule can change at short notice, so for now we will have to hold fire and hope we can both find a last-minute appointment if a gap appears in his schedule.

 

By Friday the week began to improve once more. We thought Ed was popping back for a few days over the weekend, but one look at the amount of stuff he’d cleared from his flat, and we weren’t so sure. His lectures are finished, and his exams are over, so although he may head back to Poitiers occasionally, university is done, and he’s moved back home. This put a big smile on my face and Mini was delighted her favourite dog-walker is back in residence.

 

Victory in Europe Day 8th May 2021

The weather was warm and sunny on Saturday, so I was up early to make a start on Ed’s washing mountain, which was hung out to dry as the eight o’clock Angelus rang out over the village. Before heading off with a picnic lunch for an afternoon on the bikes, I joined the Maire and few others to pay my respects at the war memorial for Victory in Europe Day. For the second year running there has been no official ceremony, but the flags were flying, and flowers were laid, followed by a minute’s silence.

Vineyards in Le Gicq, Charente-Maritime

 

Our bike ride took us over the border and into the Charente-Maritime for sixty kilometres of cycling through pretty villages, and vineyards just bursting into life, before stopping for a picnic at a lake that we had to ourselves, despite it being a public holiday in France. The sun shone all afternoon and we were back in time to shower and change before pre-curfew apéros in a friend’s garden. 

On my first bike 1979

 

It was certainly a good idea to squeeze so much into one day, as Sunday was wet, wild and stormy, but it did give me the opportunity to sort through some old photo albums and look what I found, the first photo of me on a small-wheeled bicycle. It might not be a Brompton, but that Viky bike from the 1970’s, my first ever bike, holds a special place in my heart. I don’t think for one moment that seven-year-old me cycling around the back garden, would be able to imagine forty-nine-year-old me living in France and cycling around five thousand kilometres a year. 

Vive le vélo!  

Smile, it's World Naked Gardening Day 2021

A spot of weeding in the sun for World Naked Gardening Day 2021 

Smile

Welcome to May, where there is plenty to celebrate today; May Day, Fête du Travail and World Naked Gardening Day, plus the sun is out and I can almost smell the freedom of deconfinement.

 

A bunch of lily of the valley to bring you happiness

May Day

On 1^st May, in France, there is a lovely tradition of offering a small bunch of Lily of the Valley to your friends, to bring happiness or bonheur for the coming year. Since 1^st May last year we have lived through eighty-four days of confinement and over a hundred days of nightly curfews, so anything that offers the promise of happiness or raises a smile, works for me.

Stepping out naturally for World Naked Gardening Day 2021

 

World Naked Gardening Day #WNGD

The first Saturday in May is World Naked Gardening Day #WNGD, when gardeners are encouraged to step outside a little more naturally than they normally would. It is day to remind us to be kinder to the planet and the natural environment and to encourage us to reduce the amount of chemicals we use. It is also a day to remember to be kinder to ourselves (and each other) and accept who we are and what we look like. To stop obsessing about having a perfect body shape and love the skin you are in.

 

Enjoying the May sunshine for World Naked Gardening Day 2021

This year marks my ninth year of celebrating WNGD and I may have more grey hairs, wrinkles and saggy bits than I did back in 2013, but with so many rules, regulations and restrictions on our daily lives at the moment, the rebel in me was overjoyed at the chance to throw off my clothes and step outside to feel the warmth of the sun on my back. Here’s to carefree fun and silliness, that raises our spirits and makes us smile.

 

Deconfinement

As of Monday, our restrictions on movement will begin to ease. There will be no more attestations required for leaving home (outside of the curfew hours) and we will be free to travel where we like in France, for whatever reason we want. 

Deconfinement graphic from BFMTV

From 19^th May, non-essential shops, cinemas, museums and theatres, plus cafés, bars and restaurant terraces will be allowed to reopen and the curfew will be put back to nine o’clock in the evening. A sunny café terrace with a coffee and croissant and a spot of people watching, or a sunset bike ride; the things we’ve been dreaming of for so long, are now so tantalising close I can’t help but smile.

