The HAT (Herault & Aude Times)

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THE HERAULT AND AUDE TIMES

April 2014

THE HAT

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAGAZINE

ISSN: 2261-561X

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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The Herault & Aude Times

EDITORIAL The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

Mark Twain

Editorial April

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he last of the diggers have departed from a friend’s village.

A strange but very welcome quiet has descended on the village square, where for more than a year the roads have been dug up and then re-laid again. Trees have been planted and then the area pedestrianised. The result is an attractive square with benches and one day, when the trees have matured, shade. A place for the elderly to gather and meet. A place for children to safely play.

Captain Nancy Grace Augusta Wake

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hen the Ambassador of France in Australia, Stephane Romatet, crossed the room to shake my hand and wish me well for our planned settlement in the south of France, I secretly thanked my distant cousin, Nancy Wake.

As you would expect a group of local youngsters have quickly made one of the smart new benches a place to gather in the evenings. They look a bit menacing, their dress code requires it; and its annoying when they can’t make the effort of walking 20m and putting their empty bottles in the bin, but if you say hello on passing you are usually greeted by a chorus of cursory responses.

Outside some front doors overlooking the square various objects haphazardly lay, mostly children’s bicycles, scooters, a skateboard, a couple of dolls… They aren’t in anybody’s way.

Someone with a proclivity for a pristine picture postcard environment might be irritated by this especially because of the millions of euro invested in the improvements. But I wonder whether the fact that they live in a place where the thought of these objects being stolen or vandalized does not darken the thoughts of the owners, or that the parents of the children playing houses outside in the spring sunshine are not pre-occupied with the worry of child abduction. And although there are plenty of places to create huge graffiti images, apart from the odd empty bottle, none of the youngsters are motivated to get out their spray paint or crow bars.

This is the true worth of the investment made by this village… the sound of children playing, the gathering of neighbours… and one of the greatest things that France still offers.

The HAT Online

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The HAT The Herault & AudeTimes - 1 Grand Rue, St Thibery,34630 (11100) Publisher: Gatsby B - Editor : Emma F - Advertising Director: Tom B Advertising: Vicky M-B - Thomas Muhr Art Editor: Daisy B - Art: The-Green-Light.com EDITORIAL editor@theheraultandaudetimes.com PUBLISHER gatsby@theheraultandaudetimes.com gatsby@lapublishinggroup.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Online or contact us on gatsby@theheraultandaudetimes.com ADVERTISING For display advertising, print classifieds please call 0624 80 24 32 or mail advertising@theheraultandaudetimes.com For free classified online advertising please visit http://classifieds.theheraulttimes.com www.theheraultandaudetimes.comPYRIG HT AND DISCLAIMER

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WRITERS

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he writers and contributors are the stars of this magazine and without them I would have all of my hair and would not be drinking gin at 9am every day. Having said that, you should know more about them. All their bios can be found at www.theheraultandaudetimes.com. Please read them, they deserve to be recognised for their fantastic contribution and for being patient and generous to me.

IMPORTANT:

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t: 0468 90 55 17

his magazine is intended for the use of the individual(s) who picked it up.

This magazine may contain information that is helpful, opinionated and can at times be unsuitable for overly sensitive Persons with no cultural credibility.

If you are not sure then may we politely suggest that you pass it onto someone else as to continue reading is not recommended and may constitute an irritating social faux pas. No animals were harmed in the making of this magazine, and believe it or not one single opinion is definitive- period.

ISSN: 2261-561X 4

The Herault & Aude Times

CONTENTS

April 2014

10 Further Afield

It is easy to visit Venice and Italy from the Languedoc. Here’s how.

14 Tread Softly

Lodeve has a secret; the Savonnerie, where fine

carpets are still being made.

16 GTBY

Theo King talks to the Archbishop of Montpellier

18 Tall Stories

Patricia Ford talks of the Tall ships in Sète.

32 Recipes with a difference

Aby brings us a taste of Persia and his childhood.

34 WIN an iPad

Currencies Direct have one to give away!

36 100 Pianos

Limoux has a museum in a church that holds the 100 pianos of Limoux

03 Editorial 06 Letters 08 My Place 09 And Another Thing 12 Wine Times 16 GTBY 20 Lifestyle 22 Music 23 History 25 A French View 27 English for Expat Children 28 - 31 Art 32 Recipes 34 Business 38 In the Garden 40 Subscribe 42 E-male 42 - 46 Classified Ads 47 Sport

The Cover Story

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e are proud to have the talents of Mr Barry Beckett producing the wonderful original covers that you currently see.

And online now you can purchase these beautiful images and have a piece of the Languedoc in your own home.

Prints and selected Limited Editions available.

Barry Beckett 2013 All rights reserved

dharmacamera@googlemail.com

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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Classical music 3 award winning Swiss musicians Trio Ganymède (É. Murith, Piano, F. Johnson, Violon, S. Breguet, Violoncelle) Sergueï RACHMANINOV (Trio Élégiaque N°1) ; Franz SCHUBERT (Trio N° 2 en mi bémol majeur opus 100) ; Joseph HAYDN (Trio en Mi majeur N°44 XV 28) 13th April, 18h Price: 10-15€ No reservation necessary Théâtre de Clermont l’Hérault, Allée Salengro, 34800 Site web : http://www.festival-musiques-et-passions.fr

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Art Classes Nicholas Poullis Artist& Illustrator

Welcome to the letters page

TEXT US

Do you have something to say? About the magazine? Ab

Letters

Lambs to the Slaughter .

WW 1.

After reading this months article on WW1 I was inspired to write the attached poem Lambs to the Slaughter and I have decided to send it to you with some other war poems I have written.. Ooften the personal strife is often swallowed up in the glory of War !

Its familiar now the numbness in toes, fingers, and joints, The smell and stench of warfare, At first overbearing and nauseating, Now familiar and not so strong, We huddle cold not feeling the mud and water beneath our feet, Or the cold inhospitable soil unfriendly at our backs, The noise of the explosions hand launched between enemy lines, Leaves me feeling nothing, No Fear no dread, There is no rhyme or reason to this World War 1, There are no winners just losers, Yet we must struggle on, I know and accept this Fate of mine, Lambs to the slaughter I am one. Ann Quinn

too. A non politicised view of individuals who on the surface are intelligent and ameniable but hide deep secrets and desires. The first time I have seen a balanced yet veiled attack on the FN in print. (although I do recommend your readers go online). By showing the people without giving them reason to play hurt and misunderstood. Showcasing them without rhetoric brings this despicable party into our thoughts where we can ensure we recognise them even if they wear a mask of respectability. Thank you

FN II Your reporter’s gushing endorsement of Robert Ménard in his quest to become Mayor of Béziers was sycophantic in the extreme. This wavering voter was reassured to learn that voting for Ménard is ‘an act of faith’ whilst voting for his rival would be one of ‘despair’. Apparently, Béziers ‘needs of man of his energy’ with his ‘doable and practical ideas’. Despite the unmentioned multiplicity of candidates, one was mislead to think (as the Front National’ would like voters to believe) that there is a black or white choice between the incumbant team FN (the cronyist self-serving sysExcellent work and brave tem) and their man with ‘no

34320 Roujan Tel. 04 67 24 02 29 poullisnicholas@yahoo.fr www.nicholas-poullis.com Wednesday morning classes from 9h00 to 12h00: 20€

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time for the political class’, the object of ‘vitriolic criticism’ in the media. Come on, stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes, give us the whole story about Ménard, his ideas about torture, the death penalty, his stance regarding homosexuals and his frequentations with the most extreme elements of the right. Intelligent readers deserve better. Robert M ‘Gushing endorsement? Excellent comment.....

Your letter is proof that it was correct to print it. It enables debate and any ‘spun’ issues to be exposed and discussed as you have done so eloquently. The HAT is merely a tool to share news and events that allow intelligent discussion and debate by by intelligent readers.

But I should be President!!

Hello.

I was very surprised that you write about the Front National in your magazine as many here think that if we ignore them they go away.

Even our own newspapers and magazines are not writing about them but they are everywhere. I find that in Béziers and Perpignan there is no real knowledge of what they are as they now look like the rest of the politicians who want to be in power and

bout life? Do you have a question or even a complaint? Send your letters to gatsby@theheraultandaudetimes.com

then do nothing. I thank you for showing that politics of every colour all look so the same now that we must read and look closer to stop these people from getting power.

Valerie I won! Thanks Jane via text Paddy Day Well, I took your advice and went to Shenanigans in Vias.

What can I say? I had never even heard of them but a real pub in the middle of the Hérault. Real people, not a fake faux Brit pub but a real Irish pub and cheap(ish) beer. Thank you. Mike and Gem Narbonne Really? I read with growing alarm your article (March 2014) about the uranium processing plant a mere 6km from Narbonne. Actually I went further than that and got in my car and drove to it. I am shocked and apaulled. Is there a logic to having this so close to a major town? What can we do to not be so close? Lisa Narbonne Move??

Narbonne It was quite a shock to learn of the uranium factory only 9 minutes from my door as the crow flies. Should this not be

Letters

declared when buying a property in this town? Henry K

sitting on the stairs it was so full. Superb. HG Béziers

Summer Yes I know I am a little premature but could you ask everyone to stop complaining about the weather? It is the end of March and we had 24 degree heat on our terrace 3 times last week. Why oh why does everyone need to complain?

Thomas

Business The business column (last issue March) was spot on.

I work for an unnamed telecoms company in Toulouse and recently it was announced that we had hit all profit targets and productivity targets for the last year. Two days later I was told that there would be a strike by my colleaugues as after the announcement another division of the company (loss making at this time) had demanded a pay rise. In summary, the management didn’t say yes or no but the delay triggered a strike and my colleagues are demanding that the profits we made be given to a loss making part of the business, not to shore it up but to pay wages. And the joke in all this. It was leaked that the workers wanting a pay rise receive on average more than we do so now there is to be a strike until we get equal working rights and renumeration.

You couldn’t make it up.

Disgruntled, Toulouse.

Rue 19 Mars I am writing to talk about the article ‘History through street names’ that is in your magazine. This is a great page that my family read every month and the last one on my homeland of Algeria was very good to read. History is for all people and you are giving a good space to history that is good to all.

We thank you. Mehmet Z. Robin McKelle Hi, I took advantage of your 2 for 1 ticket offer and went to see Robin McKelle and the Flytones. She was superb but I wanted to also thank you and sortieOuest for telling me about it. A great place, a great atmosphere and a full house. I have lived just outside Béziers for nearly 6 years and have never been until now. Absolutely brilliant and people were

Business II Mr D‘Artag. Bravo. Blunt, honest and opinionated. Someone has to say it. I read it on a Paris blog before finding your magazine online.Well done to you.

Books I must comment on the GTBY article on French children and reading. As an American mom with 2 children aged 8 and 11 I think you should all cheer for the girl who shouted out this terrible injustice. French children really do want to read.

My children read every night in French and English and all their friends borrow the books afterwards. Sharing books is now a normal thing for my kids. But we buy the books from amazon and other places as the cost here is high. I know funding for schools is pretty poor but don’t parents ever rally and do fundraising like back home?

Children need books, can’t you start a collection or something?

Katherine L Montpellier Self- Publishing Am I corect in thinking that anyone can self publish? Oh dear, I fear there will be a glut of retirees now saying to themselves that they’ll write about moving to France. Oh no!

Withheld Thank you Dan Brown.

You miserable bugger... at least they are doing something. And guess what, you just got published with your spelling mistake ha ha ha!!

FOU D’Anglais

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My Place

The People that make up the Languedoc In London she learnt shorthand and typing and got a job working as a journalist with a Paris agency.

I never knew where Nancy learnt French.

Park, a home for veteran servicemen and women.

The Australian Government sent the Governor General to give her another medal.

The pictures of the cershow Nancy in a Captain Nancy Grace Augusta Wake emony wheelchair, with white hair and looking someby Valdemar Wake what serene and content.

I doubt if she had any formal instruction She died in August 2011. She was 98. In but she very soon adopted French ways and March 2013 her ashes were scattered near married a highly successful businessman Montiucon in central France not far from from Marseilles.

It was the late 1930s and Europe was getting ready for war.

Nancy had seen how the Jews were treated by the Nazis. She strongly felt that this was no way to treat a human being and when France was occupied she very quickly became involved in the local resistance movement helping downed allied airmen get back to Britain.

She worked throughout the Languedoc-Rousillon region arranging the safe passage of the airmen..

When the Gestapo found out about Nancy they called her the “White Mouse.” She had a name but they did not know what she looked like.

When working in the Toulouse area she was arrested in a general roundup of suspects. She was interrogated by the Gestapo but she was able to flirt her way out of it. Her husband was where her army used to operate. not so lucky he was tortured and killed by When I got to Montpellier, with the amthe Gestapo. bassador’s best wishes still ringing in my Nancy returned to France in April 1944. She ears, I went to Castelnau-le-Lez to visit the had been trained by the Special Operations resistance museum with its story of the loExecutive (SOE) and was soon leading an cal maquis. army of 7,000 maquisards in the Auvergne.

There was no mention of Nancy Wake.

For a number of months, until France was I was disappointed but I also learnt a lesliberated, Nancy’s army pinned down some son.

22,000 SS soldiers.

There was obviously a lot more to the Yes, she was quite a woman. resistance movement than Nancy Wake’s But did she finally find peace? contribution? Maybe we had made too I’m not sure. much of this high spirited, good looking At the London hotel she ran up a bar bill young woman whose determination to rid which she couldn’t afford. There was a ru- France of its enemies was shared by many mor that the Prince of Wales helped settle others of the same persuasion, many of the bill. whom are now forgotten.

When her health deteriorated she was To all of France’s unsung heroes; taken to the Star and Garter at Richmond I salute you.

British Agent

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hen the Ambassador of France in Australia, Stephane Romatet, crossed the room to shake my hand and wish me well for our planned settlement in the south of France, I secretly thanked my distant cousin, Nancy Wake.

Nancy and I were neighbors in the small Australian sea side town of Port Macquarie,half way between Sydney and Brisbane.

Everyone knew who Nancy was. She was Australia’s most decorated war heroine.

Winner of the George Medal, the US Medal of Freedom, three Croix de Guerre and of course the Legion of Honor.

Nancy had sold her medals to the Returned Servicemen’s League (RSL) for $156,000 (AUD). She left Australia for the last time in 2003, shortly after Peter Fitzsimmons autobiography appeared.

In the short time that I knew Nancy I got the impression that she was not happy where she was. He second husband, John Forward, had died. There was not much to keep her in Port Macquarie.

She had become something of a public exhibition, almost a caricature of herself.

“Shooting Germans was good,” was one of her most often quoted lines. Australian TV presenters used to giggle whenever she said it. Even the governor-general was seen to hide a smirk.

Nancy Wake was born in New Zealand, the daughter of an itinerant journalist who drank too much and a mother who ruled her family according to the strict instructions of the bible.

Nancy could not get out of the house soon enough.

In Sydney she left home at 16 and at 18 was on her way by ship to London via Canada and the United States.

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My Place

The Herault & Aude Times

Did I Order This?

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he invaluable guide whether you speak French or not!

Y

ou know when you are in a restaurant or a café and you know the word but it is just not coming to you? Well here’s my little treasure, The French Dictionary of

Food & Drink. It really is simple and never again will I order civet de lièvre and be pleasantly surprised when I receive jugged hare whilst my eating companions have a sandwich and great hilarity at my expense.

As author PJ Taylor states, “When I first started translating restaurant menus I was surprised just how difficult they were to put into English, due to the complex nature and wide variety of the terminology involved. It was certainly a much more challenging subject than I had realised, full of terms not included in standard dictionaries.

I compiled vocabulary lists for every new job, and my menu glossary grew steadily over the years until it eventually reached book size..”

French Kissing Faire la Bise I kissed George Clooney!

No, really I did.

It was a few years ago and I was in Monaco for a business meeting and there was that boring motor race on at the weekend and he was in promoting some film or another where he looks so handsome and gorgeous.

Anyway, I was in my hotel and all these people came in flapping around doing nothing and there he was...all ER and Oceans 11, 12 and however many more and I just got up, walked across and said bonjour, leaned in and he kissed me on both cheeks!

And that is the only time I want to be kissed by a stranger. Or a friend for that matter.

What is it with the French and kissing anyway?

Yes I know it is common in many European countries but the French are the experts. I once went to the post office to send another registerd letter and there was my neighbour in the queue and yes you guessed, the welcoming kiss took place and then when he heard we had a new house I got the congratulatory kiss and then the farewell kiss.... my husband doesn’t kiss me that much and never in public!

My children do it all the time, it is de rigeur for teenagers it seems. I picked my daughter up from school one day and I had to wait while she went from one to another to another of her entourage to farewell kiss. It took so long the regular policeman asked me to move on and when I pointed to my daughter he laughed and, aargh, kissed me!

My favourite however is my husband who was quite pleased when a friend from Marseille came to visit for the first time. Sport, beer and tales of old dominated Guy’s arrival but he soon changed

when Guy arrived with his 3 friends and ensuing bear hugs and kisses on each cheek were not only offered but to my uninitiated eye devoured.

I asked a friend once and was told it was just a hug.

Well hug me then.

I often complained that my cold or headache was probably down to being kissed so much but as my husband pointed out that really didn’t hold up as where we live there is a square where every day the more mature ladies of our village meet to talk and pass the time and if you time it right you can see up to 12 women of a certain age who expend probably up to 1% of their remaining years going from one to another kissing quite happily. (I once thought I’d set up a kissing tour to watch these spectacles across the region) and they don’t seem to die of kissing, just old age.

Apparently the Aude is 2 kisses so maybe I’ll tell my husband we’re moving but not to Ardennes (4 kisses) or Corsica (5 kisses).

