We fell in love on the internet. It’s the modern way. The one touts their promise, the other falls under their spell and happily ever after they both live. House and owner. You didn’t think I was talking about Two Brains and I, did you? You got that I am talking about our fragile hearts being ensnared by our Maison Carrée?
The house was advertised all over the place – every single immobilier in France seemed to have it on their books. Clock forward two and a half years and hindsight and a bit of experience has taught me that this means nothing. Often an agent will have grabbed the content from an unprotected site and will be advertising it as his own. But we knew where it was and we knew it was the former Tour Seignoural for the perfect little city it sits plumb central in. And it is officially a city even though it would appear to be a small village to modern eyes, and we simply swooned when we found the website for the proprietor who was currently running the little jewel as a Chambre d’Hotes. The description, down to the seductive promise that he is an accomplished masterchef and would cook you local food magnificently if you wished and that breakfast was all conjured from the local boulangerie, epicerie, charcuterie, fromagier, had me wondering why he was selling at all. After all this three bedroomed beauty, including the miraculous bathroom all newly fitted, was kitted out with the most elegant antique country furniture clearly snaffled from local houses of some note and auctions and brocantes and the owner certainly and assuredly had excellent taste. Hold that thought.
Beware the power of the picture! Beware the interweb! What greeted us when we arrived was entirely a different picture. What on earth induced us to go ahead and buy I am not convinced I will ever know. A certain madness unexplained. Assuredly bull-headed stubborn-ness and a sense that this disaster of a place can be, will be, really special and an uncharted recognition that we should be the people to return the house to it’s former unpretentious glory. And give it a properly appointed bathroom rather than what greeted us which I have flatly refused EVER to use. And a kitchen that does not stink in that sickly sweet way of festering food complete with maggots and fresh fly-eggs – sadly it became clear that this was the state that unsuspecting visitors who had booked in on-line found the house in and I sincerely hope that none ever took their host up on the opportunity of his unashamedly trumpeted home made meals – rather they hot-footed it to the Mairie to complain loudly and threaten nasty reviews on the very internet upon which we had found the house languishing apparently so alluringly.
Once we had bought the place, once the place was ours we were hit with the reality that HB² is mostly on the wrong side of the Atlantic and that I, although more than once invited to row that ocean on account of my once-upon-a-time Olympian prowess as an oar puller, I was simply not equipped to begin, let alone complete the task of emptying the house once the ancien proprieteur had taken what he wanted … you guess that bit surely – anything nice, anything pretty. Well, he would, wouldn’t he! There follows the account of the next nine months in which we, collectively being Winnie the Pooh, never lost heart.
…. In the meantime, here I am looking somewhere between despairing and disgusted in the best of the bedrooms the day after we took ownership.
PS: The quote is Twelfth Night – Helen declares of her Demetrius that ‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is wing’d cupid painted blind ….’
It was The Venomous Bead who unwittingly reminded me of my father stalking his small children and afterwards his grandchildren and terrifying them as he growled ‘I’m a Troll, Foll de roll’. This might seem a peculiar introduction to a story but I promise you, it has relevance. Possibly tenuous. But a relevance. The picture was taken on Thursday … Two Brains and I were on our way to a light walk near St Etienne de Chomeil of which more in a later post, and this beauty happened to be in the road wondering slightly desparately which way to scamper. We noted that in two days it would probably be a gun rather than a camera it faced since the hunting season opened here yesterday and we wished it winged feet and guile to avoid the orange and camo-clad hunters who will stalk it til the end of February. As you can see it fleetly rehearsed its escape across he fields to the nearby woods.
I’m a Troll? Folldy Woll? What the … ? It’s the story of the ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ for the uninitiated. The Troll that terrifies the goats lives under the bridge and the relevance is this … I have three Billy Goats of my own to tell.
Early summer and The Bean and I walked up on les Orgues de Bort. We do this more than occasionally and it is a lovely walk. We see the massifs in the distance and the Dordogne snakes below.
We have passed a field of pygmy goats often and in fact my youngest daughter has insisted that we need stunted goats when we find our forever house. This day in May I turned a hair-pin bend and came across a baby pygmy in the road. He didn’t want to be there and was bleating loud, plaintiff and continuous. All his field mates were helpfully and gustily returning bleats. There was a fair amount of traffic on the plateau and I didn’t want a squishered goat so I set about finding his owner. Simples – there are only a couple of houses. Cars were bearing down on me so I turned on my hazards (the car was across the road where I had jammed the anchors and leaped out with goat-like agility and it is yellow so frankly unmissable) and walked purposefully to the nearest house. The goat bleats. I shout. In vain as it turns out. The goat bleats. I turn tail and walk down the hill aware of the hostile drivers blocked by my car. They can be forgiven for clearly believing the goatlette is mine. The Bean leaps out of the car. I call her manfully to heal and surprisingly she obeys. The Goat is less obedient so I nip back to the car and grab Bean’s lead thereby reinforcing the illusion that the goat is mine to the increasingly hostile queue of cars. I noose the goat … the goat continues to bleat. The Bean trots purposefully at my side clearly cast in her perfect role and I can’t shake Julie Andrews warbling ‘High on a Hill lives a lonely goatherd Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo’ – my obsession with the songs of the Sound of Music is well rehearsed with my children – in fact it was an effective torture when I wanted to get them swiftly to school as smalls but it proves less effective with actual goats. Lesson learned. I knock at the door of the only other house in the vicinity. A young man answers. ‘Is this be your Goat?’ I demand in my traditional Spanish Cow French ‘Mon Dieu – yes’ he replies (in actual French) … he grabs it, does not say thank you but is clearly overwhelmingly grateful and rushes off to find out how the devil it managed to break free. Though not exactly feted I feel puffed with pride that I have saved this tiny goats life.
That is my first goatee story.
This Friday my husband took me out for dinner. We rarely do this – partly because we are rarely together which is not as we wish it to be. I dressed up. So did he. We looked damned fine to be fair. The Salle de Fete (I have told you this before) is in my garden (actually the garden and the building belong to the village but in my mind they are be mine) …. there was a party brewing. We stood aside as my young neighbour screeched up the drive in his pick-up … he is young, this is his normal modus. As he stepped out of the truck complete with kennels on the back, I said ‘the hunting season starts, no?’ and he responded automatically ‘demain’ (tomorrow) and then I heard it … bleating! From the kennel on the back of his pick-up there clearly emitted a bleating. He noted my noting and said ‘it’s my brothers birthday – that’s the party’ (it was his 25th it turns out) …. a strange explanation for what he showed me … two sweet little black and white pygmy goats in luminous orange collars with bells on. He rushed off wihout further commentary. We drove out for dinner delicious. Today I ran into his girlfriend and asked how the party went (the last men were still just about standing and shouting amiably at 7 a.m incidentally) She rolled her eyes magnificently as she told me it was a triumph – apparently the young birthday boy had been led to believe he was getting a pair of hunting dogs for his birthday. The pygmy goats dressed in their hunting attire were presented to his chagrin and the delight of the assembled gathering.
