Laroque des Alberes

where it is sunny and warm. In the afternoon, it is in the 20s--the 20s! I prefer the south of France to Vancouver come winter.

I am chopping down trees and clearing brush to make way for olive trees. Cork trees are gorgeous! I even went for a trail run this evening. Such a lovely November...

You're from Canada?

There are three things people ask me when I say I'm from Canada.
Are you from Quebec?
Do you get a lot of snow?
What about the bears?
I forget that not everyone lives in such a large, mostly unpopulated country with wild! animals! Of course, then someone tells you stories about encounters with Canadian wildlife. A guy I met in Ashland, Oregon at my bike mechanics course said he went on a hiking trip in Montana or somewhere, and he knew he'd passed into Canada when a moose charged him. My French family read an account of the Olympic torch being interrupted by a Polar Bear in Churchill Manitoba! So it's Polar Bears 1, Olypics 0.

Living French

I've been enjoying having a routine these last three weeks. Sundays are lovely days of eating and meeting some of the family's friends. Yesterday, a family of four paid us a visit, with a gift of Coeurs de Picardies. It was a jar of small, heart-shaped cakes soaked in Calvados, an apertif (or digestif? I forget now) made from apples. They were darn good. In Bayeaux, new-found friends of mine, Cindy and Darren, shared a bottle of Calvados with me. We tried drinking it straight while cooking, but it was a bit too strong for us. Mixed with fresh apple juice, it was much more palatable. If only we'd known to buy cake!

The French Sunday is really wonderful. It's a time to sit down with friends and family and socialise. Every meal is started with a small apertif--often a hydomel, which I know the English word for but cannot remember--a mead! To me an apertif has always been something you drink while cooking when guests are over. Pommeau is another lovely pre-meal drink made, obviously, from apples as well. I think it's distilled from cidre.

I also love the post-meal cheese! A platter of cheeses to slice and choose from, a basket of apples to eat afterwards. People ask me why i'm in France, and I say that Canadian history is the history of France and England, but really, I just think I belong here. It's sort of an instinct, and sort of a wish. I do wish that someone from my ancestry was French, though!

Bazancourt!

Well, kids, I've been shoveling shit and milking cows for the last three weeks with a wonderful family in Bazancourt. The village is very small--not a shop nor a cafe in sight. I'm up most mornings to milk the cows and see the sun come up, then again at 6pm to see the sun set. I've learned how to make fromage blanc, which is delicious, and laundry soap from ashes and water, which is less delicious, but pretty strong. Sundays we eat all day with friends of the family. Grampa (Dede) visits every few days and washes the dishes and folds the laundry!




One afternoon, I rode my bike to a nearby village where I'd seen this--Une Chapelle de la Vierge, with a set of white statures of women in the tree beside it. I've been reading "The Discovery of France" by Graham Robb, and he mentioned that a lot of these sites are old pagan sites that have been transformed into Christian (RC) sites. It's amazing to read that pagan rituals lived along side Christian ones until surprisingly recently. I prefer the ladies in the tree--far more natural--to the stone and iron chapel, but the chapels are usually quite pretty, with a small shrine inside, though the door is usually locked. Claire told me that they are less and less attended to--no surprise, really. Perhaps there will be a rejuvenation in interest in old sites and old practices such as these. I did my part and placed a few coins at the foot of the statues.

I was going to head back home, but decided instead to follow a sign pointing me off to a Commonwealth Graves Commission Cemetary from the Great War. It was a small square filled with non-European labourers--mostly Indian and Chinese. There were two apple trees to one side, and the ripe red apples spread about the grass was a pretty contrast to the plain white headstones.

One afternoon I looked out the kitchen window to see a solid line of Starlings perched on the wires. By the time I had returned with my camera, most of them had flown off, but I took a shot anyway; I love clouds and blue sky; I love wires and birds. It was a perfect picture, and reminds me of how quite the house could be in Bazancourt.

My French has improved vastly, I think, living with a French speaking family, and they've been quite patient with me as I've stumbled my way through it. I'm sad to be leaving, but the day is approaching--Tuesday I set off to cross France, literally. I'll be travelling from Paris to Perpignan and possibly to Laroque des Alberes all in one day. Fussing around in Perpignan trying to find a hotel at night (7) seems like more work than 15 extra minutes on the train and an 8km bike ride. But it's in the dark...

If you haven't got your letters in the mail, why not?

Le Chateau

Collecting walnuts, stacking wood, cutting quince--this is my life right now. I live in a chateau with a great American woman from NYC and a rather disaggreable French woman from the south of France who has no manners. The Madame of the house is mad and amazing and a lot of fun to interact with when she isn't yelling, Depechez-vous!

My room--the attic room with the rather infamous sheets that shocked me when I left. If I haven't explained that, don't ask. Just suffice it to say that I wasn't too pleased to know I'd been sleeping on sheets stamped with that.






Elisabeth and I took a walk into the nearby woods to the chapel on the hill--quite a lonely and pretty chapel, locked and covered in ladybugs.

Lille

Bare with me, folks; I am not used to the placement of keys on French keyboards, so my typing speed is frustratingly slow.

I quit my job today! Well, I finally looked up the postal code and mailed my notice, if I haven't already been let go for not taking shifts. Mr Waterhouse, or whatever, had been pestering me for my permission to access my criminal record. Dull as that is, I still didn't agree with it. He gets a postcard instead!









I, meanwhile, am in Lille, which is a wonderful small city near the Belgian border. I went to an amazing contemporary embroidery show at la maison folie wazemme which had some great stuff in it. Political embroidery! Pornographic embroidery!














Sunday I rode to Ypres, in Belgium (I rode to Belgium!) There are Canadian soldiers buried all through the area, and I visited Passendale--maybe now I should watch the movie? It takes being in a place to cultivate interest in me. I'm now constantly on the lookout for books, fact and fact-inspired-fiction, on the Great War. Once I've got that one explored, I'm sure I will be on to WWII.
















I'm off to Vimy Ridge today, and then a paper-art exhibit in La Madeline. I encourage everyone to POST COMMENTS so I know people are reading! And thanks to those who have--I read them, and it is appreciated. I will try to seek out internet cafes more frequently.

Tomorrow: le Chateau de Sacy!

My time is up!

Get Your Letter Writing Caps On!

I have an address in December! And I do love letters. You can send them c/o:

Chez Mme Rashesha
Mas Al Quinta
66740 Laroque des Alberes
France

The challenge has been laid down! I will be there in December until just before Christmas, so get your letters in the mail before December.