http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2012-vitoria-gasteiz/index.html
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/av/videos/vitoria_gasteiz_video.html
terça-feira, 11 de dezembro de 2012
cidade verde.onde Brasil
No Europa existir cidades mais limpo e verde para de ambiente, Vitoria-Gasteiz esta uma mesmo, bom para de Brasileiro entende de possiblidade para viva bem e gastar menos.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2012-vitoria-gasteiz/index.html
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/av/videos/vitoria_gasteiz_video.html
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/winning-cities/2012-vitoria-gasteiz/index.html
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/av/videos/vitoria_gasteiz_video.html
segunda-feira, 10 de dezembro de 2012
desarmar brasil
Finalmente, parece haver uma percepção de que o Brasil deve tirar os direitos de ter qualquer armadura pessoal, como para ser mostrado que a discussão é a forma de resolver problemas e o uso apenas para armadura é de matar. Um assalto sem armadura é uma coisa completamente diferente e os resultados em um cenário diferente. Ele precisa ser discutido e começar a ser uma coisa de conversa, se torna comum para ser capaz de dizer que é errado ele vai ser sentida para ser errado.
http://www.deolhonoestatuto.org.br/
http://www.deolhonoestatuto.org.br/
terça-feira, 27 de novembro de 2012
Brazils Cup
This is a bit of a cop out but again I had a letter from a friend in France regarding the murders of the police officers in Sao Paulo, I have just written a reply and it seems worth putting onto the blog as a record of my feelings at the moment.
Hi B.........it is a complicated business here, we all walk the streets without expecting to get shot, day by day you do not feel threatened but are aware of danger, more the danger from road traffic and Dengue than any chance of a stray bullet...This I am sure is true in Sao Paulo as well, here in Salvador there as been 21 or more assassinations every weekend since I have lived here, it is in fact proportionally more dangerous than Sao Paulo or Rio, Recife is also know for its deaths, however the police have been killing people in Sao Paulo and the traffickers are reacting on a routine manner. All the killings of the off duty police is done from motor cycles and mostly at night, outside bars or the house of the policeman, only one police woman so far, but the police are also conducting an off duty death squad.......as with all these deaths there are inevitable deaths of innocent people that just happen to be walking by or sitting in the bar.
You know there is more worry here over the infrastructure of the country as a whole, the government have the money but not the know how, there is the first sign of a clamp down on fraud in the government, largely because of a change in the supreme justice, a coloured judge as now taken over, he came from very poor background and worked hard to get were he is, speaks 5 languages and detests the rich misuse of the law, it is a breath of air to see that he has taken about 12 politicians and put them behind bars from 15 to 7 years, some of them are from Dilma and Lula's party, if he can continue this it will make the poor feel more committed to honest life style and less support for the drug dealers, corruption is too rife here and needs resolving to make it possible for the rule of law to have faith....the other tHing about Sao Paulo is the hap hazard city growth, it is really difficult for the police to control what is almost a medieval city, yesterday the police went to a house were there was a hostage situation after a robbery, the police surrounded the area but the robbers left the house for the one next door and the police cleared the owners from several of the houses, then went into the houses, they killed two robbers and shot two others but these two made it over the roofs and verandas to escape. The tov showed how some of the traffickers are now using a mobile hospital bag as they do not wish to get caught in the hospital after a shoot out....also there are some new drugs on the market so ot is still a growing problem and not even held at a limit as yet, there are no cells sufficient for the police to take these folk off the streets, but even saying all this it is the shanty style of life that is most common here and it will take a long time for this to change, as a new friend said to me, this is a Dutch chap who owns a school here, very pleasant person, he reckons its beyond our life span for Brazil to seem more socially equal and less violent, he even said that he feels the mind set of the Brazilian will never change, its embedded, a slave state that is fixed in the mind much like the American attitudes.
As far as the world cup is concerned I think it does not matter if there are foreigners or not, South American in total has enough to make it worth while, the problem in Brazil is their football team and the lack of good training and new ideas, the last coach was a disaster from the start and has changed the team almost every single match, now they have sacked the lot...... even the local teams are not doing well.....so what are they going to do if Brazil ends up with a Mexico v Japan final in Sao Paulo........thats when the security will be important and when the government will take note of the real situation in Brazil, after that there is the Olympics, how will they feel if the athletes are still at around 12 medals and China with 60 in Rio........it requires a big move from what they have now to what they should have as a nation that is supposedly 5th in the world.....
