France, Summer 2010: Week 13

Sunday 22 August - Saturday 29 August

Delia went to the the church here in Neffiès on Sunday morning.  We did nothing much for the rest of the day.  It was very hot.

On Monday again we didn't do very much, except that I ordered a new camera, because the lens movement on the old one no longer worked properly.  I'd tried all the suggestions I could find on the internet with no luck.  What I ordered (at around 4:40 pm) was a Sony DSC-W350 (14.1 MP, 4x zoom, Carl Zeiss lens etc).  I couldn't find a compact digital camera with a viewfinder and just hope that the screens are brighter now than in 2007 when I bought the last one.

On Tuesday we had an appointment at our bank in Pézenas to see the man who looks after our account, to ask his advice about whether we can transfer our existing house loan to another house.  The simple answer is yes, although the notaire will need to be involved.  We also asked various other questions, but he basically put our minds at ease about our project.  We went into an estate agent, the one that Jody used to work from.  We met a nice young British woman called Emma Weaver who gave us some sensible advice.  We then went shopping at Carrefour in Pézenas, for a change and because it's a bit bigger than the Intermarché.  Not a huge success.

Before dinner we decided to go for a brisk walk, down Chemin de Caux Vieux, left along the Caux road a bit, left at the big house, first left, along to the old water mill and up the pretty path.  We noticed some people at the water mill who turned out to be Diane, Nick and Nick's mother Pat.  So we had a chat and invited Nick and Pat to dinner next evening (Diane had to stay at home and baby sit) to talk over old Rothwell, because they both used to live there.

So, having arranged for dinner guests the previous evening, we had to do some more shopping in Pézenas on Wednesday.  We waited for La Poste before going and to our surprise the camera arrived: what an excellent delivery service, less than 43 hours after ordering on line.  We went first to the Bricomarché and bought a French mains extension lead, so we could have brighter lights on the terrace for our dinner guests.  It's now quite dark at 9 pm.  Then we shoppped at the Intermarché as usual.

The camera seems excellent, with extra clever things like smile detection and panoramic mode, plus even more automatic sensing for things like backlight and macro.  The video mode might well be worth a try, but a bigger memory stick would be needed.  The 1 GB one from my old camera is only good for 14 minutes, or about 150 photos.  They do up to 32 GB now.

Dinner on the terrace worked very well, with two standard lamps providing just the right light.  We had Rick Stein's salad, followed by carbonnade Nîmoise, followed by little home made fruit tarts.

On Thursday we went to Serignan Plage, picking some more blue flowers (they are now at their peak) and getting fruit from the stall on the way back as usual.  It was almost too windy on the beach: the Windfinder forecast had said between 8 and 11 knots wind speed (10 knots is 18.5 km/hour).

It was forecast to be cloudy in the morning on Friday, so we went for a walk after a late breakfast: Caylus road, up past the pylon, round to the right, goats' trail, through the trees on the ridge and back home (6.7 Km, 1¾ hours).  We set out too late really because the cloud cover had gone for the last ¾ hour or so and it was very hot for walking.

Sister Christine came on Saturday, flying from Bristol to Béziers.  We spent a lot of the day cleaning the house and getting ourselves ready for her and for our other visitors in September.  Christine's flight left late and arrived early, so we were home only a few minutes after 8 pm, when the flight was due in.  "Late" and "Early" are relative terms with Ryanair because they allow longer for the flight than necessary.  The weather had turned a bit cooler, only about 27°C at 8 pm, so we had dinner in the kitchen: melon, lamb tagine & fruit tarts.

France, Summer 2010: Week 12

Sunday 15 August - Saturday 21 August

On Sunday we went to church at Conas and enjoyed the sermon by Mark.  Mark and his partner Nick were staying in Neffiès, it turned out, for a week, so we gave them our number and suggested they give us a call and come round for a drink or dinner or whatever.

Then we had been invited to Sheila and David's for a barbecue lunch.  There were 25 of us, lots of room in their lovely garden next to the pool.  There were several people there that we knew (Diane and Nick included), plus some British people living in Neffiès that we hadn't met before.  Later some went for a swim.  We got home around 7 pm.  This is the life.

