Breton Diary - the good life in Brittany, France » Sleep Apnea

They stuck needles in my wrists!

Keith Eckstein — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:00:13 +0000

Because I’ve been having some sleep troubles recently…

I had to go into hospital for the night so that they could watch me sleeping.

Or rather, so that their machines could watch me. It’s all done with machines these days!

Apart from the last bit, that is…

The bit where they have to stick Bluddy Ginourmous Needles in my Wrists!

And that, believe me, hurts!

I took these photos when I was partially wired up. I’ve learned form experience that when the nice nurses have finished, I can hardly move!

Please click on the photos to see them full size

All the best

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Take my handicap

Keith Eckstein — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:22:06 +0000

It’s easy, sometimes, to feel sorry for yourself. I’ve recently been having trouble with the mask/respirator that I have to wear during the night.

It has a built in humidifier; that works great, most of the time. Recently, however, because of the sudden drop in temperature during the night the moisture condenses and I wake up with a mask full of water – that’s fun, that is!

I could get all grumpy about it but I had to laugh, the other day, when I met (via www.aTasteOfGarlic.com) someone else who suffers from Sleep Apnea. He has to wear a a gum shield top and bottom which keeps his jaw from dropping back and closing his windpipe. I told him that I was glad I didn’t have to do that – it doesn’t sound like much fun.

He replied saying… “My mum’s best friend has a sort of Darth Vader outfit. She has a nightmare each time she flies anywhere. All straps around the head and a vacuum cleaner type oxygen feeder making gurgling sounds next to the bed. Bloody hell, I hope you don’t have that too!”

Um, that’s exactly what I’ve got. But little things like that are sent to try us. You can’t let them get you down.

I saw this sign outside E. Leclerc today and it made me think.

All the best

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A short break.

Keith Eckstein — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:34:10 +0000

The short break in postings on this site was due to an unexpected visit to hospital. I went in for a checkup and ended up staying for a month!

However, I am back home now and, hopefully, am finished with doctors and nurses sticking needles in me and doing other unforgivable things – at least for the time being!

All the best

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A quiet drink.

Keith Eckstein — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:56:38 +0000

The Girlie and I went to the doctor’s this morning.

We had to discuss the results of my recent brain scan (all clear) and how my new medication was working for me.

I was rather worried that (1). I would be sent back to work (and I know that I’m not really ready for that), and (2). One of the results of my last blood test indicated a problem with my liver!

I was very worried that I was going to need a Liver Transplant (which would involve lots of internal medical stuff), and… undoubtedly, loads of injections!

I hate medical stuff and I have a mortal fear of injections.

As it turned out, my liver is fine – the doctor explained that although my Gamma-GT (whatever that is), was over 100; the people with real problems (thus requiring transplants etc.) have Gamma-GT readings in the thousands!

The doctor signed me off work for another month but did say that it might be another six months before the medications that I have to take, have been reduced to a level where I can return to work.

To celebrate the good news, the Girlie and I went for a drink at my favourite bar in Josselin – La Bar De La Duchesse Anne, for a quick and quiet drink.

I used to use this bar an awful lot a few years ago – the previous owners were very nice to the Englishman who works at the abattoir, lives at Les Croix and rides a pushbike.

On one occassion, just after a freak blizzard in March of 2004, I staggered into town in my wellies – the normal 45 minute walk took me over 2 hours, that day! The, then, owners of the bar made sausages en-croute (sausages in pastry) and mulled wine for anyone who had braved the elements and visited the bar – little things like that mean an awful lot to me.

Well, I now longer ride a pushbike and the wife of the patron of the bar died of cancer about two years ago. A young couple bought the place and started changing things around and I stopped using the bar.

About a year ago, I started using the bar again. The changes that the new owners had made started to make sense; the restaurant is now upstairs, there is a Games room where the old restaurant used to be (with a baby foot table) and the whole ambience is lighter.

The new owners are very friendly and I often pop in for a quiet drink whenever I’m in town.

The new patron is ill at the moment (a bad leg), but, as soon as he is back on the scene, I’m going to take the Girlie there for a meal and will write an article about it (to be published in the restaurant section of this site.)

