I wrote about buying a weathervane last summer in the story “Quoi ne marche pas en France en Août?”  In case you were wondering what happened to it, I’ve provided a short update. I’ve also extracted the relevant part of the original story below the update in case you missed it – sorry it’s a bit long but it is an insight into how things are in France in August.

2nd March 2024

It was a lovely sunny day in Rhu on Saturday and not windy. I’d put off erecting the weathervane because I was worried about drilling a completely vertical hole in the top of the fence post, silly I know.  As a result, it was at the back of my mind that it was a job I was avoiding until Sabine found it in the garage a couple of weeks ago and then there was no escape.

So pre-empting the question “When are you going to put the weathervane up” (although it would have been worth hearing the pronunciation struggle again, as explained below in the original story), I thought I’d better get on with it.  I was breaking my own rule of not doing anything skilled after lunch but it was a beautiful afternoon here, the poached eggs on top of haggis, hash browns and a bun I’d just enjoyed at a local Helensburgh eatery needed some working off and I’m still repeating to myself Gus’s mantra “Don’t let the old man in”.

It was, of course, easy to put up.  I drilled the hole by eye and slowly screwed the base in, using a spirit level to make sure it was vertical.  I even managed to fit the top part with the rooster and arrow without dropping and losing the marble that was the key to the whole operation. 

I didn’t have a way to align the base with the points of the compass, though. Unlike the picture in the original story, our base only has S – you can see in the photo below the sun for E and the moon for W, and N is a star, so, as if it mattered, I concentrated on finding South. I looked down Gareloch and over the Clyde in what I thought was the general direction, but a Eureka moment evaded me. Sabine had a compass app on her phone ….. that didn’t work; she downloaded another one that didn’t work either, so I put one on my phone and it was OK – phew.  

It’s a little counterintuitively to me, but of course the arrow points towards where the wind is coming from, not where it’s blowing towards. But we’re really pleased with it …. et ça marche.

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The extract from the original story:

10 and 11 August 2023

“We’d seen an advertisement for weathervanes in the Saumur visitors’ guide when we first arrived at our chambre d’hôtes.  We were intrigued and just wanted to see what the blacksmith had. 

On Google Maps, the workshop looked easy to find, an unusual tourist place to visit and possibly relevant for the house in Scotland, and we liked the idea of supporting a local artisan, even if we only turn up, show an interest but don’t buy anything.  Mmmm.

I need to get this out of the way early on and I won’t mention it again.  The word “weathervane” is not that easy to say if you happen to be German.  It has two parts, the first starting with a “w” and the second with a “v”.  In English the letters have different sounds but the word is fairly simple to say.  However, in German the two letters have the same sound (“v”) as there is no “w” sound.  And then the “th” in the middle of the first part can be awkward too as there is no “th” sound in German either (it sounds like a “t”) but can come out as “zz” or even “f”.

So when you’re with a German who is fluent in English and who therefore understands to the need to not sound like a German when articulating the first part but in mid-word change to sounding like a German for the second part, you can get a variety of words articulated, sometimes in quick succession if the first attempt(s) didn’t quite get it right. Usually followed by a laugh.

For any reader who is sufficiently interested in other people’s languages, the French for weathervane is “la girouette” and in German it’s an almost direct correlation – “die Wetterfahne”, pronounced Vetterfarne.  Neither word is important to this story.

There might be something else that needs explaining.  I use the term “blacksmith” when possibly the correct term is “metal worker”, especially as no horses needing shoeing were in evidence.  However, metalworker seems such a boring term for a skilled craftsman, an artisan, someone with so much creative flair, that I have reverted to using the old term to make it sound a little more inspiring.  I hope you don’t mind.  And, No, I’m not going to give you the translation for those words in French and German as well.

[I described the difficulties we had finding somewhere for lunch in the blacksmith’s village].  It was now after 2pm so we headed down the short sideroad to the blacksmith.  We could see the gate to his place and some large sheds – looked quite an operation.  The gate was positioned across the entrance in a blocking unwelcoming sort of way and when we got to it there were no cars in the forecourt beyond. 

By then, we knew to look out for a sign and there it was – opening hours 08.00 to 13.30 Monday to Friday. Double merdre.  We’d missed them by about 30 minutes.  But then, we thought: What – they only work five and a half hours a day? Even in France.  No, that can’t be right.  They must be about to re-open, say at 2.30 or 3pm.  But re-reading the sign twice and looking helplessly over the gate at the empty facility didn’t change anything.  It was well and truly fermé.  It gave out that desolate feeling that told you it would stay like that for almost another 18 hours.  Four out of four.  100%. 

And you feel so stupid, standing there in the heat of the day, mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out that could possibly express your frustration, looking at  the buildings and forecourt devoid of life, the closed gate saying to you that its sole purpose in life is to stop you from doing something you shouldn’t, like walking into an area that is closed until 8am the next morning. 

Our initial reaction to this experience is unprintable.  Our incredulity at a business that advertises in a significant local tourist publication but omits a really important piece of information (come early to avoid disappointment), a bar where the owners couldn’t be bothered to take the sign off the road before closing the establishment for good, a shop advertising sandwiches that’s closed for 3 hours at lunchtime, and a tearoom only open 3 days a week in the middle of the summer. 