Difficult to move from a place that is seeing so much change, interesting and not static like Britain or even Russia, but it would be nice to see a better Brazil more quickly rising from the mess that most live in, less government and political fraud would help a great deal, even my small village of Jauá suffers from the miss use of funds so it is inevitable that Sāo Paulo will suffer as well, the metro in Salvador is still not working, still huge amounts of unfinished track and they are talking about a new rail link to the airport ! also a huge bridge to Itaparica, at the moment some new ferries, bigger and better than those used at the moment, would resolve the situation and stop the island becoming another commuter town of Salvador with huge queues on a new bridge that will be badly constructed and never get any maintenance or inspections, like most things here it would have to be built by a foriengn company to guarantee the integrity of the materials and design, I am still waiting for the road along beach in Jauá, to be redone and a new sea wall built, six years of a mess and only rocks dumped as a safety measure by the civil defense and that virtually ruined the beach, certainly an eye sore and almost a crime as far as the ambience is concerned.
A note also about the economy, Brazil seems to have slowed down to a 2.7 % growth rate as apposed to a 1% for the UK, the result is noticeable, my investment here in Brazil was well down this last month, about 25% less for the month, if Brazil wishes to grow it needs the investment and growth, the latest forecast of 4% is still well below the expected, Dilma as lowered the taxes on Brazilian goods to encourage home sales but it also means that Brazilians are spending and not saving, it seems as though they are also buying non essentials and forgetting the need to invest in infrastructure.
Hi B.........it is a complicated business here, we all walk the streets without expecting to get shot, day by day you do not feel threatened but are aware of danger, more the danger from road traffic and Dengue than any chance of a stray bullet...This I am sure is true in Sao Paulo as well, here in Salvador there as been 21 or more assassinations every weekend since I have lived here, it is in fact proportionally more dangerous than Sao Paulo or Rio, Recife is also know for its deaths, however the police have been killing people in Sao Paulo and the traffickers are reacting on a routine manner. All the killings of the off duty police is done from motor cycles and mostly at night, outside bars or the house of the policeman, only one police woman so far, but the police are also conducting an off duty death squad.......as with all these deaths there are inevitable deaths of innocent people that just happen to be walking by or sitting in the bar.
You know there is more worry here over the infrastructure of the country as a whole, the government have the money but not the know how, there is the first sign of a clamp down on fraud in the government, largely because of a change in the supreme justice, a coloured judge as now taken over, he came from very poor background and worked hard to get were he is, speaks 5 languages and detests the rich misuse of the law, it is a breath of air to see that he has taken about 12 politicians and put them behind bars from 15 to 7 years, some of them are from Dilma and Lula's party, if he can continue this it will make the poor feel more committed to honest life style and less support for the drug dealers, corruption is too rife here and needs resolving to make it possible for the rule of law to have faith....the other tHing about Sao Paulo is the hap hazard city growth, it is really difficult for the police to control what is almost a medieval city, yesterday the police went to a house were there was a hostage situation after a robbery, the police surrounded the area but the robbers left the house for the one next door and the police cleared the owners from several of the houses, then went into the houses, they killed two robbers and shot two others but these two made it over the roofs and verandas to escape. The tov showed how some of the traffickers are now using a mobile hospital bag as they do not wish to get caught in the hospital after a shoot out....also there are some new drugs on the market so ot is still a growing problem and not even held at a limit as yet, there are no cells sufficient for the police to take these folk off the streets, but even saying all this it is the shanty style of life that is most common here and it will take a long time for this to change, as a new friend said to me, this is a Dutch chap who owns a school here, very pleasant person, he reckons its beyond our life span for Brazil to seem more socially equal and less violent, he even said that he feels the mind set of the Brazilian will never change, its embedded, a slave state that is fixed in the mind much like the American attitudes.
