What we do all day 4: Time with visitors

One of the biggest pleasures in being here is sharing it with visitors – family and friends. This means that our pattern of life over the past 9 months has been a bit like the cycles of the sea: a big tide of people coming in, all activity and busyness, then, as the tide goes out, and they go home, everything goes quiet and calm again, and him and me lie on the beach waiting for the next. . . some metaphors only stretch so far before they begin to wear thin, don’t you think? - anyway, you get the idea.

Apart from the odd throw away comment, I haven’t really talked much about this aspect of our life here – mostly to protect other people’s privacy, but as there are also plenty of interesting challenges in having lots of visitors, I wanted to go through most of the year before summing them up. If you’ve visited and you don’t want to be named and shamed, look away now. Only joking.

We deliberately chose a big house with lots of rooms and bathrooms, so that it would feel comfortable and spacious when people came to stay and it has been great not to have to queue for the bathroom, or to have to put people on camp beds or sofa beds. Unfortunately this means that we are now so used to en-suites with every bedroom, we’re going to find it hard to get back to wetting ourselves when somebody’s been in the shower for an hour (you know who you are) – or (and to be honest this is my preferred solution), R will just have to go back to work to pay for a second bathroom.
I digress. Get to the point MancinFrance.

What has been really good about having visitors:

1. People to talk to. It can be lonely, particularly in the winter. French people in very rural areas don’t go out much and, although we’ve tried to join in whatever is going on, there isn’t a whole lot going on. So family and friends have meant company, conversation, good laughs and shared activities. Sometimes I haven’t realised just how much I’ve missed speaking English until I’ve bent a friend’s ear for the whole hour from the station without letting her get a word in edgeways, and that’s before she’s even got in the door. (Lui dedans speaks English, of course, and we do talk to each other sometimes, but occasionally you need to talk to SOMEBODY ELSE!)


One of the very best things about being here is to confirm what I already knew. That talk is good. That people talking to each other is good. Listening is also good, but other people are better at that than me. I’m trying to do better. Anyway thanks for listening to me. And if I let you talk a bit, thanks for that too. Make sure you keep it up when we get home.



2. Food. I’ve loved cooking and eating with people. I’ve really enjoyed planning food and cooking and serving it – breakfasts, lunches, dinners. I already enjoyed it before, but was a bit apprehensive that it would feel too much, too tiring et cetera, but it’s actually been a pleasure. All our visitors have cooked for us too and/or taken us out for a meal which has also been a treat, so it’s felt reciprocal. There are a lot of seriously good cooks amongst our f&fs – I’ve learned from some of them how to cook roast goose, risotto, macaroni cheese, lemon tart – plus the right way to eat oysters, and how good market-bought fish soup is. We’ve also also been brought home made jam, chutney, and vats of wine, so none of it has been a hardship and I think, without visitors, we’d probably have been a lot more conservative about food. In the periods without any, I’m sad to say we occasionally have Heinz beans on toast and custard. Interesting combination. We also do not make tea with proper tea in a teapot as one visitor said we should, (she knows who she is) as we can’t be arsed and some of us have less life to live and don’t want to spend the short time left picking tea leaves out of plug holes.

3. Sharing this place. Each time a new person has enjoyed the house, the view, the trees, the quiet, a lovely meal in a small French restaurant, the Saturday market in the local town, a walk in the woods - we’ve enjoyed it that much more, and our experience has been enriched, deepened.

4. Spending more time with people: days, a whole week, can give time for relationships to relax and develop. More space and time to get to know people.

5. Playing games.
- Cranium. We have found out that some people are luvvies in disguise and can sing and act like an old trooper. Also that others of a teenage disposition have never heard of Bob Dylan. My god.
- Learned also to play a great cardgame called shit-something which I now can’t remember the rules of. If it was you who taught us, please send them again.
- Boule. The girls winning.


6. Doing things with grandchildren.

- Rugby with H. Competitive moi?

- Making scones with D.

- Sandpit with C.

- Chucking dirt and sticks in the lake with C and J.

- Teaching H backslang and tongue twisters and getting into trouble with his Dad for forgetting to take the one about the pheasant plucker off the list I’d downloaded from the internet.

I could go on and on – but now I’ve probably reached the limits of your time and patience, I’ve got loads more good things and I haven’t even started on the bad bits. So in the ancient tradition of stories, I’ll just say that you’ll have to read the next chapter to find out what they are.