And we’d checked their very good website and I didn’t remember seeing those limited hours.  I checked it again when I started writing this article and sure enough the hours are what you’d expect, open in the morning, an hour or so for lunch and open in the afternoon.  I must have stopped looking when I saw that.  But only if you scroll down, out of sight of the normal hours, do you see they tell you that “exceptionellement”, it was only open those more limited hours that particular week – and closed completely for the two weeks after.  In retrospect, how lucky were we to catch them on their last day!

How disconsolate were we?  A lot was the answer and some ripe language was heard on the way back to Saumur.  But not disconsolate enough, obviously, because we did decide to go back the next day.  Our interest in weathervanes had been sufficiently piqued to return the next morning, Friday, when perhaps, without pushing our luck too much, both the blacksmith and the tearoom might welcome us.

And we were right on one count, the blacksmith.  He was open – hooray!  We parked in the carpark off the street outside and walked across the road, through the forecourt and into a large shed that was connected to another one behind.  Off the forecourt there were other large sheds that was occupied by at least one other business that also managed to work an onerous 5 hours a day.  Metal worked shapes of various dimensions greeted us – round window frames that would sit out on the sloping roof of old buildings, the large pointed pinnacle of an old tower, huge decorative fleurs des Lis.  Clearly, if you had a run-down chateau and plenty of money, this was the place to come to get help with the restoration. 

In the centre of the forecourt was a metal pole with lots of metal arms and on the arms were a variety of weathervanes.  And the variety was enormous.  We stopped to admire them and think through the huge number of options.  First, did we want one to mount on the chimney or a post in the garden?  Then, which of the themes would we be interested in – animals, water, scenes of life, nature, occupations, one for mechanics (with cars), or fantasy?  Did we want to design one ourselves and let them make it (obviously a non-starter for us)?  How did you want the points of the compass below the image to be displayed?  Mon Dieu.   

And the choice within both the themes and the compass points was huge, even with the ready-made weathervanes on display.  I suppose the first question really was did we want one at all?  Of course we did.  We’d have been kidding ourselves if we’d gone this far and not bought one.  And for Rhu, it would be perfect fixed to the top of a fence post in sight of the kitchen doors. 

The blacksmith was in his workshop and asked in French if he could help us.  Sabine to the rescue.  Yes, it was fine if we wanted to just look around.  In the end the choice was easy.  We settled on the Gallic Rooster that we had taken a shine to right at the start, with a star, the moon and the sun and just one compass point (S), with all the figurines made in copper.  It came in two pieces, the rooster and arrow fitting over the pole that the compass points were attached to with the secret ingredient being a small marble-like ball that sat on top of the pole to allow the rooster to turn in the wind.  Ingenious.

All this was explained in French by the blacksmith, the Atelier de la Girouetterie as the business was called: https://www.girouette.com.   Thank you, my lovely German girlfriend, for being able to handle that side of things. The atelier called his young assistant, possibly his daughter, who had been working in the rear shed, to come and deal with the finance side of things.  He set about wrapping the two parts, an awkward job given the spikey components that mercifully appeared he’d done before.  It was now about 12.50pm.

The cost was a not inconsiderable €490, a lot more than I’d thought it would be (if I’d thought about it much at all) but hey-ho, it was a piece of true craftsmanship, came with our story in getting it, we really loved it and we’d already erected it in our minds in the garden in Rhu.  I produced my Lloyds euro account debit card and we thought we were back in Austria – je suis desolé, pas de cartes.  Only cheques or cash.  Quoi?  You’ve got to be joking!

I knew we had less than €150 in cash between us.  Once they had determined that payment by cheque was not going to happen, the assistant told us there was un bankomat at the Carrefour in Distré, four kilometres away back towards Saumur, where we could get cash out.  I remembered seeing the sign for Distré when we had left empty-handed the day before and had driven back to Saumur that way.  Great.  Stressful?  You bet!

Thank heavens for Google Maps which located the supermarket and guided us there.  At least it was off the main road and not in the middle of the town.  It involved going to the second roundabout, coming back in the direction we’d come, and immediately taking a slip road into the shopping mall carpark.  You didn’t want to miss that slip road because it was off a dual carriageway and we’d have to drive back to the end of it, turn around at the first roundabout and come all the way back. 

So far so good.  But where to park, where was the cash machine?  By that time, we’d agreed that if they wanted the sale, they’d stay around if this took us longer than 30 minutes. But that attitude didn’t help an awful lot.  We still felt very stressed.  I left Sabine in the car and ran to the shopping mall main entrance.

I found the cash machine easily enough, correctly reckoning that it would be just inside the main entrance which was also the entrance to the Carrefour.  Phew.  I chose €400 and the machine refused the transaction.  I was sure I had enough cash in the account.  I tried €300 and it worked.  Phew.  Out came 30 €10 notes.  I wasn’t going to count them and we were still about €50 short.  I put the card in again, this time opting for the lowest amount on the list, an interestingly high €120.  Out came 12 €10 notes.  Phew.

I couldn’t stuff them all in my wallet.  I felt like someone who’d won the jackpot in Vegas on a slot machine with a ton of quarters to have to scoop up.  So I went back to the car trying not to look like someone with 42 €10 notes in my pockets.  I gave them to Sabine along with my other cash and she counted out the required amount, including the €50 note that she’d had trouble using the day before.

We still had time.  We could feel the stress completely dissipating as we drove back.  The blacksmith and his assistant welcomed us with open arms and the exchange took place.  Smiles all round.  They waved us goodbye – as we now know, they were about to start their two week holiday, so no wonder they were happy, especially with an extra and unexpected nearly €500 in cash in their pockets.”

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