Baby Chou

I went into town to do some shopping this afternoon and as I came out of the junction at the bottom of the valley I saw a truck coming straight at me and realised I was on the wrong side of the road. I got the fright of my life! That's the first time that's happened since we moved to France.

While I was out, EDF came and switched on the 3-phase electricity in the garage and a load of steel arrived for the crane platform. When I asked BB to explain to me in layman's terms what 3-phase is, he said: "You realise that monophase is a sinusoidal alternating current. If you have three monophases 120 degrees out of phase then ........" He carried on in this fashion for ten minutes until my eyes glazed over and I lost the will to live.

A horse breeder friend of Nainbo's has confirmed, once and for all, that Justine the donkey is pregnant - and it's not twins - and the birth could be very soon "depending on the moon". The locals make reference to the moon frequently, particularly where the potager is concerned. You're supposed to plant climbing vegetables, such as beans and peas, when the moon is in the ascent and root vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots, parsnips etc, when it's in the descent. You're also supposed to pick certain veg when the moon is full since they say it intensifies the flavour. According to Nainbo's horse buddy, donkeys are also more likely to give birth when the moon is full - which is tonight. Watch this space.

When I was down at the lake this afternoon for a run and a swim I bumped into Madame La Mairesse and her second-in-command in the car park. After the obligatory bisou (cheek kissing) and "oooh isn't it hot", I bade them bonne nage (have a good swim). They both looked at me like I was a cretin*, which is exactly how I felt as soon as the words were out of my mouth. As if the mayor is going to go off swimming with her deputy (who looks like Fester from the Addams family) - at least in broad daylight anyway. Not to mention the fact that she has a swimming pool chez elle (the pool house for which is bigger than her house. That's like living in a council house and driving a porsche). I should have realised that they were down there on official mairie business since the main topic of discussion at the réunion d'information (public debate) last week was what can be done to improve the facilities down there.

Something has uprooted my basil plants and also left a large bottom-sized depression in the middle of my lavender bush. BB suspects our resident badger, which has a set at the bottom of the garden. A few years ago I found an injured badger in our wood shed (I assumed it was injured as it wasn't moving) and phoned the animal rescue service. When I tried to explain about the badger they hung up on me, but knowing my French back then I probably said something like "show us your badger". My friend K Bear (who speaks fluent French) phoned them back and they said "laisse crever"  - let it die. Charming! Anyway, it had gone the next day - so maybe it was just sleeping off a big lunch.

* "Crétin des Alpes" is a derogatory term used here (the origin of which is apparently to do with an iodine deficiency but is more likely to be due to in-breeding!). I witnessed it en masse when I walked into the bar at the pizza restaurant in town just after we arrived here. It was like walking into that bar scene in Star Wars. Everyone in there had one eye going for the messages and the other one coming back with the change!

The crane arrived on Tuesday as planned (oh me of little faith) so the next step has been trying to find someone with a mobile crane to come and lift it into place because the concrete base is a few metres from the road and down quite a steep slope. Three times we've waited in all day for a local guy to come and give us a quote and three times he's failed to turn up.

Then, at the Sunday Club yesterday, Nainbo suggested that BB build a platform level with the road, thereby doing away with the need for a mobile crane. BB is really angry at himself for not thinking of this himself, especially since such a platform is in the plans anyway (for a parking space and entrance to the front door)! I didn't dare say anything about "bad planning" for fear of domestic violence!

BB is now designing and building this new platform and thinks he may have persuaded the driver of the concrete lorry to pull the crane down here with his lorry. Failing that, we shall have to rely upon Mini-B's "vintage" tractor that doesn't have any brakes. This all needs to be done before July 13 when the crane erector arrives.

We tasted our first potatoes from the garden yesterday. You can't beat new potatoes fresh out of the ground cooked on a BBQ in a wok with fresh thyme and olive oil. Unfortunately when I went up to pick them and do some watering at the same time, I left the tap running and as a result there's no water left in the mobile tank. It's a pain having to tow it down here and refill it from the river whilst avoiding being spotted by the guy who works for the forest department.

