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Roland Routier
  • Roland Routier

Roland Routier

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  • Matkan aloitus
    9. syyskuuta 2017
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    Dieppe Beachhead

    9. syyskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ 🌧 13 °C

    The Camino is over, but the journey continues. This time I am travelling in an old Frankia camper van between various 'jobs' that I find. I signed up to https://www.workaway.info/ on which different hosts worldwide offer free lodging and feeding in return for about 5 hours work per day. The type of work is varied, though mainly involving agriculture and property maintenance of the handyman type.

    First I must retrieve my few belongings from Roanne. Tonight is my first night in the van, and I have parked right opposite the ferry which brought me over from Newhaven. I am practicing my stealth camping skills but nobody has taken any notice of me anyway.    Lue lisää

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    Sarcelle revisited

    15. syyskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    Taking my time on non-toll roads I have arrived back in Roanne where nothing seems to have changed since I left last year. Very few people about and so I cannot renew old aquaintances. Recovered my stuff from Boatshed including my portable gas cooker so I can now have hot tea and food. The camper has German gas appliances and it seems I cannot get a French adapter to connect French gas cylinders to them. It turns out that European countries each have different and incompatible gas fittings so I am not sure what it is worth doing. Sarcelle, my old boat, is still moored int the port and is full of junk so I don't think the new owner has any immediate plans to go sailing.Lue lisää

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    Corniche Nice Dream

    22. syyskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Followed the dream through Nice along the Corniche and spending the night at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. I think it is Thursday and so am taking it easy on the slow road past Monaco.

    I found a flat parking spot for the night on the hill overlooking the harbour. In the morning there was a bloke fixing his carburettor a few metres away from me and I asked him for directions to a supermarket. Turns out he was a Pom renting the house whilst his wife worked in town, so we spent an hour talking bikes and politics - things aren't what they used to be - before I set off. By the time I got to Italy it took all day on the winding coastal road and I realised it would be cheaper to pay the autoroute toll than to keep filling the tank with diesel.

    Oops: it's Friday so I can't meet Vanessa at the beach house as planned. Will go directly to Bonsi for her birthday lunch organised by Claire.    Lue lisää

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    Bonza birthday bash at Bonsi

    24. syyskuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

    Taking the motorways all the way from Menton cost me 30 Euros but meant I probably saved 70 in diesel and I arrived in Bonsi, (about an hour's drive South of Firenze,) yesterday afternoon at about 4 o'clock. Beautiful calm evening in the sunset. I had the place to myself until an old peasant decides to hoe his vegetable patch 3 metres from my spot.

    The families arrive late morning and we enjoy a nice birthday lunch for my little sister.    Lue lisää

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    First Workaway

    25. syyskuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    This will be my first job, at CentroAnidra (http://centroanidra.it/index.php/it/). What they didn't tell me is that the roads are narrow, the valley sides near vertical and there are very few places to turn a car, let alone a van, around. This I discovered getting here late last night, when HereWeGo, my iPad GPS, directed me down a narrow lane that eventually petered out into a forest track. I had to reverse back to a farmhouse in order to execute an 8 point turn, hoping the fragile valley side wouldn't give way.

    To add interest to what would otherwise have been a banal experience at midnight, the van manufactures have put forward facing side lights near the roof at the rear. My rear view mirrors therefore serve only to destroy my night vision. I scout the way 3 metres at a time with my torch and then back up blindly.

    Miraculously I only destroy a pile of plastic crates left out for garbage collection. (Yes, it appears that there really are small garbage trucks here that collect from the side of forest tracks.)

    The twin electric fans in the engine bay kicked in with all this revving and sounded like an aircraft taking off. By this time the dogs were barking and lights were appearing in the old stone cottages. Being in hunting territiory made me a bit nervous, but I managed to skidaddle without a shot being fired.

    Luckily I only had to do this one more time before finding my destination, although this time I had to reverse up a 1 in 4 drive with a curve at the top, and the van does not have the power for a hill start so I needed about Half a dozen tries before gaining enough momentum to get up onto the level and bending the bumper on the earth bank.