Actually, if someone kissed me four times I’d think I was about to get more than a hug. Oh la la! *

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Train Journeys from the region - Italy and Venice

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here are several options and ways of travelling by train to Italy, the most logical is to follow the Mediterranean coast. In effect that means an Intercité from Béziers to Marseilles St Charles where you change for a train to Nice. Another change for a train on to Vintimille (Ventimiglia) the frontier with Italy. The only TGV direct from Béziers to Marseilles is one of RENFE’s AVEs which leave Béziers at 20.39 but that does not leave enough time to go as far as Nice the same day.

The line continues along the coast a far as Genoa. Genoa is a city worth stopping off for a day or two. From Genoa the train heads north east to Venice via Milan.

Venice is always somewhere special and the train takes you along the causeway into the Venice Santa Lucia station.

From there you take a Vaporetto a canal bus along the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco.

The writer decided some two years ago to find a hotel close to Piazza San Marco and had the luck thanks to www.booking. com to find a room for three nights, a bit expensive but once in a lifetime being a few paces from the Grand Canal all that it offers was worth the cost.

Back to Italy and its trains. If you ignore the tagging, then the trains offer a wide choice with High Speed Trains operated both by FS the Italian State Railways and the new privatised company NTVNuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori both offer an excellent quality of on board service.

Not far from Venice a little over an hour by express train, is the romantic city of Verona,

stroll and look up at the balcony built to the memory of Romeo and Juliet.The writer spent a day in Verona and arrived by local bus from the Lago di Garda, which itself is a very comfortable watering hole beside the lake.

If you are into Italian Food, then on your return journey home you can sample a freshly made Lasagne in an Italian Railway Restaurant Car; that means taking the train north to Turin and Lyon plus a night in Lyon eating Chez Duboeuf yet another treat worth the diversion.

A TGV down the Rhone and soon back to Béziers.

Having inspired a dream of day or two in romantic Venice or Verona, it is down to earth when it comes to planning your journey by train If you look at the French Railways website www.voyages-sncf.com you will find thatthey recommend travelling by TGV via Paris, that in my viewdefeats the object of the journey as the big plus of travelling by train is the opportunity of relaxing in a comfortable seat and enjoying the views of Provence and the Mediterranean.

The Herault & Aude Times

Recommended times 0825 dep. Béziers 11.35arr Marseilles change trains 11.41 dep Marseilles 15.35 arr Nice Ville overnight stop. 09.52 dep Nice Ville 10.40 arr Vintimille (Ventimiglia) change trains 10.50 dep 14.55 arr Milano Centrale change trains 16.05 dep - 18.40 arr Venice Sant Lucia. 10.50 dep Venezia 1325 arr. Milano 14.05 dep change trains 15.42 arr Genoa overnight stop. 0900 dep Genoa 12.30 arr Ventimiglia change trains 12.50 dep 1338 arr Nice 15.34 dep Nice 18.38 arr via Avignon change trains dep 19.40 21.35 arr Béziers So even with the best times an overnight stop is needed in Nice on the outward journey and in Genoa on the return. Both cities offer endless treasures and do not miss the morning flower market in the old part of Nice.

Building a Dream Facing the nightmare

H

Gnaeus

earts across the department were deeply moved by the headline coming from Carcassonne, when Christian Dubosts climbed up the bell-tower of Saint Vincent’s church threatening to throw herself off.

No, this was not another angst-filled adolescent on the verge of peer-pressured pre-Bac suicide but an apparently normal woman of 51 years of age, married, with three children who with her husband, unsuspectingly in 2002, took out a mortgage with an unnamed bank to build a house. The loan itself totalled 220,000€ and was vested in a construction company undertaking the contract.

Many of us have been there before, gone ahead and realised our lifetime’s dream. Not all of us have yet repaid the entirety of our loans, however. Therein lies the potential for the fateful unknown to occur.

Our story took a turn for the worst when we learned in a later edition that the builders did not produce a home worthy of their trade nor of the aspirations of M. and Mme Dubosts. The company went into liquidation in the meanwhile, house very poorly finished, impossible to live in and the Dubosts left hanging high and dry: madame at

54 metres on a church tower. The court of appeal had determined that they must repay the loan no matter what in spite of the fact an earlier commission had found in their favour. In the meantime, the threat of dispossession looms to make the situation seem even more hopeless.

Before proceeding with any further details of this inextricable predicament, these are no ordinary times in which we live; quite the opposite. How many of us are aware that the EU spent over 400 billion Euros effectively bailing out banks amidst an economic environment of 59,780 judicial liquidations in 2012 and 10% (official) up to 19% (unofficial) unemployment?

It is difficult to find statistics concerning the rate of house repossessions in France but anyone who has been through this traumatic experience knows how negatively life-changing it is.

Alongside the immense hardships being imposed on those who are repossessed are similar ones for small-business owners.

Of course, the company involved here deserves no sympathy. Others, let us admit, face a battery of taxes and an overwhelming in-tray of official papers

Fares Using a 60 senior tarif: Béziers to Ventimiglia 53.20 euros, Vintimille (Ventimiglia) to Venice (Venezia) Sant Lucia from 33.80euros Venezia Sant Lucia to Genoa 28.80 €, Genoa to Ventimiglia 14.80 €, Ventimiglia to Béziers 53.20 euros €. Venezia Santa Lucia to Verona 19.00 € euros Times and Buying Tickets The method of finding times fares etc. is straightforward, preferably on line via the Internet.

You can of course buy your tickets at Béziers station, but you may have to

wait some 20 minutes if there is a queue; Bédarieux station does have a ticket office where you are unlikely to have to stand in a queue for very long If you do buy your tickets at a ticket counter (guichet), then it will help if you are able to print out your destination, times, etc. on a piece of paper and hand that to the sales clerk.

Further Advice Anyone who would like further detailed advice contact: christopher.elliott@club-internet.fr.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

that require limited-period administration to avoid further exacting financial consequences which are frequently arbitrary and, most definitely unjust.

The petit entrepreneur has it all to face: the giant corporation hungry for total market-place domination, aided and abetted by the political classes and a tax-thirsty state constantly scanning its economic population for increasing revenues to spend on often wasteful projects; the ever-increasing labyrinth of EU regulations or unnecessary municipal accessories.

Commentators and bloggers have been generally empathic toward the family under duress. There are several who criticise the bank for its actions throughout the episode, especially at a time when they have been financially rescued with funds including public revenues. Another group of bloggers attack what they see as bureaucracy drowning us all in a king-tide of forms and procedures. One writer suggested that if he wrote an article taking the banks to task it would be censured immediately. The cynics cry fraud and imply that companies go into liquidation in order to emerge later under another company label. Of course, none of this helps the family of five in question.

Immaterial what one might think or believe, frustrated to her extreme, Mme Dubosts notified 79 news outlets and the local authorities of her intentions.

There was a news conference at the church with official visits in the nave.

Eventually, she managed to have an interview with the préfet de l’Aude who has promised to look into the file or dossier on this shamefully prolonged affair.

Noted too that the doors of Saint Vincent’s bell-tower have been securely locked.

We await a favourable outcome or more will surely follow.

Chris Elliott is the author of ‘The Lost Railway Lines of l’Hérault’ and joint author of ‘Night Ferry 1936 – 1980 ** 11

Wine Times

Rosemary George

Vinisud and the 2013 vintage

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Rosemary George Rosemary George was lured into the wine trade by a glass of the Wine Society’s champagne at a job interview and subsequently became one of the first women to become a Master of Wine, back in 1979.

She has been a freelance wine writer since 1981 and is the author of eleven books. Both her first and last books were both about Chablis. Others include The Wines of New Zealand, two books on Tuscany, the most recent being Treading Grapes; Walking through the Vineyards of Tuscany, as well as The Wines of the South of France which covers the vineyards between from Banyuls and Bellet, from the Spanish to the Italian border, and also Corsica.

She also contributes to various magazines such as Decanter, India Sommelier, www.zesterdaily.com and writes a blog on the Languedoc: www tastelanguedoc.blogspot.com

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he bi-annual wine fair, Vinisud, which takes place in Montpellier, is a brilliant showcase of for the viticulture wealth of the Mediterranean. I remember the very first Vinisud, back in 1994 when it filled just one hall of the exhibition centre. These days there are eight bulging halls, and it covers the wines of all the countries of the Mediterranean, as well as places such as South West France and parts of Spain that do not have a Mediterranean seaboard. If time permitted, you could explore Crete, the Lebanon, Portugal and Morocco as well as most of Italy and Spain. However, it really does concentrate on Languedoc-Roussillon, and also Provence, and that is where I stayed, revisiting old friends and making some new discoveries.

Amongst the new discoveries I include Domaine de Fabrègues in Aspiran with some rich flavoursome red wines. In Pic St. Loup there was Bergerie du Capucin, with a delicious red Dame Jeanne 2012, with some rounded fruit. Guilhem Viau is also very enthusiastic about the white wines of Pic St. Loup and he makes three, Les Cents Pas, Chardonnay, which is light and fresh and Les Cents Pas Viognier which is ripe and peachy, while his Pays du Val de Montferrand is a blend of the two varieties, with a little more depth. And among the old friends was an elegant Pinot Noir from Domaine Mouscaillo in Limoux. Pierre and Marie-Claire Fort have just clocked up ten years of wine making. Patricia Domergue was showing a range of older vintages of Clos Centeilles, showing just how well the Minervois can age. And I enjoyed more recent vintages from Château la Baronne in the Corbières.

Paul Lignières echoed the sentiments of most of the vignerons of the Languedoc when he enthused about the 2013 vintage. It may not

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have been the easiest of vintages; the spring was slow to come and the weather during flowering was not ideal, resulting in coulure for the Grenache, when the berries do not develop properly, resulting in a much smaller crop than usual. Also the harvest was much later than usual, entailing some nail-biting about the weather – would it hold, or would it not? And it did. The 2013s that I tasted at the fair were mostly vat and barrel samples, that were about to be bottled. And generally the wines were showing delicious fruit with supple tannins. Domaine de Familongue in St. André de Sangonis had a lovely pair of Cinsaut and Carignan. The Cinsaut has fresh cherry fruit, with a touch of spice and the Carignan is a touch more solid with some red berry fruit.

Gavin Crisfield’s 2013 La Traversée Cinsaut is to die for, and virtually sold out before bottling. The St. Georges d’Orques stand, with a group of twelve wine growers, was showing several 2013s. Domaine la Prose’s Cadières had some lovely ripe cherry fruit; Thierry Hasard’s Della Francesca was quite structured, with elegant concentration.

However, the Comité des Vin du Languedoc which works hard to promote the wines of the Languedoc is very aware that the Languedoc risks being tarred by the bad 2013 vintage of more prestigious areas such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhone Valley. These are regions where the weather really was not kind in 2103, resulting in severe problems of rain, rot and hail. So the CIVL has produced an eye-catching badge saying: Millésime 2013 en Languedoc - 320 jours de soleil comme nulle part ailleurs! Please spread the word said my friend Christine, from the CIVL, so I am.

Rosemary George M.W www.tastelanguedocblogspot.com

The Soul of Wine

T

he tasting of a wine necessitates the use of three senses: firstly visual, followed by smell and finally taste.

Smell is the richest of the senses: a trained professional can recognize up to 10 000 different fragrances. It is the sense most intimately linked to memory and language.

The description of the aromas of a wine uses an evocative or comparative vocabulary: pepper, blackberry, humus, liquorice, chocolate… an impressionistic description to try to communicate the profile of a wine.

This sensual intimacy and the fact that it can never be totally encapsulated explains the long relationship of wine with the arts.

A 5000 year old engraved stone shows the royal couple of Ur celebrating a victory, a cup in hand. If drawing, sculpture and literature evoke wine, it is music, destined for a sensory organ useless for the tasting of wine, which is the closest to it.

Linked to the joy of being together, to solemn or lighthearted celebration, wine and song go hand in hand with opera or in the guardhouses. Wine cements friendships and lovers and veils traitors. In Les Huguenots by Meyerbeer, a glass of wine from the Loire temporarily seals the friendship between Catholics and Protestants. Berlioz, in Damnation de Faust, describes two cardinal emotions: joy and nostalgia: “Buvons, trinquons et qu’un joyeux refrain nous mette en train! » sing the students seated at the cabaret Dieu Bacchus. Magueritte, who begins the poignant and superb song about nostalgia: Il était un roi de Thulé Qui, jusqu’à la tombe fidèle, Eut, en souvenir de sa belle, Just think of the intimate link between music and wine as something fleeting: the ephemeral and marvelous moment of the harmony of one note or aroma which touches our core. Michel Onfray describes it thus: “The time for wine is also the time for music, transitory and destined to bear into the soul leaving traces, memories and accounts”. Is the research carried out by a Bordeaux château - the Château Palmer – what inspired internationally acclaimed jazz drummer Daniel Humair to go to such lengths to interpret in music the 2013 vintage? But what is it really about? To talk about a great wine through music? To find a correlation between the language of music and of wine? Does the emotion of listening resemble that of the taste buds?

In the wine growing regions, music, in all its forms, is a way of celebrating wine. At the heart of a land renowned for its wine

Laurence Turetti

and for its sparkling wine, Limoux is a town where music has an important role.

Popular, the music of the carnival resounds over 3 months in the centre. Then begins the festival season. Every last weekend of April, jazz is honoured through the Cuivrée Spéciale (Festival of Brass Bands).

Internationally acclaimed artists perform there in a friendly atmosphere. This year, the Australian trumpeter James Morrison is heading the festival. Wine is also honoured there: the cave of Anne de Joyeuse and Antech are the sponsors and have baptized their vintages with musical names, Social Club, Emotion, to be sampled during the intervals. This is an opportunity to revisit, with wines, an extract from French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, ‘A Rebours’ (‘Against Nature’), dedicated to the character of liqueur and brass instruments: “Indeed, each liqueur corresponded, so he held, with the sound of a particular instrument. Dry curaçao, for example, was like the clarinet with its shrill, velvety note: kummel like the oboe, whose timbre is sonorous and nasal; crème de menthe and anisette like the flute, at one and the same time sweet and poignant, whining and soft. Then, to complete the orchestra, comes kirsch, blowing a wild trumpet blast; gin and whisky, deafening the palate with their harsh outbursts of comets and trombones; liqueur brandy, blaring with the overwhelming crash of the tubas, while the thunder pearl of the cymbals and the big drum, beaten might and main, are reproduced by the rakis of the Chios and the mastics.” (translated by Robert Baldick) Finally, wine is not without a voice. From the time of pruning during the cold winter days, every wine grower I know tells me “talk to the bare stumps” as a way to describe the observation of the tendrils, the attention he gives them, the waiting, between each annual meeting, and the silent secrets. In September, in the barrels, the fermenting wine murmurs and sings… cultivating the vine is after all a dialogue between man and nature from where emotion is born. We have looked for vintages which more obviously than others demonstrate the link between wine and music.

Firstly, the Cuvée Allégro from Domaine Ollier-Taillefer in Faugères. In an area known particularly for its red wines, this lively, fresh wine is, according to Françoise Ollier, taken from the gaiety of a bossa nova.

The grape varieties Roussanne and Vermentino, samba and jazz, blend together in an accord of floral and white-fleshed fruit www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Laurence Turetti Laurence Turetti is a historian who has a ph.D. from the University of Metz. Born in the Aude into a family of vignerons, she returned to her home more than ten years ago.

Head of a wine boutique in the centre of Limoux, l’Atelier des Vignerons, she continues her search of discovery across Languedoc-Roussillon for the pearls of the vineyards. notes. Next, Coté Cabardès, the ‘Blue Note’ of Domaine de Cabrol, has seduced us. It is a wine born from jazzy notes floating out of a barge moored on the L’lll quay at Strasbourg. Fruity, rounded and informal, perfect for addressing the night and infinite conversations, this young wine from the Domaine de Cabrol is an unrepentant party-animal that has trouble staying still.

We love it also for that: its unpredictability.

Last February 19th, two Audois parliamentarians, Roland Courteau and Marcel Rainaud, had a decisive sentence written into the bill on agricultural modernisation: “Wine and vineyards form an important part of the cultural, gastronomic and landscape of France”. Indeed, along with the arts, drunk with discernment does wine not enchant the soul, making us sometimes forget and sometimes feel the ephemeral nature of time?

Address Book: Domaine Ollier-Taillefer, 34 320 Fos, 04-67-90-24-59 Domaine de Cabrol, 11600 Aragon, 04 68 77 19 06 Anne de Joyeuse, 11300 Limoux, 04 68 74 79 40 Antech, 11300 Limoux, 04 68 31 15 88 L’Atelier des Vignerons, 11300 Limoux, 04 68 20 12 42 www.languedocwineshop.com Festival Cuivrée Spéciale : www.cuivreespeciale.fr

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“Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams” text:Tim King 2014

I

t is Lodève’s best-kept secret. Tucked out of sight up the hill behind the unsightly Super-U and charmless new commercial centre is a more successful example of modern architecture – the Savonnerie. A confusing name – the building opened in 1990 has nothing to do with soap. It refers to a style of carpet brought to perfection in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV and given a new lease of life in Lodève.

The workshop can be visited every Thursday and Friday. You start with a 15-minute film about a uniquely French institution: the Mobilier national – a department of the Ministry of Culture providing priceless antique furniture for France’s official buildings – the palaces used by the president, the prime minister’s Hotel Matignon, but also countless other ministries, prefectures and embassies around the world.

