Members' Magazine

Highlights this month -

Member of the Month - Juliet Acland - 14 wonderful years of the french life..
Book Club - How books shape us - Some of the most powerful words ever written.
Gardening - Right plant, right place - Our local inspiring guide to all things gardening.

Message from our President

Bienvenue!

Welcome to the website of the Dordogne Ladies Club International. We are a vibrant and enthusiastic community of women of all ages and nationalities (with English as the lingua franca) who have settled across a wide area of the Dordogne. The DLCI was formed almost 35 years ago with the original aim of cultural exchange and providing mutual support for new lives in another country and we remain true to that today.

There are many opportunities to meet regularly, both informally and through more structured events, which are designed both to entertain and inform. We enjoy exploring the beautiful countryside through our guided walks. We are also very proud to acknowledge that we raise significant funds for local charities.

Some of our members work and many, though retired, are active on a voluntary basis in our local communes. Some of us have been in France for many years and others have only just arrived. Whatever your situation, you will find a warm welcome from the DLCI.

I hope I have whetted your appetite and that after you have browsed our website, you will get in touch! I feel very privileged to belong to such an active and friendly association and I look forward to meeting you in the near future.

Cordialement

Kathy John

Book Club Passage

The Dordogne Ladies Book Club

It came to that most difficult times Tuesday last week. I had finished a really good book which Sue Morrison had recommended "Mr Wilder and Me" by Jonathun Coe. I had enjoyed it so much it left a hole which needed to be filled - what would I read next? I always have a pile of about 4 books on my bedside table queuing up but alas non of them peaked my interest. I started to dip into the book shelves what I found were the following I thought I would share. Lines or short paragraphs such beautiful and inspiring words that elevate the reader.. see if you can guess the books they are from..
"My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company."

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity you. I thought you cleverer; for depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.”

All by the same author - hope you enjoy guessing..

I know we are all looking forward to a moment in future when we can meet up with other members of the book club. When that happens we will reach out to you about where and how you want to meet and how your book club works going forward.
The book club page on Facebook has the reviews of the books the group has read and we encourage all members to share their reading experiences with us.

To join the Book Club or for more information please email: Patricia.a.fielding@gmail.com
Once you join you will receive a copy of our book list and have access to our Facebook page.

Gardening Column
by Christine Lees

Right plant, right place

'Right plant, right place' is a phrase coined by the famous gardener and plantswoman Beth Chatto, who died 3 years ago at the age of 94. Her garden and nursery at Elmstead Market in Essex are beautiful and well worth a visit. She was one of the first people to recognise and publicise the importance of selecting plants which will thrive in the particular conditions of your garden, or areas of your garden.

As well as climate and aspect - sun or shade or partial shade, the important features of your garden are soil type and acidity/alkalinity. This is a large subject, but the main types of soil are sandy, silty, loamy and clay soil. This may be different in different areas of your garden. If you take a small piece of soil and roll it into a ball, and it stays in that shape, it is clay soil. Other types do not do this, and sandy soil is very thin.

I have loamy, clay soil in my front garden, which has probably had topsoil laid on it when the house was built. The rest of the garden is very heavy clay, basically a field, apart from the woodland border, which has layers of leaf mould on top of the clay. Alkaline clay soil is very common in this part of France, as the underlying rock is limestone.

Acidity/alkalinity or the pH value is another important factor. The ideal pH value is 6.5 - 7, slightly acid to neutral, the best type of soil to have as it gives you the widest range of plants to grow. Many plants prefer normal or slightly acid soil, very few prefer alkaline soil. So if you want to grow for example Pieris, Rhododendrons, Azalea, Camellias, and you have alkaline soil, it is best to grow them in a pot with ericaceous compost (Bruyere in France). You can find out the pH value of your soil (which again may vary throughout your garden) with a cheap soil testing kit. I have found these difficult to buy in garden centres here, but it may be possible to buy them online. If you have Hydrangeas in your garden, they will have pink flowers on alkaline soil and blue flowers on acid soil.

For me the most difficult aspect of gardening here has been dealing with the heavy clay soil which is dry and baked hard in summer and boglike with standing water in winter and spring. Mediterranean plants, especially grey leaved plants, will thrive in the summer and die in winter, with their roots in water. By trial and error I am gradually finding plants which will grow here. Putting some grit in the planting hole helps with drainage, and at least clay soil is very fertile - the roses love it, and I have grown fantastic cauliflowers and celeriac this winter.

