It’s La Chandeleur, Fête de la Lumière today. You might know it as Candlemas, and if you’re English, you’ve probably not given it a thought, or even knew it existed.
Here in France, you’ll certainly know all about it. If you’re Catholic, you’ll remember the day as the one in which the Virgin Mary was purified after giving birth, and Jesus himself was presented at the Temple.
Catholic or not, the French eat a lot of crêpes today. Apparently, whilst making them, it’s traditional to hold a coin in your writing hand and a pan in the other, and flip the crêpe into the air. If you manage to catch the pancake in the pan, your family will be prosperous for the rest of the year. It’s exactly half way though the official winter season, in any case. Pancakes perhaps look a little like the sun, so they stand in for the sun – ‘la lumière’.
Winter sunlight looking like a crêpe?
More important than eating however, is seeing what Winter is thinking. He pays the day a lot of attention. He has decisions to make. On this day, Winter will either pack his bags and disappear till the end of Autumn, or he’ll settle in, and make his presence thoroughly felt for quite a few more weeks. Hence the expression:
À la Chandeleur, l’hiver cesse ou reprend vigueur
At Candlemas, winter ends or strengthens.
It looks pretty much as though he’s decided though. Today the temperatures plunge from a high of minus 3, to a low of minus 10 (and feeling like minus 16), and the ten day forecast is worse. Tomorrow, for example, it promises to be minus 9 at 10.00 a.m. and feel like minus 16.
It’s quite nice not to have to wait till Shrove Tuesday for the first pancakes of the year though. Even better that we can be snug indoors today and hope for Winter to knock off duty.
View from the roof terrace at 8.00 a.m. It looks as though Winter’s really made up his mind
Yesterday afternoon was fascinating. We went to Belesta library for a talk by Paul Garrigues, a local historian who collects old wooden artifacts. He’s such a good speaker, and gave us an insight into a way of life which only finally drew to a close about 30 years ago. He’s pretty much my age, but his childhood was spent around ox-drawn farm machinery, distaffs and a host of things that formed no part of my rural infancy. Now that most Ariègeois farms look pretty much like anywhere else’s, with tractors, silos and irrigation systems, it’s rather hard to believe.
Paul’s childhood was spent in the next village to here, Aigues Vives. Later, he met and married a young woman from a tiny community in the Couserans, a part of the Département to the west of here. He was surprised to find how different the tools in his wife’s village often were. There too, the villagers spoke Gascon, rather than the Occitan traditional in our part of the area.
And so his interest began. He started to collect mainly wooden artifacts: agricultural items, kitchen tools, playthings. To him these things tell a story of rural life here as it was lived over many centuries. Yesterday he came to Belesta Library to talk and show part of his collection.
First of all, a simple wooden torch, looking something like a charred rounders bat. This interests him because items just like this were in use – almost daily – since man first populated the area in Stone Are times, right up until the First World War, and in a few cases, beyond.
Next, a distaff. This item too remained unchanged almost from those early days until the early years of last century. Any female over the age of about 8 living over the last 1000 years and more, whether rich or poor, would have recognised it. Spinning would have been a constant part of her daily routine, whether she was managing a fine estate, or supervising a few sheep on the mountainside. And do you know what? Constantly licking your finger and thumb as you handled the wool made your mouth dry, so beside you, you might have a little wooden box, filled with snuff, to help your saliva to flow: he showed us samples.
A couple of millas stirrers
We saw long wooden balloon whisks and three-pronged forks used to stir the great vats of millas (a sort of porridge made from cornmeal) beloved of the Ariègeois, wooden spoons and forks, large wooden bowls. He showed us wooden clogs.
Wooden clogs with metal horseshoe-style heel strengtheners
We saw wooden roof tiles. All these things are made from unplaned wood, so the implements can follow the natural grain of the wood and be strong and sturdy.
From the Couserans he had savage long thick knives, looking like swords in their wooden or leather scabbards. Their design was directly descended from the instruments of war the Gascons often saw in their battle-rich past, but in fact they were used to cut rough grass, crops, and the long straw required for thatching.
