France 2014 Number 14

We arrived in Lezignan about mid afternoon on Sunday 11 th May. It was a painless drive as there were no trucks and we used the motorway all the way. We hadn’t seen pour hostess for about a year so there was plenty of catching up to do. She warned us that the two days that we had before heading off to the eastern side of the country were going to be fairly busy, and she was quite correct. Luckily she had a shopping list to fill at a supermarket which is right next to a MacDonalds, so I was able to nip in there and do some internet work. That evening our brains were given a severe workout as she had invited some French friends for dinner. Our hostess speaks fairly good French; Neels acquitted himself very well and I stumbled along with a word or two here and there. Of our guests, the wife speaks pretty good English but her husband, not a word. That may sound as if it could have been a very awkward dinner party but in fact it was good fun and we all laughed at each others mistakes. I feel they must have enjoyed themselves as it was really late when they finally left.

The next day a friend came along to do some jobs around the house and stayed for lunch too, while we tried to sort out our clothes for the next week. Knowing that we would have haul everything up four flights of stairs made us opt for the least amount possible, while still making allowances for snow on the nearby mountains as well as some possibly very hot days. Eventually we made our decisions and were able to pack, ready for our departure the next day.

The following day’s 550 kilometre drive to Breil-sur-Roya went very smoothly. The last few kilometres along the Cote d’Azur are always frustrating as the road consists of a series of tunnels, each one followed by a high level bridge. The glimpses one gets of the coast from the bridges are tantalizing but there are no stopping places whatsoever and certainly no photo stops! We found our friend’s apartment with no trouble and, having lugged everything upstairs, settled ourselves in. It was an early night for us all.

As the 15^th was our hostess’s birthday, we drove out to Sospel for lunch and either impressed, or terrified, her with the twisty hairpin roads. When we arrived there, it was market day which is always fun. Having been to the town twice before, we could show off our knowledge of the town by going directly to the various ‘sights’ without having to waste time wandering around the unattractive parts of town. We treated the birthday girl to a delicious lunch eaten out of doors under a canopy with the river tumbling along next to us.

Over the weekend we had a bonus visit from Pieter, our eldest son. He is currently skippering a large motor yacht which is, at the moment, moored in Genoa, about two hours’ drive away. He arrived on Saturday mid-morning so we all went out to the tiny village of La Brigue and then up to the chapel of Notre Dame des Fontaines. This little chapel was built after prayers for rain were answered by a spring suddenly appearing high up in the mountains. The chapel was built on the spot, in the 12^th century and the interior was decorated with frescoes in the 15^th century. The amazing thing about it is that the frescoes have never been re-touched and are still as vivid as they were when first painted.

We just had to show both our guests the wonderful village of Saorge which tumbles down the side of the hill some ten kilometres north of Breil so we had booked a table for lunch on Sunday in the ‘Belle Vue’ restaurant in which the tables are in an area which apparently hangs out over nothing, and which has a most spectacular view of the Roya River valley. The food was good too! All too soon it was time for Pieter to leave, but what a bonus to have had him to stay for a while at least. On Sunday night it rained during the night and was quite a bit cooler when we got up the next morning. However, we had promised ourselves a trip down to Menton on the bus, so off we went. The 1 euro bus now costs 1 euro 50, but is still a bargain. We could all sit back in comfort with no worries about hunting for parking at the other end, and the bus leaves from almost outside our apartment so what could be better!

The centre of the city is pedestrians only and it was a pleasure to amble down the street looking first at this shop and then that, but the goods for sale were astronomically expensive and we did not buy anything. There was also a cold wind blowing that kept catching us at the intersections that made things a little less pleasant, but we had a good day and managed to fill the time until the bus returned to Breil. And that was really our last day there as the next day was spent clearing up and cleaning up; doing laundry and finding somewhere to hang it to dry.  Then the following day we were off back to Lezignan.

No time to rest though (as if we needed it!) as the very next day, Thursday 22^nd, we had arranged to have lunch with a friend who has a house close to the little village we stayed in last year when the family visited us. Although her house is brand new, it looks for all the world as though it has been there for about 100 years. It is stone built, and all the doors and windows have been recovered from old buildings, as well as much of the interior décor and fittings, while the garden is mainly indigenous plants which are looking fantastic at the moment – wild geraniums, lavender, cosmos and many evergreen shrubs. It is really hard to believe that it hasn’t been here forever. Having ooh-ed and aah-ed over the house we then all hopped back into the car and went off to a small village nearby called Cucugnan to have lunch in a restaurant. Cucugnan is a most delightful village, dominated by a restored windmill. After lunch we walked up the hill to the mill and found not only a grain mill and a bakery, but a shop selling the goods baked in the bakery, and then a forge and someone making wrought iron bits and pieces, as well as a few rather nice little general shops. A real gem!