The Savonnerie in Lodève is a remote outpost of the Mobilier national. Purpose built for making carpets, the workshop is light, airy, relaxed. A dozen weavers work at looms which rise like a wall of wool in front of them. For the specificity of this technique of carpet-making is a vertical loom, towering over the weaver. Each loom is lit by wide windows and skylights. Each weaver sits with their back to the light, passing the shuttle between the taut rows of warps to tie one knot at a time – 16 knots per square centimetre for some carpets.

But it’s the weavers themselves who caught my attention, for they are the reason the Savonnerie came to Lodève 50 years ago. In 1962 France had just lost a bitter, bloody 8 year civil war in Algeria. 900,000 French colonials fled the newly independent country, arriving like refugees in France, where the government was completely unprepared for them. Those Algerians who had sided with them – the harkis – were being slaughtered by their victorious compatriots – 91,000 managed to find a passage out. But

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they weren’t welcome in France either. They were placed in camps. Work was found for the younger, fitter men – but the women?

Mostly illiterate, the only things they knew were raising children, cooking – and weaving wool carpets. A North African tradition.

Lodève also had long experience of working with wool. In particular manufacturing the coarse cloth, drap, used for the uniforms of Napoleon’s soldiers. Practical if you’re invading Russia, but by the 20th century no soldier would be seen dead in it. Lodève slid rapidly and ungracefully into decline.

In 1962, since the government was offering money to any town willing to accommodate the luckless, homeless harkis, Lodève’s mayor offered to house 60 families. Since the Algerian mothers made carpets, they were set up in the long-abandoned drap works.

But the market for Algerian-style carpets was limited. In desperation, the mayor persuaded De Gaulle’s Minister of Culture to take them under his wing and thus 50 mostly illiterate Arab-speaking women became part of the highly prestigious, deeply French Mobilier national.

The Minister of Culture was André Malraux – novelist, art theorist and resistance hero. 50 years ago he made a crucial decision which affects everything you see today at the Savonnerie. Instead of churning out museum-ready copies of 17th century carpets, Malraux wanted something alive, vital.

So he decreed the new workshop in Lodève would create carpets based on works of contemporary art. Not for sale, they would decorate all those palaces, ministries, prefectures and foreign embassies we saw in the film, reflecting with Gaullian grandeur France’s greater glory.

However, Malraux had overlooked an important detail: although north African and Savonnerie carpets are both made with traditional skills, they are not the same traditional skills. Never mind, the newly arrived ex-Algerians in Lodève can be taught. But they couldn’t read. They didn’t even speak French. So French colonials who had worked in Algerian carpet-factories were brought in to train the women – once they themselves had been taught the Savonnerie technique. The Lodève experiment remains a classic example of the Frenchification of a group of immigrants.

The Herault & Aude Times

Some of the weavers you see today are the daughters or grand-daughters of the original Algerians, but most are not. Craftsmen working for the staterun Mobilier national are fonctionnaires. You cannot be a fonctionnaire unless you are French. You also have to pass a national, competitive exam – after several years training. Clearly that ruled out the Arab-speaking mothers newly arrived at Lodève. Over 20 years, the original Algerian women were phased out and replaced by weav-

ers who had completed their 4 years training in Paris and passed the difficult concours. The social fabric of the Savonnerie changed, creating different problems. The weavers mostly work in pairs, sitting side by side, hour after hour. A carpet based on a contemporary painting will take four or five years to make. 17th century style carpets take ten.

That’s a long time to be locked together, day after day, and it’s not easy, when there are only a dozen weavers, to find someone compatible.

La Savonnerie is unlike anything else you will visit. The carpet you watch edging its way into the world will cost well over half a million in wages alone. Far more than the value of the painting on which it is based. A wonderful French paradox – to be walked over in some distant embassy.

During the visit you will watch the weavers passing the shuttle, counting the knots, checking the regularity of their lines. But it’s not a mindless, repetitive occupation. To their right a copy of the painting they are re-creating in wool. They work closely with the artist, together choosing exactly the right colour for each line of the carpet. They have 28,000 shades to choose from. Using a photograph of the painting, enlarged to the size of the future carpet, perhaps 3 metres by 2½, the weaver draws the artist’s design on her warps – a combination of mathematics and graphic skill – which is then her pattern. She works for an hour in full concentration, walks around, comes back, works again. The workshop feels like an artist’s studio, for that is exactly what the weavers are. They are not copying a painting, they are creating a carpet. www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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G T B Y

Pierre-Marie Carré Archbishop of Montpellier and the Hérault €10,800 per year Income: Hours / week: Difficult to quantify Short visits to my Holidays: family. Or else here, reflecting.

Name: Occupation:

Good To Be Young

WRITTEN BY YOUNG JOURNALISTS

Young journalist Theo King’s column ‘My Way’.

Interviews with professionals about how they got to where they are today, the reward

Monseigneur Pierre-Marie Carré

Roman Catholic bishop Born in Serques, 25km from Calais, 1947

Up to 18:

W

hen I was 8 or 9 years old I often thought about becoming a priest.

Not every day, but I had a deep desire. Then after the baccalaureate I had to decide. My parents said simply “Chose well – if you’re happy we’ll be happy for you.” So I entered Le Grand Seminaire at Bordeaux, to prepare myself to become a priest.

Studying: 18 to 25

I

t’s a 6 year training. The first two years are mainly philosophical studies. Then for the next 4 years you concentrate on the Bible and theology while also spending time in parishes to discover what a priest’s life is really about. During my training I did my military service, so I was 27 before I became a priest. There were certainly other things I could have done, several times I had to chose – shall I continue on this track or do something else? But each time I thought if I don’t become a priest I’ll miss out on something which is important for me.

Most priests go straight into a parish after their ordination, but the bishop asked me whether I would like to prolong my studies. I didn’t realise at the time he wanted me to be a teacher. He sent me to Rome,

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where I did 4 years of specialised theology and Biblical studies. When I came back I was appointed as a teacher at the Bordeaux Grand Seminaire. I taught there for 3 years and then was asked to become director of the Poitiers seminaire. I spent 9 years at Poitiers teaching and managing the other teachers. Then I was asked to become director of the Bordeaux seminaire.

After another 4 years I told my bishop I didn’t want to spend all my life teaching. I was 46, I’d been a priest 19 years and all that time I’d been either studying or teaching. So the bishop made me curé at Agen and vicaire episcopal, then 2 years later vicaire generale – his helper and deputy.

That lasted 5 years. In 2000, when I was 53, I was appointed archbishop of Albi. Bishops are always appointed by the pope. The age limit is 75, so usually being a bishop is the end of the road. But ten years later, in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed me to Montpellier. In France as a bishop you have to be willing to move quite a lot.

The job:

T

he bishop is the person who coordinates Christian life in each département – the celebration of the sacrament is one of his responsibilities. His first collaborators are the priests in the parishes. I meet them frequently. Pastoral visits are another responsibility – a bishop has to tour his département every 5 years. I go into Catholic schools, I visit old people’s homes, I meet people preparing for confirmation, I talk to those who look after the ill or run Secours Catholiques and other charities.

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The days are very full.

And then each bishop works with all the other bishops. A few months ago the Conférence des éveques de France elected me their vice-president and that takes 20% of my time. Once a month I spend two days in Paris reflecting on issues affecting France and preparing statements for the press – the other bishops expect us to be their spokesmen. Then twice a year we have a meeting of all the bishops. These also have to be prepared with a lot of thought and care.

Some bishops are sent to Rome for a particular responsibility and that is also my case. I go once a year to discuss the New Evangelisation with other bishops from around the world.

Then this autumn the president of each country’s bishops will go to a Synod in Rome. That entails a lot of preparatory work, with parishioners filling in questionnaires. The theme is the family. Then each bishop sends in a summary and from those I have been asked to write the report on France. So any free time I had in January I worked on that – editing 2,000 pages down to 25. So it’s very varied and I wear several hats. And of course I still celebrate Mass – this Saturday I’m going to Castries and on Sunday I’m in Vendargues.

We are not paid by the State, nor by the Vatican. We live off the gifts given by the faithful. Sometimes people say the Vatican supports us, but it’s not true. The Catholics around the world pay for Rome. (cont)

Ostrich farming began in the 19th century in South

Africa to satisfy a growing European demand for their attractive feathers in fashion. This year Ostrich feathers are set to make a glamorous return to the Paris fashion scene. Richard Fowler recently returned from South Africa where he discovered he is from a family of Irish immigrant Ostrich farmers

ds and the frustrations.

The best moments

When I see a happy, balanced Catholic doing good things, at ease with themselves, a credit to their faith. Also when I see someone develop: at Albi there was a boy of 14 who helped me. Later I confirmed him, and then a few years years later he told me he was thinking of becoming a priest. Now, in a few months, he will be.

And the worst

Difficulties, conflicts between people – someone angry with their priest, for example. You have to try to resolve very human problems, listening to both sides. It’s never simple, there’s never an ideal solution.

That, for me, is the worst.

What are the qualities you need to be a good bishop?

The first quality is to be a man of faith. A believer, a man with hope. Then it’s important to be good with people. You need to have the capacity to work, to be organised.

The future

Last year I launched a project for the département: “Mission Fraternité”. “Love one another – by this shall all men know you are my disciples.” This brotherly love we are asked to live by, it’s not just getting on with certain people, it’s discovering our brothers. Fraternity. It’s also part of the Republican motto, but unfortunately it’s something we don’t talk much about.

Ostrich farming began in the 19th century in South Africa to satisfy a growing European demand in their attractive feathers in fashion. This year Ostrich feathers are set to make a glamorous return to the Paris fashion scene. Richard Fowler recently returned from South Africa where he discovered he is from a family of Irish immigrant Ostrich farmers Tramping round a graveyard in flip flops at 40°C was one of my most painful experiences. In fact there were at least five Oudtshorn graveyards. Painful because in their unkempt state one had an overall cover of extremely prickly burrs which neatly fell between the sole and my bare foot. I managed very slowly to get from one tombstone to another cleaning my feet off, standing on one leg, hoping the occupants would forgive my bad manners.

My mother was orphaned aged three, first her mother died in 1923, followed by her father in 1927. Her family arrived in Table Bay from Ireland on the 7th May 1859 on the ”Wellington” and had made the journey over the Outeniqua Mountain Range, from George on the Eastern Cape, the 60kms to Oudtshorn. The pass alone took four days with eight oxen pulling a cart with all their belongings. Later in 1914 an amazing railway was completed carrying yellow-wood timber for house building and the valuable ostrich feathers back out to the frenetic world market.

The family legend is that the Gavins lit cigars with 20 rand notes. Probably not that often!

Isaac Gavin bought land at Welbedacht to settle his six sons and three daughters.

It had previously grown vines but the Gavins pioneered water conservation irwww.theheraultandaudetimes.com

rigating Lucerne to raise ostriches. A report in a “Grazier’s” journal found in the CPN el Museum Archives at Oudtshorn says that Richard Gavin had an “Oudtshorn Strain” flock of 450 ostriches. There were seven sets of breeding birds each on ½ a morgen. They built three nests a year making 30 chicks.

Of 350 morgen, 75 were Lucerne with 6-7 irrigations a year. Quills were never drawn from mid April to the end of July: Winter. This was all done himself plus four natives “of whom there was a plentiful supply”.

He bought an imported bull for his Shorthorn cattle which came by rail and road 6½miles from town; along with 4000lbs of Lucerne seed at a shilling a pound!

When you approach Outshone, across a barren desert area and arrive at the Little Karoo Plain it’s easy to imagine them thinking they were finding the Promised Land.

However the 200mm rain fall makes it a hard place and irrigation water scarce. Scanning the legal files on the internet there seem to have been several scuffles with the neighbours over water rights.

We found several of the Gavin homes, mostly unaltered since their construction in the area’s sandstone, tin roofs and Dutch style.

Greylands is a magnificent example of the many “feather palaces” built on the strength of the boom which ended suddenly when feather hats were impossible to wear in motor cars.

Oudtshorn itself remains a beautiful country town, still in the ostrich business, but now allied to the fat free ostrich meat market, leather products from the skins and, of course a few feather dusters!

Image: Gareth Pugh, Paris spring 2014 17

THE DAY THE TALL SHIPS CAME IN ESCALE À SÉTE 15-21 APRIL

By Patricia Ford

B

eginning April 15 thousands of spectators will be unable to resist the call of the siren as they are lured to the ‘Île Singulière’ for Escale à Sète a biennial festival of maritime traditions.It is possibly the most seductive festival of its kind anywhere, given Sète’s natural charm, beauty, deep-rooted nautical culture and its status as the Mediterranean’s major fishing port. ‘Escale’, by the way means stopover, and the tall ships will grace the port for six days, weighing anchor at the end of the Easter weekend.

On April 15 the majestic Sedov and Kruzenshtern (both Russian and the world’s largest sailing ships) will billow into port, followed three days later by a flotilla of more than 100 vessels from seafaring nations that include Scotland and Ireland. Windjammers, three- and four-masted schooners, steamships, trawlers...will line every quay in the heart of town and welcome visitors aboard. Music, parades, guided tours, food, art exhibitions, children’s treasure hunts and more will provide entertainment on dry land, all with a decidedly nautical air.At night the town will be ablaze with the ships’ lights.

In 2012 Escale à Sète attracted an unprecedented 200,000 spectators, far exceeding the expectations of the organisers and restaurateurs alike. As a result, the unthinkable happened: for what must be the first time in history, Sète ran out of food! As for ‘shuttle diplomacy’, one foreign ambassa dor, trapped in a traffic jam, missed seeing his country’s shipsail in. This year the town is well prepared. According to a spokesper18

Out of the mists of time they came Topsails flying high True sirens of the sea...

son, shuttles will take visitors from parking lots into the town centre, while Escale à Assiette, with 50 participating restaurants and food stands, should provide enough sustenance for the entire French Navy. How many visitors are expected? That is anyone’s guess, but estimates are well in excess of 2012 numbers.

The festival’s success owes much to afleet of volunteers or ‘bénévoles’ commanded

by Wolfgang Idiri, the Festival’s director.

When the call for ‘all hands on deck’ is issued, volunteers are assigned a variety of tasks as varied as meeting and greeting visitors to checking tickets. I enlisted along with members of a Sète association (AGLR) and the work was fun and rewarding. Not only did we gain a unique insider’s view on the complex logistics of organising a major festival, but mingling with the local community and meeting people from many parts of the world was well worth every minute.

Esscapades à Sète The Town of Sète offers has organised a breathtaking calendar of entertainment and events in which more than 700 artists, athletes and professionals from the maritime world will participate. A sampling: • When My Ship Comes In there will be a grand parade of boat crews from Ireland, Scotland, France, Japan, Indian Ocean naThe Herault & Aude Times

tions, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Spain, and Russia • Water Jousting visitors will be entertained royally by a sport which was staged in 1666 to honour Louis XIV on his visit to Sète. The ‘Sun King’ had created the town to allow

ships passage to the south of France bearing his treasures, wine and food • Let Them Eat Cake? Not this time around:renowned chefs will share secrets of preparing seafood; visit the Town centre village éscale in Les Halles (covered market); and a participating restaurant in Escale à Assiette will never be far away • Let The Music Play It will! The whole town will sway to the sound of Irish sea shanties and nautical music from 30 groups playing in every available corner.

• A Learning Experience from experts in a number of maritime professions including environmentalists • Child’s Play Barberousette’s Treasure Hunt and study groups • Arts & Culture Exhibitions of paintings, photographs and models

The Castelnaudary Hotpot - Cassoulet Castelnaudary (From the Occitan Castèlnou d’Arri)

Population: approx. 12,000 (Inhabitants referred to as: Chauriens) Castelnaudary is the main port of the Canal du Midi; the Grand Bassin is the largest area of open water in the canal

S Escale Bleu SOS! (Save Our Seas)Escale Bleu’s experts will educate festival goers on the challenges and solutions of protecting the environment. Among them, guest of honour Maud Fontenoy will focus on raising awareness among school children about the importance of clean seas. Fontenoy has established a foundation dedicated to this end and holds the Ordre national du mérite (French Order of Merit) among several other titles. Having rowed across the Atlantic and Pacific and sailed solo around the Antarctic she is quite an expert.

As you can see, Escale à Sète is just the tip of the iceberg for the Île Singulière. And so for now, Anchors Aweigh!

ynonymous with the Canal du Midi and characters such as Simon de Montfort and the Black Prince, Castelnaudry is also a major center for the production of cassoulet.

The word cassoulet derives from the earthenware casserole it is cooked in, produced by the local potteries from Issel, a village in the vicinity of Castelnaudary.

The life of this famous bean stew begins in Castelnaudary.

The cassoulet of Castelnaudary is possibly the oldest of the three cassoulets, the other two being from Carcassonne and Toulouse. The Castelnaudary version is the most rustic, using only local water and the produce of the Lauragais. In the past the cassoulet would be simmered in a cauldron over an open hearth fire of gorse wood collected in the Montagne Noire of the region.

During hunting season several red partridges and some lamb shoulder or leg are added to the haricot beans. In the 19th century Anatole France described the dish as having a “taste, which one finds in the paintings of old Venetian masters, in the amber flesh tints of their women.”

As well as the long cooking and preparation time needed to create an authentic cassoulet, no dish is complete without knowing about the ‘secret of the seven skins’: a film develops over the cassoulet while it cooks. This skin or film must be broken seven times to make a perfect cassoulet.

Like phantoms of the past they flew Light as the ocean spray A wonder to behold they were As they sailed upon their way.

For a detailed calendar of events, please refer to Escale à Sète’s website: www.escaleasete.com ** www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

19

www.lerabling.org

HT Life Style in partnership with

Lerab Ling Buddhist Centre

How STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION Rolfing-body work can help us stay youthful and healthy

F

or tens of thousands of years our ancestors evolved to adapt to all climates, all terrains, from the hottest deserts to the coldest arctic, from rain forests to tundra, from the seas to the highest mountains. Their world was continuous and unchanging over many generations.

