Our Place in France Chapter 29

Our place in France Chapter 28

In the end, Jen and Ryan didn’t continue with their planned cycle route. The weather had turned a bit nasty and they found the undulating countryside quite demanding so spent a day looking around Rocamadour and its immediate surroundings and then cycled back to Ols on their third day.

In the meantime, we were both very excited to find that our Cartes Vitales – our National Health Service cards – had arrived in the post. Contrary to most of our friends’ thoughts, it turned out that we were eligible to apply for inclusion and that we definitely could, and would, get cards. Once everything was set in motion, it all happened quite quickly and now we have our cards, we can apply for the so-called ‘Top-up’ insurance which will cover anything not covered by the National Health scheme. And the best part of all is that the insurance will be less than what we have been paying monthly for our South African Medical Aid, which of course, doesn’t ever amount to the entire amount received in our name by that medical aid fund.

When the two cyclists returned, they took a day off to recover a little and to do some long overdue laundry. Luckily the weather had cheered up again and everything was soon dry. We did a bit of driving around to show them the local sights and again the sun stayed shining. What a great time we had. All too soon it was Friday and time to take them to the station for their train to Toulouse and subsequently, the plane to South Africa. It was a sad moment.

But there were still things to do and get on with at home……..none of them got done! I think we were showing our age.

On Sunday we had been invited to lunch with one of our neighbours, a French husband and his Moroccan-born wife. We were quite nervous as they don’t speak any English, and were even more so when we arrived, to find three other French-speaking guests. Our meal was to be a typical Moroccan one and was to be five courses – a pizza-like starter; a salad, a massive stew with cous-cous, cheese and then dessert. All I can say is that the Moroccans must eat only once a week if that was a typical meal.

The days are starting to draw in already and the nights are getting cooler. Leaves are falling everywhere and our figs are ripening well. I’m still not sure about making jam but the other option is to let them all fall on the ground and go bad. A bit like being between a bottle and a squishy place!

I have included a picture that was taken in Chamonix of a Trompe l'Oeil scene. I am simply fascinated by these paintings and am always impressed by the shadows that seem to fall in the correct places regardless of where the sun actually is. I had to walk right up to, and past the building to make quite sure that this was a completely flat wall. What talent!

Our place in France Chapter 28a (Text)

Leaving Ols at the respectable hour of  10 am, we drove  to Le Besset a Dutch-owned B&B just beyond Thiers, about 350 kms away. It was a very hot drive and the B&B was some way out of town so we were a bit disappointed to find that although they had advertised an evening meal, that only applied in high season. So, after having showered and changed out of our rather damp and sweaty clothes, we climbed back into the car to go and look for something to eat. The centre of Thiers is an old medieval town with narrow and winding cobbled streets an d quite obviously a population that retires early to bed, but after some wandering around we eventually found a pizza place to satisfy our hunger and then went back to bed ourselves.

The next day we completed the drive to Les Houches where Jenny and Ryan were to complete their run around the mountains of the Mont Blanc area. Would you believe it, we arrived about five minutes after they got in and had a happy reunion. They didn’t look at all tired and certainly didn’t look as if they had been running for the last six days..

On Sunday we started our own exciting part of the Swiss tour by joining them for a trip up to the top of the Aigueille de Midi. We started from Chamonix by taking a large cable car, carrying 60 standing passengers at a time, to the next level, at about 3200 meters. Then it was very speedy lift up to the top at 3840 meters. Almost as soon as we stepped out of the lift I began to feel very weird – light-headed and staggering all over the place. I also couldn’t seem to breather which was quite a scary feeling. Leaving the others, I went straight down to the previous level again, where I was sympathetically looked after by the people in charge until the family found me again. I somehow think this may well have been a sign that I shouldn’t attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro!

The next day, Monday, we drove a couple of hours only to Leukerbad which is in Switzerland. The attraction there was a fantastic uphill mountain run which both Ryan and Jenny wanted to do. When one sees aerial photographs of it, the whole idea seems crazy. The route is 4 and a half kms but in that distance the runners gain about 1000 meters. An hour is the time allowed to complete the run and anyone who manages to do it gets a free cable car ride to the bottom again. We thought it hardly likely that either of them would manage seeing that they had just completed the six day gruelling run around the other mountains, but Ryan managed it in 53 minutes and Jenny in just over the hour. We are SO impressed!

