A bit about Brittany

We were in Brittany recently, and we had a Very Important Purpose in visiting. We had spent a week in Normandy (see previous posts) and thought, "What the heck. We may never be back this way again so we'd better check Brittany out," especially as friends of ours who now live in New Zealand used to live there. She's a New Zealander, he's a Frenchman-chef-extraordinaire from Brittany. They used to run an extremely popular restaurant called Le Canotier in a town called Tréguier. We had to go there! So we conducted some hasty research and planned our route.

We started with lunch in Cancale which is on a jutting-out peninsula not far from the lovely (I'm told) Saint Malo.

Fishing village, Cancale, Brittany

It was incredibly busy there so we found a fishy restaurant far away from the central streets, in a beautiful position overlooking the sea which was directly across the road. We kept placing bets as to how far the tide would go out, 'To that blue boat; to that buoy, no, to that fishing boat...' None of us were right, and it was still going out when we finished our lunch. We saw groups of friends on the beach prising open fresh oyster shells to squeeze in a squirt of lemon juice and then gulp the oysters down, chased by a glass of wine and some fresh French baguette. They looked so happy!

From there we made our way to Tréguier. I didn't really know what to expect of Tréguier but we had the name of the street where our friends' restaurant used to be, so off we went to climb rue Ernest Renan. (Tréguier is BEAUTIFUL. It is listed as one of the villages fleuris in France, which I take to mean: prettiest villages.)

Tréguier

Tréguier

Apparently, Tréguier is best known for being the birthplace of St Yves, the patron saint of lawyers, and Catholic lawyers from around the world have been known to make pilgrimages to Tréguier to pay homage. Well, we certainly weren't there for that purpose.

Ye gods, there's a skull in that glass-fronted box! in Tréguier cathedral

Our friends, Cathie and Stéphane (not in the photograph below...), now have a café in Wellington (Café Breton, no less), and on a wall in their café they have several black and whites photos of Tréguier quite some decades ago. People with wooden clogs on and strange but beautiful clothes (almost costumes), that sort of thing.

Traditional Breton costumes, around 1900

We searched high and low along rue Ernest Renan, up through the village, close to the cathedral, to find the site of Le Canotier. Nope, nothing. I asked in a tourist shop. No, never heard of it. I knew we were on the right street so I told my eight year old son that I was going to pop into a jewellery shop and ask if they knew of Le Canotier. As I stepped inside, Oliver pulled my arm and whispered, "Mum. Those people just there on the street are talking about the restaurant, and they're talking about New Zealand and our friends Cathie and Stéphane!" 

Vraiment???!  Of course, Oliver was listening to them speak in French.

I quickly walked up to them, smiling broadly and in my best French said, "My son said you were talking about New Zealand, and Cathie and Stéphane. They are friends of ours. We are from New Zealand. We want to find where their restaurant was." Ha ha ha, we all laughed. Quelle coïncidence. Then the nice Monsieur said, "Well, you are standing right in front of it." Turns out Monsieur and Madame were showing their visitors the site of the wonderful Le Canotier restaurant, opposite the jewellery shop, too. (Sadly it is now a real estate agent and a pizza place and not a popular, buzzing restaurant.)

On rue Ernest Renan, outside Le Canotier (formerly), chatting with Monsieur

We chatted for a while and found that Monsieur's father and Stéphane's father used to be great friends. Mission accomplished! Apparently Cathie and Stéphane's sister-in-law runs a charcuterie truck that sells yummy pate and anything in the pig line in the local markets. Her brand is 'Henriette'; so keep an eye out!

We then took a turn along winding country roads to find La Roche-Derrien, where C&S used to lived. Why oh why did they move to New Zealand? I cried as each turn in the road took us to more breath catching beauty.

Moving swiftly along, we took the coastal route around the Granite Coast (Trégastel, Perros-Guirrec, etc). Beautiful pinky rocks, rugged and wild seas, nothing like the long calm beaches of Normandy. This was raw, beautiful nature, like the west coast of New Zealand I thought.  (read more about the Granite Coast on: http://www.francethisway.com/places/brittany-cote-de-granit-rose.php) From there we drove to our completely forgettable (preferably forgettable) cheap family accommodation for the night. That's all I'm saying about that.

Day two: let's see some menhirs and dolmen, and alignments (rows of standing stones)! This had been a big dream of mine since I starting reading Asterix and Obelix as a nipper. We knew the kids would like this, and we promised that we wouldn't drag them to any cathedrals. We went to 'The Carnac Alignments, an exceptional Neolithic site with 6,000 year old megaliths', so says the brochure.  It's still all (educated) supposition as to why the alignments are there (sacred burial architecture vs ceremonial temples...), but they were continually constructed between the fifth and third millenia BC so something important was happening in the minds of those people for two millenia. Crikey. I've been inside an ancient dolmen (a stone table, sometimes with a burial passage underneath) in Ireland and it felt spookily the same to be in Carnac seeing/touching similar stuff.

Carnac alignments

Dolmen at Carnac

Then with our brains a-whirring we headed towards Saint-Pierre-Quiberon, passing through and heading straight down the waist-thin peninsula to Quiberon itself. Another raw, lovely, fishy-restaurant-with-gorgeous-sea-views, heaving-with-tourists, quaint, delightful, completely unique village.

Quiberon peninsual at the narrowest point

We ate lunch there, wandered a bit and headed to our much more comfortable (clean) family accommodation.

I really want to call Brittany 'Little Britain' but I know the name has already been taken by those two funny guys. For me, Brittany could be parts of England/Ireland/Wales as they look so similar. In fact, I've just had a look at Wikipedia and this is what I found:

Brittany is considered as one of the six Celtic nations, which are: Brittany (Breizh), Cornwall (Kernow), Ireland (Éire), the Isle of Man (Mannin), Scotland (Alba), and Wales (Cymru); and are territories in Northern and Western Europe. Each of these regions has a Celtic language that is either still spoken or was spoken into modern times, and their own cultural traits. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain).