What should have been a simple and fairly quick outing turned the following day into an all day affair. The basis of it all was that another friend was taking his car to be resprayed at a workshop in Narbonne where we would meet him, all go and have a bite to eat, then take him home where we could all make use of his internet connection. I’m not quite sure just what happened to the day but we eventually only met up at about 1.30 pm and had lunch before dropping off the car and things sort of went from bad to worse and we finally got home at about 7pm.

Saturday was just the opposite. It turned out to be a stay-at-home day with lots of odd jobs to do around the house. First, Neels finished off a fairly major plumbing job that he had started  a few days back. Then he began sanding the doors to the cupboard under the stairs so that they closed properly. At the same time, I mounted a small plaque next to the postbox requesting that no junk mail be delivered here. Then I had to go and hold doors so they could be sanded along the edges. Meanwhile, our hostess was fearlessly clambering around on the roof removing a strange weed which grows on the tiles in this area, after which she painted a small section of wall and went on to do some gardening. At the end of her garden she has a small shed, built of  brick, and a barbecue next to it. Because one could easily sit and eat out there, such a thing is known as a ‘cuisine d’été’, or a summer kitchen. To make hers more attractive, she has pasted a giant photograph on to the back wall, put a frame around it and attached windows on each side to give the impression of a view through an open window. Next to the barbecue, she has pasted another blown-up photograph of a view through the vineyards to a castle. The picture is the shape of a Gothic arch and this one has a stone surround so that it appears to be a scene from one castle of another. They are amazingly effective and lend a certain amount of depth to both areas.

France 2014 Number 13

Our last week in the Charente had arrived and we greeted it with mixed feelings. We love the house and the location, and have enjoyed the short forays we have made into the surrounding countryside. We have met some lovely people, both English and French speaking, who we would definitely like to keep in touch with and visit again sometime in the future. On the other hand, we found that looking after the pets, lovable as they are, proved to be quite restrictive and prevented us from making any long, all-day trips to places further away. And quite often, when we did have a good day for sight-seeing, it was a also a good day for mowing the grass. So, there have been pro’s and con’s.

We had deliberately kept the week free of any engagements as we realised that there would be a certain amount of ‘time juggling’ taking place. With the uncertain weather it would be quite a challenge to leave the house spick and span, with all the bed linen washed and ready for ironing, as well as managing to have most of our meagre wardrobe also clean enough to move on. After all, one can hardly arrive at a friend’s house and ask to do a load of washing immediately. And as the week shortened, the juggling got more frenzied.

Not wanting to leave without saying some goodbyes to the more special of our new friends, we invited one couple over for a drink and snacks and then realised there was nothing resembling a snack in the house, so off we went to the supermarket intending to rush straight back, but then we began to wonder why we were in such a hurry. We took ourselves off to a coffee shop for a cuppa and there met another new friend. We began talking and she more she spoke the more we found we had in common. Eventually she apologised for having to leave, but said that she had just taken on a new ‘rescue’ dog and didn’t want to leave it alone for too long. But please would we come and have a drink with her at her house the following evening. When we got home, I Googled her village, and was a bit horrified to discover that Google has never heard of it. She had drawn us a detailed map, however, and we wondered what we would find when we got there. We needn’t have worried – there is in actual fact, a decent-sized village and her house is a dream cottage. I am so glad we met her as otherwise we would never have found this little place.

Friday was D-Day for the roadworthiness re-test and Neels went off in good time and some trepidation to discover the results. We really needn’t have worried. As the mechanic who did the repairs to the car was also the roadworthy inspector, he could hardly fail it again. To give him his due though, he did show Neels the underside of the car and just what he had done which all looked good. It is such a good feeling to have that little sticker on the windscreen again!

Although I was longing to start sorting through our clothes and to begin packing, we didn’t dare to do so in case we frightened the cat and it disappeared. It has been known to happen to other people. So for most of Friday we sat around reading and sewing trying to appear as if we were here for the next two years and nothing was out of the ordinary. I think we succeeded as the cat was still with us on Saturday until we put him into his travelling basket and put them both in the car. The fact that he muttered all the way to the kennels didn’t really bother us, and the lady who runs the kennels obviously knows them both so we feel sad to say goodbye, but happy to know that they are in good hands.

We leave the Charente on Sunday 11^th May and may be out of touch for three weeks as there is no internet where we are going. If we get lucky and find a WifI point, there will be another chapter of the blog next week.

Our trip south was long, fairly slow but uneventful. Slow, out of consideration for the old lady – the car, not me! It was interesting to notice the architecture  changing as we progressed, as well as the  farming  styles. We started with crops and a few cattle in the north, then more cattle and sheep in the central areas and finally goats and vineyards as we approached the south. Travelling on a Sunday was good idea after all, as there were no heavy trucks on the roads – they are forbidden to drive on Sundays We were delighted to come across one of our favourite tree-lined avenues somewhere down the road, and felt as if we were ‘coming home’.

