Diary Of A Film School - in Rural France

Friday 22 May 2009

Operations

Photo: barry paton. Having got up early in the morning, suitably showered and cleaned according to the hospital requirements, I set of in a taxi for the hospital at the ungodly hour of 7 am. Hopefully this was for a one day operation and I would return later in the day. This in fact did happen and I returned a little weary and tired and so to my bed with the thought that all was now fixed as far as my leg was concerned. The next day I woke in incredible pain and the local doctor was called and morphine was prescribed for me, the following day the pain was much more intense and when the nurse came to change my dressings and as I was slipping into a form of delirium with a fever an ambulance was called and off I went to the hospital once again. I was taken into the operating theatre first thing the following morning for another operation and after a bit of recovery and discovering that I had a catheter inserted into my penis. All very disturbing (and painful I may add) but my fever was continuing so I was slightly disorientated and had lost my sense of time and place. The only thing that kept me reasonably sane was the fact that Fiona came into visit me every day and we had a glass of wine together.

By this time I was beginning to lose the place as far as my health and mind was concerned as ten days had gone by without me realising it and all this was compounded by the fact that I had an infection with my prostrate causing me immense pain and more catheters inserted. However I was taken for a scan to my kidneys and bladder which surprised me by having a clean bill of health, all the more so as some 11 years ago I was diagnosed with a growth in my left kidney which involved a lot of radio-activity at The Western Infirmary in Glasgow. Much to my surprise this had all disappeared by now. Beginning to come round to my senses by this time I was informed by the surgeon that another operation was going to be required to remove all the steel pins, screws and bits and pieces from my leg, as this was now becoming a leg problem not just an ankle one which it was 1 year ago when I went to the surgeon to start the ball rolling.

So once again I was headed for the operating theatre the following day. For the first time I was actually conscious when I went in and discovered that the inside was not at all like what I expected, it was a rather dark blue (not crisp and white that you would expect) and had a look of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. Or was I just hallucinating once again...who knows? The anaesthetist was beside me saying that I was going under while all the time I wasn't, or so I thought while being hoisted onto the operating table. The next thing that I knew was waking up in a bed but in a room that I did not recognise and not knowing wether it was real or not. By this time I was so full of drugs that I didn't know who or where I was and it was only the next day that I began to come down to earth. Three operations in less than three weeks seemed slightly excessive even then and now 6 days later when I am slowly getting back into living (albeit slowly) it does seem a lot! I am glad to say that I feel that at long last my saga with my ankle is over, the wounds are healing well, I have no pain as such and I am beginning to walk again and with a bit of luck once the stitches are out and a month or so passes I should be back to normal. Incidentally I meant to say that whatever else I think of the surgeon that he does nice, neat stitching!

Meanwhile back on the ranch.

Coming back home has been slightly tricky for me as although I look well I am still slightly shell shocked from all the previous shenanigans but the difference in the weather, the ability to breathe outside a hospital air-conditioned environment and just the fact that I am home makes a huge difference and I am really enjoying being in the sunshine and the warmth. I had forgotten what a difference a few weeks make at this time of year to the trees and greenery all about.

Needless to say that when I arrived back I found that we had a leak under the sink, another little bit of the kitchen ceiling had fallen down, but nothing too dramatic, so it now leaves me to do some more repairs around the house when I get back to normal...whatever that is!

Apart from all that I hope that it explains why I have been absent for some weeks, it is taking it's time to get back into the swing of things and I hope that the next time that I write it will be about Salignac and The Salignac Foundation and the glorious French life and not just about my woes and troubles. One of the nice things that has happened is that a very good friend of mine is also coming to live in France just an hour or so away, although he has bought a place that seems to need quite a lot of work done on it but it makes me feel happy that we will be able to meet up occasionally. Us scots must stick together after all!

Rural France? I love it.

Barry Paton (c) May 2009

Operations ... | Pat Byrne

Wednesday 11 Mar 2009

Computer problems and other woes!

