EXTRA EXTRA a report from Shem, our roving reporter

We have received this revelation from Shem who also works for The pocket knife and couteau extraordinaire,  He has discovered a pre-production model of a revolutionary new pocket knife in use on the outskirts of Loubille. Unfortunately it proved impossible to download his digital photos because a couple of refugees from the Eden Valley area unaccountably ate his Apple-Mac but we can reveal that the invention has a lurex-pink handle in the shape of a wine bottle and is fully equipped with a fold-out courgette trowel and a digital wine-o`clock indicator as well as the more normal blade for fruit peeling and nail care items such as file, scissors and nail varnish dispenser  Remember, you read about it here first!

A Roof over our heads

Lets talk tiles. Specifically the tuille Romane, the typically red low-pitched roofs of France below the Loire. Everybody  takes photos of them, but how many understand the nuts and bolts of the system? Not that there are any nuts or for that matter  fastenings of any kind. The original point or the system was to create a roof with little iron (expensive in Roman times ) which could be built and maintained by the unskilled.
  The basic unit is the hollow Roman tile, about 15 inches long, heavy fired earthenware or clay,slightly tapered over its length.  You fix chevrons  (light rafters) down the slope of your roof, nail planks across these horizontally, then start tiling at the bottom. You run a line of tiles up the roof, tapered end down, each tile resting on its curved belly. You thus create a sort of rain gutter stretching down the roof. It will wobble as the tiles rock on their curved undersides. No problem, chock it in place with some bits of broken tile.  Now lay another one alongside leaving a gap of about 3 inches between the gutters. Continue this right across your roof, but before you go too far note that the next step is to link the gutters together by a new line of tiles this time the other way up and with the wide end down. The photo above left shows a short section of linked tiles and the photo to the right shows the ends of the gutters and capping tiles.
  Note that the tiles are not attached which is why the roof slope is shallow, they would all slide off otherwise. If a tile is broken it can be replaced with no tools by anyone with a head for heights.
  The disadvantages of the system are that it`s heavy, prone to clogging with moss and debris unless cleared from time to time and a really heavy rainstorm can cause the gutters to overflow causing torrential leaks! You cant have everything and underfelt (apparently unknown to the Romans) will cure this...

What`s in a name?

 I promised in my last to explain the origins of the odd name our little hamlet has. La Mort Limouzin. Or La Mort Limousin  as it appears in the Michelin and on some of the panneaux around the lieu-dit. I prefer the Z spelling, myself.  It`s a tiny settlement of about 10 homes mostly stone-built, roman-tile roofs Some 3 k from the nearest town, Loubille. Utterly ordinary but we love it, it`s home.

  The name.then. There are in fact two alternative explanations but I prefer the first told to me by an inhabitant. You will remember that in the years 700 AD the Arabs had conquered Spain and Southern France and had penetrated as far North as our region the Poitou. It must at that time have been a real front-line area as instanced by other local names such as La Bataille. Eventually Charles Martell defeated the Arabs in 732AD at the battle of Poitiers and they were driven out of Europe.
  It was at that time that some soldiers from the Limoges region,the Limousin, came west to fight in the campaign and met their deaths here, hence the place-name La Mort Limousin, the place where the Limousins died.
 The second explanation is more prosaic. We saw an old map on which the hamlet was called La Motte Limouzin, the castle mound of the Limouzin family. There are a number of towns and places locally called La Motte. As I said.  it was a frontier region and the easiest form of fortification is a motte and bailley. You dig a circular ditch throwing up the earth in a high mound ( the motte ) in the middle. On this motte you erect a wooden fort ( the bailley ) The wooden buildings soon disappear but the motte lasts for ever. I pin my rejection of this superficially more probable explanation on the fact that there is no local motte remaining.

Why`s and wherefores

I promised a few days ago to continue the tale of why a Welsh girl and a Devonshire lad ended up in west France. You may recall that a French student, Cecile, first aroused our liking for France.  We spent several touring holidays here in hired campers, often crossing from Plymouth to Roscoff in Finisterre, my favorite port of entry.  Passing the time in the fishing port one day waiting for the ferry we looked in the shop window of an immobilier and realised that houses were on sale at ridiculously low prices compared to Britain where house prices had soared.  At first our plan was to sell the Plymouth house,  buy in Brittany and live in delicious idleness on the interest from the profit.