So, not far off. I've been told that people in Wales who speak Welsh can understand French people in Brittany who speak Breton. Incredible. Some other striking things about Brittany are:

• the dish of the region is: galettes/crêpes and cider, while the dish of Normandy is moules et frites (mussels and french fries);
• in the north of Brittany you see slate tiles on the houses and people look more Anglo-Saxon; in the south of Brittany you see red Roman roofing tiles, and people with Roman noses!
• Brittany beaches are rugged and wild - like the south coast of Wellington, New Zealand. Normandy beaches are more similar to Auckland/Northland beaches. (Nice but strange to have a sense of New Zealand so far away,);
• the names of the towns/villages seemed to generally fall into different categories, for example: the 'Tré...' names (Tréguier, Trégastel, Trévé, Trémousen), the 'Plou...' names (Ploufragan, Ploumagaor, Plougonver, Plouisy, they go on and on), and the ones with the crazy apostrophes, like Ploumanc'h or the surnames Guivarc'h or Wrac'h. Hu'h???

Not enough time, we wanted to see more, but la rentrée was looming and you can't ignore la rentrée. One day I'll go back there; it was wonderful, and so different from Toulouse and the south of France. Vive la France!

Singing for restoration

What can happen in one weekend? Well, mine consisted of a day and a half of rehearsals with a cobbled together choir, resulting in a stirring, standing-ovation-inducing concert for the monumental purpose of the restoration of the Eglise Saint Corneille, nestled in the warmth of the lovely village of Puycelsi in the Tarn departement. Phew.

Eglise Saint Corneille, Puycelsi

Puycelsi, Tarn

Eglise Saint Corneille, Puycelsi

For the past four years I have been involved in these fund-raising concerts. An Association was created in 2006 for this purpose after a regular visitor to the church noticed how severe the water-damage was becoming, plus the effects of general weathering over time. Well, it was built in the 13/14th centuries so it wasn't surprising, but clearly something had to be done. And Scotsman (now living in Puycelsi) Ross Jenkins did it by creating the Association for the Restoration of Saint Corneille (Association pour la Restauration de Saint Corneille or ARC). Thank goodness he did, because the water damage is now under control and various bits and bobs are being replaced, restored, repainted and renewed. It's getting truly gorgeous again. The blue and gold on the ceiling is too beautiful!

The interior of Eglise Saint Corneille, ripe for restoration

To raise funds, volunteer participants initially came together for a weekend, to practice and sing Handel's Messiah to a fee paying audience, with the idea that the music is learnt in advance and that the weekend would be a bringing-it-all-together time. This was the routine for some few years before the programme extended to include other works. So far I've had the enormous privilege of singing Handel's Messiah, Fauré's Requiem and Mozart's Requiem, with extremely talented soloists, an organist, Nicholas O'Neill, who is shipped in from England, and conductor Mark Opstad. Mark is the Professeur de chant choral at the Conservatoire de Toulouse where he created and directs the Maîtrise de Toulouse. He is a remarkable conductor. Kindness personified yet able to draw the best from us all, all of the time coupled with the symbiotic link he has with the organist who keeps up with everything we are doing without a moment's distraction. And I have to mention the look on Mark's face when he stops us mid-chord and says, 'I can hear an E flat. It should be an E,' or words to that effect. His ability to hear that amongst almost 70 voices is staggering.

Here's the way it happens:

• Some months ago: receive the music list by email and purchase/order/print the music. Learn it. Really well. In groups or in front of YouTube,
• Saturday: arrive after lunch for registration and the first two hours of rehearsal. The jovial greeting from Ross Jenkins is in itself worth the drive from Toulouse,
• 4pm: cup of tea in the local hall (salle polyvalent), involving an invigorating descent to the hall then a slow incline back up the hill to the church to rehearse for two more hours (full of tea and cake),
• 7pm: leave for the day. Some stay overnight in Puycelsi or the surrounds (try www.lapremierevigne.com for some seriously gorgeous chambre d'hôte accommodation in the middle of 1.4 hectares of natural park and forest), while others return to their homes,
• Sunday: arrive at 10am for two hours' rehearsal with the soloists this time,
• midday: lunch in the salle polyvalent prepared by Ginny Jenkins and her merry mix of helpers. Delicious! Main course, cheese course then dessert. And the main course was, of course, Coronation chicken! Ha ha ha. This year it was followed for me by coffee in the local Roc cafe with my new friends from Lavaur,
• 2pm: two more hours' practise, and this year it was more fine-tuning in my opinion than desperately thinking how the ^*&% am I (are we) going to pull this off?!,
• We are then magnetically pulled towards the salle polyvalent again for more revitalising sustenance of tea, scones, jam and cream! This keeps us going until concert time (6pm) before which we find a nook somewhere, change clothes, try to look composed and gorgeous and completely calm.  Previous years have seen temperatures in the high 20s. This year it was positively chilly but polar fleeces are removed before we entered the church. (I've never known it to be warmer inside a church in France than outside...)
• As the church bells rang for 6pm we file in for the well-sold-out-in-advance concert, and whereupon we sing our little hearts out. The applause afterwards and the standing ovation and the encore and the drinks and nibbles outside and the drawing of the raffle winners is a perfect way to finish the evening.

This year's treat was Mozart's 'Coronation Mass', Handel's' Zadok the Priest', Wesley's 'Thou Wilt Keep Him in Perfect Peace', Parry's 'I was Glad' plus a Handel soprano solo (encore! encore! Zena Baker!) and an organ solo of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance (by said organist and rock-star-in-his-spare-time, Nicholas O'Neill). It was really hard not to get all jolly and slightly crazy like the Brits do at the Night of the Proms. And have you guessed yet? Yes. It was in celebration of the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England's long and glorious reign and was the music from her Coronation in 1953. My favourite work so far though has to be Gabriel Fauré's Requiem. I sang  music by a French composer, in France. Cool!
The best thing is that apart from the soloists, conductor and organist, all the rest of us are quite simply enthusiastic singers who love to sing, many of whom do sing in other choirs and are frightfully good (I'm talking about you, Angela R).  I'm told that our joint nationalities cover France, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, and I must add, New Zealand. It was such a pleasure to re-acquaint with old friends, and easily slip into new friendships.

