An
interesting and fairly packed week in Nowhere-in-France for me last week. Or,
as I sometimes call it, “the land the internet forgot”. I manage without the
internet whilst in France, apart from checking for e-mails on my phone or
falling upon the kindness of friends for a WiFi connection. The other
alternative is McDonald’s, and I really HAVE to be desperate to darken their
door.
Last week,
however, N-i-F also became the land that TV forgot.
Whilst I am
by no means a TV addict, I do find it useful for keeping in touch with the
world outside, and when I’m alone in France I enjoy curling up on the sofa to
watch the odd programme. Last week,
however, the Freesat box decided to die a death. No UK TV for me…
Image: Wikipedia
“What’s wrong
with French TV?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s like this: we can’t get French TV.
There’s a perfectly serviceable ariel on the roof, but it’s never managed to
convey whatever signal it receives from up there to down below. I did think
that, with the advent of digital TV in France I might have a chance of getting
something, but having borrowed the neighbours’ French free-to-air digital
receiver and plugged it all in, it showed me what I could be watching,
alongside a blue screen with the words of doom “pas de signal”.
Despite
being a woman with vertigo, desperation saw me leaving the house via the
bathroom window, sidling along the roof like spiderwoman (well, a sort of “off
duty” spiderwoman in shorts and a
t-shirt), gripping the chimney and climbing onto the garage roof, and thence to
the satellite dish, in order to do as exhorted by the error message on the TV
and “check all cables and connections”. They were all fine. I checked, several
times. Don’t worry, I had the foresight
and common sense to execute this manoeuvre in the company of visiting friends,
in order that if things went wrong then my decomposing remains would not later
be discovered on the patio below by a passing neighbour. One friend was
stationed by the TV looking for signs of life, whilst the other shuttled back
and forth in the garden, passing information between us and limbering up in
case called upon to rush forward and catch my plummeting body.
Having read
several times on the internet prior to the event that “the French” (for whom
many British expat residents seem to believe themselves the official
spokesperson) would not give a hoot about the Diamond Jubilee, and that any
slightly patriotic gesture on the part of British expats would result in shame
being brought upon the rest by association, I had to spend the rest of my stay
confessing that I had no idea how wonderful it all was, as I didn’t see any of
it. My unofficial and unwilling straw poll of “the French”, comprising most of
my friends, the couple who run the tabac, the boulanger, three men in the bar
and my neighbours, seems to indicate that they did give at least a small hoot,
and were somewhat surprised that I couldn’t add any comments or observations of
my own.
TH will be
present on the next visit. I’m relying on him (and on the purchase of a new
box) to fix the problem. A week without TV is fine. Three months without TV is
NOT.