On Tuesday we drove a little further north to Grindelwald  and along the way experienced a novel new mode of travel. After getting los several times, we asked advice from a roadside cafe and were told that there was no road to where we needed to go, but we needed, instead, to catch a train! We were somewhat aghast at this, but then our adviser told us not to worry, that the car could drive on to the train, and so we did and went through an endless (seemingly) tunnel right through the mountain. Now that was something really new! We had booked into a hotel for two nights and although our main activity was planned for Wednesday, that wasn’t good enough for our two athletes who went off in the afternoon for a run around the countryside which got them back home again in time for a lateish supper. Meanwhile Neels and I drove into town and had a look at the shops which were, unsurprisingly, very expensive.

The countryside around Grindelwald is picture postcard beautiful. As I sit and type this on the balcony of our hotel room, I can hear the tinkle of cow bells and the quiet rumble of cable cars which start from numerous places and go to the ski slopes in winter, but run all year round taking walkers and other tourists up to the higher areas. The weather has been magnificent with clear blue skies every day and cooler nights than we have been accustomed to lately. The snow-capped mountains all around us are clear and crisply outlined against this amazing blue sky.

Back to the main activity for Wednesday. It was a trip to the top of the Jungfrau by various means. We started by car, driving to Lauterbrunnen which is about 15 ks away. There we caught the rack railway which took us almost to the top, through some amazing tunnels . These tunnels were hand-hewn in the late 1800’s and are a real tribute to perseverance and endurance. Many people died during the 16 years that it took  to build and we can only marvel at this wonderful achievement.  Once off the train we found ourselves in a sort of gallery which runs around the mountain at this level with arrows showing the correct direction to walk – very German! But a good idea, none the less, as there were literally hundreds of people there. We tried to work out how many people came up with us on our one train and reckoned that there were about 500 on our train and they run every half hour in both directions. A very smoothly run organisation.

At various places along the tour were caverns with exhibits of one sort or another. One had a life-size statue of the designer of the tunnel, bursting out of the rock-wall with his diagrams and sketches on the floor in front of him. Another was a giant sized snow globe but instead of shaking it, the little figures inside moved themselves. It was beautifully crafted and was one of those things that the more you looked at it the more you saw. Further along we came to the Ice Palace which had a number of smaller off shoots but we stayed mainly on the main path. It was carved through solid ice and was unbelievably slippery. One had to grip the handrail very firmly to stop sliding off down the passage. Along the way we came to a hollowed-out section with a family of bears carved out of the ice and a bit further along a similar niche filled with penguins. There was also a place, not part of the Ice Palace, where we could actually walk outside on the glacier, but the wind was blowing so hard that we didn’t do more than poke our heads out. There was a lift which we could have taken to a still higher level but after Sunday’s episode we decided not to chance it. We managed to fill almost the entire day though as we caught the train down again to the place where we had to change trains and stopped off there for a bit of lunch. This was at Kleine Sheidegg, but we still had to catch the second train back to Lauterbrunnen. Not so for our sporty types! They decided to run back home again and completed the 17 kms in just about three hours.

Thursday saw us back on the road again – together! Our destination was to be  a small place called Les Deux Alpes which is roughly midway between Grindelwald and Ols. Along the way we passed Bourg d’Oisans which is situated at the bottom of  the Alpe d’Huez pass, a very well-known climb of the Tour de France. A 12 km stretch or road with 21 hairpin bends, it rises about 1000etres in that distance and is very demanding on the riders. Both of the athletes in the car were suitably impressed, having only ever seen parts of the hill on television. Then it was on to Les Deux Alpes for the night before completing the circle and arriving back home again quite late in the afternoon. Then it was a mad scramble to a load of very sweaty clothes into the washing machine and hung up, so that it would be at least partially dry by the next morning. And that was when I got a chance to put our own washing into the machine. Thinking that it would stay breezy but not rain, I hung everything on the outside line only to have the rain come down the moment I was finished. Oh well, c’est la vie! In the end we left it hanging there even when we went off the following day for a night in Rocamadour. Jenny and Ryan left here on Sunday morning on the borrowed bicycles for their 3 day cycle tour around a small part of the Dordogne, and we had arranged to join them for their first night. The weather was a bit grey and drizzly but it didn’t seem to deter them one bit. Sadly though, with such incredibly undulating countryside, the ride took much longer than they had anticipated and it was rather late when they got in, and the rain had got heavier so no time for sight-seeing. But the view from our hotel was panoramic and wonderful and we can always go there again. It’s not too far away.

Now we are home again and on our own for a day as they continue with their cycle tour and will hopefully return safe and sound tomorrow night.

There were so many photographs to choose from that I have put them on to a separate page.

Our place in France Chapter 28 (pictures only)

Our place in France Chapter 27

We are away for a few more days. Please look for the blog on Tuesday 20th.