But recently all that changed. Our bodies have not quite caught up with our rap idly changing world.

Today we can know other places, other times and interact with the other side of the world instantaneously, simply by looking at our telephone, com puter or TV screen. Many of us sit for hours at a time, day after day, moving our bodies very little. We sit again when driving, then we walk on flat concrete surfaces in man made surroundings devoid of the natural world. We are moving away from our inborn easeful balance with gravity.

Yet we spend our whole life in gravity. So when we go out of line with it, our bodies become stressed and fixed.

We begin to lose our INTEGRATION. Muscles and joints stiffen and pain us.

Movement is restricted and becomes a problem. We feel aches and pains and inflexibility, or we can become dull

ECIGARETTES BETTER OR WORSE? 20

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and unfeeling. Our minds can become stressed with too much mental activity, with too much thinking. The great creative resource of stillness and contemplative thought are no longer with us. We recall our early childhood; unrestrained flexibility, the joy of movement, and careless fun, when our bodies were relaxed and our minds were at ease. And we feel the need to change, to return to how we once were.

RAPID YOGA® The connective tissue, the fascia is everywhere in the body and IS the structure of the body, containing the whole person within flexible fibrous compartments. It surrounds the bones, the muscles, the organs, heart and brain. It connects them all through the life giving movement of blood, lymph, the nervous system and the cerebral spinal fluid.

How can we help ourselves, our connective tissue, to realign with gravity? We could make the decision to move more, walk, go places, do things, exercise (remember exercise?) and find the balance between movement and stillness through yoga, stretching and meditation. We can also get the fast track help of Structural Integration body-work, first developed by Dr. Ida Rolf, which I sometimes call RAPID YOGA This deep connective tissue work typically re-aligns the body in gravity over a series of sessions. The knowing, “seeing” hands of a well trained practitioner can give length and flexibility back to the body’s fascia. As tensions in joints and muscles release we feel younger and more at ease. With more balance in the body, a sense of INNER SPACE returns, allowing the mind to become more spacious and therefore more adaptable to today’s rapidly changing world.

Some years ago I found these two photos of THE OLD WORLD and THE NEW WORLD, The 80 year old Italian woman demonstrates healthy balance in gravity while the young Japanese man demonstrates slavery to fashion and loss of inner strength.

Born in England, Barry Beckett qualified at The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration (RISI) in 1993 in Boulder Colorado. He is a teacher and cofounder of a Center for Osteopathy and Rolfing in Berlin, and of the Centre d’Ostéopathie et d’Integration Structurelle in Lodève. Contact: motionpresent@gmail.com

ccording to a recent survey carried out by the University of San Francisco, there is no evidence that ‘vaping’ is the best method for giving up or reducing tobacco consumption.

-Liquid is more toxic that nicotine. Neurotoxines. In terms of the risk of poisoning, the e-liquid used in electronic cigarettes is more dangerous than tobacco because it is more rapidly ab-

sorbed, even in weaker concentration. It contains neurotoxins which can provoke nausea, illness and in extreme cases can be fatal. In fact, less than a teaspoon of the e-liquid can be fatal for a child and less than a dessert spoon for an adult.....makes you wonder doesn’t it?

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www.lerabling.org

HT Life Style in partnership with

Lerab Ling Buddhist Centre Maggie’s Column Contact Maggie on maggie@maggieminter.co.uk

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Relationships!

elationships are the structure on which we build our lives but they are very complex. We know how we feel but we don’t always understand why we feel the way we do. Most romantic relationships however, follow a pattern of stages, starting with the initial Attraction. If we’re able to understand which phase we are in, we may be able to do something positive to make our lives together happier.

Attraction: This is the initial physical attraction to another person. It’s amazing, your skin tingles; it feels like magic. It’s wonderful: but unfortunately it doesn’t last.

Appreciation: After a period, feelings start to change. The intensity of the initial attraction wanes as you begin to understand each other at a deeper level; what makes the other tick. You start to appreciate each other for who you are and the partnership begins to get more real. This can be a very rewarding period.

Habituation: As time goes by you begin to get used to each other. Life takes over.

Jobs, children, family, and the relationship takes a back seat. This can be a positive phase as it makes couples move towards a deep connection and understanding of each other. This is where we aim to be to have a long-lasting partnership.

Expectation: What can happen next is we begin to take each other for granted.

Needs are not met and communication becomes difficult. This is where we need

to look at working on the relationship by going back to the initial three stages now and again to keep it fresh and alive.

Disillusionment: If couples stay in the Expectation stage too long, things can start to go wrong; they become disillusioned and unhappy. Some couples can stay in this phase for a long and unhealthy period of time before they reach the next point.

Threshold Reached: ‘I can’t take any more’! It becomes impossible to communicate with each other and neither party wants to put in any more effort. Enough is enough!

Verification: It then becomes easy to look for the things that aren’t working – and to find them, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Separation: Until there is nowhere else to go and the only solution seems to be to get out altogether. It’s the end.

For those couples who can work together during the Habituation phase, a very healthy union blossoms. Many couples stay here for a lifetime. Even if the relationship has begun to fall into Expectation, and perhaps further down the stages, it’s possible to identify what needs to happen to get back on track.

For some it will be too late – for others an amazing transformation can take place and the partnership can be saved and remain happy and fulfilled for the rest of their lives.

If you would like to receive a pictorial

The Heart of the Matter British Heart specialists in partnership with Cambridge University have created a new method of calculating cardiac age accessible to the public via the internet.

Knowing the ‘real’ age of the heart is key…

In March this year joint British medical societies published their recommendations for evaluating the age of a heart using a calculator on-line which allows users to help predict the risk of cardiovascular related illness.

The biological age of a heart is not sufficient for assessing the impact of certain factors that may lead to cardiovascular problems (smoking, high cholesterol, etc.) later in life. If the age of the heart is not better assessed to include these kinds of factors based on an individual’s lifestyle and general health, the numerous preventative measures that could have helped to prevent issues remain ignored.

The JBS3 calculator evaluates different factors in order to calculate the cardiac age: age, ethnic origin, tobacco intake, cholesterol, personal and family medical history… With these elements it not only calculates the age of the heart but also the risk of an AVC or a heart attack within 10 years. www.jbs3risk.com/JBS3Risk.swf representation of the Relationship stages, feel free to email me.

I am a personal coach and hypnotherapist: If you wish to contact me personally to discuss any issues, please email: maggie@maggieminter.co.uk

Pill Popping According to an official report conducted by France’s Agence de Sécurité de Medicament (ANSM), the French take an average of 48 boxes of medication each year, that’s approximately 3 billion pills. The top sellers are painkillers, psychotropics (mood enhancers) and antibiotics.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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The Music Page - In partnership with:

‘Family Trees’ RichardOn Pullen Music

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his month I am starting off the column with a new release that is certainly my favourite of the month and which may turn out to be the best album of 2014 - itʼs Zara Mcfarlaneʼs “ If You Knew Her “ on Brownswood Recordings(There is a link to a recent family tree here as the best track on the album is a jazzy “ Police and Thieves” written by Junior Murvin whose passing we noted in the February “ HAT” ) Zara is a 30 year old londoner who has been championed by the broadcaster and DJ , Gilles Peterson.

Sheʼs a Guildhall School of Music graduate and her family tree includes such names as Denys Baptiste ( lovely rendition of Stevieʼs “Have a Talk With God” in 1999 on Youtube) and Nicola Conte who is Italyʼs answer to Mark Ronson in terms of style and latin good looks but whose loungey brand of bossa nova and collaborations with Thievery Corporation make him utterly and achingly cool (“Bossa Per Due” and “Take Five” can be found on Youtube to give you a flavour ) Zara sang with him at Ronnie Scottʼs at the end of January where our London Family Trees correspondent , Mick OʼSullivan, declared the result to be “sublime”.

I have been out and about on the concert front and at Sortie Ouest in Béziers ( www.sortieouest.fr) we saw Zé Luis who is from Cape Verde , 500 km off the coast of West Africa , and who at the age of 60 has just released his first album “ Serenata”. His emotional and honest voice brought a smile to everybodyʼs lips and a general feeling of warmth and wellbeing in the packed big top .

By contrast something which got La Salle Bleu at the Théâtre de Narbonne (www.letheatre-narbonne.com) rocking was a free concert put on by the professors at the Conservatoire du Grand Narbonne (www.legrandnarbonne.com) celebrating the music of Thelonious Monk they called themselves “Monktet”. As you know Mr Monk could be quite difficult but these guys were absolutely brilliant and , despite all looking like my music teacher from Bushey Grammar School in 1970 , they brought the house down -The

audience is generally made up of parents with their music student kids who scream like Shea Stadium Beatles fans when their particular professor finishes his solo but I can tell you wihout any hesitation that their interpretation of “ Round Midnight “ brought a reverential peace to that hall and was the most beautiful ten minutes of live music I have heard in a while . Look up the programme on the Narbonne site ; these gigs are free and called “ Les Jeudis du Conservatoire”.

A concert in May which you should not miss is Cécile McLorin Salvant ( 17 May at 21hrs Sortie Ouest address above ) - Cécile hails from Florida originally but with a French mother and a Haitian father she is comfortable singing in three languages - she is another product of the Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition in New York( Sortie Ouest are having their own family trees booking policy I think as KellyLee Evans and Robin McKelle are also past winners of that competition !) and Cécile has collaborated with many including Archie Shepp and the fabulous Wynton Marsalis - I am hoping to interview her for our HAT website but check out her own site www.cecilemclorinsalvant.com and listen to “Womanchild” from the new album .

Happy listening …... **

Swedish House Hunter Your help in nding your french home in Languedoc.

www@husilanguedoc.se

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For a Calendar of events in English visit : www. theheraultandaudetimes.com

Trois Soeurs 23 rue des chevaliers de st Jean 341 20 PEZENAS

Gunnar Björk/Ulrika Björk Scandinavian furniture, tableware and decor. www.troissoeurs.com

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What’s In a name?

Sue Hicks looks into history through Street names.

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here was once a man who ordered and ate a meal at an inn knowing that he could not pay the bill. He openly took three small packets and wrote ‘poison for the king’ on one, ‘poison for the queen’ on another and ‘poison for the dauphin’ on the third. The inn keeper has the man arrested as a regicide. Taken to Paris free of charge, the trickster so entertains the king with the story that he is invited to dine. Clearly the French still delight in the tale told by Rabelais and the expression Le quart d’heure de Rabelais now refers to disagreeable moments of reckoning.

Francois Rabelais was born circa 1494 and lived through one of the most exciting periods of European intellectual activity.

Francois I as king of France (1515-1547) and Henry VIII (1509-1547) as king of England were both great patrons of the arts. Developments in printing which meant the greater accessibility of written materials, the renaissance of interest in the Greek and Roman worlds, and the challenges made to the Christian church (most notably by “I GO TO SEEK A Martin Luther) lead many to question and rethink the underlying premises of human life. Details of the life of Rabelais are sketchy, myths surround him and his writings are sometimes interpreted as autobiographical. He was first a Franciscan and then Benedictine monk, leaving without proper permission to study medicine in Lyon and Montpellier where the medical faculty has records of him graduating in 1530. He was in the household of Cardinal du Bellay, as doctor and secretary, and travelled with him at least twice to Rome. During his lifetime Rabelais was known as a doctor, translator, editor and bibliophile as well as a writer.

For the last years of his life he was curé at Meudon from which he resigned shortly before his death in Paris in 1553.

Rabelais is best known for his five Gargan-

tua and Pantagruel chronicles, written in French (rather than Latin) which were published from the 1530s onwards. The family life, education and adventures of the giants with joyous appetites, Gargantuan and of his son Pantagruel, are a celebration of excess - jaunty, silly, “ecstatically raunchy and picaresque” with heroes who rush from one set piece to another. They are characterised by a studied coarseness featuring and celebrating body parts and bodily functions and insatiable appetites for food, drink and sex in scenes which reflect the ribald drinking songs of the time and those of medical students throughout the ages. The recurring theme is Insatiable Thirst for wine, for books, for words, for knowledge, for life. Rabelais wants us to know: “To Laugh is Proper to the Man” Rabelais creates a self contained imaginative world in which the real events and problems of the 16th century are transformed and transcended through satire - a commentary on current follies. For example, as a reward for his help in a war of obscure and ridiculous origin, (that of Charles V) Gargantua rewards Brother Jean with an abbey in which the sole rule is “Do what thou wilt” which surely touched a nerve at a time when the abuses

GREAT PERHAPS – THE FARCE IS in churches and monasteries were being challenged.

The astonishing variety of Rabelais’s vocabulary reflected his experience – monastic, university, medical, scientific. He spoke at least three languages, knew Latin and Greek, and mixed with a wide range of people. While in Montpellier he picked up stories from cattle drivers off the Cevennes and villagers bringing grapes to town. He knew dialects from several areas and invented and forged words. Puns feature throughout his work with “criminal lavishness”. His “exuberant linguistic inventiveness” was and remains unparalleled in French literature.

Unsurprisingly, the works were banned by the church but powerful patrons such as King Francois and Cardinal du Bellay prowww.theheraultandaudetimes.com

tected Rabelais from prosecution. How he would have enjoyed reading Anthony Trollope’s The Warden where the priggish Archdeacon Grantly retires to his study, locks the door and “takes from a secret drawer a volume of Rabelais and began to amuse himself with the witty mischief of (Pantagruel’s companion) Panurge”.

The story goes that the university of Montpellier medical faculty somehow offended the Chancellor of France who suspended their privileges. Rabelais travelled to Paris and sought admission at the home of the great man.

Rabelais greeted the first servant in Latin. The servant sent for a colleague who spoke Latin and Rabelais addressed him in Greek. A third servant, who spoke Greek, was sent for and Rabelais addressed him in Hebrew. The attention of the great man was drawn to the commotion and Rabelais was summoned into his presence where his carefully chosen words achieved the restoration of the privileges. This unlikely tale (Rabelais had sufficient powerful contacts to have secured a proper introduction) was much enjoyed and the medical school received him with unprecedented honours on his return.

The tradition developed that medical students on graduating wore Rabelais’ red robe.

In their enthusiasm, many of them tore off a piece of the gown as a relic and it DONE” became shorter and shorter until substitutes were provided. A ‘Rabelais gown’ can now be seen on display at the medical school.

The adjective Rabelaisian is in current usage and is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as exuberance of imagination and language combined with extravagance and coarseness of humour and satire. Gargantuan is defined as gigantic. Rabelais’ advice that “Science without conscience is the soul’s perdition” might be a motto for any medical ethics committee. Throughout France Rabelais is commemorated in street names and medical and educational establishments.

Rabelais died in 1553. His final words were reported as being: “I go to seek a Great Perhaps – the farce is done” 23

The Gate An open or shut case Ever since Richard Nixon was forced to

resign as President of USA rather than be impeached, the word “gate” has acquired suffix status implying a cover-up scandal of one type or another. Thus, we remember the so-called “Watergate” scandal which added a sharp satirical hue to political commentaries about America in the first half of the 1970s. It also made the reputation of two journalists and it was the inspiration for witty comments about trusting political leaders as much as we would car salesmen.

Since that particular series of events, we, that is anyone who is willingly or unwittingly caught up by the news-media vortex, have been treated to further scandalous occurrences involving public figures.

William Safire is the columnist who invented this suffix and its signification. He wrote for the New York Times and was a noted conservative; not a left-winger as one might convincingly imagine. The irony is that he was also a speechwriter for the Nixon administration. Moreover, he would not have anticipated that he was to open a lexical boulevard of gates to come. When Bill Clinton played loose with Hilary and dishonoured his presidential word in denial about his sexual relationship with that woman called Monica, both her forename and surname became additional lexical items to the then existing …gate series.

Politics being the shady area of public life that it is, has yielded its due cancerous fruit of scandals. Billygate, Iran or Contragate,

Rubygate, Smeargate, Camillagate and Cheriegate are most probably confided to lost memories by now but in their time they pumped up the media sound-bites, making the lives of those involved embarrassingly uncomfortable. Brazening-out the aftermath has become a ritualised performance by the guilty parties concerned, while time appends the events to an ever-growing list of the gate suffix category.

Tigergate, Dopegate, Donglegate, Climategate, Sachsgate and Flakegate are also reminders that it is not only politics where we find dubious goings-on but also in sci-

ence, sport, journalism, the arts and entertainment. No one anywhere can really stand back, raise their hands aloft declaring it could never occur where they are. Gates open and shut with increasing regularity in their own peculiar universal language common to homo sapiens.

In France, in the 1990s, the affaire Mitterrand-Pasqua, exploded about arms sales to the Government of Angola by the socialist government. This has left its own trail of damage since, for example, in 2012 the reputable French newspaper Le Monde was prosecuted for infringing the presumed innocence of businessman Pierre Falcone by citing him in an article in connection with the scandal of the previous decade. The collateral fallout still continues.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Le Figaro, not a news-media outlet to shrink from the most sensitive of stories, brought the so-called AnnaGate affair to the public domain. Had it not done so we might know nothing about it since the other major media players in France have characteristically ignored their vocational call to publish; such is the moral cowardice of our “free society” under siege.

A Russian student in Paris seeking French national citizenship found herself being drawn into a corrupt blackmailing scenario with public officialdom. She was harassed, she alleges, by the authorities concerned into spying on the Manif Pour Tous (MPT) movement in exchange for a favourable consideration of her requests for citizenship.

It is known already that the socialist government has singled out the MPT for an exceptional form of political labelling and consequent treatment, although its membership is certainly far from the political and cultural extremes of others left alone by the same socialist administration.

