Long-lasting entente cordiale

Yesterday, it was our friend Michèle’s 75th birthday. As the birthday girl is rather partial to a rum baba, I took her one from our village pâtisserie, sitting in a little plastic tub awash with syrupy rum and piled high with fluffy Chantilly cream. It was declared a winner, praise indeed from a connoisseur of such boozy extravagances. Afterwards, we walked into her village and had a cup of coffee (tea for me, bien sûr) and watched the world go by for a little while.

Michèle and I go back a long way. Back in 1992, I was just 20 years old and enjoying my year in France as part of my languages degree. I found myself working as a secretarial assistant in a civil engineering company, and that secretary was Michèle. We spent five months together in a  little office near Avignon; I was introduced to the wonders of the Apple Macintosh (a funny little square thing that was the ultimate in advanced technology back then), and we worked, ate and laughed together to form a great friendship. Others found her abrasive and outspoken; I appreciated the fact she called a spade a spade, and we got on like a house on fire despite our 30-odd year age gap.

22 years later, we are still friends, along with others that I made from other parts of the company. She still calls a spade a spade, and is still abrasive and outspoken. She is also quite demanding and likes things her way, but underneath all that she is extremely kind-hearted with a strong sense of loyalty. When I was ill last year and in France without hubby, she took me under her wing, came up with all sorts of different foods to tempt my tastebuds and didn’t bat an eyelid when I left most of it, and put up with my irrational tears. In return, we often transport her from A to B as she’s not a fan of driving, and drive her the 60 miles or so to the seaside in summer where she is at her most relaxed.

Much to the amusement of the waiter at the café yesterday, we clinked our coffee and tea cups in celebration of birthdays and friendships. Here’s to many more years of entente cordiale!

  

 

Inappropriately dressed

Those who know me know I have a faulty thermostat. I’m hardly ever too warm, and can become what Yorkshire people describe as ‘frozen daft’ in a matter of minutes, then taking hours to defrost and warm up. Getting my arms and legs out only happens during high summer here in the south of France. Back in the UK, it’s a rare occurrence indeed.

My hubby despairs. He’s always warm, and sits around the house in shorts and T-shirt while I shiver in joggers and a sweatshirt. He can’t believe I can be cold when the thermometer shows 20 degrees inside. But then he feels my hands, and is in awe of my abnormal body temperature. There’s nothing wrong with me; I’ve had my blood circulation checked at the doctor’s in case it’s failing to reach my extremities and my organs are hogging it all for some reason, but no, I’m perfectly healthy, I’m just cold. I think I should have been born a lizard, lying in the sun all day to soak up the warmth and retaining it for later like some kind of reptilian storage heater.

Here in Provence, the weather is often balmy and sometimes baking. That’s why I like it. In summer, I love being able to fling on a vest top and a skirt, safe in the knowledge that there’s no need to check the weather forecast or dither about taking a cardigan with me. For me, the biggest pull of this beautiful part of the world is its climate.

Despite its warm climate, we have noticed that the French don’t always seem to dress appropriately. A couple of weeks ago, there was a mini heatwave during the week when my parents, sister and nephew came to visit. Temperatures rose to a lovely 26 degrees, and they hastily stripped off jumpers and jeans to be replaced with T-shirts and cropped trousers. But our French friends were muffled up in coats and scarves, despite the heat. We’ve noticed this before; young girls wear woolly high-necked jumpers while we are in T-shirts; men are in thick jackets with jaunty scarves in contrast to our cotton shirts and blouses.

We can understand it in a way, as they know there is the guarantee of even better weather to come, so maybe they don’t want to waste their summer outfits on a bit of unseasonal warm sunshine. In the UK, there’s always a chance your summer stuff will never make it out of the wardrobe if you don’t take advantage of a sunny day.

Yesterday, however, Dame Nature threw us a curve ball and the temperature plummeted to a chilly 12 degrees. I was instantly frozen, donning my feather and down jacket for our Easter Sunday trip out to an event in nearby Velleron. To add insult to injury, it started to rain. I was not only frozen but damp, the ultimate nightmare for someone with a faulty thermostat. By the time we returned to the car, I was ‘Brrrrrrr-ing’ as if I was in the Arctic, dramatically turning the car heater up to maximum with a flourish, and watching my hair go from damp and flat to wild and curly.

