Saudade for Our Little Corner of France

Saudade is a Portuguese word, introduced to us by Egidio, who proposes it for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge. Here’s what it means:

... an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent someone or something. It is a recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused.

It’s what we both feel so very often about our years in southern France, now some ten years gone. Of course we remember the landscape – the foothills, the Pyrenees themselves, the seasons, the climate , the slower pace of life …

Of course we do. But we remember even more the happy Sundays and Thursdays we had discovering these landscapes with our two local walking groups. We were the only British members, and how different these expeditions were from their English equivalents. After a morning slogging up a mountain, we were rewarded with views, perhaps a stream, a wild-flower strewn meadow. Then Marcel the butcher would produce his own home-cured sausage; Sylvie offered her daughter’s sheep’s milk cheese; someone would bring bread; Yvette and I brought cake; wine was on offer, and an apéro, and after that someone or other would hand out sugar lumps, on which to drip just a little of their grandfather’s special home-confected digestif. After a nice long rest, we’d pack up and find a different path downwards.

Eating was at the heart of so many activities. Here’s another community meal, tables ranged over the town square so everyone could get together and enjoy each other’s company while celebrating some local highlight..

In fact enjoyment came high on everyone’s agenda. Every July, for instance, in a small village a few miles from ours, a group of volunteers spend months devising Le Jardin Extraordinaire. People come from miles around to enjoy strolling through bowers confected from still-growing gourds, and climbing upwards through woodlands with surprises: beautiful, silly, witty – every year was different.

Then there was the annual firework display on the lake at Puivert, which took the concept of fireworks to a whole new level. It reduced the audience of 1000 or more, who’d all come with families, friends and the makings of a fine picnic to astonished silence as the spectacle ended, before simultaneously roaring their tumultuous appeciation of the astonishing creations set before our eyes.

Our French friends taught us about ‘au cas où‘: the need to have with you at all times a bag or similar ‘just in case‘ you found walnuts, wild cherries, sweet chestnuts, mushrooms – all sorts of food-for-free for the thrify householder. I was au cas où–ing only yesterday, finding crab apples, pears, apples, mirabelles all there for the taking, just as our French friends recommended.

I’ll stop there. The feelings of longing, of saudade are strong …

For Egidio’s Lens-Artists Challenge #365: Longing.

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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

63 thoughts on “Saudade for Our Little Corner of France”

  1. This made my heart ache in the best way! It’s beautiful how deeply a place and people can intertwine, how ordinary Sundays become unforgettable memories when shared with kind souls and simple pleasures. Thank you for painting it all so vividly.

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    1. Yiou really need to go with an Expert. But an Expert in France would sooner take his secret haunts to the grave than share the expertise. Someone we knew did just that!

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      1. I’m quite happy to tell people where the blackberries are but if I find a beautiful quiet spot in the chilterns I’m telling no one, mushrooms or no mushrooms. Some of my best walks have never been told 😉

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  13. Margaret, what a wonderful post full of beautiful memories, photos, and friends. That snow-covered field was beautiful and me think back of a snowshoe adventure we had. Ah, the food you described got my mouth watering. This is a perfect entry for saudades.

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  16. Your longing for those days in France comes through so strongly in this post, and from your descriptions and photos it’s quite easy to see why you miss those times. As an aside, your mention of the sugar cubes took me back to my first visit to France, on the school exchange, when I and the other teenagers were given cubes with drops of kirsch to suck. Those, and the kirsch liberally poured over slices of fresh pineapple, were my first introduction to strong spirits!

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      2. A frend of M’s invited us to stay and we were smitten. It’s that simple. The decision to go to France was scratching an itch M had long had, but we had to wait till we were both retired.

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  19. Carefree times come to mind when I read your post. The long lingering lunches to savour company and food is a wonderful tradition in Europe. I certainly miss it and yes I also live in a beautiful area now.

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  21. Oh Margaret, so many wonderful memories of those years! You tell us through all the beauty of the landscapes, the food, the people. I understand the bitter sweet feeling of saudade. But the warmth of those walks and friendships is something to rest in too.

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  25. Pingback: Au Cas Où – From Pyrenees to Pennines

  26. Hopefully more sweet than bitter-sweet is remembering your happy years in that beautiful place. A sense of longing for times and places past can ache but can be strangely comforting too.

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