< Index For This Issue >< Submit An Article >< Contact The Editor >

Writers in Paris Screaming and kicking I adore our Pyrenean village of Cansal so much that I never ever really want to leave it.  Except, of course, for my regular 3½ mile loop walk with its breathtaking views (described last time) of the mountains and the Mediterranean. However, wives have to be satisfied and mine, Clare, being nine years younger than me, sometimes drags me screaming and kicking to accompany her on an outing somewhere.  It’s just that having driven so many thousands of miles during my years as a freelance cellist, I now loathe car journeys, however good the driver.  Sometimes, I have to admit that when we get to our destination I might even enjoy it, particularly if a good restaurant is included in the itinerary.  But I wasn’t mad about Collioure when we went there recently by train for three days - even though it is the most fashionable resort (though no longer really chic) on the Côte Vermeille, close to the Spanish border.  Bathroom Symphonies One consolation of the short break was that we escaped from all the audible bodily functions of our next door neighbours.  It really is odd how the French make no effort to camouflage their bathroom activities.  Many of you, for instance, will have witnessed or heard of lorry drivers who relieve themselves uninhibitedly by the side of the road. These neighbours of ours visit their crumbling, seriously dilapidated pile for a bare month each August. The house is joined directly onto ours because both were formerly part of one large 18th century Mas or bourgeois farmhouse.  Theirs is infested with termites and every kind of related pest you can dream of, and is held up with emergency steel supports.  Last January their adjoining flat roof (or so-called “terrasse”) cost us a bucketful of inconvenience in disturbance and insurance claims after melting heavy snows poured from their leaking “terrasse” into Clare’s adjoining studio!  They were obliged to have the roof repaired – though (it seemed to us) the job was done by cowboys.  Fingers crossed for this coming winter! Their bathroom directly overlooks the terrace beside the entrance of our own house!  Often when we are seated there, with our many guests, they “pay their calls” without bothering to close the window. So we have no choice but to be bombarded with their cacophonies of emissions, well amplified by the bathroom’s echo-chamber acoustics.  Margot, the village-born lady and joint owner of the house (with her two sisters) is charming, as is her son.  But her husband Gaston is a testy, rather poncy, perfumed Parisian, tricky to deal with.  You never know where you are with him, and he is only pleasant when he wants something: he then puts on his air-steward’s fixed-smile charm and asks me, for example, if his son can use our internet facilities.  (He worked all his life for Air France serving gins and tonics and reheated gunge on plastic trays, so that may be a big part of his problem.) The couple are both obsessed with personal fitness routines, doing Tai Chi on their terrace every morning for hours on end.  After the conclusion of their sessions, we await a different kind of emission from the bathroom.  As soon as we hear Gaston crooning in the shower – and as we are cooking our mid-day lunch - we wait for the overwhelming whiffs of his potent aftershave, or whatever it is he applies to himself (though maybe not Impérial from Guerlain), to float into our kitchen.  Almost enough to spoil one’s appetite!  Sometimes all this exercise seems to make Gaston a little frisky. If Margot is in the shower, we sometimes hear stern cries from her of ARRÊTE! (STOP IT!). Though I doubt she is being too serious! Anyway, we missed all this when we were in Collioure.  Clare, now in the throes of a second career as a watercolorist, was anxious to paint views in the magical high-summer sunlight of the resort’s many squares with their beautiful wrought-iron balconies, and of the main bay (Boramar) with its famous round church belfry of St Vincent (formerly a lighthouse).  But for me personally Collioure was all a bit too much.  The town was seething with scantily-clad, bronzed and burned humanity in every size and shape.  You couldn’t walk anywhere without almost crashing into people.  And everyone looked so miserable pursuing their dogged purpose of being on holiday: endless walking from one bay to the other via the base of the Château Royal or mooching  for bargains in the narrow streets of the old quarter (Quartier du Mouré) behind the Plage Boramar. I passed the time as best I could drinking pastis and reading and making notes while Clare painted.  I especially enjoyed a very relaxing two-hour boat trip that took in the bays and sights to the south (as far as the Tour Madeloc) and north (as far as Argelès). The real consolation of the trip for me (besides the spotless and friendly hotel, La Méditerrané, near the station) were the many decent fish restaurants allowing us to feast on fried or poached daurade, turbot, sole etc, and on huge sea-food platters for two.  All of course washed down with copious draughts of chilled rosé. Too much, too much – but oh so wonderful. Talking of food, and coming back to base here in Paradise (thank goodness), we seem to have spent the entire summer eating and drinking.  How can the French be so often thin when they eat huge meals twice a day?  One Sunday, no sooner had we finished a four hour lunch with guests chez nous than we staggered off for apéritifs with our much loved French neighbours Mimi and her husband Pierre.  But by “apéritifs” the French don’t usually mean just a drink and a few olives and cashew nuts.  They often (as on this occasion) serve what they call an apéritif dinatoire with all the works: mountains of canapés, rolled slices of country ham, cockles, mussels, cheese, cherry tomatoes, pâtés, terrines - in short an orgy of protein.  “Mangez, mangez, Basil” urged Mimi if I showed any signs of holding back on this cornucopia of goodies.