Our place in France Chapter 26

No post this week, sadly for all you readers.
The only fact of any note was that it has been so hot that when I went to hang some washing on the line earlier in the week, there was a strong smell of fig jam cooking. Knowing that all of our close neighbours had already left to go back home again after the holidays, I finally worked out that it was coming from the direction of our fig tree and when I investigated, I found all the figs had stewed on the tree! They were still very small so had probably been affected by the long drought too. It is fine though. I wasn't intending to make tons of fig jam this year, somehow!
We left on Friday to join up with Jenny and Ryan in north eastern France and to accompany them on the rest of their trip through Switzerland, and then back to Ols.
Next week I will have plenty to write about and no doubt a few photos to include.

Our place in France Chapter 25

Another week of mostly non-activity. Not entirely, because we have managed to almost complete a storage space for the spare room. I have worried for quite a time about the lack of storage for our guests, but then Carol and Steve brought us two hanging rails, similar to the ones you see in clothing shops, which helped for hanging space in the two spare rooms. But we were still desperately short of space to unpack any other clothes into. We looked around a bit for inspiration, or something to buy, but we have this inherent problem of vertical walls, or lack thereof. As things stand at the moment, we have a dressing table against one vertical full height wall and the bed with its side tables against the other and that’s about ‘it’. The remaining walls are only37 cms high, vertically and then they start to slope to form the ceiling. Anything higher than 37 cms has to stand away from the wall and takes up floor space which we can ill afford. In the end we decide to make something that resembles a bookcase for coffee table books. In other words, big spaces between the shelves. Lie this on its side, and fill the spaces with square plastic bins and you have ground level storage. It looked a little odd at first, rather like a bookcase lying on its side (how strange) so Neels is busy making the last of six feet to go under it which will improve its looks quite a lot I hope. I say that ‘we’ have been making this item but of course, it has really been Neels, with me just lending a hand when needed. I was also assigned the painting work, which isn’t really fair as I always end up with paint everywhere. In fact, as I type, I have white flecks all over my hands and although the label tells me that this paint is water soluble, I’m not so sure. I have already scrubbed my hands with the nailbrush and the flecks are still there. Hopefully they will wear off in time!

The school holidays have ended for French and, I think, British children and all around one sees holiday houses closed up again ‘until next time’. The traffic density has also diminished enormously and it is almost a pleasure to go to town again. The blazing weather of the past few weeks has given up trying to bake us all to death and the temperatures have dropped down to the upper twenties which is cool by comparison. The trees are starting to drop their leaves and here and there a glimpse of Autumn can be seen. We have never been here at this time of year before, I don’t think, and we are keen to watch the colours change. Unlike South Africa which has numerous evergreen trees and bushes, most of the trees here lose their leaves in winter and if the range of colours, when the trees are green, is anything to go by, the autumn colours will be splendid.

The cooler weather also means a drop in the number of flies around which is a blessing. They got so bad at one stage that we resorted to the good old-fashioned fly papers which are hugely successful but quite disgusting to look at. The first one we hung up had to be taken down a day later as it was so full but with subsequent papers they have taken longer to fill up. Perhaps the flies get wise to the idea, but as long as they no longer come inside and settle everywhere, I’m happy.

Our next major task will be to join the upstairs television into the downstalrs decoder. It will be quite an undertaking as wires have to be threaded up and down conduits already in the walls. We have slowly been assembling the necessary fittings and cables and have become quite handy at online shopping. It’s so simple and I love the fact that all the parcels come right to the door or at least into the postbox at the roadside. None of this fetching one’s parcel from Counter 3 at such and such a post office. No sir, the post lady generally brings the parcels to the house. She’s caught us out a couple of times when she has arrived early, or the parcel has, and neither of us was even dressed. But I think she’s probably experienced that before. She certainly didn’t look surprised when I appeared in my dressing gown!

Everyone in rural France seems to very garden-proud and every Spring when the supermarkets all sport a large marquee selling seedlings, potted plants and shrubs, the locals flock to buy their new season blooms. Not willing to be left behind in this national activity, we duly went and bought the necessary troughs and brackets and seedlings, and hoped for the best. Well……I think geraniums must be the most forgiving plants as they have been through a lot in their little lives, not the least of which is not being watered. They are thriving on poor care and they, and the petunias which Carol and Steve gave us when they were here, are looking magnificent as you can see in the picture I have attached. Next year we hope to have a veggie garden going and will plant tomatoes and hopefully some sweet corn. I crave ‘mealies’! They can be bought here – two in a vacuum-packed bag – for nearly five euro. Work it out. At the moment thats about R85 for two small ears of corn. Eish!!