All we can remember about Monday is that we went for a short walk in the early evening, but otherwise stayed at home.

On Tuesday also we did not do much during the day.  In the evening we had dinner early and went to a concert by Cambridge Chorale at Roujan church.  They were in Roujan at La Maison Verte for a week and were really, really good.  The programme was:

    * Extraits de Lamentationes Ieremiae Prophetae - Alonso Lobo (1555-1617)
    * As torrents in summer - Edward Elgar (1887-1934)
    * The Blue Bird - C V Stanford (1852-1924)
    * All Creatures Now - John Bennet (1599-1614)
    * Messe - Frank Martin
    * Psalm 121, requiem aeternam, I heard a voice from heaven du Requiem - Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
    * Chattanooga Choo-Choo - Harry Warren (1883-1983), arr Dave Maychel
    * The Nearness of You - Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981), arr Mark Gillard
    * Country Gardens - Percy Grainger (1882-1961), arr David Tall

The Frank Martin piece must have been particularly hard to sing but they performed it so well that they sounded like one instrument instead of many voices.  There were lots of people there that we knew.  We went to the reception afterwards and talked to Angela and also somebody from church called Bobbie and a French lady.  Most of the Neffiès people had gone home for a late dinner, we assume.  Delia is now on the e-mailing list for La Maison Verte, which is an arts centre but specialising in music, as the (British) people who run it are themselves musicians.

We had planned for Wednesday to be a beach day (postponed from Tuesday because we heard about the concert), but Mark phoned in the morning to suggest a meeting.  He and Nick came around at 4.30 pm for "afternoon tea" in the courtyard.  We had a very enjoyable time; they are on the same wavelength as us.

Delia went to French in the morning on Thursday.  The meteo had said that it would be cloudy, so we went on a three to four hour walk.  Unfortunately the meteo was wrong and the sun shone most of the time, so we sweated and glowed rather a lot.  The walk included some new bits that were very nice, on the Roujan side of the main Roujan/Vailhan road.

On Friday we went on a Balade Vigneronne, with the Cave Coopérative.  This started at 9 am with a two-hour walk through vineyards and up the hills west of Neffiès.  It was a bit too hot for this really.  There was not time to come down via the mineshaft so we returned by a shorter route, to dégustation in the cave.  Then there was a short tour of the winemaking bits, followed by an excellent lunch at Les Goutailles, with three wines, one for each course.  It cost €13 each.  Then we came home to bed to sleep it off.

We finally got to go to the beach on Saturday, to Serignan Plage.  On the way, when we were driving parallel to the A75 just before we had intended to get onto it at Pézenas, we noticed that the traffic was stationary.  So we kept on the N9 to Valros, where there was another little bouchon for the traffic lights in the village, just like when we used to stay there.  We turned left at Valros and went across country (Montblanc, Saint-Thibéry, Vias, Portiragnes), avoiding all main roads except for a bit of the D612.

When we left to come home Delia picked some of the blue flowers that grow in profusion near the beach (we've been waiting for them to come out) for a dry flower display.  I took some photos of her doing this; the camera made a funny clicking noise when turning on and didn't seem at all happy.  More of this in a day or two.  We bought fruit from the stall near the beach and also went shopping at Pézenas Intermarché.  The unfinished bit of the A75 had been opened, one lane and our direction only with a 50 kph limit.  There was still a bouchon in the other direction all the way from the unfinished bit west of Valros almost to Pézenas.  We had simple dinner, only two courses, starting with pizza.

France, Summer 2010: Week 11

Sunday 8 August - Saturday 14 August

Things became more relaxed this week after a rather hectic time and on the Sunday we did very little. On Monday we went to Serignan Plage, stopping for fruit at the stall near the beach on the way home.

