The British invade Aquitaine
French population figures published last week confirm that, after Paris, the department with the largest number of British residents is the Dordogne.
According to L’Institut National de la Statistiques et des Etudes Economique, 6,300 Britanniques live in the department. The region of Aquitaine, says L’Institut, contains, half those “Brittaniques” living in France. Shades of France in the 12th century when the English King, Henry11 married Eleanor of Aquitaine and England ruled most of the land between the Loire and the Pyrenees.
The first wave of British immigrants settling in the Dordogne is generally acknowledged to have been due to economic factors such as cheap properties and the strong pound against the euro The second British influx of the Dordogne, according to Charles Gilloley, President Departmental de la Federation Nationale des Agents Immobiliers, were pensioners or retraites.
Another interesting theory, touted to me several years ago, as to why the Brits were first attracted to the Dordogne is that the department was half way from England to the warmer and cheaper climes of Spain. Finding that the wooded valleys and undulating fields reminded them of home and that it was hotter than expected, these early pioneers decided that buying a place in the Dordogne would prove a better bet. Another story relates to a British entrepreneur who, on a ferry crossing from Dover to Calais, got out a map of France and marked a point half way down south of Angouleme. He then promptly bought a plot of land suitable for a caravan site near the spot and has never looked back.
Despite the recent global financial crisis, with their pensions having drastically shrunk and with work difficult to find, most Brits are staying put and others are still coming according to the daily newspaper covering Aquitaine, the Sud Ouest. The paper quotes “Une veritable qualite de vie” as to why they are leaving Britain to live in the Dordogne.
“I am used to it here and I am very happy”, says Toby Brown who, lives and works in Perigeux.
Another Englishman, Stewart Edwards, who has lived here for 20 years and who introduced the game of conkers to the locals, says he likes the tranquillity and the space. His roots, he says, are here in the Dordogne and no longer in England.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Desperately seeking Bertie
Our Border terrier, Bertie is now 18 months old and, in human years, a teenager. He is becoming more and more aware of the wild animals that are to be found in the woods, fields and vines that surround our hameau, Les Mayets. These include roe deer, rabbits, hares and coypu. There are also plenty of pheasants.
Thanks to our neighbouring farmer, Alan Pujol we are able to take Bertie anywhere on his land covering one hundred hectares and often further. While on his normal walk yesterday we spotted a couple of roe deer amongst Alan’s prune trees beyond which there was a small wood. On the other side of his orchard Alan had ploughed a field and the deer set off across the plough. I decided to let Bertie give chase because the field was quite small and the furrows were deep impeding him from getting too far too fast. The gamble paid off because the deer quickly slipped him and, after stitting in the middle of the field for a time, Bertie decided to give up and came back to me.
Congratulating him on being bid back, I quickly sarted to attach him to the lead again. As I was doing so we both sighted three more deer grazing on the other side of a lake about 200 yards from us. A steep ploughed field rose from the banks of this lake into woodland. Vines and a big seeded field lay on the other side of the hill bordering a large wood. Feeling more confident now about Bertie’s ability to answer my call I slipped him off the lead again. This time there was grass between us and the deer and Bertie was off like a missile.The deer hooked left up the steep plough the other side of the lake and ran up the hill with Bertie in full chase. He and the deer were quickly out of sight.
Determined not to panic I climbed up the steep incline and continued down the fields into the next valley to the large wood where, to my relief, I saw him coming out of the trees into the corner of another field.
I managed to get within a few feet of him but however much I muttered “good boy”; “stay”, there was no way I could grab him. My final lunge was to no avail and he was off again into the wood. There were problems here. It was late afternoon, the light was going, it was freezing hard and the wood into which Bertie had disappeared was big with dense undergrowth. This was a place popular with “chasseurs” for shooting Palombes – small grey birds similar to Doves. They fly over areas of south west France in October and November on their migration south from Scandanavia and East Europe to Spain and Africa. I noticed several platforms had been built high up in the trees. I could see all sorts of make shift pulleys and cradles which, I was later told, were employed to hoist live pigeons, used a decoys to attract the Palombes, up into the trees. The wood had a rather sinister eerie feeling about it and I was fearful there might be fox traps in which Bertie could get snared.
