A rather longer week this time due to being without a computer last weekend, and such a lot to tell about, but I will try to keep it concise.
Saturday, the day we were due to take the laptop to the repair man, turned out to be a simply brilliant day. A good day, in fact for a drive to parts not previously explored, so we asked Jane to take us to Sombrun, near Tarbes, and off we set. The scenery was breath-taking as ever, although one could see that the farmers further south had had even more rain than we had as the fields were water-logged. Passing that way again a few days later, however, it had all drained away so perhaps it was not a disaster for them.
The IT man promised to drop off the PC on Monday as he had work to do somewhere near us, so we reset Jane, drove off and prepared to enjoy the view. On the way, Jane suffered an attack of laryngitis and from then on could only whisper, which I suppose should have warned us that all was not well with our navigation system, but it didn’t, so we were very surprised when we suddenly landed up at Nogaro, where we had been two days before. Not at all where we wanted to be now, and to get home meant back-tracking about 30 kms. What a good thing we didn’t have any dead-lines that day! The trouble is that all the little green hilly lanes look so much alike; the tiniest roads are tarred and if one really isn’t taking much notice of the signboards, it is dreadfully easy to get lost. Once we got home and could read the handbook, we discovered what Jane’s problem was, corrected it and now she is fine again. Thank goodness.
The next day was Barcelona Grand Prix day, which we had thought we would have to miss out on but Nicky had been invited out to lunch, so offered us the use of her flat and TV. Thank you, Nicky it was much appreciated. Although our weather was as grey as usual, we were pleased to notice that Barcelona was sunny and bright as Jenny and Ryan had arrived there the previous day for a short stay before coming on to visit France. That evening, though, we had an ultra-clear view of the Pyrenees which was spectacular but probably bad news as far as local weather was concerned. However we awoke to clear skies and an almost warm breeze the next day, which had us both out of doors in the garden. A wonderful change.
By Tuesday, our life of idleness was beginning to bore me to tears so I decided that it was time to find a wool shop and buy some suitable wool and needles to make some little elephants to sell later in the year. Finding the shop was not a problem – we had walked past it on Saturday afternoon (when it was closed) while exploring the little town of Marciac on the way back from the IT man. Buying wool and needles was going to be more of a challenge. Clutching my dictionary firmly, (thank goodness for Mr Larousse), I marched into the shop confidently. Happily there was no-one else there so I didn’t mind being an idiot quite so much! In my best French I asked the lady behind the counter for knitting needles. “Mais oui” she said “Quelle nombre?” to which I could easily reply “Trois, s’il vous plait”. And right about there my vocabulary ran out! And I still hadn’t got any wool, yarn, whatever. So I looked around and saw what I thought looked like balls of double-knitting and grabbed one. “Non, non” she said, indicating that for size 11 needles I should be using 4-ply. I took the double-knitting back again and said “Mais je prefer…..” and held it up. Then she wanted to know what I was going to do with it. Oh help! I knew it would come to this. My brain scrambled around and I eventually managed to say that I knit small animals. Meanwhile her son-in-law who had been in the back of the shop, had come out to help, and he asked if I meant little jerseys for small animals, like for a hamster perhaps? But I managed to get across that it was the little animals that I knit not clothes for them, so once again Madame the shop keeper took the ball out of my hand and replaced it with another showing me that what I had had was wool and that she was giving me acrylic. Yay!! Now I needed two more balls – one in ‘noir’, “Black” she said, and one in ‘blanc’, which she repeated as “White”. We all congratulated each other on our cleverness and we left on very good terms. I had asked her for stuffing as well, but could only find the word for the sort of stuffing one puts into a chicken, so we had a good laugh, but she didn’t keep it anyway – either sort!
Meanwhile Jenny and Ryan had arrived to stay with Nicky in Aignan, so we arranged to meet up for lunch the following day at a place not far from either of us where they serve a set menu of traditional, local food which is always delicious. Being still on the cool side, we sat indoors which was a first for Neels and I as whenever we have been to this particular restaurant in the past, we have sat out side in the sunlight. I can’t imagine how old the building is, but to get to the first floor, there is a semi-spiral stair with a really spindly little railing, and thousands of feet must have stomped up and down them over the years.
After lunch we drove on to re-visit the little town that I had photographed and then embroidered a while ago. It has grown quite a bit but happily has not become too commercialized and the scene that I photographed is still very recognizable. We decided not to follow Nicky when we left, but to find our own way home, without Jane, a map or anything. Well, the end of the story was that three-quarters of an hour later we were back exactly where we started! So out came Jane and in about ten minutes we were home!
We invited Jenny and Ryan to lunch on Saturday, so that they could see where we live and to have a chance to chat to them and then afterwards we took them to a delightful village called Plaisance, not far away. It is a little different because it has not one, but two, town squares which have the main road running along one side and the other three sides have buildings which jut out over the wide pavement, the upper floors being supported on columns. The columns are joined by big arches so the whole effect is a bit like an abbey cloister.
When we arrived there we found a ‘féte’ in progress. The first square was completely taken up with various stalls of second-hand goods – a car boot sale with a vengeance. The second square was mostly stalls to do with eco-living – solar panels, house insulation, eco-friendly methods of building etc, which Neels and Ryan found quite interesting. Jenny and I had wandered off to a large hall where there was a handcraft exhibition. Each stall-holder was busy performing whatever craft they were displaying for sale, so a basket weaver was making weird and wonderful baskets; a leather-worker was making handbags, purses, belts and shoes; a lady was hand-embroidering large single initials onto pieces of muslin about the size of a small hanky (the finished piece was edged with fine buttonhole stitch and then framed); there was a wood-turner; a couple of jewellery makers and also a few artists. One couple appeared to be English speaking so we spoke to them and discovered that they had been in the area for six years, but had recently had a trip to South Africa, and about three weeks ago had spent some time on Grotto Beach in Hermanus. What an amazingly small world we live in!
When we came out of the craft display, the sun had obligingly come out in force, although the wind was still chilly, so we wandered around the car boot sale, amazed at what people will try to sell to other people, and then found a dark blue Melamine tray which was just what we needed for the house. I had considered negotiating with the stall holder but she gave me a look that said she was not negotiable, so we paid the asking price which was really, low enough.
On the way home we chatted about what we had seen and all agreed that the standard of workmanship in the craft section had been extremely high for such a relatively small rural town.
The pictures that I have included this week are of our car, 'Goldie' the Golden Oldie and of the little Roman soldiers who hold back the shutters on the house windows.
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