Blog in France

It’s 5 March today, which, according to the French Republican Calendar, is 15 Ventôse (= windy) and the day’s name is chèvre – goat. I’m quietly fascinated by the French Republican Calendar which held sway for 12 years between late 1793 and 1805, and briefly resurfaced for 8 days under...

This ‘hottest February ever’ weather continues, fortunately coinciding with the school winter holidays. Normally this two-week break in mid-to-late Feb, depending on which zone gets allocated which weeks, is cold, damp and dismal, with kids stuck indoors most of the time. Apart, of course, from that minority of children who...

Every now and again you buy something that’s worth its weight in gold. You could, of course, say that about many utilitarian items that contribute a massive amount to your quality of life such as a car, a bike, a washing machine, a sewing machine, ride-on mower or a computer....

It’s the JPO season at French universities. JPO is the abbreviation for journée portes ouvertes, which means ‘day of open doors’ i.e. open day. Yesterday we took Ruadhri down to visit the science faculty at Limoges University (Unilim), since that’s where he hopes to start his studies in September. The...

We’ve just had a section of the barn roof redone. It’s a job we’d been putting off in the hopes that a military jet would fly a bit too low (they already fly so low over Creuse on some of their exercises that you can see the whites of their...