Maybe you are one of the confused readers who used to follow the convoluted ramblings and scribblings of ‘My Life in the P-O’  many years ago?
Well, welcome to ‘My Life in the P-O – Twenty Years On’

When I first moved to the Pyrenees-Orientales, more than 20 years ago, I was obsessively fascinated with everything I saw and heard and felt a near desperate need to share my many questions and resulting answers with everyone I met (yes, even Jacques the dentist) whether they wanted to hear it or not!

My older, more mature (yeah, right) self is able to look back and understand why so many friends and acquaintances took on a glazed look, disappeared to the loo never to return, or moved out of the region, but my younger self truly believed that I was educating every new victim who crossed my path.

So now I’m back…and once again, I would like to invite you to follow the convoluted weekly ramblings and scribblings of My Life in the P-O – Twenty Years On.

January 1st 2026

Did you know that it’s actually considered bad luck in French to wish people Happy New Year before midnight on the 31st? This widespread myth has no cultural or historical foundation whatsoever  that I can find and is purely based on superstition – though quite useful to have someone to blame when the year doesnt work out the way you wanted! Can we sue?
Anyway, to be on the safe side, try “Bonnes Fêtes de Fin d’Année” as you approach a new year….or just say it in English.

Unlike the UK, January is the time when the French are most likely to send cards, texts and general greetings, rather than Christmas…..and if you’re really (un)lucky, you might even be invited to your local townhall for the “Cérémonie de Voeux”, usually a shared apéritif and good wishes (voeux) for the New Year, but mostly lots of speeches from the various (self)-important people of the town or village. Good for your French…but not so good for your boredom threshold!

Saturday and Sunday from November to February are really not good days to go walking through the mountains and wooded areas of the P-O, particularly if you have pink skin, a curly tail and an oink in your accent. No, these are the days of the wild boar hunts (les battues), when the hills resound with dogs baying, bells ringing (hunting dogs must all wear bells) and men (I have never actually personally seen a woman on a hunt) screaming for blood! It can actually be very frightening if you find yourselves in the middle of a ‘battue’ (so named to describe the beating of woods and bushes to force the game to flee in the direction of Elmer Fudd) as we seem do quite regularly! Much more frightening for the wild boar running for his or her life though.

As for the dogs, the lucky and much loved few may wear Kevlar vests to protect them against the dangerous tusks of the wild boar but most of them are much less lucky than that! A male boar can weigh in at 150 kilos and have fearsome tusks, kept sharp for fighting off other males during the breeding season, but they are usually shy and solitary animals, and attacks on humans are rare unless cornered, frightened and defending themselves or their young.

Men are placed all around the hunt area on fold-up garden chairs so that if the poor ‘sanglier’ does manage to slip through the kill area, an orange vested man with a gun is ready to pop him off. Yesterday, when our little Poppet snuffled out a hunter with her keen sense of smell for a picnic, and shoved her snout into his rucksack, I raised my hands in the air and shouted “Ne tirez pas” (don’t shoot). True to the good old French sense of humour, he launched into a long dialogue of why he wasn’t sitting there waiting to shoot people……. I was only joking mate!

Did you know that permits are required which can only be used in the hunter’s commune of residence, and every hunter must carry proof of possession of legally required hunting insurance. (Assurance obligatoire de responsabilité civile).  They must also take a training course and pass a theoretical and practical exam organised by the National Hunting and Wildlife Agency before they can legally obtain a licence.  You have a right to challenge them, and ask to see that their paperwork is in order – but do remember they are carrying guns!

After many many past Christmas days of unseasonably warm sunshine, we had four days of torrential rain over Christmas. We didn’t mind at all as the drought and water restrictions for this region have made us much more tolerant of rainy weather…’tho there is a limit according to Poppet below.

The photo below is 2010, the last time we had a white winter here in Maureillas. I’m standing! Never had snow since then but loads of it up in the mountains this year so hopefully some of it will blow our way. Yes, I still get excited!

We had a family Christmas chez nous, with our man/boy Lulu, la belle mère, la belle soeur, les lovely cousaings, nieces and nephews and I (along with lots of help) actually managed to make dinner for everybody without too many catastrophes. This was the opposite of the last family/friends Christmas in Leeds, many years ago, when Sue, Rosy and myself decided to liquidize the turkey, sprouts, and roast potatoes into a baby-food-like paste. It seemed like a good idea at the time – a liquid lunch following on from a whole lot of other liquids, but didn’t go down too well with the guests who had expected a slightly more lumpy offering!

Et voilà! Here we are on January 1st 2026 having brought in the New Year yesterday at a pleasant restaurant over the border in Spain. Food only just OK but great company and a reminder that we are so blessed here in the P-O with good friends, beautiful scenery, and many more dry sunny days to wake up to. Makes you want to grin and do a little jig.

So here I sit in front of my computer, deep in preparations for the spring 2026 P-O Life Mag, out for April 1st.  A silvery frost this morning has already given way to to a hope-bearing sun, pale as yet at 9h30 in the morning, but warm in its intentions. We have a roaring fire crackling in the grate and the atmosphere is holiday.

Our next door neighbours had a chimney fire à while back. Wow. Impressive. It took two fire engines and a dozen firemen with ladders and pulleys and ropes, scaling the walls and pouring foam down the chimney, which was roaring, the fire looked enormous and dangerous and very frightening. Chapeau les pompiers! Brave and cute! Should have seen their salon the next day!

Apparently, fire damage resulting from a chimney fire is one of the most common insurance claims in France and chimneys really need to be swept at least once per year, depending on how much they are used. Many insurers will NOT pay out for fire damage without a cleaning certificate (“certificat de ramonage”) which your chimney sweep (ramoneur) will leave you when he cleans your chimney, so bear this in mind if you are thinking of cleaning it yourself. Of course, the most important reason for keeping your chimney clean is the risk of fire and the danger of breathing in carbon monoxide which stays in the house instead of being released through the chimney.!

Join me next week for another ramble? Hope so. Xx