Lot Blog 7

Seems like the long-awaited airport of Brive-Cressensac will not open till 2010 at the earliest. One can't help wondering if in the current economic/ecological climate, it will ultimately go ahead at all. But the news that the TGV line between Poitiers and Limoges has been given the go ahead is good news as this will connect up to London, Lille and Paris. If British visitors could get to Limoges quickly, then there may be more options on trains that stop at Gourdon, Souillac and Caussade.

Last minute Xmas or New Year prezzies for Lotophiles? Don't forget Lot: travels through a limestone landscape in southwest France by Helen Martin, available from Moho Books, and Amanda Lawrence's excellent and highly readable White Stone, Black Wine.

Update on the nuclear waste disposal. Happily, Gramat has refused the invitation to store this, but a timely article in Quercy Passions points out that earthquakes are not unknown events in the Quercy and that it might be a place best avoided in any case. The first recorded was in 1089. In 1490, the citizens of Gourdon had to flee their houses with the intensity of the quake (a whopping magnitude 8), several of which collapsed. In 1660, Gourdon was hit again and more recently in 1929 it suffered again when, along with Cahors, Luzech and Figeac, it was hit by a magnitude 5 tremor. In 1962, a tremor centered in the Pyrenees was felt in the Quercy.

The papers in the UK are full of articles lately on the tumbling value of the pound versus the Euro. Those people living in France and dependent on income from the UK have seen it tumble by up to 20% alongside inflation in France, with the result that many are selling up and moving home. Selling up if they can, that is, for in areas where the market is heavily influenced by British buyers, there is of course no one to sell to, and moreover prices have been inflated by those very same buyers in the first place. Although a glance through the websites shows only a small drop in advertised prices, it is reported that in actual fact sellers are accepting offers up to 25% lower than the asking price. That amount of money won't translate very well back in to English homes, particularly in the south-east, which even though reduced still cost much more than in France.

Other people's misery is someone else's opportunity. Those unaffected by the credit crunch should maybe buy their French home now (in spite of the exchange rate), though they should remain alert to the fact that there is no shortage of property crisis in France and homes can still take months to sell, in good times or bad.

The French meanwhile, always experts in schadenfreude, are enjoying our misery and so far feel immune from recession, according to well-known journalist Janine di Giovanni on Tina Brown's The Daily Beast. However, in a country so dependent on tourism, much of it British, the curtailment low-cost flights, the exchange rate and other factors may all kick in this summer. Small, French family-run hotels, already feeling the pinch, will probably be the ones to suffer.

Christmas has come early to the Lot this year with snow falling on the causse, Ségala and around Figeac, depriving at least 1000 people of electricity. Snow is ceasing to be anything unusual in the département, indeed, with winter temperatures habitually a little colder than in the southern part of the UK. In times gone by it was not unusual for the Lot river to freeze over in winter and sometimes for months at a time causing great problem for the gabares that ferried goods up and down river.