As far as the world cup is concerned I think it does not matter if there are foreigners or not, South American in total has enough to make it worth while, the problem in Brazil is their football team and the lack of good training and new ideas, the last coach was a disaster from the start and has changed the team almost every single match, now they have sacked the lot...... even the local teams are not doing well.....so what are they going to do if Brazil ends up with a Mexico v Japan final in Sao Paulo........thats when the security will be important and when the government will take note of the real situation in Brazil, after that there is the Olympics, how will they feel if the athletes are still at around 12 medals and China with 60 in Rio........it requires a big move from what they have now to what they should have as a nation that is supposedly 5th in the world.....
Difficult to move from a place that is seeing so much change, interesting and not static like Britain or even Russia, but it would be nice to see a better Brazil more quickly rising from the mess that most live in, less government and political fraud would help a great deal, even my small village of Jauá suffers from the miss use of funds so it is inevitable that Sāo Paulo will suffer as well, the metro in Salvador is still not working, still huge amounts of unfinished track and they are talking about a new rail link to the airport ! also a huge bridge to Itaparica, at the moment some new ferries, bigger and better than those used at the moment, would resolve the situation and stop the island becoming another commuter town of Salvador with huge queues on a new bridge that will be badly constructed and never get any maintenance or inspections, like most things here it would have to be built by a foriengn company to guarantee the integrity of the materials and design, I am still waiting for the road along beach in Jauá, to be redone and a new sea wall built, six years of a mess and only rocks dumped as a safety measure by the civil defense and that virtually ruined the beach, certainly an eye sore and almost a crime as far as the ambience is concerned.
A note also about the economy, Brazil seems to have slowed down to a 2.7 % growth rate as apposed to a 1% for the UK, the result is noticeable, my investment here in Brazil was well down this last month, about 25% less for the month, if Brazil wishes to grow it needs the investment and growth, the latest forecast of 4% is still well below the expected, Dilma as lowered the taxes on Brazilian goods to encourage home sales but it also means that Brazilians are spending and not saving, it seems as though they are also buying non essentials and forgetting the need to invest in infrastructure.
sexta-feira, 23 de novembro de 2012
fé
Em resposta a um problema de amigos com seu cano de esgoto sob a pia da cozinha, e não de sua parte para tentar resolver o problema com o conselho que eu tinha dado por telefone.......... que vem em minha mente como diferentes todos nós podemos ser em nossa abordagem de vida, trabalho e amizades, bem como outras coisas. No Mais Você, houve a atriz, agora no Salve Jorge, que havia perdido seu filho em um acidente em um skate, ela escreveu um livro sobre a fé que será lançado na próxima segunda-feira. Quando se fala de fé parece que estamos falando de auto-estima e valor de nossa vida ea de outras pessoas para a vida natural e para a vida social do mundo. Algo de contentamento é neste estima, de se contentar pode dar-nos um estado de tranquilidade e apreciação dos outros e do estado natural ao nosso redor, menos agressiva e mais tolerantes, menos necessitados e dando mais, a sensação de ter suficiente e de ser útil , a pequena parte de uma serra gabarito que exige de nós e nossa diferença para tornar a imagem completa, onde só nós podemos caber no espaço que é alocado.Uma abordagem à vida que não parece servir a um propósito é um tanto inútil, é necessário tentar resolver problemas, aprender outras próprias fraquezas e no processo de aprender as falhas dos outros, melhores a fazer mal do que não fazer nada, aprender o que precisa para fazer um trabalho e tolerar ter de fazer o mesmo trabalho com ferramentas de poucos ou nenhum que são específico para o trabalho, perceber que nem tudo é perfeito e nem todos os que precisa ser feito de uma forma perfeita para obter um resultado que é aceitável. Quando o custo de uma ferramenta, como um alicate de expansão, que é muito melhor para comprar a ferramenta de pagar um mau trabalhador que também provavelmente não tem a ferramenta correta para o trabalho, desta forma você aprende a resolver o problema e pode usar seu conhecimento para ajudar os outros, bem como tendo a ferramenta em seu disposição, na pior das hipóteses, você terá a ferramenta para outro para tentar resolver o seu problema. Eu sempre disse que aprender a fazer a restauração não é apenas observando os outros, mas na maneira que você aprende com a tentativa de fazer o trabalho em seu caminho e com seus próprios valores e falhas, uma fé que só é possível se você tentar, a fé em outros não podem sempre dar o resultado que você deseja ou espera.