 

Keep smiling, stay safe and have fun.  

Celebrating a second birthday in confinement

At his desk, on his birthday

We are now three weeks into our four-week confinement and according to the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, who spoke last Thursday, all being well by 3^rd May our ten-kilometre restrictions will be lifted, although our 19h curfew will remain. This was just the good news Adrian needed to hear as he ‘celebrated’ his second birthday in lockdown. 

 

A birthday bike ride

Last year, when lockdown meant lockdown and life and work were on hold, his 50^th birthday involved a virtual cycle challenge, a few friends shouting greetings through the garden gate and a sparkly candle from the boulangerie, my feeble attempt to hide the disastrous topping on the carrot cake I’d baked. Thankfully things were a bit different this year, and although we had to squeeze our real bike ride in between work and curfew, we weren’t restricted to only being out for one hour, one kilometre from home, and the sun shone down on our 23km ride through the vineyards. 

Birthday cakes and drinks in the sun

 

This year, I wisely left Ed in charge of the birthday cake and his chocolate fondant cake was delicious, plus there was enough left to share with friends the following day. If reaching 51 was not enough of a reason to open a bottle of bubbles, the fact that our post-Brexit residence permits also arrived on his birthday, certainly was. 

 

On this day last year, we had reached day forty of confinement, a significant number held in esteem in many cultures and religions as a period of trial, transformation or purification. I certainly wasn’t expecting to still be coping with Covid-19 confinement one year on, but with just this final week to go, and the peace of mind from having our new residence permits in our possession, I’m hopeful we can look forward to brighter days ahead. 

 

Covid-19 confinement, part three, week one

Moody skies during lockdown

One week into confinement, part three.

We’ve survived the first week of the current four-week confinement period, although I’m finding things are feeling rather different this time. Last year, there was something reassuring, and almost refreshing about the enforced pause to our hectic lives, and the knowledge that the three of us were together and safe. My daily lockdown diary gave me focus and we caught up with lots of chores we never seemed to have time for in life before Covid-19. One of the things that has been bothering me this week is that the words for a daily diary just weren’t there. I know the idea of the diary is to document how I’m feeling, living through these mesures de freinage nationales, as the French government are referring to this period of confinement, but with no mojo, it wouldn’t have made inspiring reading. There is something quite fatiguing about living through 101 days in confinement followed by 110 under curfew and now another 7 locked to within ten kilometres from home and subject to a 19h curfew every evening.

 

Ed has chosen to stay in Poitiers for some of this confinement, not quite ready to relinquish the independence he has only recently regained. While I don’t begrudge him this glimmer of normality, letting him go back to Poitiers last weekend was a worry, but he still managed to put a smile on my face. I’d texted him to ask if he’d seen any Gendarmes on his eighty-kilometre journey to the neighbouring department. His reply, “None, do you imagine a war zone or the occupation when there’s a lockdown?”. Well, yes, Ed, I absolutely do, and knowing I’m over-thinking things is beginning to do my head in.

 

In the bluebell woods

This lockdown isn’t even as severe or restrictive as the previous ones, more shops and services are now deemed essential and we have no time limit on our exercise. We are limited to a ten-kilometre radius for exercise and if I’m nit-picking, which I am, ours is a reduced-size, squashed circle as it crosses into the Charente and Charente-Maritime departments, and crossing a border is a no-no for exercise under the current rules. Luckily Adrian can be quite creative with his route planning and it certainly put big smiles on our faces when we found our first flowering bluebell wood, within our 10km, on our Friday evening bike ride.

 

I’m still very much enjoying having Adrian home all the time, but let’s just say you have no idea how ridiculously excited I was, in fact it could even have been the highlight of this first week of confinement, when I cleared the crap that constantly accumulates on the kitchen table and created enough space for my breakfast preparation area. No longer will Adrian and I be tripping over each other as he puts the coffee pot on while I prepare the breakfast. My jars of oats, berries, nuts, dried fruits and honey, are safely in their own zone far away from his sugar bowl and coffee tray. It’s the little things that make all the difference.

