MANY people dream of moving to France and writing a book, Greg Mose has done just that.
Whilst starting and running a gite business, near Montcabrier in the Lot, with his wife, he also worked on weaving a tale of profit driven spirituality in his book Stunt Road.
A HANDY piece of code has been made available by Google that offers you the opportunity to offer website visitors a translation of the page they are on into the language of their choice.
Many holiday home and business websites provide translation buttons, but in this case the Google code detects foreign language visitors and offers to translate the page automatically into user’s preferred language.
As many people know Google Translate enables you to get the meaning of a foreign language page, it’s not something that should be relied upon for important decisions.
But considering it is just a case of copy and pasting the code into your website it really is a simple option to open up your website to foreign speaking visitors.
WELL I am pretty sure it is a parasol mushroom – but I spotted this whilst out this morning taking the dog for a walk.
Parasol mushrooms are fairly common around this corner of the Dordogne and are often fried in a little butter and garlic before being piled on top of some crusty bread.
Many farmers are also busy at the moment collecting chestnuts, and despite long lengths of netting being placed beneath the trees it is still a time-consuming task to collect them.
With crisp, fresh mornings giving way to warm, sunny afternoons there is a mix of autumn and summer in the air – click on the thumbnail to see the larger image.
TAKE five minutes out of your day for a quick crossword challenge that will help boost your French vocabulary on travel and airlines.
Beverley Dinerstein has created another crossword for you to enjoy with the clues offered up in English, and the answers in French.
You can download a two page .pdf file offering up the quiz itself on page one, and the answers on page two.
Plus if you have a little more time on your hands then explore many more online French language crosswords created by Beverley.
EXITING the pigpen, and entering the pasture, we find the goose, writes Christopher Strong. Source of the delicacy that generates resounding bravos from foodies of all nations ā foie gras, literally fat liver.
It comes from a, supposedly, free range bird, whose only function in life appears to be organ donation.
SEPTEMBER and October really are beautiful months to be in France, with the morning mists in the valley adding a magical touch to the day.
The rolling hillsides here in the south of the Dordogne (map), with their deep forests, produce glorious muted colours, with splashes of early morning sunshine in between.
The forests are busy with wildlife, many deer, a couple of foxes and rattling woodpeckers have been ticked off the list, whilst spider’s webs are heavy with dew.
This morning was another of sunlight slowly breaking down the mists, while the horse in the field strode up the hill to meet the others. Click on the thumbnail right to see the full size image.
IT must take a particularly cold heart to leave your animals behind and return to the UK, hoping that someone else will pick up the pieces.
But that was the reason why Lynn Stone, of the charity Les Amis des Chats, took a call from a French family looking for a home for the animals.
“We took a couple of cats in the other day through some French people whose English neighbours had just upped and left their horses, their dogs and their cats behind,” Lynn said.
JUST before I set off for my return to France a friend said I should read Le Grand Meaulnes, by Alain-Fournier.
He gave me his copy to pack away in one of the boxes I loaded up into the car and once Iād arrived in the Dordogne countryside I started reading it.
It is a simple story about the transition into adulthood, first love, leaving behind youthful promises, but also captures French village life in the early 1900s.
HERE is your chance to take a few minutes out of your day to ponder the latest French language crossword.
Titled The Bottle it is a two page .pdf that you can download and print off.
Beverley has already created two other crosswords, The Man and The Apple, so feel free to hand them out at a get-together or similar event.
WHAT are the French really like? A fair question to ask someone who has experience of their likes and dislikes, writes Christopher Strong.