Goodbye
It’s the 2nd of September. This evening we will host an apero for the people we know in Lescun, in order to mark the end of our year in the village. It has passed quickly. Indeed, the time waiting seemed longer than the time we’ve been here. Four seasons have been and, almost gone. We have seen the forest melt into multitudinous shades of gold - from amber to lemon yellow. We have witnessed the whitening of the world and its resurrection in the kaleidoscope of spring and early summer. The migration of holiday visitors also has passed its peak. Luckily, the weather has been kind and so it’s in the garden below the house that we await the first-comers. Our invitations have been eclectic, taking no account of age or status. They are simply people we know and we haven’t the faintest inkling of how many will turn up. Alfred and Isobel are here already, though, having volunteered to help with the preparations. A year ago today, on our arrival, the weather had no been so good. Dark and mist provided a sullen and grudging welcome as we unpacked just what we needed for our first night to be spent at Alfred’s house prior to taking over our new lodgings. Since then, the kitten that whined at the window has grown stronger and more independent, often to be seen patrolling the neighbourhood, and our friend’s farmhouse is in the process of being pulled apart and reconstructed for changed and changing circumstances. I can’t remember when we first had the idea to spend a whole year in Lescun. Starting, no doubt, as a casually uttered thought, it seemed to take on a life of its own, with time putting on flesh and muscle, rather like the kitten, until it developed into an aspiration and later, a possibility, before, with more than a little surprise, it became a reality. Although my wife, Kathy, and I are very different, it would be safe to say that neither of us are impetuous. We like to consider all the angles, the pros and cons, the plusses and the minuses, the advantages and disadvantages before we come to a conclusion that is, more than likely, based on emotions. We could save ourselves a lot of time by going with the initial gut feeling. Being thorough, we made lists of everything that would have to be done to leave our house in England - find someone to look after the garden, inspect the house for leaks etc., deal with the post. The more we thought about it the longer the lists became. And then there were all the issues we would have to cope with in France - shipping stuff, getting a phone, internet, a bank account… Top of the list, however, was finding somewhere to live. I had already fantasised about what our new home might look like. It would be at the top of the village with a clear view over rooftops to the cirque. My writing table would be near a window so that when I looked up from my work I would be greeted by a mountain panorama. Light would pour in burnishing the old wooden floor boards while a gentle breeze stirred the curtains. “Dream on!” I would admonish myself. Reverie and reality make unlikely companions. In retrospect, I think that, subconsciously, I was embellishing our first lodgings over Madam Africati’s garage. Building on foundations created by those early feelings of well-being, the excitement of discovery and the sense of security that came perhaps from the womb-like form of the space and the softness of the light that permeated it, I had reconstructed the place as a twostory house, added a bathroom, removed the awful linoleum flooring, polished and added patina to the pine parquet and insulated the roof whist managing to retain the view and the subtle lambent quality of the illumination. Our first offer of accommodation came from a neighbour of Alfred’s. A traditional old Lescun pile, it had been refurbished as a gîte to let to holidaymakers during the summer months, yet boasted oil-
fired central heating, double-glazing and modern insulation. It was large, though, sleeping up to twelve. Too large. What’s more it had no outside space and no view. After a short discussion we decided that we could live in it if we had to but we’d keep looking. I can’t remember how we first came across the house we have now lived in for the past year. Like the first place we looked at, it too had been a gîte occupied by visitors to Lescun who generally stayed for a week or two. Indeed, there was someone occupying it when we carried out our first walk-by. The exterior didn’t give much away but a couple of features seemed promising. Firstly, there was a little balcony projecting from the first floor and, just across the lane, there was a garden equipped with outdoor table and chairs. Best of all it was at the top of the village well away from the summer bustle and intimate huddle of the centre. We needed to look inside. And, unsurprisingly, Alfred, who has lived in the village all his life, knew the landlady and offered to give her a call. Now, Lescun is a village where traditional values still hold. It’s certainly true that some of them are archaic and serve little purpose but one’s word is still valued here and is understood to be as binding as any legal contract. “My word is my bond,” and a handshake seals the deal. So, when Alfred vouched for us, his endorsement was not only considered seriously, it was taken his as truth. A visit was arranged despite the tenant’s presence, which resulted in us feeling rather awkward, unwilling to poke around or stay too long, thus making it difficult to take in what we were seeing. Consequently, it wasn’t until the second visit in the company of the owner, Madam Poulain, and her husband, that it dawned on me that the house was as close to my fantasy as one could reasonably hope for.
