FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS

Sorry, I couldn't resist that one!

Apart from that horrid man (in previous post) we began to get to know the local people and made valuable friends , some of whom I still see from time to time. I remember Michel , the butcher! He had a van and went around the local villages on market days to sell his meat. What a character he was! He looked typically french with a droopy moustache and often wore a black beret for effect. He had made a horn ( of sorts) and attached a long rubber tubing to it and would swing it around rapidly making a sort of weird wailing sound. He could also play that horn, and very well, without the rubber tubing , of course!

Then there was Jacqueline and her family who lived just outside the village in such a pretty house. They had dug out and filled a huge lake on their property, what a setting that was. Not only was she our friend but she became our cleaner, and I don't know what I would have done without her. When we finally sold la Roche hue, she stayed on with the new owners and only retired from there about two years ago. We also became very friendly with our Notaire , our insurance agent and our electrician and their wives and families. François , is still my Notaire and we meet often.

The local village was small and pretty and had a lovely old church ( 13th century) whose bell we would hear tolling, from the Chateau. Below is a postcard picture from 18/19th century, I think.




Apart from the church there was a small alimentation ( food shop) Bar ( of course) Boulangerie ( of course) and a post office and that was it! If you were driving through the village and blinked you would have missed it! ( I know - old joke!).

Below is a picture of a family member cutting the grass at the rear of the Chateau, and you can just see the village in the background.




Little did I know it at the time, by my daughter would be getting married in the lovely old church!