Courses in Salignac 2009

Photo: barry paton. Just because we live in a rural part of South-West France does not mean that we are immune to all the problems that all computer users must know about. Crashes, corruption of data/files and losing material...all par for the course...or should I say all par for the curse! I remember reading that it was not a question of IF it might happen but WHEN it will happen... all so true. I just thank God that I have this old one to work on while our other one is being worked on! While I am in moaning mood I have to say that my leg had another infection and I have been doped up with antibiotics for the last ten days which has been rather unpleasant in the sense that my sleeping patterns have been completely disrupted, not sleeping at nights and sleeping most of the day has been slightly disturbing to say the least! Also the cats have been coming and going out of the door constantly, 5 times in the last 15 minutes no less and although spring is just around the corner it causes one hell of a draught as I sit and write this. I think that I have vented my spleen enough (even though I don't have one...don't ask!) as an opening paragraph to this update for the beginning of March!

On to brighter things and happenings around Salignac.

Salignac on the verge of spring.

Somehow the topic of conversation recently was about food in this area (with whom it was I can't remember) but the fact that is is so desired by tourists, the fois gras, walnuts, ducks, the cheeses etc., that are served by most restaurants in the area kind of leaves out most of the residents (including Fiona and myself) wanting some real food for every day eating. Too much of the rich stuff gets us a bit wanting mince and tatties sort of thing if you know what I mean!

Apart from the food element it is also our wet season, many people who only see the area in the hot sunshine of summer do not realise that the area is so green and lush because we have a lot of rain in the early part of the year and this year it is no different as it has started in March. In fact I looked at the barometer this morning and I have never seen it so low in all the time that I have been here. However, with the weather getting brighter by the day it is time to clean windows, get rid of cobwebs and do a spot of painting, this damn low, bright sunshine that comes in does show up all the little imperfections in the house, of which there are many that become obvious! As part of this springtime regime I have stopped smoking cigars, I haven't smoked a cigarette for over 30 years, I have never been a heavy cigar smoker, about 8 to 10 per day of the small ones but having stopped for 10 years in the 70's and more recently I stopped for 6 months before I went into hospital last year so I reckoned that financially and physically I would be better of without. I do not have a big problem with this, except with my coffee in the morning, but the problem before was that one becomes complacent and thinks that one could just have one occasionally...therein lies the thin end of the wedge. I don't intend to go down that route this time but we shall see!

While writing this update, with another few paragraphs, the power cut out and I lost all that I had written..so I am having to start all over again...very frustrating especially as I can't remember all I was talking about! It is supposed to auto save but it all disappeared into the ether, such is the joy of computers. Anyway, I digress, so I shall try and remember everything. With the village still very quiet at the moment, especially on a Sunday afternoon when I am trying to write this, very little traffic is about and no one is out and about in the streets it reminds me of my time in the North of Scotland, but without the dreich weather but as March progresses towards Easter it at least is sunny and not too cold (about 12* C) at the moment. All very pleasant. While I was in spring cleaning mode, yesterday I went upstairs to our living room and fixed a chair that had been a bit legless, sorted out a pottery dish that the cats had knocked over and one or two minor things that have needed to be fixed, all this has made me feel quite good, although having said that there are still a thousand and one things needing done about the house. In fact I have just thrown a few kitchen implements into a basin of caustic soda. This is maybe a big mistake because I have just read the label which said DO NOY USE ON ALUMINIUM and I think some of them are! I will just have to trust to luck that they are OK when I get them out in about half an hour.

Old Photos and Things.