Um medo de falhar ou de ser observado por outros não ajuda uma pessoa a progredir, um trabalho que está dentro de um grupo muitas vezes pode apenas apoiar uma fraqueza e tirar o estresse de ser individualmente responsável por um ato, isso não é uma coisa boa, mas muito pelo contrário, ela tira a coragem e deminishes a valorização do que cada um de nós pode conseguir individualmente, bem como o que pode individualmente dar a um grupo.
domingo, 4 de novembro de 2012
abelhas na produção de alimentos
A importância das abelhas na produção de alimentos,
este é um bom artigo sobre a necessidade de cuidados para a vida do inseto e da utilidade de alguns insetos para a agricultura
A importância das abelhas na produção de alimentos: As abelhas tem grande importância na polinização de plantas e garantem a produtividade de diversas culturas
Créditos: Jane AmorimDe acordo com o último levantamento publicado pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), os principais alimentos produzidos no Estado do Acre, em 2007, foram mandioca, banana, milho, cana-de-açúcar, arroz, castanha-do-brasil, feijão, melancia, abacaxi, mamão, açaí, café e frutas cítricas como laranja, tangerina e limão.
A bananeira, a mandioca, a cana-de-açúcar e o abacaxi são multiplicados vegetativamente (por meio do plantio de partes da planta), ou seja, a sua propagação não depende do processo conhecido como polinização, responsável pela formação de sementes e frutos em inúmeras culturas.
Em linhas gerais, polinização é a transferência de grãos de pólen do órgão reprodutor masculino para o órgão reprodutor feminino da flor. Essa transferência pode ser feita pelo vento, pela água e pelos animais. As estimativas indicam que, pelo menos, 35% de todo alimento produzido no mundo depende do processo de transferência de pólen realizado pelos animais e que as abelhas sejam as responsáveis pela polinização de 90% das plantas com flores.
No caso do milho, do arroz e do feijão essa transferência é realizada, predominantemente, pelo vento. Há indicativos, no entanto, de que a polinização no feijão seja mais eficiente, quando há abelhas visitando as flores. Outro caso interessante é o do café. Quando cultivado próximo a áreas de mata, observa-se um ganho na produção de grãos de 15%, aproximadamente. Este aumento é atribuído aos serviços prestados pelos polinizadores como as abelhas Apis mellifera (conhecidas, popularmente, como abelhas africanizadas, italianas ou europeias).
Há ainda poucos estudos sobre a polinização da castanheira-do-brasil. As principais polinizadoras parecem ser as abelhas da subtribo Euglossina (conhecidas como abelhas das orquídeas) e as mamangavas-de-toco ou mamangavas-de-pau-podre (abelhas do gênero Xylocopa), abelhas grandes e vigorosas, que podem voar distâncias acima de 10 km. As mamangavas-de-toco são apontadas, também, como polinizadoras de outras culturas agrícolas com potencial de expansão no Acre como o urucum e o maracujá.
Muitos experimentos relacionados com a polinização de frutas cítricas comprovam o aumento na produção quando as abelhas africanizadas estão presentes. Os frutos cujas flores são visitadas pelas abelhas são geralmente mais pesados e menos ácidos, apesar de terem maior número de sementes por gomo.
As abelhas africanizadas e as abelhas-sem-ferrão são, também, as principais polinizadoras das melancias. Com relação ao mamoeiro cultivado, estudos recentes demonstram que a polinização é realizada por mariposas, comumente denominadas de bruxas ou esfingídeos. Já o açaizeiro é polinizado por uma grande quantidade de insetos pequenos (3-12 mm). Dentre estes, destacam-se as abelhas da família Halictidae (as quais apresentam brilho metálico verde, azul, avermelhado ou mesmo negro), que demonstraram ser as mais eficientes nos estudos realizados pela Embrapa Amazônia Oriental no Estado do Pará. Outro grupo importante na polinização do açaizeiro são as abelhas-sem-ferrão.