So there you have it …. three Billy Goats. Though none of them Gruff I would give them all a home any day and the deer can have my sanctuary though I fear I have nothing more than wishes and prayers (though I’m not a praying woman) as we embark on the next six months of hunty mayhem across France.
PS: I took The Bean for a walk in the village today (the first weekend of the season is NOT the time to be out and about walking in the wilds) and a chap bearded me for a chat … down from the Somme he told me he has an Irish Setter with which he hunts. I asked him why he was not out on this important weekend … it turned out that in the North they started the season last weekend and he had come down to join the frollics at the Salle de Fete – his cousin’s son’s birthday … guess what, he said – they promised him two good hunting dogs and gave him a pair of goats – how hilarious is that? … I didn’t disappoint him by telling him I already knew.
… Little bubbles in the air …. for me that is the anthem of West Ham (an East End of London football team for those unfamiliar with them … don’t ask me to explain the Ham nor the fact that they are from the East and called West – though I can if pushed). I support The Arsenal, a North London team.
These bubbles were installed in Grenoble, which you can glimpse in the background and which is commonly referred to as the gateway to the Alps, for the 1968 Winter Olympic Games. They are correctly called The Grenoble-Bastille Telepherique (or cable car). The sixties was a time of experimentation and free expression in every sphere and engineering was no exception. The French love engineering and respect engineers. Which can only be a good thing. Amongst other revelations were three tower blocks to house the athletes which were to revolve on their bases. They are still inhabited and still visible from all over the city but I’m quite relieved to say that they never actually revolved. The bubbles were to be the symbol of the games. All these years later (and a rebuild in 1975 of the stations at top and bottom too) and they are preserved and still running happily up and down to la Bastille, the mountain in the middle of the city, all day and into the night over the Isere river below. They long ago surpassed the original ideal to become the symbol of the city.
PS: The inaugural ‘voyage’ of the bubbles in 1967 was planned point perfect as such things are and the bubble cars were filled with dignitaries, including the mayor himself and various Olympic higher-muck-a-mucks …. unfortunately the cable busted and the bubbles were left suspended over the river for some time until a rescue could be effected. They were left for seemingly hours because the Franco-German consortium responsible for the design and installation (it should be noted that there had been a cable car of sorts in place since 1934) had a bigger project to attend to! These days this would have spelt instant closure. Some things have not improved in this modern world of ours
The picture was taken by HB² (my husband to the unititiated) and though I have many good ones – we are regular visitors – I wanted his to be published since Grenoble was once his home and still remains so somewhere in his heart.
It’s holiday season. On Saturday, my US friends and relations celebrated ‘Independence Day’ (July 4th) and in France les grands vacances are upon us. The next two months will see most French people taking time off and we will also celebrate le 14th juillet (‘Bastille Day’ but it is never referred to as such by the French) and le 15th août (Assumption Day) both of which are major holidays. In the village of Marcoles, a teeny weeny but perfectly and beautifully formed medieval gem (and officially ‘une petite cité de caractère’) 15th August is celebrated with a festival of street theatre, music, dance and that particular brand of delightful eccentricity that is unmistakeably French. It is called Lez’Artes dans la Rue (the mascot is a lizard and the title is a clever pun). I absolutely adore it.
We visited for the first time two years ago and were treated, amongst other delights to a troop of medieval musicians with a fantastically barking mad front man, a band fronted by a girl in fishnets and doc martins perched on the roof of a miniature car as it toured the village and oompahpahing deliciously on a souzaphone. And this chap. To say I was not quite ready for him is a probable understatement …. this was in no small measure due to the fact that shortly after this picture was taken he produced a large and fully inflated balloon from the trouser area he is so emphatically framing. His pant region. The balloon was sausage shaped, proudly cocked and bright pink. So there you have it. Standing in front of those wonderful medieval arched doors, he opened his door, one might say …. The crowd went wild. And crowd it was – the village is literally over-run for the occasion.
PS: You will know that the title is from ‘Send in the Clowns’ that wonderful song from Sondheim’s ‘A Little Night Music’ … making my entrance with my usual flair and indecently late, I must recommend that you take a look at the other offerings for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge entitled Door – there are some crackers.
And also – tragically, I shan’t be able to attend this year. But I do have a vaguely acceptable reason … my eldest daughter will be marrying her love a week later in England’s West Country and I rather hope her need of me is greater than that of Marcoles on this occasion …
Here I am back in France this past fortnight and nine days of it have been on a ‘regime’. A diet. A detox actually. And it paid dividends – I’m now a bit more than half a stone lighter and I have lost the inches in the right places. By which I mean when it drops off your face after a certain age you just look older, more saggy and haggard and equally at my age one has a tendency to gaining round the middle. A spare tyre that would not help in the event of a blowout in the little yellow car. So I am a little more en ligne, a little trimmer and all the happier for it. It’s a curious fact that you wear the over-weight on your mind at some level and the niggling anxiety wears you out. So best to out it and get leaner and fitter again.
But the process got me to thinking – I cut out wheat and dairy and sugar and caffeine and had pills and gloop to swallow and on days 3 through 9 I had a light evening meal. And I didn’t miss the caffeine, didn’t crave the sugar and since I don’t drink when I’m on my own the abstinence from alcohol was a doddle. And the dairy was replaced with Almond milk which is surprisingly pleasant and the wheat well I just blotted out the landscape of boulangeries and pattiseries in my country of choice. But what it really got me to thinking about is the French diet and the WAY the French eat. Because its in the UK that I gain the weight. Not here in the land of pastry and bread and cream and cheese and all things wicked. I live in the goose fat region and though we use olive oil you won’t find an olive grove anywhere nearby and we eat meat and potatoes because it gets very very cold in winter. And we cook with cheese. And yet I have yet to see a single obese person. Let’s take a closer look ….
Watching St Nectaires being made by our friend Christine in Cantal
The French are wonderfully reverent about food. And about mealtimes and I believe that herein lies the difference. Here we break the fast every day. We wouldn’t dream of skipping le petit dejeuner. But we also don’t snack. Typically le dix heure is reserved for children to coincide with break time at school. And whilst you might have a nibble at le gouter that too is not a daily habit but rather something you would do if you happen to have a visitor at that hour (4-5pm).
Homemade Custard Creams … thank you Nigella!
Here we have le dejeuner and we sit and we eat together ensemble. If it is a weekend then we might join with friends and family but whatever the day we halt. And we sit and eat. When I’m on my own I shut down Mr Mac, clear the table, lay it and eat my lunch. If its a restaurant typically we will partake of a ‘formule’ – we will choose whether to have a starter and a main or to go the full monty and have cheese and dessert too. In the village here as is typical, l’Auberge caters for the workers be they bin men or the Maire himself with a set meal – soupe, entrée, plat, fromage, dessert, café. Water included, wine (un verre, un quart, un demi or a bouteille depending how many of you there are) extra. The basic cost is €13.50. That translates as £10 or $15.25 at todays rate of exchange. The soup will invariably be whatever vegetables are good that day though if a boiled fowl is on the menu it will be a chicken broth with whatever she has to hand added, the entree perhaps a plate of charcuterie, paté and cornichons with salad on the side, the plat probably a coq au vin or a boeuf Bourginon, the cheeses local, a choice of several different desserts – mousse au chocolat will always feature and there will be a clafoutis or a pie and iles flottant for sure.