One of the many other things I have been doing is going through my archives of photographs, negatives and transparancies which have been lying about an had not been properly catalogued for many a year. As a professional photographer/film maker there are many thousands of these and it surprised me how much I have forgotten, there are many jobs I have done for many publications over the years and there are such a lot that I cannot remember at all. Some have stood out, even stuff I did over 30 years ago, but there are still ones that I did, that were obviously important at the time, that have not been imprinted into my memory bank! Is this a first sign of senility? I wonder. Apart from that I am still trying to sort out computer problems which incuded having to phone up my ISP's helpline after a weekend of tearing of hair out, only to find out that the problem is at their end not mine. I really do not know why I bother sometimes?

Rural France, I love it (even though it is frustrating.)

Computer probl ... | Pat Byrne

Thursday 29 Jan 2009

In with a bang

Courses in Salignac 2009

Photo: barry paton. 2009 certainly came in with a bang, or more like crash I would say. At the beginning of the year we started getting rather frequent power cuts that only lasted about a minute or two until we turned the power switch back on. Unfortunately the computer didn't like this but always seemed to manage to cope after a little bit of tweaking. However, after a week when another cut came along it completely went mental and no amount of persuasion would bring it back to life. Phoning up our 'tame' computer expert he came along the next day to have a look at the situation and after a few hours decided that the hard drive had been completely corrupted.

Photo: computer cartoon. A couple of more visits later he decided that he would take the hard drive away and see if he could recover what was on it. A few days later he informed me that some stuff was recoverable but a new hard drive was needed so that was ordered up. In the meantime I'd brought out our old computer and started to set it up, needless to say this was going a bit crazy and would not connect at all. Quite why this was happening I could not figure out at all as it had been working fine last time that I used it last year. In between times we had been up to the multi media centre to send and receive any e-mails and basically just keep in touch with the outside world. Incidentally they only charge us 3O per day for the use of their facilities which I think is great value for money. In the meantime and between visits to the hospital I then spent many weary hours burning the midnight oil, accompanied with the odd glass of wine trying to sort out the problem, I just new that it was possible as it had been working fine a few months ago. Finally, after 10 days, I had it back up and running, even better than before! The only problem is that I have grown so accustomed to the speed of an ADSL connection and to go back to a dial-up situation was terribly slow and frustrating but at least we were connected and did not have to rely on anyone else. Some three weeks later we still do not have the new hard drive installed while our expert is still trying to salvage what he can. God knows what that will be like having to re-install the operating system on to the new one. The mind boggles!

A moment of tension arrived last Saturday when The Dordogne area, southern France and northern Spain was hit by a huge storm which cut all electricity for most of the day and I was concerned that all my hard work in re-instating the old computer would have been in vain but fortunately when the power came back on all was well. It somehow goes to show that the old ones are best! Who would have thought that a 12-year-old computer would still be working? And what is more. Just after I finished this paragraph the power cut once again!

Out and About

My recent visit to the hospital has confirmed that at long last my ankle is improving and I don't need to go back for another consultation for two months. This has greatly improved my humour and now means I can get out and about without my stick, even though I still take it with me, I had no idea how useful the stick is. Everything to chasing dogs and cats, hailing people from across the road, pushing things out of the way, pulling things down from supermarket shelves etc. I don't care if I look like an old man but it is immensely useful, I had never realised the benefits! With weather improving, despite the storm last week, Salignac is in the usual state of torpor for late January. The tabac and filling station closed on a Sunday, the local cafe closed in the afternoons during the week, shutters closed on many houses while people scrimp and save until the end of the month. And yet the weather generally has been nice and sunny, if a little cold, but at least the birds have started to twitter and the wind is not blowing it has given me a new lease of life with the thought that spring is not far away. I hope! All we need is for the trees to come into bud. The only downside is that my poor old car is now showing its age and I need to come up with an executive decision as to what I do next, do I send for a few repairs or do I just cut my losses and sell it (for washers) and buy another one? Decisions I have decided to leave for another day..or month. As you can probably tell that as a business person I like to make clear my objectives! I don't think! The one thing that I do know is that I enjoy life when the sun is shining and lighting up all the wonderful stone work on the houses all around.

Rural France! I love it.

