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JULY
We've been
in France for just over a month now. We drove through the beautiful Spanish
pyrenees (lovely high plateaus and lots of Milo’s ‘hair twister’
bends), into the Val d’Arran. No border control or anything, but
the architecture and landscape suddenly became very French. A few km into
France we stopped to buy fruit and veg at a street market; it was incredibly
difficult to start speaking French after two months of Spanish. The stall
holders didn't seem to mind, although the young woman in the boulangerie
raised her eyes heavenwards at my ‘por favors’ and ‘gracias’.
We’d promised the boys some lego at the first big town we came to,
which happened to be Tabres. We wandered round the centre feeling very
scruffy amidst crowds of very clean and ironed looking French people,
finding every other shop was a coiffure, lingerie shop or a beauty parlour
of some kind. Finally we located the one shop selling lego, Dom tracked
down the canvas he needed for his painting, and we carried on to Adam’s
house near Manciet.
The house is a beautiful old timber framed building with two enormous
barns and a lovely garden. It is under renovation and no amenities yet
apart from cold water tap. We spread out into one barn (our kitchen and
bathroom) and put the awning /tent under the trees for the boys (bedroom
and playroom). The other barn became Dom’s studio (Adam and Wendy
have commissioned him to do a painting of the area for the house). It
was a very peaceful setting with a wide view over rolling fields - we
could see the sunflowers growing before our eyes as the days went by.
It was very hot - luckily there were lakes nearby -and we had the use
of Adam and Wendy’s friends’ swimming pool. People were incredibly
kind and hospitable, we were provided with endless aperitifs (pousse rapiere
and floc), vegetables, walnuts and figs.
Dom got on with his painting, me and the boys caught up with school work,
reading and lego-ing, hiding in the shade in the mornings and swimming
in the afternoons. Mixed in with this were our first van problems which
seemed to take up a lot of time. We had to get a new battery (at some
point when we’d been parked up for two weeks in the mountains, the
radio had been left on and the battery refused to hold a charge after
that). One of the handbrake cables snapped, so we got it replaced, and
finally, a tractor with crop sprayer attached reversed into us severely
cracking the windscreen (no other damage). All this involved loads of
phone calls, phone cards, phone boxes speaking in French and trying to
understand the replies, traveling long distances to get new windscreen
(only to find they had ordered the wrong size). All in all 5 days went
by before we got the new one. Hopefully, that was our dose of van stress
for a while.Our next stop was a village in mid France near Claremont Ferrand,
called Vassivere; visiting friends from Bristol, who have renovated an
old barn there. It was the ideal stop over on our journey up to the Jura
for Dave’s party. We had a lovely relaxing and luxurious three nights
with Christina and Simon, our first stay in a house so far on the trip,
so lots of baths, washing and spreading out!
The drive up to Jura (East France near the Swiss border) seemed to go
on forever, but was well worth it. We arrived in the village of Baume
to see Milo’s friend Moina swimming in the drinking trough, and
over the next day or so more and more of our friends from Stroud and Chalford
arrived. Dave had persuaded 9 of the 10 members of Ska Daddy (Chalford's
No.1 band) to come over for his birthday party. There was a gang of us
in the lovely shady campsite, next to a river 5 mins from the village,and
others up in Dave’s parents’ house. The next few days were
hectic ; the big party, trips to lakes and caves, big meals together,late
nights and lots of catching up for us. After a week, most people had departed,
and we moved into the house with Dave, Matty and little George. We had
a lovely week of house luxury , exploring this beautiful area, Dom doing
some work , relaxing and generally getting organised for our next stage
of the trip.
We have been away for three months now, and this has been a lovely half
way point for us. The boys were sad to see their friends go home, but
are still happy to be ‘on our travels’. This sociable interlude
will hopefully keep us going for a few weeks, digesting the excitement
and memories of it all. We are not ready to go home yet, as Finn said:
“sometimes I wish I was home, but I know when I get home I'll wish
I was still on my travels.”
The second half of our trip is the unknown bit. Across Italy to Slovenia
and Croatia. Not sure what to expect, but looking forward to it nonetheless.