Narnia awaits in Normandy.

Posted on February 9, 2018 by frenchimmersion

I woke up this morning to a thick blanket of snow. It rarely snows in Normandy, so this morning I eagerly dragged my snow boots out from their hiding place and went to explore our quarter, enjoying the crunching sounds underfoot, and the silence of the deserted streets.

Narnia’s lamppost was standing in the middle of someone’s garden behind large iron gates, unfairly out of reach of anyone desperately searching the wardrobe and their way home!

So I set off again to enjoy my neighborhood from its new perspective.

The church of St Andre beckoned from the end of the allée of soft snow.

It was clinging on, even on the nobbles of the freshly pollarded trees. These strikingly architectural forms are so resolutely french and I love their shapes both in the height summer as in the coldest of winters.

When winter beckons we call our local wood merchant for our annual delivery of logs. Three stères of wood will get us through the average winter with the fire burning merrily most days. I like the fact that the french have their own particular measurement for a cubic meter of wood, and that it comes readily chopped to the right dimensions after the wood merchant has come to the fireplace to measure the hearth. Often he tells me which trees he’s lopped, and precisely where my stères have come from. One year the pollarded trees of the main boulevard in the city, another, from a sustainable forest several kilometers away.

Our local architecture is so quintessentially french.

A bus had tried to make it through, and broken down, leaving only a narrow space for a passing truck. They were making heavy weather of the manœuvre so I left them to it!

There was nothing moving at the square by the church.

And I hurried on, now and then pulling out my camera.

Despite being close to the centre of the city, our quarter has a country feel with narrow lanes and steep slopes. Here and there are some lovely houses tucked away behind their imposing gates.

And the odd bijou one as well!

But looking forward to a warm fire and a cup of hot chocolate I turned for home taking a few last pictures on the way.

Have a lovely day!

French Shutters.

Posted on June 3, 2017 by frenchimmersion

One of the things I love most about my house are it’s shutters. We use our shutters often, to keep out the heat of the summer’s day, to trap the cool in the house and let a gentle flow of air pass through the louvres , or to batten down the hatches against the noisy winter storms.

Last summer we started on the onerous task of painting the windows of our house. The windows are a century old, the paint is almost non-existant, peeling from decades of strong sunlight. But the windows are in deep reveals protecting them from the vagiaries of the weather and the wood is in good condition. The windows that we finished last summer looked wonderful in their new coat of paint, but sadly the shutters were left lacking.

Last summer we also attempted to renovate a pair of shutters, but we knew almost immediately that we would never manage the deep louvred openings and so started looking for someone who had the equipment necessary to do a good job.

One of the things that makes France such a wonderful place to live is the presence of small enterprises which are capable of undertaking craftmens jobs with skill in abundance. We found a four man team who could sandblast and hot-seal spray paint the shutters, and with whom the whole business was undertaken with jovial good humour, a fair amount of negotiating on price, and an analysis of what team we would support if France, Scotland and England were up against each other in a rugby final.

Yesterday we collected our first two pairs of shutters. “Husband à la maison”, in a moment of extreme enlightenment and wisdom, had recommended we only sent two pairs of our twelve pairs of shutters to be renovated at a time. Each pair of shutters has at least two panels and up to six. When our two pairs of shutters were returned, we lay them on the grass and set to, with much scratching of heads and a tape measure to try to pair them up again.With each matched shutter the process became more and more simple as the possible matching options reduced. Hanging them up again was another question entirely.

It’s a lesson in motivation, for no sooner are the painted shutters rehung, than the unpainted windows behind them need to be renovated.

In France, if you leave your house unoccupied for more than two weeks you are obliged to close up the shutters or risk violating your house insurance. In reality most people close their shutters even if they are only absent for a weekend.

For us it’s a race to the finish or we may have to stay at home all summer until we’ve completed them.

But that’s another story!

Big Jobs Hanging Over Our Heads.