I don't want to sound twee... but is it possible to express how soul-soaring it is to sing as part of a harmonious group, professionally conducted and accompanied? To explain how passages of music embed themselves in the neurons and play over and over in my head, day and night, unbidden but so welcomed? Or the sheer delight/eruption of joy at creating beautiful music with others just by using this normal voice of mine? This voice that rises to challenges and heights that it didn't know it could achieve? (Tip from the conductor on how to get the top notes: drop the jaw open, think the note and arrive at it from above. When you're singing top A, you need all the help you can get). And listening to a work of music, say, for a random example, the Coronation Mass, and not really warming to it, then by the end of the weekend absolutely flippin' loving it?

The closest I've got to that feeling of musical inter-connectedness with others was in the Piako Brass Band in which I played the cornet when I was 17. I loved being surrounded by the resonance of brass instruments. After that it was in a music/drama group called Y-ONE 1987, that toured New Zealand for a year, in which I played keyboards in the band and sang backing vocals. Oh, and the magnificent combined choirs and orchestra concert extravaganzas that were held in the Auckland Domain in the 1990s, to thousands of people. I sang in the choir for two years and the memories are still spine-tingling.
Next weekend there's a vide grenier (car boot sale) in our local school grounds at which we intend to make a pile of coins by selling our accumulated 'stuff'. Last year my daughter made a killing on her old Barbie dolls.

For more information on ARC, contact Ross Jenkins, 05 63 33 15 84 ross.jenkins@orange.fr. To find out more about the talented Mark Opstad, visit: www.markopstad.com and www.maitrise.crr.toulouse.fr. For more information on the rock-star organist, Nicholas O'Neill, visit: www.nicholasoneill.com. And big thanks to Ross and Ginny Jenkins, again, for being the driving force behind this wonderful weekend!

For more photos of Puycelsi, visit: http://www.france-voyage.com/communes/puycelsi-32932.htm

A policeman, a snake and a naked man

Three unusual things have happened here in France lately:

1. A plain clothes policeman came to our door and asked if he could stand in our garden and watch the neighbours. Sure, why ever not! Seems someone has been damaging the cars in the residence of houses next door and he is on stake-out duty to nab the guilty. There's some comfort to be had in having Mr Policeman in the garden, but sadly he wasn't available when this happened...

2. A snake had wriggled its way into our house and my daughter found it. We were the only ones home. Of course there were loud screams and nervous jumpings but it was fascinating as we had never seen a snake up close and personal before, in our own home. We waited until it had curled up in the plastic surrounding a bundle of six sparkling water bottles, at which point I picked up the bundle and hurled it outside. Mr Snake slithered off, under my car. We used the car later (still shaking slightly) and saw him slithering off to the safety of the oak tree and its always-falling leaves.  Haven't seen him since. My husband was awfully impressed.

And neither was Mr Policeman available this afternoon when...

3. I was walking up our lovely street (quite rural, cutting through the properties of two major chateaux) to collect my son from school when I saw something that made me spin around on my heels and head promptly home. I'll take the car instead, I thought. It's not every day you see a completely naked man hanging around on the road. I don't know quite what he was up to but odds are he was dodgy, dangerous, unwell, or had nasty friends who had stolen his clothes. He wasn't young though (about 50-60) but I must say he was in good form for an older man...

Otherwise what struck me today was how late the fruit is fruiting on the trees this year. We are in autumnal France now, yet walking home from the school delivery this morning I managed to gobble mouthfuls of blackberries, green figs, black figs, yellow plums and then red plums. I thought they were fruit of the summer. Delish!

Normandy notes 3...

We were staying in Asnelles in a gite 50 metres from the lovely beach and promenade. When the tide was in, you had a good two to three metres of soft golden sand to play in. When the tide was out, you had to walk a good kilometre or so to be within paddling distance. Quite a difference. That morning, the children had constructed a fort in the sand and throughout the day it took and changed shape, growing to an impressive size, adorned with feathers, shells and signs that said “Ne touche pas!” and “Do not touch!”. There was some meddling by youngsters or parents unable to read while we were all on a necessary bathroom stop at the gite but on the whole the construction survived the day well. It was situated just below the high tide mark.

After a day lounging around on the beach the kids decided that we would eat dinner on the beach too. As they guarded their enormous sand fort, we (the obliging parents) rallied our resources and produced a super summer picnic snack, carefully couriered down the lane and onto the beachfront from our gite. Sadly the wind was up a little and our sausies and salad were soon full of sand… Yummmmm.
But the highpoint of the night was yet to come.

“Dad? What time is high tide tonight?”

“Oh, about 9pm I think.”

Actually it was closer to 11pm (someone’s chart was a bit out), so three happy children balanced themselves on the middle island of the fort as the waves g r a d u a l l y washed closer…and closer…and closer, until – whoosh, the fort was gone. The kids had waited for hours and every moment was fun. I’m sure they’ll remember that for years.

The next day we visited Honfleur.

