The Médaille de la Famille Française was created on 26th May 1920, following the catastrophic losses of the First World War, and can be awarded to mothers:
Bronze medal: for raising 4 or 5 children
Silver: for raising 6 or 7 children
Gold: for raising 8 or more children.
Since 1983, fathers or non-family members who have been responsible for bringing up numbers of French children can also qualify for a medal. There’s even a Catholic priest who qualified for the award, having raised his housekeeper’s children when she died.
Why the history lesson? Well, recently, we were invited to a ceremony to award such a medal. Sadly, I was in England on the day, but Our Man in Laroque, Malcolm, has submitted his report of the event
Two French friends, Martine and Francis, have a large and happy family – six children: three boys, three girls. Recently, Francis invited us to attend a ceremony to award his wife a silver Médaille de la Famille Française– not a word to Martine about this, you understand – a family event, but to be a surprise for her.
Turned up on the dot – a quaint English practice – at the appointed place. There were only six people there, and no sign of husband or wife. Nibbles were ready and waiting on tables, along with a few bottles of champagne, and there, on a separate table, stood a framed award, a small velvet-lined box containing a medal, and flowers, beautifully wrapped in presentation packaging.
And so we waited. And waited. Gradually, more of the children arrived. But not all. Then Francis, wearing a blue suit (before, we’ve only ever seen him casually dressed). And then, eventually, Martine appeared, chauffeured by one of her boys, and looking somewhat bemused. She too was wearing some finery.
And still we waited. For the sixth, and youngest, child of the family to arrive. But she didn’t. Turned out she had a football match on, and had forgotten….
So the ceremony began without her. A smartly dressed woman of a certain age, the representative of the préfet, read a prepared speech from a sheet, Francis read another, and then presented Martine with a large bouquet of beautiful and rather exotic-looking flowers. Then came the handing over of the framed certificate, more flowers, and, most importantly, the silver medal, which was taken from its box and pinned on her.
The ceremony over, it was time for wine, nibbles, and photos.
And later? The family went back home to eat a special meal. This time, all the children were present, as the football match had ended. More posing, more photos, then an evening round the table – mother and father, their six children, a daughter-in-law, heavily pregnant, her parents, and one guest – me. I felt tremendously privileged to have been invited to this ceremony and then to their celebratory meal. Unique – I’d never been to such an event before, and doubt I’ll ever go to another like it – and moving – if integration is what we’re trying to achieve, it doesn’t come better than this.
When we first understood that Laroque is twinned with Melgven in Brittany, we were nonplussed. Surely twinning arrangements are with England, Germany, Spain – or anywhere abroad. What’s the point in twinning with a town in your own country?
Well, quite a lot as it turns out. As part of the twinning arrangements, citizens from Melgven come for a long weekend here in Laroque , while Laroquais have the chance of a few days’ stay there in May. This year, we signed up for the 10 hour mini-bus trip to Finistère
Straight away, we began to see the differences. As we arrived, we were welcomed to enjoy poking round their fundraising ‘Troc et puces’ fair in the Sports hall. The Bretons are a Celtic race, and it shows in their physical appearance. Meanwhile, down here, there’s a long tradition of Spanish immigration, most recently in the Spanish Civil War, and the Second World War, so many locals here are olive-skinned and not very tall. A tannoyed announcement for M. Garcia and M. Sanchez to report to the desk in a public hall somewhere near here would have nearly half the room scurrying to reception.
And then there’s the food. Brittany, like Britain, favours butter, and unlike the rest of France, the salted variety. Out to a meal on Saturday, the lunchtime bread came with pats of butter, something that never happens down south. In the Ariège, cooking’s done in duck fat, and more recently, olive oil. No part of Finistère is very far from the sea, so fish and seafood are an important part of the diet. Down here, duck in all forms is king. But pork, lamb, game, beef are all welcome on the dinner plate. If it moves, eat it.
When we looked round a market in Concarneau on Saturday, we were struck that there was little charcuterie or cheese on sale, and what there was came from elsewhere. It seems as if every other stall in our local Ariègois markets is one selling cheese and charcuterie, much of it from just a few miles away.