Algumas espécies de abelhas destacam-se, ainda, na polinização da abóbora, berinjela, melão, morango, tomate e pimentão cultivados em casas de vegetação ou estufas, permitindo a produção de olerícolas durante o ano inteiro.
Vale destacar que, além dos serviços de polinização, as abelhas africanizadas e as abelhas-sem-ferrão produzem mel, um alimento rico em energia, que vem assumindo papel fundamental na geração de renda no meio rural. Assim, em função da importância desses insetos, a Embrapa Acre iniciou, recentemente, estudos voltados à polinização de espécies de interesse agrícola, além de implementar um programa de capacitação na atividade de criação das abelhas-sem-ferrão e das abelhas africanizadas. A criação dessas abelhas, quando associada a outras ações como a manutenção da vegetação nativa na área de entorno dos plantios e a adoção de práticas que reduzam ou substituam o emprego de produtos químicos, considerados, atualmente, uma das principais causas do declínio das populações das abelhas, representa uma estratégia eficaz na conservação desses polinizadores, contribuindo para que a agricultura brasileira se fortaleça ainda mais do ponto de vista ambiental, social e econômico.
eventfull
2012 has actually crept up to be an eventful year and as yet not eneded, not just for myself but friends as well, so many things can lay dorment in the guise of IF and WHEN but then suddenly they have happened as though it was just another dawn starting and accepted in much the same way.
At the start of 2012 I was still palnning a return to St Puy and what I may be able to acheive whilst I was in france, still considering the need to find folk for renting my house in Brazil and hoping to get by for the year on what seems a very lean income from rental. It as always been slightly difficult for me to rent as my house is away from the hustle and bustle that so mant Brazilians adore and well away from the apparent security that travellers care to have as well as no safe regular transport to and from the village and no direct transport to the airport. I have mentioned before that I have felt some what let down by the attitudes of the Mayor of Camacari and the consequences of poor service from the Camacari council, water company, electric company and worst of all the Oi telemar telephone compnay. Well all this was still the case in February this year and had shown no sign of changing, as was my attempt at selling my house here in Brazil, January had seen me rent my house out to a family and then get a bill for over R$1.000,00 for the water for the one month, no rental for the December 2011, and then only a short rental for Carnaval 2012 as it came so late this year and no one wished to rent for the whole month, this was in my mind when i left for France in March 2012.
January into February 2012 had seen one rather unpleasant experience arise and still be with me when I was leaving for St Puy, a long standing friend had decided that he would get me to help him with his house in Scotland but had not it seems thought that this might be me a problem for me when I was in Brazil, consequently when i said it would not be convenient to go to Scotland he took a rather severe and alarmingly bad attitude to myself , this resulted in an exchange of emails that did not resolve anything but left a bad taste and a distinct break in our long friendship, which in reflection does not seem to have been the friendship that I had thought it was and showed up a desire to manipulate others, to deceive, fool, hoodwink, trick or cheat , what ever the prefernece in words the meaning can only be sort by the person doing the act and not the receiver of it, they are left reflecting on the past comments and actions and seeing that things were not what they assumed at the time, what might have seemed a kind act now seems a calculated blind to get another response. This series of emails led to another occurance in St Puy and fortunately led to a move on my part that perspitated a change for the better and a move that as now provided me with a better lifestyle and a road to recovery, finacially.
Before leaving St Puy in 2011, had arranged with friends to borrow their house there for the first month of my return in 2012, this would give me a start at making my house habitable and therefore save money on rental, each year it cost me in euros on rental in France and I now wished to use this money on materials for my house there.
My return to France came with a few days of warmer weather there, so it was a good thing for me to find temperatures around 12 c and not the minus that had been there just a few weeks earlier. Also my friends house is so comfortable that my house in Brazil seems barren by comparison. It was here that i became aware of what my friend had done after our exchange of emails, it is he that had supplied me with the workshop at the Bergerie, a garage that was in four sections and which I had roofed and put in the electrics, we had an agreement while he was not using the space, for me to start up my own business there and if he wished me to do work on the bergerie I would allow time for this and he would pay me for the work minus the cost of materials and workshop. I having left my LandRover for the six months in the garage at the Bergerie had requested a friend to go there and charge the battery before I returned and check that all was well there, the result I found when I got to St Puy was that the electricity had been cut to the workshop so preventing me using any of the machines there. The story is winded and so not worth putting in writing for the world but the result as been that I searched out another workshop to try and complete what work I had on promise from 2011.