Thankfully, the positive and just reaction of the prefectural official to whom Anna went in order to seek redress, after a period of understandable doubt and anguish, reassures us that in France, there exist people who are willing to stand against the tyranny of the state in keeping the gate open on scandal before those involved finally shut it once and for all.

“Socrates”

Gary Jackson

Painter Decorator - Plasterer Partition walls - Laminate flooring Honest and reliable t: 06 23 33 30 22 24

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The French VIEW _

Translation by Alison Reid

Women and Power: the great taboo

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he progression of diversity within the management of businesses today evokes an important question: do women have an approach or an attitude towards power that distinguishes them from their male homologues? To answer this question, we have led a study which dives right to the source by speaking to women in positions of power: directors, managers, but also some female politicians and experts, both in France and abroad.

“What do you think of your role, of your responsibilities, and of any eventual special qualities that you can bring to your work?”

The question of female power is cropping up again today, even though more and more women are gaining access to positions of power within companies. The women at the heart of management and/or administration council boards still face numerous challenges. Truly understanding what the exertion of ‘female’ power can represent is one way of facing these challenges.

Women and power: an ambiguous relationship As a (female) professor of European law, I have been leading comparative works on the questions of business governance on a European scale for a long time now.

Lately, the specific question of gender diversity has come up, provoked notably

by Viviane Redding and, in France, by the law on the feminisation of council boards. After deciding to launch a course aimed precisely at helping experienced women to gain access to these jobs, (“Women, be European board ready,”) I realised that few of the participants brought up the question of power. Yet, management and administrative councils are undeniably places of power; the women participating in this programme clearly want to assume roles of authority within businesses. Why then, this omission of the word ‘power’? Is it still a taboo word for women? The results of the study show that ambition still carries different connotations for women and for men: the fight for power is still seen as something masculine and women have a certain difficulty approaching it.

The vast majority of the women asked, declared that, in effect, they had not constructed their careers with the aim of accessing power, but rather to do something interesting. One of them saw things this way: “We live in a world which valorises male power… Women are not naturally considered as future leaders by their male managers because the managers value ‘virility’ and other typically masculine traits, and they tend to promote those who are the most similar to them.”

This model of masculine leadership proves to be a key obstacle for women as they are unaware of the codes. Additionally, specific qualities or behaviours are often associated with women (stereotypes), and these characteristics are linked with them by default when it comes to power. An over-adaption to the male model can thus ensue in women wishing to access these positions

of management, with psychologically negative consequences for the individual and a loss in the added value brought about by their differences.

I have worked in collaboration with a psychiatrist in order to better understand the relationship that we, as women, can have with power, and to identify whether or not this relationship differs from that of the male model. The results show that there is certainly a negative connotation attached to the idea of power: countless female interviewees associate power and intrigue – power games – authoritarianism. Furthermore, they generally believe that power isolates, particularly in the way that it is exercised in the imposed male model.

It is interesting to note that the vast majority of the women interviewed showed specific qualities, which tend to be attributed toall women: the ability to listen, empathy, a sense of ‘teamplaying’, a small ego, a sharp sense of ethics. Without creating a caricature, the study seems to show that women have, in effect, a different approach: more frank, with a real desire to move things forwards.

They accord a great importance to legitimacy, for example.

A question of quotas I approach the question of quotas with prudence. My last works before this ‘Women and Power’ study looked more deeply at this question. An obligatory norm such as this has the advantage of a training effect and of obliging those involved to encourage women to assume roles of authority, because the pathway has been made accessible. But, quotas can also provide a source of resentment from the male point of view or a feeling of illegitimacy from the women involved. Incidentally, it should be noted that women often use their competences to reassure themselves (complex of the imposter). Finally, quotas oblige businesses to modify their leadership criteria, something which can also be done voluntarily.

It is essential that the paradigm in which women exercise power evolve. We need to construct a style of leadership which integrates a mixture of qualities: ‘masculine’ ones – charisma, impartiality, decision making abilities, risk taking – as well as ‘feminine’ ones – practicality, ability to listen, empathy, team playing… Women seem to be adapted to this more flexible business model which is beginning to emerge: pre-assumed stereotypes or weaknesses could well show themselves to be strengths in this more agile form of business, required by globalisation.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Written by Viviane de Beaufort

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Un Certain Regard:

Continuing:

Politics, Police and Thrillers.

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s we move through the 1960s, a series of socio-political events occurred across western cultures that were to mark developments across the whole of society, repercussions of which have been felt ever since. The cinematographic industry could not but be influenced by the widespread wave of political and social unrest manifested in frequent public demonstrations, some violent.

France was particularly affected by the 1968 workers and students revolution that began on the streets of Paris animated by the symbolic mounting of barricades reminiscent of the great revolution of the 1790s.

The one film which illustrates the trends that were to come was Costa-Gavras’ Z. By 1969 in Paris alone his film had netted 700,000 seats. What stood out most about Z was the accentuated political flavour of the policier laced with a heavy dose of the type of corruption we often come to

associate with this particular public institution in our contemporary polity. It set the tone for future narrative and visual conventions of the cinema thriller using police vestige bathed in social abuse and political corruption. It aroused immense news-media critique, both favourable and negative. Interesting that today the same type is counted as a lower form of cinema in many cases. Costa-Gavras has directed a number of similar films since then.

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura and Yves Montand certainly animated and gave texture to this film genre through their particular roles. Influenced by the American police film, the French counterpart became ever more similar.

The French directors of the 1970s drew their inspiration from contemporary 26

American crime films just as they had done in the 150s gangster equivalents reflected in Pierre Granier-Deferre’s Adieu poulet (The French Detective, 1975); Alain Corneau’s Police Python 357 (1976) and the American Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971).

Other film directors who focused on the political scandals marking 1970s society were Yves Boisset and Pierre Schoendoerffer who also developed the néo-polar or conspiracy thriller which accorded with the growing public scepticism of important public figures as well as political and judicial processes. Boisset’s Le Juge Fayarddit Le Sheriff (Judge Fayard called The Sheriff, 1977) and Michel Drach’s Le Pull-over rouge (The Red Sweater, 1979) took the French penal code to task. At the same time, some directors tried to expose the Algerian War but for raisons d’état the French military and the government blocked their efforts. Yves Boisset, R.A.S.(1973); Laurent Heynemann’s La Question (The Question, 1977) based on acensored book by Henri Allegri and Pierre Schoendoerffer, L’Honneur d’un capitaine (A Captain’s Honour, 1982) touched raw nerves and disturbed a hornet’s nest of issues about an ugly war, torture and the moral issues following, as a result.

Here are a few other recommendationsfor films worth watching from this period.

New Wave films included Jean-Pierre Melville, The Red Circle, 1970 a crime thriller;François Truffaut, Day for Night, 1973 which is a comedy drama; Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating, 1974 and Louis Malle, Black Moon, 1975 which are avant-garde experimental fantasy genre films.

In 1979, Claude Chabrol directed one of his darker films, Violette Nozière (Violette) a biographical story of a bourgeoise murderer. It studies the psychological side of Violette using flashbacks to illustrate her

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Screenplay by: Karl Leonie

dual nature. Isabelle Huppert played Violette which won her Best Actress Award at Cannes 1978, while in 1979 the film won a César in the category of Best Supporting Actress (Stéphane Audran); 3 further César nominations for Best Actress (Isabelle Huppert); Best Music (Pierre Jansen) and Best Production Design (Jacques Brizzio).

While there were a very large number of French films and talented directors making them, alongside plenty of ordinary, audiences dwindled as the economy faltered and television media expanded. The French cinema was embarking on a new crisis.

Next time we digress slightly to review how French cinema nurtured its own audiences.

English for Expat Children - An indispensable guide

Language Acquisition

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anguage acquisition is significantly easier for children than it is for us adults. That is not to say that it is easy, of course, and there will be challenges and frustrations along the way: Perhaps your toddler is late to get chatting, but once they do they have two languages forming side by side. Or maybe your child identifies more with French; spending their days at school, with friends and perhaps even correcting your own language use. Whether your children are shy or outgoing when it comes to using their developing language skills they are always working at it, whether you can see it or not.

You may be worrying about their French or the language you speak at home and feel that you are not in a position to cover all those bases.

Well, who is?! The best foundation for any child facing challenges is one of encouragement and support.

You may choose to dedicate time to organising activities and tasks that focus on their English outside of the school curriculum. If you are doing so I have generally found it more effective to steer clear of a formal, ‘sitting down with a book of grammar exercises’ approach. Finding ways to formulate games that incorporate areas you’d like to reinforce make work so much less work-ish.

A favourite activity of mine covers language for giving and understanding directions. On small pieces of card write out different instructions: ‘turn left’, ‘go straight on’, ‘cross over the road’ etc, ask the child/ren to illustrate the cards to aid their memory once the game is under way.

Once you are ready, head outside. The children take turns to select a card whenever you arrive at a junction and you all follow the direction they’ve selected. This is a great, sunny, physically engaging after school game which can be extended to incorporate cards like ‘find a ......’ or ‘tell a joke’ and, most importantly, all the pressure is off. It is great to have children clamouring to be the next to pick and read out their instruction. Not only are these smaller phrases great for bite-size reading confidence, but the sense of chance and control over the walk can be a lot of fun for younger children. This is one of those games that can develop indefinitely so take extra cards along with you to write down new ideas as they come up.

Laura Smith has a BA Hons) in English and a background which includes nannying, arts’ groups for children, supporting early readers, teaching English as foreign language in Spanish and Italian schools and examining children for the Cambridge Examining board.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

Having a baby in France.

Part 1 - Financials

Hérault Baaaaby!

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s we are expecting our first child on the 14th of July I am starting a regular piece on our progression through the system here. To kick off I thought I’d start with the fairly dry, but necessary understanding of medical care costs so far. This is by no means across the board, but our experience so far, any suggestions or corrections are warmly welcomed!

• The French issue a due date based on a 41 week gestation as opposed to the 40 week term in the UK. • Homebirth is not widely available in our region, nor does there seem to be the equivalent of the UK’s ‘birthing centre’, considered a half-way house between home and hospital delivery. Not that homebirth is impossible to organise, depending on your distance from a homebirth insured midwife, but it will incur expenses beyond those of a hospital delivery.

• You will be paying your usual percentage (assuming you have your carte vitale) up until the pregnancy is registered after your first ultrasound (approx. 12 weeks). At which point your GP and midwife appointments are reimbursed at 100% on the spot (i.e. – you don’t have to hand over any money).

• Of course, if you have a mutuelle then you need not necessarily pay at any point, but without one we have found that we paid a few hundred euro in the first trimester and then small percentage ‘top ups’ for ultrasounds, blood tests and haptonomy since.

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n the other side of the financial coin, I have been a bit dazed to learn that, as an auto entrepreneur, I am entitled to payments for maternity leave (repos maternelle) and ‘interruption of activity’ (two separate allocations) covered by RSI. I am reticent to count on this as it seems too good to be true, but it does go to show that keeping your eyes on the paperwork is not always a strain!

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WATERCOLORIST NICHOLAS POULLIS

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icholas Poullis is a professional watercolorist. Before moving over to France in 1999 he exhibited in England at The Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, The Royal Society of British Artists and The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.

His paintings can be found in several important collections in the UK such as Saint John’s College, Cambridge. He has also illustrated books: The Voyage of the Arctic Tern (published by Walter books) and has co-written and illustrated Contemporary Watercolors (published by Walter Foster, 2012).

An amiable and approachable man, the artist explains that art came into his life during his childhood with subtlety and as a natural succession through the influence of a painter uncle and a craftsman grand-father. He makes no fuss of this fact because, in his own words, it is ‘who he is’, a watercolorist. But when asked to describe his own art, he replies, “It is about light and the building.”

One of his main characteristics is the apparent ease with which he paints architecture. The perspective and the vanishing point are achieved with construction of the lines and the effects of light but more

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A light search

importantly the brush stroke. Painting with watercolour is a difficult exercise. Since by definition the water dominates, the skill is to regulate the dispersion of the pigments mixed with water. This implies a very focused gesture, leaving little room for error, especially when the subject is as precise as a building.

The painting is applied on porous paper and at any time the image can be spoilt by colour interference. Furthermore, one cannot cheat with watercolour since it is a transparent medium which allows anomalies to visibly transpire. Nicholas admires many artists, amongst who include 19th century English painters and watercolorists such as William Turner, Richard Parkes Bonington, James Whistler and John Constable.

When focusing on a particular place, Nicholas may go back to the same spot without ever finding the same nuance of light from his initial studies. Or he paints the same building but each time from a different angle. “The position of the sun can force you to do something else,” says Nicholas who paints from life no matter the weather. He has travelled to Spain and Italy and escapes regularly to London where he usually faces a race against the The Herault & Aude Times

clock to produce a large amount of work in a short space of time. He also enjoys painting ‘marines’, landscapes and townscapes and when it passes the Tour de France event and bravados.

Rightly so, he distinguishes between the type of work that would interest galleries and his personal artistic search which he defines as ‘two different things. His greater desire is to produce the best possible work at the most affordable price.

His Watercolour paintings come in different formats, some of which can be seen at Agence Fidical situated at Hôtel des Barons de Lacoste in Pézenas or at Nicholas’s studio in Roujan.

Nicholas also runs watercolour classes, teaching the medium to all levels at his studio with views across the Hérault landscape. Classes take place every Wednesday morning from 9h00 to 12h00.

Nicholas’s skilled eye renders local towns, architectural details and scenes from daily life with an accurate but almost ethereal presence, at times tending towards abstraction; the dexterity of his hand gives bringing life to the image through the pigments and water, letting them breathe in their own space.

Dominique Aclange

Public art ‘La Sphère Jordi’

T

he contemporary public sculpture La Sphère Jordi was commissioned by Elie Aboudin 2013, Deputy of the Herault and former adjunct mayor to the municipality of Béziers. The monumental sculpture is situatedby one of the main roundabouts in town, facing the new post office. It is an open worked metallic sphere painted in light blue and measuring 210cm in diameter, on a stone plinth.

Jorda Jordi (1951) is a French Sculptor, fine artist and photographer of Catalan background, who lives and works in Montpellier. Jordi has created a diagram of universal character,a single ‘form’ which he also names a ‘visual tool’. This form has progressively become his trademark. It represents a sort of pattern reminiscent of a symbolized bull’s head and repeats itself ad infinitum.

The blue, see through effect of Jordi’s ‘Sphere’ in the Centre of Béziers brings a touch of modernity to the old town.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

29

ART

Exposition Rancillac ‘Récits’ until 11 May 2014 - L’Aspirateur, Lieu d’art contemporain - Avenue Hubert Mouly, Narbonne Tel.04 68 90 50 91 - Open Wednesday to Sunday except Bank Holidays - Entry fee 4€

B

ernard Rancillac is presently the invited artist at l’Aspirateur, the former industrial building re-converted as a Contemporary Art Centresince May 2013.

The Centre has hence joined the L.A.C in Sigean (ContemporaryArt Centre, Aude) which was created in 1991 by Piet Moget and his daughter Layla.’Aspirateur‘ is not a museum, but a place for creation and exhibition’ whose aim is ‘to re-define the urban entry His paintings say it all.

Very political and openly so, they are not to be taken lightly. They serve as a vehicle for expression, opinion and denunciation.

Bernard Rancillac, alongside Jacques Monory, Peter Klasen and Richard Fromanger is at the source of the ‘Figuration Narrative’ movement born in France at the beginning of the 1960’s as a reaction against abstract and Pop art.

The HAT recommends…

Antoine Guillopé - Dentelles de papier (Paper lace) 1st April / 26 April 2014 Maison des Savoirs Place du Jeu de Ballon 34300 Agde Tel. 04 67 94 67 00 www.ville-agde.fr Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday: 10h00/18h00 Friday 14h00/18h00 Closed Sunday and Monday Free entry Antoine Guillopé is a fine artist, author and illustrator. The Maison des Savoirs will be showing some of his wonderful lacy drawings, finely cut paper drawings which tell mysterious stories: the sun and the moon inhabit the forest or the savanna where fauna or flora live thrive.

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Below L to R: * Bernard Rancillac * Le Bal-con

‘At the origin of all artistic creation, an emotion is needed,’ said Rancillac. ‘For me, it is one of political nature even when I paint Mickey, jazz musicians, cars or cinema movies’.

La Malle de Chine (Trunk from China, 1992) is a painting and sculpture installation. A Chinese boy drinking Coke and wearing a uniform is painted at the back of the top. The trunk contains a dismembered and bloody mannequin, a tank, toys and shoes denouncing violence and abuse.

Le Moulin à papier de Brousse (The paper Mill of Brousse) Le Moulin à papier - Permanent 11390 brousses et Villaret Tel. 04 68 26 67 43 Moulin.a.papier@orange.fr www.moulinapapier.com GPS : Lat. 43.35/Long. 2.26 1 October / 30 June Guided tours Mon- Friday 11h00 and 15h30 5 guided Sat, Sun ,bank hols: 11h00, 14h30, 15h30, 16h30, 17h30.

The Paper Mill was built in 1674 and was amongst the most famous paper centers in the Languedoc. The place perpetuates the paper activity and represents the 7th generation of paper making. The visits relate to the history, the discovery of old machinery and the demonstrations of paper making. **

The Herault & Aude Times

T

From Top Clockwise: * Desert Paths 1 * Elephant Chair * Le sommier

Les Chemins du desert (Desert paths, 1993) is an allusion to Gas Power taking over local traditions and alludes to a superficial sense of happiness. Le Sommier (The box spring, 1998) a large painting,representing the portrait of a veiled woman, and on which stands a box spring,is covered with fixed tools: an axe, a machetes and shears.

