les Davey de France

They offered. We deliberated. We accepted. The compromis de vente (agreement to sell) will be signed on Friday by the buyers and on Saturday by us (because I am tied up on Friday from 15:30 till close of play) I need to make an appointment with the notaire as soon as possible. We are now looking actively for something to rent. We were wondering whether to move further into Bordeaux and try to find a flat in the centre of town, or whether to stay in Pessac where the living' is easy and stuff. This past week has greatly helped in our deliberations. Catrin takes the tram from our home to the campus, and from here to her department at Montaigne the tram is nice and clear, you can get a seat and it's all very civilised. From Montaigne into the centre of town it's AMAZINGLY crowded! I mean you're stuffed in like neaps in a haggis when the oatmeal swells. It's tight. Very tight. So we're going to look in Pessac. We're not guaranteed to find in Pessac, bu...

Thanks for your prayers. We are deliberating.

Just so you can see how things are going - somewhere in the region of 25 people there.

It was quiet. Very quiet.

"They keep talking about work that needs doing..." "Well it does, dear. When we bought it we knew it needed rewiring. Now it needs other things, too. We've never done it, we've never been able to do it and we never will, but it still needs doing."

Bordeaux is hosting an international fireworks symposium this week. This meant that on Monday evening there was the most colossal fireworks show you ever saw down at Quinconces. We had some friends visiting from Wales and Catrin was at the University till almost 8, so we high tailed it into town on the tram aiming to synchronise our passage through Montaigne-Montesquieu. Hah! We bargained without the DROVES of students who were all catching the tram at about 8. Because we got on at Alouette we were comfortably seated deep in the heart of the carriage, but nearer the doors the students were snugger than sardines when there's a glut of fish and a shortage of tin. They have increased the frequency of trams between the campus and the city centre, but I am reliably assured that the evening trams are always stuffed like mama's cannelloni. So our dreams of synchronisation vanished like bubbles in a greasy bowl of washing-up. Catrin caught a later tram. And ended up by th...

The blog has been quiet lately, mainly because of comings and goings. So look out for a sudden flood of updates! So what about this house move? We're still waiting for that one special person with that one special chequebook. Last weekend there was a flurry of activity with two estate agents from the same company vying to get their clients' second visit in first so that if the client made an offer it would block the other. This was very entertaining but has not yet proved fruitful in terms of an offer on the house. Meanwhile Catrin has started at the university and we've learnt a bit about public transport to and from the campus. This has encouraged us to think in terms of attempting to rent on the Pessac side of the campus rather than on the Bordeaux side. I'll pop something on the blog about the fireworks soon and you'll see why!

Sometimes I just wonder, really I do. Yesterday the news said that the Saudi ambassador at the United Nations in Geneva has been chosen to chair the Human Rights Committee. Today the news is of a young Saudi man sentenced in Saudi Arabia to be publicly beheaded and then his body exposed till it rots because four years ago when he was 17 he took part in demonstrations against the Saudi regime. Meanwhile Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger sentenced to 1000 lashes for criticising the regime on the internet is still imprisoned though his health has prevented him receiving more than 50 of the lashes of his sentence. If I believed people capable of it I'd subscribe to conspiracy theory. Instead I see it as proof of mankind's stunning incompetence.

In the plane on the way back from Liverpool to Bordeaux we sat in a row - myself, Pat and Catrin - and drifted gently off to sleep as we hurtled through the thin air. When I woke I gazed across at the women in my life. At Deeside we'd done a quick update about the Bordeaux project. Think of it! Us, planting a church! But we're too old, too cold, too worn, too weak, too staid, too flat - anyway, we're doing it. The last matter on the last slide was "Gwilym and Catrin at the fac", so then Gwilym bounded out and gave people an up-beat update about the three years of study he plans at LST. Then Catrin spoke about her Musicologie et Chanson Française. So different, so gentle, so womanly. I am amazed at them both. There are 24 people on her course. There are no second or third years. They do an intake once every three years. She didn't know that when she applied, and she didn't know that she just happened to be applying in a year when there was an intake. ...

Wednesday morning found me in the Maison de la Bible where there's a number of interesting new books been published, including "La foi chrétienne autrement" by one of my heroes, Paul Wells. Afterwards we scuttled off to the right bank to visit some new folk in Bordeaux, Peter and Alison who work with Open Air Campaigners and who have found a super little flat just near tram A. we had a gorgeous lunch and talked churches, Bordeaux and stuff.

A couple of prospective buyers have visited the house this week, two with some signs of interest. We'll see.

We just got back from a quick weekend visit to the UK where as part of Christ Church Deeside 's 40th anniversary celebrations we visited for me to preach. They're having all the old boys visit with our bathchairs and zimmer frames. Next week is Peter Milsom. They've already had visits from Mike Leaves and Mark Rowcroft, and possibly Iwan Rhys Jones, too. I was a little nervous about preaching in that setting. I am more used to small groups now, and to getting answers to my rhetorical questions, but folks are kind and it was good to be there. Another interesting feature is that the church has several retired pastors in the congregation now - on Sunday morning there was John Davies, Stuart Olyott and Bill Hughes. Still, after Banner it takes more than that to terrify me. We are sat just over this left wing. The weekend was quite full: We arrived on Saturday and were whisked to a Church Officers' Social Buffet. Sunday we had the morning and evening services as ...

