25th November 2008

Sorry I haven’t posted for some time and also for only just getting around to posting these shots taken last November.

The thing is I decided to check out our local walking groups thinking it might be a good idea to have some company on my walks. Obviously the walkers are all going to be French and although this would be a brilliant opportunity to improve my French conversation language skills (as well as keeping fit) it was a going to be a little daunting infiltrating this group an introducing myself.

A friend mentioned a group who meet up in Paussac & St Vivien every Friday afternoon. Paussac & St Vivien are a couple of small hamlets that are about a 20 minute drive from La Treille. I decided to go along and meet them and hopefully join them on a walk.

About 30 people turned up for the walk and they all seemed a lovely friendly bunch. There were about 5 or 6 English people and of course I naturally fell into step with my ex-pat walkers.

Quite a few of the walkers had dogs but I was a bit apprehensive about letting Ruben off the lead even though it was obviouse he was desperate to join the other ‘free’ dogs. After about 1/2 an hour one of the French ladies said I should let Ruben go. When I let him go she laughingly called after him “liberte pour le chien”! He was loving every minute of it.

The walk was quite long – about 4 and a 1/2 hours and they went at a fair pace. After the group were having their AGM in their meeting hall at Paussac. I stayed for about 45 minutes and then made my excuses and left… it was dragging on a bit and although it was good that I was picking up quite a bit of French there was a lot I really didn’t understand and so found it frustrating.

I promised I’d be back next week and left.

During the next week I found out about another group more local to me that met up every Tuesday afternoon. These were called
‘LES JOYEUX RANDONNEURS DE LISLE TOCANE’, that sounded good to me so I went along on the next Tuesday to check them out.

Again they were a lovely bunch although this time there were no English walkers that I could ‘hide amongst’ and so it was full on trying to converse in French. Not easy but I think I managed ok.

We started off from the
‘Pont d Ambon’ a little bridge crossing a spur of the River Dronne where there was a small carpark. I tried chatting with a couple of people during the walk and managed to have small conversations but one lady in particular was really friendly. Her name was
Marie-France and she had spent quite a lot of time in the UK some years ago so we had quite a good conversation, she didn’t seem to mind correcting my awful French. I think she quite enjoyed practicing her English again on me whilst I ‘tried’ to speak French to her. It was a bit stilted but we were having a laugh as well .

The group stopped for a 5 minute rest about once an hour and after about perhaps 2 and a half hours walking the group stopped again and it appeared that they were splitting into 2 groups with one group completing the full 5 hour walk whilst the other were taking a short cut back to the starting point. I decided not to push my luck on my first outing and joined the ’short cut’ group.

There were a couple of things I wasn’t keen on with these groups, one was actually being in a large group meant that you felt you couldn’t hang around and take in the views etc. I also missed not having a map to hand so and felt a little ‘lost’ and not having a sense of direction or ‘where I was on the walk’.

At the end of the walk I was given a form to complete for insurance purposes (this is qite normal for any ‘organised sporting group’ in France). I needed to take the form to my GP to sign once he’d agreed I was fit and healthy and bring it back with me completed if I wished to go on any further walks. I thought ‘no problem’, said my goodbye’s, and promised to see them again next week.

Here’s why it’s been a while since I made any posts here…

I made an appointment with my GP but unfortunately she picked-up on a forgotten heart murmer that I have. I remember a previous GP mentioning this about 10 years ago but was told at the time it really was nothing to worry about. Nevertheless my current GP insisted on me seeing a cardiologist to get it checked before she would sign my form. I couldn’t get an appointment until the 2nd February but of course once I’d been examined everything was ok. The cardiologist started to sign the form for me but unfortunately signed in the wrong place so I now have to go get another form from the group…. arghhhh!!!