Brittany – cider and beer. Southern France – wine. As part of our welcome apéro, we were served kir made with cassis and cider. After sipping it suspiciously, we accepted refills with enthusiasm.
So…what were the highlights?
The welcome. Of course. Some Laroquais have been going on these exchanges for several years, and the warmth of the relationships forged is clear to see.
A change of scene: the countryside. Our host, Albert, took us on several walks, and we were struck with how very British this part of Brittany looks: softly rolling hillsides, woodland and meadows. We traded orchid spotting in the Ariège for enjoying the swathes of bluebell glades in the woods.
A change of scene: the town. We exchanged the shallow-roofed, unpainted or pastel coloured houses of the south for the tall white narrow pitched roofs of Brittany. Down here, we’re used to our towns and villages being shabby. Brittany’s are clean, sparklingly so, with flower boxes, neat gardens, and a general air of pride in the community. And then there are the churches. No clochers-murs in Brittany, but rather complicated steeples instead.
The seaside. Concarneau was at its sparkling best, with breezes tugging at the flags, clouds pluming across the sky, an early pre-season freshness to the narrow streets of the historic quarter. Their fishing museum there shows all too graphically just how very tough the life of the fisherman was – and is. But it’s a picturesque sight for the tourist
Sightseeing: Our first treat was to visit Locronan, a beautifully preserved granite built 16th & 17th century village, with a mighty central church, and a small chapel at the end of a charming walk.
Next was Trévarez, a chateau that might look Gothic, but is in fact a 19th and 20th century construction. Its brickwork gives it the name “château rose”. We spent more time in the gardens though. Apart from a formal area near the house itself, the garden is informal in the style we’re so used to from English stately homes, and glorious at the moment with azaleas and rhododendrons
Celtic music: Friday night was concert night: the chance to listen to an hour or two of traditional Breton music. Malcolm and I particularly enjoyed hearing those favourite Welsh hymns – Land of my Fathers, Cwm Rhondda in Breton– they sounded very different, but just as good
Story telling: Such a treat. Michel Sevellec enchants audiences in Finistère and beyond with his tales drawn from many traditions. On Saturday, as part of a local festival, we joined local children to hear his interpretation of Native American and other stories. Can’t wait for him to come to Laroque in a fortnight!
Crêpes:Everyone knows they make crêpes in Brittany. Lots of us have watched them being turned out on those special round hotplates. I always assumed it was easy-peasy. Until we went to eat crêpes at Albert’s mum’s house and she let me have a go. First, carefully pour the batter with your left hand while equally carefully drawing the batter round the plate with a special wooden spatula – not too fast & not too slow, not too thin & not too thick.
Expert at work
Then flip the delicate creation, so thin you could read a newspaper through it, over onto its other side to finish cooking. It was lucky there were hungry dogs to eat all my cast-offs. Lucky for us too perhaps: we’d still be eating them now. Malcolm and I thought 6 crêpes each ought to have been enough for anybody. Our hostess disagreed.
So….we discovered in Brittany an area very different from our own in languages, customs and appearance, and had a chance to be more than simply tourists. We now have new friends in Melgven but also in Laroque as a direct result of this weekend. A good experience.
Pont Aven: I didn’t even mention this lovely little town, did I?
1st May, 4.00 p.m. The washing machine’s just finished washing strappy tops and shorts, but I’m sitting here in front of a cosy log fire watching the rain scything it down in true British style. This time 2 days ago it was 37 in the shade, today it’s 11. What’s gone wrong?
As in England, I suppose the reason is that it’s a national holiday, and few people are at work. In fact it’s THE national holiday, la Fête du Travail. Only a few neighbourhood shops are open, and then only in the morning: no supermarkets, garages, big stores – no newspapers today either. But that doesn’t mean there’s no commercial activity. Oh no! Today’s the day when everyone offers one another a traditional token of friendship and esteem – a sprig or two of lily of the valley, prettily presented. In every village, every town, you’ll find people on street corners, outside the bakers’, at the cross roads, selling the flowers that they probably spent yesterday gathering and tying into pretty posies. Here in Laroque we had groups of children as entrepreneurs. A friend of mine went to Mirepoix to set out her stall, and she’s made 70 euros. It’s the one day of the year when anyone who wants to can sell on the streets without a licence – so long as they’re selling only lilies of the valley (muguets).