The view from the balcony Over the grey slate roofs of Lescun we see much of the Cirque, not all. On the ground floor, and dug into the hill, we have a barn for storing wood (hadn’t though of that!). It also houses a washing
machine, a freezer (important food storage if we should get snowed in during the winter), a butler sink and a tap for outdoor activities. The first floor is not, as I had imaged, built upon wooden boards worn to a gleam. Instead, we live with the the hard, cold practicality of tiles, or carrelage. But a red rug in front of the wood-burning stove that chugs away through the winter does much to overcome the austerity of the room. Because of the extra bedroom, shower room and toilet on this level (the house was designed as holiday accommodation) the living area is on the small side, but a step out onto the balcony provides us with a vista of such magnificence that it is hard to look away. The second floor is closer to what I imagined. Wooden floors (not quite creaky enough yet), but still wood. Sitting up in bed, we are treated to a view to the eastern end of the cirque. There’s also another bathroom and a bedroom, the latter being my writing room. And, no‌ I don’t have a view over the Cirque and that is probably just as well because I recognise that I can be easily distracted. Instead, I have Le Betat, the ridge that protects the village from the trials of Northern winds. Oh happy we! But the year is over. Time to take stock. We have done our best, I think, to integrate into the community - being friendly, lending a hand here and there, Kathy with her singing group and me recounting comic tales. We have walked. We have talked - to each other and to those around us. We have have explored the mountains , the villages, other areas of France and, of course, our neighbouring country Spain. And we have learned. On so many levels, how we have learned!
View from my writing room
To quote Shakespeare - “Let me count the ways”.’
1. The basics - speaking French. We came with dinner party french and now have 2.
3.
“representing one’s self in court french” which is undoubtedly slightly easier that dealing with a call centre with the aim of, say, changing a mobile phone contract. The frontier. We have learned that the Pyrenees do not stop at the border. Our Iberian neighbours have a lot to offer, not just a sunnier climate. Driving through the Tunnel de Somport has been like passing through C S Lewis’s wardrobe with, on the other side, a natural and man-made architecture very different from here. And the culture, customs and behaviours, the food, the smells, the very air itself… are all recounting a different story. It’s two countries for the price of one - the best BOGOF offer ever! Seasons. In my home county of Dorset the seasons have become blurred. I remember eating outside in March and putting the central heating on in July. Of course, the same can happen here, but it is always overridden by the activities of “les montagnards” … the transhumance, the stocking of wood for the winter, the ecobouage, the fetes. And in the markets… the arrival of asparagus, gariguette strawberries, melons from the Gers, peaches, pears, then apples and squashes. The Markets, like the forests, change colour with the seasons and we have learned to eat the seasonal produce when they are at their best. Soon we will stop buying melons because their time is coming to an end and, even though you will find them shipped in from the far corners of the earth, why bother when other delights will, no doubt, appear?
4. Stuff. Like many, we spent years and large amounts of money creating a home that was not only comfortable but aesthetically pleasing. Choices concerning, furniture, carpets, dinnerware, garden plants, pictures…etc. occupied our thoughts. Now, having spent a year in a rented house with, largely, someone else’s stuff, some else’s taste and, nonetheless, being surprisingly happy with it, I have to ask what was all the previous effort about? We live very simply here. Temptations, it has to be said, are few and the pleasures of a mountain existence are mainly free. Right now, it seems that the we have passed from a time to accumulate to a time of reevaluation and, apart from a good pair of walking boots and clothes fit for a at altitude, it’s time to get rid of some of the stuff that has over time transformed itself into a burden.
5. The place, it’s history and all its creatures. As it turns out, August is the leanest month when it comes to experiencing the richness of the area’s flora and fauna. The majority of wild flowers have passed their best or long since gone to seed; the migration of birds occurs at other times and the animals of the forest are well hidden. Only, perhaps, the butterflies and those mammals and reptiles that hibernate during the cold season are out and about. Being here throughout the whole year, though, we have witnessed a wealth of flora and fauna coming and going - the hoopoe and the cranes, the hellebores and the orchids, the swallowtails and the purple emperor. And then there are those moving up or down the mountain like the izard or the hare that came to our garden in the depths of winter. In writing these letters from the Pyrenees I have been unable to resist the call to find out more. When everything around is different the questions come thick and fast - For how long does the marmotte hibernate? What is the social life of an izard? Where does the Gypaete Barbu breed..? But it’s not just about the animals and the plants. The history of the people who have colonised this land provokes a further notebook of questions. Even the very bones of the landscape, the geology and the geography, have posed tantalising questions. After all, the Pyrenees, with their peaks, their backbone ridges, their valleys, plateaus, pastures, rivers and lakes, have dictated the way people live, the way their history has unfolded.
September izard, probably born this Spring.
It might appear that we have cocooned ourselves in a remote hideaway and, in some ways, I wish that were the case. But in the greater world outside events have, inevitably, been unfolding. We have lived through the shock of the Paris attacks and, more recently, the depressing repetition of horror in Nice against a background of other minor, yet no less ghastly aberrations. And we have had BREXIT. In our house and amongst every one here, there was a moment of disbelief. Immediately sterling plummeted making our life in France far more expensive than it had been. But worse, far, far, worse, we were about to lose our European citizenship. With the vote, the British people had traded free access to, when you look around the rest of the world, one of the most prosperous, peaceful and civilised areas on the planet for a bizarre and unspecified notion that they “have their country back”. Back from what? Seen from here it has to be one of the greatest attacks on freedom of all time. My instinct was, to say: Goodbye Britain. And Robert Graves came to mind. In his memoire “Goodbye to all That”, written after his experiences on the battlefields of the First World War, Graves describes his disillusionment and subsequent rejection of nationalism and aggressive patriotism. Turning his back on Britain, he sought refuge in Majorca, in the village of Deija with the mountains of the Sierra de la Montana behind him and the Mediterranean at his feet. Yet even here he was not to be left in peace. The Spanish Civil war broke like a storm over the country and Graves was forced out. “Events, dear boy, events,” declared Macmillan when asked what could blow his government off course. And, naturally, it is the same for us all in both our public and our personal lives. Events! Six-thirty has come and gone. Apart from our two helpers no-one has turned up for this evening’s event - our apero in celebration of the year.
