Editor's Blog February

This business called love is particularly pertinent to many who have arrived to make new lives in Normandy.

Some are here to enjoy a happy retirement with lifelong partners. Others have moved in search of more quality time with loved ones.

Many come to France to start again with a second marriage, at the same time escaping the messy fallout of an earlier one. And I know at least three sets of readers who have divorced and remarried the same person and come here to give the the same relationship a better chance second time round. Some of you are avoiding the opprobrium that can shadow an older woman-younger man or a gay partnership.

Whatever the reasons, most of us are thrown far more into our partner’s company in this new French life than ever we were in the UK - and this is the real test of a relationship. It’s OK loving each other for a couple of hours at each end of the day: can you love each other for nigh on twenty four hours a day?

Enduring love is of course nothing to do with White Chargers and Milk Tray. It’s not about a pair of sexy knickers, a cup of tea in bed and a dozen red roses just once a year on February 14.
Operatic passion is undoubtedly thrilling. But it doesn’t give you the strength that does constant love. On the contrary: Romeo and Juliet threw their lives away, Antony’s soldiering prowess was destroyed when he was bewitched by Cleopatra’s charms. Rommel entirely missed the D-Day landings when he nipped back to Germany for his wife’s birthday.

But look at Churchill and Clementine or the unobtrusively supportive Denis Thatcher; consider the achievements of Mikhail Gorbachev who derived his strength from his love for Raisa.

Quiet, unflashy devotion is what gives us the assurance to pursue our dreams. The simple fact of loving and knowing that we are loved in return.

If you agree, you may also consider the following one of the most powerful love poems ever written:


Recipe for Happiness (Anon)

One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in the sun
with strong black coffee
in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.

Editor's blog January 2007

Disappearing France?

My favourite chocolaterie has double fronted windows bursting with truffles, handmade creams, wisps of caramel, edible figurines, nougats, macaroons and great slabs of home made chocolate. One of those magical places - straight out of “Chocolat” - that made France seem so exotically foreign the first time we visited.

But it is closing down. I wish Monsieur V - the chocolatier who looks a bit like a mad professor - a happy retirement and he looks stunned. He’s not retiring, he says, he’s going to work in a factory. He can no longer make ends meet. “No, it’s not the supermarkets. They’ve been around for years. It’s our French way of life - it’s changing.”

The kitchen table is no longer central to family life, he sighs. People spend Sundays pursuing leisure activities rather than carrying carefully wrapped delicacies to the family table. They no longer sit and eat and talk and savour. The young walk past his shop all day long - snacking!
“People tell me they can no longer buy my chocolates because they’ll get fat. Nonsense. My chocolates have always been made from sugar, cream and butter but didn’t make people fat in the past. No-one got fat when they took the time to eat properly. (Indeed, this is exactly what scientists studying the famous “French Exception” - the fact that the French could apparently eat a full-fat diet without growing obese - concluded. It wasn’t what they ate but how they ate: slowly, at table, with pleasure and conversation. Even when eating a McDonalds the French take on average twelve minutes longer than their Anglo Saxon cousins.)

But of course it’s not just about obesity. Eating together, at table, is central to real family life, as it is to conversation, to manners, to slowing down and taking the time to enjoy life, to appreciating the efforts of others. It is the cornerstone, in other words, of that elusive “quality of life” that drew so many of us to France in the first place.

To say that grabbing a sandwich on the run and eating ready meals in front of the telly is the route to family break-down, delinquent children and obesity might be pushing it, but there’s a whiff of truth in the theory.

As M. V points out: “The irony is that in your country and America you have come full circle and small shops and proper food are back in fashion. By the time this happens in France it will be too late for me.”

UK Readers

Following so many requests from UK based readers we are delighted to announce that we are now offering UK subscriptions to the Rendezvous - details on P.15.

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How and where did you fall for your partner? Do you have an amazing story to tell? Have you discovered the secret of enduring love? Write with your story to editor@therendezvous.info
or to Love Story, La Vincendière, 14500 Truttemer le Grand by 10 January and the best will be featured in our February edition.

Editor's blog December 2006

This issue is devoted to shopping, feasting and coping.

But what about Christmas, you may ask? Jesus and goodness and... Christianity? Good point.
“I’m not looking forward to Christmas” a friend confides “a lot of hassle and a lot of expense”. So how, in a near-Godless age, do we stop Christmas becoming no more than a festival of children’s greed and parents’ exhaustion?