Still no sign of him but once or twice I thought I heard the jingle of his name tag on his collar and on another occasion I heard a distant bark. Otherwise it was deathly quiet and the light was going fast. It was becoming difficult to pick out the fallen branches, brambles and fox holes. Heart in hand, I reluctantly left the wood in the direction of home.
No early drink by the fire for me and possibly no dinner either. Instead an all night search by torch light. I secretly hoped that Bertie might find his way home as I started to trudge up another steep hill and back into the vines.
“Oh well, it was nice to have known little Bertie since he was a puppy”, I told myself.
“I suppose I’ll just have to get a replacement but it won’t be the same. What is my wife, Lyndia going to say? She adores the little chap and treats him like a baby”.
Just as I was nearing the top of a strip of vines and giving up hope, I heard a “chink, chink” to my right. And there he was, the little bastard, soaked to skin, covered in mud and lying panting in an adjoining strip of vines.
“Good boy, good boy, stay, stay”, I shouted as I crawled and edged my was under the wires tethering my line of vines. Finally I managed to grab him. He was too tired to run off this time. We slowly made our way home.
Like a true terrier,Bertie was still pulling on the lead when we got back to the house.
Thanks to our neighbouring farmer, Alan Pujol we are able to take Bertie anywhere on his land covering one hundred hectares and often further. While on his normal walk yesterday we spotted a couple of roe deer amongst Alan’s prune trees beyond which there was a small wood. On the other side of his orchard Alan had ploughed a field and the deer set off across the plough. I decided to let Bertie give chase because the field was quite small and the furrows were deep impeding him from getting too far too fast. The gamble paid off because the deer quickly slipped him and, after stitting in the middle of the field for a time, Bertie decided to give up and came back to me.
Congratulating him on being bid back, I quickly sarted to attach him to the lead again. As I was doing so we both sighted three more deer grazing on the other side of a lake about 200 yards from us. A steep ploughed field rose from the banks of this lake into woodland. Vines and a big seeded field lay on the other side of the hill bordering a large wood. Feeling more confident now about Bertie’s ability to answer my call I slipped him off the lead again. This time there was grass between us and the deer and Bertie was off like a missile.The deer hooked left up the steep plough the other side of the lake and ran up the hill with Bertie in full chase. He and the deer were quickly out of sight.
Determined not to panic I climbed up the steep incline and continued down the fields into the next valley to the large wood where, to my relief, I saw him coming out of the trees into the corner of another field.
I managed to get within a few feet of him but however much I muttered “good boy”; “stay”, there was no way I could grab him. My final lunge was to no avail and he was off again into the wood. There were problems here. It was late afternoon, the light was going, it was freezing hard and the wood into which Bertie had disappeared was big with dense undergrowth. This was a place popular with “chasseurs” for shooting Palombes – small grey birds similar to Doves. They fly over areas of south west France in October and November on their migration south from Scandanavia and East Europe to Spain and Africa. I noticed several platforms had been built high up in the trees. I could see all sorts of make shift pulleys and cradles which, I was later told, were employed to hoist live pigeons, used a decoys to attract the Palombes, up into the trees. The wood had a rather sinister eerie feeling about it and I was fearful there might be fox traps in which Bertie could get snared.
Still no sign of him but once or twice I thought I heard the jingle of his name tag on his collar and on another occasion I heard a distant bark. Otherwise it was deathly quiet and the light was going fast. It was becoming difficult to pick out the fallen branches, brambles and fox holes. Heart in hand, I reluctantly left the wood in the direction of home.
No early drink by the fire for me and possibly no dinner either. Instead an all night search by torch light. I secretly hoped that Bertie might find his way home as I started to trudge up another steep hill and back into the vines.
“Oh well, it was nice to have known little Bertie since he was a puppy”, I told myself.
“I suppose I’ll just have to get a replacement but it won’t be the same. What is my wife, Lyndia going to say? She adores the little chap and treats him like a baby”.
Just as I was nearing the top of a strip of vines and giving up hope, I heard a “chink, chink” to my right. And there he was, the little bastard, soaked to skin, covered in mud and lying panting in an adjoining strip of vines.
“Good boy, good boy, stay, stay”, I shouted as I crawled and edged my was under the wires tethering my line of vines. Finally I managed to grab him. He was too tired to run off this time. We slowly made our way home.
Like a true terrier,Bertie was still pulling on the lead when we got back to the house.
Friday, 8 January 2010
David Tennant is our Christmas star.