. RESOURCE LINKS FOR FRANCE Moving to France Articles, resources, links, and very unique innovations. Articles about Living & Moving to France Articles about living, moving and working in France. France Country Information Weather, government, maps. Books about France Books on jobs in France, living in France, and what it takes to move to France. France: Economy & Business Banks, Real Estate, Investing, Properties in France. Real Estate In France Real Estate In France - Current real estate listings of properties in France. France - Real Estate A list of links to French real estate. Vacation Rentals In France Vacation Rentals worldwide - including France Vacation & Travel In France EscapeArtist Travel - Our new section providing unique travel to unique locations Embassies and Consulates for France Embassy Resources for France - On our sister site EmbassyWorld. Links, links and more links Links, Search Engines Art & Culture resources for France. Maps of France Maps of France - Our own Embassy maps plus a large number of differing France maps, also including city maps. Hospitals in France Hospitals Around The World by Region - Europe. Jobs in France Links for finding Jobs in France. Newspapers & Media for France World Media from France. Banks in France See Banks of France at our Banks of Europe Section. France: Travel & Tourism Information about Travel and Tourism in France.  Travel Guides, Vacations, Car Rentals, Tours and much more! .   France: Le Bout de Monde If you came to visit us for the first time, you might think that our tiny village of Cansal in the Fenouillèdes, surrounded completely by sloping vineyards, is as dead as a dodo. Let me try to convince you why Cansal (c. 90 inhabitants) is never, ever boring. We'll start with Henri, a nicely pot-bellied octogenarian, strong as an ox, who proudly showed me his graveyard harem one day when I met him by chance in the village cemetery. Le Bout de Monde 2 No matter how remote you are from civilisation people are the same.  Some of these stories from the back of beyond in Le Fenouillèdes could come straight out of hot reality TV shows, or the most popular urban soaps from around the world.  All human life is here in this tiny village of 90 souls, surrounded by vines, sun-scorched garrigue scrubland and maquis.  Not to mention dense woods of murky green kermes oaks full of wild boar, roebuck deer (chevreuil) and so many other wild animals. Escape To The Other Side Of The Atlantic After my last article for Escape From America Magazine, LIVING in GASCONY, (May 2005), I was inundated with requests for information on residency, home buying, working and healthcare, etc. I tried to answer every email to the best of my knowledge and from some borrowed knowledge, too. Some of my writers, who were keen to learn more of the area and were interested in buying, actually paid me a visit. I still have about 6 more scheduled visits for September and October and two confirmed visits for April and May next year. Since then, I have continued to receive requests on secondary home ownership with a view to later retirement. Travels In Nice In the old part of Nice there is a small shop beneath a striped awning called Cave de la Tour. Strictly speaking it is a wine vault but in fact it defies categorization. A tiny stone bar is shoehorned between vats and racks of wine, a place to sample and buy the excellent Vin de Bellet of the region. There are two or three small tables with checkered covers crammed inside, and some chairs and up-ended barrels outside, on a narrow street free from traffic. .

None of your cheese or ham butties made with sliced bread and margarine, together with a flask of coffee that form the frugal mid-day fare of British teams working on a dig.  This is the menu they all tucked into on the day of our visit:
• Freshly-baked savoury brioches containing shrimps, red pepper and olives, served with a cucumber and pine kernel dip and a freshly dressed salad. 
• Encornets (squid) stuffed with aubergines, olives and mushrooms, in a tomato and garlic sauce; served with tagliatelle or rice. 
• Home-made choc chip cookies 
• Yoghurt 
• Coffee 

You can’t ever escape from the subject of food.  We listen frequently to France Musique, where you cannot get through a lunchtime concert programme without being given half a dozen recipes.  Likewise in the morning on our local radio station, “France Bleu”, there is a long phone-in programme during which recipes galore are suggested by listeners or relayed by the chefs of local restaurants - plus, of course, the most suitable wines to accompany the food.