    When I got to the CentroAnidra turnoff I decided not to venture down the track in the darkness, and found sufficient space to park by the road for the night. Checked in after brekky and working by 10:30 on cleaning up after a wedding.    Lue lisää

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    Marquees de Borzonesca

    29. syyskuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ 🌙 17 °C

    One activity here is the hosting of weddings in a grand marquee. My first job is to pack up after last weekends event and store the furniture away. We also dismantle a smaller marquee and put the material into a storage container. The wooden floor remains for me to sand and varnish before constructing an A-frame about 3 ft high to support tarpaulins which will protect it from the weather.Lue lisää

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    Indian camp

    1. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    The Argentinian shaman has arrived with his assistant to conduct a North American plains Indian sweatlodge ceremony for a personal development group that has coughed up some hard cash for the event.
    First we must build the ceremonial lodge. We chop down a dozen willowy saplings and plant them regularly around the circumference of a circle, with offerings of tobacco in each hole. Then we bend opposing poles to the centre and whip them together with twine, (for everything must be organic,) until they have formed a star enclosing a square in the centre. The whole is covered in a dozen, brown, woolen blankets reminiscent of army ones.
    A hole is dug about 15 inches into the floor ready to receive stones heated on a large open fire 3 metres distant. In line with the door and the fire a small rock pile forms an altar, where the ceremonial tobacco pipe should be but isnt as this would be politically incorrect in the atmosphere of CentroAnidra.
    The shaman invites us to attend but it does not seem appropriate to crash someone elses party when they have paid for it. Instead, I catch glimpses of half naked (for this is Roman Catholic Italy, and traditioinal nudity would be unseemly,) figures chanting in circles before entering the lodge circulating a number of times and slipping out covered in sweat.
    Afterwards all the participants seemed happy.    Lue lisää

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    Conventional rework

    3. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    The next major job is to take all the event stuff out of the container again and set the big marquee up for another event. We also dismantle the neat pile of tarpaulin wrapped straw bales that we had spent a day building in order to use some for tables and room dividers.Lue lisää

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    Coconspirators

    6. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    This week I have worked with Luigi, the communist employee from southern Italy, with whom I have established a good rapport. I tell him I have to supervise his work as one cannot leave Africans without direction: that is the white man's burden. He tells me I am a useless imperialist and he has to redo my work. We have made a stack of firewood with blunt saws and ancient axes as well as carrying loads around the property at the behest of the ladies of the staff.Lue lisää

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    Animal attractions

    13. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    Another activity of the Centro is personal development and the running of university courses. The guru, Paolo, a florid middle aged man, has arrived from Milan and is surrounded at dinner by six women acolytes who literally dote on his words which pour from him without interruption. The volunteers leave dinner early somewhat embarrassed by the scene.

    Animals are kept but not integrated into the farm. There are 14 chickens kept permanently in one location. They produce about 5 eggs a day. There were six fat pigs, again in an enclosure, but one died of a suspected heart attack being morbidly obese: they were all around the 200 kg mark I'd say. There is no swineherd and a different person refills the feed container whenever required. Consequently the pigs are frightened of people and difficult to manage as I discovered when sent to read the 5 eartags. Getting close was next to impossible but I managed to get a shot of each, which as you can see was entirely useless. This operation was necessary because the person responsible for this side of the business had buried the dead pig with its identity tag, they had no record of the numbers, and the vet wouldnt issue a disease clearance certificate for the Dept of Agriculture without it.

    Later we started training the pigs to enter the wagon which would take them to slaughter by laying feed in the entrance laneway.

    Also in the menagerie is a donkey, two geese and two peacocks.    Lue lisää

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    A fair country

    14. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    An extended market day in Borzonasca, the nearest town.
    The farm surroundings have provided many different mushrooms, (which have been eaten,) and an abundant supply of chestnuts, (which we roast at the fair and sell.)
    Every hamlet here has a church with a priest that they supported. One extra mouth to feed was always a heavy burden for peasant families although it extended the power of the church into the minutiae of everybody's life.
    Borzonasca is a three church town, with alters like wedding cakes, of no particular beauty.    Lue lisää

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    Busman's holiday

    16. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    My official day-off today and I drove for two hours last night down the motorway from Liguria into Tuscany to Marina di PietraSanta, the village a few kilometres North of Viareggio where Vanessa has a beach house.

    This time I did not get the day wrong and was in place to greet her when she came down from Florence so we could spend the day together whist she took care of the house and paid her respects to the garden.