I must have asked a dozen people the origin of this tradition. Nobody knows. ‘It’s simply to offer bonheur’, they shrugged. But Léonce had a couple of stories to tell. We all know that lilies of the valley have a strong and lovely perfume. The nightingale smells them as they come into flower on the first of May, and this gives him the energy he needs to get into the woods and begin courting, nest building, and singing. And those bell shaped flowers? Well, they apparently surround the Heavenly Gates, where they come in handy by tinkling musically to announce the arrival of another soul from earth.
Waking up to birdsong outside our window, it was tempting to enjoy the serenity of Le Mas des Anges: but it was Montauban we’d come to see. And what a town it is. Here’s our day in the town, in a slide show.
Montauban’s got something of a Protestant history, and has had its share of bloody times, even having almost 10 years of English rule in the middle ages. Now, however, life is more tranquil, with traffic-free streets. There’s time to enjoy the ancient rose-brick streets and mediaeval squares; the secret courtyards; the slow progress of the Tarn with its central island which is a giant housing estate for egrets and herons; the gardens and open spaces. For us, there were restaurants to choose between, and later, idiosyncratic tea rooms with calorie-laden cakes, and all sorts of non-chain-shops we’d have liked to explore…. We’ll be back. We finished the day, tired but content, picnicking above the vineyard at le Mas des Anges, and later, talking with our hosts. We’ll be back there too
‘We worked on the house in England. We’ve slaved on the house in France. Enough! We’re going to have a break’. This was me, stamping my foot, and determined to get my own way, last weekend. And eventually, Malcolm gave in, reluctantly put down his saw, his chisel, his boxes of screws, and we settled on Montauban, a city often overlooked in favour of Toulouse.
It was an inspired choice. Getting there took most of the day, because we meandered along miles of country roads, bright with the sharp fresh greens of newly sprouting crops and creamy apple, cherry, almond and hawthorn blossom.
Castelnau de Montmiral
After lunch, we were in wine-growing country – Gaillac – and it was then that we started to hit a succession of picture-postcard-pretty villages: three of them in fact qualify for the title ‘Un des plus beaux villages de France’: Castelnau de Montmiral, Puycelsi, Bruniquel. We enjoyed mooching round all of them. Each was different, but they all had charming mediaeval buildings and alleyways, pots of flowers and shrubs at doorways and windows, and lovely views over rather Shropshire-ish countryside.
Puycelsi
Not for one second did we hanker after living there. No community notices about Loto evenings, vide greniers, concerts in the church. No people, actually. In fact many of the houses were shut up (second homes?), and none of them looked as if they belonged to horny-handed-sons-of-toil. Commercial activity, where it existed, belonged to the artisan potters, jewellery and textile makers. But I’m glad they were there for us to while away an afternoon exploring.
Bruniquel
The day ended well, too. Le Mas des Anges, about 5 miles from Montauban, turned out to be a big part of the inspired choice. It’s where, after our first night there, we decided to stay another.
Juan and Sophie, our hosts, absorbed us, apparently effortlessly, into their enthusiasm for their life there. ‘Passionate about…’ is a slightly hackneyed phrase these days, but Juan IS passionate about the wine he produces, and we had a great time looking at his equipment and cellars, before settling down to taste what he had to offer. Sophie has a great talent for making the guest accommodation charming and welcoming, and the breakfasts….yum!
Come to the Ariège on Easter Monday, and you won’t be too far from a community omelette. Communes and clubs all over the department seek out their biggest frying pan, get hold of dozens of eggs, sugar and rum, to make this sweet confection to round off, with any luck, the first barbecue of the season. Why? Nobody in our walking group could tell me, and Google wasn’t much help, but it does seem to be an ancient tradition dating back to….ooh, 1973 at least.