I’ve already drooled over other people’s meals there (especially the 9 Euro Moules Frites which looks big enough to feed an army.)

If you are ever in Josselin and fancy a drink or a meal – why not visit the bar – it’s at the top of the high street. The menu is basic but good and not too fancy (and certainly not too expensive.) The bar shuts on Mondays and is rarely open Sunday nights during the off-season.

The photos on this page show… The patron (always smiling), The Girlie and me (also smiling) and, finally, just me (not sure if I’m smiling or just have a bad case of Wind?)

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

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The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information

The last supper!

Keith Eckstein — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:46:09 +0000

I’m going for my brainscan tomorrow; so I’ve decided to treat myself tonight.

It’s not that I’m particularly worried about the scan (apart from a nagging uncertainty that they won’t actually find any sign of a brain, at all!)

What really scares the hell out of me is that they are going to give me an injection first – AND I HATE INJECTIONS!

I’d rather have my leg amputated with a rusty hacksaw (even my middle leg!!!), than have an injection!

Thus, for what could be my last ever meal (or am I just being a trifle melodramatic here?). I’ve decided to treat myself to Fruits des Mer!

It was on special offer at Super U (4,50 Euros for a platter for 2) and I’ve added half a dozen oysters and bought a nice, rustic baguette.

As I’m not allowed to drink at the moment, I’ll be washing it down with a lovely (if you’re really desprate, that is), non-alcoholic wine (that tastes like peaches) and, of course, will be having an aperitif – a wonderful non-alcoholic Pastis (that doesn’t actually taste too bad!)

I plan on eating (what could be my last supper), in the garden – I love watching the bees and butterflies doing their thing whilst I’m busy troughing, being cooled by a warm evening breeze.

Being logical about it, I’ve worked out that the are four possible outcomes to my brain scan tomorrow. These are…..

1) – They show me the size of the needle they plan to inject me with and I have a massive heart attack and drop dead on the spot!

2) – I’ll survive my heart attack, they’ll do the scan but not be able to find any sign of a brain – that’s starting to worry me more and more, come to think of it!

3) – They’ll do the scan and find a brain (of some sort), in perfect working order.

4) – They’ll do the scan and find some sort of brain with something wrong with it.

Realistically, I resigned myself to all possible outcomes and, thus, am not too worried (apart from the bloody injection, that is!)

The only thing that slightly concerns me is the infinitesimally small possibility of dying by lethal injection, administered by a psychopath (wearing stolen doctor’s clothes), who has recently escaped from a high security mental institution!

I know the risk of that happening is minor but, you do have to consider all things, don’t you!

On that note, I’ll say goodnight and, whatever you are eating…

Bon Appetite!

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information

What’s happening?

Keith Eckstein — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:39:14 +0000

I returned to work (at the local pig abattoir), a few months ago.

Rather than returning my old department (Conditionment; where pork chops and other bits of dead pig are packed into boxes for freezing – and where my job was to put those boxes onto pallets), I now work in Formage Cartons.

That means I work with the team that makes all the boxes for the whole abattoir – it’s hard work!

On the whole, I was enjoying my new work (although, being based in the roof of the building did mean that it got very hot!)

Only time will tell if I can cope with that..

It didn’t last, though…..

The photo shows the Girlie and me just before I went back to work – we were supposed to be enjoying ourselves in Josselin but my lack of balance and general grumpiness spoiled the day, a bit.

Although the work sounds simple, my memory just doesn’t work these days, and I used to upset my colleagues by constantly forgetting even the simplest of things. Also, and more worrying for my colleagues, I had a habit of collapsing if I worked too fast!

Finally, just 2 days before my summer break, I collapsed and was rushed to the doctors – he signed me off work once again and put me on a new course of medication.

I had been taking medication before but, I now realise that it wasn’t right for me. My new drugs have changed my personality and I am starting to become a human being, once again.

It also helps that I have accepted my illness and can laugh at myself (when I do silly things or forget even the simplest of tasks.)

Also (and most importantly), the commitment from my long suffering Girlie, and the help she has given me (even small things like helping me with my housework & gardening) has brought me back into the real world

The second photo is more recent and shows that I have had my haircut and am generally more human – although you can’t see, I have also changed my underpants – very important, that!