My first few months back in st Puy had a new value to them, I cracked into work on the house and found a workshop practically next to me in the village. By the time that my friends had returned to retake their house I was close to finishing the basics on mine, although they now got interupted by a pleasing but unexpected visit from my eldest brother and my nephew, so a few days holiday was called for and we toured a bit of the region for four days, a lot of chat and a story of new lovers was unfolded to me.
My brother has been divorced for many years, almost as many years as my three divoreces, it has been almost 50 years since he married ( my brother is 74), so any story of a new love in his life was some what unexpected. It was with some one that I and my nephew had not met or knew of, in fact it was difficult to have any knowledge as this love affair seemed to have started just a week or so before he came to France, this being his first trip to europe and only the second time in his life when he had left GB. Two weeks later , after their return to England, I received an email from my nephew asking me to interveen and chat with my brother, he had evidently returned to GB and decided to marry the mysterious lady, to add to this she was a Quaker and lived in Somerset...., then my brother wrote to me and told me that indeed he had asked the lady to marry him and they had set a date, wishing me to accept an invitation to the wedding, which I did...the date was set for August 2012.
After my brothers return to GB I continued to work on my house in St Puy and moved into it whilst it still had no windows or doors, not even the front door, to make things a little difficult the weather changed and it returned to cold winds and rain, a time to appreciate that the roof still leaked and the cold can penetrate every gap in the house.
My move to the new workshop as proved inspiring, a new friendship as come with the move, the workshop is rented from the Mayor of St Puy but the machines are owned by Raymond, the cabinet maker who has been there since 1978, a native of the village and very much liked by all. I am a cabinet maker by default while Raymond was trained as one and in an enviroment of artisan skills, he tells me that the village had many carpenters and furniture makers but as with all the trades in rural villages, they are dying off, it is this reason that was my luck, raymond had been offered money for his business but had wanted to find some way of keeping the activity functioning in the comunity and keeping what is almost the last working tradesman in the village, to this end Raymond and I are as one and we have a loose framework for the continuation of the artisan tradition in St Puy, it would be even better if we can possibly start up a school for locals to come and learn the basic skills of furniture making ( before Raymond and I pass away).
This sad note is so close to one when just in the last few weeks there have been deaths of two people I know in the village of St Puy, both are neighbours and with both I would pass the odd French courtesies on a daily basis. There are two other elderly ladies with whom I also have daily chats and they now seem so vunerable, with me being Brazil at the moment and not returning untill around march 2013, it gives a slight worry that the winter will not treat the old kindly and it may be that the village will have lost more inhabitants before I return, this is a village of 650 with its surrounding area but only about 250 that live in the village itself, so a loss more than four this year makes a difference, strange and not so strange is the fact that two folk I knew here in Brazil, have died since my return here.
Just before returning to Brazil ihad an email from an estate agent, he had seen an advert that i placed on the net some three years ealier and although had replies to it had never found it a positive advert. The advert was to sell my house in Brazil and was designed to get some response to redirect the client to my advert that I had placed on my blog, but the nature of the advert never really achieved this until now. The chap that wrote to me was indeed an agent and working from Salvador, Bahia, he was also not Brazilian, a Danish man that was now married to a Brazilian and living here permanently, the difference becomes apparent when you ask the agent to sell your house, a native will give very little time to sell the house and waits for cliets to appear from thin air and then does not always show them all the houses that he could, prefering to show the houses most close to them and at the lowest price to get a quick sale. This has not been the case with this agent, he had several folk interested and viewing my house even before I had returned to Brazil and negotuated quickly to sell the house, which has now completed, a dream of mine for many years and a wish since my last divorce in 2007. The year as not finished so it may be that I have more surprises in store, one may be this coming Monday, tomorrow, I have a person coming to see my wood working machines which I have here in Brazil, these are the last problem in clearing the apartment for a possible sale.
One snag about the house sale is the new neighbours and their music !!!!!!!!! not good ......