France 2014 Number 12

When the sun finally decided to appear on Wednesday, we took advantage of it and jumped in the car for a drive around the countryside. There are dozens of tiny villages and hamlets within a radius of less than twenty kilometres from where we are, so we just selected a few of them and then joined the dots to give ourselves a circular drive. We started off though by popping in at a friend’s house to photograph the bluebells growing in the little woodland he has behind the house. They are so beautiful and such a delicate shade of blue. Then we set off on our round trip – Lezay, where we went for the Brass Band concert, then Vanzay, Messé, Vancais (tricky one that, with Vanzay just a short while before it), Chey then back to Lezay and home. Lovely farming countryside, all green and gold at present with the wheat coming on and the canola flowers just about going off, and big clumps of woodland and forest where the trees meet over the road to form a green tunnel. The village houses in this area are all built of stone but the stone has been shaped into regular brick-shaped pieces and carefully laid in courses, like brick. It is a very attractive style and naturally with walls that are a metre or more thick, the houses are well insulated. It was a scenic drive but not a very photographic one.

A different friend phoned that evening to ask if we would like to go to a vide grenier with them the next day, and of course we said yes. Fortunately they collected us and we all went in one car, or we would probably still be driving around in circles trying to find the village. There was a fair turnout in spite of the grey weather, and a small group of men playing piano-accordions and clarinets lent a very ‘French’ atmosphere to the affair. After a while the grey day lightened up and it got quite warm in the sun, so we went into the hall to see an art exhibition put on by the local amateur art group and a couple of more professional artists from the region. There was some beautiful work there and not too out-landishly expensive, but nothing that I could easily fit into my suitcase, I’m afraid. By the time we left at lunchtime, it was drizzling again and people were packing up early.

By Friday, there was a very real possibility that we would run out of clean clothes to wear, so in spite of the weather, which now couldn’t make up its mind whether to rain or not, we did two loads of washing and turned the back verandah into a Chinese laundry and hoped it would get dry. After lunch, when it seemed as though it was, after all, not going to rain, we went out. We had promised ourselves that we would get back to the Chateau at Dampierre sur Boutonne so that is where we were aiming for. All the way there we were driving in and out of showers but they were short-lived and we hoped that when we got there it would be in a gap between two showers.

We had set ‘Jane’ to take us via the shortest route which always involves a lot of narrow lanes and farm roads, and as a result, we came across a remarkable little park on the site of the origin of the Sompteuse River. A small hill slopes down to an area where the many springs have been channeled into two wash houses and an extraordinary oval pool, before rushing away in to the valley below. The area around has been cleared and someone has planted many varieties of hydrangeas in beds, with a placard listing them all. It must look amazing when they are all in flower. This was near a small village called Sompt. But we couldn’t waste too much time, so on we went to the chateau. We were very lucky to find that an English-speaking guide had started to work there just that day and we were her first tourists.

The Renaissance-style chateau is built on a small island in the Boutonne River, which may have been a good idea from a defence point of view, when it was built in 995 AD (!!) but it has been at the mercy of the river ever since then, with frequent flooding and marshy ground underfoot taking their toll. The last and almost final disaster to strike was a terrible fire in 1992 which nearly destroyed the whole place. The village folk rallied round and most of the 17th century furniture was saved, including some incredible 18^th century tapestries and some priceless artwork. The chateau has been rebuilt several times in its life, but the present building dates from about 1550 AD. The ground floor is mainly reception rooms and the kitchen, with bedrooms and sitting rooms on the first floor, while the enormous attic space houses a collection of artefacts from all around the world, collected by one or another of the owners at various times. And then there are the gardens. Once beautifully laid out formal gardens, they went through a period of neglect and flooding and are only now being restored Perfectly clipped hedges form a labyrinthine maze to the rear of the chateau, while behind that is a long curved hedge with arches cut in it. Behind each arch stands a perfectly formed ball shaped shrub, and the disciplined rows of planted woodland taper off into the distance. Keeping it looking like it does must involve a huge amount of work, and expense, in a country where workers are few and labour costs plenty.

The only really good day of the week was Sunday so we leapt into the car and pointed the nose east. We had been asked to go and find a motor-racing circuit known as Val de Vienne about 45 kilometres away and to report back on the facilities. We were not impressed with ‘Jane’ as she had never heard of it,  but we asked her for the nearest town and then found it ourselves – eventually. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere this track appears to be well-maintained and well-used. There was a motor-cycle meeting on the go when we arrived, so we got out to have a look. Was that ever a mistake?? The wind, from which we had been protected while in the car, was absolutely icy and although we both had on fleeces over our jerseys, it was just too cold to sit and watch the racers with any sort of enjoyment.

On the way home we stopped briefly at St Martin l’Ars when we caught sight of a splendid chateau through the trees. But once again, it proved to be a derelict building looking very sad and forgotten. One can only guess at the wealth that the original owners must have had to own and run a place of this size. Obviously the current owners are unable to do so. So sad.

France 2014 Number 12 (Pictures only)