    Like a good WorkAway I mowed the lawn.    Lue lisää

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    Never promsed you a Rose garden

    23. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    CentroAnidra make a rose syrrup and rose jams which they sell although probably not for a profit. They want their production to grow so this week we are onto it.
    The rough, grass field should have been ploughed last year and sowed with clover or something similar. Then we could have simply ploughed it again this year, leaving a nice nitrogen rich earth for the roses.
    Instead we ploughed it a few days ago, leaving a mess of buried roots and sods to clean up as we go.
    The rows were staked out and drip irrigation line laid along them. Insufficient fittings had been bought as nobody had seen fit to calculate the amount necessary before buying them, so the job was half done.
    In the meantime, the bushes were dug from the nursery, separated into individual plants, and planted along the rows.
    Some of the volunteers have been gathering and pressing olives.They are small and hard and not very tasty, but the oil is very tasty. Perhaps the the cause can be found in their age: they had been Bonsai trees in pots for a score of years before being planted a couple of years.    Lue lisää

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    CentroAnidra staff

    23. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Some of the people at CentroAnidra.

    Last night Paolo favours us with a 2 hour presentation on personal development covering some basic science, psychology and philosophy lavishly illustrated with personal and somewhat risque anecdotes. He outlines 3 primal fears that stop us developing which I interpreted as separation anxiety, fear of failure and fear of losing one's identity.

    The guru tells us that since conquering these fears he attracts many women without effort; but has no attachment to them as he has reached the stage of personal spiritual development beyond such petty cravings, (but he does maintain extremely cordial relations with Antonella.)

    Similarly, he tells us that though he created CentroAnidra through his vision and high level personal contacts, he is detached from the success or failure of the organisation. Having no skin in the game does make it easier to be aloof I suppose.

    Teresa is the Managing Director of the centre cannot afford the luxury of detachment as she does have skin in the game, dealing on a daily basis with the legal and financial responsibilities of an organisation that still, after 7 years existence, is barely breaking even. The centre has benefited and she has suffered from managing the centre like an accountant: hands-on and in-detail. Now she has stepped back to preserve her sanity, but no operations director has materialised to assist her and they can't afford to hire someone. The centre would benefit if her two deputies reported regularly to one overall chief, and they assigned jobs and resources together.

    Antonella, another vital and essential member of the centre, originates near Sienna and, having spent 14 formative years growing up in Oxford, speaks better English than I do. She has the capacity to run the whole operation efficiently but chooses to restrain her capabilities to Public Relations in the interests of community decision making. Were it not for a demonstrated affection for the guru someone would have whisked her away long ago IMHO.

    Valentina, (known as Vale which appropriately means worth,) runs the well organised food store and various other things. She is an accomplished TaiChi practitioner, with none of the limpid arm waving seen customarily in the West. Being a quiet, Sardinian girl, she is probably not interested in being an instructor but nevertheless she is the best role model for how people should behave in CentroAnidra. Instead she is taken for granted.

    Julia is a teacher and studied psychology at university. She works mainly with the Erasmus programme but I meet her in the kitchen cooking up goodies.

    Christina the pastry chef does not actually live at the centre but turns up to make the most delicious cakes and pastries when required.

    Chris is the mother of Val and spends time here but does not quite fit in. She runs a guest house higher up the valley and comes down at various times to help and for meals. As it is, as soon as she starts to project herself she is quickly talked down, retiring to a seat one up from the end of the table so she won't be left out completely and so limiting the group of volunteers ability to sit together. She could be more help to the centre if she was given a sphere of responsability and held to account for it: I feel there is a history here to which I am not privy.    Lue lisää

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    More people

    23. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Rita does the laundry and suffers from depression which she induces in herself by storing negative emotions in the small of her back. I make her laugh and she claims to be much better! She cannot imagine life outside the centre so remains stuck in it.

    Toby is making the straw house which will become the conference centre. He is assisted by his partner Bobby, a friendly teacher of Yoga down in Chiavari. Toby is also training the pigs to enter the ramp up to the trailer that will take them on their final journey.

    Giovanni is reponsible for the agricultural side and has severely sprained his leg in a fall. He has returned to the centre whilst recovering and limps around on a crutch trying not to show the pain it causes him though the strain evident on his face. His injury wakes him often during the night, adding to his discomfort. I showed him how to lie on his back with his thighs perpendicular to the floor and his calves parallel to the floor supported by a chair: it allows his entire body to relax and he is grateful for the tip.