It has been warm all day and, with the residual heat of the sunset, the temperature in the garden has remained comfortable enough, even without a sweater. The food we have spent the afternoon preparing is displayed on one of the plastic tables provided with the house and a range of drinks is ready at the other. The latter will keep but I have visions of the plates of canapés, sandwiches, Spanish sausages on cocktail sticks, crudities, tapenade and all the rest being tipped into a rubbish sack before the night is over. Then, at about a quarter to seven, the first guests arrive. It’s our landlady and her husband. They don’t get out much these days so we are particularly pleased they have made the effort. They are accompanied by the wife of the ex-mayor who is part of the ladies’ singing group that Kathy attends on a Monday afternoon. They settle down on the plastic chairs and Alfred serves the drinks while I greet another arrival - the lady from the bar whom we have known for over twenty years. She can’t stay long; she has a bar to run but accepts a glass of the local Jurancon and falls into conversation with the others. More ladies from the singing group. Neighbours from the quartier. We dash about serving drinks and offering food to those older members of the community who are more comfortable sitting. An English friend from Borce arrives and takes the opportunity to practice her French with the growing gathering until she is collared by Oliver Willoughby-Browne whose French is limited. Later, I hear him asserting that immigrants to the UK should damn-well be required learn English. Soft drinks are running out and we’re having to dash back to the house for more food. Will there be enough? Friends from the hotel and the Maison de la Montagne show up. They’ve just finished work, as have the family from the shop who have been in the village for only a few months. Pascal Senvanter screeches his mountain bike to a halt and abandons it against the garden fence. Dressed in shorts and singlet, he is splattered with what I believe to be mud, which is odd because it hasn’t rained for weeks. What’s more he is followed by four dogs. Fortunately, many of the late comers are drinking beer of which we have plenty. It’s the soft drinks that have run out so we’re reduced to offering water or diluted lime cordial. The food has disappeared as well, apart from a few crackers spread with tapenade which have gone soggy. Kathy has retreated to the kitchen where she is trying to rustle up a few more sandwiches although no one seems to mind about the shortcomings of the catering being engaged in conversation with friends and neighbours. It’s at this point that the wife of the ex-mayor confronts me. “Well,” she says. “What do you think of Lescun after spending a year here?” I am so focussed on providing for the needs of our guests that I have difficulty in responding. What’s more, she doesn’t know that we have been coming here for over thirty years. She does not know that we have climbed some of the most difficult routes in these mountains or that I spent the first two years of my retirement writing the only english language mountain guide to the area. She does not know that we have history. As Kathy cobbles together a few morsels of food, I do the same with my reply. “It’s great,” I say. “We really love it.” And the words fall so far short of what I think; so shallow when compared with the depth of my experience here during the year and I feel like I’m hanging there waiting for some sort of judgement of my response. She stares at me for a while, that utters: “You speak very good French.” I thank her for her compliment and she turns away, then changes her mind. “And what do you miss about England?” she asks. If I struggled with her first question the second rendered me speechless because, although my instinctive response is to say “nothing”, I hold back because there is a part of me that thinks “that can’t be right… I must be overlooking something - something big, something important”. Fortunately Kathy joins me in time to share the interrogation. She reflects briefly before replying -
“Well… what I miss are the sofas. We have some really comfortable red leather reclining sofas.” I was saved, at least from the point of view of the exchange, but it did present a rather awkward conundrum. Life in England was, I explained to myself, was rather like marriage involving long-term, deep rooted affections all mixed up with a sense of loyalty. By contrast, our life on the frontier resembles more an affair with all the excitement of discovery and adventure and reinvention that might involve. But with that comes guilt. The guilt that follows desertion. But then, with Brexit, I feel that my country has deserted me, in a way, or at least what I stand for, so that, if I am forced to choose… if I am forced to say goodbye to one or the other, if, of course, a choice remains, then there will be no forgone conclusion. Tomorrow, if the weather holds, we will climb the Pic de Burq, a friend in the village has told me that it’s possible to get to the top by the western ridge. This is new to me and I’m eager to give it a go. Bad weather, on the other hand, will see us driving through the tunnel to Jaca where, after a warm stroll around our usual haunts, we’ll enjoy, because we still don’t understand the menus, a surprising, though no doubt excellent lunch. Frankly, I’m in no hurry to pack my bags.
Summit of Pic de Burq
September 2016