 

Source: MoneyTransfers.com

Another boost to my mood this week was the email from MoneyTransfers letting me know that French Village Diaries had been included in their Top 20 Expat blogs in France, up there with names like France Media Group’s FrenchEntree, as well as many other successful blogs I’ve been following for years (see here for the full list). Adrian would like his QA/proofreading skills to get the mention they deserve at this point too. Thanks darling, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Onwards and upwards, together we can do this.

Easter and new Covid-19 restrictions in France

St Amant de Boixe Abbey

Happy Easter

It’s Easter weekend and the village church bells have fallen silent, as French tradition tells us they’ve sprouted wings and flown to Rome for a Papal blessing. They will return joyous and jubilant to ring in Easter morning, bringing with them chocolate winged bells and Easter eggs.

 

I am not so jubilant as our wings have been clipped once more with the latest Covid-19 restrictions on movements that will come into force this evening. So long as we keep to a ten-kilometre radius from home (and within our dept) we can move freely for any reason, without a time limit, and won’t need an attestation for leaving home, although we must carry proof of address with us. 

 

Travelling further afield it gets a bit more restrictive and our friend the attestation is back, but more on that later. One year into life with Covid-19 and I’ll admit, I have reached the point where I am craving normality, so even if the restrictions are less severe this time, I’m feeling them. Only a few weeks ago, Adrian and I bravely made a (fully cancellable) booking for a five-night break for our wedding anniversary later this month. It was an apartment, an easy drive from home, offering us a safe, self-catered, socially distanced place to stay, in an area we haven’t visited before. We hoped we could spend our days cycling along the Dordogne gorges, cross into the Cantal for a circuit around the Massif de Sancy and enjoy the backroads and local delicacies from the patisseries of the Correze. Following President Macron’s address on Thursday evening, we have cancelled our reservation, although we are hoping we can re-book for May. 

The stained-glass window in the abbey

 

The last few days, the weather has been warmer, so we’ve taken the opportunity to get out and about on our bikes, ensuring we made the most of being able to be more than ten kilometres from home. On Thursday we cycled a fifty-three-kilometre loop around the Charente, stopping, as pilgrims have done for centuries, at the Abbey at St-Amant-de-Boixe, the bikes looking small and insignificant against its huge façade. The door was ajar, and the cool interior offered a welcome change from the heat outside, especially as the magnificent blue glow from the stained-glass window drew me in. 

 

Cornuelles, a local delicacy

We treated ourselves to cornuelles, a local biscuit delicacy only made between Palm Sunday and Easter, that was traditionally sold at the entrance to church with a sprig of box tucked into the hole in the middle. It was an almost perfect afternoon adventure on the bikes, cycling through Cognac vineyards and wide, open fields offering vast vistas. The only thing missing being a bar or café for liquid refreshments, but sadly these have been closed since the end of October.

 

Flapjack at the lavoir

On Friday we went north from Melle, in the Deux-Sèvres, for a thirty-seven-kilometre ride through narrow lanes surrounded by fields of flowering colza (rape), its zingy yellow a cheery sight after a dark winter. The land here is hillier than our usual routes from home, so an old lavoir (wash house) provided a great refreshment stop for a homemade flapjack and as the boulangerie in Melle was open on our return, we also enjoyed our favourite treat of flan, a little compensation for our cancelled holiday and impending restrictions on movement.

 

We had plans for today too, but when we awoke to a cold north-easterly wind that was bending the trees outside the bedroom window, we opted for indoor chores, some gardening and getting the washing dried outside instead. It feels a little cruel that the weather is against us on our penultimate day of freedom for the month of April.