    And of course Luigi whom we have met before.    Lue lisää

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    Fellow Workaways

    23. lokakuuta 2017, Italia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    The volunteers come from all over Europe and two, Angela and Jazz originated in North Carolina. Two boys from Bodio in Ticino were lively lads who had come down from the mountains of Northern Italy. Mateo hails from Bologna and has volunteered in the centre to keep a low profile from the law, he tells me over a smoke in the evening.
    Four girls were on the European Union University Erasmus programme, serving as "interns" in the centre to gain work experience: Yasmine from Istanbul: Karla from Czek Republic, Franka from Istria, Ekatarina from Yekaterinburg (not named after her). Alas, the lack of organisational structure or written curriculum made it difficult for them and they also suffered from being more intelligent and better educated than most of their teachers. Perhaps this was the point of the programme: to wake students to the facts of life, that we all have sometimes to work for thick, ignorant people who have the capacity to ruin them.    Lue lisää

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    Saint-Clément

    25. lokakuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    I left CentoAnidra on Monday afternoon after 4 weeks work. They wanted me to stay longer but an unrelenting diet of faggiolini (green beans) overcooked even though fresh; occasional offcuts of pig and wine doled out a mouthful at a time was beginning to get to me.

    Whilst heading West to my next gig by Beziers, I found a wonderful camping / picnic spot at the back of a motorway service centre near Aix-en-Provence and settled in to watch a film with a glass of wine. 20 minutes later blue lights were illuminating the interior and a loud knocking on the door announced the arrival of the Gendarmerie.
    Two polite officers regretted to inform me that the centre was subject to regular sweeps by people breaking into cars and that I should move to the main carpark under the lights. Directly in front of the boutique. So as soon as the film was finished I moved in front of McDonalds and went to sleep. At 02:30 a noise made me waken and sit in the drivers seat as 3 men tried the doors of each vehicle in turn, the boutique having closed for the night. Seeing me sitting there ensured I was not one of them and they soon left in a small white hatchback. I got back in my sleeping bag and lay comfortably half-awake - like doing stag. Sure enough, at 03:00 hours another figure appeared making the rounds and was similarly dissuaded by my appearance. By 04:00 it was getting a bit cold so I swung back onto my bunk above the driver and into my warm sleeping bag. By leaning over I could see through the door windows the rear view mirrors covering my flanks. At 04:30 just when I had decided that there probably would be no more interruptions another pair of men appeared shining torches into the cab. The first time I let it pass, but when one of them pressed his nose against the window it was too much for me and the flat of my hand swung down in an elegant parabola onto the glass straight into his nose. The expression on their faces as they leapt away compensated for the disturbance although the East European glare as they scurried away caused cars to flash their lights at the apparent non-dipping motorist. After that the McD kitchens opened for the day and there was no more trouble.

    Before showing up for work I dropped in on Tim and Maria at St Clements, near Montpellier. On arrival I found people much as I had left them over a year ago. My first port of call was to Ivan the 76 year old ex-mechanic who showed me his newly planted vegetable patch and his beautifully maintained racing Renault Alpine, and whose goodwill I solicited in order to park my van outside the back of his house. Nobody seems to like or trust this fellow and he has been rude to Maria's guests but I never had a problem with him. Sucking up really does work with some folk.

    The house is much the same as before althought the painting and decorating of the school has progressed and the kitchen is almost ready for students. I spent my short time there with Tim, hauling boxes and beds out of one room, upstairs into another so that painting downstairs could continue. Along the way we moved several old matteresses and the like into the yard for the decheterie, for we had discovered two small shrivelled cats lying in a pool on one of them. I envied Tim his inability to smell them for I certainly could, even after spraying industrial strength vinegar onto the wet patches.

    The village sculpter invited us to witness the pouring of his latest piece - a cat looking remarkably similar to the ones we found - in bronze. Afterwards, as T&M prepared for their last guest this year after more than four months of constant hospitality, I moved on to Sommieres and the coast.    Lue lisää

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    Cessenon-sur-Orb

    30. lokakuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    There has been a strong wind blowing in the region and the beaches have been sand-blasters, so I did not linger long in the Languedoc and have now arrived at my second workaway in the little Herault village of Cessenon - sur -Orb (AOC St Chinian,) about half an hour North of Beziers.