Radio 4 addicts may have followed Today presenter John Humphrys’ search for faith. We imbibe our religion with our mother’s milk, he maintains, but then many of us lose it. Like Humphrys, those of us who are journalists may have grown disillusioned by bearing witness to war and tragedy. Others, like my husband reared in the Soviet Union, learn a suspicion of dogma and the intent behind it. Blaming religion for bloodshed and genocide, from the Crusades onwards, is also popular - although the biggest murderers of the 20th century, Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein, were not religious men.

But, be it religion or another set of rules, any society - and by implication every family - needs a moral code. In 1991 I watched the Soviet Union collapse and continued to live in Moscow throughout the ensuing chaos. What was dismantled was without doubt imperfect and corrupt, but the ensuing vacuum was also terrifying: a jungle world awarding survival only to the fittest.
Listening to news reports from Britain today one detects a similar lack of direction. Young Britons drink more and fight more than any in Europe, and one can sympathise with Muslim parents who do not want their offspring to sign up to a morally bankrupt society.

Which doesn’t mean that you have to rush to church this Christmas. If you can’t stomach organised religion, look for your spirituality elsewhere - but look for it all the same. The late Times columnist, Bernard Levin, Jewish, once wrote that despite not being a Christian he was grateful for the cultural riches Christianity had given the world: the music and literature, art and architecture. For some, the Passions of Bach or the soaring heights of a cathedral prompt a spiritual journey which is not necessarily Christian.

Or take your loved ones as inspiration. Amidst the fairy lights and flashing santas, look at your family - your partners and children and parents and friends - and dwell for a moment on what they truly mean to you? Having people to love is the greatest gift of all; it is what makes us whole.

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The Rendezvous launched in June this year and this is our 7th issue. Before the launch we had a year of meetings, drank endless cups of coffee and in some cases smoked a thousand cigarettes while we tried to work out if there really was a market for an English-language magazine in Basse-Normandie? It seems that there is and all of us at the Rendezvous want to thank all of you for the thousands of enthusiastic letters and emails we have received and wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas and every success and happiness in 2007.

Editor's blog November 2006

The French are hugely chauvinistic about their food - witness the paucity of ethnic restaurants in France which reflects the national belief that if your food is the best in the world, why eat other people’s cuisine?

There was a time when it was impossible to buy a bad meal in France. Now, sadly, you can eat rubbish here too and there has been an alarming increase in the amount of TV and ready meals in French supermarkets over the past few years.

Nowadays there are more top 10 world rated restaurants in Britain than in France and no doubt M Chirac, who famously made an ill received joke about British cooking, was put out when a recent survey for British Food Week found that more British youngsters, inspired by trendy celebrity chef programmes, enjoy cooking than French.

But let’s not be disingenuous here. You still have a much better chance of getting and excellent cheap lunch in France and, equally, if not more, importantly, the French beat us hands down at school dinners. When I was writing about French school meals for The Times recently I spent a morning in our local school canteen and discovered it does not even have a freezer as everything is freshly prepared - on rare chip days the cook comes in 45 minutes early to peel all the potatoes!

I hope the French don’t give up family meals round the dining table as this is fundamental to the quality of life - which includes placing high importance on the family - which drew many of us to France in the first place.

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We are thrilled to welcome two new contributors to the Rendezvous this month. Food writer Brigitte Tilleray lived in England for over twenty before returning to her native Normandy this summer and will be writing for us on foodie issues. Her tips for eating out in Normandy are on P3 and her favourite restaurants on P6. Denise Stuart is a consultant astrologist with an international clientele including A list celebrities. She works for many UK newspapers and radio and television networks. Starting this month she will be reading your stars in the Rendezvous - see what lies ahead on P 10.

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One of the great things about living in Normandy is the number of friends and family who come to stay. Sometimes it feels like one of the worst things! If you were overwhelmed by visitors this summer and are now preparing for the Christmas rush, read this month’s My Restoration where Bob Billings shows us how you can make it easy on yourself by moving them into the garage.

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Finally - to all who have asked “where is that fantastic dépôt vente featured on last month’s cover?” The answer is: Printimeuble between La Haye du Puits and St Sauveur le Vicomte (www.printimeuble.com)

Editor's blog October 2006

We can, of course, all lists dozens of aspects of French life that we love - otherwise we wouldn’t be here. But, inevitably, there are also a handful of things we do not love about this French life and whenever a new survey comes out about what the British love and hate about France the same two items top the hate list: French driving and they way the French treat their animals.