The visit can be done randomly and there is no particular order to it which adds to its pleasure. A serenade of vivid colours, varied styles, some abstract and semiabstract paintings such as the series of speedy cars next to prison cells: Ronde de voiture 24h du Mans (Round car 24 hours of Le Mans, 1977/78) and Ronde de gardiens de prison QHS (Round prison cells QHS, 1977/78) is also on display.

From the first floor, the display of Motocross (1984), an installation of a 100 painted cubes assembled like a child jigsaw can be clearly observed, on the ground floor. Day Ceremonial, Night Ceremonial, and Hell and Paradise (2007) are series putting the orchid flower as a symbol of human feelings and sentiments.

Always bright and colourful, free but not complacent, his paintings capture the eye and the spirit, a way to call out to reality: ‘Hey! Look in which world we’re living today!’

Bernard Rancillac at l’Aspirateur Contemporary Art Centre is a frank exhibition, not to leave aside the well mastered brushstroke of a now 82 years old who has also stated when talking about Formula One: ‘if you are not killed you will retire, which is all the same’.

L’oeil et le coeur , Carré Sainte Anne 24 January / 27April 2014 2 rue Philippy, 34000 Montpellier Tel. 04 67 60 82 11 / 04 67 34 88 80 visites@ville-montpellier.fr www.montpellier.fr Free Tues to Sun The first panel of ‘the eye and the heart’ aimed to revive the flame of the imaginary within the Montpellier tradition. This new edition is entirely dedicated to contemporary art. An exhibition which features 4 artists who pay homage to the inhabitants of Montpellier: ‘throughout a life time and sometimes against all reason, have built a single work, a work of the mind, a chimera collection.’ ** Musée Médard

The book in the light 71 Place des Martyrs de la Résistance 34400 Lunel Tel.04 67 87 83 95 www.museemedard.fr Open Wed to Fri 14h00-18h00 Sat 10h00-18h00 Closed Sun Guided tours every Saturday at 10h30 as from 1st February The museum presents books and the archives and offers a remarkable library dating from the 19 century can be visited. Besides a large digital library there is also a wide collection of documented archives. The museum organizes events around the book trade highlighting its main features. **

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

31

Recipe Times Aby Merat

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend Before we too into the Dust descend; Dust into dust, and under Dust, to Lie Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and sans-Ende Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The below yoghurt dish is served as an aperitif, to be accompanied by frozen vodka (as pure as possible) straight from the freezer. When the vodka goes syrupy and there is a thick frost on the glass its ready to drink.

Nowruz, or the Persian New Year, was celebrated this year on 21st March and is the festival marking the first day of spring or the renewal of nature. It is celebrated around the world by the Iranian peoples and the related cultural continent, including parts of central Asia, Northwestern China, the Crimea and parts of the Balkans. It was proclaimed as an official UN observance because it promotes peace and solidarity, particularly in families. The day also focuses reconciliation and neighborliness, contributing to cultural diversity and friendship among peoples and different communities.

When I was young I would trek up into the mountains with my friends with hot village bread, cheese (like feta), and herbs and of course a bottle of vodka. We would put the bottle of vodka into the icy waters of the mountain river and go and collect dead wood to make a fire so that we would be able to make hot black tea to digest our picnic later on.

Once, my friends left me with the vodka while they went to collect wood, but when they got back I had already drunk most of it.

Boy did I get a beating!

Maas-O Kair - Yoghurt & cucumber dip Ingredients 2 pots of Greek yoghurt (pour out the thin liquid which is usually on top) 1 cucumber 1 clove of garlic ½ teaspoon of salt ½ teaspoon of black pepper Dried mint or very finely chopped fresh mint 1 handful of dried rose petals Method 1. Pour the yoghurt in a serving bowl 2. Cut cucumber in half. Dice finely one half and grate the other - mix in to the yoghurt 3. Add the salt and pepper 4. Crush the dried (or fresh) mint between your hands and scatter into the mixture 5. Gently crush dried rose petals and scatter on top as a pretty edible garnish

Persian Pickled Garlic - ‘Seer Torshi ‘ Ingredients 6 heads of violet garlic ½ ltr of red wine vinegar 4 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar 1 teaspoon of chili powder 4 teaspoons of salt 2 tablespoons of honey Method 1. Put garlic heads in jars - any gaps can be filled with odd cloves, but don’t fill right to the top 2. Bring to the boil the vinegar and all the other ingredients in a pan 3. Immediately pour the vinegar mixture into the jars, the garlic will absorb this liquid over time, so it’s important they are well covered Leave for a minimum of 3 months, however if you are very, very patient you will be greatly rewarded by leaving the garlic jars for up to 7 years. When gently pressed the pickled garlic after the full 7 years will squeeze out of the skin in the form of a delicious smooth paste – amazing!

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The Herault & Aude Times

ABGOOSHT ( Desi ) Serves 4 This is a traditional Persian winter stew, which can be made individually in small earthen wear pots or like a big family stew in a big casserole on the hob. The liquid is separated and served in different bowls as an accompaniment to the lamb.

Ingredients 2 Lamb shanks 1 Onion Half an Aubergine - peeled Half a cup of dried chick peas - soaked overnight Half a cup of dried white beans - soaked overnight 1 handful of green lentils 1 teaspoon of Turmeric 2 teaspoons of tomato purée 2 fresh tomatoes 2 small peeled potatoes Pinch of salt and black pepper Pitta bread or Moroccan flat bread To accompany the finished dish: Radish, fresh basil and chives, diced feta cheese, walnuts, quarters of fresh lime Method 1. Place all ingredients into a large (3-4 ltr) saucepan or casserole dish 2. Add enough water to cover 3. Simmer on a low heat for 3 hours 4. Separate the liquid part and the solid parts into separate bowls 5. De-bone the lamb 6. Blend the meat mixture into a rough paté-type consistency, keeping the meat texture and soup 7. Tear up pieces of pitta or Moroccan flat bread and scatter on top of the soup

divide into separate serving dishes to the

The following rice dish is cooked ‘Kateh’ style. This means that the rice is cooked in its own water, rather than rinsing away all the starch, this way it can be bound into a cake shape. In Indian food this is the difference between plain rice and pilau rice. This dish is a ‘super-food’ which is very filling. My son Andrew lived in Nepal with a local family for a year and all they ate were their own grown lentils 3 times a day. When I asked a doctor friend whether this was OK, he said it was nothing to worry about, in fact lentils provide almost everything the body needs. For this recipe the best lentils are Puy en Velay, which are small, dark green and high quality.

Addas Pollo - Rice with Lentils Ingredients 300ml water 180gms basmati rice 180gms green lentils 90gms raisins 90gms fresh dates - pitted (dried Mejool dates will also do) 1 tsp salt ½ teaspoon pepper ¼ teaspoon dried chili -optional ¼ teaspoon of turmeric 1 pinch of saffron - optional 50ml olive oil 1 tbs of butter Method 1. Wash lentils and cook until semi-soft in 90ml of water along with the salt, pepper, turmeric and the optional saffron and chili. By this point all the water should have evaporated.

2. Wash the rice, then boil in a non-stick, medium saucepan with 300ml of water and the semi-cooked lentils, olive oil and butter. Cook until small dimples or holes appear on top. Reduce the heat to absolute minimum and cover. Simmer for a further 30 minutes without removing the lid to allow the steam to cook the rice and lentils.

3. Fill kitchen sink with 2 inches of cold water. Place the pan with lid on into the cold water and leave for 3 minutes. This is to release the caramelized rice crust from the pan bottom (which you will all be fighting over later!)

4. Gently turn out the rice/lentil mixture upside-down on to a serving plate.

This dish is lovely served with Greek yoghurt and pickled Persian garlic (see below recipe). www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

33

The HAT Business French

April

Tax Tax Returns

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t may come as a surprise to some people to know that if you are resident in France, you are potentially liable for tax on all your worldwide income and gains. Perhaps you may also have a liability for tax in another country. If so, the existence of a Double Taxation Treaty (DTT) between France and the country concerned is very important, as this will set out the rules that apply to ensure that you are not taxed twice on the same source of income.

Tax returns are due to be filed in May and the forms are usually available from the tax office later in April. There are a few ‘myths’ around about whether or not people need to complete a French tax return, such as: “We have not decided to be resident yet” – Sorry, residency is not a choice, it is a fact and you can read my article on this subject on

this magazine’s website.

“I pay all my tax in the UK, or the US, or Canada, etc. etc.” Well this may be the case, but this does not mean that you do not have to complete a French tax return, if you are resident here. The DTT rules will then be applied as appropriate to the type of income.

“The tax office told us that we don’t have to complete a French tax return until we have lived here for a year”. Well my advice is not to listen to that nice lady in the tax office because she does not have to pay the fines if you don’t register and you should have done!

If you became resident at any time in 2013, you are obliged to complete a tax return in 2014.

You must declare your income and gains for the period from the start of your residency, but you will benefit from a full year’s tax allowance and so you may not actually have any income tax to pay (depending upon the amount of your income since becoming resident). You are taxed as a household and so if there are two of

Entrepreneurs

you, you can share in each other’s allowances, which is beneficial if one of you exceeds the income tax allowance and the other does not.

Once you have registered in the tax system, you will receive your French fiscal reference number, which is needed to claim exemption from double taxation under the terms of any DTT between France and your home country.

For households with low taxable income, there may be advantages to being fiscally resident.

For example, it is possible that you could receive an exemption or a reduction in property taxes (depending upon your age and income situation). You may also be eligible for a particular French tax-free account, which pays a higher rate of interest than other tax-free accounts. Therefore, if you have investment income, it is important to shelter this, so that you keep your taxable income as low as possible.

Many people also think that investments that are tax-free in their home country will continue to be tax-free in France (for example, UK ISAs), but this is not the case. France has its own forms of tax-efficient savings and investments and more information on this can be found in my article on

It is alleged that President George W. Bush said to then British Prime Minister Tony Blair that “The trouble with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur”.

Truth or not he was wrong.

Start ups in France are highly impressive;16:38 in numbers and in Landscape-Adverts-HAT.pdf 1 18/02/2014 success. The problem is two fold: Investment and language.

‘Tax Efficient Investing in France’ on The Spectrum IFA Group Page in the Business Section of the HAT website.

Forthcoming Client Seminars We are now taking bookings for our Spring Client Seminars – Le Tour de Finance. There is no charge for any of our seminars and the speakers’ presentations are followed by a buffet lunch/ refreshments.

The dates for the local events are:  21st May - Hotel La Villa Duflot, 66000 Perpignan  21st May - Hotel Abbaye École de Sorèze, 81540 Sorèze  22nd May - Côté Mas, 34530 Montagnac  23rd May – Montpellier Massane Golf & Spa Hotel, 34670 Baillargues All events take place from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm with the exception of Soreze, which takes place from 6.00 pm to 9.00 pm. The seminars are always very popular and so early booking is recommended.

If you would like to have a confidential discussion about your financial situation, or if you wish to attend one of the seminars, please contact me by telephone on 04 68 20 30 17 or by e-mail at daphne.foulkes@spectrum-ifa. com.

In the US venture capitalists will give millions to a good start up, in France the figures average 250,000€. Why? The money men go to countries where English is the common language.

Mad eh?

But in science, medicine, gaming and online retail France is currently leading the way. Montpellier and Toulouse and Perpignan are hotbeds of entrepeunerial startups.

Let’s talk currency

Don’t let the banks take a bite of your savings.

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Y

CM

MY

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CMY

K

+33 (0) 3 29 27 14 59

currenciesdirect.com

hat@currenciesdirect.com

Ophira 1, Place Joseph Bermond, Valbonne Sophia Antipolis, 06560, France 34

The Herault & Aude Times

Business Interviews, rhetoric and opinion.

Michael D’Artag writes, interviews or comments on topics that impact you.

If I read the press cor rectly (as if) then times they are a changing on the political front.

Hollande’s socialists are unpopular and the other lot are embroiled in scandal after scandal and sneaking up the inside are the re-branded Front National.

But do not despair. Although the FN may be (as highlighted in this magazine) trying to look like decent and well rounded individuals their politics are not really any different to before. A smiling face and removal of the spittle throwing incestuous rhetoric may be gone but the public aren’t voting for them really, they are showing disdain for the other parties.

And that brings me to politics in general.

For a long time the politicians have done as before....promise the world and then obtain power and just focus on keeping it thereby ignoring all the electioneering promises.

Hollande is out of his depth yes, but in truth what did you expect?

A country in recession, a global crisis and labour laws that would break any man or woman thrust into the spot-

WOULD YOU LIKE TO WIN AN IPAD?

Competition time

F

or the chance to win all you have to do is correctly answer the following questions, complete the sentence and submit your answers by email to fiona.w@currenciesdirect.com.

The deadline for the competition is 30th June and the winner

light.

Sarkozy dipped his little (literally) toe into change and France voted him out tout suite and it wasn’t because of Carla whatever the gossips say.

The FN are still a grubby lot with a new found confidence by not talking loudly; but remember the last time they tasted power they had spent so much effort being hurt and misunderstood that their policies and ability to govern fell flat in the quagmire of hate that they so need to feed on.

So local elections will appear to show a move to the right but it won’t last. By the time the second votes are counted and you use the intelligence this magazine presumes you have to look behind the headlines, I predict that the ground given will soon be taken away.

Unless of course scandals and Hollande’s love life continue to grow and shock, allowing the FN to do what they do best with their re-branding... sneak up unseen.

And for those of the left, right and centre, when will you all learn that if you shout and demand silence of others all you do is look more like the ones you are trying silence.

Fiona Let’s talk Currency, Let’s talk SPOT TRADES.

What is a Spot Trade? Simply put it’s the term used to describe buying currency there and then – on the spot! – and it is our most commonly used service.

How does it work? Well it’s really very simple! Say, for example, you need to move some money from the UK to France on Monday. The first step is to call your assigned currency trader in London (and remember we do have a new French local number you can dial which connects you to our team in London, if you do not have an international call inclusive phone package – see our contact details below).Your trader will tell you how many euros you will get for your Sterling, or how much Sterling it will cost to buy the amount of Euros you need to transfer. If you are happy to go ahead with the transfer you confirm this with your trader– and that is it, done! Shortly afterwards you will receive a contract via email – this confirms the transfer you have just requested and includes details of where you want your Euros to be sent to (this can be to your personal account or to a third party*– e.g. a Notaire, a villa owner for a holiday booking etc..).Also included in the confirmation contract are our will be contacted shortly after- bank details.. The next step for you is to simply transfer the rewards. Good luck everyone!! quired amount of Sterling to our 1. In which year was account…..and that is all there is Currencies Direct formed?

2. We have an office in the to it. As soon as we receive your cleared funds we immediately United States, but forward the euros to your nomiwhereabouts exactly? nated destination account in 3. Name the CEO of Franceand each step of the proCurrencies Direct? cess will be confirmed via email 4. How many currencies do we trade?

7. Whereabouts is the head office 5. Name the currency used of Currencies Direct? in Thailand?

And finally….

6. What is a Spot Trade?

In no more than 10 words, please (cont...) www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

to you – so the entire transaction is trackable for your peace of mind. And no matter what happens in the market in the meantime your transfer will be done at the rate you were quoted, no nasty surprises.

This example is based on a transfer from the UK to France.

However, we deal in 47 world currencies and can transfer funds all over the world. I shall cover this in more detail next month.

Q. Do I need to move a certain sum of money to use your services?

A. No.Clients use us to transfer money for all manner of reasons, ranging from buying a property, paying for a holiday, pensions, salaries, international school fees etc.. Mr Wilkins / Foix Q. Once I have booked the trade how much time is allowed for me to transfer my money to Currencies Direct and how can I do this?

A. Once you have received the contract you can transfer your funds to us and you have up to 7 days to complete your contract.The most commonly used method is bank transfer – many clients now use online or telephone banking services to make their payments, it’s quick and easy. Clients can also pay using a debit or credit card.

Mr and Mrs Clarkeson / Pau *3rd party payment criteria depends on country of residency.

Proof of address will be required on registration for non UK clients.

If you have any questions please email me I will be happy to help with any queries you may have.

You can contact me on: +33 468 20 41 35 or +33 643 88 61 82 or by email t fiona.w@currenciesdirect.com

complete the following sentence.

“I use (will use) Currencies Direct for my international money transfer because__________” 35

A UNIQUE COLLECTION, ONE HUNDRED PIANOS OF LIMOUX “On which day was it that God created music, again?”

O

f course, the stone angels and the moulded plaster saints poised in the emptiness of the Eglise Saint-Jacques in Limoux do not know the answer, abandoned as they are in the silence of this former place of worship. Yet they do not appear unhappy, for when springtime comes to hang in the branches of the trees rustling outside the windows, the largest church in the town, built by the Dominicans in the 14th century, is brought back to life like an invalid after a long recovery. But there are no alleluias, no Te Deums and even fewer Requiems to be found between these four walls, packed with tales, memories and piping.

Although music and joy can be heard until the end of summer, contrastingly, the coming of a new form of worship, one based on the silence and memories of the piano, is also celebrated here.

Ah yes, of course, you couldn’t see them in the darkness of this great vessel, which has sailed through the centuries like Noah’s Ark once battled through the scourge of the skies and the destiny of the scriptures.

There are around one hundred Limoux pianos, scattered here and there on either side of a walkway in the chancel, attracting visitors’ attention with the bizarreness or beauty of their shape, the sheen of the rosewood and other exotic woods, the intricacy of the decoration and the ingenuity of the designs. They are precious witnesses of the history of an instrument which revolutionised music, the way of listening to it and even the struggle between social classes. The bourgeoisie of the 19th century had no other way of affirming their legitimacy than by claiming modernity for an instrument already one hundred years old… Each instrument tells its own story and that of its creator: the number of piano makers multiplied during the second half of the 19th century, the golden age for the instrument.