    Francoise Escobar was the first person to contact me after I joined WorkAway and posted a profile so I felt I should spend a little time helping her. She is building her house alone and raising a 17 year old boy at the same time so I should imagine needs all the help she can get.

    My directions are simple. About a couple of clicks out of town there is a pile of old stones and a cross, (the remains of the C XIIth Chappelle de St Anne:) turn right onto the track and follow the road: the house is the bulding under construction on the left.
    Miraculously, I found the cross, took the correct road at a junction and stopped outside the correct house.

    It appears that the electricity company have cut the supply to this house because it has been a building site for too long, 7 years in fact. A special junction box had been installed for the worksite but now the place must be signed-off by an electricity inspector and a proper connection made to the grid. I have appeared a couple of hours before the inspector is due and Francoise is in a bit of tizz. Given the state of French regulations, I am not surprised as the compliance codes change all the time.

    In the event, the inspector only found one earth wire to connect and failed a lamp in the bathroom because the particular (older) model installed did not carry the correct stamp of approval, as this years virtually identical model does. He kindly agreed to pass the house if these were fixed before he left the premises, so of course I connected the missing wire and ripped the light out. He okayed it, extracting a promise from Francoise to fix the problem later and casually mentioning that, had he inspected the house 2 years ago he would have passed the fitting. My betting is that some ignorant WorkAway will reconnect the existing lamp and F will have to put its replacement on the list of things to do. At the bottom.    Lue lisää

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    Little house on the prairie

    3. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    So far this house and its owner have been a revelation of hope over experience, facilitated by You-Tube construction videos.

    Francoise has lived her entire life in this village and spent the last 7 years in the construction of this house which is still not ready for interior decoration. A number of startling facts have emerged during the week, starting with the lack of electricity:
    + the solar hot water heating system has not been regulated, (so the panels must be covered with tarp whenever it gets too hot;) the panels are shaded from the winter sun during the mornings; and there is no secondary heating for the times the sun don't shine;
    + the doors and windows have been fitted with gaps and without proper waterproofing so the wind-driven rain enter;
    + the fireplace didn't work, which is a pity since the nightime temerature is around 4 degrees;
    + the carport has been sunk to below the height of surrounding drains;
    + the floor is bare concrete which is always dusty
    + the waterproof coursing around the house is incomplete
    + the rammed earth walls are beginning to crumble as they haven't been lime-washed yet
    and so on.
    Francoise explains tells me that she quite understands if I want to move on immediately, but I reply that there is plenty to do to help and my apartment is quite comfortable anyway.

    Despite my intention never to project manage anything, I have a feeling that this how best to help her: to give her some tips on how to get things moving forward again.

    Meanwhilst, I have started by making a housing for the noisy generator that needs refuelling with a 20l jerrycan every other day. Actually, it is more like a pile of earth thrown over a timber pallet, but it cost nothing and does the job. Shouldn't be for too long as I have nagged F sufficiently to get her to copy and submit the papers necessary for the electricity company to agree and schedule connection to the grid.    Lue lisää

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    Spanish flue

    6. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    The commotion in Catalonia has been given a new twist by F, whose father and antecedents came from those parts.

    Apparently the schism, fundementally with Madrid, stems from the Civil War, when Franco's delegates asassinated a large number of Catalans and shovelled them into mass, unmarked graves. To this day F and her family do not know where her great-uncle and his wife's bodies rest.

    People who were at least sympathetic to the fascist cause are still ruling from Madrid and apparently have never acknowledged or apologised for the atrocities. Since then, whilst Fascist widows get a pension, Republican ones don't. And the authorities have been silent with their hands in their pockets over the puzzle of where the bodies have been thrown. (And they take more money from the area than they ever return in kind.)

    Like the Japanese actions in Manchuria, if old crimes are not confessed and vitiated, hatred and distrust will continue for generations.

    Meanwhilst, back at the worksite, I have removed the old cast iron fireplace, cleaned the chimney and knocked out the old concrete stovepipe surround to make the surfaces all nice and flattish for the new one that I pressured F to order. Maybe at the end of the week we'll have some heat in the evenings.    Lue lisää

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    Medical matters

    10. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    The delivery driver unloads the new, 100kg fireplace leaving it outside the front door , refusing to wheel it 5 metres further along the concrete floor of the house because that would be installation and he doesn't do that whatever the invoice says ( it includes installation) and he leaves us with a gallic shrug to carry it ourselves.

