Changing hemispheres (11)

Part Four of Moving Over and In

Lizards, Spring and a hectic Summer

I last left you as Spring began to shake its leaves, my heater appeared to be working and expectation was generally in the air.

By now, having established itself after Easter, my local bar/café/restaurant ‘Wanagaine’ was up and running and remains my favourite spot for lunch. The couple is young – Morgan is French and the chef, and Jessie is English but grew up in France. Suddenly E (the village 1.5 kms from me) has a social life, encouraged by its grateful mairie, which insists the restaurant uses the place du marché over the other side of the narrow road, for an extended lunch-­‐terrace during summer and for its monthly musical events. Jessie claims ‘Wanagaine’ is named for Joan of Arc’s supposed response to her various victories against the English – “I won again” – though I have my doubts about this tale. The restaurant is a real fillip for the village, though, and the local makers and purveyors of artisan beer now have another outlet and are often to be seen en masse – there are three of them and all almost perfectly spherical – at the restaurant having a chat.

Spring proceeded, and the vineyards grew greener and greener. There are many walks around my village, which is one of the ancient circulade-­‐ types.

Consequent ly, walks go up and they go down. At some points along the way they also reveal some really lovely scenery from the top of the hill: ages-­‐old patchwork of ancient vines, some fruit groves, the Domaines dotted here and there, the roads lined with trees – planted, I’m told, to keep the sun off the animals as they were driven to market up to a hundred years or so ago, before trucks. From some angles, and on the right sort of day, way over in the distance you can see the Pyrenees, drawn on the horizon as if with a silver pen (you’ll have to squint). And the countryside is dotted with hills such as ours, many of which bear ancient villages.

In the distance, truly, the spires of the chateau at Pouzolles look like something out of Disney (but not nearly so well-­‐renovated as the chateau at Margon, pictured here). And not a billboard in

sight. All in all, rural France here shows its beauty in the partnership over the ages between working the land and nature itself, and the old, old houses that reflect the stone that lies beneath the ground. Spring brings wildflowers – red poppies foremost – which are joined by new varieties every few weeks or so.

This area floods frequently, I understand, though for most of the year it is very dry. Yet the vines grow green, as do many trees, with no help from the farmers. I suspect the reason for this is all linked with the fact that water is calcium laden and will leave a calcified layer over everything. Everyone filters their water, of course. The calcium is due to the limestone that is prevalent around here, and I am making a wild guess that this lies close to the surface so that, firstly, the water table is high enough to feed the vines, and secondly, it doesn’t take very much to cause a flood, since the water can’t go anywhere.

I am justly proud of myself for having bought a house on a hill, given the propensity for flooding. And was reminded of it once or twice when, after some heavy rains, the water came down my narrow (you have no idea) street in waves.

Having whispered all night, I swear – a phenomenon odd to me because in Oz there are so many corrugated roofs that rain thunders. Here, it whispers and then, lo, morning comes and everything is magically wet.

I received my reminders and appointment time for what is, I suppose, the second half of the visa process. Anyway, I was required in May to go off to Montpellier with myself, my passport and health papers. It all went smoothly, included a chest x-­‐ray and a little prodding.

Eventually, one of the doctors comprehended that inoculation against diseases common to Africa was not necessarily common in Oz. And I had lunch in Montpeller. Which is a revelation. Perhaps it’s only that part of the city – the central part, where you are taken by train from Beziers – but it is the kind of place that … well… just makes you happy. A park, a large square, tall palm trees, lovely buildings. And, because traffic is banned, everywhere the low murmur of people chatting. It’s like being in the middle of a large and contented aviary. You sit and eat (at unaccountably reasonable prices), you look at L’Opera and its posters for upcoming events, at the occasional tram/light rail whispering around the corner, at families and students and grannies. And you smile. Honestly.

As Spring segues into Summer, so the French become frantically festive. If you know where to look and where to go, you will be very busy indeed.

Unfortunately, a trait that is a mystery to all the expats resident here is that the French do not tell you where or when an event will be. You have to learn it from the breeze. Nor will they put the details on the internet. At least, not where you

might automatically look. My researches in this area continue. I have yet to attend a Feria, which has to do with bulls and drunkenness (as far as I can gather), but I did see some indication that A was to have one over several days.

So, yes, the small notice by the side of the road did tell us the days it would be on.

But not the times and certainly not where you would find the event or series of events.