The highlight of our Christmas here in the Dordogne was not Christmas Eve, Christmas day or even New Years Eve (réveillon) but BBC TV’s production of Hamlet on Boxing Day.
Kauto Star’s demolition of his King George VI’s rivals in the big race at Kempton Park earlier in the afternoon had to take second place to David Tennant’s tour de force as the mad Prince of Denmark. His "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy was mesmerising and his performance will hopefully uncharacterise him from being simply Doctor Who. The producer was John Wyver and the director was Greg Doran who also directed the RSC’s stage production of Hamlet.
Coming back to Les Mayets after the warmth of a centrally heated flat in London was a rude awakening. We had to stock up with 20 litre cans fuel for the poêles, (petrol fired heaters), en route then fill them up in the freezing cold, chop wood for the fire and search the dependences for the one serviceable radiator. It took three days and a new supply of logs to warm the house enough to be vaguely user friendly.
The morning after our return here December 15th Ben Welch arrived with more of our furniture from London. The young lad was driving a massive articulated Mercedes lorry on only his second trip to France from his base in Nottingham. He turned up bang on time. His Sat Nav had got him to Les Mayets without a hitch. Nothing was too much trouble and he carried a large marble work surface, which usually takes two to lift, on his head from his lorry to our dependence with the minimum of fuss. He's a strong chap and works week-ends as a bouncer in a night club. His lorry, he told me, could take a 20 ton load and after delivering a batch of wood burning stoves to a British importer near Eymet he was due in Bordeaux to transport a full load of wine back to England for delivery to Tesco.
We managed to have some sort of knees up in the run up to Christmas when we persuaded a few French we had got to know in the commune to come for an apertif chez nous. Our immediate neighbours, Marie Reine, her son Stefan and his Portuguese fiancée, Carla came. The others were a retired couple called Richard, whose father had served in the Foreign Legion, and his wife, Jacqueline and a farmer called Phillip, a former clay pigeon shooting champion of France. He and Stefan had just returned from shooting partridge in Spain. We were given a brace for Christmas. Philip brought along his wife, José Anne who, despite looking 30, was about to be a grandmother for the second time. The men all drank whisky and the ladies drank champagne. They must have enjoyed themselves because they didn’t leave till after 10pm.
Kauto Star’s demolition of his King George VI’s rivals in the big race at Kempton Park earlier in the afternoon had to take second place to David Tennant’s tour de force as the mad Prince of Denmark. His "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy was mesmerising and his performance will hopefully uncharacterise him from being simply Doctor Who. The producer was John Wyver and the director was Greg Doran who also directed the RSC’s stage production of Hamlet.
Coming back to Les Mayets after the warmth of a centrally heated flat in London was a rude awakening. We had to stock up with 20 litre cans fuel for the poêles, (petrol fired heaters), en route then fill them up in the freezing cold, chop wood for the fire and search the dependences for the one serviceable radiator. It took three days and a new supply of logs to warm the house enough to be vaguely user friendly.
The morning after our return here December 15th Ben Welch arrived with more of our furniture from London. The young lad was driving a massive articulated Mercedes lorry on only his second trip to France from his base in Nottingham. He turned up bang on time. His Sat Nav had got him to Les Mayets without a hitch. Nothing was too much trouble and he carried a large marble work surface, which usually takes two to lift, on his head from his lorry to our dependence with the minimum of fuss. He's a strong chap and works week-ends as a bouncer in a night club. His lorry, he told me, could take a 20 ton load and after delivering a batch of wood burning stoves to a British importer near Eymet he was due in Bordeaux to transport a full load of wine back to England for delivery to Tesco.
We managed to have some sort of knees up in the run up to Christmas when we persuaded a few French we had got to know in the commune to come for an apertif chez nous. Our immediate neighbours, Marie Reine, her son Stefan and his Portuguese fiancée, Carla came. The others were a retired couple called Richard, whose father had served in the Foreign Legion, and his wife, Jacqueline and a farmer called Phillip, a former clay pigeon shooting champion of France. He and Stefan had just returned from shooting partridge in Spain. We were given a brace for Christmas. Philip brought along his wife, José Anne who, despite looking 30, was about to be a grandmother for the second time. The men all drank whisky and the ladies drank champagne. They must have enjoyed themselves because they didn’t leave till after 10pm.
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