A Good Autumn Evening

The Bar Du Pont
It was pizza evening this evening and we had it sitting outside on the Bar du Pont's terrace.  We've been doing that since May but it's the first time I can remember doing it outside in October; usually, the evenings become too cool after about 9.00 from mid-Septmber onwards.  So we are having the same Indian summer as Engand, with temperatures into the high twenties during the day and the heat continuing into the evening.

There was quite a lot to discuss with the regulars.  Friends Jo and Steve want to try again this year to get some Christmas carols sung out in the street and the one French friend we could find who was enthusiastic and was willing to sing was Rene.  So we decided to task Rene with finding another 7-8 French people who would be willing to sing.  "No problem", he said; and I watched with interest as he encountered the same problem as we had last year.  Christmas carols?  Great idea!  Sing? Oh no, we won't sing.  Going round everyone, Rene eventually came up with 5-6 possibles.  I think, though, we might just make it this year.  The plan is to sing 5-6 carols in English and the same number in French (with maybe one in Provencal), both outside the Bar du Pont and in the local old people's home.

Next item was the England-France rugby match on Saturday.  Rene got Patrique, who runs the Bar du Pont, to agree to have it on the large screen TV on Saturday morning and Steve and I agreed to go and watch the match with him.  Rene immediately started recruiting others to come and watch it together, so Steve and I are going to have to find some more English people to provide the opposition.  I'll start the phone around tomorrow.

Also on the discussion list was the "loi NOME", France's answer to the EU prescription for greater (or even some) competition in th electricity market.  The new law requires that the current EDF monopoly sell 25% of its output to alternative distributors.  I've commented previously that this is simply a nonsense.  However, the   new distribution possibilities require a new meter for which EDF proposed to charge all households 350 euros.  The howls of protest that greeted that proposal were followed by broadcast emails from someone who had discovered that EDF, under French law, had to get you to sign to accept the new meters and that if you didn't sign they couldn't charge you for them.  So EDF has now "graciously" declared that the new meters will be free.  Will they heck; their cost will find its way onto the electricity bills somehow and all for a nonsensical nod at competition.

Finally, it turned out to be the birthday of Valerie, Patrique's wife, although no one had realised (remembered) that it was.  Valeriere celebrated by standing us all coffee and a superb Marc from Chateau Neuf du Pape on the house.  It's touches like that that make me really love the village.

Clematis
Earlier during the day I investigated the hole I had dug a couple of years ago against the tree opposite my kitchen window.  The rose I planted had eventually given up the ghost and I was at first thinking of replacing it.  However, a local supermarket had some cheap clematis plants and I decided that a clematis might stand more chance of surviving in the stony ground.  So I bought one, renewed the hole and planted it; it's a Montana, so fairly hardy.  I'll have to wait until next year to see how it does.

Windows 7
I always hated having to change operating system and Windows 7, on my new laptop, is proving no exception.  The supposedly easy file transfer from XP using Windows Easy File Transfer is a pain and, inevitably, refuses to transfer some non-MS files.  More frustratingly, the presentation of a number of applications has changed, forcing me to change my normal way of working and, in some cases, rendering what I want to do almost impossible.  I have been in the habit of writing postings to this blog in Open Office and cutting and pasting them to the blog.  Now there seems to be no way to paste them.  Moreover, the facilities I had in Open Office to insert French accents aren't available in Blogger.  Rene (above) should have an acute accent on the last "e" and there is no way I can find to insert that.  Maybe, over time, I will discover ways or maybe I'll just have to put up with the lack of facility.  Anyway, for the moment I hate Windows 7.