A yoke. For safety reasons, it can quickly be divided in two
There were other differences between that part of the area and ours. Here, terracing was a feature of upland farms, and it was male beasts who worked the land. There, the farmers worked directly on the steep slopes: the cows who ploughed the land (it was female animals who did the work here) had to have specially designed wooden yokes so that they weren’t strangled as one worked at a higher level than her work-mate.
But it wasn’t all hard labour. Anyone who’s ever been to a bowling alley would recognize the bowls and skittles he showed us (made from wood, naturally). They were a big feature of life round Biert in the Couserans, but inter-village tournaments were rare. They all played to different rules, which tended to make contests rather difficult. But it was over here, in nearby Le Sautel, that a game was bought to a sudden end at the end of the 19thcentury.
Wooden skittle and bowl. Confiscated from the church at le Sautel?
One Sunday, the women went obediently to Mass, and as usual, the men played with their bowls outside, getting argumentative and noisy as the morning wore on. Eventually, the priest in church could take no more. He stormed out through the church porch, confiscated the bowls, and hid them in the sacristy. Evidently completely unchastened, the men simply produced other bowls when it came to their next match.
Paul’s keen that we should regard these tools and artifacts as living objects, part of a traditional way of life extending back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. He doesn’t want them consigned to the cemetery of history. If you live round here in some old-style village or town house, you’re almost certain to find quite of few of the things he talked about in your outhouse or attic. Perhaps I should have another look.
Wooden fork and spoon. A good strong shape. The short handles ensure a long and useful life.
I’ve had a professional life working in Public Service – employers included the Probation Service and local authorities. So there’s nothing you can tell me about politically correct, right-on in-service training. Some of it was good – very good – some of it was bad, and some was even horrid, but over the years, there was plenty of it.
Well, I retired. I came to France, and put that part of my life behind me. I assumed. Wrongly. I’ve written before about Découverte Terres Lointaines, and now I’m a co-President. So I thought I should join the other co-president, Sylvia, and do my bit by attending a training evening in Foix for people involved in working with volunteers.
Billed erroneously as a ‘Round Table’ it turned out to be a series of presentations to more then 100 of us packed into a hot room too small to accommodate us. Sample subject: ‘ Financial relationships between voluntary organisations and statutory bodies’. Between the heat, the poor sound system and the generally ungripping nature of the subject matter, and stuck in the back row unable to see much, I soon lost interest, and fell to musing instead about how I’ve perceived the differences between volunteering in France and in England.
Back in the UK, most towns of any consequence have a Council for Voluntary Organisations which is an umbrella organisation offering all kinds of support to huge numbers of charitable organisations: advice, support for those with life changing conditions and diseases or other difficulties, concerned with trees, animals, people, volunteering indoors, outdoors, by day and by night. Would-be volunteers are offered help in matching their skills and enthusiasms with organisations who would welcome their time and effort, whether they want to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in, lend a listening ear, or take further training to enhance their skills for the voluntary sector.
Here in this part of France – and I understand things are very different in the north – there seem to be few opportunities for the would-be volunteer outside sporting and similar physical pursuits for young people. ‘Secours Populaire’, ‘Secours Catholique’ , ‘Emmaus’, Croix Rouge and ‘Restos du Coeur’ all offer much-needed practical help to the very poor and those at the margins of society: but despite my best efforts, I’ve not found other volunteering opportunities. This is in part because there is a strong belief that the state should provide those essential back-up services which the UK largely relies on the voluntary sector for. There’s a strong belief too that if you offer those services, you should expect to be paid. There’s a lot in this of course.
But my experience of the voluntary sector in England is that it’s no longer about Lord and Lady Bountiful doing their bit for those less fortunate than themselves, if it ever was. It’s a two-way street in which the volunteer receives as well as gives: fellowship, new skills, new confidence, a sense of worth, even a chance to polish the CV. Judging by the scrum at the meeting in Foix last night, perhaps this is happening in France too.
Christmas is coming. How do I know? Not from the Christmas decorations or shops full of Yuletide Cheer, although that’s beginning, a bit. No, here the first sign of the impending end-of-year festivities is the appearance of The Calendar.
The other day in Laroque you’d have passed two volunteer sapeurs pompiers (Fire and Rescue service) in full uniform, trudging door-to-door with a pile of calendars. They need us all to make a donation in exchange for one. I wouldn’t dare not.
....and January.
