Angling Lines Blog

We have had a brilliant time recently the Tour de France. We took in the riders on the Aigurande to Super-Besse stage who passed just a couple of kilometres from our home at Notaires.

We woke up to rain, which was a blow. We wanted the rain, we’ve been praying for it – but not Tour de France day! However, it dried up shortly before we set off at just after 10 am to claim our spot for watching the spectacle, after a quick face painting session.

We had to get off our bikes at the junction of the D2 and D97. At first the gendarme there didn’t seem to want to let us get past at all, but we told him firmly we would walk our bikes along the road. He wasn’t happy but he let us past. As soon as we were out of sight, we hopped on again and zoomed down to a good viewing point.

First past was one of the official merchandise vans. I invested €20 in one of the kits. I’ll be amazed if the Tour de France ever comes so close to us again, so it was a celebration. My favourite item was the tee-shirt.

Cars and motorbikes, mainly gendarmes who all looked rather smug, roared past at intervals. Then came the caravan. This is brilliant! Everyone shouts and cheers and waves, and then jumps nimbly out of the way as the freebies come flying.

Ruadhri was thrilled to see the Smurf lorry, dishing out Smurf sweets!

The caravan took about half an hour to go by, and then came the waiting time. However, it wasn’t boring. In just ten minutes, 80 cars and 3 motorbikes went by. What most of these vehicles are actually contributing to the Tour I have no idea. I think a lot of people in them are there on a corporate junket. But they’re friendly and wave as they go by, so it’s fun. (However, I think it’s this huge quantity of apparently unnecessary cars that is behind the dreadful accident when Hoogerland was knocked off.)

A wave of more smirking gendarme motorcyclists, and then, about ten minutes ahead of schedule, the cyclists arrive. First came the breakaway group of nine riders. A couple of minutes later the peloton zoomed by. I only managed to get one photo as they passed, it was that quick. I’ve got Geraint Thomas in this shot.

The last cyclist went by and then some more team cars and finally the broom wagon. And it was all over.

It’s a breathless spectacle, very exciting, but over way too fast. However, we had a ball and came home with all our goodies, apart from the ones we’d eaten at the time (mini-sausages, savoury nibbles and madeleines, all delicious). Here’s about half our haul.

Caitlin is going to try and get a job with the caravan next year. It would be a great way to spend three weeks of her summer. I’ve suggested she becomes one of the Cochonou mini-sausage-distributers. She could accidentally drop her sackful as she goes past us, because we’ll be there somewhere along the route I hope!

It has suddenly got very hot, so it was time to shear the alpacas. The shiny electric shears arrived a few weeks ago, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Time to use them.

Seamus before

Seamus was the guinea pig. Here he is before treatment.

It took three of us. Chris wielded the shears, I held the head end and Benj lent muscle wherever it was needed. Seamus was very good, though. He’s a very timid alpaca but he took it all in his stride. Well, OK, he lost the will to live halfway through. Llamas and alpacas are like that. They’re a bit feisty to start with, but once they realise that’s not going to change things, they give up and wait to die.

As well as managing carp lakes, Chris is a pretty nifty alpaca shearer. There are a few nobbles and bobbles, but I’ll tidy up with a pair of scissors before the trekking season begins.

Brendan decided to kush (lie down) during his ordeal which made it easier to start with, but obviously Chris couldn’t do the legs so well. Again, a quick trim will tidy Brend up. He grumbled a lot and spat a couple of times, but only half-heartedly.

Seamus during

We got slightly over 3kg of wool off each of the two alpacas, which is a very good haul.

I made a few mistakes. I should have swept over the stable completely and spread something a bit heavier than a sheet down to collect the wool on. The sheet got creased up under our feet and so the wool went onto the floor and picked up some straw. I’ll be able to clean it up, but it means a bit more work. And we may have to be slightly more brutal with the boys next time round. The usual way to shear an alpaca is to tie them down like this.

It looks awful but doesn’t hurt the animal and makes it much quicker and easier to shear him.

I also didn’t have sacks ready for the wool. You can’t use plastic as this makes the wool ‘sweat’ and get felted. Paper or fabric are good. I quickly rustled up some sacks out of an old sheet, but only after we done the shearing. Live and learn!

Seamus after

The boys will be much more comfy for the summer now, and they’ll get over the humiliation soon!

June, July and August are the months for fêtes in France. Pretty much every little village with have one at some point, often tying in with its ‘saint patronale’ (patron saint). Nouzerines is connected with Saint Clair, whose day is 1^st June. So the weekend closest to that is when the Nouzerines fête takes place. The drawback is that early June has a tendency to be unsettled and stormy in this part of the country. We should possibly consider swapping St Clair for a less meteorologically fickle saint. Fêtes come with themes too. You get tomato fêtes, potato fêtes, strawberry fêtes and pumpkin fêtes at various times of the year.