EDIT - blog updated Sunday 4th April with new attestation

The Attestation

The attestation can be found online (download here) 

Here are the valid reasons to leave home:

1 – travel to and from work, for essential work meetings, deliveries, to and from a place of study

2 – health appointments including vaccinations

3 – family emergencies or to assist those who are vulnerable

4 – admin or court summons

 

5 – moving to a new house

6 – essential shopping, collecting parcels, visiting libraries or religious places within your department (if you live close to a dept border, you may travel to within 30km of a neighbouring dept).

7 – outdoor physical activity, within a ten-kilometre radius of your home (but officially only staying within your dept). Attestation not required but can be used if you don’t have a valid proof of address.

8 – walking your pets during curfew, within a one-kilometre radius of home.

Attestation for movement

 

Covid-19 one year since confinement

Covid-19 confinement one year on

Wednesday 17^th March 2021, one year since confinement began.

 

Today at midday marked exactly one year since confinement in France began, initially for two weeks, extended to a total of fifty-five days for phase one, then another forty-six days later in the year, followed by ninety-four days (so far) of overnight curfew. Not that I’m counting. 

There should be so much to say about the anniversary of so many extraordinary events, and yet the words aren’t forthcoming. We have gone from a normal where we were free to travel, to cross borders, to mix and to socialise, to coping with the strict restrictions of confinement and curfews, and where wearing masks out in public and maintaining a distance from others, have now become the norm. 

It has been one year since Adrian last ran an on-site training job. A year since his wings were clipped, throwing him into full-time village life for the first time, and a subdued, muted village life at that. No soirees at the bar or salle des fetes, no socialising and no meetings. Everything we had come to regard as normal for village life, put on hold. His job gave him stimulating face to face interaction with a different set of delegates each week, and I know from the way he casually slips processes, results, outcomes and accountability into day to day conversations, that he misses it. 

 

One year since he was last with his Mum, and fourteen months since I last saw my parents. 

 

One year since his last pub meal in the UK.

 

One year since the last airport run, not that I’m missing those at all.

 

One year since the three of us sat in silence as President Macron addressed the nation with talk of being at war with the virus.

 

One year, and the first ever entire year, that Adrian and I have spent together, with no nights apart, since we moved into our first house in 1997. Miraculously neither of us have yet found the need to feign illness and retreat to the spare bedroom for a few days.

 

Despite France being free of lockdown (except for a few hot spots currently in weekend lockdown) since mid-December, I don’t feel free and Covid-19 is still very much all around us. Hospitals in some areas are struggling and our local ones are expecting high dependency transfers from Paris and Lyon to help ease the situations there. 

 

A year ago, I had the safety net of confinement to protect me. I felt grounded and strangely in control, journaling my thoughts in daily blog posts. Now the risks and concerns are still present, but with a greater freedom of movement and I feel far less in control. Subdued and uncertain are probably what I feel the most this week.

 

Some days, I can feel the fatigue of the situation, a physical ache weighing me down. I’m curfew weary too; the longer, lighter evenings feel wasted when we have to be home by six o’clock. On days when the weather is kind, we have promised ourselves we’ll do an hour in the garden post-curfew, meaning we won’t feel as guilty being out on bikes in the afternoon, when we should be working in the garden.

  

I should be sowing seeds for the potager, something Ed and I tackled at the beginning of confinement a year ago but I can find little enthusiasm for it this year. I think the soil in the potager would benefit from a rest, as would we from the constant demands of watering and weeding. I know I’ll miss the produce if I don’t sow the seeds, but thankfully there are plans in the pipeline and new adventures to look forward to this year.

 

I'd rather lockdown than limbo

Sunrise over the garden at the beginning of the week

I’d rather lockdown than limbo

I could hear the wind and rain this morning before I’d opened my eyes, and just like that, the spectacular sunrises we’d woken to a few days ago were gone and all was dark, damp and gloomy. The grey skies mirror my mood as we find ourselves in a whirl of media speculation, stuck in limbo, awaiting news of lockdown. 