They don’t expect very much money: the loose change in your purse is fine. After all the calendars are entirely paid for by the adverts inside and all the rest is profit. But you’ll get a receipt, your first Christmas card, and your first calendar, with each month illustrated by some thrilling event in the life of our local stations. Photos of the local crew too. Though not the sort of hunky photos you sometimes see in England, with Mr. Universe types stripped to the waist the better to display their tanned and rippling muscles. These men and women are all the guys-next-door.
Anyway, don’t think that this purchase represents the end of calendar-buying for this year. Any day now it’ll be the Majorettes, and after that….who knows? But there will be others. And we’ll have to buy from all of them.
My last post wasn’t entirely serious. That walk in the Pyrennean mists was fun despite the weather. We were well nourished (energy bars, abundant picnic food, and a delicious walnut cake that Michel shared). Thanks to the miracle of Gore-Tex and microfibres, we were warm and dry, and after it was over, we knew we’d be driving back to our cosy homes and family life.
But if you’d asked most of us whether we’d want to submit ourselves to a walk even more gruelling, every day for 4 days, in constant fear for our lives, maybe in the depths of winter, we’d have been certain to answer ‘no’.
Not so the men and women who during the Second World War risked their lives across the Pyrenees along paths such as le Chemin de la Liberté. On Monday, as part of its Remembrance season, the BBC broadcast its own tribute to those who trekked for 4 days up 4,750 metres of difficult, rocky terrain, in conditions that could change from mist to snow, to dazzling sun, to sleet several times in the course of a single day. These people – more than a 1000 of them over the whole period – were Allied soldiers and airmen who’d found themselves in enemy territory, escaped POWs and Jewish refugees: and the French and Spanish who helped them across the mountains to Spain.
Escapees had little choice. They were brave and resourceful from sheer necessity. But those who sheltered them as they travelled south through occupied Europe, prepared for their journeys, who shared the little they had, who interpreted, forged documents, sourced warm clothing so servicemen could ditch their tell-tale uniforms, those ‘passeurs’ who guided them to the comparative safety of Spain took unimaginable risks.
Would I have been brave enough to put my life on the line for strangers? Especially if in doing so, I risked the lives of my own family? I’m glad I don’t have to ask myself this question. More than a 100 ‘passeurs’ were caught and either executed or deported. 450 Ariègeois who assisted the escapees were deported – that’s one in 330 inhabitants of the region at the time. And they’re only the ones who were caught. Many others, somehow, weren’t.
A couple of years ago, a friend in the choir told me a story, a part of her family history. It didn’t happen in the Ariège, and it’s nothing to do with the passeurs, but it has stayed with me as a telling example of the desperation and bravery often shown in this period. Her family then lived in an isolated village in the Creuse, and they’d given shelter to a young Jewish girl for the duration. If searches were conducted – and they were – this child was inserted into one of those long bolsters the French used to favour, and arranged on the made-up bed. She simply had to lie there, still as a corpse, till the search was over. She survived. They survived.
At least she didn’t have to flee with a miscellaneous band of other inexperienced escapees: soldiers, mothers, underfed and frightened people, led by a series of local guides over often treacherous mountain passes – no waymarks and well-trodden paths here. At least her mother wasn’t asked to suffocate her because her pathetic cries might alert a German patrol. These things happened. Those times are over: but the memories live on.
Present day travellers take le Chemin de la Liberté
France is a determinedly secular (laïque) society. Those of us who weren’t in the country at the time probably became aware of this during the ‘foulard’ controversy of the 1990’s, during which there was a series of strikes and other actions both for and against the right of Muslim girls to be veiled. This culminated, in 2004, in a law banning the wearing of ‘conspicuous’ religious symbols: the reality was that it was the Muslim headscarf that seemed to be the target.
The law is widely seen as intended to discriminate against non-Christian faiths. It’s hard not to agree. Here in France, as in England, there are state schools and private schools. But there’s a third category too. In some circumstances, private faith schools have access to state and local funding which means pupils attending them benefit from very low fees. 95% of such schools are Catholic.
It’s worth mentioning too that local authorities are responsible for the cost of maintaining places of worship built before 1905. It’s doubtful if any mosques fall into this category, and it’s certainly true that the burden of keeping often historic buildings in a state of good repair is a crippling burden for many small communes, and much resented by laïque members of that community.
