For years we have envied people with woodpiles. it was such a continental thing to have.
This morning at 8.30 M. Dejean arrived with three stere of wood for us on his lorry and then dumped it outside the front door.

Clive and I spent the next hour hauling the stuff in through the house to the terrace where Síle stacked it.
It looks terrific though and should get us through the rest of the winter.

Aware that missing the chance of watching and bonding with our grandson by moving to France was a source of great concern to us, his parents gave us a present last year of a video camera so we could communicate with a video link via Skype.

We have been doing it off and on over the past six months and he has being showing a singular lack of interest in the proceedings.

Last Mondays call, the first since we had seen lots of each other over the Christmas was very different. It was obvious that he recognised both our faces on camera and our voices.

We talked to each other !

Here is an (admittedly blurry) Skype snapshot of the occasion.

What memories Síle’s reference to Strangely Strange in last Sunday’s piece in the Trib brought to mind, and how amazing to have Tim Booth comment on the blog.

In the late sixties/ early seventies I was a sort of unofficial roadie of theirs for a while.
As a friend of Steve Pearce, the potter, who was their manager,he would often call on me to give a hand to set up the music and the amps when they were doing a gig.
I remember there was a young fellow, I never knew his name but remember his brilliant Afro hairstyle, at the time, who was also on this call list, so himself and my self were often sitting like pros at the console during gigs.

I hadn’t seen him for a few years when one day we spotted each other in Grafton Street and stopped to chat about the old days and the Strangelys.
As he went on his way my nephew, who was with me, had I noticed gone quite pink, and he said “How in the name of God do you know Phil Lynnot !”

I had no idea that that was he.

I have never made any bones about my lack of skill and interest in Do-it-Yourself.
In one of my first flats in Dublin I broke right through the wall into the flat next door while attempting to attach, to that wall, a set of bookshelves.

I have frequently said to my wife that I would work in a kitchen for several hours/days to earn the money to pay a carpenter/plumber/electrician rather than attempt to do-it-myself.

Because of this I am reassured rather than affronted by a quotation from Hilaire Belloc (a Frenchman who masqueraded as an Englishman), who said:
Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes properly can do nothing else.

I make a terrific omelette.

Well I suppose it wasn’t too bad.
We looked pretty asinine (but ironic) gazing into each other’s eyes at the kitchen table.

They also used the photo from 1973 which my brother-in- law Martin Lyes took.
(I put it up on the blog yesterday)

The grandson became a son but sure what odds.
You can read about the other weddings of the various decades on the Tribune site Here

This was our bit:

The 1970s Couple – Martin and Sile Dwyer, Consultant chef; former primary school teacher

Career: Now run a B&B in the Languedoc region of France
Family: Three daughters and one son
Wedding day: 14th July 1973

The First Meeting

Martin: We met on a postgraduate teaching course in 1971 – although Sile can remember me from before that.
Sile: I actually saw Martin for the first time when we were in UCD in 1970 and we were both doing arts degrees, but we met properly the following year at the teacher-training course. There were only 17 of us in the class so we got to know each other really well.
Martin: We started to go out at Easter and never looked back.

The Proposal

Martin: It was in a pub in Skerries during the autumn of 1972. We’d been going out together for six months by that stage.
Sile: We were having a drink and talking about our future when somehow we reached the decision that we wanted to get married. Neither of us can remember exactly how it came about. It was kind of a mutual decision.
Martin: I think I casually suggested that we should get married soon and Sile agreed. We decided that the following summer would be good.

The Wedding

Martin: It was a superb wedding, very casual. Sile’s father taught in Gormanston College, so we got married in the chapel there and had the reception in the refectory.
Sile: The reception was a buffet. My mum and sister did most of the catering with help from the college staff. For the music we enlisted Martin’s friend Stephen Pearce to gather the remains of the band Strangely Strange. They played ‘The Tennessee Waltz’ over and over again to cater for the older guests.
Martin: There were no monkey suits on the day. No taxis. It was all very casual and most of us went for a swim in the pool afterwards.
Sile: I bought my dress in Switzers off the peg. I think it cost £28. My friend Isabel crocheted me a juliet cap on the train, as she travelled up from Cork on the day of the wedding. I wasn’t nervous at all. In fact I think Martin was more nervous.
Martin: We went off on honeymoon on our motorbike and camped and ate in the best restaurants in Ireland. We’ve always been into good food and had a restaurant in Waterford for 20 years.

And so on friday night at seven o clock Clive and I and most of the remaining furniture from our house in Waterford pulled up outside the presbytery in Thezan.
We had left Rosslare at 9.00 on Thursday morning, driven the 400 klms to Portsmouth, there we had had a few pints of English bitter (warm and flat but very tasty) eaten a passable Indian dinner and then slept the night through on Brittany Ferries Mont St Michel before travelling south through snow and ice to Thezan Les Beziers.

And it is cold down here too, the coldest we have ever experienced, temperatures dropping to minus three in the night and a wind from the north which you could shave with.
We are very glad of the Godin which we keep going all day and night so that our living room is kept warm.

The days are however very bright and sunny so we do have the illusion of heat if not the reality.

Today is Valentines day and Sunday Tribune readers will have the dubious pleasure of reading about Sile and I, and our wedding in 1972.

Claire Ryan, a feature writer for the Tribune came across the blog and decided that we would epitomise a Seventies wedding on a piece she was doing for Valentines day on Irish weddings through the decades.

We agreed to do the piece and then were then interviewed seperately about our impressions of the day, and sent in a photo of us at the reception and got another photo taken of us battered by 37 years of marriage.
I have no idea how the piece will turn out and of course cannot get my hands on a copy of the Trib down here so must await it going on line later in the week to see how we appeared.

Herself and himself in 1973.

When they knocked down a house in the village of Thezan lately to provide an entrance for the new Old Folks Home they were left with a blank canvas.

The town Commissioners invited in two artists, Agnes and Olivier Costa to decorate this with a picture which would remind us of the past life of the village.

The couple made this remarkable trompe l’oeil which shows two old inhabitants of the village, one an ex-mayor who was the saddle maker, pictured outside his shop with his friend who was the proprietor of the bicycle shop.

This road sign was recently erected on a roadway in Wales, where all signs are required to be bi-lingual. The English version was prepared and sent off for translation by email. The reply to the email was duly received and the sign was manufactured and erected.
The English instruction is perfectly clear to lorry drivers – but the Welsh reads “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

Thanks to Beau Frére, Padraic de Bhaldraithe, for this.

I won’t be around for a few days.
This afternoon I fly to Luton from Beziers, wait around there for a few hours and then fly into Waterford.
There my mate Clive will pick me up and then we will go to my house in Waterford to pick up my overnight bag-(I am as cute as a pet fox, and won’t pay any extras to Ryanair) before going to his house in Thomastown for the night.
On Wednesday we will pack as much as we can into the van of my remaining furniture in Waterford, retire again to The Mill and hit Irish Ferries in Rosslare at 9.00 on Thursday morning.
The Oscar Wilde is still out of service but Irish Ferries have done a deal with my original booking so Clive and I will sail to Pembroke with €150 compo in my pocket before picking up and overnight ferry in Portsmouth (also courtesy of Irish Ferries) and sailing to Caen before starting the long descent to the Languedoc on Friday morning, arriving in Thézan 12 hours later.

Phew.

I’ll let yez all know how we get on.