One Year Down

Well, we survived it!
We've been back over a year in Ireland now after moving back from France where we lived for over 11 years. We left our lovely home near Perpignan with our fabulous Mediterranean lifestyle, wonderful friends and cheap wine to come and live in a little town on the South West coast of damp little ol' Ireland.
And we are loving it.
Friend and foe eagerly await to hear how we are getting on .. what do we miss about France.. when are we going back .. do we need our heads examined..???
The thing is Mr Getrealfrance and I were ready to desert, after sitting on the fence for a number of years, and both of us being Irish and on the same page did help matters immensely. We've finally come home.
 I do miss my lovely friends and family who are still there and of course, the divine wines - the weather has been pretty good since we moved back which has helped enormously and we are embracing all the things we missed about Ireland.
It's all the little things that make life so much nicer here - we feel like we have won the lotto here in Clonakilty, so nice and friendly are the locals.
However , I never intended this blog to be a French bashing forum, and France has been very good to me. What is with all the French bashing in the media these days..what is it with this love/hate fascination with France and her politics and lifestyle that the Western world love to negatively wax lyrical about?
'France would be great, if it wasn't for the French' is a line that has been thrown at me more than a few times..quite the generalisation!
It seems every time I open a newspaper, there is an article bashing the French. Everyone in Ireland has an opinion on French politics, on Hollande or Sarkozy - yet hardly anyone can tell me the name of the Spanish or Italian presidents .. both countries of similar size in nearby Europe. People who have never set foot in France love to mock their ways and snigger at their politics.
In fairness, France is relatively resigned in her back lash - Imagine the furore if the French media started to relentlessly bash Ireland or the UK? Imagine a bunch of French expats in Ireland moaning and groaning about all things Irish and the way they do things here ( Look at any expat forum in France). Imagine the indignation and the outcry!
Laissez La France tranquille!

A week of fêtes

A feast or a famine; this week in our village , we are spoilt for choice of fêtes : 21 June was La Fete de La Musique, tonight is La Fete de Saint Jean and on Saturday, we have La Fete des Voisins ( Neighbours Party)
For our neighbourhood bash, the mairie (town hall) provide music, an aperitif, tables and chairs and we can party as late as we like on our street ( 'tis a great country all the same ;))
I registered with the town hall ( much paperwork) and notified the neighbours. A meeting was promptly called and an aperitif was organised - the lady of the house spent all day preparing a delicious spread of nibblies and all kinds of drinks imaginable. Serious nom nom nom.
There then proceeded a three hour debate as to to how we would run the party - a note needed to be dropped into everyone's letterbox on the street to ask if they would be attending .... it took at least an hour to decide on the layout and vocablary to use.
Where the party would be held was another long and heated debate... should it be at the top of the street, the middle or the end or in the park?
What shall we bring? How shall we arrange the tables and chairs? Should there be defined courses? Entrée, Mains, Dessert? Major Hoo Hah. I'm reminded of Stephen Clarkes "My Tea is Rich" meetings in A Year in the Merde as I knock back another glass of muscat..
After three hours of talking around in circles with nothing at all decided on, another meeting was called where we could finalise the details. Yawn.
So two strategic meetings later, our fete des voisins will take place on Saturday. The tables and chairs are stocked in my garden and copious bottles of rivesaltes ambré have been delivered to chez moi ( note to self ; do not drink!).
Allez, C'est Party!!