His first tart … handmade by Two Brains
If you want wine, it will be good – the French will not tolerate something awful. They simply would not drink it. And mostly they drink red. The coffee will be an expresso. And there will be bread but woe betide you grab it before the meal comes – very very non-you. The Bread is to eat WITH the meal. And the cheese is not to take great slabs off – just a little morcel of each (or just the ones you like). You see the WAY the French eat is different.
Entree
Vegetarian entree
Veg for the main course
Turbot – a story for another time
Plat
Later, you might take an apero. Mostly here in my region that would be a glass of rosé or perhaps une biere or maybe an avèze our local eau de vie which can be taken neat or diluted with whatever you like or fortified with white wine if you are feeling in need of a kick. Its bitter – made from the special yellow gentiane flowers unique to the Auvergne and reminds me of a neon yellow Campari. I like it. And the beer is unlikely to be a pint. Let me tell you about what happened last February.
Driving back from Lyon having dropped Two Brains I hit a blizzard and then a concrete post. I broke the steering arm on the driver side wheel and the car was rendered undriveable. The Bean and I walked into the nearest town (Riom ès Montagnes) to await rescue. We waited in a bar all alone with the delightful Patron and his cat which amused The Bean for hours. And we were there for hours. It was a bad blizzard and nothing was moving so my rescue party of Raymond and Ernest were 4 hours in getting to me. I drank coffee and spoke pigeon French to the delightful Monsieur also called Raymond. He has the patience of a Saint and I now count him amongst my friends in Cantal. After a while he suggested I might drink something stronger. I think he was getting desperate. Une petite pressione I ventured. And it was petite. He took his smallest wine glass and filled it with aplomb. I sipped it gracefully. This was not the place for a gutsy swig. We returned, The Brains and I a few weeks later when he was back, with a box of Hawaiin biscuits to say thank you (I had not been in on my own in the meantime because it is honestly not the done thing here for a woman to venture into a bar on her own – beautifully old fashioned and long may it last). The men at the bar were all drinking from similarly tiny glasses – beer or wine or Avèze all in what to my English eyes are positively tiny measures.
With the apero you will have some olives or nuts or maybe some crisps. But it is not a contest to see who can eat the most, the fastest. It is just that – a teeny little nibble. An amuse bouche. Later you will eat le diner. This is the main meal of the day and will be eaten en famille. It too will probably consist of several courses. A starter, a main, the veg or salade served afterwards, the cheese and possibly but certainly not always a dessert. During the week you are more likely to have fruit to finish. Wine – yes and coffee to aid digestion on occasions with an alcoholic digestif. I favour Armagnac. Now lets just talk about wine for a moment. In the UK and the USA my experience is that these days a normal glass of wine is 250cl with a small glass being 175cl. Sometimes they are even bigger. Guzzling is the way. Here a normal glass holds a 125cl max and will only be filled a third for red wine and a little over half for white or rosé. Emptying your glass means you have had enough. And there is always, always water on the table.
A perfect lunch in Rocamadour, Lot
So that is how we do it here. In the UK I skip breakfast, eat lunch which is generally bread and cheese and paté and I take big chunks, I snack on biscuits in the morning and the afternoon, I eat cake at teatime and snack again til supper which is probably the most balanced meal of the day except that I will typically have wine and it is in a huge glass which is filled. My poor old blood sugar is a confused mess. The other difference is that I walk less. The culture here is very much geared to walking – I regularly meet very elderly people out walking. They may not be going far but they are using their legs, bearing their own weight and taking fresh air. In England, the England that I visit most which is Oxfordshire, I see this less. Which is not to say that people don’t because I know they do but just to say that it is perhaps something that should be encouraged from a very young age. My daughters all walk fast and its because they had to keep up with me walking to and from Goring to get the shopping. I take this opportunity to throw myself on their mercy and apologise … except I think grown as they are now they probably thank me for my lack of compassion at the time.
A little frog high up in the Cezallier whose legs are perfectly safe because we don’t eat these
I think the difference for me is in old habits verses new. It is perfectly possible to be slim and trim in the UK and the USA and I have been. But there are aspects of lifestyle here that would translate very nicely and enhance the average life. Not eating on the hoof, only drinking alcohol with food and taking a little at a time (and we do have a couple of fantastic old soaks in the village incidentally who drink a little a lottle all day long), eating together and finally not your piling plate but taking a small helping and then if you really want it going back for more but stopping when you are full. It’s all about keeping the blood sugar even. That’s my own spin on The French Paradox for what its worth. For me it’s worth being able to eat and NOT gain pounds and hopefully keep myself at low risk of heart attack which seems like a good deal all round. Just as we are trying to educate our French friends that the British can cook too, so I think the British could learn a better way to eat.
Our first dinner on arrival – a box acts as a table as the furniture had not arrived … but French-style we still laid it properly to eat
PS: The Bean is less than keen on any form of diet – here she is expressing her need (not want you understand, need) for cheese ….
The strapline to this blog is ‘a rootless writer takes root’. I have moved house a lot in my adult life, it is true. 25 times in 28 years. Not any sort of plan just circumstance conspiring. Another day. The story will reveal itself when it is ready. That’s how it works – no planning just a perculation that results in a story being ready for the telling.
And this story is prêt à porter … instantly packaged and ready to take off the shelf. In our search for our forever house, we have looked at many. And there are almost as many stories. But this one. This one refuses to wait.
The house, a Manor built in the early 19th century with a bit over a half hectare of land (not really enough for us but the house looked so pretty that we were enticed) is not far from here and enjoys the most stunning views across to the Monts du Cantal and the Massif de Sancy. It has a rudely large barn and a lovely orangery. It also has a pigonniere. Pigonniere (dove houses) are always described as ‘jolie’ here and I have no idea why. The house belongs to an elderly man (now in his 90s) and his daughter who lives abroad. This is normal under French law. When his wife died he will have inherited 2/3 and his daughter 1/3. If there were 2 children the house would be divided into 4, 3 into 5, 4 into 6 and so on – 2 parts for the surviving spouse and the children get 1 part each. It is a simple equation and in theory protects the living parent for the rest of their days ensuring they always have a home. This particular old fellow is in nursing care (we know not, and it is irrelevant, where) and the daughter wants to sell. All reasonable. And the house is lovely. Very, very tired but lovely. A huge main room, a panelled dining room and the oddest kitchen with a vaulted, but quite low, ceiling and no windows giving the air of cooking in a submarine. Despite finding various stuffed birds and animals stashed in a walk-in cupboard the size of a small bedroom, I was already planning the alterations to make it our home. Upstairs many bedrooms – small, as is the norm in these kinds of houses, and a variety of particularly eccentric bathrooms. This is France. Taking the many littles and turning them into fewer biggers and a bit of judicious plumbing – hey presto bongo – a very acceptable upstairs. Up again to a cavenous attic – big enough to accommodate a small commune. There lay a dead Coal Tit, its small body swollen as a precursor to dessiccation, wings outstretched and its tiny head held proudly stiff as though stoically resisting the inevitable. I have a life-long fear of dead birds – the result of Jane, our au pair telling me there was something magical waiting for me if I walked the length of a hosepipe which stretched from the drawing room windows round the entire house to the kitchen window, at the age of 4. I was always inquisitive and gullible. Still am. Anyhow, the something magical was actually a dead blackbird, his startled eye shining accusingly at me and his beak so yellow that I found it difficult to eat an egg yolk for several weeks to come lest I find it crunchily lurking there. But I did not let this poor departed bird put me off. We were really rather warm to the house.
