Freezing Spring Brings a Breath of Fresh Air

Well, after a month of May when it seemed to rain without cease and which was colder than some Decembers I’ve known here, at last we seem to have a hope of Spring’s arrival. Probably because of the dreadful weather (one does not move to France to live in a downpour) I have been thinking a lot about the famous spring and summer of 1944, which was also cold, wet and miserable.

It makes a pleasant change from being reminded that climate change is really beginning to bite.

It’s hard to believe that D-Day, which took place on the 6th of June 1944, was really 69 years ago, and fewer and fewer of those who were there are still with us. I can remember when I first came to this village, 20 years ago, and we still had First War ancien combattants; but the grim reaper has cruelly thinned the ranks. Now even the survivors of Hitler’s war are all gone, and the grand old men who turn out on the two occasions when their efforts are remembered, Armistice Day and VE Day, are those who fought in Vietnam and Algeria. This past VE Day, May the 8th—one of the few days in this month when it did not rain—was a pleasant reunion, but a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

(As I write, a sudden spring hailstorm is finishing off the devastation of my baby lettuces begun by the resident slugs…of which more later.)

DIY Fiddle Repair and Maintenance 2

Part Two of the series on how to repair your own violin

Basics of repair

There is a grand tradition of fiddlers who repair their own instruments, as I said. Just because you happen to be a player does not make you useless, after all.

To repair your own instrument gives great satisfaction. I have one fiddle which is over two hundred years old which I found in bits, with all her varnish stripped. She would surely be worth more financially if I had had a restorer fix her, but I did it myself, she sounds and plays wonderfully, and I get a real kick out of the fact that I saved her myself. Because, believe me, she was kindling-wood before.

That brings me to an important point.

In France, Everything Shuts On Monday

[caption id="attachment_215" align="alignleft" width="196"] Monday in Arnay le Duc, Burgundy, France[/caption]

The next rule to watch out for, which is only less important in that it just happens once a week, rather than five times, is this:

Everything Is Shut On Monday.

Not for the French the quaint Anglo-Saxon habit of neighbouring towns staggering their half-days—or even taking half-days in the first place. On Monday, the whole of France is as dead as that chap they poisoned on St Helena. You know the one. In fact, I think he was responsible for it. And of course, the reason is quite fair; all the shops are open on Saturday so that the people who don’t work in shops can do their shopping, and why should the commercants and their staff not enjoy a proper two-day weekend? Why not indeed, and they are quite right. You won’t find me criticising the French over things like this, and frankly, the abandonment of all civilised measures of life, doubtless in response to the influence of the Americans, who evidently have not yet learned that one works to live, rather than the other way round, appals me. So, like the obligatory two-hour lunch break, I support this honourable tradition. I’m just letting you know that if you decide to put off the shopping till Monday because the shops are too busy on Saturday, you’re going to be disappointed, that’s all.

In France, Everything Shuts at Twelve- (Part Two)

[caption id="attachment_210" align="alignleft" width="300"] Citroen 2cv in France[/caption]

“No,” I cried, and summoned up the best of my then limited French, “Cas d’urgence!”

 

But this made no impression on the battle-axe, who shook her head again, pointed to her watch and mouthed “Quattors heures et demi.” Whatever my emergency was, it would have to wait another 150 minutes. Aghast as she began to turn away again, and now completely at a loss for words, I was once again reminded of the sheer brilliance of my wife in situations like this. Knowing that she could not hope to plead her case in French, she had slipped over to the car, unstrapped Calum, and now appeared with him in her arms; when she knew she had the dame’s attention, she lowered the towel wrapped around him to show the lad’s bare bottom, and just said one of the few French words she knew by heart, because she needed it so often. “Couches!”

In France, Everything Shuts at Twelve- (Part One)

[caption id="attachment_188" align="alignleft" width="283"] A village in Burgundy, France[/caption]

 One thing the guidebooks never bother to tell you about France is also one of the most important of all that you should know. In fact this piece of information is so important that my imparting it to you, as I am about to do, is worth the price I am eventually goint to ask you for the book of all this. So perhaps, if you’ve borrowed this from a friend, you should skip to the next chapter right now. (I jest.)

 So what is this invaluable knowledge that no-one should travel in France without first having assimilated? Just this:

 Everything Shuts At Twelve. For Two Hours. At Least.

 That’s it. Outside of the major metropolitan cities like Paris and Lyon, and maybe even Marseilles these days, if you ain’t got whatever it is you were looking for by the time the midi rings, you can forget getting it until two o’clock at the earliest.

 Believe me, you will not be in France long before you realise how much this immutable chronology affects life.

What this page is all about

[caption id="attachment_185" align="alignleft" width="300"] The End of the World. (Really.)[/caption]

French Onion Soup is a series of funny stories from my life in France. (No really, they are funny.)  We will be kicking off this week so keep looking out for updates here!

Making the Move to CMS

[caption id="attachment_255" align="alignleft" width="300"] CMS is like a Volkswagen Beetle[/caption]

 My first car was a blue Volkswagen Beetle. Not one of the new mobile jelly-moulds, a real one.

And it was shit. Oh, by the standards of the day it was extremely reliable and economical. But then, to keep a car going, you actually had to know how it worked. It had things called ‘contact points’ and an ‘automatic choke’, for example, and both of these could render you immobile as easily as get you going. Contact points—which, just so you know, controlled the exact time that the spark-plugs fired, had to be adjusted regularly to account for wear, and in between  services, which were very regular, they frequently had to be cleaned. You either kept a pack of Rizla cigarette papers in the glove-box to clean and set them with, or got used to walking.

Ice (Part One)

[caption id="attachment_502" align="aligncenter" width="800"] The Ice World Ilos[/caption]

I was right in the middle of my steering watch

when suddenly a blinding streak of white light whizzed at us from over to the right. I knew what it was, of course, stinger missile, aimed straight at us. Eosha had her eyes glued to the Infra-scopes, as usual, and she saw it coming before I did. I pulled the control stick and turned the anti-grav tank towards the missile, to reduce the target area, and stood on the mag-brakes, bringing the tank to a halt under the shelter of a small hillock of ice and setting it down.

DIY Fiddle Repair and Maintenance

[caption id="attachment_181" align="alignleft" width="165"] DIY fiddle repair[/caption]

After a little while in the violin world, I know you will have seen this reaction: you have just gone into your friendly music shop and said, “My fiddle needs a new bridge. Can you sell me one?” You are shocked as the light outside dims, the interior of the shop becomes gloomy and the owner, in a voice that would render the bravest heart weak, intones, “You must never, ever, attempt to do any work on your violin yourself. Oh no. That is for the luthier to do. Now get ye hence and practise your scales.” And he refuses to sell you a bridge blank and you scuttle off with your tail between your legs thinking that everyone else in the shop must now consider you an uneducated oaf.

 Well, you’re not.