Bonjour,
I hope you had a good week.
Here, thanks to gale force winds, we had a power cut in the village last Saturday that went on all afternoon and well into the night. We played cards by candlelight in front of a roaring wood fire and talked about the “good old days” when people didn’t have mobile phones. One of our kids was staying and was quite bereft without access to the internet. We however are quite used to snail-like internet speed plus no mobile signal at all. Having to run up and down hills to try to get a signal to receive a text code is normal for us. We’re able to live with the consequences of no internet without going stir-crazy (at least for a few hours).
Claudette my neighbour is non-plussed by the fuss when the lights go out. She has lived in her house next door to mine since 1933, through many times when the power would be out for long periods. Like me, she doesn’t have central heating but relies on a wood fire. She doesn’t possess a computer or mobile anything. Her TV is very old and shows black and white images – she doesn’t want a new one and the only time she cares if it’s in colour is when a Royal wedding is on, then she’ll go to her daughters house at the bottom of the hill. Claudette adores the British royal family and judging by the amount of coverage they get in French newspapers and magazines, plenty of Frenchies are fascinated by them. The Queen of course is their favourite – not snobby or authoritarian and always unruffled – I expect she would cope quite well with a power cut too.
Always philosophical with a “c’est la vie” outlook, Claudette is pragmatic about our unpredictable weather which is due to be dramatically windy this coming week, and says “with candles you can read, you can write, you can see the person next to you. You can cook on the oven and pour a glass of wine. Après la pluie le beau temps” which literally translates as, “after the rain, nice weather” or as we say in English “every cloud as a silver lining”.
Wherever you are, I hope your clouds have a silver lining…
Bisous from blustery France,
Janine
Editor
Photo: Barbie the Blonde Chicken and George Clooney the cockerel admiring the snowdrops in my garden!
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