You’ve probably never played Belote. Until two years ago, neither had we. It’s a card game, little played elsewhere but in certain parts of France – like here – almost a way of life. We first encountered it when we were persuaded along to a meeting of the local commune’s ‘Club d’Amitie’, a fortnightly social get-together for retired people. I admit…
Gastropods are not for me. There’s enough food in my world not to have to resort to dragging a lump of snot out of a shell and eating it. I mean, have you seen what a whelk actually looks like? However, there is one type of ‘snail’ that’s got me bang to rights with this latest instalment of…
By Jean Le Bidon, Chief Investigative Reporter, ‘Le Quotidien de Faire-le-Dodo (87)’ A number of residents have recently contacted Le Quotidien, reporting increasingly strange behaviour by members of the English expatriate community. “it’s very odd” said Jean-Claude Gazole, cashier at the Trop-Cher-Essence petrol station on the old Limoges road, “but lately I’ve seen a lot of the rosbif flying…
By way of introduction, I should explain that the kind people at WordPress have provided an ebook containing ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’. I have resolved to do my best to follow them, but certainly wouldn’t guarantee any success (regarding which, wait ’til you see tomorrow’s….). I warn you now, it won’t be easy. Firstly…
Here in the middle of nowhere and its environs, the ‘Vide Grenier’ season is starting to wind down. Whereas on any given Sunday during the summer months there is at least one such event to be found within twenty minutes’ drive of Tranquility Base, now they are few and far between. This is as sure…
‘C’est la realite de la France profonde.’ So said Serge, who was standing next to me in a group of about half a dozen blokes who, as men do, had gathered round to gawp reverently at the cochon farci which had just, to great applause, been carried into the marquee from the barbecue pit. Last…
From a recent trip to Vallee des Singes in Vienne, some pictures of capucin monkeys – seasoned photogenic poseurs
This week’s travel theme challenge set by Ailsa on http://wheresmybackpack.com looks for the four classical elements: air, earth, fire and water AIR This was taken in the Hunter Valley in Australia, just before the mother of all rainstorms began: EARTH A ghaf tree defying the desert in the UAE: FIRE A bit of a cheat, maybe,…
“Still around the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate, And though I oft have passed them by, A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.” – J R R Tolkien: ‘The Return Of The King’…
the only deadhead in the hameau 