 

Last Sunday, the French media suggested President Macron would be speaking this week, with a high possibility of confinement mark three being imminent. By Tuesday we were told there would be no announcement just yet, he was doing all he could to avoid another lockdown and would wait until the impact of the nationwide 18h curfew had been analysed. 

 

Tuesday’s local news taught me a new French word with the headline “Hécatombe” which means to massacre a large number of people (or animals) and was used to report the sixty-four Covid-19 deaths in the Deux-Sèvres last week. It may not seem that high a number, but it brings the total deaths in our rural department to three hundred and is up from thirty-three in the previous week. I found this increase in numbers shocking and even allowing for the fact that two care homes in the department have been devastated by the virus, if a similar picture is mirrored across France, I can’t help feeling Macron is just delaying the inevitable and in doing so, extending the limbo. 

 

This week in the UK, the news is no less grim as it has now recorded over 100,000 Covid-19 deaths and is the first country in Europe to reach this level. I’m not even reassured by the vaccine programme any more as the current shortage in supplies seems to be creating the perfect storm (in the media at least) for a vaccine war between the UK and the EU. I’m struggling to understand the hostility at a time when working together should be the priority.

 

In other news reports there were riots in Holland as people protested about the measures put into place to protect them and in Nice a restaurant opened its doors and served around fifty people. I appreciate restaurants, cafés and bars have been hit hard, having been closed since the end of October, but I still can’t understand this behaviour. 

 

I think I’ve reached that point when I need to stop reading the news, but as I write this the French health minister is holding a press conference. It is apparent that the curfew hasn’t achieved what they wanted and stricter measures will be necessary. Will there be a full lockdown, like we had last March, or a softer one, like in November? Will the schools all close for an extended winter holiday in February? All these have been suggested in the media, but still we are in limbo as we await the official announcement.

 

It is difficult to stay positive with the uncertainty of this and other things going on at the moment, but thankfully I’ve got yoga and cycling, plus the last of the Christmas brownies that I found in the freezer. A combination of all three, taken daily, seems to be helping. We have now managed to get out on the bikes every day since 29^th December, for at least ten kilometres per day, even on wet days like today. That is almost five hundred kilometres of fresh air, exercise and therapy, and that is priceless.  

Looking back a year

January 2020, fun and laughter in the village bar

We often like to look back in our photo library to see what we were doing a year ago, two years ago etc, and comparing life and the weather to today. A look back to just last year and it is difficult to believe how different life was then. My diary shows village meetings where galette des rois would have been shared as we all wished each other a happy, healthy and prosperous new year. Ed was in Poitiers and Adrian was busy travelling back and forth between here and the UK, but still managed to be around for a riotous fortnight of socialising. 

 

On Friday 17^th we apero’d with friends in their garden, laughing and having fun as we tried out our new hula hoops, that we were convinced were the latest thing in exercise and fitness. Then we were off to the salle des fêtes for the annual council and village employee’s meal, a huge seafood spread, and our last council perk before the end of our six-year term of office. On Wednesday 22^nd there was a live music night at the village bar, followed two days later by our sing-along Grease movie night, which rolled seamlessly into the bar’s monthly vide frigo (empty the fridge buffet night) on Saturday 25^th. We then finished January off in style with our final Bollox to Brexit fish and chip soirée on 31^st.

 

Hugs and kisses were given and received in abandon. Glasses were raised, meals were shared with friends, laughter rang out and we usually ended up singing. No one owned a mask. Today, we are living under a curfew that means no leaving home after six o’clock in the evening. There are no apéros with friends, no shared meals and as the village bar closed its doors for good last autumn, no events to attend. Even the meetings I’d normally look forward to, have lost their enjoyment thanks to the barrier of the masks, the social distancing and the fear of contamination. There is a real feeling of having retreated from village life into my own little family bubble where I’m happy knowing we are all safe and together, but I also know the longer this goes on, the more difficult it will be to get back out there.

 

Tonight, at nine o’clock, for a number nerd like me, will be quite a significant time, being 21h on the 21^st day, of the first month, of the 21^st year, of the 21^st century. I’m not sure what message the universe will send, but it’s definitely been a wild and windy day today. We will certainly be taking a moment, raising our glasses to mark it, and hoping it brings positive vibes. 

