Diary Of A Film School - in Rural France

Friday 5 Feb 2010

Data (and Sanity) Recovery

Photo: barry paton. Having spent the last few months in a sort of cyber limbo I am glad to be able to report that we are back in the land of living. All this had happened after Fiona's hysterectomy, my overdose of anti-biotics, the computer crash and no money from the Government as well as Christmas. They do say that things come in three's don't they? Well we certainly had a few years worth of dramas and problems.

A month after Fiona's op I went along to the doctor about the constant pain I was having in my leg and after having listened and looked at the problem I was prescribed a huge amount of anti-biotics. This certainly stopped the pain but sent me into a darkened room for two weeks, all of which meant I could not help Fiona with shopping and other things about the house.

Photo: computers. After coming out of purdah I then discovered that the computer was being a bit iffy and had to give it to Laurence our computer expert who returned it some days later saying that the hard drive was getting a bit unreliable with it sometimes connecting and sometimes not. Despite having an installation disk it kept on going funny and at the end of January it finally gave up the ghost and I realised that I had to do something dramatic like buy a new computer or something! After talking to a few friends I realised that having a hard drive give up was not that much of a problem (apart from the lost data) and I discovered that a shop in Sarlat had them for 45O so I settled on that as my first line of defence. Once the new drive was fitted (and a promise to myself to save everything in the future!) I discovered that it still would not connect to the internet, despite having a complete set up disk for my system. So once again a phone call to Laurence. He came with a USB key with some driver on it and within 10 minutes had it all up and running and connected. Wonderful! One problem sorted with the added bonus of having the system completely cleared out so have started afresh (albeit I had lost a lot of my previous files). In the process of waiting for my computer to be returned from visit to Laurence I had decided to do some tidying up on the desk and now have it stripped to the bare minimum.

My Health and Wealth!

After my stint of two weeks with anti-biotics I am now feeling much better and I am pleased to say that my leg has almost healed up (even though the last op was 6 months ago) and am not quite so bothered about my health that way. It is still albeit uncomfortable to walk but I reckon that is as much psychological as anything else. The extraordinary thing about my new found spirit is that I decided to get the bike out from the cave and see if I could 'go it'. The bike has not been used for two years and obviously needed a bit of maintainance which I duly did and surprised myself by trying it out and finding that I was reasonably competent on it and, what is more, I really enjoyed it and although the weather has been very wet and there has been deep snow falls, I really do enjoy it and find it much easier than walking!

In September last year I became a pensioner (or so I thought!) and the French Govt. thought so also. This became rather strange when no-one thought that I existed and no money was forthcoming from any source so it left us with arranging an overdraft from the bank in order for us to live. Unfortunately this went on until 2 weeks ago when we were advised to send a recorded delivery letter to the authorities. By law in France anyone sent a recorded they must reply to a recorded delivery letter. Within a day or two payment was made so that was great but, when I look back and think about the number of phone calls, letters and e-mails that we have sent to both the British and French pension authorities without any result it makes me want to weep! But then one lives and learns......I think that I have gone through a very steep learning curve in the last few months!

Despite all the problems that I have listed here, and we have had many more than I have mentioned,

I am quite upbeat about life...mostly helped by Fiona's recovery which seems to be going well. Although she does not believe this because she has never had an operation before and I think that she thinks that it should be in and out and all is well, a bit like putting a car into the garage and out it comes and all is well! If only!

Fiona is getting better by the day and of course it will take time and with some kine (physio) at the moment for a few weeks, and time, will bring her back to normal fairly soon. I have every confidence with that.

The weather has been rather severe recently with snow and ice, torrential rain which has rather depressed us lately but at the beginning of February I think that I see signs of things getting better.
I certainly hope so!

Rural France? I love it (well sometimes).

C. Barry Paton. Feb 2010.

Data (and Sani ... | Pat Byrne

Sunday 22 Nov 2009

Where to begin!