We remained warm as we descended to the cellar through a tiny door, down treachorous steps to find what appeared to be The Bismarck skulking there. Closer examination revealed this rusted monster to be a boiler. How on earth they got it down there I do not know. The cellars are large, I grant you but the access would challenge a Hobbit. I can only deduce that it was a case of building the boat in the basement but it is clear that it will be far more difficult to remove. As one surely must. I should tell you that the cobwebs in this house are lustrous. The Bismarck has not sailed for some time.
Outside I wondered idly why the lawns had been ploughed to provide not one but 4 large potagers (vegetable plots) growing all manner of good things but when we walked into the palatial barn, the triple- decker hutches housing high rise bunnies began to give a clue. And the three sheep in their little field eyeing us with a mixture of fascination and fear. And the back yard with its pretty old stone dove-cot and its large population of hens, turkeys, ducks and guinea foul plus plentiful pretty, and no doubt, tasty pigeons. The wall of freezers gave another clue. A clue to a small-holding that seemed to be at odds with the lovely fountain, stone sculptures and other accoutrements of manorial life. It was like walking into a French version of ‘The Good Life’* – Tom and Barbara having annexed Margo and Jerry when their backs were turned. As we walked back towards the orangery, I noticed a car draw in and park next to the gate house (part of the purchase). A woman snuck out and dove deftly into the door of the cottage. This acted as a cue for the agent to casually tell us that the dependance was inhabited. We looked in the orangery and I gleefully imagined not just working in there but also the fact that my sculling boat would rack easily in such a large space. In passing, I asked the Two Brained one what the agent had said … I thought I had misheard. My French improves but his is far better than me after nearly 35 years living here part and full time. I hadn’t. The gate house is inhabited. And on further questioning, not by transient tennants.
The (I must say at this point, very nice and very professional) immobiier asked if we wanted to see the gate house. He couched his question with the clear intent of assuring us that we didn’t. We did. It’s a whole house not a bike shed and represents a rather significant part of the deal. We had naively imagined that we could produce a passive income from this little house as a periodic rental either for holidays or for locals, the rental market being quite buoyant in our area. And certainly that when family and friends came to stay that it would provide independent living quarters which can be a blessing for all concerned. We asked him who the people were. And he told us (rather too quickly and smoothly) that they were the retainers for the old man. Living free of charge in return for looking after the house and grounds. For the past 40 years. We entered their little home and everything changed. This little huddle of humanity – an elderly couple, their daughter and her child were terrified. They were silently pleading with us not just to like the house but mostly to like them. I have seldom felt so helpless – all of a sudden I am faced with a family whose future could depend on my kindness because I have the wherewithal to buy this place. They were clearly upset that their dogs were letting the side down by barking. I made a fuss of the animals and told them not to worry. That I love dogs. The Bean was barking from the car which reassured them that I did not speak with a forked tongue but rather that I really do love canines. Even if I utter with a curious foreign accent and knit my words together clumsily. I dutifully looked around this humble, humble place – a poky main room, a tiny snug, a bathroom with a leaking roof and upstairs three squished bedrooms, each conjoined. All tidied and polished for me to see. The old man showed me a mirror he had stuck to the wall in the bathroom to improve it – one of those frameless affairs with double sided tape on their back. It was oval. The old lady took pains to tell me that they look after the house very well. There is no heating in the house. Just a wood stove. It is simple to the point of being primitive and it is clear that they support themselves by selling a rabbit or a chicken here, some leeks and a pumpkin there. All under the wire – we had noted that the sheep were not ear-tagged as is compulsary in all EU countries, not just in France. But it was the fear in their eyes. The burning desire to make a good impression on us. Us? Who the hell are we? Unwitting people who might take their destiny in our hands. They have the knowledge that the house sale will almost certainly mean the end of their everything. Tick tock goes the clock. The agent was happy to tell us that we could get rid of them with six months notice. I thanked them for being so kind as to let me see their home. Their home. I told them it was lovely, I made more fuss of the dogs and I walked away barely able to see let alone speak. But speak we did. Briefly to the agent. And we left. Neither of us spoke, though, much on the way home. Neither of us spoke much over lunch, or supper. Later we went to bed and it turned out neither of us slept much either, if at all.
We turned over and over and over again with possibilities to make it work. Could we let them stay and let them have a bit of the land to keep producing an income? Not really – the land is not enough for us to do what we want (we being in the lofty position of being able to choose to do something we want to do) let alone sustaining a small family as well with no other income. And they would need all of it to provide a living. That is clearly demonstrated now. Could we find them somewhere else to live? Well probably, but it would be a flat in the town and they would have no income and they have been used to the life of small-holders. And where would we put our sheep – theirs are filling the little field – three is as many as that little patch would take. Could we keep them on as our retainers? Hardly – we are really not people who see ourselves as feudal lairds even assuming we could sustain them as well as ourselves on retirement income which in the cold light of day, we can’t. My brain became tireder and tireder as it tried to work a solution. I felt about as useful as the little blown body of the Tit in the attic. Simultaneously the might of the combined brains of my husband were doing the same and getting just as far. Between us we managed the square root of nothing at all. And all the while I kept seeing their frightened faces. I can still see them. Beyond anxiety. Backs against the wall, desperate in their naivety to please the potential buyer because surely then the status quo will be retained.
We will not be buying the house but someone will. Someone who will, in all likelyhood, exercise the right to kick them out. And the old man who started this whole sad story with his good intentions will wither away none the wiser. Forty years ago did he think of the possibiity that he would be an addled old man dependent on care that can’t be found in the idyll that he created as his maison secondaire? Of course not. It seemed like a really good idea to allow a young man and his wife to come and take care of everything in return for a house. Forty years later, he exists somewhere, tended to by nurses, never imagining that the pair that kept things tickety-boo in his Cantal retreat are facing hell at the end of their lives. Samuel Johnson is often misquoted as saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Misquote or not, in this case it fits. Horribly it fits.
On the whole I would rather have lived the life I have lived, as disrupted as it has been, than the life they lived in their innocent content, assuming it was forever whilst all the while the clock was tick, tick, ticking away to the inevitable moment when the bomb goes off and in their twilight, they are evicted because they have no human rights at all. I may have been rootless but at least I have had some control over where I floated. These people are about to have their roots ripped out of the ground and they have no more defence than a dandelion in a border of roses.
PS: The title is a shameless steal from Somerset Maugham and is chosen simply as a question of the words fitting my text rather than any similarity to the context of his great novel.
*For non-British readers, ‘The Good Life’ was called ‘Good Neighbors’ in the USA.