Anyway, the Rando del’Aubo have made this an annual event for some years now. For the last couple, it’s been rainy and cold. Not this year though. Down at the bottom of the page, you’ll find a few pictures of our walk between La Pène, an Audois hamlet on a delightful small lake, and Monthaut, which is a hill….higher up. It was a great way to work up an appetite.
Because the weather was warm, sunny and spring-like, we relaxed at the lakeside after our walk, chatting and enjoying those woodsmokey smells of a barbecue coming to life. Apéros first: Muscat, suze, pernod, whisky…all the usual French tipples, with nibbles to stem our hunger. Then grilled pork, grilled Toulouse sausage, bread (and wine of course), Coulommiers cheese, vanilla or chocolate pudding. And then we still had to find room for the all-important omelette.
Since the beginning of time, it’s been Marie-Therèse’s ‘job’ (good French word, that) to make the omelette, and of course it all ended in noisy recriminations because there were too many cooks all muscling in, breaking eggs, beating eggs, heating the pan, greasing the pan, measuring the rum. Half the raw egg mixture tipped out onto the grass, and Etienne and Danielle dashed off to every farm they could find to buy another….. 4 dozen.
Finally, it was done. Really, this omelette is scrambled egg with lots of sugar chucked in at the end, and flambéed with rum. Once a year is quite enough.
It wasn’t the end of the party though. Oh no. We couldn’t go before downing glasses of Blanquette de Limoux, an Alpine eau-de-vie, then cups of coffee (with madeleines, in case we were still hungry). And as a final touch, Easter eggs.
We came away suntanned and rather full, at the end of an Easter Monday that was one of the first really hot and sunny days of the year. A taste of things to come?
I love Atout Fruit. It’s a relatively small, but very effective local organisation that exists to protect and promote our heritage of local and ancient varieties of fruit trees. By being a member, I’ve learned such a lot at some of their monthly workshops. I’ve for instance practised grafting (as in:
‘a. To unite (a shoot or bud) with a growing plant by insertion or by placing in close contact.
Actually, what I learned about grafting, when I did it last year, was that it wasn’t my thing. It’s very steady meticulous work, demanding razor sharp knives and attention to detail, deeply unsuited to a slap-dash like me. My painstakingly grafted specimen died within weeks.
But there have been sessions on pruning, on traditional methods of gathering and preserving fruits, using those fruits in cooking….and so on. Later this month, the session on growing biodynamically will be held in our garden, and I just can’t wait.
I’m different from most other members. I don’t just mean that I’m English, though there’s that too. Most ‘adherents’ were born with more know-how than I will ever have about trees and crops, and practice their skills every day. Nearly all the rest have this background to their lives, even if they have themselves moved away from their ‘paysan’ origins. I hesitate to use the word ‘peasant’ in English, because of the somewhat negative picture it paints. Not here. Even University graduates who have returned to the land are proud to describe themselves as ‘paysan’. It’s been great for me that everyone is keen to help me and seems pleased that I want to learn: nobody patronises my amateurishness.
Sorting those saplings
Once a year, Atout Fruit is given a range of tree seedlings to hand out free to members – mainly fruiting trees, but other indigenous and introduced species too. Members pore over the spread sheets of offerings and make their choices, and wait for the day when we can all go and collect. I felt greedy: I’d chosen 10, but later found that others, with larger pieces of land, had chosen 20, 40, even 100 saplings. This year I volunteered to help sort and distribute the trees, and drove to Claude’s place (which includes a wonderfully eco-efficient house of straw), high above lake Montbel, where it was all happening. My job was to help replace the battered identification labels with rather more legible ones, and make up orders with members as they arrived. Have you ever tried to distinguish an 18-inch high mulberry whip from a crabapple or a wild cherry? Best leave it to the experts….. Later, warmed by glasses of hot coffee, 4 of us made up the bundles of trees for the people who hadn’t been able to come to collect. Here’s a picture of some hard work in a chilly barn: merci, Claude!
