From Pyrenees to Pennines

Volunteering, French style

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.

Tourist information: Bath and beyond

We’re back in France, to rather strange mid-January scenes. Our local skiers’ playground at Mont d’Olmes appears to have only a dusting of snow, though it claims to have 5 pistes open. Our garden’s full of marigolds flowering alongside the snowdrops, and on a walk yesterday afternoon, dressed in light pullovers, we heard birds singing ceaselessly, apparently to welcome the spring as they busily seemed to be putting winter behind them.

And so it was in England too. We rarely wrapped up warmly, and enjoyed being out and about in the balmy conditions.

Best of all was our trip to the part of the country that includes parts of South Gloucestershire and Witshire and Somerset, to stay with my daughter-in-law’s family. They took a dim view of our lack of knowledge of their end of the country, and set about putting things right.

Everyone knows Bath as a Roman stronghold and as a wonderfully intact 18^th century city much visited by Jane Austen. No wonder it’s an UNESCO World Heritage site. We had to be content with a taster session. And we began with a stroll across Pulteney Bridge, which has shops on it, like Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, and along the Avon to enjoy the views of the Abbey and Parade Gardens.

Bath Abbey’s an ancient church, but what we see today- a light graceful building soaring upwards to spectacular stone fan vaulting – is largely the work of the Victorian Gilbert Scott. Every wall is covered with memorials: so many people came to Bath to ‘take the waters’ and then upped and died. Plumbers, admirals, sugar plantation owners, soldiers – they’re all here.

Time for a coffee break. Where else but the 18^th century Pump Room, where we decided a Bath Bun was a good idea, a sulphurous glass of spa water a very bad one?

We can’t recommend the Roman Baths Museum highly enough. After spending several hours there, we feel as if we’ve had a real taste of the life of a Roman citizen living, working, playing and praying in Bath during that period. The baths themselves have been very sensitively and imaginatively interpreted. If near Bath, just go!

After that, a quick stroll round the 18^th century. The graceful symmetry of streets like the Royal Crescent is so impressive: just don’t look round the back, you’re not meant to.

Next day, we were tourists too. England at its most picturesque. Cotswold villages with solid stone-walled, stone tiled cottages.

Back in the medieval period and beyond, Castle Combe used to be a centre for the local woollen industry. Now, more often than not, it’s a film set, the scene of many a period drama on TV or at the cinema. And Lacock is so picture-postcard perfect that almost the whole village is owned by the National Trust. Great for a relaxing visit. I wonder what it’s like to live there.

We’d mooched happily round these two villages for some while. But after all that we needed to step out and stretch our legs. Kennet and Avon Canal anybody? Brian and Sue chose for our walk the Caen Hill Locks, a flight of 16 locks packed tight together, one after the other, with ponds at the side to store the water needed to operate the locks. We thought our walk up the canal banks used quite enough calories. What if we’d been taking a canal boat up the entire flight and beyond, through lock-gate after lock-gate? This 100 mile canal has more than 100 of them in total…..

A wonderful couple of days then, steeped in history and splendid views and countryside. We’ll be back – if Brian and Sue’ll have us.

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A hairdo at the post office

Only in England, surely?

Sorry about the rotten photo – I only had my mobile with me.

Red kites

One of the daily pleasures of our Life in Laroque is watching the birds of prey, particularly buzzards and red kites, wheeling above our heads, catching the eddying breezes.

One of our pleasures here back in Yorkshire, is doing exactly that, now that red kites have become almost common round and about Harrogate.

It was back in 1999 that red kites were first re-introduced to Yorkshire, to Harewood. Back then it was a rare treat to spot one, a newsworthy event to share with all your friends. Gradually they became more common, though no less exciting. Then last time we were here, we spotted one lazily coasting over the Yorkshire Showground, only a very few miles from Harewood as the kite flies. Later that day, there were others, this time over the relatively urban Knaresborough Road estate. This visit, we’ve spotted them for the first time in the part of north Harrogate where we used to live.

And then today, after lunch catching up with a good friend – thank you Cath – I took myself off for a walk. Soaring above me, then plunging down, so very close that I could clearly see his breast plumage, was a red kite, nearer to me than one has ever been before. It made my day.

Technologically challenged

We’ve been staying with Daughter Number One and family. It’s a treat for us to have evenings in with the twins, and so one evening we sent Ellie and Phil off for a rare Night Out. Then we bathed the boys, wallowed in a few bed-time stories together, kissed them goodnight. And went downstairs to watch TV.

Twenty minutes later, we were still battling with remote controls, switches, buttons and flashing lights. Incomprehensible messages flashed up on screen, none of them to do with that evening’s viewing. We gave up and read the paper.

‘Oooh, I’m sorry’, said Ellie when we complained later. ‘I suppose it’s a bit complicated at first. You should have got Ben up. He’d have sorted it out for you.’

Ben’s 6.

Back in France, we go out with our walking group most Sundays. ‘Most’, not ‘all’. Some are just too damn’ tough, but more often, it’s because the walk’s been cancelled. Rain stopped play. Unlike their English counterparts, no French hiker wants to hole up behind some convenient rock at midday to fuel up on a damp spam sandwich. No, lunchtime on a French walk is the opportunity for an extended picnic in some scenic spot, when someone will produce a pastis, someone else a home-made cake or chunks of chocolate, and the whole thing will be rounded off with sugar lumps soaked in some potent home made hooch. And you can’t do that when the weather’s poor.

We English are made of sterner stuff. As we discovered just after Christmas. Our Friends Hatti and Paul arrange a post-festivity walk for about 20 of their friends each year. It blows away the cobwebs and gets rid of some of those unwanted calories we all seem to absorb throughout December.

On the day, it was intermittently raining. The wind was gusting and the sky was solidly grey. Did anyone cancel? Certainly not! Instead we were all welcomed at our rendez-vous point with hot coffee or a warming nip of home made sloe gin, and route -maps to send us on our way.

The walk itself was under 5 miles long. But we got our work-out alright. Leg muscles strained to heave limbs out of gloopy mud, or to leap from stepping stone to stepping stone across overrflowing streams. Vocal chords often gave up the unequal struggle as wind whipped away shouted attempts at conversation. Our feet became heavier and heavier with the weight of solid clay sticking to our boots .

But it was fine, dear French reader. We had fun. Along the route, we spotted a rainbow which accompanied our path for much of the journey. Welcome pauses in the wind and rain gave us the chance to appreciate the scenery: the skeletal trees set against the grey-green hillsides: the stone farm cottages and the folly at Azerley and the rushing tumbling streams which punctuated our journey.

No soggy spam sandwiches for us. At journey’s end, we were snug and warm in the Queen’s Head at Kirby Malzeard. Paul and Hatti had organised sandwiches and chips to be be ready and waiting as we arrived. And that, surely, is the perfect walk. A good work-out in good company in lovely countryside, followed by the chance to relax and laugh with friends and food, knowing that nothing more taxing than a hot bath and cosy evening indoors remains to conclude a well-spent day.