Isn’t it funny how you come across things just at the right time. Or maybe it’s just that one can make things fit when one needs or wants to. Yesterday was 11th November. Remembrance Day (or Veterans Day if you are in the USA or Canada and I imagine territories which I am too uneducated to know about). It can have escaped no-one’s notice that this year marks centenary of the start of World War 1. La Grande Guerre. Yesterday, therefore the world stood and still silent to mark with gravity the huge death toll of the following four years. And much was written and much will be written. Rightly.
After 11:00 we set off to the village of Anglards de Salers south and a tiny bit east of home by about 45 kilometres. After a light picnic we toddled off on our walk and passed the little Chateau de Trémolière making a note to return and visit when it is open (outside of the big cities and the heavy hitting sites, many places of interest are closed from Toussaint to Easter in France). It houses a collection of Aubusson Tapestries, fabric and needlecrafts are passion of mine and besides it has the oddest tower I have ever seen. We also passed the 12th Century Eglise de Saint Thyrse which features on the list of Monuments Historique de France and made similar mental notes and then an ancient stone fountain which represented the only water in the village until 1904 when the two fountains in the middle of the square were built. The plaque on the now dried up ‘font’ declares that those Anglardiens who exodussed to Paris would recognise one another by statement that they had been ‘baptised in the stone fountain’. The connection to Paris is something I will write of another time … the historic links between the Auvergne in general and Cantal in particular to Paris are fascinating and unexpected.
Looking down into the Vallee du Mars
Sturdy trees hastening to winter
Leaves dancing in the brisk November wind
Babbling through the woods the stream merries along
Vallee du Mars
The green belies the lateness in the year
As we walked the leaves danced in the wind. It was a classic Autumn day – north of nippy, the air clear as anyone’s bell and the views from the 800 or so metres up above the Vallée du Mars absolutely spectacular. In good spirits we came across a cross. A stone cross with the figure of Christ depicted, as is typical in the area, quite tiny with a disporportioned head and massively oversized hands. What stopped us in our tracks was the panneau next to it. According to legend (and legend, as my children were always reminded is a story so old that nobody can remember whether its true or not), there was a battle fought on this land between Attila The Hun and the Gallo-Roman forces led by Flavius Aetius (Roman) and Theodoric I (Gaul). This was in the 5th Century. Hundreds of years later at the turn of the 18th Century a group of men from the pays came across what they believed to be Attila’s encampment and a dispute broke out when they found a cross there. This stone cross. Presumably the argument arose as to who could rightfully lay claim to it. Good old compromise prevailed and agreement was reached that it would be placed between La Mars and L’Auze hence it has stood where we happened upon it for the last 300 years.
That’s the history or the legend but what stood out to me, was the body count in 451 AD. 120,000 men. In one battle. Of course I don’t have accurate figures for what the populations of France, Italy and Germany were at the time but I am pretty sure that they were a tiny fraction of the populations in the early 20th Century. Fifteen hundred years, ago all that loss of life. One hundred years ago all that loss of life. Present day all this loss of life. I am but a helpless little voice but maybe if all the helpless little voices gather together – maybe we could try to give to peace a chance and prove Plato, whose words I have annexed for my title, wrong.
PS: When we got home and did a little intersleuthing on the net, we realised that this picture is not simply of a rock but of the ruins of a 5th Century fortress which stood on top and around it – you can see some of the stone-work in the foreground. Sometimes you have to look a little harder to see the fact that war has been all around us for all time.
Saturday was Toussaint in France. Toussaint translates coloquially as All Saints Day. It is commonly referred to as La Fête des Morts – the festival of the dead. All over France people visit cimitieres and leave large chrysanthemum plants for their departed. The cemetries are alive with colour – I find it very beautiful and appropriate as Autumn marches increasingly sombrely towards Winter and her chill stark blanket. Not all find it so – a blog I read and always enjoy FranceSays wrote an excellent piece just before the Fête describing her preference for the ghoulish and outrageous Halloween festivities on the other side of the pond, she being Canadian by birth. I understand her sentiments – a preference for a joyful approach to celebrating the departed is entirely reasonable. Another blogger, Tim Lyon, reminisces about Bonfire Night, his best day of the year and captures perfectly what I remember of those festivities each November 5th, I being English by birth. Actually I am a bit sour about Halloween – not if you are American or Canadian, you understand but it is another example of British cultural traditions being trampled by the stampede of Stateside stuff … one of the things I love about France is that it remembers that it is France and refuses to have its own identity ripped assunder. You can have a ‘special relationship’ with whoever you choose without losing yourself to them.
Back to 1st November. The Festival of The Dead and no cemetry to visit so what to do to appropriately mark the day? We have long wanted to visit Oradour-sur-Glane which lies about 100 miles north west of our home, in the Haute Vienne near to Limoges. On June 10th, 1944 a unit of the 2nd SS Panzer Division (‘Das Reich’) approached the village, encircled it, rounded up all of its inhabitants and massacred them. 642 of them. Incuding 247 children and infants. In 1945 Charles de Gaulle decreed that the village must remain untouched, that it should forever bear witness to this and all the other atrocities of the war that ended not quite 70 years ago as I write. This year is the 100th anniversary of start of the war to end all wars … when will we ever learn.
The village as it stands today – a permanent memorial to its dead and the thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms across a world at war …
I am not going to attempt to write the history, nor to comment on it. I am neither qualified to do so nor foolish enough to pretend that I can. There is plenty written, some by the scant few survivors (6 men escaped from under the piles of burning bodies, 1 was subsequently shot down as he ran; 1 woman escaped through a blown out window of the burning church where all the women and children were first asphyxiated and then shot and burnt). If you would like to read more you should start with the excellent Oradour.Info site
‘Here, at this place of torment a group of men was massacred and burnt by the Nazis. Collect your thoughts.’
When you arrive at Oradour the route takes you towards the new town around the perimeter of the ruined original. Parking up in the leafy car park, we settled The Bean in the car – dogs are not allowed and that is entirely appropriate … the idea of a dog innocently cocking its leg in this place is every shade of wrong. Le Centre de la Memoire opened in April 1999 and replaced the simple kiosk that had previously served as the point of entry and ticket office. The French government contribute €150,000 a year to the upkeep of the village and there is a determination that this shall be an everlasting commitment. Lest we forget. We bought tickets for the exposition as well as the village and it was money well spent. In fact I think that visiting the village and not getting the whole experience would be futile. The exhibition takes you from 1933 (with a nod back to the German economy following La Grande Geurre) through the rise of Hitler Youth to the outbreak of war, the war itself, the Nazi occupation and Vichy France leading you relentlessly to the crucial date. There is quite an emphasis on refugees of many nations and of course Jews. As you would expect many of the images and accounts are more than distressing and I was thankful that we had decided to forego lunch. Tears fall freely in such a place. We watched the film which takes you from the peace and tranquility of this pretty, prosperous and unassuming village, contextualises the role of the Maquis (resistance) in the area and walks you through the events of the day. It is nauseating, unpaletable. Blinking and silent we tackled the last of the exhibition … the first thing you are confronted with is a list of other massacres and not just in France – Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland and most shockingly Belarus – 2,243,000 people wiped out representing a quarter of the total population. I had no idea. I am ignorant and I am ashamed. The exhibition throughout is not partisan and this particularly impressed me … that the most appalling, barbarus act imaginable can take place in a place and that the architects of its monument are able to remember and acknowledge other atrocities was, to me, moving in the extreme.