Later that day, I planted my seedlings in pots, or direct in the garden. I had quite a time of it. But that’s another story….
Yesterday, the day here in Laroque started with the threat of snow, finally realised this morning. But with our Rando group, we set off for the brighter if bracing Corbières.
The Corbières are of course well known for wine production. As our mini-bus reached the area, we saw no cows, sheep, donkeys…or any animals at all. What we did see was acre after acre of vineyards, along the narrow plains, scrambling up the hillsides, with each Domaine favouring a different style of pruning, from the wild and wiry abundance of tendrils clearly being left alone till the spring, to almost knobbly stumps sticking bare out of the ground, scalped of any living shoot.
The Abbey, as we first saw it
Walking here is so very different from the Ariège. The scrubby garrigue, so reminiscent of Spain, is covered in tough herbs such as rosemary and thyme, tiny wiry green oak trees with richly burnished brown acorns, and olive trees. The soil is sandy, shot through with red ferruginous deposits. There were views of the sea, of distant castles, and of the monastery we’d come to see, Fontfroide. We loved it as a change, but this scenery simply seemed lacking in the variety that our own patch offers – map reading was a nightmare, so we’ll stick with it as a holiday destination, we think. Still, our trek was invigorating in the bright winter sunshine, and it was a good way to spend the morning before an afternoon devoted to cultural matters.
The elegant courtyard, once the scene of manual labour
The Abbey of Fontfroide was founded as a Benedictine abbey in 1093 and affiliated with the Cistercians in 1145. It began its history then, as a Romanesque gem, though it was added to in Gothic, Romanesque and elegant 17th and 18th times. It’s been privately owned since it ceased to be a monastery in 1901, and in this last century, accomplished craftspeople have continued to restore and add to it. Quite simply, it is an architectural gem.
It looks old - but it's Catalan and early 20th century
Right from its early days, the monastery flourished and soon became a centre of orthodoxy. The murder in 1208 of Pierre de Castelnau, a Fontfroide monk and legate to Pope Innocent III, led to the Albigensian Crusade, which is such a living part of our history over here, at nearby Montségur. After peace was restored, construction on Fontfroide Abbey continued. The influence of the abbey soon dominatedthe entire region, all the way to Catalonia, and a daughter monastery was founded in Poblet. After the Black Death, the monastery had a chequered history, but it always escaped physical damage, and was often added to and improved with taste and elegance. Nowadays, it’s almost unique among Cistercian abbeys in being in such wonderful condition.
The cloisters
The Abbey of Fontfroide is an excellent example of the kind of monastic town prescribed by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in which the buildings and surrounding gardens and land contain everything necessary for simple living. The monks devoted themselves to hard work and worship, and had no contact with the lay people who worked there too, physically separated from the monastic community. This is only apparent now whenpointed out, but despite the Abbey now being in private hands, many ecclesiastical references remain, especially in the cloisters and church. If you ever have the opportunity, do visit this very special place.
Well, I mentioned Patrimoine in my last blog. Yesterday we had Our Farming Heritage, an event organised by Pays d’art et d’histoire des Pyrénées Cathares. 20 or so of us turned up at a nearby village, Troye d’Ariège, to have a look round a traditionally run sheep farm.
Very pregnant sheep out in the fields
The event was immediately hi-jacked by an unscheduled event – the birth of a lamb. Out in a field, a mother sheep heaved herself up, plonked herself down, then up again, baahing loudly, until suddenly, quite suddenly, there was the front half of a lamb hanging out of her. A bit more wriggling and fussing, and there was the lamb, out on the grass, while the mother flopped beside it. A few minutes later, both were standing again. No shelter, no farmer in attendance – no need to worry apparently. These sheep are Tarasconnais, ‘The 2 CV of the sheep world’ said the farmer: rough and ready sheep who can turn their hooves to anything – wool production, milk and meat production, surviving on their own: molly-coddling is not required. They even get on with delivering their lambs regularly all the year round, somehow producing between them a steady crop of young, without human intervention.