We shouldn’t settle too comfortably on the moral high ground. OK, we have the RSPCA but their latest report claims levels of animal abuse are soaring in Britain. And whilst we are famous for being gooey over our domestic pets, we still buy economy packs of cheap meat without, perhaps, wondering precisely how a chicken can be produced for 99p? I’m sure just as many bucket loads of kittens are drowned in rural Britain as rural France.

Nevertheless, the French attitude to animals is, shall we say, more pragmatic than ours. Everyone has a story about a next door dog that is locked in a tin shed for days on end or watching a local farmer bash the latest batch of kittens’ brains out with a spade while the children look on.

An Alsatian kept as a guard dog half a kilometre from my house has not been off it’s chain - ever, not even for five minutes - in seven years. But as the chain is 3m long it complies with French welfare laws and much as we locals - including many French - would like to liberate it, legally there is nothing we can do.

In this month’s issue we tell the heart-warming story of one Frenchwoman’s attempt to give sanctuary to abused and abandoned kittens. You could argue that she is onto a looser: how can she ever rehome the cats at the rate new ones will come into her refuge? Wouldn’t she be better off letting the strays be put down and concentrating on education initiatives to ensure cats are spayed and castrated? At the moment most of the help she is getting is from the British community but Angelique hopes this will change. For her real mission is even greater than the mammoth task of rescuing cats: with her motto “Le Chat Mon Ami”, she tells me, she wants to revolutionise French attitudes to animals in general.

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APOLOGIES to readers who had trouble sending e-mails to us or using the web site www.therendezvous.info mid August/early September. This was something to do with hackers getting into the server, based on the East coast of America, which meant it being shut down for cleaning. Circumstances beyond our control, as they say.
As a result we are extending the deadline for August’s win a bungy jump with AJ Hackett competition till 21 October. You shouldn’t, but if you do have any more trouble, post you answers to La Vindcendiere, 14500 Truttemer le Grand.

Editor's blog September 2006

“The English have a reputation for working on the black and employing unregistered labour” a local French politician told me recently. It’s true, we do, but that isn’t to say that the French don’t do it too. Even some registered artisans are not above quoting a job half on the books and half for cash.

While it makes sense to employ a registered artisan when you need to be sure that the work is up to scratch or you want a ten year guarantee - installing central heating or a new roof, for example - there is no doubt that it is tempting to go for the cheaper cash in had option when it’s just a matter of repairing a gutter or a leaky tap. “Why should just the English be whiter than white?’ one unregistered British builder complains. Fair point.

But despite the risks of using unregistered artisans highlighted in our article on P3, remember that work by non-registered labourers - French or British - takes money away from those who are legally declared, which is downright unfair considering how expensive it is to be self employed in France. Of course they can undercut registered artisans: they are not paying the astronomical social charges.

In any case, now that we Brits have a reputation for moonlighting the police are stepping up their swoops on British businesses - a friend was even stopped for driving around with building materials in his car - for his personal use.

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Following enquiries from businesses which believe that by buying advertising space in the Rendezvous they can guarantee editorial coverage, I would like to stress that this is not true.
The Rendezvous does NOT trade ad sales for articles.

It may be that some of our advertisers have an interesting story to tell or a product worthy of a news mention and might therefore be featured in our editorial copy.

We also sometimes offer to list the contact details of our interviewees as a thank you for their time.

But the Rendezvous editorial is wholly independent and choice of editorial copy is at the Editor’s discretion.

Should advertisers wish to commission an article about themselves they are welcome to do so and the copy will be clearly marked “advertorial” so that readers are aware that it is an advertising feature.

Editor's Blog August

“I was told that my kids - and all British children - are a waste of space” a mother in Manche tells me, while the head of local college complains his efforts to help are undermined when children go home “to English TV and English friends.”

Another mother reports that her children’s head has threatened to throw them out and a teacher in Calvados throws her hands in the air and asks: “why don’t the parents try to learn French so we could at least communicate with them? They don’t even turn up to parents’ evenings.”

There is clearly frustration on both sides: parents complain the schools won’t help, the schools counter that British parents often fail to support their children.