In any case, you can always fill in time while waiting for the breezes to bring news of festivities by wandering around Pézenas. This was a major centre around 1450, and parts of its original protective castle are still in existence. Its preservation was ordained in the 1960s, right down to the Jewish sector that looks pretty well as it would have in medieval times. On the top of the hill, a huge gateway emanates history, though its very ancient castle was destroyed, during troubles of the 17th Century, by the very fierce Richelieu. Around every corner there’s a set piece direct from the middle ages, and a little-­‐known (of course) rule is that if a door is propped open you are at liberty to walk in and gawp at the architecture, at the ancient light-­‐wells and staircases, at the walls with their histories written in barely discernible renovations from the ages. There’s even a museum of doors. Truly.

Luckily for me, N told me of the Australian Film Festival in Pézenas, which is an annual event now and run by an Australian. Yes, I was surprised. It goes by the title of ‘Le Bout du Monde’ – the End of the Earth – which I suppose puts us Aussies in our place. It is run on the smell of an oily rag and features films that are a few years old, both full length and shorts, with an occasional intro or two from one or two of the actual film-­‐makers. You can have a small something to eat and buy wine, of course, while sitting about the picturesque garden of the L’Illustre Theatre. This year, the opening ceremony included a visit from a local guy with dreads and an otherworldly look to him, who entertained us all with something that, honestly, would not have gone down well in Australia. Here, there was absolutely no offense meant and none taken (probably only because there were no Aboriginals in

attendance), so we all looked on as he wandered around in his loincloth, played a didgeridoo, did some throat-­‐singing and stroked our auras. Australians will raise their eyebrows to about hat-­‐height, at this jumble of cultural reference, but I should also say that there are always full-­‐length or short films on the list about some aspect of Aboriginal life. Rather more than one would find at your average film festival in Australia, in fact.

The French are not inherently into promotion and touting, as I have said. In Sète, where there is much festivity for July 14 (Bastille Day), there are water joustings between long boats filled with men in stripy shirts, followed by fireworks and much jollity. You can, I’m told, saunter up to a little hotel by the river and get yourself a room for the night for 40 Euros or so, from whose balcony next morning you can enjoy several croissants and joustings. This I plan to do next year.

By now, of course, not only were the vineyards sprouting with much promise, but the little critters had also long decided it was warm enough to emerge. There are, I was surprised to see, many many lizards; the first batch are the frailer-­‐ looking, skink-­‐like species. One of these little guys came exploring one night, when I left my bedroom window open. Startled by the sound of my approach, it dived under my pillow. Very sadly, I knew none of this and proceeded to sleep soundly, finding the poor thing dead the next morning. Later in the season come the not very large but chunkier geckos. That was a surprise too – I grew up in South East Asia with geckoes on the walls in our house and frequently accidently squashed in the doorways. French geckoes seem to prefer the great outdoors.

Luckily for them, I suppose. There is another lizard that can grow to reasonably impressive proportions (say twenty or thirty centimetres including tail) and, I think, lives mostly in the fields. At least that’s where I saw one loping along one day – bright green. I went to look it up (being, as I said, pretty impressed) and found that it’s name is Green Lizard. Inspired.

I was less pleased one morning to find a dead scorpion on my kitchen floor.

Nobody told me there’d be scorpions.

My little hamlet C’s own celebration of Bastille Day began with a feast on July 13, held on the tennis court. One of the local Councillors from the Marie was perhaps unnecessarily considerate and put all the non-­‐French on one table. The French tend to think that’s what non-­‐French people want, and often that actually is the case. For mine, however, I came to France at least partly to meet French people.

Interestingly, among those at the table were a number of Belgians, and these were in two groups – French-­‐speaking and Flemish-­‐speaking. Anyway, a band with the speakers turned up to 11 shouted at us and we all danced, of course.

Next day a small crowd attended the procession, led by a small brass band from S, to the cemetery, where the Marseillaise was played and our very shy Maire, in his tricolor sash, whispered his speech to us.

What I did discover was the ‘brasucade’ at nearby Alignan-­‐du-­‐Vent (which is not, apparently, as windy as it sounds). An acquaintance has a house in the town and urged me to come along, so I came bearing visiting cousins, and some cutlery.

