What can you
call a week when the highlights are sending your granddaughter off to South
Africa by plane, on her own; and picking the first tomato! To begin with
though, we were shaken out of our lethargy on Sunday afternoon when the
neighbours came and invited us to go and play petanque with them. Also known as
boulles it is a game that can be played almost anywhere and with any number of
people as long as there are enough boulles to go around. So Neels went off to
play while I finished doing some work. Later I went to see what was going on
and took my camera. There is no set area of play and as long as the ground is
fairly level, the game can go ahead. One person throws a small red ball about
the size of a pin-pong ball, so that it comes to a rest about 4 to 5 metres
away. Players then take it in turns to toss their extremely heavy steel balls,
trying to get it as close as possible to the red ball. The boulles don’t
bounce, so the idea is to toss it upwards so that it lands with a thump close
to the mark. They were playing in the square which has a rather rough surface
with lose gravel on it so there were plenty of minor obstacles to send the
boulle off course.. The shouting and cheering from all and sundry, was ear-splitting
and there was a lot of encouragement being shouted on all sides with Oohs! And Aahs! after
each winning , or losing shot. You are never too old to learn.
Courtney
left on Tuesday with two plane changes ahead of her, in Paris and Johannesburg
but seemingly not at all nervous. She had a nasty moment in Paris, however,
when an over officious official came and took her off the plane when she was
already seated, demanding her ‘papers’. Hmph! Shades of the Gestapo! But she
still wasn’t too worried. Leigh had sent us all the required papers for an
under eighteen year old travelling alone, but since no-one had asked for them
she didn’t produce them. I think for her, the worst moment was after he had
grudgingly let her go, she had to clamber over the other passengers to regain her
window seat, and rearrange all her belongings. After that, all went smoothly and
she finally arrived safely in Cape Town. The text messages were flying back and
forth keeping the whole family up to date on her progress. Sometimes mobile
phones are a good thing.
As I
mentioned, the other highlight was picking our first tomato. It was a good size
and colour, and when we cut it, extremely tasty. When we bought the plants, we
selected two plants each of three different varieties, but as they were not
marked individually, we could not plant them out in pairs, as I would have
preferred. There were two that produce large single tomatoes, two that produce
something that is called ‘grappe’ here with several fruits on a single stalk, a
bit like grapes and then two beef heart tomatoes which are very fleshy but less
juicy. I have a feeling, looking at the rest of the crop that we are going to
have to wait for a while and then we will suddenly be inundated. Oh well, in
this house we can never have too many tomatoes.
As there is
so little news this week, thought I
would just tell you a bit about things we have had to become accustomed to here
in France. Probably the first one is the two hour lunch break that everyone
still takes, except the supermarkets. When one’s day starts rather late anyway,
and with the main shops being nearly half an hour away, this has always been a
problem for us, but we have solved it by getting up even later and doing all
our shopping in the afternoon. Everything closes at 6 or 6.30 pm so it makes
good sense.
Then there
is this thing about kissing everyone when you meet. If it is business or
someone you really don’t know, a handshake will do, but everyone else gets
kisses and here in the Aveyron the custom is for three kisses although in other
areas it is sometimes two – one on each cheek. Three is, of course, right, left
and then right again.
On a quiet
day, while walking along the pavement, passers-by will greet you. Children are
taught to do this too, and there is something quite charming about being made
to feel that one is part of the community, at every opportunity.
Post is
delivered daily to the postbox at the gate, but so are parcels, so if we are
expecting a parcel that may need to be signed for, we need to be up and decent
by the time the postman arrives which is relatively early. I’m not quite sure
what happens if there is no-one here to accept the parcel – perhaps they take
it back and bring it back the next day. We have certainly never had a little
illegible slip of paper left in the box telling us to collect a parcel from the
post office. In fact, one day Neels was driving down the road and met the
postie on the way up the hill. They stopped when the cars drew level and Neels
was asked if anyone was home. Knowing I was still in bed when he left, he asked
why and was handed a parcel through the car window, and signed for it too. I
think we rather enjoy living in a very small village!
Bread! The
French can’t make bread that will keep. Baguettes are delicious but have to be
eaten at once unless you pop them straight into the freezer and reheat them
later. They do sell standard square loaves made by various commercial bakers, but
mostly they taste like cardboard. Kept in the fridge they will still be good
after two weeks with no noticeable change in texture or flavour! A sandwich is
very seldom two slices of a square loaf with a filling, more often it will be a
length of halved baguette with a filling which makes a lot more bread to get
through.
The grocery
items I miss most are buttermilk, (they have never heard of it – even after I
had found the correct word for it); Cremora, (For our morning coffee in bed); Bisto Instant Gravy powder ( I am a lazy cook
and anyway, it makes great gravy)
Actually the Bisto can sometimes be found on what we call the ‘English
Shelf’, where imported goods are displayed. Apart from that, we are spoilt for
choice.
So for those
of you who feel that we have forgotten everyone and everything and don’t miss
anyone or anything, it really isn’t true. We do miss all our friends terribly
but the choice has been made and there is no going back. In any case, I really
do think that the pluses outweigh the minuses and we are slowly making friends
here too.
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