At the start of 2012 I was still palnning a return to St Puy and what I may be able to acheive whilst I was in france, still considering the need to find folk for renting my house in Brazil and hoping to get by for the year on what seems a very lean income from rental. It as always been slightly difficult for me to rent as my house is away from the hustle and bustle that so mant Brazilians adore and well away from the apparent security that travellers care to have as well as no safe regular transport to and from the village and no direct transport to the airport. I have mentioned before that I have felt some what let down by the attitudes of the Mayor of Camacari and the consequences of poor service from the Camacari council, water company, electric company and worst of all the Oi telemar telephone compnay. Well all this was still the case in February this year and had shown no sign of changing, as was my attempt at selling my house here in Brazil, January had seen me rent my house out to a family and then get a bill for over R$1.000,00 for the water for the one month, no rental for the December 2011, and then only a short rental for Carnaval 2012 as it came so late this year and no one wished to rent for the whole month, this was in my mind when i left for France in March 2012.
January into February 2012 had seen one rather unpleasant experience arise and still be with me when I was leaving for St Puy, a long standing friend had decided that he would get me to help him with his house in Scotland but had not it seems thought that this might be me a problem for me when I was in Brazil, consequently when i said it would not be convenient to go to Scotland he took a rather severe and alarmingly bad attitude to myself , this resulted in an exchange of emails that did not resolve anything but left a bad taste and a distinct break in our long friendship, which in reflection does not seem to have been the friendship that I had thought it was and showed up a desire to manipulate others, to deceive, fool, hoodwink, trick or cheat , what ever the prefernece in words the meaning can only be sort by the person doing the act and not the receiver of it, they are left reflecting on the past comments and actions and seeing that things were not what they assumed at the time, what might have seemed a kind act now seems a calculated blind to get another response. This series of emails led to another occurance in St Puy and fortunately led to a move on my part that perspitated a change for the better and a move that as now provided me with a better lifestyle and a road to recovery, finacially.
Before leaving St Puy in 2011, had arranged with friends to borrow their house there for the first month of my return in 2012, this would give me a start at making my house habitable and therefore save money on rental, each year it cost me in euros on rental in France and I now wished to use this money on materials for my house there.
My return to France came with a few days of warmer weather there, so it was a good thing for me to find temperatures around 12 c and not the minus that had been there just a few weeks earlier. Also my friends house is so comfortable that my house in Brazil seems barren by comparison. It was here that i became aware of what my friend had done after our exchange of emails, it is he that had supplied me with the workshop at the Bergerie, a garage that was in four sections and which I had roofed and put in the electrics, we had an agreement while he was not using the space, for me to start up my own business there and if he wished me to do work on the bergerie I would allow time for this and he would pay me for the work minus the cost of materials and workshop. I having left my LandRover for the six months in the garage at the Bergerie had requested a friend to go there and charge the battery before I returned and check that all was well there, the result I found when I got to St Puy was that the electricity had been cut to the workshop so preventing me using any of the machines there. The story is winded and so not worth putting in writing for the world but the result as been that I searched out another workshop to try and complete what work I had on promise from 2011.
My first few months back in st Puy had a new value to them, I cracked into work on the house and found a workshop practically next to me in the village. By the time that my friends had returned to retake their house I was close to finishing the basics on mine, although they now got interupted by a pleasing but unexpected visit from my eldest brother and my nephew, so a few days holiday was called for and we toured a bit of the region for four days, a lot of chat and a story of new lovers was unfolded to me.
My brother has been divorced for many years, almost as many years as my three divoreces, it has been almost 50 years since he married ( my brother is 74), so any story of a new love in his life was some what unexpected. It was with some one that I and my nephew had not met or knew of, in fact it was difficult to have any knowledge as this love affair seemed to have started just a week or so before he came to France, this being his first trip to europe and only the second time in his life when he had left GB. Two weeks later , after their return to England, I received an email from my nephew asking me to interveen and chat with my brother, he had evidently returned to GB and decided to marry the mysterious lady, to add to this she was a Quaker and lived in Somerset...., then my brother wrote to me and told me that indeed he had asked the lady to marry him and they had set a date, wishing me to accept an invitation to the wedding, which I did...the date was set for August 2012.