Over to the lambing sheds then, where the mothers, having delivered, come inside for a while with their lambs. The noise! Dozens of lambs constantly baahing in their high-pitched tones, while the mothers hit more melodious lower notes. Hopeless to try to follow all that the farmer, Marcel, was telling us.
Maize - a winter treat
Marcel runs his farm of 800 sheep by himself, helped only by an apprentice (who has to go to College in among, of course) and occasional visits from a retired farm hand.
...and this is a huge cage for drying and storing it.
He grows their feed – hay, beets & maize, keeps the animals fed and watered, dips them against insects monthly, de-parasites them every 3 months, regularly cuts 800 sets of hooves (he’s devised various metal narrow bus-shelter-style contraptions to make it easier to queue the animals up take their turns for these various procedures).
View from the 'treatment' shed
He’s not organic, but many of his practices are, and he certainly usually chooses, for example, organic treatments if his beasts fall ill, believing them to be better.
Supper time
Every summer, about 400 of his sheep go off to the mountains with a shepherd, following the ancient tradition of transhumance. The old, the young and the weak remain behind.
As the sun went down, it got colder and colder. Time for the next part of the evening, an Apéritif dinatoire. What this meant was that everyone from the farm walk and most of the village inhabitants got together to choose and share plates of local sausage, hams, pâtés, cheeses, bread, wine, apple croustades and fruit, mainly sourced from no more than 10 miles away.
Apéritif dinatoire over, time to clear the tables
The atmosphere got merrier and merrier, and yet, come half past eight, the tables were cleared, and we all sat down for a lecture (this is Saturday evening we’re talking about…..).
Eric Fabre, a university lecturer specialising in the farming history of our area painted a picture of 19th century life in which most people farmed tiny patches of land: only the Church and a very few landowners had substantial holdings. People grew what they and their few animals needed, and the sheep they had were valued for the manure they produced, and secondly for their wool. The meat got eaten, of course, but it only became a marketable product following urbanisation, when town based workers no longer had land of their own. The farmers listening to all this were even more interested then we were, and question time was lively. But it was late and we were tired, and in the end, we were glad to go. 11 o’clock seems well past bedtime when you’ve had a day down on the farm.
Accent –local: If standard French is a challenge, how much more so is the local accent? Remember school French, and being told that usually you don’t pronounce the final letter? Doesn’t apply here. ‘Pain’ is ‘peng’, ‘loin’ is ‘lueng’, and so on. ‘G’s happen a lot – ‘tous ensemble’ becomes ‘tous angsamble’
L’Apero, l’heure de: Great custom
Bio: – organic. Buying organic food is ‘normale’ here, especially at the markets.
Bountiful free food: The hoarding season’s pretty much past its best now. We’ve been out looking for walnuts, almonds, chestnuts, rosehips, apples, sloes and coming home with the kind of quantities that will see us through the year. It’s a full time job.
Butterflies: So many varieties, and seen everywhere, almost all the year round. Even yesterday, November 22nd.
Courtesy: Walking down the street here, it’s normal to offer greetings to everyone you meet. ‘Bonjour Madame!’ With anyone you actually know, you shake hands, maybe exchange bises on both cheeks. Small children greet you, surly teenagers greet you. It’s one of the real pleasures of small town life.
This sheep is currently not on milk-for-cheese duties
Cheeses: Cows, goats, sheep, all busily producing milk for dozens of varieties of (preferably non pasteurised) cheese: soft, hard, creamy, runny, mild, stinky.
Dépêche du Midi (La): It’s the local daily. We don’t often buy it, as world events seem to pass it by in favour of the marriage of the local lass in La Bastide de Bousignac.
En cas où…….. Out walking, we always have a spare bag stuffed in a pocket. En cas où we find some mushrooms, a handful of berries, some windfalls, a log for the fire. Everybody does it.