The juxtaposition of the pieces on display, which date from the 18th century up until modern times, create a collective vision that is essential for understanding the piano’s progression through the upheavals of history, the place reserved for it today and the challenges of its conquest.

Ecce Homo Last apprentice of the prestigious Maison Gaveau, JeanJacques Trinques, one of a family of piano makers from Ariège, is at the heart of the Musée de Limoux’s adventure. Along with the chairman and members of the AFARP-Europiano France (association of piano makers and tuners), he had been looking for a place in which to house a collection of instruments that would tell more than two centuries’ worth of history for a very long time.

The donation from one of the most beautiful workshops for repairs and upkeep in Europe was to shape his destiny. The owner was Henri Daraud, of Carcasonne. The deputy mayor, Jean-Paul Dupré seized the opportunity and a location was found: the old Eglise Saint-Jacques, detached from the outer wall of the hospital and having received Our Lady of the Rosary at the beginning of its life, has now become a haven for this collection of pianos, the only one like it in Europe. Instruments signed Edard, Pleyel, Pape, Steinway, Bechstein and more fill the aisles of the former church. Their presence here is not just coincidental, but rather it reflects the soul of a town which has had a connection with music for years. The Carnival music which rings out in the town centre’s arcades for three months of the year is the living proof.

This attraction to music, coupled with a keen spirit for playing – 36

Limoux’s music school is one of the most dynamic in the region – shines through in the Cuivres festival in spring and in the Classical music festival in the Auditorium of the Eglise Saint-Jacques in summer.

Practical Information: Address: Musée du Piano & Auditorium, église Saint-Jacques, place du 22 septembre, 11300 Limoux Opening Times: June to September, Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 until 12:30 and from 15:00 until 18:30 (Closed on Mondays).

6 concerts are held in the Auditorium in July and August (programme to be confirmed) For details: 04.68.31.85.03 Book: (bilingual edition) G. Chaluleau – L. Turetti, Les 100 pianos de Limoux, Alta Vita éditions, 112 pages. 22€, altavitaeditions@orange.fr

The Herault & Aude Times

Claude Carayol

Text: Georges Chaluleau Images Copyright Didier Donnat www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

37

In The Garden with Gill Pound

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arch brings it’s usual share of changeable weather – “les giboulées de mars” - but spring is definitely here; many shrubs and perennials are starting to flower, the grass needs cutting and the weeds are growing so there is plenty to do in the garden.

• continue to tidy up foliage on perennials, and cut back perennial and sub shrubby plants to the base - they will regrow with greater vigour and better shape Any plants which flower on the current year’s growth can be pruned.

Spring flowering shrubs should be pruned after flowering.

• the weeds will be growing even faster than the flowers so do keep on top of weeding and do try to remove annual weeds such as speedwell and chickweed before they have a chance to set seed. Think about mulching to suppress weed growth later in the year and to help conserve moisture.

• if you have botanical (ie species) bulbs in the

38

garden don’t dead head them and they should reseed, Anemone blanda and coronaria seem particularly happy to self seed around and some tulips and crocus will also. Other bulbs can be dead headed, as can pansies • planting – April and early May are excellent planting times and most nurseries will have plenty of stock available. When buying plants it is easy to fall for the “achat de coup de coeur” and buy plants which are in flower now; do try and plan for colour and interest in the garden later in the year or else the garden can be sadly lacking in colour during August!. Check also on drought tolerance and winter hardiness of plants that you are interested in buying. Try and improve the soil where you plant, many local soils are a limy clay that can be improved by the addition of some organic material and some clean sand (sable de la riviére) and/or gravel for better soil structure and drainage (never use builder’s sand). Plants planted this spring will need watering during the first sum

The Herault & Aude Times

mer while they become established, even if they are drought resistant varieties.

• apply a balanced general purpose fertiliser to borders and beds and also to trees and shrubs • if you have a lawn then now is a good time to reseed any scruffy patches.

Spring is a time for many lovely shrubs to flower in our gardens. Three that I am going to mention this month are Xanthoceras sorbifolia, Ceanothus arboreus Trewithen Blue and Solanum crispum Glasnevin. The Xanthoceras makes a large deciduous shrub and can even be trained into a small tree, it likes full sun, reasonable soil and some supplementary. water during summer. The Ceanothus can also be formed into a small tree but is evergreen and will tolerate more drought. Solanum crispum Glasnevin is evergreen or semi evergreen and is part shrub, part climber – if allowed to it can send out long shoots up to 4 or 5 metres and can be trained through trees etc. It likes a little water during summer and will reward you by flowering from April until October!

Many of you will be aware that during our advertised opening hours we are not exactly swamped with visitors and more and more of our sales are for specific projects and orders .... so, we are going to restrict our regular opening times to one weekend a month but will still always be available at any time for you to come and visit the garden, talk plants (and maybe even buy one) by appointment just email or phone to organise a time. Do remember that we can always welcome groups of visitors to the garden so for clubs and societies this may be something that you would like to consider for your calendar. Regular opening times for the next few months will be 7/8/9 March, 11/12/13 April, 9/10/11 May, Pub saveur paul mas 140x200.pdf

1

6/7/8 June, after that we will review how things have gone.

And, looking ahead – a date for your diary – we shall be holding our annual open weekend at La Petite Pépinière over the weekend of 31st May and 1st June, if you are on my mailing list you’ll receive more details soon or if you would like to know more contact Gill@ lapetitepepiniere.com We are still finalising the programme but it will be similar to previous years.

email Gill@lapetitepepiniere.com www.lapetitepepiniere.com

For further information contact Gill Pound at La Petite Pépinière de Caunes, 21, Avenue de la Montagne Noire, (route de Citou) 11160, Caunes-Minervois. Tel: 04 68 78 43 81,

18/03/14

12:04

Aux Domaines Paul Mas, nos vins sont le fruit d’une recherche de l’excellence, dans le mariage de la tradition et de la modernité.

Le style qui en résulte est unique.

Avec Côté Mas, nous leur allions gastronomie, métiers d’art et musique, pour vous faire découvrir nos vins de la plus belle manière.

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

39

Walking the new Voie Verte from Hérépian to Mazamet, 65 kms

T

he opening of the final stretch of the Voie Verte between Mons la Trivalle to Hérépian is a welcome addition to our local walks.

The writer has now walked as far as Lacabarède some 16 kms east of the final destination Mazamet.

This is by far one of the best former railway lines converted into a Walking Track in France, set in the valley with the background of the hills on both side, it offers a whole range of walks.

Most of the former stations have a parking area and the IGN Blue Colour 1:25.000 maps* show where you can leave your car. As it is flat, a walk of between 6 and 8kms in each direction will take about 4/5 hours allowing a half an hour stop for a picnic.

What is worth noting is the climate change; arriving just west of St. Pons at Corniou you leave the Mediterranean climate and arrive in the Atlantic climate zone. West of Corniou you approach La Bastide Rouairoux once a busy textile manufacturing town built alongside the many streams of mountain clear water which criss cross the former line. Sadly the textile manufacturing has almost come to an end, albeit further on and close to Mazamet you can still buy textiles at bargain prices.

This Voie Verte was the Chemin de Fer du Midi line from Toulouse to Bédarieux and on to Montpellier.

All of the tunnels are now lit and the cuttings, bridges and viaducts are evidence of the very high engineering skills and labour when it was built in 1889.

Unlike a walk along the Canal du Midi, and out of season you are not likely to meet many other walkers, the Voie Verte is open to walkers, cyclists and those who prefer a four legged mount.

Take your camera, a bottle of water and a packed lunch; you can of course take a more leisurely stroll after an excellent lunch at one

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• IGN 1:25.000 blue coloured walkers maps for the Voie Verte 2543 Est – Bédarieux, Lamalou-Les-Bains; 2543 Ouest St. Gervais sur –Mare; 2554 Ouest – St Chinian ; 2544 ET Somail Minervois ; 2344 ET – Montagne Noire (Est) Mazamet Chris Elliott;

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of the bars restaurant en-route. The writer thoroughly recommends the food and atmosphere of the Auberge de Caroux in Mons la Trivalle 04 67 97 72 12.

As when built the trains were hauled by steam locomotives the line did not climb and as you can imagine it is almost flat all of the way, there is a gentle ramp up to the Col de la Fenouille between Corniou and La Bastide, you can spot when you pass the Col as the water flows in different directions either side of the 800 metre long tunnel.

The Voie Verte traverses two departments, from Hérépian to Corniou it is in the Hérault and to the West it is in the Tarn.

The new section from Mons la Trivalle to Hérépian has been converted to very high standard of safety and security with Gabions protecting the edge of the little bridges and viaducts.

If you are naturalist then pack a pair of binoculars and even in early February some of the wintering butterflies can to be found in the hedgerows.

Sadly SNCF closed the line but what was their loss is our gain and a very powerful addition to Tourisme Verte on our doorsteps. With the world and his wife on the beaches in summer, more visitors are now enjoying some of France’s finest and unspoilt countryside.

The various Offices of Tourisme have published a guide and to mark the opening of the latest stretch from Mons la Trivalle to Hérépian, the Chateau de Colombières sur Orb published a little brochure illustrate by Patrick Amorsi, a few copies remain; anyone interested should contact christopher.elliott@club-internet.fr.

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The Herault & Aude Times

PROPERTY

Properties with Income Potential Part 1: Gites

F 1,150,000€ - An outstanding Domaine located in an enchanting position right on the edge of the Canal, currently run as a gite and high end chambres d’hotes business

670,000€ - A grande Maison de Maître with an immaculate 5 bedroom barn conversion, large garden and pool, located in the centre of a lovely village

or many, the dream of moving to France is often tinged with the worry of how to make ends meet once settled here.

By far the easiest and most popular choice is to buy a property that can partly be run as a gite business, which could supplement one’s income or help pay off the mortgage.

There are of course, many points to think about before you go done this route and there are plenty of articles on the internet which talk about all aspects of running a gite business. From a real estate perspective, the most important point is the location of the property. You can change pretty much everything else except the location, so pay extra attention to this. It is pointless buying a gite business set in the middle of nowhere, however idlyllic the location may seem to you, as the average holiday maker is looking for something where he can pop out to buy his bread from the boulangerie every morning or walk to a café and sip his coffee whilst watching the world go by.

If you decide that a gite business is for you, then you need to think about wheth-

er you want to spend all you budget on a property that already has an existing gite business or whether you want to buy a property with outbuildings to convert into gites. Properties with an existing gite business tend to come with a higher price tag but it does mean that you can generate an income almost immediately and a lot of the hassle of setting up the gite is already taken care of.

Buying a property that needs to be converted does bring with it the headache of renovation and you won’t see returns for up to 2 years but your initial outlay for the property will be much lower and in the long run, you may see a more substantial capital gain.

Being a tourist destination, there is always a demand for holiday rentals in the Languedoc, and a well located and well run gite business could give you the freedom and financial security to enjoy your new life in France.

Here are 3 properties with gites, currently on our books……….: Richard & Chitra - Pullen Real Estate +33 (0)4 68 48 84 03 +33 (0)6 76 64 10 10/ (0)6 87 72 17 32 info@pullenfrance.com www.pullenfrance.com

The HAT Property section for professionals is for organisations that can offer a professional and consistent service to clients and guarantee the following: 1. A native English speaking representative 2. A reply to first contact within 24hrs 3. A first class professional service at all times.

A listing from these organisations can be found on the website www.theherailtandaudetimes.com This site is also available for private lettings

299,000€ - A former countryhouse in the centre of a popular canalside village with a gite, garden and pool

Agence Guy Estate Agency English/French owned 25 years of experience

www.pezenas-immobilier.com agenceguy@wanadoo.fr tel 0467 98 37 77 mob 0622 34 30 56 “Quality Assured”

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

41

The Geek we call ‘E-Male’

Windows 8 Such Fun....

Oh no!

It’s getting hot outside and I may have to take off my thermal underwear which in truth is normally all I wear as I don’t have to leave the house.

But times and seasons change and for all of you who have written telling me how much you hate Windows 8 I have but 2words for you...

Shut Up. Windows 8 is Microsoft getting it right.It has been with us for over a year now and still the questions come.

It is one of those times when what we know is comfortable but come on.....

You all love your iPad? You all love your smartphones?

Right, well if you want simplicity of use then welcome to the bright new world of ‘tiles.

It is a little like re-inventing the wheel in many ways, get rid of all the clutter on your desktop and viola, you have a set of tiles that take you where you want to go.

But I digress, you have asked questions so I will answer to the best of my ability which is simply astounding to all you humans.....

Q: How can I search quickly on Windows 8? Is there a shortcut?

This one was asked by many of you and there are many ways to search.

This is also the easiest to do as you do nothing at all.

ing what you are looking for.

JUST TYPE and the search box appears.

Q: Please tell me how to turnmy computer off. I have Windows 8 and it is a nightmare.

A good question that many have asked. Ok here we go with a few solutions...

1. Move the cursor to the bottom right corner (or top right)of the screen, click the Settings icon.

2. The old fashioned Ctrl+Alt+Del still works.

3. Hold down the Windows key and press I - Click on the power button for options.

On windows 8.I this is the Widows key + x.

Q: I use internet explorer but it is impossible to navigate.

Do I re-install?

No, no and no.

The latest IE is actually and still surprising to me very good indeed. No Java downloads so one very large malicious threat removed.

To use just right click on an empty part of the page or on a touch screen move your finger downwards from the top and you get options...if really struggling click on the spanner and you can choose to view on desktop which you may be more comfortable with.

And next month, we have a Nokia 1020windows phone.... are Apple and Samsung shaking? We’ll let you know.

On the desktop with all those terrifying tiles just start typ-

42

The Herault & Aude Times

C L A S S I F I E D S

Classified Adverts

ADVERTISE ON THESE PAGES FOR AS LITTLE AS €15.00 PER ISSUE CLASSIFIED Advertising from €15.00 DISPLAY Advertising from €40.00

advertising@ theheraultandaudeaudetimes.com

Classified Adverts ASSOCIATIONS

The Tuesday Club A lively group of English speaking people from all nationalities meet to hear talks, exchange ideas and socialise. www.tuesdayclub.eu tuesdayclub.fr@gmail.com **

Electrician

(N.I.C.E.I.C. Registered in UK 1986-2008) Rewires or extra lights/sockets.

Siret registered Tel: Terry Smith 0467 95 82 05 Email: smith_terence@orange.fr **

PROPERTY SERVICES/

SERVICES

Door Restore Is your Front Door showing its age?

WIC, Women’s International Club is an international group of ladies, for all nationalities, who meet to share experiences, knowledge and to have some fun.

Meetings are conducted in both French and English and commence at 14.30 on the first Thursday of each month at Salle de l’Abbatiale, Saint Chinian For further information please contact info@wic-lr.com www.wic-lr.com

**

Anglophone Group Languedoc Roussillon (AGLR) Adults & childrens’ activities including bridge, golf, French conversation, cooking, excursions in convivial atmosphere www.anglophone-grouplanguedoc-roussillon.com/ AGLRSete@yahoo.co.uk **

We meet at Maison pour Tous, Florensac, second Thursday of each month, at 1430h (except July & Aug).Info: 0467 77 19 06 www.wicmediterranee.org. **

Try Door Restore. Specialists in the restoration and repair of all wooden exterior and interior doors and shutters. Onsite repairs or workshop restoration Contact us for a site visit Free quotation Tel: 0671 52 61 93 m: door-restore@hotmail.fr Commercial Cleaning Machine for hire.Cleans soft furnishings, rugs, mattresses, sunbed cushions, car interiors, etc.Contact Trudi: 0499570589 trudi@ppm34.fr ** Enhanced Business English Training - Realise Your Potential RYP Training Consultants prepare you for any aspect of anglophone business from CVs and job interviews to presentations and meetings. www.ryp-associates.eu.pn **

DECOR

Decorate your home with a Scandinavian style and sophistication.

Scandinavian furniture, tableware and decor.

23 rue des Chevaliers de st Jean You will find us behind the Post Office in Pezenas www.troissoeurs.com Port. 0634509015 Dom. 0963211140 **

GRACE NICOLS HOMES: You own a property near Montpellier, Grace Nicols Homes is specialised in holiday rentals of luxury and characterful homes in Montpellier and its region.

We offer full marketing and management service for your home. Avoid the hassle involved in short letting, we will handle it for you: Secure keyholding service, changeovers, house cleaning, laundry, pool and garden maintenance, and more services on request. oliviaf@gracenicols.com tel: 0607801094 ** Perfect Property Management Professional, reliable company for all of your property needs.

Changeovers, pool maintenance and repairs, project management.

Siret registered.

Contact Trudi: 0499570589 trudi@ppm34.fr www.perfectpropertymanagement.com **

Gray Solutions Bilingual building and renovation project management, with excellent tried and tested teams covering all trades.

Bernie Gray 06 49 21 55 71 www.gray-solutions.co.uk ** Roofing and Building Services Roofs replaced or repaired: Leaks, Insulation, Velux, Guttering, New beams, Structural, Terraces. Building maintenance and repairs.

References.

Professional – Reliable longden888@lycos.com Karl : 06 04 45 63 57 Paul : 06 34 95 19 71 www.roofingbuildingservices.com

www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

**

Man Around the House Property Maintenance Company based in Pezenas we can cater for all your renovations or repairs with over 25 years experience you can trust your problems to us. PH.0467767527 or /0785080703. Email. martinmullin58@gmail.com ** READER RECOMMENDED DYSON RENOVATIONS, Qualified British Builder Full house renovations. Tiling, Kitchens, Bathrooms, Decorating.

Qualified electricians, Professional and Reliable.