In the morning on Tuesday we went to the prayer group, which was supposed to be in a chapel at Puissalicon. But the key holder had forgotten and was not at home, so we went to a little chapel at the religious community just north of Puimisson, only about 10 minutes away. Then Alison Kane invited us for coffee at her house in Puissalicon, so we went (the film evening on 9 July was at her house). She mentioned various British people, including a couple from Neffiès, Diane and Nick McKnight.  On the way home we shopped at the Intermarché at Magalas, which is bigger than the Pézenas one.  The rest of the day we did house cleaning.

After a short early morning walk on Wednesday, most of the day was spent getting ready for Val and Linda, who came to dinner in the evening.  At 5.30 a builder came to have a look at the courtyard, in order to do a quote for fixing the damp in the cellar of the man on the square.  Although I (Roger) was feeling that my French was not bad, I couldn't understand him at all.  I blame the Midi accent.  This visit by the builder followed a visit by André and Thérèse, whose house windows look into our courtyard, the day before.  Their visit followed a visit, just after I came back from England, by the owner of the house on the square whose cave is below the soakaway in our courtyard - he who came to tell David and Simon when they were here last year that there was some sort of problem that they didn't fully understand (or want to know about).  These meetings have all been very amicable and it's been good to meet Thérèse and André.  The saga continues and André is dealing with it.

Dinner on the terrace seemed to work quite well, even if it was a little laborious to keep carrying things up and down.  It helped that the slow cooker could be plugged in upstairs.

John Westwood (priest-in-charge of Rothwell etc) had e-mailed whilst we were away, saying that he needed to be making plans for October and asking if I would be available.  So it was time to make our big decision about whether to move to France or not.  Meeting Val and Linda for a long talk was the final part of our summer-long plan to gather information and experiences in order to decide.  We went for a longish walk, over the ridge to La Rouquette and back via the valley with no easy way back to Neffiès, apart from the "hidden path".  As it happens we found another, shorter, way back, which somebody had marked with paint sploshes.

During the walk we decided that we should move to France.

Next day I e-mailed John Westwood and the churchwardens to tell them what we had decided.  In the afternoon Diane and Nick (who it turns out lived in Rothwell during the 1970s) phoned and invited us for tea: Alison must have told them about us.  We went and had a nice chat.  Not sure about the "house church" that they run though.  On Saturday we did not do much except e-mail friends about our decison and we also phoned Mum and Aunt to tell them.

France, Summer 2010: Week 10

Sunday 1 August - Saturday 7 August

 

After breakfast in the hotel at Cluny we packed the car, did some shopping for lunch and then went to the Sunday Eucharist at Taizé.  Quite an experience with thousands of mainly young people in the vast church.  Afterwards we went with the Hurdmans, also all packed to go on to Châtel, for coffee etc at a café in Cormatin near Taizé, taking with us cat and dog on leads.

Then we set out for the Ecole des Trois Ponts at Riorges and our French courses, stopping for lunch by a tiny road in the middle of nowhere.  There was a huge storm as we approached Roanne and Riorges.  Here is a front view of the main Ecole des Trois Ponts building:

Gradually all the other people arrived, except for one who came during dinner.  There were ten people doing various levels of French and six of them doing cookery.  The people were:

Roger (Rothwell in UK) - advanced French + intensive sessions
Delia (Rothwell in UK) - advanced French + cookery
Alexandra (Romania) - debutante French + cookery
Jane (Welton in UK) - intermediate French + cookery
Ian (Welton in UK) - intermediate French + cookery
Isabel (Welton in UK) - intermediate French + cookery
Jackie (Sheffield in UK) - advanced French
Amy (New York in USA or Paris in France) - debutante French + intensive sessions
Paul (New York in USA) - debutante French
Merrill (New York in USA) - advanced French + cookery

Ian and Isabel were twin 15-year-old children of Jane; and Paul and Merrill were the other couple besides us.

At dinner each evening we should have talked exclusively in French but one or two tended not to play this game, apparently the first time this has happened.  One of the high points of each evening was the cheese course, when the chef (Mickaël) described the four cheeses for that evening, what animal they came from, how to cut them, whatever stories he knew about them and where they came from.  This was aided by a large wooden jig-saw of France, with the regions as removable pieces.  Each evening a different student held this up and found the four regions.  Under the regions were more pieces for the Départments. 