This plan wasn`t as daft as it now seems, as interest rates were as high as 15 per cent then (late eighties)  Luckily better sense prevailed and the plan was changed to using money from a legacy to buy south of the Loire where weather was likely to be warmer.
  We signed up with an English estate agent who was in partnership with a French immobilier and offered viewing trips to a mouthwatering selection of houses. Surprise, surprise all the Tours properties were sold (we suspect years ago) and the only one on offer was highly unsuitable.  Going on to our second Agent based at La Motte St Heray we were showed three and fell in love with the third, pictured here at La Mort Limouzin, between La Rochelle and Poitiers, Well sort of. I`ll tell you more about its somewhat lugubrious name another time. We were quite happy to pay the asking price of £10,000 for the house, including agents fees and were flabbergasted when told the price included a large barn, an open barn (or hangar), a range of stone outbuildings, an orchard, a paddock and a further stone building on the other side of the road!
  This was perhaps the only time in our lives that we were in at the right time as the price seems ludicrous today. I`ll tell you of our adventures with the French house buying procedures in a later issue, just adding here that as we didn`t have the slightest intention of buying on this trip we didn`t have the 10 percent deposit required.  No problem said our Immobilier, later to become a  firm friend,  Just let me have an English cheque with the £ changed to French francs (remember them? ) for 10,000 ff . So we did.
  On getting back to Plymouth I rushed to the Cooperative Bank, a rather staid organisation and confessed what I`d done. The teller looked at me, gave the expected sharp intake of breath and said We`ll have to charge you £25 for the conversion...  We were on our way!

Cutting Edge

Today I`d like to talk about one of my hobbies--collecting pocket knives. Before I begin, however I attach a picture of the miracle knife I spoke of yesterday, chiefly for the benefit of someone called Sarkosi who seemed most interested and asked for details. He may be able to trace the manufacturer by looking in the records of  the Ministere de Guerre for 18 October 1911. Over to you, Mr S...
  Being serious for once I have always been keen on pocket knives since I was permitted to have one at ten or so. I hasten to add that I am not a homicidal maniac, have never in 60 years or so even threatened anyone with a knife.  It makes me sad to see the disrepute that these useful and fascinating tools have fallen into. The virtual banning of them in the UK especially is unlikely to reduce crime, criminals and toughs can always find knives  and guns, it just inconveniences honest folk.
  As a teenager, ( though we weren`t called that then) I always had one in my pocket. Only one at a time however as I had a fatal habit of losing them. After a decent period of mourning the loss of my faithful friend I would be off to Lawsons in New George St to reprovision.  This was and is a happy hunting ground for Plymouth kids with ironmongery on the ground floor and models and hobbies upstairs.
  The knives were all made in Sheffield of course by firms like I X L or Joseph Rodgers ,who made many different models.  So I was amazed and delighted on coming to France to find that each Region and indeed many towns have their own distinctive model of knife, and that most countryfolk have one in their pocket.  Most of you will have seen the ubiquitous Laguiole with its slim blade and curved handle, but what about the Garonnais from the mouth of the Garonne, the Alpin from the Alps or the London from Bretagne.  There are literally dozens to discover.  I was in hog heaven.
  A few years ago Hachette Collections issued a series of fascicules about each model together with an example designed by a famous French cutler but for reasons of price made in China.  It was like Christmas every month for me and I learned much not only about the knives themselves but also about the regions or towns from which they came.  If anyone is interested ( or indeed if they are not ) I may touch on the subject again later  Bye for now...

Wrap it up!

