Living in Brittany

We had an EDF man with a clipboard call in at the beginning of the year it was something about changing an electric pole at the entrance and then he quickly mentioned cutting a few branches under the wires in the orchard just normal maintance. So this week 2 guys turned up , they looked like Starsky  and Hutch with dreadlocks in a "cherry picker "  ( a lorry with a hydraulic lift box )  + their weapons of mass destruction, chainsaws. We walked around the orchard  and they pointed out a few branches and I mistakenly left them to it. half an hour later I came back and found a corridor  of branches and one tree was cut in half so will fall over as it is unbalanced unless I cut some branches from the other side. Paulien proved her fluency in French by giving them a good dressing down an ability to let rip in 3 languages is rare.

Guingamp have had a good season for a football club in the second division and a population of 8000, on match day that doubles , the stadium holds about 20 000. They were in the final of the France cup against Rennes  ( an all Breton affaire ) and beat them 2 1 which is only the second time a 2nd division team have won the cup in its history.

Well I had a great time in Germany the jumelage of Lannion and Gunzburg works really well especially as the local brewery sponsers the German hospitality and they make some excellent beers.The first couple of days involved playing on the streets as they had a European festival going on with at least 20 groups of dancers,singers and bands from about 6 different countries mostly central European as leather shorts seemed to be the fashsion. The Saturday night I  experienced a beer hall , which was long tables ,lots of beer and food being seved listening to an 8 piece all girl band, fraulienpower playing retro music from the 60-80s very watchable.Its interesting there is a smoking ban in Germany but there is an exception for beer halls, the politicians would lose votes I guess.

Sunday was a beer festival sponsored by Gunzburger Weinzenbier an excellent drink with lots of music/beer/food and a tour of the brewery and in the afternoon I left with my host family  Helmet and Monika for a bike ride along the Danube.Gunzburg was a frontier town from the Roman times as its on the Danube and controls the routes going north to south. one of the funniest sights on the bike tour was at a "biergarten "where we stoped and in the mens toilet they had a row of 10 urinals and above them was a panel requesting the client to choice the correct urinal as each one was marked for differing liquids. The first being for beer then wine,milk,tea coffee,coke etc..........................they were taking the p... unfortunately I forgot my camera

The following days was a mix of visiting the various tourist sites although I did get confused by a trip claiming to be about renewable energy,wind farms. It was in a magnificent modern designed office on stilts surrounded by water and the owner looked like the owner of the factory in the film " Charlie and the Chocolate factory" he gave a speech on investing in renewals etc and then we visited his factory which made cardboard boxes for puzzles ................but he is investing his money in wind farms.

Perhaps the least appreciated part of the trip for me was a visit to a Teddy bear museum which I managed to escape from after breaking the record of the fastest visit, I felt slightly ill and had to find a bar for some caffeine therapy. But we visited some fascinating  underground cave systems and generally being with a bunch of Bretons abroad is a fun experience.I actually had an advantage on them as generally the Germans speak English as a first Language and French a distant second and while they merciless mock my French accent  some of my fellow band menbers when they speak English have that really sexy French accent with it.

Overall it was a really good experience and even the band didn't sound to bad even there was only 7 of us but we had all parts covered, its just a shame that the trip involves 16 hours on the bus and trying to sleep was fairly differcult spacewise it was like sleeping on a reclining toilet but I managed 3 hours and when I arrived home Paulien had been busy supervising the guys who had changed the liner on the pool  and it was filling and should be in action again next week.

Easter seems to have passed in a flash this year , we had some friends at the beginning of April when we seemed to be celebrating birthdays most of the week, still it was good fun. Since then we seem to have just French families stay + a foster association who left without paying but I was assured there is a cheque in the post!!
This week we had some maintenance done on the pool as we are having the liner changed next week and as there is a problem with ground water and I've tried using various pumps and non return valves but as they usually go wrong decided for a more radical measure. Sink a well next to the pool. The first thing is to decide on the exact location so I use a wire coat hanger, cut in two then straighten them out and form two L shapes. Those are my divining rods, then walk slowly around the back of the pool one in each hand and when the rods cross that's the place to dig.So the digger man makes a big hole, 3 metres, nothing except a French smirk. I start shuffling around pick up some of the uncovered clay it feels moist I feel slightly more confident. Then at 4 metres its as if he had cut through a pipe the water starts to trickle in and the sides of the pit collapse.Success, so we then drop in the round concrete sections, the first one disappears under the water which is by now a metre deep, the fun bit for me was sitting in the digger bucket and being lowered to the bottom of the pit to release the concrete ring. Now I have this free supply of water I was thinking I could have a water feature in the orchard, some sort of fountain. I'll have to work on the idea.
On Thursday I am off with the "Harmonie" to Germany we are staying in Gunsberg in Barvaria which is twinned with Lannion. Its actually the oldest twinning of a French town to with a German town. The poor citizens are going to have to listen to our musical offerings for a week still there is a beer festival there at the same time