 

The first working day at Riorges, on Monday, started with a very quick test each, to decide what levels we were all at.  Then there was a three-hour morning session with Violaine for the four of us doing advanced French.  In the afternoon the four split up: Delia and Merrill had cookery from 4.30 pm to 7.00 pm, whilst Roger and Jackie had a two-hour session with Violaine from 5.00 pm to 7.00 pm.  Dinner, at 7.30 pm, was what the cooks had been making in the afternoon.  We both found that we could understand all that the "profs" said.  Although we spent many hours in class during the week it was not as exhausting as it sounds.

 

 Here is what the cookery sessions looked like:

 

 

The arrangements on Tuesday were slightly different.  Both of us had the 3-hour morning session with Violaine and in the afternoon Delia had cookery from 4.30 pm to 7.00 pm, but I had an intensive one-to-one session with Valérie from 4.00 pm to 7.00 pm.

On Wednesday morning we had the normal session with Violaine, then the afternoon was free.  We chose to go for a walk in the hills, starting at St Clement.  It was OK, but not spectacular.  We did find one nice building and a hamlet with a duck pond.

 

Thursday followed the same pattern as Monday   We found time in between sessions to go for a walk into Riorges as far as the Loire.  The nicest thing we found was a mural on a wall next to a car park that was really 2-D but looks 3-D:

The pattern of lessons for Friday was similar to Tuesday.  In the early afternoon we went for a little walk to Beaulieu park, quite nearby.  This really is a "nice place", the nicest thing being a half-scale (probably) working model of a water mill.  In the evening after dinner we had the presentation of certificates:

So, on Saturday after breakfast and goodbyes we set out for Neffiès.  We got stuck in a bouchon for about half an hour, which turned out to be the queue for the tolls at the end of the A72, just NW of Clermont-Ferrand.  The A75 traffic was very heavy and slow sometimes, but rarely actually stopped.  This was the second most busy day of the year so delays were to be expected.  We stopped at the Intermarché next to the autoroute at Le Bosc, near Lac du Salagou, which turned out to be quite large.

France, Summer 2010: Week 9

Sunday 25 July - Saturday 31 July

 

On Sunday we did a new walk, since it was just a bit cooler.  Several people had told us about the three 17th century mills somewhere between Cabrières and Vailhan.  There is a published walk from Vailhan, but we modified it to start and finish at Neffiès.  This is a great walk, with a super bit through woods back up from Lauriol after the mills.  And the mills are really interesting.  Here are the top ruins:

Behind this building is a large reservoir tank, now empty.  The steep hillside to the left has three water mills in series, in an advanced state of decay but it is still possible to make out the arrangement.  Here is the best preserved mill:

The views are good once you are on the way back over the hills to Neffiès.  Here's what it looks like behind you (Pic de Vissou is the pointy hill):

On Monday we did yet another new walk, this time on the flat through the vineyards to Caux and back.  We started fairly late because of the heat and it was OK.  Before that we listened to David Kent being interviewed on Harborough FM via the computer, a somewhat bizarre experience in the heat of the South of France.

We can't remember what we did on Tuesday and Thursday of this wek, but on Wednesday we went to Serignan Plage.

 

On Friday we left to go to Cluny at around 8.30 am and bought sandwiches for lunch at the services at La Lozère.  We stopped to eat them after we had left the motorway, in a very nice lay-by.  After we had checked in at our hotel (the Abbaye) we met Marion, Julian, Simon and David at the square by the Abbey.  We had a bit of a look around the town and an ice cream at a café.  Here they are, Roger not there as he was behind the camera:

We agreed that we would all have dinner at our hotel in the evening and had a really excellent meal.

Next morning we all went to Taizé (about 15 minutes away) for the early morning service (David and Simon took us) and then back to Marion and Julian's tent for breakfast.  They camp in a very basic way and had a cat and a dog with them.  The dog was on respite care from Marion's daughter who has just given birth and the dog could not cope.  Both cat and dog are taken for walks on leads.  After breakfast Simon and David left for the UK.