    F was wearing her working clothes, chinese pyjamas; which together with a collection of ornaments from the local Chinese 2 dollar shop, reassure her clients about the authenticity of her practice. She has a clinic in which she practices Bo-chi, a form of Chinese Medicine similar to Reiki or shiatsu. It took many years study under the direction of Dr Shen Honxun, (now deceased,) for her to get her diploma so this is not a fly-by-night operation but one requiring skill and experience.
    Now the funny thing is, she is established as a proper company, recognised (and taxed by the French government,) but the practice of Chinese Medicine is outlawed here; although even the pharmacy provides plastic bags printed with a lotus flower and instructions for how it is used in Chinese Medicine!

    It all started with the Vichy government, who established the "Ordre des Medecines" with the help of local industries principally involved in chemical production and pharmaceuticals. The Ordre is financially very secure, receiving cash from corporations as well as generous donations from those who wish to practice medicine and who do not rock the boat. The Vichy government decreed that only members of the Ordre could practice medicine in France; something that persists to this day. An example of who rocked the boat most recently is Prof Joyeaux.

    One example of the result of this close liaison between government, industry and a closed shop is that babies are given 12 vaccinations at the same time after birth. Another is that, in order to teach in public, the teacher must provide copies of up-to-date vaccination certificates.

    F thinks vaccinations are good, but at the same time is concerned about the increasing levels of non-essential ingredients that are being added for the sole purpose of increasing profits. Since the ingredient labelling laws on products do not include vaccines, it is hard to know the truth of this. (This is when I really miss professor Google!)

    Meanwhile, I have been checking and measuring the house and its apertures for windowsills. There is only about 10mm space available on the inside so I fear it will be impossible to provide a proper slope for run-off. Only two of the frames, some wood and some aluminium, have been installed parallel to the wall; some fancy and time consuming cutting will be needed when the time comes. I also noticed that three of the double-glazed, metal windows have been installed with internal stresses, resulting in cracked panes.    Lue lisää

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    Feeling the heat

    17. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ 🌙 8 °C

    We have been discussing F's son who is 17 and starting his studies for the Baccalaureate. Unfortunately he is not doing at all well, withdrawn from the class and scoring low marks in tests. I have found him an agreeable and fairly knowledgeable young man so I was taken by surprise until I overheard him doing his homework with his mother. His reading age and behaviour were like a 13 year olds. Then I discovered that he always had difficulty with reading, that dyslexia or something similar was hereditary in her family, and that the doctor's solution had been to make him speak with a spoon in his mouth to pronounce words properly. No wonder the poor kid was withdrawn in class. I have been quite rude to F and she is determined to go to Montpellier to sort this out.

    Meanwhile, I have competed the fireplace installation and created a warm feeling in the household.    Lue lisää

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    Can't escape the Canals

    20. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    The nearest large town is Beziers and to day we visited it to buy a replacement generator and to have a quick look around. Unfortunately, being the winter season, nothing was open on a Monday except the UNESCO World Heritage Ecluse de Fonserannes.... and what I was told is ...

    When our Harry Curtmantle and Aliénor got hitched in 1152 it was not just the merger of Plantagenent assets with Aquitaine but also the start of Britains consumption of Bordeaux wine. This powerful thirst strained the meager production of local plonk and so the good citizens outsourced to Languedoc but retaining naming rights: a trade which continues to this day.

    Unfortunately, there was a mountain range between the Med and the Atlantic so the only way to transport goods North was by jolting along in a rattley cart. In fact so bumpy was it that places such as Dijon made a reputation for themselves by turning the soured Languedoc wine into mustard.

    In order to avoid the dreaded Barbary pirates and the corrugated tracks the Southerners had dreamt of a canal "entre deux mer" for a few hundred years without ever solving the problem of water supply to the highest points of the canal. Augustus, Nero, Charlemagne, François I, Charles IX and Henry IV all dreamed of it: François I brought Leonardo da Vinci over in 1516 to survey part of a route.