Photo: barry paton. I just do not know where to begin this month..............

It all began very simply with a few visits to clinics & doctors for Fiona. Within a very short time Fiona was diagnosed with a very large cyst on her ovary and an hysterectomy was recommended very quickly. This was all done so quickly that I had hardly time to think for myself and Fiona went into a private clinic in Brive for the operation. At the same time we had a big problem with France Telecom cutting us off,

The payment that I get monthly was cut (something to do with the fact that I was 65 that day), the internet connection (ADSL) was also cut and I had no money, no Fiona and was feeling a bit lost!

At the moment Fiona is now back out and at home where I am doing my best to look after her..everything has to be done slowly..I am fortunate that part of my background has been with medical people and I understand all this but I am surprised how many males shy away from the mention of a hysterectomy, it is as if they do not want to know. Would it be the same if they had their balls cut of? I wonder.

By great good fortune my bank has been incredibly helpful by giving me a modest overdraft without too much hassle so the shopping and day to day stuff has been taken care off for the moment with the only problem being that I have to walk a kilometer to the supermarket with me bad leg! I try and cheer up Fiona by saying that she will be well after another 3 weeks or so and here am I with an open wound and nurses to change dressings every two days some 15 months later! Some justice?

Fiona is only now just realising exactly what she has gone through, i.e. a major operation with all that it entails, a fairly lengthy recovery period is all part and parcel of it all. This frustrates her immensly at her inability to do certain things and of course she gets very tired and down occaisionaly, some good days and some bad, but on the whole she seems to have been very lucky in the general terms of the recovery from surgery.

The cats have been very good at looking after Fiona by going upstairs to her bed and more or less ignoring me. Because I am sleeping in the spare room at the moment in order not to disturb Fiona the cats have taken to by-passing me and go straight into the master bedroom and really only acknowledge me when food is required... which they seem to think should be on demand. Not with me it's not!

The long saga with our ADSL internet connection has gone beyond a joke and I am not very fond of Alice our internet provider. Some weeks ago France Telecom cut us off for a few days, but that was re-instated very quickly but in the process Alice cut our ADSL line and I am now having to use the dial-up connection and when we got in touch with Alice by phone (many times I may add) they have said that we have to renew everything despite nothing having been changed. I eventually spoke to a techichian at Alice and he told me that they had made a huge mistake (but not to say this to anyone) and had basically ballsed our connection all up. The consequence of all this is that we have to wait up to 14 days for it all to be put back in place, so that we have the same e-mail addresses and connection parameters that we had before, no amount of shouting, pleading with Alice has had any effect at all. I am very confused as to whether this was caused by France Telecom's mistake or if it is down to the fault of Alice. However I have decided to dump the line from France Telecom and do everything through Alice which wil cost me less than before and I even get most of my phone calls free through the internet. We shall see when I am re-connected if this is all going to work and if it is not then a complete change is going to have to be done, something I dread having to do as I am on so many sites around the world.

We are waiting at the moment for Mr. Lacombe from across the road to deliver some 2 cube metres of timber for the fire, by good fortune the weather here has been very mild with temperatures in the 18 to 20 degree mark, so we cant really complain at all but the weather is supposed to dip this week back to the seasonal averge of about 14 degrees. Mr Lacombe was waiting for acces to the ground where the trees are before cutting it for us, as he returns from a week away tomorrow I expect that we shall have it very soon.

I must apologize for not including any pictures this month but I am having to use my old computer which is not geared up to accept the digital camera as yet, I shall get round to doing that if it is possible soon, but then I should not have to use this old one at all, I am just glad I didn't get rid of it before...at least it gives me a lifeline to the world, albeit slowly! In fact the nurse, Nadine, has just been round to change my dressing and was telling me a few horror stories about her internet connection and all the problems that she has had. I don't wish any of these problems on anyone else but is nice to hear that it is not just us!

Rural France? I love it (but get frustrated by it every day).
(c) Barry Paton November 2009.