We had both lunch and dinner chez Hurdmans, making a contribution of food.  After lunch we all went in our car back to Taizé just to go to the shop.  Then we came back and walked into Cluny.  Whilst Marion and Julian (and dog) had a beer we looked at the old Abbey a bit more, then we joined them for a drink.  We went back to the hotel to tell them that we would not be there for dinner but would be needing breakfast next day, then back to the camp site.  After the first course of dinner we drove to Taizé for the evening service, then came back for pudding.  By then it was dark and a bit difficult to manage, but we did.

France, Summer 2010: Week 8

Sunday 18 July - Saturday 24 July

For Roger, Sunday to Wednesday were days 5 to 8 of the retreat and the programme was much as before.  But already by the Sunday I had decided that moving to France might well be the best option, subject of course to talking it over with Delia and coming to a joint decison.  On these last four days I was given some excellent decision-making stuff that only tended to confirm what I was already coming round to.

I had decided that we must meet Val and Linda, maybe over dinner, and find out more, plus I must talk to Bob Bates (Diocese of Europe in the Algarve).  As it happened, when I talked to Delia she had been to church at Conas and Val and Linda had said that we should meet.  Delia would go to their PCC equivalent in the week..

On Monday I called Rothwell Health Centre for my blood test results.  Thyroid was 4.52 TSH level (OK range is 0 to 5.2).  Cholesterol was 4, OK range 3.0 to 5.7.  No action required.

Now Delia continues with what she did for the first part of the week.

Getting to church at Conas on Sunday took 25 minutes. There were 32 there, including 6 children, 4 belonging to a Dutch couple who live in Pézenas and came on bikes.  The 2 older children on their own bikes the 2 younger ones on mummy's bike; one on the front and one on the back.  A 17 year old girl visiting from Toronto sang during communion.  No accompaniment; singing led by Alison (whose house we went to for the film evening).  No sermon but printed reflection on the readings.  Val invited church members to church in Montpellier next week, where he is to be visiting preacher and celebrant.

I met Jenny, who did the coffee last time and read this time.  Think she's training  for lay ministry – she and someone called Mary.  Jenny is married to Alan the treasurer.  Tea party this afternoon at their house at Mérifons.  I spoke to Alan, the treasurer, a bit, who told me about the hoops one has to jump through to become a formal church; ie have to register with French civil authorities (because of the financial/property aspects) as well as with church authorities.

Overheard Val saying he needs cover one Sunday and wondered if Mark (from near Copenhagen) might come.  Also heard they had no-one to take the service when he was stuck in Genève because of the volcanic ash.

I left Conas at about noon.

Monday was Bishop's Committee meeting at Pouzolles, which was interesting, with useful insights into the Episcopal Church and church politics.  That day I walked down, along and back up the old Alignan road, back along the side of the Cave and met Erica and John with their pretty dogs.  My walk on Tuesday was the circuit past the cemetery, down the nice path, and back via the frog pond, taking about 40 minutes between 9 & 10.  No frogs at the frog pond but little frogs hopping out of the way at the water near the mill.

On Wednesday I did the same walk as on Saturday but an hour earlier as it was a bit cooler.  The meteo à la radio says temperatures are back to normal, ie 32-ish instead of 37-ish.

After French in the morning at Roujan, I had what was probably my first harpin bend driving experience since going to Greece in 1971, when I went to see Martine in Salasc.  We had lunch at Le Festillou, which is open under new management after being closed all winter.  It was much the same as before, ie bar/restaurant with good value, no frills, set menu.  We had a salad,  followed by steak/frites and peach melba for 12 euros each.  We had apero and coffee at Martine's.  We spent much of the afternoon in Martine's garden, on which she has made amazing progress, growing a huge range of vegetables.  She has been getting up at dawn to water it.  To do that she blocks a water channel in the road nearby which makes water flow into a concrete basin in the garden.  She then uses watering cans.  She said she's now thinking of completely remaking the garden this winter, creating a slope to make watering easier.  She gave me a lettuce, some little yellow pear-shaped tomatoes and some red basil.