(c)Barry Paton. January 2009.

In with a bang ... | Pat Byrne

"A Washing Machine and a White Corset"

July 2006. Written by Fiona Alderman.

I am writing this monthly diary piece, because, Barry, unfortunately has had another tumble and is unable to sit at the old keyboard for too long. Due to moving an extremely heavy washing machine, he fell backwards onto our hard stone floor and crushed/ double fractured several of his vertebrae's. Ouch! The French emergency services were called, and I have to say they seem always to consist of very handsome men, and he was transported very speedily to hospital. Having been through this before, we knew what to expect? However there is always a "wild card " This being in the nature of Barry's fellow room mate. He would never lie still in his bed, twisting and turning all the time to get out of it and invariably unhooking his medical drips and setting off the room's alarm. He was eventually put into a strait jacket, which was even worse. Barry had little or no sleep during this time and was quite concerned about his own safety. Eventually he said in his own inimitable fashion " Merde, je m'en vais " in English", "To hell with this I am off!" one particular nurse, whom I disliked because of her uncaring manner, was not happy with this at all and we were treated to a great deal of French disdain. Barry is recovering slowly but has had to wear a white hard plastic corset, which makes him very uncomfortable as well as being extremely hot. The heat has been unbearable the last month or so, often in the late 30 degrees.

What I have experienced, both with our French friends and neighbours, is the extent of kindness and offers of help. Because I don't drive, there has been even more probably. Even now it continues with their concern for us. People rally round to help in these situations without question. Maybe we have lost this in the big city life?

"Fossils and Old Trees"

One day, whilst on a little walk with a friend around the village, we found a discarded box with lots of goodies that had just been abandoned outside a house. Looking into it we saw a quite attractive stone with fish printed onto it. Nothing special. However, this has turned out to have some kind of significance. Experts have told us that it is a genuine fossil. There has been a quite astonishing flurry of excitement between museums and collectors all vying for first place to have it? It has gone to a Perigeux expert where it will remain probably for further analysis. My friend is to be interviewed and has already been asked to take a conference on this very stone! What to say? We found it absolutely by luck, not realising what it was and that is of course how the famous Lascaux Caves (near us in Montignac) were originally found. Two small boys were retrieving their dog from a cave and came across the most amazing treasures.

I would have never have believed I would be doing a guided tour (in French) of a 400 year old chestnut tree!

This is part of a local tourist attraction, which organises activities every summer, in which life and work in the olden days are explained and demonstrated. The tree weighs 40 tons, is 5 metres high with a diameter of 2/ half metres. An artist was asked to sculpt it. He dug out the interior (Wow, you can imagine that) to enable a spiral staircase with 35 steps to be built .It is called L'Arbre De Vie. I.e. The Tree of Life. The staircase represents the spiral of life and depicts the history of Salignac. The ascent is a journey through time towards modernity. You reach the balcony where there is a marvellous view of the chateau. Children love it of course but it is not possible to be a large size as it is very narrow inside. I worry every time I see someone a little bit big!

Until next time from rural France.

Barry's Post Script

As I am know able to sit at the keyboard for short spells I thought that I would add a thank you to Fiona for filling you in with all my troubles and woes. Two months after the accident things are beginning to ease up even though it is still difficult to get comfortable! Thank god I don't have to wear the corset anymore, though. However, depending on which surgeon I saw in the hospital, and there were three of them, I was told that it could take from 4 weeks to three months to heal. Take your choice! Apart from Fiona's job we now have a son of a friend staying with us for some weeks, as he is an apprentice at the local boulangerie/patisserie, this involves him getting up to work in the middle of the night returning about nine in the morning. Some life but he loves it. At least we get free bread every morning!

Rural France? I love it.