Posted on December 4, 2016 by frenchimmersion

When we first moved into our house it was 10 days before Christmas two years ago. The house was barely habitable but we made the best of it, and somehow we didn’t notice the peeling wallpaper and paint just metres from our dining table. The first new year I set to task to repair the one wall and boxed-in beam where a burst pipe had left ugly paper and plaster hanging by threads. A year later I patched and finished the remaining walls with lining-paper but never got round to painting them because hanging over my head was an even bigger problem, a problem which didn’t easily give itself to a solution – the ceiling!

Our house had only been owned by one family before us, and when we bought it the resident was 87 years old and known by many to be miserly. Certainly he had never made any repairs or upgraded the decor. When the dresser was pulled away from the wall, the paper behind it came off the wall in one entire sheet. Often closed up, the house had suffered from the damp and neglect, and gradually the paint on many ceilings, and especially that of the diningroom, had quite literally bcome unstuck and dangled in curly peelings above our heads.

For two years the ceiling laughed at me from above and I wondered whether it wasn’t time to call in the professionals as only a month or so after scraping off one lot of peeling ceiling paint, the previously solid edges in their turn would decide to peel.

But then suddenly with another Christmas around the corner, I reasoned that if I took the matter to task, and simply in turn failed to do a decent job, well then was the time for the plaquist, as the french plasterer is called. It seemed worth having a go and trying to turn the dining room around for this, our third Christmas in the house.

And so suddenly, last week, with the lull that comes at the end of the tourist season, and with the christmas season hot on its heels, I hauled myself to the top of a ladder and braced myself for what probably is the most unpleasant renovation job, because the one thing about repairing a ceiling is that the only place for the dirt and detritus to fall, is on you!

There were two huge cracks nearly the full width of the room!

Large chunks of plaster pulled away when touched!

More paint came off the ceiling than stayed on as I scratched at it!

and even the moulded coving paint was crazed and loose!

After several days of sanding and filling the ceiling resembled something like this…

After filling all those holes in the ceiling and all the crazing in the coving, there was only one thing to do – sand it all smooth. I ended up white from head to toe with plaster dust and there was only one place for me at the end of all that – in the shower!

What “husband à l’étranger” wasn’t expecting however was a call to arms, because I reasoned that the only way forward, to seal those nasty little paint edges from peeling in their turn, was to wallpaper over the lot. French wallpaper has one major failing, it is a metre wide, far wider than english paper, and when you have a three metre strip of 1800 grade heavily covered in wallpaper paste, it becomes extremely unwealdy and extremely heavy. “Husband à l’etranger did try to persuade me just to paint the ceiling, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

I apologised to my co-worker in advance for any expletives that might be uttered in the course of the undertaking and explained that any directed insults should be seen as “heat of the moment” and not taken to heart. He was quick to concur!

So it was we found ourselves straddled between several step-ladders, long-handled brooms propping the renegade corners, and covered with liberal dollops of glue, desperately guiding and coaxing the unwilling paper to stick to the ceiling and then to ensure that the subsequent pieces lay alongside without gaps, overlaps or bubbles. Several desperate and frantic hours later the job was done.

It took a night to dry, and gingerly the next morning I opened the diningroom door to see the result of our efforts. I’m happy to say that the ceiling was smooth and bubble-free!

There was just the question of painting the walls…

in The Little Green Company “French Grey”.(…of course!)

and all we have to do now is decorate it for Christmas!

Boating Season

Posted on April 12, 2015 by frenchimmersion

Ther’s something really lovely about being up before the crowds on a sunday morning, and if I don’t go to the sunday market, the next best place to be is on the quayside watching the boats coming up the river. My kids cannot be roused before midday, so today I left them all in bed and headed out to meet one of the boats moored up at Rouen and welcome a group of 30 American visitors for a morning tour of the city.

My boat wasn’t there but plenty of others were, and no sooner had one set sail than another came to take its place.

I took a few moments to enjoy the spring sunshine and what promised to be another lovely sunny day.

And then my boat came in, moored and craned in place the gang-plank and we were good to go.

By the time they had moored up along-side the other 5 boats, there wasn’t much of a view of the river!

