Their hearts are in the right place

These are pictures of what pass for Christmas decorations in our village. I don't think they'll win any prizes, but they are sincere. Its just that you have to know who did them.

They're done every year on his own initiative and, I expect, at his own expense by our village cleaner. This is the guy who sweeps the streets, cleans the public toilets, plants & weeds the public flower beds and so forth. Its not much of a job and I'm sure it doesn't pay much, but he's very happy to do it and to have a place in village life.

One sees him most days if you pass through the village; a cigarette in his mouth working away. He's fiercly proud and protective of the village. I remember when we first moved here & he was in charge of the village dump. You had to prove that you lived in the village to use the dump, normally by showing an electric bill. It took several times before he admitted that he knew us and let us in without showing our bill. Cranky is probably the best word to describe him.

Ok, so, so what? The point is that here in this small village they have found employment for this man. You see he's somewhat retarded. Not too the point of being institutionalized (although in some places he would be), but certainly enough to be normally unemployable. Not here though; here a place is made for him and the village looks after him. They do it gently, kindly and allow him his dignity. 

So, nobody complains about his Christmas decorations. We praise him and them, we take a secret pride in them and when we see them we feel just a little bit better about ourselves for being part of a kind society.

I'm not sure if this system of kindness is true in the multitude of villages in France. I do know that in one of our neighboring villages the same sort of thing is true. There too the menial village jobs are done by those handicapped in some way. I suspect that at least to some degree it is a part of village life all over the country.

The French are, it seems to, me a kind people. Not in an ostentatious way, but in a collective unobtrusive manner. This weekend we have the Telethon to raise money for charity. This is a BIG deal and takes place all over France. Millions are raised. In our village it will be held in our Salle des Fetes and will be well attended.

Outside the shops the collections have started; a can of food, a packet of cookies, whatever. What's interesting is that the collectors are genuinely volunteers, young people & old, but obviously people giving of their time. You see no "commercial" collecting.

I remember that I found this approach a bit different when we first moved to France. After all the French do not make such a big deal out of the Holidays as do we Americans and the British for that matter; they're far more low key. My French friends gently pointed out that nobody anywhere in France would go hungry over this season. The general population would make sure that they didn't.

Yet another reason why we live here.

Deja Vue all over again.

Still catching up. Here goes.

We had not one, but two Thanksgivings this year. For reasons explained in an earlier post we had our first Thanksgiving on last Thursday, the 20th. For that one we had 12 people and the menu was very traditional. Here are a few pictures:

 (mainly during the prep stage as later I was too busy serving & eating to take pictures.)

So the menu was: Curried pumpkin soup with curry croutons followed by roast turkey ( I deconstruct my turkey by cutting out the backbone, taking off & deboning the legs then cooking them separately. Last year's Thanks giving post goes into great detail on this technique) with a sage & forcemeat stuffing, lots of vegetables and a gravy made from the turkey stock. Friends brought us fresh cranberries so we had a wonderful, but simple cranberry sauce.We then had the cheese course you can see pictured above. 

(bursin,brique de vache, cantal-entre-doux, cratin, chaurce and blue de pays). 

Desserts were a carrot cake that I made & a delicious cranberry & mincemeat pie by Linda.

Between our wine & some superb stuff brought by our guests we had some great wine. 14 bottles of it in fact!

A good time was had bt all. The French maybe don't quite understand the holiday, but they certainly relate to the occasion and the food.

Yesterday we celebrated our second Thanksgiving. Just 6 of us. Linda's sister & her husband and a pair of English friends who live locally part time.

Pictures:

The world's best potato chips. Made in Spain, hand made. Yummy!

The menu was simple, but different this time. We like the curried pumpkin soup so much that we had it again. The main course, however, was Beef Wellington. Friends from the states had brought us a whole filet of beef. So, as you can see abouve Linda did the whole Wellington bit: fois gras, sauteed mushrooms, madeira sauce and a puff pastry case. It was absolutely superb! The beef was excellent and perfectly cooked. Nice & rare in the middle bits as I like it, but closer to medium at the ends for others. We had sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts and broad beans as vegetables.