Scattered belongings left where they lay after the SS troops had ransacked and pillaged the village
You can then choose to walk around the ruined village – I should note that not content with murdering all its people and returning to ‘clean up’ the evidence the next day, the entire place was torched so what remains is a skeleton. As we walked up the main street, holding hands all I could think of was what on earth it must have been like on that day when the rumbling lorries and tanks cut off all means of escape, when at gun point the population was rounded up separating man from wife, mother from son and for some time the people believed (as the soldiers told them) that this was a search for arms which they were safe in the knowledge didn’t exist so they expected that frightening as this was, they would be back to normal life in a few hours and chatting about their bit of excitement in the bars and cafes (10 of them) and over supper. As normal. But instead never again would lover hold hands with lover, husband with wife, mother with son because they were butchered. All of them. Butchered and burnt. And to this day no-one knows why. Theories are put out there, of course. But no-one actually knows why. I also thought, maybe oddly, of Jamie Bulger – the little tot killed by schoolboys in Liverpool in 1993. At the time we were told that the boys didn’t understand what they were doing. I found that difficult to rationalise and I found his little face at the front of my mind as I reminded myself that many of the assailants in this carnage were little more than boys themselves and that they would have grown up against and amongst the fervour of Hitler rallying his youth to cleanse the world of all but the Aryan. What did they feel … what on earth did they feel as they slaughtered babies?
There were quite a few visitors – many English in actual fact. We walked past the sign at the entrance to the village which says simply ‘Souviens-Toi’ … ‘Remember’. We walked past another sign which said ‘Silence’. I have to say that most ignored that polite request. Many were taking pictures – I found this hard. Particularly when a young man prepared to pose leaning on the doctors car. This is probably the best known symbol of the village … Doctor Desorteaux arrived back from tending a patient somewhere in the Commune and joined his father, the Mayor where he and the villagers had been rounded up on the Champs de Foires (village green) and waited his fate. I wonder who he had been treating – a woman in the early stages of child-birth perhaps … maybe he said he would return later and see how she was progressing, or an elderly patient bedridden who he saw several times a week. I wonder how long they waited for him to return before the news reached them that he and the whole of the village were no more. (remember a Commune in France is like a Parish in the UK … it is not simply the village at its head but generally will have some or many outlying hamlets and farms within it). I wonder if they cursed him for being late with the medicine he said he would return with. I wonder. Because all I can do is wonder. I can’t feel – how can I begin to? Me, in my cosy little world desensitised by images played out on our TV screens of warzones the world over because we never ever learn. Go to Oradour – hear the voices echoing on the village green, the rhythm of ordinary life and think. Think what it actually means to go to war. Then vow that you never will. That you will do all that you can to stop the politicians from allowing us to be subjected to such vile, futile and self-serving actions. Tell them that they are no better than Hitler – if you dare.
The Doctor’s Car
I should note that the photographs that illustrate this piece are not mine – they have all been harvested from the internet. Although we had a camera with us, we felt it entirely wrong and rather mawkish to take pictures in this place which is a killing field – the place where so many where slaughtered and who can have no grave because their assailants saw fit to destroy the corpses to render it impossible to identify them. These God-fearing Catholics, many slain in their Church have no place to lie in peace. We also chose not to walk through the village cemetary to the memorial, it being Toussaint and there being families leaving chrysanthemums for their departed. However sombre, La Fête des Morts is a fitting festival and the French have it right in continuing to celebrate within their own culture. In my opinion.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon – ‘For the Fallen’
PS: I said that I feel that it would be futile to visit the village without experiencing the exhibition. The village is beautifully kept – it is a memorial in the most poignant way and though things have been left as they were it is clean and tidy – there is no blood, there are no remains of the day beyond the buildings and some things that lie where they fell that day and, as though to underline that the assasins were God fearing men, Christ still hangs on his Cross outside the hull of the Church. To me this is entirely appropriate – any more and it would be an invitation to the most morbid sort of voyeurism. But the result is cleaned and to understand the brutality of the day, you need to read the seering words and see the ghastly images laid out in the museum.
As previously noted, we drive a lot, little dog and I a motley pair and better still a trio completed by the husband with two brains. One day not so long ago we set off for Grenoble at around 5 a.m. We go to Grenoble reasonably frequently since HB2 has associations with IRAM (Institut de Radioastronomie Milliemetrique) and indeed worked there for 9 years throughout the 1980s. He had a house in the Belledonne mountains until recently and still has a bank account at Caisse D’Epargne in the village of Uriage les Bains. That we had to go TO the bank to reset his PIN will tell you that this particular bank is a teeny bit perochial – this is a 5-6 hour drive and we can’t use the nearer branches in Cantal because Caisse d’Epargne is entirely localised. Hey ho.
Chateau d’Uriage in Uriage les Bains
We made it in time for His Brainship to get whatever it was sorted and for The Bean and I to have a stagger up to the chateau (now in flats which I rather covert the idea of living in) and back down again.
Back to the University campus for lunch and a quick meeting with the glorious and waspishly effete Philippe (him) and a speedy spin around Castorama in search of another garden chair (The Bean and me). In case you are concerned, they didn’t have the right chair in the right colour … silly me – its almost time for Christmas, why would a shop have garden furniture in Summer!
Choices, choices – 3 p.m on a sunny Tuesday what should we do next. We could walk in the mountains … appealing. We could go shopping … I can always talk myself out of that one. Or we can go to Vienne. The Brains have been before and I have wanted to go here ever since I drove through it the very first time I came down to Grenoble on my own and decided, with no time constraints to go entirely non peage. That Leonard Cohen played in the Roman theatre in 2009 is a further lure. I love him. I wasn’t there but I wish I had been. He used to be accused of writing music to slit your wrists by when I was at school and proud of the fact that my dad looked like him according to the very beautiful Sarah Chant. I was not very beautiful so having a father who resembled an icon was a way of attaining that popular girl status we all craved if only to protect ourselves from the less lovely bullies who would make your life miserable at the drop of your school beret. I still bathe in his exquisite lyrics and though he has never really been able to sing and I am told his voice such as it was is fading, I would still have loved to sit and listen and marvel at the agility of the true poet.
L’ancien Theatre in Vienne
Of course Vienne won. You know that. And we arrived in the late afternoon of a particularly warm day, parked and strolled. This place is lovely. The second largest city in Isere (the largest is Grenoble) which in turn sits in Rhone Alpes. The Rhone strolls leisurely through it. Large and languid it needs make no extraneous effort to impress. It just is. The town was first settled by the Romans and wears those remains well. Here the semi circular Ancien Theatre, there the Temple d’Auguste et de Livie, the ruins of the medieval castle on the hill that was built on Roman footings, the pyramid (otherwise known as le Plan de l’Aiguille) which rests on a four arched portico this is a place that knows what it is.