Where to begin ... | Pat Byrne

Sunday 25 Oct 2009

Holiday times!

August in France, as I am sure many readers know, is holiday time. The whole of France closes for the entire month! We are not immune to this but unfortunately we are at the other end of the system where we get surrounded by holiday makers and tourists, it also coincides with many administrative duties that must be carried out before the vast army of civil servants go that we have in France on their hols. to the seaside from Paris. This can include all sorts of appointments, information requests or any other thing that they can think about to make you worry about during the sunny months....I now know that most of this is done deliberately on their part but it does not make life any easier for anyone in rural France but it maybe makes them feel better while they lie on the beach. The threat of the guillotine is still always there!!

In between all this we had a very pleasant, but brief, visit from a friend of ours who has bought a house not far from us (not far in French terms anyway) and his new girlfriend who neither Fiona nor I had met before. Anne comes from Eaglesham where Fiona's mother used to have a boutique but Bill and Anne have been living down in Carlisle for quite a few years when he was the news editor of Cumbria Radio. Obviously Bill and I had quite a lot of catching up to do and as it was Fiona's birthday that weekend we all ended up in the Cafe de la Place for a meal on the Sunday night. This turned out to be an excellent choice as the evening was beautiful and the food was great as usual and we all had a wonderful time. In some ways we felt that it was too short a time to do all the catching up but in another way now that we know that they are not that far away means that we can do all the catching up in the future!

Apart from all this I have been doing my visits to the hospital, doctor and nurses and most recently a trip to Perigueux to a medical council in regard to my retiral, this was apparently to do with my pension from the UK, although nobody has told me anything about this, but then nobody has told me anything about my pensions from France, Germany, Holland and Canada. All this despite the fact that I officially retired last week! The funny thing was that the appointment was on my 65th birthday at the same time as I was asked if I would like to work in The Dordogne filming for a Paris agency...funny how things turn out! I still have to submit some work on this one but it does seem to fine as far as, they and I, are concerned. Like everything else in France we just need to wait and see. It would be rather ironic if after 4 years of disability and a retiral I suddenly have full time work which will take me back to what I was doing many years ago! And being paid handsomely as well. One can dream after all!

A Tribute to Merce.

In the last few months one of the greatest American dancers and choreographers died. His name was Merce Cunningham. He was 92 and latterly in a wheel chair but not someone to complain.Far from it. Up until a few months ago he was preparing for a grand tour of several countries and completing new choreography. This style of contemporary dance is the one that I ( ie Fiona is speaking now ! ) learnt many years ago and taught eventually both in the UK as well as in France. I first saw his company in the 1980's in London and was amazed at his way of moving . Coming from a strict classical ballet upbringing, his work was revolutionary. The idea that the movement could be seen with " no fixed point in space " was and still is an exceptional idea. This plus being non narrative( the complete opposite in ballet ) was a whole different ball game. He founded his company back in the 1940's, the dancers poorly paid, if at all... but from there they became one of the world's greatest companies. The name Merce Cunningham becoming synonymous with the best in modern dance, invention,energy and the breaking of barriers.

Here in Salignac, in conjunction with Dance Base in Edinburgh, I paid tribute to him. At the same time( albeit 1 hours time difference in France ) I did a minute solo in silence at La Halle, the medieval open market. Using his ideas of chance procedures I improvised several movement phrases as well as having 7 fixed positions. Barry came to take photos, no doubt remembering when he himself took photos of Merce in 1987 in Glasgow at an interview at Scottish Ballet. I was too overcome by shyness I couldn't even speak to him !

Well, we have lost a great human being and we won't see the likes of him again. Like all the truly greats, he was also very modest. Iin his words " You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on the walls, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive " Sounds good to me.Thank you Merce.

Fiona.

Difficult times at the moment for me but none the less...Rural France ? I still love

c Barry Paton Oct 2009

Holiday times! ... | 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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