France 2014 Number 6

Hooray! We are legal again. On Monday we got an SMS from the Prefecture in Auch to tell us that our new residents cards were ready for collection, so on Wednesday we drove down to collect them. Not really a fun trip as the weather this past week has been quite nasty and cold with a lot of mist which made driving unpleasant. The round trip was in the region of 800 kilometres and took us eleven hours all in all. Of course, that included the stopping time in Auch to pick up the cards, and while we were there to have a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. When we arrived in Auch, we made for our favourite parking area as usual and were horrified to find ourselves being waved away by the police. So there was no option but to drive away from the top of the hill and look for parking elsewhere. But with the big parking area closed, every available space was taken and very soon we found ourselves down at the riverside and cruising slowly along looking for an empty space. At last we found one and as luck would have it, almost at the foot of the stairs up to the top. It is not called the ‘Escalier Monumentale’ for nothing. This monumental staircase has 238 marble steps and that is if you only count the steps that one uses to go up or down. Seen from above, the stairs would resemble a series of interlocking ‘Y’s’ or for those that know embroidery stitches, herringbone stitch. At the top of each upright of the ‘Y’ is a landing with an extra two flights of stairs to the next landing where the next upright starts again. Sounds complicated and it is! A masterpiece of nineteenth century building. A jolly long way up for someone who ‘doesn’t do stairs’, but I managed to get all the way to the top with many stops to admire the view! With the twice-life-size statue of d’Artagnan of the Three Musketeers fame watching our progress, we had to make it all the way. When we finally reached the last step, we discovered that the parking area had been closed for a wreath-laying ceremony at the war memorial which is in the same place, but which was now over, and the parking was more once more open to the public and their cars. If only we had arrived fifteen minutes later………………!

Our route home was along the scary road again with all the trucks and at one stage we overtook thirty four trucks in one convoy. We were so glad to get home safely.

The next day, now that we had got ourselves into driving mode, we thought a little drive out to one of the neighbouring villages would be an idea so off we went to Melle, about twenty kilometres away. It was actually a bit disappointing as the town itself is quite dreary, it’s only claim to fame being three twelfth century churches. Being of that age, there are no spectacular stained glass windows and any stone carvings on the exterior have all weathered quite badly which is a great shame. Melle is also the site of the oldest silver mines in France but unfortunately they are closed for winter at present so we couldn’t go into them. We will just have to make another trip there next month.

On the way to Melle we met the local version of the gentleman with the foreign accent who phones people saying that he is calling from the Microsoft Windows Customer Centre. There we were, driving along admiring the view, when we saw a car pulled off to the side of the road ahead of us. The bonnet was up and a man was peering into the engine compartment. There was no other traffic around at all, so when he flagged us down, we stopped to see if we could help. He came running over and said something in very strange French about ‘petrol’, which we took to mean he had run out of fuel. We offered him a lift to the nearest town to buy some, but when he realised that we spoke English and not French, he switched to rather broken English and asked for money to buy petrol. He then launched in to a long story about his card not being accepted at the filling station although he had plenty of other money with him. He then showed us wads of notes in his wallet which he said were Hungarian, and asked again for ten euros. By this time we were beginning to smell a rat – how could ten euros help with his fuel problem, as we were miles from anywhere; why would he have those strange notes in his wallet when Hungary has been part of the EU since 2003; and why was he so adamant that he didn’t want to be taken somewhere else to get fuel i.e. away from his car? We apologised to him, saying that we had no cash only a card and drove off. The more we thought about it, the weirder it seemed. We are quite sure that it was a scam.

Since then the weather has really deteriorated. Friday and Saturday were icy cold with rain and more mist. Both of us found things to do around the house and the days passed quite pleasantly.

Saturday evening, though, was the highlight of the week. One of our new friends had popped in some time ago and sold us tickets to the annual amateur dramatics group’s show, which this year was a pantomime. They had been practicing for weeks and the result was highly entertaining. Apart from the forgotten lines, the ad libbing and the lack of real acting ability, it was a pretty slick effort and totally hilarious. The audience, consisting mainly of ex-pat British who are well versed in the ways of pantomime, all participated with great enthusiasm and boo-ed or whistled at the appropriate places; interacting with the players as one should. As it was the second night of a two night run, the actors had all gained a bit of confidence and the ad libbing almost got out of hand as more and more of them forgot their lines At one stage there were three actors on the stage looking at each other blankly. Two of them pointed to the third who then cocked her head towards the prompt who was standing in the wings. Being a little deaf, she first moved a bit closer to the prompt then disappeared completely into the wings, only to reappear a moment later with an indignant look on her face and say to one of the other two ‘It was YOU’. The audience howled with laughter. The fact that wine was served both before the show and in the interval probably added to everyone’s wild enthusiasm! It was a great night out and even the fact that it was bucketing with rain couldn’t spoil it.