Cathedral de St Maurice
Le Temple de’Augustus et de Livia
Mediaval tower with extensions
L’Hotel de Ville
Spanning the river Rhone
L’Eglise St Pierre
It shimmys you through its history easily and the town moves around its monuments fluidly – al fresco bars and cafes abound and clearly it is thriving. A huge new tourist office is being built looking over the river on which you can take a boat the size of a small principality to cruise and dine. We made a note that we will. It is a place we will return to and explore over and over again. We whistle-stopped around it seeing the stunning cathedral of St Maurice, the elegant city hall and all the above except the needle. I noted the casual layabout roman carved blocks by the Temple with some glee … one of the things I love about Rome is the way the ancient has just been squished in with the modern over the centuries and the bits that drop off just stay where they lay. It has the beauty of an overstuffed boudoir whose owner can’t bear to part with a single thing, even if its broken.
I should note at this point that I have an overwhelming and admittedly, to the casual observer, quite possibly strange obsession with the departements and regions of France. When we first drove the long drive from Oxfordshire to Cantal late last summer, we bought a book in one of the Aires on the way called ‘Les 101 departements de France’. It is aimed at children …. probably quite young children if I’m honest but I love it. Slowly, slowly I am making sense of the geography of this huge country and slowly, slowly I am learning all the departments, their numbers (they are numbered alphabetically) and I can idly note where the cars that punctuate my drives long and short come from. And its not entirely pointless to know where they are from – for instance, there are lots and lots of Paris plates in Cantal and I know why …. if you want to learn you will have to stick with me because I am being discursive enough in this post already. But I will, I promise, write about what I have learned the historic connection between the two is, before very long at all. My pledge is that if you hold you breath, you won’t turn blue … I don’t want asphyxiated readers on my conscience so that will be spur enough to write it. Back on piste …. I live in Auvergne (in Cantal – number 15 to be precise) and to the west of me is Limousin and number 87 is Haute Vienne. Which means there must be a Vienne. And indeed there is (number 86 naturally) – I’ve been there … it’s in Poitou-Charente and its capital is the lovely Poitiers which I will always think of as Sidney. If you are as old as I you will know what I mean. But Vienne is not in Vienne. It’s in Isere. And that it was historically called Vienna makes it even more confusing. But one thing I was sure of that Viennoisserie, the wonder of French patisserie must certainly come from Vienne. I pressed my nose against several pastry shop windows … I am often to be found in this postion lured by the sweet wonderlands they always are. And I went home secure in the knowledge that I had been in the home of the croissant. Only to find that they come from Vienna. But then again … maybe it was this Vienna. Before it was Vienne. Surely. Surely the French can’t be eating Austrian pastries … can they?
I’d buy it ….
On the long drive home I told my husband a story of a trip a little while ago … stay with me now, settle and I will share it with you.
In April we travelled to Russia. For Russia you need a visa. The two venerable institutions (that which he works for and that which he was visiting) communicated, many people filled in many forms for him and we travelled to Lyon to drop our passports, pay a fee and settle back for their return in a week or so. Two Brains went back to the US a few days later (that our daughters are convinced that he is one of The Men in Black may go a way to explain how the passport was in Paris via Lyon and he still managed to board a flight from Europe and enter the US without a murmour) and I woke the following day to an ominous email telling me that something was wrong in the process and I needed to contact him urgently. Actually, my paperwork (which I had filled out myself) was perfect but unfortunately the enormous combined brains of the two venerable institutions had made a mistake with his. Frantic calls to Paris, more paperwork and eventually, after nearly two weeks, a call to tell me that the passports were ready for collection in Lyon. That I was due to travel to London on the Monday left me with no alternative but to drive down before the Consulate closed at midday on the Saturday. Which I did. And a lovely drive it was – sunrise over the volcanos of the Puy de Dome can never fail to captivate. The Bean, unimpressed by the display slept and we made Lyon by 11. I ran in and out bearing the treasured passports complete with visas and skipped back to the car to take tiny dog for a walk and grab a coffee before the journey home. The consulate is in a pretty area of what is a lovely city and one that I fully intend to explore but enough of buildings and rivers and city ambience, the point of this story is a person.
Pretty it is, but mostly closed on a Saturday morning, in this area that is mainly devoted to businesses. Vainly looking about for a likely pit-stop I nearly fell over a tiny little lady pulling a shopping trolley prettily adorned with macaroons. She was trying to catch the attention of The Bean so I stopped in politeness and truthfully complimented her cake-garnished pull-along. In my opinion there can never be too many macaroons in a life, preferably to devour but if that isn’t an option then images adorning pretty much anything are an acceptable reminder of their delight. The lady was truly like a sparrow – tiny, black eyed and spry. She coaxed and cajoled The Bean who dutifully danced on her hind legs and the lady rewarded me with the tinkling laughter of so many fairies ringing tiny bells in the tree lined square. She told me she had a dog indoors who is so old that he can only make it to the bottom of the steps twice a day to perform his necessary functions and that aged and slow as she is the dog can’t keep up at all. She asked if I was from Lyon and I told her no, English but living in Cantal. She was interested. Did my husband work there … no – America. She hoovered up every morcel of information I could give her and pointed in turn to the only cafe open on a Saturday morning in this district. She wanted to know if I had children. I told her about the girls and about the son I gained with marriage. She laughed at my eye-rolling descriptions of them and asked if they visit often. I told her they would in summer I hoped. We chatted away and she asked if I had grandchildren. Not yet I said. And then all of a sudden her face creased in the wrong way. The sad way. Her dark beaded eyes clouded and tears pricked them. I touched her arm and asked stoutly (I am English in a crisis) if I could help. She composed herself and told me that she had lost a grand-daughter. To start with I thought this must have just happened but in fact it was over 20 years ago. Aged barely 19, killed in a road accident. A fool drove his car into hers. He survived, she died. She said not a day passes that she doesn’t think of the girl, a promising ballerina so full of life then brutally stamped out. The girl was her youngest grand-daughter. She said the dancing stopped with her passing. I couldn’t leave her in her sadness so I suggested we take coffee together. We walked the square and sat in front of the cafe for maybe a half hour. I would estimate that this little bird was at least 85 and probably ten or even more years older than that. Her clothes, immaculate, her tiny frame that would fit in her own shopping trolley, her lovely lilty slightly growly voice, her directness affected me then and I will always think of her. Not as often as she thinks of her dancing grand-daughter but nonetheless I will think of her often. The grief still so raw after decades and the root of it the fact that she still walks and her grand-child is motionless. Dance me to the end of love ….
Plateau d’Artense in the Belledonne above Grenoble …. to me this is where my father walked when his spirit left his body. I can see the lively young spirit of a dancer on the path with him
PS: Familiarity breeds contempt – unfortunately 2 weeks later I got a rather official letter rather officially telling me that somewhere between Brioude and le Puy en Velay I had been doing a whopping 97 in a 90 zone – 1 penalty point, 45 euros and a note to self that nearly a year here has made me rather too blasé. To note: Here there is no 10% cushion … in fact at 90 kmh the allowable excess is 2 kmh – that’s less than 1 mile per hour at nearly 60.