But what we didn’t expect to see was so many French people inappropriately dressed in the opposite direction. In the chilly rain, we saw a man in a T-shirt with a jumper tied round his shoulders, bare arms exposed to the elements. Next, a young woman in a short skirt with bare legs and flat ballet pumps, splashing through the puddles. Finally, an older lady in cropped trousers and white sandals. What on earth was going on? Had they all gone mad? Who knows, I couldn’t think even about it; I think it was because my brain had shut down due to reaching its critical level of chilliness. Vive l’été!

Dogged determination

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m not really a doggy fan. Don’t get me wrong, I would never do one any harm, but I’m generally quite scared of them. I’m especially terrified of the ones that fling themselves against fences and gates as we go past on our walks, with bloodcurdling growls and barks suggesting that if the barrier was to give way, there wouldn’t be much left of us other than a rucksack, a walking pole and the tubs containing our picnic. We once did a huge detour on a walk due to a big black growling dog that was blocking our path. Occasionally I come across one that I can tell straight away is a friendly soul, and I’m happy to give them a pat and stroke any silky ears that are proffered.

But the one thing I really can’t stand is their toilet habits, or more particularly, the toilet habits they are allowed (or encouraged) to practise by their owners. Of course it’s not a dog’s fault where it ‘goes’. Patches of land are sniffed out, approved and used as they see fit. But really… are narrow Provençal village streets suitable places for people to walk their dogs?

The lay-out of our house enables us to see over the terrace onto the street below. On two occasions now, I’ve caught people nonchalantly walking past with their dogs and standing waiting while their furry friends deposit their smelly gift right outside our door. On both occasions, I’ve called over the terrace, they’ve jumped out of their skins and looked all round to see where the poo vigilante was, and looked distinctly sheepish. The first culprit dived in his pocket for a plastic bag, but it was clear he wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t caught him with my poo radar. The second one said she didn’t have a bag, but would go home and get one. Amazingly, she did, I was rather impressed at that.

That was a few months ago. Today, I was downstairs when I spotted a young woman wandering past with her pooch on a lead. I watched as the dog stopped, picked out the perfect spot and began going about its business. The woman stood and waited, looking rather bored. When the pile was complete, she actually looked all round to see if anyone had seen. I don’t think she was expecting my stern face at the window just feet from where she stood. I’ve never seen anyone look so guilty in all my life. A plastic bag was produced, the poo duly scooped, and off she went, probably in search of another narrow residential street where poo radar is not so strong. I’d like to think, though, that having pulled myself up to my full terrifying height of 5’1″, I have scared off enough of them to think twice about using our street as a doggy toilet.

Rainbow walking

As the sun was shining and the temperature promised to be a lovely 24C, we decided today was the perfect day for a walk. We parked at Séguret, a beautiful hilltop village with tiny cobbled streets, quirky archways and pretty stone houses brimming with colourful flowerpots. Our walk took us on a 6-mile circuit through fields, woodland, vines and gravel paths. Nature was positively blooming with lush springtime colour, giving us the impression we were walking through a rainbow. And just to prove it, here’s a rainbow of flora and foliage taken during the walk:

 

Red

 

Orange

 

Yellow

Green

Blue

Indigo

 

Violet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring season drainpipes

Fashions come and go, but this season drainpipes are definitely IN. But we’re not talking about any old drainpipes. Mais non! This spring, go for the brand new silver look, from top to bottom, and you’re sure to be the envy of your village. For extra style, team with a tile red colour; perfect when the sun shines 😉

  

 

Always cheque which is the shortest queue

I ventured down to the enormous Auchan hypermarket today. It’s not often we enter this mammoth supermarket, as it’s so big that you almost need your walking boots and a map. In the past, I have seen staff on roller-blades, but perhaps this practice has been discontinued as I haven’t seen them for a while.

Shopping here requires a meticulous list cross-referenced against the floor plan, because if you forget anything, it’s a long trek back to the other end of the store. I just ‘popped in’ today for a handful of items that would be difficult to find elsewhere, or at least all under one roof. I was under the misconception that I could ‘pop in’ and ‘pop out’ in no time, just like I do at our local Asda back in Yorkshire.