Honfleur on a quiet day

All I knew was that it was a very cute fishing village, one of the most popular in France, and that it had been re-created in Lego at Legoland in England. In my mind’s eye I saw a port, a cluster of restaurants and a scattering of visitors. I wasn’t expecting a heaving mass of summer-heated energy all concentrating their lunchtime eagerness on a portside view and a stiff cider or two. Fighting my instinct to Run the Other Way, I concentrated on the beauty around me: the squished up houses, tall as anything, all holding the others up; the boats bobbing in the harbour; the Lieutenance building, ages old and full of stories; the icecreams and gelato stands; the languages I could hear around me including the startlingly clear English accents, “William! Get down from there. Now!”; and our own slice of heaven when we finally found a seat or five in the shade and with a portside view. Phew.  (My daughter overheard something even better when one teenage American girl asked another, ” Do you, like, generally, like, like babies?” with the other replying, tunefully, “Like, yeeee-aaaaah!” )

After lunch we walked towards the water and the boats coming and going and found a lovely cool and quiet park far enough away from the Boulevard Charles V to hear no traffic noise. The children launched themselves onto stationary exercise machines in the park and quickly worked off their ubiquitous kids’ menu lunch of steak haché et frites while husband took photos and wife sat under the shade of a tree. Lovely.

We walked back to the car through the old quarter after a three and a half hour visit. It was pretty special and memorable, but just not what I was expecting. We bought a fridge magnet anyway. Most remarkable was the Sainte-Catherine church, which is the largest church made out of wood in France (because they couldn’t afford any other building material at the time), and which has a bell tower separate from the main building. After all the stone and brick churches/cathedrals/abbeys, etc, we have seen, this was a real treat. Oh and the old quarter was gorgeous too.

Here’s a link to Lonely Planet’s information on Honfleur:

Long a favourite with painters but now more popular with the Parisian jet set, Honfleur is arguably Normandy’s most charming seaside town. Even though it can be overrun with tourists in the summer months, it’s hard not to love its graceful beauty.

Its heart is the Vieux Bassin (Old Harbour), from where explorers once set sail for the New World. Now filled with pleasure vessels, this part of the port is surrounded by a jumble of brightly coloured buildings that evoke maritime Normandy of centuries past.

Read more in an article in I found in France Today: http://www.francetoday.com/articles/2011/05/23/honfleur_picture_perfect_port.html

Our next day was the last day in Asnelles, and we spent it again on the beach. “Quelle belle journée!” a French woman warmly expressed to me as I stumbled to the beach to find the family at lunchtime (I slept in a bit). We soaked up every lovely moment before the long drive home to Toulouse, via Brittany!

More on that to follow.

Normandy notes 2...

I’ve decided that my life’s ambition is to own a hamlet. In Normandy. I decided that after having driven along the back roads from Asnelles to Mont Saint Michel, guided by ‘Peter’, our carrot-up-the-bum English gps voice. I was really grateful that he took us the scenic route though as we saw so much beauty in the simple, timeless stone homes and their rambling rosy gardens and thriving vegetable patches. If I owned a hamlet I would invite groups of creatives to join me, to enjoy the restored solitude and to work their creative magic surrounded by the sounds and sights of nature. The country lanes were again very English, but then I would round a corner and see a spot of Ireland or even Wales.

(Once in a while I desperately want to be hurled back in time to when life was slower and communities were closer. I’m a mix of Gerard Manly Hopkins and Thomas Hardy I think, in their love of the countryside, and I wonder sometimes whether I was born into the wrong century…Hmmmm.)

Back to reality – we weren’t so grateful that (again) we almost got killed on the road as a long truck rounded a bend on our side of the road. I took the ‘brace, brace’ position and surprisingly calmly prepared to have our car and precious cargo smashed up. Merci à Dieu, we survived with millimetres in our favour. We all gasped as we drove through the small town of Caumont l’Eventé to find not one, not two, not three but six tractors laden with hay bales/hay making equipment all vying for right of way down the narrow passage of lanes. The fields of cut wheat/hay/grass were spectacular with rolled up round bales waiting to be loaded onto trucks and taken away (where??). When I was a teenager I remember the young lads of my home town rushing off to help the local farmers at hay making time.

 
I had been snoozing in the car when suddenly the family were all a-shouting: “There it is! Look at that! That’s amazing!”. My breath has been truly taken away on the following occasions: at the births of each of my babies, on seeing Carcassonne, St Cirq Lapopie, Cordes sur Ciel, Rocamadour, and now on seeing Mont Saint Michel. Wow. We braved the crowds. And the Normandy heat of summer (which is about the same as a really great summer’s day in New Zealand, which ain’t that hot actually). I have to say that I am not a fan of crowds as I get a bit claustrophobic, and I just about turned and ran back to the car when I saw the throngs of people inching their way up the cobbled streets towards the abbey, some metres above us. But I took a deep breath, sang a little song and felt better… So brave!

Having been there I can now confirm that the view of Mont Saint Michel and the views from Mont Saint Michel are, for me, a zillion times more satisfying that actually being there in the mix of abbey rooms and cobbled streets. Some of the views I saw that day will remain with me for the rest of my life.  We really wanted to stay and watch the tide coming in as we have read (Lonely Planet?) that it comes in as fast as a galloping horse. But the incoming tide was hours away, and we had faux filets with three pepper sauce to be cooked on our BBQ and an extra swim to be squished in before bedtime.

Mont Saint Michel, with the tide out

Importantly, we have renamed Mont Saint Michel ‘The Tower of Babel’ after hearing English, French, Scottish, Irish, American, Canadian, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Australian, Danish, Japanese, and New Zealand accents in the car park, on the transit bus, on the long walk to the island, up the narrow lanes, through the maze of the abbey, from the lookout viewpoints, in the cafés, etc etc etc. Everyone was respectful and well-behaved, and despite my detesting crowds it was pretty cool to be amongst them all. The most prominent nationality was the Japanese that day, evidenced by the flag/umbrella/book/hand waving guide with the audio headset linked directly to his/her crowd’s ears, and their unique sense of fashion (= grab any item but make sure it has no style connection with any other item you are wearing. Then add a bunny or kitten on a key ring to your bag/hat or shoe lace. Of course, I generalise…)

It was a day to remember. And the faux filets were très bon too!