The brasucade celebrates the myth/legend of King Louis’s mare, who gave birth to a foal in Alignan-­‐ du-­‐Vent rather a long time ago. Strangely, Pezenas claims this happened in its own fair environs, and so holds its own brasucade. A team of villagers cooks furiously – quail, sausages, mussels, steak – and everyone strolling in off the street buys a set of tickets (each for around three Euros) to be presented for food, when it’s ready. Long, long trestle tables are set up and several hundred villagers and friends set themselves down, with their glasses, cutlery and tablecloths, and begin to eat. Bottles of wine may be bought for one Euro, returnable if you bring back the bottle. Later, the foal comes out and does a dance. It’s enormous – a great big barrel covered in cloth, with a tail at one end and a head at the other. We know it to be a horse only because that’s what they say it is. On top lurch two papier mâché figures, a boy and a girl. The dance is enacted (much lurching and swaying involved), the foal lumbers back into its stable and then the music begins. Blaring out at the usual 11 on the dial, tis not dulcet exactly, but what the hell. I did a great imitation of Spanish dancing to the Gypsy Kings with a woman in a bolero with whom, I think, I fell in love.

What a feat, you might say! Indeed! I riposte, for this happens every Friday throughout Summer, for around three months.

C itself occasionally throws a bit of an event, and we all turned out to the concert played by the S orchestra, all of us on benches on the Place du Marché, while the woman from the little mairie insisted all English-­‐speakers must meet each other again, and M le Maire read out his speech to us in his usual confidential tones.

In the meantime, Beziers holds its own Feria which I will attend – when I work out how best to do this – next year. It involves a lot of drinking, music and bullfights, I understand. I am told it’s best to go accompanied by a man, perhaps to dissuade all the other men. As you know, old age is no protection.

Still, more refined delight will be found elsewhere, for Pézenas and Beziers both are full of music and events throughout the Summer. Pézenas makes the most of the fact that Molière spent a few years there once. The town holds a Molière Festival over a few weeks every year, notably at the L’Illustre Theatre. Molière plays are enacted outdoors where a convincingly sixteenth century set is

constructed, and things proceeded at a great and confusing pace while my friend B translated into my ear. Just as well, really. There I was thinking I had got the gist, when I really, really hadn’t. We attended a couple of comedies and of course ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’.

Sadly, one of the things that does not happen in Summer are the jazz and blues nights at the Café Melrose in Agde – about half an hour from me – because they are told in no uncertain terms by the authorities to turn off the music tap while the locality puts on its own shows up and down the coast. Jazz festivals abound, not just in Agde, but also in Sète and elsewhere.

Summer itself was long and very hot. And when I say long… for around two months it did not rain at all, literally, and the thermometer barely dipped below 35 degrees during the day or the high 20s at night. I discovered that the heat pump was unable any more to be the air-­‐conditioner it claimed itself to be as well as a heater. I bought fans, of course, and also a supposedly portable air-­‐ conditioner which I discovered did not suit my house at all. The out-­‐pipe just didn’t go with my swing-­‐opening windows, so I took the monster upstairs to the attic, where my visiting cousins would be sleeping, stuffed the outlet pipe out the tiny window there and tucked the whole thing around with a spare doona.

Worked a treat, at least for my cousins.

Summer was so long and so hot that I did entirely the wrong thing – I had hardly any exercise and drank quite a lot of wine. This, I was told by my doctor, led to high blood pressure for the first time in my life. Let this be a lesson to you. So, in the interests of health and entertainment, one day I realised I was bored off my scone and betook myself to the Abbaye Valmagne, around forty or so minutes away, where a very thin guide told us in French of a great velocity all of its history (several centuries old and suffered a lot during the 100 years’ war and during the Revolution). This expedition was vastly preferable to lying around bored and wilting.

Abbayes abound and are austerely beautiful, and mostly still standing despite the Revolution. They date back, sometimes, to the 12th century, still-­‐ potable fountains occasionally trickle under arches with climbing roses, and always the stone flags on the floors and the stone arches show the wear of those other feet and hands.

Summer moved on and so did the wine crop. And true to all promises, the shed down the road began to grumble and the smell of squashed grapes began to waft sourly on the air. I took myself down to have a look and a young man explained at length in a strong and difficult regional accident all about the process. No, I didn’t understand much, though I could see the huge mass of pulp that had been spewed out of the giant pipe and into the back of a container.

I have another friend who has developed a passion for all things to do with grape-­‐production, especially with ‘bio’ production. He can tell you a lot more than I can: www.amarchinthevines.org

Throughout the area, machinery and very narrow tractors slowed traffic on all the roads. Much of the crop is picked by machinery nowadays, I understand, where once itinerant pickers would come and end each working day with a drink and a song in the local places du marché.

I am going to leave you with that image for now. Next blog – more Summer , a trip to Spain, and the slide into Autumn.