Tel 06 27 55 04 79 dysonrenovations@gmail.com

www.dysonpropertyrenovations.com

** European Property Services *Supply and fit windows and doors and conservatories. * Supply and fit shutters in all materials * Supply and fit kitchens * Repair windows and doors Contact Paul Roberts t: 0467 62 30 65 m: 0627 59 22 08 email: europeanpropertyservices @live.com ** For All Your Property Care Needs Complete pool care inc. winter shutdown, gardening inc strimming, changeovers, general painting interior and exterior, varnishing, oiling shutters etc.

Siret registered est 10 years Tel: 04 67 24 83 72.

M: 06 87 64 97 29 www.property34fr.com **

LANGUEDOC PROPERTY SERVICE.COM Help in Hérault with property repairs & garden maintenance, pools, decoration, keyholding & changeovers.Established.

Bilingual. 06 31 74 45 88 ** French PLUMBER Plumbing - Heating- Gas t: 0467 00 11 19 p:0689 02 31 62 Denis Huyart 34630 43

Classified Adverts PROPERTY SERVICES/ GARDENING SERVICES

Roquebrun Property Management Personalised services for holiday homes and seasonal rentals.

Full or ‘pay as you go’ service.

Homes available to rent for 1- 15 people.

Call Sue on 0652752445. wwwroquebrunproperty.com **

RT MULTISERVICES No job too small - Painting, decorating, land clearence, keyholding. Translations.

Collections, deliveries, removals.

Regular van trips to/from UK. Reliable, local, bi-lingual.

Chris 06 84 29 34 34 e-mail chris.remnant@orange.fr ** Painter Decorator Plasterer Partition walls Laminate flooring Honest and reliable 06 23 33 30 22 Gary Jackson **

Prepare your gardens Now. HANDYMAN/ SKILLED CARPENTER WITH VAN Removals. All types of repairs.

Flatpack assembly. Furniture/ storage solutions built. Tiling, painting, electrics. Rubbish/Garden clearance/maintenance. No job too small. Col O’Neill 06 48 86 98 66.

Photos www.meubles-creatifs.fr **

Dick Fowler Construction Liner Pools, Solid Pools All house renovation and construction work Email; fowlerbatiment@gmail.com Port: 0670 91 12 17 Check out www.houzz.com/decklevel-pooldesigns and then call me!

Make use of spring monthsto install money saving water systems. Put in place building projects, paving and landscaping.

Easy to maintain hedges, dry lawns, beds and waterfeatures.

Mathieu Goudou Le Jardinier Prompt, reliable & perfect English.

Tel 0623 463542

** FOOD AND WINE

Cakes by Ann - since 1980 Rich fruit cakes for your celebrations.

Hand made to order Helen REMNANT 06 89 61 06 88 helen.remnant1@orange.fr **

WELL-BEING READERS RECOMMEND

Bespoke massage, Mobile service Group bookings taken.

Thai massages, Reflexology, Neck and face massage, Reiki, Oil massage.

Susannah 0652 75 24 45 / 0467 24 31 42 Based in Ceps / Cazedarnes ** Nathalie Esthetic Fabulous, affordable, beauty treatments - Nathalie Esthetic 4, Place du Marché St Thibéry Tue-Sat, Mon & evenings by appt.

Tel : Nathalie on 06 47 40 10 45 ** Centre d’Ostéopathie et d’Intégration Structurelle (®Rolfing) Recently opened in Lodève Annette Beckett qualified osteopath since 1992 cranial osteopathy for adults, children, babies annette@beckettosteo.com Barry P. Beckett Certified Rolfer, Rolf Institute 1993 Structural Integration, Postural Improvement, Osteopathics. motionpresent@gmail.com 06 30 64 88 40 **

TRANSLATION SERVICES READERS RECOMMEND Independent Anglophone translator.

All texts considered. Working languages: French, Spanish, English Contact Alison: aer.translations@gmail.com **

Nizas Langues French language lessons & Translation Service. (near Pézenas 34320) Qualified teacher & native speaker with over 25 yrs. experience of teaching French in the UK – GCSE & AS/A Level.

Hours to suit you 8.00 am – 8.00 pm.

Price from 15€/hr 0ne to One. Tailor made programmes – 10 lessons 100€.

Small groups on request.

04 34 53 18 36 info@nizaslangues.com www.nizaslangues.com

RETREATS

**

Outdoor yoga summer holidays.

Just 400 € per person per week!

Including organic vegeterian meals, lessons and camp site place. www.natureyogafrance.com **

WANTED

Saturday 12th April 2014 Fundraising event at the Mairie in Puivert, to raise funds for the SPA Carcassonne and also Twilight Retirement home for dogs.We would like to appeal for donations of costume jewellery, Bottles (for tombola) Raffle prizes and of course the usual knitting wool for blankets for the doggies at Twilight. **

POSITIONS OFFERED / WANTED BABYSITTING

Bilingual English/French Childminder Babysitter available weekdays evening or weekends lots of experience and references. Fun, caring, patient,22yr old female, non smoker confident driver (0467) 88 11 05 44

BABYSITTING Babysitter Available English native (bi-lingual).

19yr old lives in Sète.

Available evenings and weekends 0777 03 20 87 ** CLASSES

The Herault & Aude Times

Fully qualified mechanic (speaks a little French) Relocating to Saint Marcel / Narbonne area 30 yrs experience Subaru Kia Peugeot and Aston Martin Historic racing cars.

Seeking contacts with garages in 30 - 40 mins driving of Narbonne chrislawmon@yahoo.com **

Classified Adverts PROPERTY - Rental

LUNAS RIVERSIDE HOUSE Available for long term rental.

First occupancy after total restoration.

Two double bedrooms, 2 lounges, 2 WC/Shower Complete kitchen, private terrace, wine cellar, Jacuzzi Spa. Electric eco panel heating.

Information in English/en Français: mas_sagal@hotmail.com 0034 972 661585 ** Close to Pézenas 2 Bedroom House to Rent.

Garage, Terrace, (Stairs) 2 s/c studio flats attached.

Seperate entrance.

10 minutes by car from Pézenas.

All amenitied v close. €650pcm Enq: 0644 80 24 32 **

PROPERTY FOR SALE

Sweet home for sale in the heart of the village 40 square meters 30 minutes from Vias airport, 30 minutes from the beach, 45000 Euros Genevieve: 0608 62 81 24 0467 26 44 09 ** MOBILE HOMES FOR SALE. Prices starting from 1500€ up to 6000€. Wide range in stock.

Transport and installation available on request.

Telephone: 0609540662. **

PROPERTY FOR SALE

Marseillan Ville (Hérault) Four bedroom three story vigneron Marseillan Ville Two large bedrooms ensuite, master bedroom with balcony, garage to fit four cars, large kitchen / dining and living area on the top floor, large terrace.

OFCH and Air Con throughout.

Contact 0035 38 72 41 4002 ado_carey@yahoo.com **

Courses / Lessons

I am looking for someone to teach me to play the piano freestyle. I can already read sheet music. Lessons at my home or yours. Prices please to amikgo@yahoo.co.uk 04 67 37 05 55 ** LARGE TRADITIONAL HOUSE FOR SALE 200m2 beautifully renovated house between Pézenas and Clerment l’Hérault.

Four bedrooms, two bathrooms; self-contained top floor master bedroom with terrace + separate entrance. Is gîte if income required. Dining room, large modern kitchen, 65m2 living room, remise/workshop, landscaped garden with terrace. t: 04 67 44 37 73 for more details / to view

** PROPERTY WANTED House for Sale. Bédarieux.

Currently laid out as a four bedroom, family town house with a glorious terrace garden; fully rewired with completely new plumbing fitted, full central heating installed in a quarter earmarked for substantial modernisation and redevelopment.

Free municipal car parks are adjacent and the centre of town containing a variety of shops / weekly market is a two minute walk. Numerous supermarkets and garages are handily placed.

I am reluctantly looking for a much smaller house to reflect my changed situation. €270k Contact: posiwilliams@ymail.com ** Castelnau-de-Guers ville Characterful village House with kitchen/dining-room, bedroom, sitting-room, bathroom and WC 58.000 € Marie Desvignes Telephone: 0614 39 98 81

Looking for house/bungalow in the countryside, to rent from 1st April 2014 for 3 yrs, with large enclosed garden, without neighbours too near, even though our dogs are well behaved.

3 double bedrooms for 3 adults, must have a bath + garage or storage space.

Contact: 04 99 91 43 70 or 06 13 50 64 47

**

I have recently retired from a university in New Zealand and am traveling in France.

I would like to either house sit or pay a modest rent for a flat/ house from 17 April for approx 8 weeks.

Can look after pets/plants garden etc, can provide references email: johanna.bowden@gmail.com or phone 0644146225

** HOUSE SEARCH

Swedish Househunter Karin Kloo Your help finding your French home in Languedoc karin@husilaguedoc.se

B&B

Maison De L’Orb, Béziers Beautiful five bedroom bed and breakfast overlooking Pont Vieux and river. Private garden, bathing pool, fantastic breakfast.

Book: www.maisondelorb.com info@maisondelorb.com ** www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

CHURCHES

The Church of England at St. Pargoire, Holy Communion 2nd Sunday each month at 1030 am.

Everyone welcome.

Details achstp@gmail.com ** International Chapel of Montpellier Worship Services in English Children’s Bible Class provided Services held every Sunday at 11:00am Website: www.internationalchapel.eu **

HIRE

Hire a 2cv Convertable for the day or longer.

A wonderful slice of French Culture. More info at: www.cornelia-rentaduck.com

PETS

**

Canine Behaviourist and Dog Trainer. Crate a harmonious relationship with your dog.

Many references from satisfied customers Call Richard : 06.25.21.21.21 or see www.psychodog.net

** Horses

Want horses in your life but don’t know where to start?

Local, expert advice on all aspects of horseriding & keeping horses in the region for novices or experienced. Kitty 06 61 51 54 59 kitty@toosh.biz

ADVERTISE ON THESE PAGES FOR AS LITTLE AS €15.00 PER ISSUE

Join us today advertising

@theheraultandaudetimes.com 45

FOR SALE Satellites FOR SALE

110cm Satelite Dishes for sale.

Can deliver between Vias / Pézenas area or collect. €100 Call Ashley 0609 54 06 62 or 0499 41 61 80 handyman34450@hotmail.co.uk **

COUNSELLING SER-

Shenanigan’s Irish owned and run, family pub and restaurant. Come and join us for the best prices in the Languedoc.

All rugby, Gaelic and Hurling shown live. Guinness & Bulmers Home cooked food, prepared daily.Plate of the day 10e with a glass of wine. Taxi available.

Open all year.

Vias centre – 0430 17 83 87.

**

VICE

UK qualified, experienced counsellor.

Helping resolve your crises or long term issues Depression/Stress/Relationship issues/Addiction/Bereavement/ Trauma/Anxiety/Anger/Abuse/ Isolation/Eating Disorders/Illness Individuals, Couples, Adolescents Face2face, telephone, skype Shona Luck 04 67 90 70 01 shonaluck@orange.fr Confidentiality and BACP ethics assured **

BOOKS

English Bookshop - Pézenas Please call in for a chat plus your favourite English foods.

Delightful & unusual gifts for family, friends and you! A wide selection of English books. Rue St Jean ** English Books and Cards available at The English Bookstall: These markets; Monday - Bedarieux, Tuesday - Marseillan Ville, Wednesday Clermont l’Hérault, Saturday - Lodève.

Kerith 0467 96 68 87 ** Le Bookshop - Librairie Anglophone / café 8 rue du Bras de Fer Montpellier T/F: 04 67 66 22 90 contact@lebookshop.com www.lebookshop.com ** English Books at the Bourse, Pézenas.

First Sunday of every month from 10 to 12. The Café de la Bourse is next to the Hotel Moliere in Pézenas. All books are 1 Euro or less. Excellent coffee and company. Want to book a table?

Call Carole on 0467905910 46

I

n every village and every town the Hérault and Aude has a chance for you to visit and explore the magnificent produce and wares that it offers. Below is a selection, please visit www.theheraulttimes.com for a complete listing

AUDE

Restaurant L’Amindine 3 Place du 14 juillet, 34450, Vias In the historic centre of Vias village, traditional, family restaurant, serving fresh local produce & quality wines Open daily for lunch & dinner English Spoken Tel: 04.67.30.29.78.

**

La Charnière Bar Restaurant A newly opened bar / Restaurant in Beziers Aiming to combine the serving of top class food with a special rugby ambiance.

Place Jean Jaurés, Beziers t: 0467 36 83 10 **

EMERGENCY NUMBERS Police - 17 Fire - Pompiers - 18 Medical - SAMU - 15 Sea Rescue (Land) - 112 Sea Rescue (Sea) - CH 16 SOS Europe - 112 Child Abuse - 119 EDF (Electricity) English Line 0556 17 40 70

Markets Carcassonne every morning (except Sunday) in Les Halles; Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, Place Carnot Narbonne every morning in Les Halles inc. Sunday; Thursday morning opposite the hospital, clothes and diverse until 16h by the canal; Saturday morning, Organic market, place Forum Lézignan-Corbières Wednesday mornings (centre); Grand Foire every first Wednesday in the month until 16h Castelnaudary Monday morning (Place Verdun-Cours de la République) Bram Wednesday morning Espéraza Thursday and Sunday morning Gruissan Monday, Wed & Saturday morning Limoux - Friday morning Olonzac Tuesday morning Port La Nouvelle Saturday (place de l’église) and Wednesday morning Sigean Tuesday and Friday morning Quillan Wednesday and Saturday morning Trèbes Sunday morning Saint Pierre la mer Every morning

The Herault & Aude Times

HÉRAULT AGDE – Thursday morning.

Covered market every morning, except Monday BEZIERS Friday morning: Flower market in the Allèes Paul Riquet Saturday morning: vegetables in the Allèes Paul Riquet; organic produce

by Les Halles/ Sunday morning:large general market CESSENON-SUR-ORB Tuesday morning Produce / Saturday morning: various LODEVE – Saturday morning MEZE – Thursday and Sunday morning MONS-LA-TRIVALLE Thursday morning MONTPELLIER – Historic centre, Monday to Thursday 7h to 13h30, Friday and Saturday from 7h to 1800h (full list of Montpellier markets on HT PEZENAS Saturday morning SAINT-CHINIAN – Thursday and Sunday SETE – Monday morning: regional produce/Wednesday morning: various/Thursday morning: organic and regional produce/Friday morning: regional produce.

HAT Sport

by Stuart Turpie

E

ven with some grasp of French it can be difficult to find out what is happening in sport near you.

Media coverage can be limited and one can stumble upon events as or after they have taken place. A good example was the Herault Marathon of a

couple of years ago, once quite a prestigious race that ran on a course from Pézenas in a loop past St Thibéry and other villages, the runners would be played through the squares by local bands. An attempt to revive the race did not attract a lot of publicity. The field was small and when the contestants came home there was only a sprinkling of people to greet them in Pézenas on a Sunday morning; shame.

The recent 10kms road race in Béziers fared better and 490 athletes took part. The Moroccan Rachid Boulahdid won the

PLEASE HELP!!

-SPA CARCASSONNE

dogrescuecarcassonne.co.uk/ Tom should not be at our refuge. He was adopted from the SPA Toulouse, and the rule is that any dog who is found returns to the refuge whence he came. However Toulouse refuse to take Tom back, as at 10 years old, they will not be able to home him. At first I was furious, as we are full, too. However

contest in a time of 31 minutes in difficult windy conditions. There was more media awareness but still perhaps not enough. He was using the race as preparation for the Paris marathon. Many other runners were there just to prove something to themselves.

Chapeau to all those who took

part. Local triathlete, Caroline Lopez won the women’s race in 35’43. She was disappointed by her time but with some ferocious headwinds it was not unexpected.

The only surprise in the keenly awaited rugby XV Aude derby between Racing Narbonne and Carcassonne was the score. The visitors from Carcassonne were crushed 56-10. Very unusual in these encounters where local pride usually keeps the score fairly close. Great news for Racing who have a very good chance in the playoff spots.

No one is going to catch Lyon

but Narbonne must fancy its chances against sides like La Rochelle or Agen.

For Carcassonne however the possibility of relegation is looming. They need to hit some form and catch up with Bougen Bresse. As expected Béziers are liable to finish in a safe midtable place.

We get asked about sources of information on sport.

Departmental websites are quite good and tourist offices can also be helpful for activities for guests during the summer.

People have asked me about petanque since it is a sport which is accessible to the retired person. Why not try your local club. Ambiance can vary a great deal however. There is no easy answer. You just have to be pushy. Actually joining the club by paying the 20 euro or so fee is helpful. The problem is that some locals assume that a northern foreigner cannot grasp the game.

In actual fact there are a good number of étrangers who play regularly in the region. Don’t forget that some locals regard people from Paris or Lille as foreigners too. I will try to give some basic information about the game next month in time for the summer season.

We mentioned the good form of L’Avenir Bleu et Blanc, a local rugby XV. They came up trumps by winning the Trophée Lacans with a fine 18-8 win against St. Jean de Vedas. Well done to the side from 3 villages in the Capestang area.

Comité Sport Tambourin Hérault

Florensac - Champions 2013

The HAT is proud to be partnered with: Midi Cricket Club www.midicricket.com

Comité Sport Tambourin Hérault

now I have met Tom, I am very glad that he is with us! He is a lovely lovely boy. He is very laid back, doesn’t pull on the lead, lies down in a shady spot when he is given the chance.

He is very affectionate and approaches everyone for a cuddle.

He deserves much better than the fate that would await him at Toulouse. Let’s get this gorgeous shepherd cross a home! www.theheraultandaudetimes.com

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The Herault & Aude Times