And what about public holidays? Quite a few are holy days, and retain their Christian names: Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, All Saints’ Day, Christmas Day….
Nevertheless, Laïcité cuts pretty deep. I’m currently involved in helping the librarian in Lavelanet mount an exhibition and series of children’s events in early December about English Children’s Literature. Because of the timing, there’ll be displays about a typical British Christmas, and Christmas-themed books will play their part.
Despite this, interpretations of the nativity story, by wonderful authors such as Geraldine McCaughrean, Jane Ray, Jan Pienkowski and Nicholas Allen (Not read ‘Round the Back!’? You’ve missed a treat) will not be represented. Why not? Because telling the Christmas story might give offence.
Religious instruction is not part of the school curriculum, nor is any kind of act of worship – anything but. This latter is, I think, not controversial. It feels an increasingly uncomfortable and ignored part of the British school day. But though I no longer count myself a believer, I’m very grateful that I and all my children had from school a good knowledge of the bible, and an understanding not only of Christianity, but all the major belief-systems of the world. Without this grounding, so much literature, painting, sculpture and music remains only partly accessible. Nobody has to proselytise. If it’s OK to tell a good rollicking Greek myth, why not the stories from the Old and New Testaments, and even the Apocrypha?
I sat talking with friends about this the other day. ‘Some of the English Christmas cards we’ve seen’ they said, ‘have religious imagery. Wouldn’t that be offensive to non-believers? And didn’t you say that lots of people, whether or not practising Christians, go to carol concerts and services and sing about the nativity?’ They found this astonishing. Surprising too that one’s little daughter might come home from school proudly brandishing the cardboard angel she’d made for the top of the Christmas tree.
One friend, an ex-teacher, told me how she’d once done a piece of work with her students about the pagan origins of many Christian traditions. She was hauled over the coals for promoting Catholicism.
Chartres by night?
This same friend told me that she would never send a postcard of a religious building to a friend unless she were sure that friend were a practising Christian. It might give offence. Well, let me tell you right now that if you go to Chartres to visit what is among the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe, I shan’t be a bit happy if you send me one of those jokey wholly black cards that reads ‘The town by night’.
I’ve found myself as irritated by this apparent ‘religious correctness’ as I am by ‘political correctness’ in England. I may well be missing something. Can anybody put me right, please?
We’ve just got back from our weekend on the other side of the Pyrénées, and I’ve decided to post these ‘postcards’ to show a few happy days in Sant Cugat del Vallès, the very attractive town where Emily is now working; the not-Hallowe’en-but- la Castañada festivities; and a relaxing weekend.
Eating and drinking were important. Straight away, as we drove across the mist and rain shrouded Pyrénées from France, there was a decision to be made. Lunch on this side of the border? You can’t get fed much later than 12.30 here. Or wait till Spain? Nothing there is open much before 2.00 p.m.
We arrived in Catalonia just in time for la Castañada. Instead of Hallowe’en, they commemorate All Souls’ Tide. Roasted chestnuts are sold wrapped in cones of newspaper with roasted sweet potatoes and peddled from impromptu stalls, or by excited groups of children. Panellets are mashed potato, sugar syrup and ground almonds – maybe cocoa or dried fruits too, rolled in pine nuts and briefly baked till the nuts turn golden. It sounds odd, but they’re delicious accompanied by a shot of strong black coffee.
Coffee shops, with tables outside so you can enjoy the late October heat seem to be in every street, and we adjusted our bodies to Spain’s very different rhythms. Food generally seems cheaper in Spain. A pleasant pause for breakfast, after taking the children to school, after shopping or work, or just because it’s a nice idea and the sun is shining is an affordable treat, and cafés don’t seem to struggle for custom. Nor do lunch-stops. As in France, the 3 course lunch with wine and coffee is on offer in most restaurants, but cheaper here. And it’s a leisurely affair. We found ourselves spending an hour or two every day that we were there over the lunch table, eating, talking and simply people-watching.
Shopping seems less anonymous too. Whether in St. Cugat, or city-centre Barcelona, greengrocers and grocers, wine merchants and bakers – especially bakers – all seemed to be doing brisk business. The out-of-town supermarkets are there alright, but so far, they don’t seem to have won.