Fêtes Festivals and Fun: No weekend is complete without its fête, or festival, somewhere nearby. The other weekend saw the Fête de la Transhumance at le Sautel, with cows and sheep returning to the lowlands. There was a food market, a vide grenier (see below), films, dancing, a barbary organ, a big communal meal on Sunday. Le Sautel is a hamlet rather than a village, but it hasn’t stopped it running a right good show. Recently, there have been la Fête de la Noisette at Lavelanet, la Fête de la Figue at Mas d’Azil…. and in among, there are small local fêtes in nearby villages. No need to get bored at weekends, ever.
Gallic shrugs and gestures. I’ve posted about this before, and do you know, I don’t think my accent’s getting any better. I’m rubbish (shakes left hand vigorously with floppy movement from wrist)
History: I love it that so many people, especially older people, seem to know so much about the history of the region. They’re proud to tell you stories of times past, farming traditions and customs.
Ingenuity: The sort of make-do-and-mend that is such a feature of English allotment life is even more commonplace here. Our garden shed is made of several old doors, a redundant polystyrene fish box, random bits of corrugated iron and plastic screwed together, ancient bits of wire netting and bits of string. To our knowledge it’s been standing 20 years or more, and it’s not about to fall down.
Junk: Freecycle may not exist here – yet – but one person’s junk is another person’s lucky find. We take our household rubbish to central collection points – no dustbin collections here. On Sunday evenings, lots of people (including us, naturally) will be hovering to walk off with and make use of discarded pans, empty packaging, toys, plant pots….
Kilometres and Kilometres of space….. North Yorkshire, which always seems spacious by English standards, has a population density of 74 people per square km. The Ariège has 28. So there’s plenty of room
Lizards: Our garden companions on any sunny day
Lunar calendar: Planting by the phases of the moon is completely mainstream here. Gardening magazines carry free lunar calendars early every spring, and anybody you talk to will give you unsolicited advice on which day the moon dictates you get those spuds into the ground
Monday market, Mirepoix
Markets: The best and happiest way to shop for fresh seasonal food. Don’t be in a hurry though.
Music: So important here. Concerts of every kind, cheap or free, in public buildings, market halls and squares, and churches everywhere. Choirs (introduced to a large extent by the English apparently) in most communes – I belong to two. Bands and singers at fêtes. Even small towns like ours have their own music centres. And lots of bars are home to groups of local musicians too.
Non! Protest comes naturally to the French. We’ve even been on a ‘manif’ ourselves, protesting at teacher cuts. But you won’t travel too far in France before you see signs painted, very large, across the road. ‘Non à l’ours’ (bears are being reintroduced to the Pyrénées, to the disgust of the farmers). ‘Non à la déchetterie!’ (tip), ‘Non aux aeoliennes !’ (wind farms)
Occitan: The everyday language of south western France until well into the 20th century, the Lenga d’òc is little spoken now, thanks to the systematic imposition of the French language in the early years of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, we do hear the elderly speaking it from time to time. It’s once again taught as an option in schools, and in adult education classes. I love passing through the many places that celebrate their Occitan heritage by having town and street names expressed in Occitan as well as French – Autariba rather than Auterive for example.
Patrimoine in the Pays d’Olmes et Pyrénées: ‘Patrimoine’ translates I suppose as ‘heritage’, but it’s not quite as chintzy and twee as that word suggests. Everyone here is proud of their history, and there’s so much going on to celebrate it – talks, walks, conferences, often with a meal thrown in. Just join the party!
Sunset over Roquefixade
Queuing. Don’t let anyone tell you that only the English queue. It’s part of life in neighbourhood shops and markets here. But it’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity to chat with friends and strangers, exchanging local gossip, recipes, scandals. If it’s our cheese man in Lavelanet market, he’ll join in too, and you’ll never get away
Restaurants: I’m not thinking of the elegant once-in-a-blue-moon meal out. I’m thinking of the ‘formule’ at midday, when to a large extent you get what you’re given, in copious and well cooked quantities. Take today, when we went to a fairly down-at-heel looking brasserie on a busy street corner at the wrong end of town. Great salad, followed by tender tasty magret de canard and wonderfully creamy dauphinoise potatoes, a home made concoction of fromage blanc and crème chantilly, coffee, wine, all for 12 euros. We shan’t be eating again today….