Normandy notes...

I’m not a war buff. I don’t like to visit places where battles were held and blood was shed, where people killed each other. You can’t get away from it in Normandy though, and as we visited the region recently here are some Normandy notes (more to follow in future blogs) from a staunch non-war tourist. (You’ll find lots of tourists here, including German tourists, mostly visiting the war memorials along the coast.)

So, here we go…

1. If your husband wears a t-shirt he picked up in the airport in London that has the London underground symbol on it, be sure that you will be mistaken for Brits. This may be the only area/departement in France where this is a good thing. Americans, British, Canadians et al, are warmly welcomed in this region due to their marvellous efforts in the D-day invasion (débarquement) along the coast of Normandy leading to the liberation of France from the Nazis in WWII.  We stayed in a village called Asnelles and from our gite you can still see the now corroding remains of the port built by the allies after D-day. It’s big, really impressive, and when the tide is right you can walk to the closest remains, although a man with a whistle may warn you off them.

2. If you are driving from Toulouse to Normandy over two days, gird your loins for an onslaught of increasingly horrific driving the further north (= closer to Paris?) you go. At one point I screamed loudly as a car cut sharply in front of us, with the driver hitting his brakes and then furiously wagging his finger at us for something we may or may not have done to upset him.  We were in the fast lane, travelling slightly over 130km per hour, following the speed of the traffic in front who were also all passing the camper vans, the cars pulling cute little caravans, limited-speed trucks, and old people driving to survive. My husband of course slammed on his brakes, sending our two hamsters in their cages into a traumatic state they are still recovering from, before furiously giving the finger to the IDIOT driver in front. We saw this tosser repeat his mad action further ahead of us. We stayed well back after that. Notably my husband had to use the horn twice if not thrice on our journey north to alert drivers who were wandering across lanes (as they texted and smoked at 130km/hour, as I saw one young buck do).  Needless to say I was ready for a stiff drink after that.

3. Do visit Bayeux, not just for the tapestry which has some pretty exciting scenes on it here and there and which is actually an embroidery on linen, but for the cathedral (undamaged during WWII) and the river walk through the town, oh and the icecreams. Gorgeous little streets, soft stone-coloured stone homes, and flowers everywhere. Just beautiful.

The Bayeux tapestry

4. Driving to and from Omaha Beach through little villages with impossibly small lanes was as if we were driving through the southern English countryside. My breath was caught several times with the composition of buildings, the ivy covered towers attached to the grand chateaux, the highly coloured hydrangeas, and then a thatched cottage or two. Surely I was in in England?! But the villages were called names like Arromanches-les-Bains, Tracy-sur-Mer, Manvieux, Longues-sur-Mer, and Colleville-sur-Mer. So, definitely France.

Manvieux

5. If you own a restaurant in Courseulles-sur-Mer and you want to provide hungry punters with somewhere dry to eat on a very wet summer’s night, do think about investing in a waterproof sun shade for the front verandah seating area of your restaurant. We were turned away from about six restaurants because their under-shade seating areas were drenched and unusable. Thankfully we found one that had a dry seat or five.  We arrived at our gite too late to find a supermarket, and this lovely seaside village was our only option for an evening meal. The drink of the region is cider. I like it. And pommeau. And calvados.

6. The seafront promenade at Asnelles has some really curious architecture. Grand houses (chateaux really) in all sorts of styles. Our gite is more modest but it’s the cutest, sweetest, best decorated, most well provisioned gite we’ve stayed in in France. And then the best thing about a beach holiday is the beach. Why is it that a beach can entertain kids for hours? The tide comes in, the tide goes out and it changes all the time. “Mum, Dad, can we go and see what the sea looks like now?” Perfect entertainment.

Asnelles

More notes to follow…

Much about Mannheim

Last weekend, I went to Mannheim, Germany, and it was curious. That is to say, I saw the place from the curious perspective of a New Zealander who has lived three-and-a-half years in France. So my visit was coloured with my Antipodean glasses, and more lately and noticeably with my European glasses. I visited a Swedish friend who works at the University of Mannheim. Her perspective is even more curious, having lived in Sweden, Norway and France, and with four-and-a-half languages under her belt (fluent Swedish, Norwegian, English, French, and pretty good German too). Here are my (our) observations:

French people can be a little hesitant about speaking English:

1. because they may not be able to speak it ‘perfectly’ which to them means that they don’t speak English;
2. because the English and the French have had a bit-of-a-history over the years and hence perhaps some reluctance to speak like the ‘rosbif’; and
3. because they are very fond of their beautiful French language.

German people, on the other hand, almost jump with joy when they have the opportunity to speak English. They are proud of their ability, they seem to like the language, and they speak it happily, willingly and really well. Really Well. From what I understand, they start learning English at a young age, younger than French children, and it shows.

*

German people like coffee they way New Zealand people like coffee. Lots of it, and milky, and preferably to take away, so you see lots of people wandering around with their coffees, à la Nouvelle-Zélande. I’ve been in France long enough now to have been subsumed into the coffee culture here: an espresso (décaffeiné) after lunch is enough thanks, and only while seated, or standing at a bar. No walking around drinking, or eating for that matter. Food and drink consumption is a serious business to be conducted whilst seated and concentrating. It was great to have a milky coffee in Germany though, but for me that is like a meal now. In Germany I saw lots of people walking around, eating too.

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Mannheim is very orderly. It may just be Mannheim in particular because of the layout of the town from the central Barockschloss (Baroque Palace, www.schloss-mannheim.de), where the avenue from the main palace doors extends into the distance, while on either side is a grid-like system that is referenced, efficient and blindingly obvious. We visited Heidelberg too (lovely old town half an hour away) and that seemed to be a little more random. Toulouse, in contrast, is a maze. Recently I tour-guided a New Zealand visitor around Toulouse and it was hard work (the map-reading, not the visitor – she was lovely!). Usually I am a navigator without equal (it’s an inbuilt, girl, homing thing), but in Toulouse I still don’t know which direction is north and south, or where Ramonville Saint Agne is from the centre of Toulouse (Toulouse Capitole). But I do love the spontaneity of wandering down little streets and discovering sights, so I don’t mind not having a referenced grid system.