Dessert was as below. A simple chocolate mousse. Sinful, but delectable.

I think I like the idea of two Thanksgivings you get to see more friends & family that way. I hope your Thanksgiving was as joyful as ours!

Stuck!

Got a bit of catching up to do as I've been busy. But I'll start with what happened yesterday.

It started simply enough. I went off yesterday morning to drive down to Carcassonne to pick up my brother & sister-in-law from the airport. Its a 2 hour drive, but they can fly into Carcassonne very cheaply on Ryanair. So there I was trundling down the Autoroute trying to understand some kind of intellectual debate on the 'Culture" station & only half succeeding. (Very intellectual that station with high flauting French & tenses I hardly know exist). All was well.

Then I arrived at the payage entering Toulouse. I always go through the lane where you pay with your French debit card; its quicker than going through one of the cash lanes & I don't use the Autoroute enough to justify one of the autopay systems. I'm constantly amazed that the French banking system can handle these tiny transactions; the toll is like $3.00, but it does and doesn't cost me anything. Anyway, this time the machine didn't like my card. I tried again, still didn't like it. A message came up saying "Your card is unreadable, try again of use a different card" So I blew on the card, rubbed to on my sleeve and tried again. It worked this time so off I went not thinking much about it.

I drove around Toulouse and picked up a new ticket as I left. Had a nice unevertful drive down the Autoroute to the CArcassonne exit. I was right on time to hit the airport just as the flight arrived. Put my card into the reader & it didn't work, tried again, still no luck, tried the blowing & wiping trice, that didn't help either. Tried more times, nope. The same 'illisable' message kept coming up. In desperation I pushed the red help button. (By now a couple of cars were behind me so I couldn't even back out. Needless to say they were getting impatient. I put my emergency blinkers on to indicate trouble.) The red button phone was answered. I told him the the mechine wouldn't read my card. I thought that somebody would come to help out, but no such luck. I started trying all the cards in my wallet. USA cash card. Nope! British cash card. No such luck! I even tried my carte Vital (French helth card) No Joy!
Finally I remembered my American Master card that I rarely use. Success!!! It worked!! I was through.

Got to the airport in time & picked up my relatives & headed home. Called Linda to say they had been on time & that we were on our way. She asked me to stop & pick up a couple of things from the store. OK. No problems at the payage with my mastercard. By now I've had a chance to look at my French debit card & to see that there's a large scratch on the magnetic stripe; no doubt this is why it won't read.

By the time we got to Montauban I was very low on gas. This was expected as I'd planned to stop for gas on the way home. Problem is that I like to buy my gas at the big Hyper markets since they're at least 10 cents a liter cheaper than anywhere else. BUT, they only take cash &, you guessed it, debit cards. Not to worry, we'll stop at the big Leclerc, do our bit of shopping and get cash from the machine there. I did have a 20 Euro note & some change; enough for the bit of shopping, but not enough for much gas.

As we drove into the Leclerc parking lot the range indicator on my car was reading 7 miles left. We're just about running on fumes, but we're OK. We go into the store and head straight for the cash machine. There it is - spead out all over the floor with a technician working on its innards. We'll get no cash here for a while. I think about for a bit & remember that there's a branch of my bank about a mile down the road. So we do our shopping & head there. Luckily I spot a cash machine that's even closer. It likes my American cash card & condesends to give me real cash money. Back to Leclerc & their cheap gas (1.05 Euro per liter. Only about $4.50 a gallon. & you think you're badly off. )

Fill the car & head home. No more drama's occur thank goodness.

My first action upon arriving home was to call my French bank and ask them to send me a new card. Think I'll deal in cash a bit more from now on. This cashless society works great -- most of the time!