Last week was my birthday. Obviously, it was a rather quiet affair - not that I have ever done big parties or extravagent holidays to celebrate, but a nice meal out would have been nice... Unfortunately all bars, restaurants etc have been shut in France since October and look unlikely to reopen any time soon, … Continue reading 2020 – a write-off? No way!
< Back to 'History' It's not just who lived in your house before you that's fascinating. It is also what was happening around them during their lives. This is especially true for the millers at le Moulin de la Roche in the late 1700s as, out of all the turbulent times that France has seen … Continue reading René Plassais, 1770 ish – 1820
We've been trying to obtain residence permits or titres de séjours ever since we moved to live in France. If you read the first part of this saga, you will know that this wasn't because of any issues with our status but because the system kept changing and anything administrative always takes longer than you'd … Continue reading Residence permit – WARP Factor 2
Warning: If you are a British national - this post recounts the start of our experiences two years ago and does not reflect the current system. See below for information. If you're not British - you don’t need to bother about all this, but you may want to have a read and a good giggle … Continue reading Residence Permit – WARP factor 1
< Read other snippets of the mill's history An old postcard from the early 1900s shows le Moulin de la Roche with a couple standing outside, presumably the miller and his wife. The census records available on the departmental archives’ website show that in 1906 the meunier, miller at le Moulin de la Roche was … Continue reading The Joubert family – 1902-1918 (updated)
The dappled light through the poplar trees plays on the rippling water, as the bright turquoise flash of a kingfisher startles a heron who lifts himself gracefully into the air and glides off along the river with long beats of his elegant wings... Yes, it is that peaceful most of the time but sometimes being … Continue reading Oh, the romance of an old water mill – not!
Cartulaires (or 'If only I had paid attention in school...') Have you ever thought “Oh, how I wish I’d paid more attention to that in school”? Three of the lads in our gang of friends in my teens couldn’t wait to leave school and celebrated crazily when they left to start apprenticeships in local garages, … Continue reading Tracing the history of our French home – Part 6
Google is your friend During the confinement, at the start of my search (and not really knowing what I was looking for!), I got a bit bored and started googling the name of the mill/ the river we’re on/ the name of the village in various permutations. Once I had got through several pages of … Continue reading Tracing the history of our French home – Part 5
Local historians, past and present You’ll have seen from my last post, Thank you Abbé Toublet, that one particular local historian has helped me to trace our mill back a thousand years. Yes, you read that right – A THOUSAND YEARS! Read about it here There’s no doubt about it. Local historians, past and present, … Continue reading Tracing the History of our French home – Part 4
So it probably won’t come as a surprise when I say that some of the most useful resources I found for finding out about the history of our French water mill were local historians. One of our first visitors when we moved into the mill was a local historian eager to find out how much … Continue reading Thank you, Abbé Toublet.