France Trivia Advent Calendar, day eighteen, les volailles de Bresse

Advent day 18 sparkling dry chardonnay and biere triple

Advent day eighteen, Friday 18^th December 2020

 

It is a week before Christmas and there was a lot to celebrate today, even the advent calendar seemed to be in tune with my mood, presenting me with a nice bottle of sparkling dry Chardonnay this morning. 

 

French Onion Tarte December recipe challenge

The first thing worth a mention is that I have successfully tamed the French Onion tarte and am delighted to report dinner last night was tasty, edible and with no soggy bottoms or uncooked pastry. It seems sticking to my favourite rectangle baking tin, rather than the round flan dish Hugh would have preferred I use, made all the difference. I will definitely be cooking this recipe again.

 

We enjoyed a little bit of normality this afternoon for the first time since lockdown began, meeting up with friends for a bike ride. It might have been fresh, but the sun did shine eventually and as we had a big (60) birthday to celebrate, we did our best with mulled wine, fizz, ginger liqueur, hot chocolate, cheese, dips, crisps, mincepies and cake. There were only six of us, and we stayed outdoors and kept sensible distances between us, but it felt like a real party with fun, laughter and face to face conversation. It is the little things like getting together with friends that we have been lacking this year and it felt so good today. 

At some point during our bike ride this afternoon I smashed the 5000-kilometre mark for this year on my bike, which is up by over one thousand five hundred kilometres on last year, even with over one hundred days in lockdown. I’m pretty pleased with that and will continue to keep pedalling, 2020 isn’t over just yet.

 

France Trivia advent calendar, day eighteen, les volailles de Bresse (Bresse poultry)

The chickens from Bresse in the east of France are so very French, with their red combs, pure white plumage and blue feet, and the quality of their meat has been celebrated by French gourmets for over two hundred years. A true Bresse bird must be raised in a specified geographical area, outdoors with access to grass and fed a strict diet of milk products and cereals. They must also reach at least four months old before being sent off to the butcher and the capons, castrated males, are raised for at least eight months. They really are the crème de la crème of the chicken world with their tender, meaty flesh that is free from antibiotics, hormones or chemicals. If you are looking for something a bit special in your chicken, maybe for a celebration meal, or for Christmas, try a bird from Bresse. 

French Trivia Advent calendar, day fifteen, Simone Veil

Advent day fifteen, Bordeaux Merlot and Biere Ambrée

Advent day fifteen

A quick calculation informs me that here in France we have spent 101 days in confinement this year, living life under strict rules where every time we left the house, we had to complete an official document to prove the validity of our journey. Going out today with no paperwork, twice, just because we could, felt great. Our bike ride wasn’t subject to a specific time, or distance from home, the only constraints being the time we had to fit the ride in. The rain even held off for us and the temperature was mild too, which was nice, even if the main reason for the ride was to road test the extra warm socks and waterproof boots we’d bought yesterday. There is no such thing as the wrong weather for cycling, just having the wrong clothing. Mum and Dad have sent us some money to buy our Christmas gifts, so we treated ourselves yesterday.

 

For the first time my advent calendar has given me a duplicate wine today, a Bordeaux Merlot (same as day eleven, if you remember). I’ll be looking forward to opening it later, to go with my post-yoga lasagne. By the time my yoga class is over this evening, I will have done four classes in the last twenty-four hours, which is a bit of a yoga marathon, even by my standards, but it makes me happy.