It could be said that mine is a curious existence, living here in one of the least populated areas of Europe on my own. I came here 5 months ago with horribly rusty French. I came here with few possessions – so much either sold or abandoned along the way as I moved and moved and moved again. I came here for love. But my husband, my love, lives in Boston. Yes, its a curious life. One day I’ll explain.
The last week, though, has been punctuated with knocks on the door. I inevitably feel a mild panic when this happens because it means I will HAVE to listen, understand and respond. I am fluent in shopping as previously acknowledged but a knock on the door could herald anything at all. Particularly an unexpected one. Like the time when the post-lady brought a letter each for signature for Two Brains and I. I managed to explain that he wasn’t arriving from the US til the weekend but I was so flustered I couldn’t find my passport as ID for her – she became equally alarmed as she thought I had permanently mislaid it and explained very patiently to me that I can’t travel out of France without a passport. It was only afterwards that I began to wonder if she was alarmed at the prospect that they might not be able to get rid of me …..
March 23rd is polling day in France. Les Elections Municipales. They happen every 6 years and will result in new Conseils Municipales and new Maires across France – some will be returned, some overturned. In essence, we vote for the governing body for our Commune and they in turn will vote amongst their triumphant team for their leader and deputies. We are fortunate in Champs – our Maire, his adjunct and the Conseil are proactive and hard-working. I see the Maire tearing around the place at a rate of knots on foot and in his car. He is very hands-on and has the most fantastic gaelic shrug to ice the bun. I know him reasonably well as a person (he married us last year and graciously accepted our invitation to attend our wedding breakfast and is tireless in his support of the lightning lab.) and I know he has the interests of his, geographically very large, commune and its relatively small and scattered population genuinely at centre stage in his life. As the ruling party, as it were, his get the opening crack at canvassing. So the first knock was from ‘Dialogue et Action’ and I was treated to two smiling faces, an acknowledgement that I know Monsieur le Maire and was left with lists, biographies, an overview of achievements and their manifesto for the next 6 years.
A few days later, the oppostion are allowed out. A further knock and I am greeted with another pair of smiling faces, a further list of names, biographies and their manifesto for the next 6 years. Of course on closer scrutiny they are critical of the old guard and it is not a surprise that their collective name is ‘Champs Avance’ with a strapline declaring an intention to donner un nouveau souffle a Champs (invigorate or quite literally give fresh breath). That the opposition are highly critical of the old guard is hardly newsworthy. This is politics.
I will not reveal my hand – both manifestos are interesting, my opinion is not. Both highlight the issues facing this pays perdu. I am priviliged to be allowed to vote. I am European and I pay taxe foncière and taxe d’habitation so I am eligible. I take the responsibiity seriously and have reflected hard.
In doing so I walked from Montboudif, a little over 10 miles from here, this little village is the birthplace of Georges Pompidouand the people of Cantal are justly proud of the fact. Pompidou was France’s longest serving prime-minister under the fifth republic. As a little girl, I loved his name – it was one to be uttered and repeated annoyingly to my mother (mummy, mummy, mummy – I can say POMPIDOOOOO) and I remember him as President and his death in 1974 whilst in office. I also remember visiting Le Centre Pompidou in Paris first in 1977, shortly after it was opened, as a 17 year old and again on honeymoon with my first husband when he took a picture of me with my mouth wide open next to a huge funnel to demonstrate the size of my gob. Let’s face it – the marriage was doomed from the start!
That Pompidou was a diplomat and chose peaceful means to resolve issues such as the angry student uprising in the late 60’s, is no surprise to me given his heritage. It is also no surprise that he came back to the region often. I imagine he breathed the fresh, fresh air and felt the beautiful fertile earth under his feet and returned to the frey invigorated as Two Brains does these decades later. Along the way I chatted to two elderly men – one splitting logs with all the vigour of a man half his age, pointed out that his little tiny tangle of houses looks at the Monts Dor in one direction and Monts du Cantal in the other – he asked why he would ever want to live anywhere else? I could only agree.
The other, thrilled to find I live here definitivement told me to come look him up if I need a steer on houses to buy in Montboudif … don’t use an Immobilier, he said – they are all crooks! I hastened not to comment, feeling that virtually in front of Mr Pompidou’s maison natal I should adopt the line of least contention. But having local ears to the ground will certainly prove invaluable when we come to the search for Le Manoir ….
The third knock came and I assumed there must be a third list. I should have remembered my youngest daughter’s apharism that ‘assume makes an ass out of you and me’, but instead I opened the door onto the dark landing (I will tell you all about the unique nature of the electrical system here another time but suffice to say that the lights in the communal area were having a bad hair day). There stood a slight elderly man on his own. He did have a leather bag under his arm which I assumed (there’s that word again) as I hastily said entree s’il vous plait to get him out of the gloom, contained the list of names, biographies, and manifesto plus critique of the old guard. Then I heard the words that strike terror into the hearts of most …. je suis le temoin de Jehovah. Panic coursed through me – I had allowed a Jehovah’s Witness into the appartment and I needed above all to get to the boulangerie before it shut at 12. It was now 10:30 – this could be difficult. I smiled and told him I am Buddhist. This has always worked in England. It isn’t strictly true but I was married to a Buddhist for several years and I do still live by some of the rules as part of my own gobbledegook belief system. He smiled gently and asked how I explain the creation.
Remember this is all in French. Remember too that I was slated to read Philosophy at Cambridge when whatever God you attune to was still in nappies so I am hard-wired to theological debate. Yet it was not combat but his gentle spirit that captivated me and I was away – all fear of spoken French disappeared and I passed what I can genuinely tell you was a lovely 30 minutes. He told me his son in law (not a JW) spent 2 years in England and he would happily introduce me if I need any help with understanding documents and so forth, he listened as I told him that Two Brains is a scientist of some note – he was particularly interested in the Trous Noirs and hopes that the presentation will be repeated – gave me his number so I can let him know when/if. He told me about a lovely Indian fellow who lives in Bort who has done some notable research into the workings of the mind. I told him that my life is about learning, learning and learning. I also apologised for speaking French comme une vache espagnole. He said he liked my modesty. It actually was not modest just simple truth but the comment was kindly meant. He left after 30 minutes, did not give me a copy of Watchtower and I hope I run into him again. Whatever his beliefs, you see, he is a kind and lovely fellow.
The two men on my walk were kind and lovely fellows.
A friend of mine mentioned a film called ‘Field of Dreams’ on FaceBook the other day. If you build it they will come, says the voice. I am fortunate to be in a place steeped in history with the most fantastic natural landscape (volcano? Two a penny here mate!) and a population of genuinely content people. The pity is that they are leaving, the young seeking employment in the cities because they have no choice. I would like to breathe life back into this place. So that this place will breathe vibrantly for all the years to come. I have started and little by little I will achieve what I can – how can I resist when I am surrounded by such simple charm?
If I build it, will you come?
PS: I have broken most of my rules in this post – don’t talk about politics, avoid talking about religion, step away from the too-personal but the one I would urge you all to adhere to is this:
Never, ever, EVER eat anything with surprise in its title, in a restaurant …..
