L’année de vie dangereuse

Friday 29 May 2026 We have just returned from two days in Ill d’Oleron, a nice, quiet and very sunny island off the Bay of Biscay coast, south of La Rochelle. One hour from LPR. A very good idea from Lady P to take a couple of days off and book a 2* hotel and just wander around and surf the beaches. Now, Thursday’s departure was marked by forgetting the car keys and the day for her just got worse. Flashy, well he had a ball. No coffee you see, because we left a bit late and had to make the rendezvous at the oyster shack before the 12.30 “we’re closed for lunch” bullshit. Oh, dear roadworks. Not a good vibe. However, the oysters, freshly shucked from the seabed, with a nice little Colombard vin blanc, just before closing, were delightful. Detailed research dictated that we head for J&J snack bar for fish and chips for a late lunch overlooking the estuary. Oops, closed kitchen. Just a bit late arriving. Their restaurant kitchen is however open for only fish and chips at a sligh...

Wednesday 27 May 2026 France and Europe are in the grip of a heat wave. It gets 36c to 39c and everyone drops dead, hides inside or puts tinfoil on the windows. We, on the other hand, don a hat and dig holes for shed posts. And on that subject, we have been bitten by European wasps (twice) and probably by some nasty spiders while doing la Project.   Luckily old Flashy has a special drug kit to take drugs, rub on ointment an so forth, so we don’t die. Flashy got to play with a big circular saw and a very large Bosch angle grinder. All of these were needed to build the Palais des Bois and using big gear is always a hoot! He’s alive. Angle grinder cuts sorta kinda straight. Fuck**g sparks everywhere and safety glasses, well you can’t see a bloody thing thru them! Nonetheless, roof panels are cut and screwed. That’s fixed nicely, not stuffed as some might unkindly say. I must say, it has been a wonderful time working on the project with Lady P. She’s OK at the start of the da...

  Monday to Sunday 18-24 May 2026 Cold and drizzling for the past couple of days but we can move some dirt about to fill holes in the lawn. Flashy has commenced the deconstruction of the woodshed, carefully removing 3” rusty nails and long screws to save the 120 mm x 25 mm planks that clad the sides of the monstrosity. Bloody thing is framed from 35 mm x 3 mm steel square section, welded. However, the timber is Nordic Pine, so reasonably soft and not too weathered. Coming apart nicely. A trip to Rochefort on Thursday was a nice interlude. Rochefort is at the estuary of the Charente River and is a clean and well laid out town, where after extensive and unproductive shopping for Lady P’s Gala Dinner ‘casual chic’ outfit, we adjourned to a nice restaurant overlooking the river, a bottle of Pully Fume and some oysters and steamed fish. Saturday saw two of the eight poles of the woodshed erected. And Sunday, 6 of the eight in the ground. Oysters at Rochefort. Someone had creme bru...

Sunday 17 May 2026 This year we made a commitment to be in LPR while the building project was completed. This should finish around the end of October.   So, we are just living in rural Charente-Maritime at St Loup and earning our bed by gardening and house upkeep. Flashy is repairing and building a wire fence on the boundary and Lady P, after designing the kitchen extension and liaising with EL and the builders, is about to assist Flashy in the construction of a new woodshed. This will not be any woodshed. The old one is to be dismantled and parts recycled for the new. Stand by for le Palais du Bois! And now the story on the truck. We need some poles for the new woodshed. These were found high up on the wood stock in the timber yard and on special, at Bricomarche. Except they were four metres long. Not even two metre ones would fit in the Peugeot. ‘Have ‘em delivered,’ says Flashy’ ‘no monsieur, it’s much cheaper to hire the truck,’ says Pierre. So, for 30 € instead of 50€ we...

  Mon 11 to Sat 16 May 2026 Trenches and steel are all in and now we await the concrete, due next week. We took Emma Louise to a little restaurant in the nearby town of Migre to Restaurant Source du Moulin de Migre where Lady P and Flashy had been last visit. This is in the middle of nowhere but popular with visiting French and some locals. The chef is the son of the owners and is Paris trained. Their three course Prix Fixe menu was 17.50 € . Not as good as last time but the coconut infused carrot soup with a soft poached egg floater was very nice. The confit of chicken with mushroom gnocchi was ok but the tart and crumble dessert offerings were awful. A nice drive in the country though. Thursday was Ascension Thursday. This has remained a national holiday in France since the concordat agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, in 1801. And of course, our builders don’t work on that day and all take Friday as a sickie. So, we decided to go to Bordeau...

LPR 4 May to 10 May Go figure! The builders are due to arrive today and it’s raining. After weeks of perfect, dry, Spring weather, it rains on the first day. Willy the builder, supposed to be here at 2 pm calls and cancels until tomorrow. Lady P and EL plan and sketch the remodelled kitchen design. Willy and the excavator turn up on Tuesday and start the build. Profiles and string lines go out; orange spray marks the grass and the diesel beast starts clearing the soil for the slab. They do stop for two hours at 12.30 pm for lunch but come back and work until 5.30 pm. The huge piles of soil will be good to fill in all the cracks and holes in the lawn. And to keep the momentum up, the kitchen designer turns up in the afternoon for some detailed discussions and takes away Lady P’s sketch plan. Day two and the plumber turns up to drain the radiators in preparation for the relocation of pipes that otherwise would be under the new slab. By Sunday and with Friday a public holiday, the...

Vouvray – 26 April to 3 May 2026 Another warm Spring day for our road trip up the A10 to Tours, to collect Gavan and Elaine. After a cooling wine in the old town, we made our way to the village of Vouvray, on the banks of the Loire River and into our BnB apartment. A very comfortable three story place, with 34 steps up to our bedroom on the top floor. A bottle of bubbles and a homemade quiche Lorraine helped with the planning for the rest of the week. We had a memorable week of wine tasting, chateau visiting and cooking up dinners to enjoy with our collection of pétillant, Vouvray (chenin blanc) and nearby Chinon (Cabernet Franc). Flashy’s view of Chateaux is a bit like his view on Cathedrals. One a trip does it. We did more than one and some were better than others. Some very lovely gardens and not too crowded but we returned each afternoon knowing that we had walked 10,000+ steps and 100+ stairs. The Loire Valley, a paradise for wine enthusiasts, and the longest wine regi...