Tonight I want to speak of a serious menace which has probably killed umpteen persons in the E. U. It`s packaging.  Not, I hasten to add, the risk associated with the plastic or its softening agent. This is said to affect the sex drive of young men and to decrease their fertility. Don`t worry about this. Young men are over-sexed and we have recently heard that the average French woman has a fertility rate of 2.1 largely sufficient to replace or even increase the population. No, the menace to which I refer is the problem of opening the darn things.
  You know the scenario You have a packet of biscuits. You open the gay cardboard box whose sharp flaps threaten to cut your fingers. Inside, like a game of pass the parcel is a clear plastic wrapper  There is no tag you can see and the plastic is stubbornly resistant to tearing till the moment when it suddenly yields, scattering biscuits far and wide. Or you are sitting in an airliner in your best suit. You ask for a cup of coffee and it arrives black with a little pot of cream  First separate the foil tag from the plastic beneath. I have reasonable nails but how do the bitten-nails brigade manage--gnaw it off? then you find the foil is superglued to the plastic cup and when it finally rips an extraordinarily copious explosion of cream will polka-dot your suit.  Crisps and cornflakes have similar opening perils. But the package which really gets my vote for sheer cheek is the humble brique of milk. The instruction on the packet tells you to fold out the spout , bend it twice and tear it off. Yeah, right. If you earn a living by tearing telephone directories in half this would be a cinch but it is well beyond normal mortals .
  And then then manufacturer has the gall to describe it as Ouverture facile!!! Don`t you think that many people have had strokes resulting from high blood pressure in a fit of temper?  Pensioners are starving in front of full cupboards of food they cant get at?  The things are a menace!
  But don`t worry. I have not raised this spectre to send you anxious to your bed. I HAVE the answer-- it`s a pen-knife. I always carry one and none of the above problems affect me  Biscuit packets are neatly split by the probing blade, cream pots yield meekly to two neatly pierced holes and the dreaded milk pourer is instantly cut off. Easy, isn`t it?
  You may quibble that it is anti-social to carry a penknife, currently known as an arme blanche for goodness sake. Well the French government has solved this problem before  In 1911 they produced a pocketknife for issue to their colonial troops which was the least belligerent tool ever made.  The blade had a blunt flat end and it was impossible to stab anyone  I can only urge the re-issue of this ideal item to all citizens. Think of the lives that could be saved!

Mutiny on the high seas

I`m afraid I must speak of a serious threat of mutiny yesterday which nearly led to Noah being hurled from the Ark and having to make his way by swimming to Mt Arrarat. It happened as I now relate

  Mrs Noah is accustomed to do her accounts by downloading and printing the bank statements from the bank`s website.  I was happily employed out of earshot putting a gate on a new fence we are erecting to allow half the sheep field to regenerate.  After about half an hour she came to find me and to ask for help.Somewhat flattered (my computer expertise can be expressed as a figure close to zero ) I followed her back to the house. It appeared that the printer was not responding and all the remedies she had tried were to no avail. `Are you sure the printer cable is connected? ` I asked. In response she made a vulgar sucking sound, which I took to refer to the proverb about eggs and Grandmothers.  I tested our the printer and I am glad to say I found the problem after some time. However a new problem, emotional rather than electronic arose when Mrs Noah realised that the cause of all her woe was that I had taken out the printer cable to load photos onto her computer. Luckily an abject apology and the supply of a cup of tea staved off disaster and I was a sufficiently practised spouse not to refer to the fact that my initial suggestion was the correct one!

Revenons a nos moutons..

I promised you some pics yesterday but due to a shocking rebellion of my I Mac I couldn`t upload them. I have beaten it into submission, so here are shots of Noah and Mrs Noah with some passengers. Isn`t it TEDIOUS waiting for photos to upload? I must remember to have tea and biscuit or a book to hand to pass the time
  Regarding the title, Mrs Noah has remarked that she has told Shem and Ham ( or rather our daughters in the UK ) that they can keep in touch with the activities of their revered (?) parents by clicking on the site.  As I have been waffling on about the eighties this is debatable so I think I should include some current events.