I am due to go back to the doctor’s tonight (5th Aug 2008) to see if he thinks I’m fit enough to go back to work. In my heart of hearts, I know that I’m not – so Girlie is coming along to make sure I don’t do the Macho thing and pretend that all is well.

I have started to think of long term plans – perhaps it’s time to look for a different type of work? I don’t see my illness as a problem – more as an opportunity to try something different.

Although I am a Christian – I’m not really a God-botherer; he and I have an agreement to have a little chat every now and again – I look at my recent problems (and some of my days, last year, were very, very dark indeed – at one point I even wrote a letter to the Girlie explaining how to look after the cats, if I weren’t around to do it myself – thankfully, I came to my senses and the letter went into the bin), as a sort of wake up call – a bit like Jonah and the Whale!

Thus, don’t be too surprised if I jack in the job, find a little part-time job and set up something on my own (I already do a bit of fixing PCs for friends at work) – who knows?

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information

Why the silence?

Keith Eckstein — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:30:16 +0000

“It’s been an awful long time since I’ve updated this site. There’s a simple reason and I’d like to explain.

During 2006 and the start of 2007, I felt that I was getting very tired and, although my life was wonderful (disregading the old Bessie’s habit of breaking down whenever she was grumpy), I sort of knew that something was wrong.

The photo shows that I had been letting myself go a bit and had that haunted/tired look about me.

In June of 2007, I finally plucked up the courage to go to the doctors (I hate all that medical stuff)…..”

At first he felt that I had been working too hard (probably true), but tested me for all the horrible things that he could think of.

The five minutes that I had to wait for my lung X-Ray results (all alone in a tiny room), were the longest five minutes of my life – it was enough to make me swear to give up smoking!

Unfortunately, five minutes later, when the X-Ray results came back clear, I was lighting up again!

All the Summer (the Summer of 2007), I was signed off work and being passed from one specialist to another. During that period, I was finding it increasingly difficult to sleep and by September, was only managing 2 hours a night.

Finally, at the end of September, I had a sleep study at the local hosital. I was rigged up to all sorts of sensors and told to go to sleep.

I did and woke up two hours later, as had become the norm, by then. The next morning I told the specialist that I had only managed two hours sleep. “No”, he said… “During those two hours you only actually slept for 55 minutes!”

A week later I was being fitted with a mask connected (via a long tube) to a machine that breaths for me, whilst I sleep.

One week later, I went back to work. That was a big mistake! Although I was put on light duties, it is very cold where I work and I immediately came down with a cold.

Breathing through your nose (I wear a nasal mask) when your nose is either blocked up or running, is really rather difficult.

I struggled on for two months but, eventually, my boss couldn’t take any more of watching me suffer and I got signed off work, once again!

It took me another three months to get used to wearing the mask, sleeping on my back and breathing through my nose (whilst asleep) – all things that I was not used to doing.

Finally, I was fit enough to go back to work. The Abattoir found me a job that I thought I could do and, for a while, all was well!

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information

A walk, memories and a dream.

Keith Eckstein — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:02:21 +0000

Yesterday, after work, I decided to go for a little walk around the block.

The walk took me past a farm (well, where I live, all my walks do). As I passed the cowshed, I got a whiff of that cowshed smell.

And, with it, a flood of memories.

My Granny and Grandpa used to have a farm in Constantine, Cornwall.

Everytime I go past a cowshed, I have a vivid memory of watching the cows being milked and of seeing the young calfs.

Now, accordingy to my father, Grandpa sold his farm when I was 9 years old – strange that I should have such detailed memories.

Last night, I had a strange dream. Normally, I don’t remember my dreams but, this one is still with me, now – many, many hours later.

The dream started with me in the garage of the bungalow that Granny & Grandpa built after they sold their farm. I could smell the unique smell of Grandpa’s garage (for it was very much his) – a sort of mixture of Castrol engine oil and chicken feed – strange in that they didn’t keep chicken after they sold the farm.