Martine has been too busy with her garden, improving her piano playing and planning Violette's wedding (at Salasc with reception at a country house somewhere nearby in May) to practise her English.  Therefore, she preferred that we speak only French.  This was fun but quite wearing.  Antoine, Martine's younger son who has just finished University, was due to be on a bus from Montpellier that stops on the main road above the village.  We went to meet him in Martine's new car (probably not brand new but nearly) but he wasn't on the bus, or answering his mobile.  Martine left him a message asking “where are you; when are you coming home?”  I came home at about 6 pm looking forward, with mixed feelings given that it involved driving to Nîmes, to getting Roger back in the morning.

Thursday was a travelling day for Roger.  The morning started with a 7.45 am Eucharist, then we could all talk again.  Just with casual chatting I found two other Anglican priests.  I left at around 9 am and the journey was not easy, lots of traffic and stops.  I bought sandwiches at a motorway service station again and took them to Mum's house to eat, arriving there at something like 12.30 pm.  Then I called to see Aunt, who happened to have Aunty Betty from Duston with her.

After that I went home to Rothwell and talked to Pam, who again invited me to eat, this time with her and her friend Julie.  I also left a message with Amanda (her husband Richard, who was in one of my Confirmation classes, died at the beginning of July) and later went to see her.  Julie (I later learned) has had a nose reconstruction, but I didn't notice anything at the time except a really nice lady.  I called in at the Rays' house but nobody was at home.  So I went to bed early because the next morning was to have a very early start.

The alarm was set for 4.00 am on the Friday and, by arrangement, I phoned Pam who was to take me to Luton airport.  We left Rothwell at 4.30 am and arrived in good time for my 7.05 am flight.  Everything went very smoothly and I was very pleased to see my wife again after what we think was the longest separation since we married.

On Saturday morning we went to Pézenas market, where a section of the market was a "Marché des Créateurs", and bought two paintings from and by Patricia Bosi from Cessenon-sur-Orb.  This was with the gift from our friends at Rothwell church.  We also did some other shopping in Pézenas.  Here are the paintings on the floor of our middle room (the floor tiles are 12 inches square):

France, Summer 2010: Week 7

Sunday 11 July - Saturday 17 July

Sunday was mostly a day for Roger to get ready to go to his retreat in Wales.  In the evening we had dinner early and walked eastwards: Caylus road, then up the hairpin path, along the ridge to the water tower and back along the terraces.

On Monday we got up quite early and drove to Nîmes, leaving Neffiès at around 7.30 am (we think) for a 10.20 am flight.  Then Delia drove back (she had been practising driving in France for a while).  The main difficulty was paying at the tolls, which she did by using booths with a person and getting out of the car to pay them.  She found that driving home from Nîmes was less scary than she expected.

Meanwhile, I (Roger) caught a train from Luton airport to Kettering, eating sandwiches bought at the airport while waiting at Luton Parkway station, and then walked to Rothwell, taking about 1¼ hours and just beating the heavy rain.  Delia's car battery had to be put on charge because it was flat; Pam had invited me to eat with her early, which I did gratefully.

Tuesday was a busy day for me (Roger)!  I got up and went to Kettering hospital for a fasting blood test at around 9.00 am, then went to the Co-op chemist to order our pills for the next two months, then home for breakfast.  Then I had to finish packing and get to On the Fringe for a haircut at 12 noon.  I actually locked up the house securely etc and went for the haircut on the way to Wales.  I bought and ate sandwiches at a motorway service station and arrived at St Beuno's at around 4.15 pm.

As every day, the Eucharist was at 5.45 pm and evening meal at 6.30 pm.  There was a tour of the house at 7.30 and a meeting of all retreatants (about 16) with the Directors at 8.00 pm.  St Beuno's is set in beautiful Welsh countryside and the walking from the house is really good.  Here's a photo:

The only downsides are that:

• the weather is bad, it rained on several of the days I was there and one day poured all day;
• the countryside is farmed fairly intensively and there is lots of poo (and flies) everywhere you go.

