Two weeks ago we had a call from the EDF the French version of the ESB to tell us that they were putting up their charges next year.
Because of this they wanted to send an expert around to see us to see how we might be able to economise on our bill so the impact wouldn’t be too hard.

We agreed- at least Síle did -I was hauled along.

Last week M Le Expert arrived , he went through our house thoroughly.
He highly approved of our Godin and its efficiency, approved of our good attic insulation, dissed our heating system for the bedrooms (but not too vehemently) but was totally horrified by the way we heated our water.
As well he might be.

M. the local plumber insisted that to have sufficient hot water for five bathrooms and a kitchen sink we should have three large hot water tanks with immersion heaters. (which, in France, are, rather romantically called cumuluses (cumuli ?)
I remember at the time these were installed that I protested strongly to the plumber, “Surely ” I said “it must be now possible nowadays to have a system like the one we had in Ireland which heats the water only on demand and does not require ANY cumuli”
(We had changed our system to one such in Ireland about 15 years ago with enormous savings on our bills)
“A system like that” said the plumber “does not exist in France”
So I ended up with three electricity guzzling cumuli.

Back to M. le Expert.
Having said several “O la la la la ‘s ” over our method of heating our water he suggested that we…. you have guessed it… install a system which heated only as required. “This will ” M. Le Expert assured us “Reduce your bills by about €70.00 each time”

Furthermore the EDF would be prepared to give us a loan, interest free, over 5 years to cover the cost and the French Government (to honour their signing of the Kyoto agreement) would pay for 50% or the installation costs.

He was preaching to the converted- this one was a no-brainer to us.

We signed on the dotted line.
Well we signed on several dotted lines.

Anything that involves the state in France requires a small Brazilian forest of paper and a case load of biros before you have finished.
By the time we got to the end we had all become firm friends.

M. told us he thought our kitchen very beautiful, he stroked the Kilkenny marble with sensual pleasure , he admired the limed oak floor.
He became a fan.
Eventually we had signed all we should, M. had copies of everything concerned with our lives- our passports, our bank account numbers, Síle’s maiden name and M. (a trifle reluctantly I felt- he now loved us dearly) departed.

As he walked down the road I said to Síle “There goes the future Martin Dwyer, with that information he can easily steal my identity”

But no.
Two days later M. le Expert was back.

There was a problem, he needed more information, he needed a copy of our marriage certificate to prove that Síle Dwyer was once Síle Ronayne.

(We both felt he could have easily have done this on the phone… but no…like a moth to a flame…)

I was sent off to the office for another round of searching, and copying.
Within two minutes he had established with Síle that we were on the point of giving a dinner party.
Immediately he must know what we were to serve.
There followed a long conversation on the appropriateness of our serving choices.
He reluctantly agreed, ultimately, that our choices were sound.
Then he enquired (I joke not ) as to what salt we used.
Síle let him taste our Malden Sea Salt.
M. was in love- he eventually left with about 50 cards for the B&B , the marriage certificate, a box of Malden and a promise from us to bring him back another from Ireland over Christmas.

We live in France now.

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed,refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging highprices:
A hard time we had of it.

Síle and my mother shared a passion for plants and a long time ago my mother gave Síle a cutting from her Christmas Cactus.

In the many years we lived over the restaurant on Mary Street it flowered dutifully every Christmas.
Then when we sold the restaurant (which my mother loved and would come and dine at the drop of a hat) and moved to Griffith Place, the Cactus refused adamantly to flower for the first four years and then, fitfully and with bad grace, after that.

This is the Cactus’s first Chjristmas in Languedoc and we were in some trepidation as to how she would behave.

As you can see above she likes it.
Phew !

She approves.

(As I know my mother would were she alive , and she would certainly have been a frequent , and welcome, visitor)

We have had a last minute run at Christmas here , we didn’t think we would bother, as we will be doing it in Ireland next week, but events overtook us and we will be hosting an international dinner party tomorrow we thought we should make an effort.
There will be nine of us tomorrow around the table , two Irish , two from South Africa , two Americans , one Scot , one Italian and one Frenchman.

I think I will call it the Six Nations Dinner.

(Maybe I should hire a Welsh referee ?)

The Loft, sometimes more grandly known as the Cork Shakespearian Society was the place where all budding Cork thespians cut their teeth.
Miss Curran, who ran the place by the time I got there, was determined to give as many of us as possible a chance to get on stage.

Now one way of ensuring a good house for our productions was that we used to put on the play which was the prescribed one for the leaving and the inter on the relevant years.

I wasn’t long a member when The Merchant of Venice came around and Miss Curran decided to cast me as Salerio.
Now this, not exactly pivotal part, only existed in some of the editions of “The Merchant”. Most editions agreed that there were two characters who were, it must be admitted, fairly peripheral, called Solanio, and Salerino.
In some of the editions of the play Salerio appeared- I have no doubt invented by an earlier transcriber’s slip of the quill- and so she kindly used this as a chance to give me my big break.
My main function, as far as I can remember was to be made up and put into tights and then to hang about back stage most of the night before I ran in dramatically and said “What news Ho !”
One night, out of the blue, Miss Curran (who was holding, I later discovered, an edition of the play which didn’t admit Salerio’s existance) suddenly hissed at me “Your’e On !” and shoved me on from stage right.
There I promptly collided with Solanio (or indeed Salerino) who had correctly entered from stage left.
I did the only thing I could do and shouted my immortal line “What news ho !”
Solanio(or Salerino ), who afterwards went on to Do Great Things on stage, with enormous sang froid turned to me and ad libbed cuttingly “No news yet ” which gave me the opportunity to slink back into the comfort of the wings.
A few years afterwards I gave up the stage and started cooking.

I have just been given an early Christmas present by the brother (thank you Ted) of Kevin Dwyer’s third book of arial photographs of Ireland.
Just like his previous two , this book is a stunner.

I have no hesitation in declaring an interest here , Kevin is a cousin.

What is wierd and wonderful about arial photographs is that they give you an utterly unexpected picture sometimes of things with which one is familiar.

Let us take the above shot for example.

It is one of Lough Derg , known as St. Patrick’s Purgatory , the most dreaded of pilgrammage spots in Ireland . There , I know I did this once , you are obliged to spend two days without food or sleep , doing penance by walking barefoot over stone beds.
I remember it with horror.

In Kevin’s shot it looks like an Italian resort on Lake Garda , lacking only a flotilla of speedboats to make it complete.

Things look different from the air.
From the air you can see the shadows of long abandoned fields , the true star shape of a fort and the remarkable symmetry of a prehistoric settlement.

This is a book that I will pick up more than once from the coffee table.

A couple of people have suggested that young Ruadhán might be like his Mother.
I offer you a shot of her taken at much the same age (in fact she was a couple of days old, Ruadhán just a few hours )

I don’t reckon the apple fell too far from the tree.

And the man himself.

Welcome to the Internet Ruadhán

The new arrival is to be called Ruadhán Butler.

He weighed in this morning at 7 lbs. 5 oz. (3.3 kg to us continentals)

The new arrival is a second grandson for Síle and and I and for Paul and Noirín Butler.

I also count that he is the 83 descendant of my parents.
( a hell of a christmas present list for my mother if she was still going)