Actually, the north/south thing is a leftover from being an Antipodean, southern hemisphere girl. In New Zealand, I looked north to find the sunny warmth, while here in France I look to the south. Even when I think I’ve got it sorted, I will point to exactly the opposite direction than which I intend.

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Poor old Mannheim was bombed a lot during World War II. The city centre was on the flight path to the industrial/manufacturing part of town so the city centre isn’t exactly beautiful, but a redeeming feature is the Wasserturm; a water tower, that is gorgeous. Toulouse is a beautiful un-bombed city, and the centre of the city takes my breath away each visit I make.

*

Tickets, travelling, trains and trams: Not once was I asked for my train or tram ticket to/from Frankfurt to Mannheim, nor in either Mannheim or Heidelberg. Why? Because society is based on trust and doing the right thing, I’m told. Of course you buy a ticket. To do so isn’t just or correct. There are ticket machines on the buses and metro in France, and regular checks by guards spanning the width of the concourse to check your tickets. Oh, and watch out in Germany not to cross the road unless there is a green man: you may be shouted at by other more law-abiding pedestrians. You are of course setting a bad example and not following the rules. Really!

We visited a variety of restaurants and cafes. Here are the best:

• N eins Lounge – www.n-eins-lounge.de for a meal of grilled fish with a vanilla/chilli crust and baby fennel in a glazed orange and Pernod sauce. The restaurant is called this funny name because it is in the N1 grid. The wine too was delicious, Gutsriesling trocken, Dr Burklin-Wolf: www.buerklin-wolf.de.
• Vapiano – an Italian restaurant (lots of diy self-service) next to the water tower (Wasserturm). Superb entertainment watching your meal being prepared, and the best antipasti I’ve had in ages: www.vapiano.de
• Soup and Coffee – a less imaginative name you couldn’t think of, but with fantastic soups (five new flavours each week), served with fresh, delicious bread. I had sorrel and potato soup (I think) and dark bread: www.soupandcoffee.net We didn’t have the coffee there; instead we went down the road to:
• O’Dog Café – oddly named but exceptionally welcoming: www.myodogcafe.com. I tried their non-coffee drink but it was blargh, so they made me a cup of tea instead, with their super range of teas from Sonnentor. My tea was called ‘ Lass Die Sonne Sheinen’ which means ‘Let the Sun Shine’: www.en.sonnentor.com.
• Brasserie Bernstein, Seckenheimer Strasse 58, Mannheim – a Parisienne-themed restaurant with a wonderful buffet brunch on a Sunday morning. Excellent coffee and enthusiastic English speaking staff: www.brasserie-bernstein.com.

And in Heidelberg:

• Palmbrau Gasse – unassuming from the darkened windows outside, but spanning the width of a block of streets and with entrances either side. Speedy, efficient service from English speaking staff, and delicious food and coffee: www.palmbraeu-gasse.de.
• Gummy bears are the typical German treat, and we bought ours at Baren-Treff www.baeren-treff.de in Heidelberg, but they are everywhere, even at the train station.
• And for a non-food recommendation, visit Andrea Creations in Heidelberg for too many lovely things for a girl to buy, on Hauptstraße 183, 69117 Heidelberg Germany‎ +49 6221 161387, no website sorry.

It was a great long weekend, and fun exploring, and I’m only sorry that I had to leave a day early because of a Lufthansa strike…

Transport stimulation

 

I often take the Tisséo metro from Ramonville St-Agne into the city of Toulouse. Tisséo oversees/manages/owns the majority of the transport methods in Toulouse, and you can use the one travel card on most forms of transport here. Slick and simple.

The metro is clean, regular and completely automated (i.e. there are no drivers), and there are fabulous safety doors on the platforms that are lined up perfectly with the automatically opening train doors. They are also there (I’m sure) to help me feel safe, especially when I am travelling with the children. I am freaked out more than I can say by the metro/underground platforms in Paris and London where, for example, one pushy shovey person, or a trip and a stumble, could see you landing on the tracks and facing an oncoming train.

Onto a lighter note.

There is a great advertisement for Tisséo pasted around Toulouse at the moment. It’s all about the types of people who use Tisséo transport. Here’s the text in English, with the original French version later. I translated it with my 80+ year old French teacher so I’m not exactly sure that some of the phrases are in current parlance! And, it reads:

Tisséo is for:Sunday sportspeople, those who sing in the bathroom, executives who are not always dynamic, people who search for their cats, optimists in all circumstances, elderly people who have a bad back, young people who were out too late, the beautiful and the rebels, bad actors, large families, confirmed bachelors, people with reduced mobility and strong personalities, Instagram photographers[1], spoilt children, old ladies with their cutsie dogs, hypochondriacs, Desperate Housewives but in reality, retirees who are bored, retirees who are also amused, bourgeois hippies[2] who eat organic food, geeks and cool guys, people nostalgic for Dick Rivers’[3] music, fans of Pascal Obispo[4], country dancers, the flankers and the props, people who are passionate about everything, those who like coffee and those who like tea, footballers who receive a yellow card, part-time adventurers, the eternal dreamers, old lady dragons in glasses, crossword lovers, women who fall in love with anyone, those who get up early and those who go to bed late, those who are eternally rushed, those who are systematically late, those who are afraid of the dark, the superstitious…and all of the others. 

In other words, Tisséo is for us all.