And so it goes on and on – thank goodness!  After all, that’s a big reason why I came to live here.  This year Clare and I have broken new ground by feasting at two festivals of eating, carousing and dancing new to us: La Calçotada at Vernet les Bains, and La Bullinada which takes place on a small island, La Rouquette, in the Étang de Salses (a large inland pond not far from the sea).  The Calçotada is devoted to the consumption of calçots: large spring onions (grilled over red-hot embers) unique to a small area near Tarragona in Southern Catalonia.  At the Bullinada massive quantities of eels, caught in the Étang de Salses, are consumed in a stew which also includes mountains of potatoes, lots of chilli peppers and garlic, and lumps of Catalan “sagi” (specially cured rancid pork back fat).

Unwelcome hands – me to the rescue
The largest spread I have ever seen in my life set out for a mere hundred or so people was at the late-August fête in one nearby village of Réguriasse. The idea was that after an afternoon of music and dancing including the famed Catalan Sardanes, we would all first get tipsy on the rates (endless quaffing of muscat de Rivesaltes, pastis, rosé, whisky, you name it) and then each family or group of friends would take dishes of food, much of it to be shared communally. Just imagine the groaning tables bearing magret de canard (succulent preserved breasts of duck), chickens, hams, paellas, couscous, tabouleh, tagines, pâtés, terrines, bowls of home-grown tomatoes, slabs and rounds of cheeses …

When we sat down to eat with our two friends Clare was immediately urged to change places with me.  The man on her left was the notorious “village lech”, a deft groper if ever there was one.  Clare was well advised to do the swap because even with my very ample frame intervening he frequently tried to touch and ogle her. 
On a previous occasion in other company, in this same village, I had to come to the rescue of a woman friend (no more) when another old lech was sitting on her right with me on her left.  His endless groping was making her desperate and so she allowed me to do what I would to ward him off.  So! I gallantly placed my hand under her skirt on her right thigh.  Sure enough, seconds later the lech’s sweaty palm landed on my hairy hand and he withdrew as though he had touched a thousand volt live bare cable!  My pleasant reward was to be allowed to rest my hand where it lay for a few minutes more… Just to make sure she was safe, of course.

Brothel in the Vines
It’s not as though these lechers don’t have more commercial outlets for their sexual needs.  There was until recently a notorious brothel very close to home among the vineyards.  My friend Peter, who has already related in these pages the story of our “Visiting Nympho” in Cansal, describes here, in his own measured way, how he discovered “the local knocking shop” while he was searching for a second home in this area.

Searching for The Perfect House in Roussillon
We went ‘off road’ onto the roads made to give access to the vines.  After what seemed like ten miles (probably about half a mile) we were instructed to turn sharp left. There were only vines to be seen, and we went on and over the crown of the vineyard.  here in front of us was a house with a walled garden, which looked as if it was built in the first century.  Undaunted we pressed on right up to the house, to find that its outer wall was a series of great arches, each closed by heavy metal bars, with no glass.  Odd.  But it became odder.  The owner was in fact at home.  It was a lady, one would guess in her fifties, in a one-piece swimming costume.  Now I was used to seeing my mother and my aunts in their swimming costumes and they were quite discrete, without being the pantaloon style you see in silent movies.  They never raised any questions in my mind.  But this lady’s did. he sides went high over the hips and even my innocent mind wandered enough to consider whether she had a Mohican or a Hollywood.  Neither of those expressions existed in the vocabulary at that time and there certainly were no television adverts of creams to apply.  In fact you could go to a party and have a gay time without any of the implications current today.  If you are thinking that the story ends there, read on. 

We were invited to look around the house, starting in the garden.  There was no pool to be seen, I noted.  What was her husband’s occupation was an obvious question to answer.  t was clear he wasn’t simply a farmer growing grapes.  We were informed that he dealt in televisions, and to confirm this we were shown the garage.  There were at least two hundred old televisions stacked up against the wall.  No sign of any packaging.  Well, there are all sorts of ways of making a living beyond my experience so that had to pass. Odd though.

We entered a door into the breakfast and kitchen.  Strange though, I recall the breakfast table which was set about 2 feet below the floor at the entry, with benches on either side of the heavy wooden table, but for the life of me, I can’t remember a kitchen.  Next we went upstairs.  There was a narrow passage, which seemed to be filled with pipes and valves, with a hole to the downstairs to take the pipes down to somewhere, and there were a number of bedrooms off the corridor.  Each of the doors was about 2 feet wide, and not more than five feet high.  Fitting a double bed or wardrobe through those doors looked as if it would be a problem.  However, not in this household.  All that could be seen were duvets on the bare boards, and no sign of any wardrobe.  Anyone taking on this one was in for a treat, I thought . Finally we came down the second stairs to the room behind the arches and the bars.  Indeed there was no glass to be seen.  It was a long room about forty feet long, with a table tennis table royally in the centre at one end of the room, and at the other a barbecue across the end of the room, and an alcove with cushioned benches all the way around.  The time had come to go on our way, so we bid adieu to the lady, and went away more mystified than interested. 