Fêtes are very popular. They’re all quite similar, but it’s a winning formula. There’s usually a small funfair (fête foraine), dancing (bal gratuit) and fireworks (feux d’artifices) the first night after a meal (repas). There will always be food involved since this is France, remember! Then next day there’ll be a car boot sale (vide grenier) followed by some sort of show (spectacle), often musical, and generally a race (concours) or parade (defilé) of some description. And there’ll be at least one food stand. This year Nouzerines was set to have a troupe of 45 Portuguese dancers and the local Sapeurs-Pompiers brass band providing the entertainment, to be followed by the course de la patate. This was a relay involving carrying potatoes on spoons. There was a long list of rules on the posters advertising it, which included not touching your potato or eating it or throwing it, and you were definitely not allowed to stop to do such things as scratch, sleep or pee en route!

A very wet Ruadhri!

But sadly the whole afternoon was washed out by rain. Chris, Ruadhri and I went down with visiting relatives and got well and truly soaked. However, the kids won some tat on the ‘hoop a duck’ stall and then had a toffee apple each, so they were happy enough. It was worth going, despite the rain.

So if you see a fête advertised near the Angling Lines venue you’re fishing at, do go and check it out. These little affairs are as French as you can get and you’ll experience a true slice of local life. You’re likely to come home with a bargain as the brocante (bric-a-brac) stalls have anything and everything you never knew you couldn’t live without!

Paul with his first ever carp @ 34lb

When Paul Blakeley visited the Notaires Lakes with his family, he had only intended to float fish for the roach and the perch. However, lake owner Chris persuaded him to have a dabble with the carp.

On the Friday Chris set up two rods for Paul, fishing to the trees in the middle lake. A couple of  open areas in front of the trees were prebaited with carp pellets and a few Quest chilli chocolate boilies.

The rods were cast out to these areas with simple carp safe rigs. All was quiet at first so after instructing Paul about the alarms, Chris slipped away to attend to some chores. Ten minutes later Paul was racing back to the house. The bite alarm had gone off and before Paul could lift the rod, it took off like an excocet missile for the lake. The sturdy Notaire’s carp towed the rod to the middle of the lake before discarding it.

Off to retrieve the rod!

It was determined that Chris had not released the line clip, so Chris waded in to retrieve the rod. Chris can now confirm the depth of the lake to be about waist high and the bottom to be 6 – 12 inches of silt.

After allowing a little time for the carp to get over their amusement, the rods were cast back out and this time when the alarm went off. Chris set the hook and played the carp to the net, landing a fine 25lb’er. The fishing went a little quiet then and one rod was changed to a drilled carp pellet topped  by a new Quest fluoro chilli chocolate popup, this did the trick. For the next run, Paul was primed and ready and with a little coaching played the carp steadily to the net. Everyone was amazed when it topped the scales at 34lbs, Paul declaring that he had never even seen a fish that big before, never mind caught one.

Paul with his second carp @ 36lbs

More was yet to come and after switching the other rod over to the pellet  and fluoro combination, it too took off in a screaming run. Paul played this carp with great aplomb and after a fine fight another Notaire’s carp was gracing the bank. This time the scales recorded 36lbs and both Paul and Chris were delighted with not one but two thirty pounders to a carp virgin!

Steph & Chris Dagg run Notaires & Alder/” target=”_blank”>Alder lakes. Through this personal Blog, Steph is going to describe her experiences of moving to France and living the dream of many UK carp anglers.

Having a teenage son, an ‘ado’ of my own who has introduced me to lots of his friends the same age, I can honestly tell you that young French men smell. Yes, smell.

They smell gorgeous. Every new one I meet seems to smell better than the last. How do they do it?

Well, they certainly take a lot of showers. Benj is sent off for a week’s boarding at Lycée every Monday with the strict instruction to have at least one shower before he comes back on Friday night. A few times on his return home, it’s been obvious that he hasn’t come into prolonged contact with water that week. Why not?

“I can’t get in the shower, Mum!” he protested the last time I cornered him about it. “There’s always a queue.”

“What, every day?”

“Yes, every day. Morning and night.”

Benj told me how he’d challenged one of his fellow boarders in front of him in the shower queue one morning. He’d been in front of him the day before.

“You had a shower yesterday,” Benj grumbled.

“Of course,” was the reply, with a shrug.

“Do you really need another one today then?”

“Of course,” was the reply, with a shrug.

So, for a start, young French fellas are extremely clean. And then they love cologne. Benj came back from his first week at Lycée with a shopping list. He needed proper English teabags for his breakfast time cuppa. He needed a tube of condensed milk to put in said tea. He needed another blanket to keep warm at night. He needed Snickers to keep him going between breakfast and lunch. And he needed … I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“What’s this?” I asked him, pointing to the last item. “I’d swear it says ‘cologne’.”

“It does,” confirmed Benj.

I looked at him stunned. Benj is a young man who can be extremely reluctant to come into contact pleasant smelling toiletry items.

“You want cologne?” I stuttered.

“Yes, all the boys wear it,” he replied. “They all have bottles and bottles of it. I’m the only one who hasn’t got any.” He looked at me mournfully.

Feeling like a bad mother, I took Benj shopping at once and bought him the best cologne money could buy at Simply Market. He’s since gone up in the world with a bottle of Adidas cologne his sister thoughtfully gave him for Christmas. And he smells much better too! Almost as good as a native French teenager, but not quite. They just have that extra ‘je ne sais quoi’. And boy, does it smell great.