©Barry Paton & Fiona Alderman. July 2006

On the Road - May, 2004

Photo: Crew on location. Having been away filming on location recently has made me a little late in updating this diary. I was filming for a Channel 4 series in and around the Carcassonne area where, very sadly, the weather was not very good, the skies rather grey and dull and still with a biting wind. Not at all what you would expect from the South of France in May. Working with a very intense director was interesting, if hectic, as he had a different approach to what I normally expect. However, filming was completed successfully and the area is beautiful and one of my favourite parts of France with all the mediaeval villages, history of the Cathars and the Knights Templars.

It has been the second time that I have been filming in that area in the last couple of years though, sadly the hotel accommodation this time was not so salubrious. The hotel was set in an industrial zone near the airport with a lot of noise and no views apart from garden centres, DIY stores and hypermarkets. The phone did not work in the hotel room and I couldn't connect to the Internet, the restaurant was rather uninspiring so we ate elsewhere. Not very nice at all! I was very glad to get home to my own bed and the peace and quietness of Salignac. I really do miss the golden stone of the buildings here as well.

Much as I like filming on location it is very tiring with tight schedules, many people think that it is glamorous but it can be extremely tedious at times, especially if you are not actually doing anything while scenes have to be set up. I have, however, been booked for some filming in Paris next week, so I hope that the hotel is much better?.and soundproof!

When I returned home I found that Fiona has had quite a lot of (hopefully) fruitful enquiries and a couple for our Dance for Camera courses but very little happening on my ones. It does seem to be so slow this year in that direction. At least it gives me some time to do one or two essential things around the house. With the coming of the brighter weather, albeit slowly, I realise that all the windows need cleaned, our sejour could do with a lick of paint and the other mundane things that need done. Paying bills, buying new tyres for the car and all sorts of exciting things

Down to Earth

After all the nonsense of my 'inflationary' period recently, I am glad to say that I am now back on the road to recovery. I still need to see a specialist once we can get all our paperwork sorted out which is not the easiest thing in the world! With no two offices' opening hours being compatible it tends to make life a trifle complicated, to say the least!

This brings me back down to earth in the sense of having to get back to the keyboard in order to get some more publicity out on the World Wide Web. Although we get enquiries from all over the world, our bookings this year are substantially down for some reason, though I gather that this is a general trend in France this springtime. We have several friends who have holiday homes to let in the area and they say that the bookings for them are down as well.

However, now that I am feeling better, I can escape to the local café for my tea-time drink and chat with some of the locals. I have also received many kind offers of sympathy from a lot people after my last article?that, at least, means that this site is being read in the Salignac so the fame of the Glasgow West End spreads to this little corner of France. Battling with bureaucracy has become our major task recently and it is slowly paying off, although it has been a long struggle so far! I often wonder if it would be the same for a French person coming to live in Scotland - my guess is that it probably would.

With the weather being so changeable this year I was somewhat heartened by the appearance of flies in the house last week, normally a sign that the weather is improving, but sadly it is back to being cold and damp again. I don't like flies, incidentally, but they come with the weather and, as long as one is armed with a can of Raid fly spray, they are usually contained. Unfortunately the supermarket had a special offer of this product so we bought a large can and started spraying it about - it took a while for me to realise that it wasn't being as effective as it normally is until I read the can properly - It was for cockroaches, not flies, I must pay more attention next time. However it does mean that we shouldn't be troubled with cockroaches this year! Not that we ever have been!

Rural France? I love it.

2 confits &1 magret

As everyone surely knows, The Perigord is world famous not only for the wines but for its duck and goose foie gras. We are surrounded by it here and, while I like it very occasionally, it is very difficult to avoid these delicacies in any of the local eating-places. Rightly so, as it is one of the major tourist attractions for the area. It unfortunately involves the force-feeding of corn directly down the gullet of the poor animals and demonstrations of this technique are happily carried out at farms and fairs all around the area, what's more these demonstrations are extremely popular with visitors. In fact we have several local producers of the product in the village of Salignac and for 3 weeks in the year we have a fair held in the hamlet of 'Barry' just below the Chateau here. Incidentally, the name comes, not from me, but from a certain Madame du Barry (a slightly more illustrious person than I) though I am happy to live at the top of rue de Barry!