Shopping-centre-free-zone. Bliss. Also, though this has recently been partially undermined, almost no Sunday shopping. AND shops usually close for between 2 and 4 hours at midday
Temperatures: Proper seasons here. Summers are hot, winters cold. Autumn, warm, is a time of glorious colour and food for free. Spring, warm, is a treat for its flowers
Underwear. If you want to be disabused of the notion that the French are chic, that haute couture rules, go to any market stall selling women’s undies. Turquoise knickers, orange bras, lime green or luridly lavender matching sets….. And while you’re there, check out those lovely pinafore dresses so beloved of French women of a certain age. Wonder when I’ll be old enough to wear one?
The Tour de France whips down our street in 2008
Vélo . Cycling’s big here. Any cyclist, old or young, is kitted out in skin tight lycra, and may well own a bike costing several thousand euros. There’s a cycling club here that meets on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Its runs are routinely 120 km. or more (and it’s very hilly). The wimps manage some 80 km., but only ‘les ancêtres’ can get away with a mere 40 km or so
A lucky find at a vide grenier?
Vide Greniers; People here empty their attics instead of filling their car boots. Any Sunday in spring, summer or autumn some commune or another nearby will have a Vide Grenier organized. One of the larger streets, and probably a few more besides, will have been taken over by the sellers, who display their goods from early morning till supper time,. It’s the same mixture as an English car boot sale, with the addition of all kinds of rusting tools and junk that really HAS come out of the attic. Nobody will buy it. It’ll just appear at the next sale
A walk with our group, near Tarascon
Walking: so many walks, so much variety. We love learning about new places to explore from books, from maps, from talking to friends, from walking groups. We’ll never run out of fresh walks to try, ever.
Wood-burning stoves: So cosy, we really looked forward to November chill. As for foraging for wood, see ‘en cas où ’, above
Xmas. In early September, a friend over from the UK said that Christmas had already started in the shops. We’re happy to report that nothing at all will happen here until the first week of December at the earliest. Wonderful.
You: Here, there’s the whole tricky business of ‘tu’ or ‘vous’, and it’s a minefield. Children and your friends are of course ‘tu’. The shopkeeper, the bank manager and those adults you really don’t know, are obviously ‘vous’. But there’s a whole grey area in between. Fellow randonneurs and choir members generally settle for ‘tu’ from Day 1, on the grounds we’re all in this together. But not necessarily. Last year at Choir, I sat between 2 women, both more or less my age, both chatty and friendly. To one I was routinely ‘tu’, to the other. ‘vous’. And I was supposed to pick the bones out of that??
Zero Neuf: 09, the Ariège, our department. We love the space, the huge variety of scenery. There’s gently rolling countryside that wouldn’t be out of place in Shropshire with its orchards and winding lanes, oak and beech forests, gentle foothills with grey Gascon cattle, and stunning, awe-inspiring mountains with craggy outcrops and peaks. And all within easy reach of our house.
A few minutes from our house...and this is the view
Since 1983, fathers or non-family members who have been responsible for bringing up numbers of French children can also qualify for a medal. There’s even a Catholic priest who qualified for the award, having raised his housekeeper’s children when she died.
Turned up on the dot – a quaint English practice – at the appointed place. There were only six people there, and no sign of husband or wife. Nibbles were ready and waiting on tables, along with a few bottles of champagne, and there, on a separate table, stood a framed award, a small velvet-lined box containing a medal, and flowers, beautifully wrapped in presentation packaging.
So the ceremony began without her. A smartly dressed woman of a certain age, the representative of the préfet, read a prepared speech from a sheet, Francis read another, and then presented Martine with a large bouquet of beautiful and rather exotic-looking flowers. Then came the handing over of the framed certificate, more flowers, and, most importantly, the silver medal, which was taken from its box and pinned on her.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
You must be logged in to post a comment.