So here are my postcards. Have a glance at them over a lazy cup of coffee.
A few pumpkins on display last year at Belesta’s annual Fête de la Citrouille
Go to any veg. stall on a French market just now, and there’ll be at least one giant pumpkin. The stall holder will sell you a portion if you like, using a hefty cleaver to wrest a kilo or so of orange flesh from this magnificent vegetable. The market’s probably got at least one stall devoted to nothing but pumpkins: Turk’s head, musque de Provence, butternut, red kuri, rouge vif d’Etampes………
It’s not so very long ago in England that I’d be doing the rounds of all the supermarkets, the day after Hallowe’en, gathering up the last few Jack o’Lantern pumpkins at bargain-basement prices.
Jack o’Lantern dressed up for Hallowe’en
They’d been stocked for everyone to make their scarey Hallowe’en pumpkin faces with and that was all.
Hardly anybody used them to cook with (presumably not even the many Americans who live in Harrogate, with their apparent love of pumpkin pie), and Hallowe’en over, the unsold ones would be junked.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall et al have put paid to that, and now the English love pumpkins as much as the French always have.
Here’s an easy and long-established soupy stew from round these parts (though I learned about it from Nigel Slater) to warm you up after a chilly day in the Great Winter Outdoors.
Hmm. We made short work of that.
When we first tasted it, we thought it nice enough, not earth-shattering though. It’s grown on us, and now we think it’s comfort food par excellence: especially those pillows of bread, soaked in scalding hot flavoursome juices.
Garbure Catalane
Toast thick slices of bread- preferably sourdough, and layer them up in a casserole or slow cooker with fried onions, garlic, marjoram, sliced skinned tomatoes, and thin slices of pumpkin. Top the dish up with seasoned water and olive oil and bake for an hour or two in a slow oven (or most of the day in a slow cooker). Take the lid off the dish for the last half hour or so and return to the oven with a crust of grated cheeses (parmesan is good to include in the mix, as it provides a welcome crispiness) for the last half hour or so. Or grill for a few minutes if you’ve been using a slow cooker.
Robert Louis Stevenson knew a thing or two about travelling slowly – and hopefully – what with hiking round the Cevennes with only a donkey for company.
But yesterday, arriving back in Laroque rather quickly having left Bolton only a few hours before, I felt he’d got it right. Our usual way of travelling between England and France is by car. We can’t claim it’s particularly slow, not with maximum speeds of 130 k.p.h on motorways. But it does take the best part of 3 days to do the pretty-much-exactly 1000 miles between Laroque and Ripon, and that’s fine.
Cahors
We detour to take in delightful towns like Cahors or Vendôme, and make sure we have time to explore a little. Early morning starts may find us startling deer in the still misty fields, while at lunchtime we’ll be on the look out for a ‘menu ouvrier’, or a rural picnic spot to have a lengthy break. We’ll enjoy a night at a chambre d’hôtes, and usually have an interesting time chatting to the owners or a fellow guest. Breakfast with home made jams and maybe breads and cakes comes as standard. A trip on a channel ferry. A night in London with son-and daughter-in-law. And finally, back up north.
And all this time, we’ll be adjusting between a life in France and a life in England: watching the scenery gradually flatten as we drive north, then begin to undulate again as it passes through Normandy and the Pas de Calais, linking with the similarly gently rolling hills of Kent.
This trip to England though was by plane each way. It’s quicker and it’s cheaper too.
But the whole business of packing luggage into the required dimensions, checking the weight, hunting for a clear plastic bag for those creams and liquids: then at the airport emptying pockets, removing shoes, belts, is just a bit stressful.
Airport security: an image from the Guardian
And somehow it addles my brain. Three hours ago I was in a traffic jam on the outskirts of industrial Liverpool, and now we’re driving through vineyards in the Aude? The clothes which worked in the morning don’t do in the afternoon, and I’m having trouble adjusting the language coming out of my mouth. I’m all discombobulated.
We’re lucky we have the time to be more leisurely. I’m not against taking it even more slowly and walking some of the way down, maybe along one of the pilgrimage routes towards St. Jaques de Compostelle. Anyone want to come too? Barbara? Sue K?
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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