I digress. The reason that I mention all this is because over the Christmas season we were given several presents of foie gras, magret du canard and one tin of foie gras with truffles, another highly expensive delicacy. All this costs a fortune but it is just considered normal practice for present giving over the festive season and we appreciate the thought and kindness greatly.

Having had these pressies we decided to make use of them and despite my prior avoidance, I realised that I actually liked it, my taste buds have now become acclimatised to French life! However, I must be careful of overdoing it, as I seem to remember that is why I rarely chose to eat all this touristy food, as I was once a tourist in The Perigord! We still have several large tins left so, maybe tonight?????

French paperwork

After having being in Salignac for almost four years we are now well and truly caught up with French bureaucracy with a vengeance. Having to regularise all our paperwork is what we are all about at this moment. This in itself is not a great problem, we after all, are members of the EU so all this should be straightforward enough (freedom to work, travel etc within the community) - not here in France where they have more civil servants per square inch than in any other country! Our biggest problem started with mis-information, a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, especially as the law in France changed recently and even they don't know about it. That combined with the different opening hours that each and every office or department have tended to make us ever so slightly frustrated. For example, we have to visit several offices in which are located next to each other and we have to do this in a certain order (or so we are told) one is open from 9 am to 3pm (unknown in France to be open over lunch) the next office we have to visit closes at lunchtime, which is when we will have left the first office, and is not open in the afternoon at all. This is further complicated by the fact that we have to visit several different towns and it seems that we never have the right paperwork with us. The French bureaucrats do love to see lots of bits of paper and take great delight in asking for something that we think is unnecessary and, of course, we don't have with us! All this for a few rubber stamps.

Neighbours and things

The demand for property in Salignac has suddenly increased recently and the house next door to us has been let to a Welshman who is married to a Frenchwoman and they have two delightful children. It is nice to see, and hear, the house being lively and they seem charming people and our other new neighbours, across the courtyard, arrived at the same time. This is a French father and son who have asked us in for a meal once they get settled in so we are looking forward to that. Mr Dubois, our Mayor, in his annual 'state of the Commune' bulletin commented on how many new people and businesses are moving in to Salignac these days. He forgot, or declined, to mention that it is mostly due to his efforts to make Salignac a thriving community again. He has been incredibly helpful to us, recently we had a slight crisis and went to seek his assistance, a few phone calls by him to the right people sorted the problem immediately and he has asked us since how things are. What a man?far too good to be a politician. Mind you, it is election year?or am I just being cynical?

Once again it is time for Cecile and Lillian at the café to go on their annual ski-ing holiday for two weeks, which leaves us without the option of a quick saunter up the road of an evening to enjoy a drink and the banter that makes up café life here. While the other café (cum petrol station, betting shop and Tabac) is equally nice and welcoming, it is just different and we don't tend to go there so frequently for some reason. Not that we have a great deal of need to do so as our friend, Alain, frequently turns up at our door clutching a bottle of wine so that we sit round the table, glass in hand, with the fire roaring away while he gives us all the gossip that we don't hear from others while out and about in the supermarket or the shops. We were recently over for dinner at Fred and Lucy's, our friends who have bought and converted an old farm into great Gites and now about to become a cookery school. Fred is being rather nervous about his first customers, as the school part is not completely finished; all needs to be ready for the beginning of March. I don't envy him at all but I'm sure it will be ready for his customers then as they both work tirelessly towards that.

Elsewhere in the village, certainly since I first came here, I get the feeling that there is a certain air of optimism and expectancy around despite our bookings being much slower to start this year. Maybe, once we have all our paperwork problems solved, it will be better for us. By the way, we did have the duck last night and it was delicious!

Rural France? I love it.

Barry Paton © Feb 2004
barry.paton@worldonline.fr

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