On the other hand I rather liked this stile that I crossed on a walk on Saturday:

My retreat director was someone called Rosemary Moffatt and she was really excellent.  I had told them already that my task was to decide what we should do next, ie stay in Rothwell, move to France or some combination of those extremes.  St Beuno's is an Ignatian spirituality centre and that spirituality has some really good tools for decision making.  Each day I met Rosemary for 45 minutes and she gave me tasks to do for that day, Bible readings and whatever exercises were appropriate.

Every day I made my own morning coffee in my cafetière after meeting Rosemary and had two biscuits bought in Rothwell.  Most days I walked in the afternoon.  Because I was in a cottage rather than the main house, I had breakfast at the cottage.  Lunch, at 12.30 pm, was in the house and so was supper.

On Tuesday Delia dined a la terasse then went for a wander round the village.  She found tables and chairs, stage set up and fire blazing in the corner at Place Jean Jaurès, at about 8.30 pm; looked like something might start around 10 pm.  No posters or announcements.  Then on the Wednesday she wondered at first why the village was so amazingly quiet.  Then she finally figured out why: Tuesday night's event on the square would have lasted well into quatorze juillet, the rest of which could then be spent in bed recovering in order to be fit to go back to work on the 15th.  Delia went for a walk for about 45 minutes at 8.30 but came back when she realised she'd stand no chance of explaining where she was if she had to use the mobile phone which she'd carefully taken and had switched on.  Maybe a plan before going and a map would be a good idea.

On Thursday it was a bit cooler in France: the car said 24° at 9.50, when Delia went to Roujan for her French lesson and 30° at 12.30 when she came back.  General conversation at the French class included “la crise financière” and Bérénice saying how completely ridiculous prices have become – outrageous prices for tomatoes and a “biro” she said and loads of local people paring their expenditure back to bare essentials.

Delia writes: On Friday after dinner I went to the Friday market.  Bérénice was there with her husband, daughter and son.  The entertainment was good, as usual – one man and five women doing little sketches as well as “ad libing”.  Forgot to take the camera!  They passed a hat afterwards.  Marie-Hélène (voisine) was sitting with a lady selling sketches of local villages.  This lady turned out to be English, Carol, lives part-time at “Libellule”, Rue du Prince, and Marie-Hélène introduced us.   It seems Marie-Hélène looks after her house when she's not there (had it for 10 years).  I bought 2 cards, Carol offered me a glass of rosé, Marie-Hélène offered me a slice of potato tarte.  Nathalie, from across the road, joined us and we had a little party.  We also spoke to a French couple who were interested both in Carol's drawings and in speaking a bit of English (she was one of the theatre troupe).  So I stayed until the market finished at about 9.30 then helped take Carol's kit back to her house.  After that I put my boots on and walked here and there on roads out of the village and back in the nearly dark until I'd had 30 minutes brisk exercise.  Drank a small glass of white wine on the terrasse (succombed to temptation the night before and opened the bottle of Trois Blasons).  Read in bed until gone midnight.

Delia writes: On Saturday I fetched the pain aux cereales ordered yesterday, when I wanted one and none left so the lady suggested I order.  It cost €2.10!  Had extra breakfast and went to Pézenas at about midday.  Enjoyed looking for presents, including something  for us from church (maybe a painting from the Marché de Createurs).  Didn't buy anything.  Went to Lidl – not worth the effort.  Went to the Intermarché.  Had cassoulet for lunch at about 3 pm.  Froze the rest.  Read book.  Talked to Roger.  Glad I didn't have to go to Nîmes today: radio reported 500 km of jams, on this the 3rd wave of holiday departures, mentioning especially jams round Nîmes, Montpellier and Sète.  Had cereal, fruit and yogurt at about 7 pm and intended then to go walking.  John rang at about 7.30. We talked for about 45 minutes.  They had a lovely holiday and had just ordered carpet for their 2 renovated bedrooms.  I finally went out at about 9 pm: skirted the edge of the lotissement down towards the water plant, along the Caux road, turned left at the big house that seems to be being extended, left again, etc, back via the fig tree (picked a bag of ripe figs), past the mill, up the pine smelling path, etc.  Took about 50 minutes.  The temperature was just right.