Added on Tuesday 14 Jul 2009

Just when I was sitting down to write this piece the other day when I saw that our neighbour Mr Lacombe across the road was working on a rather strange piece of furniture. I at first thought that it was a street organ/hurdy gurdy type thing but not able to cross the road I went back to the keyboard to start again and had just settled down to restart typing when a blast of music came in the door from across the way. Looking out I realised I had not been mistaken and put my shoes on and went across the road to talk to him and inspect the instrument.

I have always been fascinated by these instruments and the music that they make and in fact if you are interested in them you should have a look at YouTube where you will find vast amounts of video about them. Talking to Mr Lacombe he told me that this one was only about 20 years old and that he hoped to by it from the club fairly shortly and the reason that he had it this weekend was to do some restoration before the fete to be held at Eyvigues some 8 kms away, which also is the other half of Salignac Eyviges. I do hope that you understand the geography because I cannot figure out why we are called Salignac Eyviges when Eyviges is several kms away. C'est la vie! While we were talking he demonstrated a few tunes on it and I also photographed it which was a joy as I listened to the wonderful music. I really am a sucker for these sorts of machines.

Before and After

I should mention at this point Mr. Lacombe's house was the one that burnt down a few years back in 2005 and I enclose a before and after picture of the house here as it has all been rebuilt and has a new patio, with canopy, a swimming pool plus many other new bits and pieces.

All the while I have been trying to get to grips with this new document package (I recently went over to IBM Lotus Symphony as it appears to have many more functions than MS Word) but it is still a steep learning curve trying to find out what does what etc. At the same time I have noticed that the outside temperature has gone up to 41 degrees with the inside one at 28 degrees which makes it rather warm to be sitting here and trying to get the creative juices going!

Prestigious physio

Unfortunately every second day I have to be around between 5 and 7pm for the nurse to come around to change the dressings on my leg and this kind of limits me in my movements, I would normally like to go to the cafe around that time and sit and watch the world go by. I never know when the nurse will come, nor for that matter which nurse, so it kind of ties me down. However I am glad to say that I am now down to one dressing and for the last few days I have not taken any pain-killers apart from one this morning. I also have a rather nice man who comes everyday for the physio which I started last week, he is the assistant mayor and lives not far away and thankfully seems to know what he is doing, unlike the last one I had a few years ago for my shoulder! She was the one who started to massage my right shoulder and until I pointed it out that it was the wrong shoulder and she then realised that I had turned around on her instructions...enough said!

The warmth and sunshine outside has been moderating a little bit but it is still very comfortable, for me at least, but I do have to remember my visits to Africa and Pakistan where the temperature was well in excess of anything that France can throw at us. In fact I am sitting in a sweater with the temperature up at 23 degrees inside the house! All this while I wait for the physio to come for his daily visit and I then wait for about an hour or so before I go on my walk round the block to get my daily exercise. Very sadly, as I write this, the church bells have started ringing signalling another funeral in the village, this will be the third one in about a week....I guess that is all to do with the heat which is treacherous to the elderly...also as we live in a smallish community we tend to know almost everyone which is such a great difference to living in a city.

I have just done a spell check on what I have written and it has just told me that I don't have the German dictionary downloaded, so on re-reading everything, I am damned if I can see anything Germanic looking, are computers not quite remarkable? Or is it just me? Because of my spell in hospital and a little housekeeping with this computer, a complete re-think about what I need and a re-installation of Win XP it has left me a little confused, and I dare say the computer very confused! I am however battling away and trying to learn knew tricks. I am always amazed by the fact that I have been computer literate for nearly 20 years now and I still learn something new almost every day. At least it keeps my brain alive if nothing else. Fiona at least is able to get out and about and does the odd bit of work and gets to see people but I just feel a little bit tied down all the time...a bit stir crazy if you know what I mean? Still hopefully I am on the 'home run' now.

Rural France? I love it.

(C.) 2009. Barry Paton.