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[1] les photographes Instagram = Instagram is an online photo-sharing and social networking service that allows its users to take pictures, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services

[2] bobo = les bourgeois bohèmes/English = bourgeois hippies

[3] Dick Rivers = a rock and roll crooner (as described by my English speaking French hairdresser), and of the same vintage as Eddie Mitchell and Johnny Halliday. He is still popular today in France.

[4] Pascal Obispo = a bit more rock-y than Dick Rivers, and still popular today.

I think that’s great! I like that someone (a committee, a team, a PR firm?) has a great sense of humour and knows that we like to laugh at ourselves.
And now that I know a bit of French, I can appreciate the French version too, so here it is:

Tisséo, c’est pour les : sportifs du dimanche, les chanteurs de salle de bain, les cadres pas toujours dynamiques, ceux qui cherchent leur chat, les optimistes en toutes circonstances, les seniors qui ont mal aux reins, les juniors qui ont mal aux cheveux, les belles et rebelles, les acteurs ratés, les familles nombreuses, les célibataires endurcis, les personnes a mobilité réduite et a la personnalité affirmée, les photographes Instagram, les fils a papa, les toutous a sa mémère, les hypochondriaques, les Desperate Housewives mais en vrai, les retraites qui s’ennuient, ceux qui s’amusent aussi, les bobos qui mangent bio, les geeks et les hipsters, les nostalgiques de Dick Rivers[3], les fans de Pascal Obispo[4], les danseurs de country, les troisièmes lignes et les piliers, les passionnées de n’importe quoi, les accros au café et les buveurs de the, les collectionneurs de cartons jaunes, les aventuriers a temps partiel, les eternels rêveurs, les serpents a lunettes, les cruciverbistes, les amoureuses du premier qui passe, les lève-tôt et les couche-tard, les eternels presses, les systématiquement en retard, ceux qui ont peur du noir, les superstitieux…et tous les autres.

Bref Tisséo, c’est nous tous.

Giddyup

 

I’m tutoring conversational English in Toulouse now. It has been very interesting discussing the topic of horse meat being found hither and thither in our food. The students are aware of it, but generally the feeling is: ‘Horse meat is okay to eat. But food should be labelled so that we know what we are eating.’

In France, there are specialized butcher shops (boucheries chevalines) that sell horse meat, and since the 1990s, it can be found in supermarket butcher shops and others. Horse meat was famously eaten in large amounts during the 1870 Siege of Paris, when it was even included in haute cuisine menus.  It is slightly sweet, tender and low in fat.

I ask the students whether they think we eat horse meat in New Zealand. ‘Why, yes of course. Pourqoui pas?’ they respond. I explain that we consider horse meat to be along the lines of cat meat or dog meat, that is, it’s something we just don’t eat. Apparently, the Food Standards Code of Australia and New Zealand definition of ‘meat’ does not include horse. Oh, but hang on, except for animals; they eat them. I remember passing a farm on the Bombay Hills on the way to Auckland when I was young, and seeing a lot of horses. ‘That’s the dog meat factory,’ my parents would say, and I was quite horrified to think that those lovely, gracious, noble creatures would be slaughtered and divvied up into chunks and canned for doggies to eat.

However, living in France can change your perspective on a few things, like what’s suitable to eat. I guess it’s like living in Asia where food takes on a whole new dimension, where boiled chicken feet is a delicacy (I’ve been offered it!), and mouldy tofu deep-fried in rancid oil is a treat (yes, I used to smell it and quickly cover my nose before I hopped off the ferry each day in Hong Kong).

So now I think, what’s wrong with horse meat? I’m not vegetarian although my appetite tends that way quite a lot. Here’s what my French friend Marijo says about the whole ‘what’s up with our food and what’s this about horse meat?’ affair:

“There are many stories about processed food but we all prefer to forget that! One hears of ‘spoiled’ meat mixed with fresh meat, additives added to change the flavour, to ‘glue’ pieces of meat between them… Fruits and vegetables are washed with bleach to kill germs in many restaurants or canteens (this is the case in the school canteen here, for example). The animals are treated with antibiotics too and it becomes dangerous to humans too, etc.

Regarding horse meat, I remember we ate it when I was little. It’s not bad. The eating of horse meat comes from Napoleon’s time, when French soldiers began to eat the horses in order to avoid dying of hunger while fighting in Russia, and they found that it was good.”

A couple of restaurants I’ve been to in Toulouse recently have had haché au cheval on their menus, which is basically a horse meat pattie. Well, at least that’s clear. I was tempted but I wanted the carpaccio de bœuf instead (shaved slivers of raw beef served with a vinegar-y sauce).

But really, I can’t say it better than this… in the words of British comedian Jack Dee on the British TV show, 8 out of 10 cats, last week, “If you buy 150 burgers for ₤1.50 from your discount meat warehouse, what do you expect will be in them? Just be thankful it’s horse!”

School holidays in France

Why are there three zones (A, B and C) for the school holidays in France? you may ask yourself. The zones were created in 1965, and dictate when a school in a particular location will have its holiday. For the last 30 years, the school holidays have punctuated the life of France, the universe and everything, and French living really does revolve around the holidays.

For someone from New Zealand, I find that there are a few too many holidays, but at the same time, with the longer school days (9am-5pm, four days a week) I find the children are really ready for a break. There are many, many school holiday activities available for the children (you have to pay of course), and you can also book a holiday home for a week (a gîte) and spend a week exploring a new part of France. This is our favourite holiday occupation. (The end of the holidays is quite good too, when the children all return to school…)

The zones are not necessarily in adjoining areas of France, but are designed to split the population evenly for the following key reasons.