But of course, I’d forgotten that of about a million tills, Auchan only chooses to open a tiny handful. Fair enough, I suppose, since it was a Thursday afternoon, not really peak shopping time. But despite this, I approached with dismay to find all the queues were at least 3 or 4 deep. I considered the quick self-service tills, but rejected them a) because I usually try to avoid them unless I’m really pushed, as I feel I should support a person’s employment as a cashier, and b) because I had one or two non-food items that would probably set the red light flashing and woop-wooping to alert the assistant lurking nearby. Having once been frogmarched into the security office at Auchan by two burly and over-enthusiastic security guards as a set of pillowcases bought in another store entirely had set off their alarms, I didn’t fancy taking the risk.

So I did what any other reasonably intelligent person would do, and joined the shortest queue. I congratulated myself on my choice, as there were only two people in front of me, a well-dressed lady with well-coiffed hair and a smart coat, and an elderly gentleman just buying one or two bits, including a giant jar of Nutella and a packet of breath-freshening mints (clearly trying to hide his Nutella addiction).

But wait… what’s the hold up? Why is this taking so long? The other queues are already advancing at a steady rate, so what’s the problem at ours? Another three or four people had joined the queue behind me, and I could sense that they were starting to hop from one foot to the other, huff and puff, and strain their necks to see what the problem was.

The delay was caused by the smart lady paying for her week’s groceries by cheque. By cheque! When did you last see anyone paying for their shopping by cheque? But the practice is still widespread here in France. In addition, the lady had waited until the entire conveyor belt of shopping had gone through, meticulously and painstakingly packed it all, then waited until the cashier announced the amount before beginning to rummage through her voluminous handbag, as if caught by surprise that she was actually expected to pay. Then she had to find her pen. Then she filled in the cheque. Then she had to fill in the stub, to keep her accounts up to date. We huffed and puffed. The elderly gentleman in front looked rather frail, and I wondered whether I ought to spoon-feed him some of his own Nutella as an emergency sugar rush. But finally, as the queue grew to mammoth proportions, she folded up her cheque book, returned it to its correct pocket in her handbag, slid the pen into its slot, collected her shopping and left. Hurrah!

But then… the elderly gentleman had forgotten his shopping bag, so a whole new time-consuming palaver ensued…

The moral of this story is: go for the longest queue, it’s probably the quickest.

Barthelasse and Bill

Today we decided to play truant and head into Avignon for some lunch. We parked on the other side of the river and ate at the restaurant on the riverbank, with fabulous views across to the Palais des Papes and the famous Pont St Bénézet (usually known as the Pont d’Avignon). As we ate our lunch and watched the huge river cruise boats gliding by, we marvelled at the fact that we could drive to this lovely spot and park for free right in front of the restaurant. In the UK, parking seems to be viewed as a pesky bad habit that should be discouraged, with motorists facing extortionate parking charges or a forest of ‘no parking’ signs.

View from our table… hope this gentleman didn’t mind being snapped!

With full tummies, we got back in the car and drove a short distance up to the far end of the Ile de la Barthelasse. This is the largest river island in Europe, and is a green and leafy haven of calm just a stone’s throw from Avignon. Our 4-mile circular walk took us right round the far tip of the island, as far as the hydro-electric power station at Sauveterre:Just a few minutes into our walk, we came across a gentleman who asked us if we had seen his dog. He was apparently a hunting dog, prone to running off in the opposite direction with obedience not at the top of his list of skills. We hadn’t seen him, but said we would look out for him. Sure enough, a short while later, a flash of black and white appeared momentarily in our peripheral vision like some kind of canine missile, and instantly vanished round the next corner. As we stood and watched, he reappeared at his 100mph pace, scooted across the ditch and onto the embankment, where he suddenly applied some extremely efficient brakes and stopped dead in his tracks, head cocked to one side and one paw in the air. Then… he set off again like a bullet out of a gun, but this time he was in hot pursuit of a hare which must have been disturbed from its lazy doze in the afternoon sun. Both hare and dog disappeared out of sight within seconds, despite us pointlessly calling and whistling to the dog. Apparently, when it comes down to responding to daft foreigners or chasing a bunny along a riverbank, there can only be one winner.

We retraced our steps in the hope of finding his owner, who happened to be just appearing round the corner. He laughed when we told him what we’d seen. Apparently Bill the dog loves nothing better than chasing anything furry that moves, but despite his lightning speed he never manages to catch anything. We walked with the gentleman for a while, as Bill continued to bolster his reputation as the Usain Bolt of the canine world, racing madly from side to side and vanishing far into the distance. We reckon Bill the dog must have run the equivalent of a marathon today, but he still had the energy to raise a smile for my photo (can’t believe he stood still for long enough).