    As always, a project of such scope involves hefty contributions from the tax man. In this case one taxman, (the collector of salt revenues, Pierre-Paul Riquet,) took a personal interest and eventually solved the problem. He got the backing of Louise XIV and devoted the rest of his life to digging.
    One of his achievements was to build the 9 lock lift at Fonserannes, each in the shape of a bottle, which have worked well to this day. The last photo of the modern, efficient strramlined version has never worked at all and has been abandoned.

    BTW something else I heard: each year large quantities of Sauvignon Blanc are harvested in the early hours of the mornings and driven over to Reims by nightfall. Not saying anything of course, Mums the word. Honi soit qui mal y pense.    Lue lisää

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  • Roland RoutierRoland RoutierMatkaaja

    Acres of mass

    20. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    In linking Toulouse and Beziers as the start and end point of his canal, maybe PPR was reminding us of their shared 13thC catastrophe when Rome was scandalised by Catharism, with such dangerous doctrines as not needing the intervention of priests to gain salvation and not giving tons of money to Rome, which was attracting too many converts in in Southern France. Pope Innocent III sent preachers to convert the Cathars, but called a crusade after his legate, Pierre of Castelnau, was killed in January 1208.

    A Crusading army was formed in Lyon and arrived in Beziers in 1209, motivated more by spiritual umbrage than by Innocent’s declaration that they would be entitled to keep any land seized from heretics. Under the command of another papal legate, Arnaud Amalric, Abbot of Cîteaux the army arrived at Béziers and called for the surrender of the Cathars and local Catholics. Some Catholics to their credit refusing to betray the few hundred Cathars in their midst to the glories of martyrdom, and the heretics took sanctuary in the Holy Catholic Church of St Madeleine. (Only restored last year.) So when the walls fell, it was mostly orthodox Catholics killing orthodox Catholics. Well, what’s a crusading army with other cities to sack supposed to do?

    "When they discovered, from the admissions of some of them, that there were Catholics mingled with the heretics they said to the abbot “Sir, what shall we do, for we cannot distinguish between the faithful and the heretics.” The abbot, like the others, was afraid that many, in fear of death, would pretend to be Catholics, and after their departure, would return to their heresy, and is said to have replied “Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His” (2 Tim. ii. 19) and so countless number in that town were slain." (Caesar of Heisterbach)

    "And they killed everyone who fled into the church; no cross or altar or crucifix could save them. And these raving beggarly lads, they killed the clergy too, and the women and children. I doubt if one person came out alive … such a slaughter has not been known or consented to, I think, since the time of the Saracens." (William of Tudela, cited in Cathar Castles)

    Amarlic and Milo, a fellow legate, in a letter to the Pope, claim that the crusaders "put to the sword almost 20,000 people.

    Simon de Montfort, a prominent French nobleman, was then appointed leader of the Crusader army and was granted control of the area encompassing Carcassonne, Albi, and Béziers. After the fall of Carcassonne, other towns surrendered without a fight. Albi, Castelnaudary, Castres, Fanjeaux, Limoux, Lombers and Montréal all fell quickly.
    Although his first siege of Toulouse in 1211 was unsuccessful, he defeated the city's army two years later and then appointed himself as count before he himself died at the Siege of Toulouse in 1218. Many more thousands perished.

    Following all these disturbances, the University of Toulouse was established by the 1229 Treaty of Paris. Their basic courses in theology and Aristotelian philosophy were beefed up to combat heresy. The Dominican monastic order was founded, with its home in the Couvent des Jacobins de Toulouse. A nearly four-century holy inquisition began, centred in the city.

    Not a lot of people know this.    Lue lisää

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  • Roland RoutierRoland RoutierMatkaaja

    Not feeling the cold

    24. marraskuuta 2017, Ranska ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Without a constant supply of electricity, the refrigerator cannot be used but this is less of a problem than I thought. There is a mini-Carrefour 5 minutes into Cessenon for perishable items and the three other medium sized ones within a 30 minute drive. Milk of course is mainly UHT in France to ensure that none of the cows' goodness survives and the old butter dish works remarkably well. The one in the photo came from Brittany.

    Progress has been made on the planning front. We have set up a project area with filing cabinets and a table near the fireplace. Now we have to collect all the bits of paper from around the house and put them into folders. I have made a list of 250 things to finish or fix so that the house can be completed. Now F can see how to best use future Workaways next year. I've drawn up plans for a front porch and also for a back deck just in case the other work gets finished!    Lue lisää

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