They should have read the blog.....

About midnight the other evening as a group of us sat outside , a car passed the bar, (which is unusual in itself!!) and returned a few minutes later and stopped to ask for directions to a chambre d'hote ( guest house).
I had not heard of the name they were requesting so asked for the A4 sheet they were using for directions along with their sat nav.
As readers of previous blogs will guess they had directed themselves to the wrong Champniers. The 3 ladies and 2 children found themselves at midnight in the Vienne and not in Charente, some 80 kms away.
Surprisingly they found it quite amusing, more so I guess than the guest house owner when they finally turned up

It's a small world

I am constantly amazed as to the links that we find with other people
Considering the relatively small number of Brits in the area  it is incredible how closely some of them have in the past.
A few examples.

• A couple who had never been the bar before walked in, and the lady recognised another diner. It seems that one worked in a small village store in Cornwall 20 odd years ago and the other used to be a customer.
• Two people whose houses almost backed onto each other as youngsters recognised by an unusual surname.
• Robert, who like me visited Stamford Bridge ( or should it be pilgimaged to) and used the same cafe in the Kings Road for a pre match meal.
• A local couple and a holiday house owner who lived in the same road in Wales but never met there.

But then last week a couple came in, new to the bar. We got chatting, how long have you been in France? Where are you from in the UK?   Herne Bay was the answer. I said that I also came from Herne Bay and when we talked further we had once lived 10 doors apart. However their son, owns the very house that I lived in with my parents as a teenager.  

What next an old girlfriend turning up or someone arriving in one of my old cars?

Supporting The Hump

We had an email a few months back asking if we would be showing the Eurovision Song Contest in the bar. After checking that it didn't clash with anything important like football we said yes. It transpired that a group of friends from Scotland and England get together each year to watch the annual humiliation of the UK.
As you know we are a country that has produced the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Robbie Williams to name but a few but cannot find a "cracking tune"  to appeal to our European neighbours.
(this of course assumes that the voting isn't political because if it was the UK being everybodys friend would win easily, wouldn't it?)

So yesterday evening the five ladies arrived in time to see Botox man Englebert starting the show from the hub of European music Baku  Azerbaijan.

To say they were keen is an understatement. They arrived with a list of rules for their contest and each had a score sheet.

Each of the five had been allocated "events" such as key change, pyrotechnics, costume change, unnecessary people on stage, national costume, singing in English etc etc

As each of the 26 countries did their stuff, the girls were looking and listening out for their events. The bar was full of shouts of "key change"   "pyro" and the like as points were added to individual score sheets.

The ladies also felt it their duty to comment loudly on anything and everything and the air was full of shouts of 

"unnecessary people, unnecessary hair, unnecessary shoulder pads etc"

For those of you that didn't see the contest, here are the "highlights".

• Englebert looked plastic 
• Israel has joined Europe
• A Swedish Kate Bush won
• Spain entered but didn't want to win as they would have to host in 2013 and haven't the money
• Russia had six grannies singing and baking biscuits
• One country had a boat made out of people clothes
• Jedwood need to be humanely put down for their own and the world's good
• There was a little political voting but not much. For example Croatia gave its top 3 scores to Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia.
• Graham Norton managed to predict most countries scoring
• The winner got 372 points, England and France came fairly close with 12 and 21 respectively.

So the evening came and went, we enjoyed the company and would willingly do it next year  but overall the evening can be summed up in one overused word  UNNECESSARY 

Saturnia pyri

Just before we closed last night, about 11.30pm, we had a visit from a Giant Peacock Moth. This is the biggest moth found in Europe. We had never seen one before and this one came and settled on the bar door and then on the floor.

It was about 120mm (5inches) and the photo shows it next to J's hand

Danny

Danny an occasional visitor to the bar passed away last week. He was 38.
RIP

The Election

The Presidential Election in France is this Sunday with the second round in two weeks time. It is said that in the first round the french vote with their hearts and in the second round with their wallets.
I, being an etranger and not allowed to vote.

In every village there are the statutory 10 boards in place for each party to attach their quickly defaced posters.

Election cards have been sent to all voters. ( A note on this, the mayor's secretary posts her letters in the postbox on the front of the bar. In this she posted J's election card, which was collected, sent to the area sorting office, put in a postman's van and delivered back to where it was posted from!!)

As one of our regulars put it  "left or right---------------

---------it's all bollocks!"



So the choice is Sarkosy if Snow White will release him for another term in office

or Hollande

I can't believe that the french will vote for Hollande, they still haven't forgiven Germany for running their country in the 40's

French Life: Postcodes

In the UK postcodes are very specific. Our last house in Lower Stondon had a postcode that covered  40 houses, but in France it is not quite as easy.
We live in 86400, the postcode based around Civray. It is well over 100 sq kms and is 20km x 17kms at its peak. There are 11 towns and villages in 86400 and approx 9000 people.
This as you can imagine makes life a little difficult for posties and other delivery drivers.

But their headaches don't end there. There are the hamlets. (hameau) A hamlet  is a group of dwellings in rural areas , generally too small to be considered a village , and with no church . The basic element is very often a farm .(wiki.fr)


Our village of Champniers, population of 350 is made up of the main village and 21 hamlets. These range from two or three houses to maybe 25. They have no road names and normally no house names or numbers. Instead they use the generic address Lieu dit.   Lieu-dit (plural: lieux-dits) (literally said-location) is a French toponymic term for a small geographical area bearing a traditional name. The name usually refers to some characteristic of the place, its former use, a past event, etc. (wiki.fr)
So if a Jean Smeeth lived in  Somewhere a hamlet of Champniers, the address would be Lieu dit Somewhere,  86400 Champniers.   Good luck to the DHL man I say!!!  Where do they start?  


But postcodes are important as they identify the department of the town or village. France has many duplicated place names and the postcode will identify which department or county they are in. There are two Champniers approx 100kms apart. There is us in 86400 and also a suburb of Angouleme postcode 16430 

We have had a number of people turn up here, looking for the airport, hotels or the out of town shopping centre that the larger Champniers is known for.

Surprisingly, they don't always take their mistake in good heart normally blaming the Sat Nat rather than the person who programmed it.

When Bonnie Tyler sang about being Lost In France perhaps she was heading for Saint Savour. 

As can be seen below there are 12 places of that name plus another 3 that are very similar

But it's not all bad. French road signs are normally excellent and will help you find your destination