 

Bill

 

 

Market sales are through the roof

As promised, our builders arrived at 9.15am on the dot yesterday, greeted us with smiles and handshakes, put up some scaffolding and began merrily reducing our roof to a pile of rubble in the back of their truck. Progress has been good over the past two days, as they worked methodically to strip off the old tiles on one side up to the ridge, with the other half to be done afterwards. Heavy tiles were cheerfully and noisily chucked off the roof into the truck below, with telephone cables swinging wildly as some of them missed their mark (I’m still on line, so presumably no harm done). Steady streams of plaster and unidentified masonry were sprinkled artistically down the staircase all day, as the two old glass tiles at the top of the house that pour light down the stairs were removed, ready to be replaced by a Velux window. The existing Velux window in the spare bedroom has been removed altogether, and now provides a bright blue outlook that is caused by the vast tarpaulin spread over the roof, rather than the Provençal sky.

Excellent progress indeed, as half the roof is now stripped right down to the original old plaster, which will be chipped off before the new insulation is laid. But this progress has now ground to a halt, because it’s market day tomorrow. When the builders had the meeting with the two gentlemen from the Mairie on Friday, they were told in no uncertain terms that work could not take place on Wednesdays because of the market. Our little market begins at about 7am, and is all packed up and gone by 12.30pm. It takes up the main square, which is temporarily closed for the morning, but all other access routes are accessible as normal. To reach our house, it is not necessary to pass through the main square. But hey! Who are we to argue… we are grateful the new roof is getting done at all, and anyway, we could do with access to the terrace outside to dry the washing. Every cloud!

Give way to the right, left, in, out, shake it all about

Negotiating roundabouts on the continent is in the anti-clockwise direction, as we all know. This means that we give priority to vehicles approaching from the left. But in small villages or in the countryside, the old ‘priorité à droite‘ rule still applies. At the entrances to our small town, there is a sign stating that this rule indeed applies. This means that you can be happily driving along the main road, and somebody can quite legally come whizzing out of a side road without stopping. It can make for some quite hair-raising experiences. 

We have been passengers in our French friends’ car, and heard them ranting about this silly rule when screeching to a halt as a car comes flying out without any warning whatsoever. We have also been passengers with the same friends who have ranted about people failing to let them out when they attempt to come straight out onto a main road. It’s all good fun, and utterly bonkers.

Today, the ultimate in give way madness happened. A few hundred yards from our house is a roundabout that’s diamond shaped. It’s a designer diamondabout with an attractive cobbled feature. Spherical lamp posts are located at each corner, making the intersection very attractive, as junctions go. But what it wins in aesthetics, it loses on functionality. Nobody seems to know whether it’s priority to the left, as in a normal roundabout; priority to the right, as applies in our town; or none of the above, as it’s not actually a roundabout. As we approached it, so did three other vehicles from the other directions. We all arrived at exactly the same time. We all stopped. We all looked at one another. We all looked to the cars on our right. They showed no signs of moving. We all looked to the cars on our left, and still we were all a hundred percent stationary. We wondered whether we would get to the shops before they closed at 7pm. We wondered whether we ought to get out and direct the traffic. We wondered whether we should just go straight across the middle to put an end to this law-abiding stand-off.

In the end, people began to huff and puff, and all four cars began to edge forward. But progress was really only made when one of them decided enough was enough, put his foot down and boldly entered the diamondabout. After this, we could all follow suit, and everyone finally got to continue their journey. Until the next junction…

 

Terrific trees

Shafts of bright sunshine illuminated the bedroom floor when we woke up this morning, and opening the blinds revealed a startlingly violet-blue sky, as if the weather were apologising for its bad behaviour yesterday. The perfect day, then, for an 11km walk.

As we drove to our starting point at the pretty hilltop village of Méthamis, we drove through a breathtaking avenue of twisted trees, all set to spring into bloom and form a bright green leafy canopy in summer. As we stopped for me to take a pic, we decided that today was to be a tree-themed day. So here are ten beauties we captured during our walk:

1. Wiggly bare tree

 

 

2. Wiggly bare tree along with his other friends, forming this fabulous avenue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.Thrifty tree (why bother with a whole one?)

 

4. Parasol tree

 

 

5. Sunny glade trees

 

 

6. Bunny tree

 

7. Ex-tree 😦

 

8. Stuck-in-the-wrong-season tree

 

9. Chaotic tree

 

10. Blossom trees