The little adventure had left some very vivid impressions on me, and I related the story to Tony who lives in the next village.  By this time I had had time to mull over my observations, and said that what I had seen seemed to be more like what I could imagine was a house of ill-repute.  This Tony took and made no comment.  But I could see that his interest was aroused.  Tony is a mine of information about the restaurants and places of interest for the tourist.  Several months later he delivered his analysis.  ‘That place was the local knocking shop, and it was closed down a few months ago’.  Well, that explained a lot.  The sad thing is that I have never taken the time to find the place again to find out who bought it and what happened to it, although I did hear that it had been turned into a (respectable) restaurant.  There is always something to look forward to, and only the time to find to do it.

Brisk trade
I once discovered a more mobile “knocking shop” not far north from here on the N9.  My second wife and I had stopped in a lay-by for a spot of lunch on our way back to Blighty.  I went out to stretch my legs - and what did I see but another car in which the lady driver was sitting there with her legs splayed out and her skirt well rucked up.  Within seconds a car drew up, she hopped in, and the male driver screeched off into the vines.  he next minute another car came down from the vines, dropped off another woman and sped off.  This woman then started to walk with her back to the traffic and lifted her skirt well above her flimsy knickers. Almost immediately another car with two chaps in it ground to a halt.  She joined them and this also roared off into the vines. 

Ancient “bent up old man” buys G string
There comes a time to most men when dreaming about sex is the only possible enjoyment.  Tant pis!  In our nearby town of St Marc there is an excellent little shop run by an Englishman, Shaun, and his Irish wife Gill.  They sell everything under the sun for less than two euros.  One day a local ancient, bent up old man (probably a retired widowed vigneron?) walked in and asked for “that G string” (one of several) hanging on the wall.  Shaun asked what size he wanted.  “No matter,” said the old chap, pointing at the wall. “I’ll have that pair there please!”

No further comment!

Two brief updates
You may recall that I reported earlier how one of our high-powered neighbours, the academic Maribelle, returned to Cansal from a late summer conference to find her partner, Jean-Paul, in bed with a vendangeuse.  She immediately walked out, leaving him looking rather forlorn.  Jean-Paul is no longer forlorn and alone.  He seems to have become an instant quasi step-father, his bed now shared with a young, smiling, dark-haired Catalan lady who came with strings attached in the form of a very bonny baby boy.

I do wonder whether Jean-Paul will stand the pace!

Juvenile Pyromaniac  “antisocial insolent little sod”
I also mentioned our friend Robert in Sagansec whose son had been twice abandoned by his unstable wife, leaving him for the second time with a total of four children to look after.  Such a mess is bound to affect the poor children, who were told “Mummy doesn’t love you any more.”  Hardly surprising, then, that one of them this summer tried to set fire to the mountainside.

Here is Robert’s account of his travails, reproduced with his permission:
The living nightmare continues.  I am taking self preservation measures and having to do a lot of shopping. 
Thank god they all go home at the end of the month and I have said I will not have the one who is an antisocial insolent little sod to stay again.  His father was quite surprised but I was not amused when he escaped for twenty minutes bought fire crackers and nearly set fire to the whole mountainside here and I had to go and explain his behaviour to the mayor.  By that time he had been shipped back to England but has this week returned with reinforcements in the shape of two brothers and a father. 
Roll on the end of the month 
Robert

I’m sometimes glad I don’t have any children or grandchildren.  But, I have to admit, am more often sad on that account.

Whatever Next? Who would work in a hospital?
Stories in the local newspaper (L’Indépendant) become ever more incredible and horrifying.  Does this kind of thing happen everywhere?  Recently a surgeon at the St Jean Hospital in Perpignan emerged from the operating theatre and told his patient’s wife that he had been sadly obliged to amputate two of her husband’s toes.  he wife went hysterical and immediately summoned her relatives from the gypsy community.  They barged into the hospital and immediately set about beating up the unfortunate surgeon.

Au revoir et à bientôt.
.

Jean Taquet's Insider Guide to Living in France - Jean Taquet's Insider Guide to Living in France - This is not a book written by a US College drop out, this fully detailed Ebook is written by a French jurist and associate member of the Delaware Bar Association, specializes in civil, criminal and commercial law. He frequently gives courses about the legal system in France and speaks regularly at Working, Living and Investing in France conferences - If you want to live in France - get this report!

.