Living in Brittany

From the first of July its obligatory to carry a red triangle and a reflective jacket in the car and you can be fined if you don't. It seems to be part of a European movement in Spain its 2 triangles and one jacket whereas Austria demand one triangle and 2 jackets, confused, its Europe.
Xav has tried again and this time seems to have reached Spain ironically we have received our first Spanish client this week.
The fete de musique has passed at the weekend ,21st June , its a super idea with all sorts of groups playing from a bunch of school children playing dots to heavy metal punk groups. The Harmony band I play in did its usual number although the lead trumpeter was under the weather as he had started gigging in the morning at an Irish bar and the guiness was taking its toll. He never made it home he just fell asleep in his car in the parking and woke up on Sunday.
There is another fete this week in Plufur one of Xav's friends mother does circus and they have erected their big top tent to perform with other types of activity which also includes the rock band I play in so it could be interesting, so this weeks work is a mix of music in between putting the engine back together of the 305. The garage said it was the last time the cylinder head could be levelled off so its days are numbered.

Usually you go to the bar and say "quoi de neuf " and get the exciting response a boule tournament has been cancelled or someone has fallen over and gone to hospital,but last week there was a fire in Plestin. It was the old building that used to be " St Jo " but was closed about 10 years ago although the primary school still functions. In Plestin ( population 3600 average age 65 ) had 2 schools the state and a catholic school, crazy. Anyway the St Jo has been sold off to property developers who claim they are going to build "beautiful apartments " (for 150 000€ ) it must be true as they have brochures of them and for the last 3 years have been trying to sell them or get people to pay a deposit. However this year some homeless had moved into the defunct school , which is waiting to be knocked down and last Wednesday there was a fire in the top storey very mysteriously at 6 in the morning and 3 fire engines attended it . The gossip is unknown origins of fire and a large gap in the middle section of the roof still can't believe anything is going to be built.
Just after it closed we did a tour of the building and the upper floor was for the boarders, just 5 days a week,they would have paid about 500€ a term very cheap until you saw the conditions, big dormitories with a communal wash room with a long trough to wash in.Very 19th century in style.
Xav's trip to Spain was a non event he got within 50kms of the border and then the bus turned around and came back to Plestin ( 24 hours on the bus ) as the frontier was blocked by revolting truckers both sides its part of the campaign against the hike in petrol/diesel prices. He said on the autoroute it was marked at 2€/1l whereas here its 1.4€/1l. I suppose it will help bike sales but not much else.

Our dutch friends who grow strawberries for PYO did their usual trick this year and invite all their friends over for a meal mid day and in the afternoon we put straw between the rows of plants now I realise why they are called straw berries. Its a good stunt for them they get a third of the work done for free and its a scial event. I was working with a one parent mother with 2 children sympathising how differcult it must be , but she told me that she got lots of aid from the government . Its nice to know how they are spending my 1600€ a month contribution. I was fairly crocked the next day ,Paulien is far smarter she refuses to do it.
We have had an interesting saga with the hens, last autumn I spent an afternoon sorting out Carlos ( A hen seller in the market ) roof and so he offered us some hens in the spring. Well last month he gave us 3 , 2 of them looked as if they had come straight from the jungle and acted accordingly while the third hopped aroung on one leg. Paulien took the 2 black ones back after a week and bought a couple in the market while the one legged one was diagnosed as arthritic by some Dutch vets staying in a gite and by coincidence some English vets were repeating the following weekend I got in contact with them to bring some medication for the one legged arthritic hen.
Xav has gone to Spain for the week to stay with a family and improve his Spanish I hope the bus driver is careful as there was a horrendous crash last week in Savoy when a bus was stuck on a rail crossing and 8 ,12 year olds were killed

We get a lot interesting people stay at Coat Aillis but an ex bodyguard to the Dalai Lama is special. Its Alan Pittman and he lives not too far from us and runs a course here every May for people working in the health sector . He was down on numbers this year so I did the course and it was very interesting . Its called "La sagesse du corp " (wisdom of the body ) and involves yoga taken from Egyptian and Scythian cultures and their relationship with their environment of fighting ,healing tribal ethics and shamanistic spiritual beliefs. In all a very interesting weekend which will be repeated again next year in May he has an interesting website also
I had some bad news with my 305 Bas was driving it and the head gasket has blown again not sure if he ran it too hot as I noticed the radiator hose had come ,it means I have to get my hands dirty and take it to pieces again. At least I should be quicker this time.
Most of France seems to be protesting against the hike in fuel prices the favourite method seems to be driving tractors at 15kms along autoroutes or blocking it entirely. The fishermen prefer to block ports I guess the government will do its usual fudge and give them money which the EC will later deem to be illegal subsidies. For us we are biking to the bar for our coffee on our velos.