Brace yourselves mes belles..........

Brace yourselves mes belles!  Today we are going to be ramonaged! 

No luxury of having town gas or central heating for us marsh dwellers!!

Log fires and huge chimneys are " de rigueur" !

So every Autumn cometh the ramonager - the chimney sweep.

"N'oubliez pas, Madame, d'embrasser votre ramoneur, 

ce qui d'après la légende vous portera bonheur et chance !"

( Do not forget madame to embrace your chimney sweep for, according to legend, he will bring you happiness and luck)

 Monsieur Jacques is our ramoneur. He is coming to clean the immense chimney in the cuisine before we light our stove, Hercule, for winter.

In France you are required to obtain a certificate each year to show that your chimney has been swept. If you were unfortunate enough to have a chimney fire ( heaven forbid!) and you had no certificate to show that you had been 'ramonaged', then your house insurance would be void.

Please ,please....don`t let there be a huge whoosh of soot down the chimney into the cuisine!! Or, thinking about previous events, no birds or huge buzzing hornet nests either!

I shall not be embracing Monsieur Jacques today even if it will bring me luck; he has the piercing eyes of a psychopath  ( or a "cycle-path" as my dear mother used to say) and the beard of a nanny goat.

Bon weekend mes belles

xx