  It`s SPRING here in Poitou Charente so some gardening jobs are de rigeur Mrs N has been held  up by a painful back but is now madly planting seeds  With the help of a very part-time gardener we have ploughed our potato and veg patch but nothing is yet coming up. In the case of the spuds this is scarcely odd as they are not yet in the ground! Onions and shallots are however. As you may know I am not a gardening enthuthist but am happy to cut grass or rotivate. Anything thatis tha doesn`t involve digging in any form...
   However one Spring ritual I do secretly enjoy and that is pruning our three grapevines Luckily the vines ( or treills ) seem resistant to my well-known brown fingers and produce leaves and grapes in abundance later, though at present the are doing their dead plant act. As they may be over a hundred years old and have trunks like trees I am optimistic that they will come up tp scratch. The nearby one on the old buildings is,I am told , a baccou (dont know how to spell it ) This gives me a little thrill of lawlessness as it is illegal to grow as the wine made from it drives you mad!  As we use it for a very tasty grape jelly we feel unlikely to succome.( Don`t know how to spell that either and the machine has redlined every comb and perm ) We did try to make wine with it one year but you would have to be already mad to drink such a sour concoction...

  Another recent event is the re-roofing of our little building on the other side of the road  Goodness knows why it was included in our domain possibly someone lost it in a card game?  anyway we seldom go in it and the roof beam rotted due to an unseen leak causing partial collapse. I was afraid to climb on it as it looked ready to fall down altogether so we had it redone by a local  Have picked up lots of good tips on roofing!  Now it`s finished looks real fine with some new skylights  When we can afford it we are going to make a garage door so the building can at last serve a useful purpose
  Well enough is enough and I will post this before it all disappears into thin air and breaks my heart!

Lets start at the beginning

A bit about how it all began and to introduce the Ark personnel. Well, there`s me, retired insurance claims investigator , my wife Kim non-retired household engineer and gardener etc  what used to be called a housewife before woman`s lib (ow, dont hit me) She was a nurse before her back let her down .Perhaps blog etiquette requires us to be known as Noah and Mrs Noah?  Answers on a ten-pound note would be gratefully received and disregarded. I have also worked for the Admiralty Armament Supply, Naval Stores. Curries Ltd, Inland Revenue,Ash Instruments as a Dental instrument filer, and finally for CIS Insurance.
The Ark passengers are Jilly, Toffee and Laika ,dogs ,about fifteen cats who all have names but will have to wait to be introduced, Toto a ram, Segolene a ewe and Rosie, their daughter, another ewe as I am sure the more alert of you will have worked out,
We live in a stone cottage in a hamlet called La Mort Limouzin near the village of Loubille One of whose claims to fame is that it harbours Jaqui and Adrian and their site Special places in France. We have lived here very happily for almost nine years and I`ll tell you more of how we spend our time when I know you better...
How did the Noah family come to end up in this rural Arrarat I hear you ask (or perhaps I don`t it may be just tinnitus. Well it started in the eighties when we were looking for some income to boucler les bouts de notre mois. A French organisation was doing cultural stays for students to learn English and was paying well for digs with Plymouth families. We acted as hosts to several girls one of which,Cecile, has remained firm friends ever since. She invited us to her wedding much later and the wild weekend we spent then gave us a taste for France which has never flagged  I`ll try to upload a couple of photos and continue this saga in my next

Why Overloaded Ark?

Well, it`s because of our unfortunate habit of picking up animal waifs and strays.  You see, when we first moved in here permanently with nobbut a black sortoflabrador and a budgie, we felt the need of a cat. Everybody needs a cat to sit on knees and to put out at night, etc so we asked Blanche at the goat farm if she had any kittens.  Kim fell for a ginger ball of fluff but I said I`d prefer the siamese look-alike litter- mate.  Well why don`t we take both she said...  Two days later when the mother was run over outside the farm gate we had an emergency take over of two very wild cats and it was only by adroit footwork that I avoided adopting the rest of the litter.  Then we needed a cat flap , but this proved an invitation to other hungry mouths to try us out for adoption . I`ll tell you about the others some other time if you insist.
  Then it was dogs.  Our old `lab` died by hurling himself from a cliff when we were on holiday in the Alp s ( most traumatic ) And was replaced by a pup who turned out to be a threequarter-scale model of an Alsation.  As she pulls heartily Kim said she`d like a small dog to walk and sit on her knee  Toffee scorns knees and I found myself walking the two. The Walrus said he could not do with more than two to give a hand to each.  However my protests were to no avail when a stray Beagle-like bitch arrived at the door a few months ago  Now it`s two in one hand and one in the other

  I`ll try to upload some photos and sign off now before I bore you to tears...

OverloadedArk -- Welcome!

Trying out my new blog