But Ile Lacroix, Rouen’s mid-river island was just visible under the bridge bathed in an early spring morning mist.

The American visitors had walked the gang-plank not knowing what lay in store for them but since the weather was beautiful, and the buildings magnificent, I think they had a nice suprise. Many are the days that the drizzle sets in and we find ourselves bedraggled with umbrellas blown inside out and trousers soaked up to the knees. But it’s the new season, the days are warming up and the cafés are spiling once more out onto the streets.

For me, it’s the opportunity to speak english again, and it makes me laugh when I struggle to find the words after a winter of unuse. By the autumn I will be fluent in my own language again, but for now i’m still tempted to use all those words in french which perfectly describe a object, an emotion or an action, where in english only a whole sentence will do!

All too soon the tour of the city is over and I describe to our visiors how to find their boat again, or give directions to interesting places so that they can stay on shore a while longer.

And for me it’s time to buy a baguette or two and a box of eclairs before returning home where my children are just getting out of bed!

The Historial of Joan of Arc, a New Museum in Rouen.

Posted on March 23, 2015 by frenchimmersion

One of the great advantages of being a registered guide in Rouen is getting access to all the new exhibitions and museums at the “Avant Première”. Today I had the amazing opportunity to be one of the first through the doors of the “Historial de Jeanne d’Arc”, the new museum dedicated to the story of Joan of Arc, in Rouen.

Several years ago a small private wax-works museum was to be found in the Vieux Marché in Rouen, next to the site where Joan of Arc was burnt to death at the stake. It closed when the owner went into retirement. Today the doors opened on one of what I have to classify as one of France’s best museums, The “Historial de Jeanne d’Arc”.

Joan of Arc was imprisoned in Rouen after her capture and ransom from the battlefield at Compiègne, north-east of Paris. The English, having occupied of Rouen for some twelve years by 1431, during the Hundred Years War, imprisoned her in a tower of the Chateau Bouvreuil until her trial and eventual conviction for heresy and relapse. The new museum is located in the very building where the original trial, and later retrial were held, part of the Archbishop’s Palace, or Archevequé as it is known.

The building has undergone extensive and painstaking renovation. The result is magnificent. The building alone, with its stone crypts, tommette tiled floors, and two towers is worth a visit. As we all agreed, just bringing visitors to the top of the Tour de Guet was worth every penny for the view alone. The views, never before seen by the average Rouennaise nor visitor, of the one rose window which survived the explosions of the 1944 bombing raids on the cathedral without being masked by the north transept gable were excellent; as was the high-level view of the Eglise St Maclou, a perfect example of the Gothic Flamboyant in the mediaval quarter.

If only to overwhelm the visitor, we gained access to the stunning chapel,

and the Salle des Etats,

and grand staitcase of the Archevequé as we made our way to the end of the visit.

But what of the museum exhibit itself? Systematic and clearly explained, the story of Joan of Arc evolves through a series of “automated rooms”. Small groups of 20 pass through one room at a time in which a part of the story is told through film displays and “son et lumière” (sound and light shows). The entire visit is a technical masterpiece of the same genre as the “son et lumière” on the Cathedral facade every summer.. Joan of Arc’s trial was the first of its time to be written down and archived. Each character is named and identified, with modern day actors filmed and using the transcript from 1431.

The final two rooms are free access with interactive displays and an interactive “push-button” selection of questions posed to historical experts whose filmed responses dispell the myths that have grown up over the passing centuries.

Here it is possible to see copies of the original manuscripts of the trial and letters written by Joan to the Dauphin, and later King Charles VII and other trivia such as models of the city in medieval times.

When you come to Rouen, do not miss this great museum. Suitable for adults and children alike, leave at least two hours for the visit and then stride out into the medieval quarter where you can find cafés, antiques, and plenty of lovely boutiques.

And if you are too exhausted to take another step, there’s always the lovely old workshop of Ferdinand Marou, metalworker from the Impressionists era who’s ‘atelier’ is now the most gorgeous coffee-shop.See you there!