Dinard, Brittany.
Honfleur, Normandy.
COMMENT
I am old enough to remember when you could go to a builders merchant and get a bushel of sand in a bag, I seem to remember it was eight big shovelfuls. That has all changed now of course due to EEC health and safety rules most of which originated from France. Here in England, to prevent back injury, the largest bag of sand, cement or plaster, you can get now is 25 kilos. When I first went to buy some sand in France I took my ticket to the yard and the yard worker got out a huge plastic bag and proceeded to fill it. I should think it would have weighed about 70 kilos if I hadn't stopped him. "Are you sure monsieur?, you will not be getting what you have paid for". All I can say is they must have an awful lot of bad backs in France.
TIP
In France it is the law that if you use an open fire, you must have the chimney swept once a year.
TALES FROM FRANCE
Our house in France is an end of terrace with Madame living next door but one in the terrace and the house between the two of us is owned by her brother who uses it as a holiday home. We met him for the first time one summer up the garden. He asked me if I could speak German and when I said no he proceeded to rattle away in German for several minutes, I’m not quite sure why. Later in the summer when he had returned home I was showing Madame some work that I intended to do at the back of the house. Behind and above the two storey outhouse built into the hill there is a stone retaining wall supporting the next level up of the garden, and I was explaining to her how I was intending to extend the walls of the outhouse upwards to provide additional support for this wall. I had also told her in passing that I had had architectural training. The next time I was in France, the first time I went out the back, I noticed that monsieur had done to his outhouse exactly what I had described to Madame, except that he had done it in concrete blocks laid dry with no cement in between. I thought to myself that it must have been a hell of a job for a guy of his age, (he looked to be in his seventies), as the blocks all had to be carried through the house and 2 stories up the steps. The next day when I went out the back I could hear him next door in his yard cursing and grumbling in French, and when I went up the steps, I could see he was just finishing the work off, in the rain, by fitting the guttering to the outhouse. I said - bonjour monsieur - but he ignored me and carried on cursing. I can only imagine that Madame must have told him that I was an Architect and that I had said that the work needed to be done. He was probably thinking - I come here for a holiday and now because of this blooming Englishman I've got to do all this work. That was 4 years ago, and he's never been back since. Oops!