Square Simone Veil, our village park

 

France Trivia advent calendar, day fifteen, Simone Veil

There are a few names that crop up a lot when you look at any town centre map in France. Général de Gaulle, Marechal Leclerc, Léon Gambetta and Jean Moulin, to name just the ones that spring to mind. The things they all have in common is that they are all dead (you can’t have a place or road named after you until you are dead), they were all important political figures and they are were all male. What you don’t see too often in France is roads or places named after females, although our village has done its best to redress the balance. The pretty little park behind the church has either been known as ‘le square’ (by the French) or ‘the park’ (by the Brits), until last year when it became known as Square Simone Veil. While many people have heard of Charles de Gaulle, Simone Veil is maybe a little less well known. Simone was born in 1927 to a Jewish family, who were all sent to Auschwitz during the Occupation. Simone and her sister were the only two of the family to survive and on her return, she studied law and became a magistrate. In 1974 she became the French minister for health and successfully campaigned for greater access to contraception and the legalising of abortions in 1975. She died in 2017, her coffin lies in the Panthéon and a small village in south west France remembers her forever.

Lockdown diaries day forty-six, Advent day fourteen, name the bottles

Advent day 14 Syrah red wine and Biere Brune

Day forty-six, Monday 14^th December 2020

 

The end of the attestations

For the last forty-six days we haven’t been able to leave home without a filled in form (attestation) detailing who we are, where we live, where we were born and why we were leaving home (and the reasons allowed for doing so were quite restrictive). Today was the last day these forms will be necessary. From tomorrow we will be free to roam and confinement (or lockdown) will be over (once more), although it is being replaced by an overnight curfew. 

 

If you do need to leave home after eight o’clock in the evening, or before six o’clock in the morning, you will need an attestation and the only reasons to be out are for work, family, medical, to assist those who have a disability, to carry out necessary deeds in the public interest or to walk a family pet. General exercise and sports are forbidden between 20h and 6h.

 

This second lockdown hasn’t been anywhere near as restrictive as the first, especially as so many more shops have been open as normal. Aside from the form filling, I can’t see much will change for us and I doubt we will notice that we will be living under a curfew at all. It’s winter here and dark by six o’clock in the evening. There are no village events on, and the village bar has closed for good, therefore we have no need or desire to leave home once the heating is on and shutters are closed. We know the virus is still out there, masks will still need to be worn whenever we leave home and although we can now see friends, no one we know is ready to party like it’s still 2019. An interesting benefit to Covid-19 is that France is reporting far fewer cases of the flu or the winter gastro bug that are normally rife in schools by the end of the first term. Keep wearing your masks, keep washing your hands and keep safe. 

 

Technically this post is my last lockdown diary entry, however, we still have ten days of advent left, so I’m not ready to quit daily blogging just yet, sorry.

 

Advent day fourteen

Things are beginning to feel a little bit more Christmassy, although you won’t find any flashing lights or garish decorations here. What did arrive today were two parcels from Adrian’s mum. Hidden within the layers of bubble wrap were an exciting mix of things like bike pedals and warm gloves, that Adrian normally keeps at her house for winter cycling commuting but will be far more use here this year, some post, some bits and pieces we’d ordered and some wrapped up Christmas gifts (which we haven’t peeked into yet). This inspired Adrian and I to set off once more for a Christmas shopping spree to Niort. Well, all I can say is that we’ve ticked a few more things off the list and you wouldn’t believe how grateful I was to come home to a warming and reviving mulled wine and mincepie. 

 

France Trivia advent calendar, day fourteen, name the bottles

In our advent calendars today were a red Syrah for me and a biere brune for Adrian. Keeping to an alcohol theme, my French Trivia for today is all about bottle names, specifically for Champagne.

 

Magnum, holds one and a half litres or the equivalent of two standard bottles

Jéroboam, three litres or four standard bottles

Réhoboam, four and a half litres, or six bottles

Mathusalem, six litres, or eight bottles

Salmanazar, nine litres, or twelve bottles

Balthazar, twelve litres, or sixteen bottles

Nabuchodonosor, fifteen litres, or twenty bottles

Salomon, eighteen litres, or twenty-four bottles

Souverain, twenty-six and a quatre litres, or thirty-five bottles

 

Some of those names look like they will be as tricky to pronounce as they would be to pour. I think I prefer the mini bottles from my advent calendar.