In this issue we look at the challenges facing teenagers who move straight into college (secondary school) from the UK and suggest how parents can help. We will return to the subject in the autumn and ask the French schools how they are tackling the challenge of growing numbers of non-French speakers in their classrooms?

What comes across clearly from the article on P.5 however is that parents’ attitudes are a crucial factor in how quickly children adapt. If Mum and Dad make no to effort to speak French or to integrate, children get the message that these things aren’t important. In our September issue we will compare different methods of learning French for adults.

Children will also be less inclined to make a go of it if they know their parents are not fully committed to life in France themselves. Even if you think you may go back to the UK, either because of the children’s problems or your own, keep it between yourselves. One friend of mine even told her son that if he hadn’t learnt French by the end of the year they’d go back to Britain. Since he hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, all he had to do was keep his mouth shut!

Most important, however, is the message that stressed and anxious children won’t achieve anything. If you want yours to learn French and do well at school, the best help you can give them is to stop worrying about both and concentrate instead on having fun as a family. It’s August: sign them up for a sailing course, learn sand yachting, spend lots of days on the beach, enter our competition to win a bungy jump. It’s not hours of extra coaching they need: once they’ve decided France is where they are happy to be, they’ll want to settle down and the rest will follow.

Editor's Blog July 2006

It’s fashionable to sigh dramatically at the start of the long summer holidays and ask: what are we going to do with the kids? But - even though I scream at them half the time - I love having my children back for a whole two months and hate it when school reclaims them at the beginning of September. Partly it is my own memory of those endless summer weeks stretching ahead with nothing more to do than lie in the garden reading books or planning bike rides.

Nowadays we can no longer wave the children off with a picnic and a warning to be “back by nightfall” but this doesn’t mean that the summer has to be an interrupted festival of tv, Gameboy, computer, Playstation & dvd screens. If you were on holiday in Normandy you would be checking out every beach, river, forest, park and attraction, but once you live here it is too easy to slump into the daily shopping-cooking grind and ignore what’s on our doorstep. Don’t! Pretend you’re a visitor and start exploring – use our Going Out guide and Free Normandy. Remember: you came here for quality of life so take a break from that restoration project and spend quality time as a family or couple.

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In this issue we talk, somewhat schizophrenically, about the numbers of British incomers moving to Normandy (on P3) and, in News Bites, (P13), about how many are returning home. It can be difficult to explain why we move here – for that elusive “quality of life” which is impossible to describe precisely - but the reasons as many as two out of three families go back within the first few years are clear: bureaucracy, isolation, the difficulty of finding work, unhappy children and the language barrier. In coming issues of the Rendezvous we hope to help both incomers and those who are about to give up with features on how to get more involved with your local community, learning French, finding work, negotiating the endless paperwork, settling your children into school and overcoming despair. Stick with us and we will try and make life easier.

Editor's blog - June

WELCOME TO THE RENDEZVOUS, the English language magazine for Basse Normandie.

Every month we will bring you local news and features as well as listings and reviews to help you get the most out of your life in France.

Want to start a blues band – or a book club? Meet others with similar interests? The Noticeboard is there for your community postings.


In Aidez Moi we help you solve your French dilemmas and My Restoration, on the back page, is a chance to see how others are managing their renovation projects.

Marketplace is the place to buy and sell, look for and offer your services - safe in the knowledge that these are LOCAL classifieds – you won’t have to drive to the Dordogne to pick up that lawnmower!

Whilst primarily aimed at English speaking Normandy residents we naturally welcome visitors to the region and French readers.

We are also delighted to have enjoyed huge support in this venture from the local French authorities who also plan to use these pages to share information that we either need or want to know.

But the success of the Rendezvous depends on our readers so do contact us with your comments, suggestions, tips, listings, ideas…

THE TEAM

The Editor, Miranda Ingram, (pictured top) spent twenty odd years on Fleet Street working for the national British dailies including the Times and Daily Mail, as a feature writer, foreign correspondent and columnist. She moved to Normandy with her two young children in 2003.
Production Manager Alexander Anichkin, reported from Britain, Japan and the US for Russia’s biggest selling daily newspaper before continuing his journalistic career in Britain and, three years ago, moving with his family to Normandy.

Alison Weatherhead, Advertising Director, graduated from Oxford with a degree in modern languages before working in media advertising for News International and Future Publishing Magazines. She has lived in Normandy since 1994 and her children were born here.

We hope that you enjoy this first issue of the Rendezvous and look forward to seeing you next month!