Grandpa had a workbench in his garage and, as a boy, I was allowed to make things there. I’m not sure that I made anything useful out of the offcuts that I was allowed to cut up and nail together but, I do remember passing many happy hours trying.

In my dream, I saw the jars of old screws and nails that Grandpa had collected. It was only in the dream (30 years after the last time I had played carpenter in his garage), that I realised that the reason that all the screws had burred heads and that all the nails were bent – was because Granpa had rescued them from bits of wood that he was going to burn. No wonder those nails were so hard to hammer in (for a young boy, 30 years earlier) – no wonder none of my creations ever came to much!

I left the garage and went into the utility room. This was a small room that connected the garage to the bungalow. There was a coal scuttle there and cold, tiled floors. The steps were roughly rendered and my young boy’s legs often had scratches on them, as a result. It’s strange, the things that you remember, isn’t it? Granny used to grow her Geraniums in this room and, even now, just the sniff of a Geranium will take me back there.

Still in my dream, I walked into the bungalow and straight to Granny’s kitchen. Just as the garage was Grandpa’s, the kitchen was definitely Granny’s. Here (and now, aware that I was dreaming), I was assaulted by a seies of smells and tastes. First the smell (taste?) of over peppered bolied potatoes, the smell of pasties cooking in the Aga. The granny smell of Granny and the feel of her soft wrinkled skin. I could, somehow taste her Heavy Cake and her Saffron Cake, as well. I could, once again, taste the wonderful ham she used to buy, with a thick fatty edge (the sort we don’t get today). Her Coleman’s mustard (made from powder) and that big, blue mug of milky tea.

Finally, I walked into the living room and the fire was burning. I was alone in the bungalow but the fire had been lit. The crackle and the smell were just the same as they had been when I was a boy – nothing had changed. On the sideboard I could see all the family photographs (just as I can see them now) – the wedding photographs from the sixties, those horrible Christmas cards that my father used to make – all of us (brothers and sisters) wearing identical jumpers (knitted by Mum) – always taken on a Sunday morning when we had better things to do than line up for a painful photo (hoping that none of our friends would see us in our matching jumpers).

I knelt down in front of the fire (just as I would have done, 30 years before) and felt the warmth of it. And then I woke up.

It wasn’t a bad dream, it wasn’t a dream that worried me whilst I was having it and it doesn’t worry me now.

I just wonder why it happened. Perhaps all people have detailed dreams like this. I shall definitely be going for another walk past the farm, next week – perhaps I’ll go back to Constantine (in my dreams), as well. I do hope so.

All the best

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MushroomDiary	A Taste of Garlic	Images of Brittany	Market Days in Brittany	Website Design	Best Gites in Brittany