After my brothers return to GB I continued to work on my house in St Puy and moved into it whilst it still had no windows or doors, not even the front door, to make things a little difficult the weather changed and it returned to cold winds and rain, a time to appreciate that the roof still leaked and the cold can penetrate every gap in the house.
My move to the new workshop as proved inspiring, a new friendship as come with the move, the workshop is rented from the Mayor of St Puy but the machines are owned by Raymond, the cabinet maker who has been there since 1978, a native of the village and very much liked by all. I am a cabinet maker by default while Raymond was trained as one and in an enviroment of artisan skills, he tells me that the village had many carpenters and furniture makers but as with all the trades in rural villages, they are dying off, it is this reason that was my luck, raymond had been offered money for his business but had wanted to find some way of keeping the activity functioning in the comunity and keeping what is almost the last working tradesman in the village, to this end Raymond and I are as one and we have a loose framework for the continuation of the artisan tradition in St Puy, it would be even better if we can possibly start up a school for locals to come and learn the basic skills of furniture making ( before Raymond and I pass away).
This sad note is so close to one when just in the last few weeks there have been deaths of two people I know in the village of St Puy, both are neighbours and with both I would pass the odd French courtesies on a daily basis. There are two other elderly ladies with whom I also have daily chats and they now seem so vunerable, with me being Brazil at the moment and not returning untill around march 2013, it gives a slight worry that the winter will not treat the old kindly and it may be that the village will have lost more inhabitants before I return, this is a village of 650 with its surrounding area but only about 250 that live in the village itself, so a loss more than four this year makes a difference, strange and not so strange is the fact that two folk I knew here in Brazil, have died since my return here.
Just before returning to Brazil ihad an email from an estate agent, he had seen an advert that i placed on the net some three years ealier and although had replies to it had never found it a positive advert. The advert was to sell my house in Brazil and was designed to get some response to redirect the client to my advert that I had placed on my blog, but the nature of the advert never really achieved this until now. The chap that wrote to me was indeed an agent and working from Salvador, Bahia, he was also not Brazilian, a Danish man that was now married to a Brazilian and living here permanently, the difference becomes apparent when you ask the agent to sell your house, a native will give very little time to sell the house and waits for cliets to appear from thin air and then does not always show them all the houses that he could, prefering to show the houses most close to them and at the lowest price to get a quick sale. This has not been the case with this agent, he had several folk interested and viewing my house even before I had returned to Brazil and negotuated quickly to sell the house, which has now completed, a dream of mine for many years and a wish since my last divorce in 2007. The year as not finished so it may be that I have more surprises in store, one may be this coming Monday, tomorrow, I have a person coming to see my wood working machines which I have here in Brazil, these are the last problem in clearing the apartment for a possible sale.
One snag about the house sale is the new neighbours and their music !!!!!!!!! not good ......
domingo, 13 de maio de 2012
Aperos
Not being terrible up on the correct procedure for moving into a new or restored house here in France, I bow to the idea that it is best to invite every one you can for a free drink at your expense and let the locals and friends get down to the nitty gritty of weighing up the pros and cons of what I have done with my ruin and how it mow stands within the community, as well as how I might stamd here, an interesting state to be in as I still hardly speak amy French but seem to know quite a lot of French folk in and around the village of St Puy. My little anode is finally feeling like a home, not so sure it is feeling like my home yet but that is just a question of habitation amd so,e furniture etc all will have to wait now until I have made some windows and a front door and made some cash from other work. Summer has finally and thankfully arrived and it should make the move into the house a little bit more confortable, it will not be much of a move mind you, I have two suitcases that are in a friends house around the corner, the friemds are in Paris but return tomorrow, Monday 14 May, 2012, so hence the need to move, I have much to do to finish the house but it can be done whilst I am in it, most of the dusty jobs are done and I have no one else to worry anout if the place gets into a bit of a mess, it will be a tight squeeze to get any one into the house so I am thinking of having the soiree outside around the well, that way I can use the t of the well as a table and just serve drinks there, letting folk walk around the house with a sense of being in a museum or gallery more likely.
So if you are in the arra of St Puy, Gers, Midi Pyrenees. 32310. call in on Tuesdayy evening, between 18.00 ans 19.00
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