1. Let’s go skiing: The primary reasons are for the economy and tourism. These are the holidays during which (nearly all) French people go skiing. Ski stations have paid an enormous sum for their equipment (e.g. ski lifts), and because the snow cover period is not long the holidays are staggered throughout the country so that the ski stations are full/open for several weeks.
2. To avoid traffic jams: The idea of staggering the holidays was applied to the spring holidays too. Thus, all families do not leave with their loaded down Renaults at the same time and it therefore decreases the risk of gridlock/truly horrific traffic jams. It also spreads the availability of holiday locations to rent.
3. To help with the grape harvest: Originally, the school holidays were the same for everyone throughout France, and were organised around religious holidays (e.g. Christmas, Easter, etc). Additionally, the holiday also allowed school children time to help their parents in the fields. In the 15th century, the holidays were held to coincide with the grape harvest, so everyone could pitch in and get the job done. This is a mostly automated system now but it’s still a good reason for a holiday.

The holidays are all called lovely names too, I think.

Back to school (La rentrée) Whatever their age or type of school, students start their new school year at the beginning of September. Teachers return on the 1st of September, pupils usually on the 2nd but this always depends on how the weekend falls.

All Saints holidays (Toussaints) All Saints holidays start on the last weekend before the 1st of November and last two weeks. The weather is lovely autumn weather, with quite warm temperatures.

Christmas holidays (Noël) Christmas holidays last two weeks and they encompass Christmas and New Year (Noël et Réveillon), and they are always two full weeks’ long. It’s cold now.

Winter holidays (L’hiver) Winter holidays last two weeks, and are distributed in France depending on which zone you live in. They take place between the second week of February and the first week of March. It can be even colder now, with more chance of snow.

Easter holidays (Pâques) Easter holidays last two weeks and occur between the second week of April and the first week of May. Gorgeous temperatures at this spring time of year make this my favourite holiday period.

Summer holidays (L’été) The summer holidays officially begin in early July for all state schools, and all students and they last two months – July and August – with August being the ‘dead month’ in France where everything is closed, everyone is at the beach or walking in the cool air of the mountains, and tourists should stay away! It is hot, hot, hot. We’ve had up to 38 degrees Celsius, but that’s nothing compared to the temperatures my sister gets in Wagga Wagga, inland Australia!

In summary, I do find that the holidays are interspersed nicely throughout the year, and make each term not too long or arduous. I really like the northern hemisphere thing of starting school at the end(ish) of summer, which is course is the beginning of September, and I loved that Christmas and New Year holidays do not coincide with the end of the school year and the long annual holidays as it does in New Zealand. It all happens at once there, and I really (really) prefer the rhythm of life here.

By the way, the zones are:

Zone A includes Caen, Rennes, and Nantes in the North West, Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, Grenoble and Montpellier in the South, and Nancy-Metz in the North East;

Zone B includes Lille, Rouen, Amiens, Reims, Strasbourg, Besançon, Dijon, Orleans-Tours, Poitiers, Limoges in central France (but excluding Paris) and Aix-Marseille and Nice in the South East;

Zone C Paris and Versailles, Créteil along with Bordeaux in the South West.

Lots of this information was taken from and article written by R Botte in Mon Quotidien, vendredi 1 mars 2013 that draws on a book on holidays and free time written by a French sociologist, M.Jean Viard. Also some of it is from Wikipedia.

English language students, IUT Toulouse

 

Here’s what my Swedish/French friend Marie wrote to me in an email last week (yes, of course she speaks English fluently):

Congratulations for your new tutoring job at University Paul Sabatier! What kind of students are they? You will notice that even if they study languages and they are supposed to be good in English, they will have a lot of trouble understanding you because they never really HEAR any English, apart from with their teacher. Never on TV or at the movies, so they are not used to hearing different accents. But they will understand you, and I’m sure that you will love it!

I am now a tutor of conversational English at IUT, part of University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. IUT is an Institut Universitaire de Technologie and is like a technical college or a polytech. For half an hour at a time, I sit with a group of up to six students at the language centre (called CRIL) who have a range of ability in English. They are there to practice speaking English. Actually, what I am finding is that their ability is generally great; it’s just their confidence that needs a good boost.

The time passes very quickly (and then I have another group for 30 minutes). We spend some time on introductions and then see where the conversation takes us. Thanks to the manager at IUT, Ann, and her gorgeous language centre employee, Julia from America, I have lots of tricks up my sleeve to help encourage the conversation to keep going. But so far, it has been enough to ask each of them to ask me a question about me. In that way, they can learn about me, a total stranger to them, and how to ask personal questions but in a polite manner. They learn bits and pieces about my family, why we are in France, and quite a lot about New Zealand. This is very interesting to them, but first I make them guess where I am from: an English-speaking country in the southern hemisphere … Hmmmm??

And what do they associate with New Zealand? Rugby, the All Blacks, the haka, a green country, and the kiwi (the bird not the fruit). That’s all so far.

In the first class there was a Frenchman (he said he was ‘old’at 24; older than the other students I guess, who are mostly late teens/early 20s) who had been in the French navy and who had come back to France to study. He had been to about 30 countries in the world, and reeled off places names from New Zealand that he had visited. He had even noticed the difference in the accents of the Dunedin (very Scottish-influenced) people. We talked a while about food and there wasn’t much he hadn’t eaten, including slugs, bugs and insects in Asia.

Another student from India was visibly uncomfortable when I spoke about the challenges our children faced starting school in France, not knowing any French. He was anxious to say something, I could tell, so I gave him the chance. He explained that he had come to France from India when he was in his early teens and had gone straight into the French school system. He said that it was very, very hard for him but now he is so happy that he is studying at University. With all of my heart, I congratulated him, at which point the other students joined in with their congratulations too. It was quite a moment.
Another student came up to me after the class and wanted to know which was the most beautiful city in New Zealand, because she wanted to go there – like, now. What to say? Auckland, I said, followed closely by everywhere else.

So, it’s fun and I’m glad to be helping others with English, apart from with my three retired ladies I meet once a week or so. With them, I speak French and they speak English and we help each other, and can make mistakes (and silently laugh at each other).
In a fortnight we have a crêpes party with the students, and then we have a make some foie gras together party a week or so later, with lunch included. Great fun!