Roadside Tales	Internet Acceleration

The French Kitchen A delightful book in which Joanne shares with us ‘her family recipes, passed down through the generations. The French Kitchen is a tantalising collection of casseroles, soups, roasts, salads, tarts and sweets. More information	Cholcolat Joanna Harris creates a rich and vibrant description of a rural French village with all its petty rivalries and traditional, narrow-minded boundaries on thought and behavior. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Five quarters of the orange’ is a story of a childhood tragedy in wartime France, and the shadows it casts across the later life of the heroine Framboise Dartigen. More information	Blackberry Wine Everyday magic, he called it, the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams – Layman’s alchemy. More information
The French Market Following the success of The French Kitchen, Joanne Harris and Fran Warde have collaborated once more to write a French cookbook with a difference. This time they have taken their inspiration from the rural markets of Gascony. More information	Coastliners Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose “head is full of rocks” tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. More information	Five Quarters of the Orange Three sublime audiobooks from the bestselling author, now available together in a specially priced pack. Includes BLACKBERRY WINE, FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE and the huge bestseller CHOCOLAT. With a gentle touch and an eye for human frailty and strength, these mouth-watering audiobooks will draw you into her enchanting worlds. More information	French Lessons Failed rock legend, pickled onion manufacturer, air hostess and euro-entrepreneur George East takes us through another eventful year of his doomed attempts to make a living out of living in rural France. More information
French Flea Bites The character of France and the French people has been captured in words beautifully and the hilarious exploits of George his wife Donella, their neighbours and Cato the cat. More information	French Letters This is not so much a book as a continuation of the serial story of George and Donella as they carry on with their almost idyllic life in Normandy. It’s at least as funny as the others, but the hanky had to come out again several times. More information	French Cricket Once upon a time, former night club bouncer, seamstress and professional bedtester George East and his wife Donella fled to Normandy to escape their creditors and try to live off their wits in a foreign land. More information	Home and Dry in France Buying property in France is fraught with mishaps and misunderstandings. George East’s book brings humour and fun to what happens when people venture forth to a foreign land with more hope than money and humour than language skills. More information
French Kisses Those poor people who don’t like George East’s books often dismiss them as fiction. Not so, everything is at least based on real people and real happenings. George admits to a degree of embellishment and often combines several mishaps to produce a spectacular disaster. Such is the nature of his works. More information	Rene and Me Told in the inimitable style which has alrea dy won the author an army of followers, Rene & Me is a somet imes hilarious, sometimes moving and always captivating celebration of human nature, people and, above all, life and living.’ More information	A Year in the Merde This very funny book sounds a lot more like the France that I know. Read it and you’ll still want to come here, you’ll just be a lot better prepared for the surprises that France has to offer. More information	Merde Happens Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini, while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Paul’s French girlfriend, Alexa, and his American poet friend, Jake, whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. More information
Merde Actually A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss’ mistress? More information	Dial M for Merde In this book, you’ll get Paul, Elodie, her dad and some new French girls. All of them are of course hot and all of them adore Paul. Didn’t see that one coming… More information	Talk to the Snail The only book you’ll need to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, and most importantly, how to get the best out of them. With useful sections on: Making sure you get served in a café, Harassing French estate agents, Living with bacteria, Pronouncing French swear-words and much more! More information	1000 years of Annoying the French Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? No! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? No! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. More information
The Olive Farm This is television actress Carol Drinkwater’s lyrical account of a new life in France; about her house, Appassionata, and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a “new” French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. More information	The Olive Season This is an extraordinary and fascinating follow-up to The Olive Farm. The reader is drawn deeply and inexorably in to the world of the author, confronted with her personal struggles and entranced by her pastiche of growth and decay in the world of nature, a metaphor for her life. More information	The Olive Harvest Carol and Michel have again returned to Appasionata, the Olive Farm that they have restored, and Carol is eager to continue production of the olives and attain their cerificate for producing Organic Oil. More information	The Olive Tree THE OLIVE TREE charts Carol Drinkwater’s colourful and often dangerous journey in search of the routes that olive cultivation has taken over the centuries. Set during a springtime Mediterranean that is evocative and perennial, it is above all a tale of our time. More information
The Olive Route A tour de force from Carol Drinkwater in this, the fourth in her Olive series. The joy of this book is in the pen pictures that she creates of the unusual characters that she encounters on her journey. More information	The Illustrated Olive Farm The photgraphy is wonderful and the book is a great insight in to life with the olives and all that that involves. There are wonderful pictures of the dogs, family, friends, even the dreaded wild boar. Recipes as well. More information	Petite Anglaise Petite Anglaise is a memoir by Catherine Sanderson based on her blog of the same name. In 2004 Catherine decided to start up a blog based on her life in Paris. More information	French Kissing Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread. More information
Tout Sweet You cannot help but fall in love with the author’s character. She seems like a Bridget Jones let loose in the French countryside, getting into a lot of funny situations with both ex-pat English and French locals like, as she adjusts to a totally different way of life. More information	Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette John Dummer’s sharply focused descriptions of the landscape, towns and villages, and the weather of the South West of France form a animated background for a series of adventures with an array of characters from some intimidating and belligerent peasants to a sad little old man whose only companionship is a collection of antique dolls. More information	Merde! This book is an excellent source of words and expressions, of varying degrees of vulgarity, that are used all the time by french speakers. I used it often during the first of my two years in France. More information	Almost French “Almost French” is the story of a woman who goes to France to visit a French lawyer she has only met a couple times before and barely knows. Of course, she gets caught up in the romance of the city and stays on to live there. More information