When choosing plants, read the labels or the descriptions on websites, or look at RHS Plantfinder, or read good gardening books, to work out which plants will thrive in your garden. Beth Chatto wrote many wonderful and helpful books on this subject.

Many thanks to Pat Machado for suggesting the topic for this month's column. This month is probably the busiest time of year in the garden, and from mid-May you can plant out tender flowering plants and tender vegetables. You can start sowing French beans, sweetcorn and other tender vegetables as well. Keep deadheading your roses, and water your plants in dry spells, prioritising recently planted trees, shrubs and herbaceous and vegetable plants. Mulching around plants will help the soil retain moisture.

Christine - May 2021

Member of the Month - May 2021
Juliet Acland

Hello Ladies

I am very happy to be invited to introduce myself. I met my husband and we married within a year, that was 46 years ago!
We have two wonderful sons, who fully supported our move to France and they say we are so much happier and healthier since leaving work in the U.K.!
My first job was with NatWest Bank, which I thoroughly enjoyed due to the many and varied opportunities it gave me. I enjoyed working in that environment so much, that I went back to work part time when my second son went to school.

We have moved a few times, usually for work. The final move in the UK was to Hampshire, and I continued my career with the bank, until I decided I didn't care for the focus on sales, so I looked for another role. This took me to a secondary school of 1300 pupils. As I'm sure
you can imagine, there was never a dull moment. After our youngest son left home,
I needed something to do to fill my time. I decided to pick up my business studies which I had put to one side when we moved house. So, with the support of my employer, I resumed my studies and gained my MBA IN 2004. It was a real sense of achievement for me when I was able to put my new knowledge and skills to work, benefiting the daily work life
in school.

We were looking for a holiday home in France, but following an illness which meant I had to leave my position, my husband took early retirement and we decided to make the move a permanent one. That was in 2007, and it was definitely the right thing to do. Our friends were surprised, and rather worried; most of them asked the same question : "But what are
you going to do with yourselves?" and indeed, we had always been busy. However, we knew exactly what we were going to do - immerse ourselves in the French countryside, the people, and the culture, and as well as this my husband was going to learn to play keyboard and I was going to learn to play my saxophone; we had heaps of books to read, all the things
we didn't have time for when we were working. We were lucky, in that our french house didn't need any renovation, so we moved in and started living the French life immediately.

We'd been here two or three years, when a new friend introduced me to the Dordogne Ladies Club. Within a year or so, I was elected onto the Committee as Secretary, and before my term ended I was delighted to be Vice President as well. At the time, I was also Secretary for an amateur music and dramatic society, so I didn't quite let go of the work ethic
immediately!
So, almost 14 years later, have we achieved these targets? Well, truthfully, some. The first few years we revelled in being able to jump in the car and just head off, exploring the diversity of South West France. I still love that we find different countryside in every direction. We still go to French classes, I haven't learned to play the saxophone, my husband
hasn't learned the keyboard, but I would say everything else has been achieved, and I have picked up my paintbrush after many decades and started to paint in acrylics! My first attempt was our son's house for their wedding anniversary, and I think there will be others to come.

Members on the Map

You are never far away from another member; we are in total - over 100 members across the region. Everyone who comes along to a lunch will be given a badge. Each badge includes a small dot in different colours. This indicates members who live in similar areas so if you spot someone with the same colour take the opportunity to say hello.

Pink dots - Bergerac and surrounding area
Green dots - South East
Blue dots - South West
Yellow dots - North East
Red dots - North West

Events are held in different parts of the region so you will have the opportunity to join activities close by.

Our previous Members of the Month - Click on the members name to read the members stories
April 2021 - Sheila McPhee
February 2021 - Mary Clabaut
December 2020 - Philippa Tillyer
November 2020 - Evelyn Bernardi
October 2020 - Florence Asterie
September 2020 - Sandy Scovell
August 2020 - Alix Sundquist
July 2020 - Liz Berks

Charities

The Dordogne Ladies Club International was founded to provide friendship and support as well as to raise money for local charities. We aim to do this in a way that is sustainable and maintains the beautiful environment in which we live. We look after our planet the way she looks after us.
We are proud that in the last five years we have given in excess of 20,000 euros in donations to local charities chosen by our members. Each year the members will nominate and choose new charities to receive the donations.