The latest consensus on the donkey front is that the "pregnant/isn't pregnant" one is in fact expecting twins!

On Friday BB lost the plot over getting electricity to the garage. I've been so preoccupied with moving the phone line and getting the crane here that I completely forgot that we need to get 3-phase electricity to the garage to power the crane - which arrives tomorrow. The snakes and ladders game of getting electricity connected in France goes something like this:

1. Find semi-reliable electrician to do the wiring (can take up to six months - if lucky enough to find one).
2. Make appointment for EDF to certify wiring (usually three to four weeks hence).
3. Make appointment for EDF to come and wire up the heads (usually three to four weeks hence).
4. EDF send out bill (two weeks after step 3).
5. Once bill paid, choose a supplier and make appointment for fuse carrier to come (usually two to three weeks hence).
6. Fuse carrier arrives to put in fuse and then you have electricity.

After finding an electrician, EDF arrived and failed the wiring but said the electrician could self-certify the work after sorting the faults. In the meantime, BB contacted EDF to make an appointment for step 3 saying that the wiring had been passed.

On Friday morning they turned up to wire the heads but they didn't have the bits they needed to complete the job, which meant we were looking at a further delay by the time they fixed another appointment to come back.

BB decided to circumvent the system by leap-frogging to step 5.

Off he went to the address on our electricity bills - 60 miles away - to try and pay the, as yet, unissued bill. When he found the EDF building - with no public parking, which should have been a hint - he pressed the buzzer but, being 12.30, got no answer as the security guards were all off having lunch. Spying an open ground floor window, he climbed in and made his way to the third floor where he wandered about looking for an office with somebody in it. After finding an occupied office - and calming the terrified woman down sufficiently to stop her reaching for the panic button - she led him to another part of the building (through two metal detectors), where, it being just after 12.30, everyone was off having lunch.

He then left and returned to wait for some employees to arrive and snuck in through the security doors behind them. The employees called for "back-up" and a manager arrived, who took him to an office where he was told that he couldn't pay the bill as (a) it hadn't been issued and (b) they didn't accept payment in person. By this time BB resembled a mini Vesuvius ("step away from the pencils, Monsieur") and after a "brief and frank exchange of views" BB's cheque was accepted. We now have an appoinment for 3 July for our chosen supplier to come and put the fuse in.

In the meantime, the crane will have to sit up in one of Mini-B's fields.

My friend Sylvie is coming round this afternoon. I used to go to her house for French lessons but I stopped because it was becoming too expensive. She didn't charge for the lessons but I would arrive at 11.00 am and by 11.30 am she'd cracked open a bottle of white and after a couple of glasses I'd have to get a taxi home!

I got up early to do the housework because Sylvie is the French equivalent of Kim and Aggie. She came round for dinner once and I accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom (I thought she was outside having a smoke and our bathroom door is notoriously hard to lock. You have to insert an old key, the end of which BB sawed off, into a tiny hole in the handle) to find her inspecting under the lavatory seat to make sure it was up to her high standards. I'm a complete salope in comparison - although nowhere near as big a salope as BB (see May 1 post).

I'd just started hoovering when Jurgen, our Dutch friend, arrived. He went out with a famous (much older) Hollywood actress in his youth who whisked him away from the drug dens of Amsterdam to a penthouse in New York and then discarded him six months later. He still talks about it - much to the annoyance of his fiery Italian wife. At school no-one wanted him on their football team because he would go off picking wild flowers when he was supposed to be in goals. He's a vegetarian and non-drinker - the only one I think I've met since we moved here - and lives in an eco house with a pizza oven in the sitting-room. Anyway, he arrived to give me a bottle of his elderflower syrup - which is very tasty - and a pile of Time magazines - which smell of incense - and I spent over an hour chatting to him and drinking coffee.

Just after he left, Poire arrived with some lettuce and spinach plants he'd thinned out, for my garden. By this time it was after 10.00 am so we had to have a coup de blanc.

When Sylvie arrived in the afternoon she came bearing jars of fruit and wild mushrooms she'd picked and bottled - so I won a lot on the home produce front today.