So we went. I had a CNEF33 committee meeting this morning, and you know what we boys are like, so I was a little later than usual returning the most excellent Clio to Pessac Centre and hopping on the No. 4 bus. So it was at 13:10 that Gwilym and I joined the queue outside the brand spanking new Starbucks and waited in the blazing sunshine to enter and order our frappicaramelmacchiatochino. We chatted with the couple in front of us, visitors from New York, whose daughter collects Starbucks Mugs from All Over the World, and eventually got to the counter. We'd rehearsed our Starbucks names - Gwilym was going to be Rhydderch and I was going to be Llewelyn - but we chickened out big time and became William (I know) and Alan. Which the guy spelt with two "l"s. We had mangopassionfrappojuicicinos or something. I just said, "Same for me". And we enjoyed the ambiance of a rather hastily prepared and decorated Starbucks Salon. In places it really showed, but ove...

We wanted to have an outing together, but we didn't have a lot of time, so I reserved the Clio and we went out to Parc Majolan.  You can find on the blog that we first went there in 2005!

In Pessac I saw one of the new buses, Starshipper.com. For 10 euros and in three hours you can be in Hendaye, on the Spanish border. From there a tram will take you to San Sebastian. Pretty good, eh!

We got on the tram for Pessac Centre so I could pick up the Citiz car. It didn't move. "What's he waiting for?" Eventually, "Please evacuate the tram so we can sort out the breakdown." We walked up to the No 4 bus stop. "At least when the bus breaks down there's another bus along. When the tram breaks down you've had it." We passed three police in flak jackets carrying sub-machine guns. What that was all about we had no idea. Any dignitaries in town?

Bordeaux already has two Starbucks concessions, both at the airport, one amazing origami coffee bar upstairs in the main terminal building and one coffee cart parked outside the low-cost terminal building. Another outlet is planned in the prestigious Promenade Sainte Catherine in the heart of the shopping centre, just up the road from Macdonalds. But suddenly on Monday we learned that a Starbucks salon is opening tomorrow next to the huge Post Office at Meriadeck. Yesterday after our planning and prayer meeting James and I sauntered up to Meriadeck where I would purchase coffee and comestibles from the Auchan Gigamarket, and we passed the Post Office en route. "That's it" "But it can't be!" They'll NEVER have it ready by Thursday! The storefront next to the Post Office was littered with what looked like old tat from sundry offices: a sink, desks, large items of detritus of every sort, and a few people were milling around even as doth the ant. ...

Yesterday at Bordeaux Church was encouraging, with some new folk including a pastor's kid and a missionary kid, some interest in helping with the English Conversation Classes and generally a good spirit. However Catrin had to go home ill. Nothing serious. Just one of those things. In fact on Saturday she'd been taken ill in a shop in the city and then had recovered enough to come home OK. So today being the first day at university, you can understand us being a little ... apprehensive. And all went swimmingly. Her course sounds great. She starts in earnest on 21st. It all sounds like lots of hard work, but stimulating, interesting and engaging, and with a good bunch of students. Meanwhile from September our allowance is being adjusted for inflation to put us back on the same level we were on in 2005. At the moment it's not easy to digest, but it's a huge encouragement for the next ten years.

We took the Citiz Clio and made a quick visit to La Brède. At La Brède is the chateau that belonged to Montesquieu, one of Bordeaux's big three M's of literature (Montaigne, Montesquieu and Mauriac). It is is built on the foundations of a Norman period  fortress, but never subsequently played a defensive role. It was preserved intact through the Hundred Years War and also survived the French Revolution intact and furnished thanks to the local esteem for Montesquieu and his family. Montesquieu lived at about the same time as Bach and Handel (1689 - 1755), managed his vineyard and his personal fortune and travelled extensively in Europe. His writings were published outside France to escape royal censorship as he turned a critical eye on France and its organisation first in the Lettres Persanes - an series of letters home from some imaginary Persian visitors to France, then more directly in Consideration of the Greatness and Decadence of the Romans and The Spirit of the Laws. ...

We made it through ten years! By God's faithfulness. It was often touch and go, and it still is, but we've made it this far!

One of the most wonderful things about the kids no longer being in school is no more listes de fournitures scolaires . Oh, how those things tried your patience. Teachers specified different sizes of graph squares, different sizes of book and some specified what colour the book should be covered with. We would wander hopelessly hunting for that last elusive size of book, or for the bizarre indispensable whatnot whose name we did not recognise... But that was then! This is now! So today found us wandering hopelessly round the bag shops of Bordeaux looking for a bag for Catrin for the fac. She needs a big bag suitable for a cultivated young lady studying to be a singer-songwriter. A fluorescent yellow puma rucksack at only 15€ really appealed to me, but not to her.In the end our choice came down to a 50€ handbag / shopping bag cross, or a REALLY NICE thick leather bag from Magellan at 150€. The expensive bag would last her life, probably. The other MIGHT last a year or two... Anywa...

I wish to state publicly that I have no public statement to make.

so the flats up above? all old and decrepit... and the landlords haven't upgraded things? mice, cockroaches and bedbugs... the other side of the street is a bit better.

Read these - the French is not THAT hard - and compare with the English version, 'If you go away' and you will go a long way towards seeing why French song is awesome. The story behind the song is ugly, and Brel described the song as a hymn to the cowardice of man. Ne me quitte pas Il faut oublier Tout peut s'oublier Qui s'enfuit déjà Oublier le temps Des malentendus Et le temps perdu A savoir comment Oublier ces heures Qui tuaient parfois A coups de pourquoi Le coeur du bonheur Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Moi je t'offrirai Des perles de pluie Venues de pays Où il ne pleut pas Je creuserai la terre Jusqu'après ma mort Pour couvrir ton corps D'or et de lumière Je ferai un domaine Où l'amour sera roi Où l'amour sera loi Où tu seras reine Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Ne me quitte pas Je t'inventerai Des mots insensés Que tu comprendras Je te parlerai De ces amants-là ...