The Spring Rush

Spring in the south of France is a reliably difficult month for foreigners who live here. The odd beautiful day lulls you into thinking that winter is gone, only to have gloom and rain settle back in for another week or so. But the days keep getting longer, some temperature threshhold passes, and everthing starts growing like mad. The garden, however, stays too wet and soggy to do anything about it. Then May rolls around and the entire country goes on holiday for 30 days. Or so it seems.

Just as things start to dry out and you gear up for some serious garding one long holiday weekend starts to follow another. When the hardware store and gardening stores are closed not only from noon until two weekdays and all day Sundays, but also Saturday and sometimes Monday or Friday, and maybe Thursday as well, it's hard to get ahold of the bits and pieces and parts that always seem needed.

An organized person would follow the example of the farmers, and take advantage rainy weather to catch up on maintenance and organization; one would make a careful list of every necessary item for a single run to the "brico" when it is next open. Then, with everything ready to go in advance, one would be "in the field" the first dry day thus maximizing the opportunity to get work done when the weather permits. But something else invariably gets in the way, and when the tools finally are pulled out and a widget is missing or a left-handed spanner is needed, it turns out to be noon, or Sunday, or a holidy.

We've finally managed to catch up now, and just in time because summer, it seems, is already here. The spring wildflowers are past their peak and the wheat is starting to turn golden in the fields. Doors and windows, which for a few weeks stayed open much of the day, suddenly need to be closed against the midday heat. Meals have moved under the umbrella on the terrace. The swimming pool has warmed up, the rosé has chilled. A sampling of olives from the Monday morning marché is at hand.

Gardening? Anything that isn't done yet may have to wait a while. ... read more ...

Almost Just Like In The Old Days

One of the pleasures of 21st century life in a 17th century building is that you can pretend to know what life was like back when, while enjoying all the modern coveniences. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Hot water. Refrigeration. Television. High-speed wireless Internet access. Cooking on gas.

All these were unimaginable comforts for the farmers who threw up these stone walls seeking little more than shelter from the elements for themselves and for the animals that provided them with labor, food and even warmth. Today we take all these comforts for granted . . . until they go away.

Saturday, January 24, a windstorm with hurricane force winds swept across southwest France. An otherwise ordinary winter morning turned suddenly and violently gusty, and then the wind began blowing in earnest. But whoever threw up these stone walls must have done a pretty good job because some 400 years later we were snug inside, hardly aware that a storm was raging except when the odd gust rattled down the chimney.

Then the lights went out. Electrical outages are not unknown in these parts, but they usually last a few seconds, or a few minutes. This time the power stayed off.

Of course, we still had indoor plumbing, but with an electric water heater all remaining hot water was to be saved for showers the next day. We still had food, but to maximize the time that the food in the refrigerator stayed fresh the refrigerator door had to stay shut except as absolutely necessary. Leaning on the open refrigerator door while pondering what to snack on was out, and to a hungry stomach the next mealtime seemed a long way off. Because we have a gas stove (ever so much more convenient than an open hearth), we were still able to cook and to heat small amounts of water. We have wood burning fireplace, so those rooms where the heat reaches stayed warm.

Light however, was limited to what came through the windows, and darkness fell around 5:30 p.m. After that, the only light was from candles and flashlights. The television, DVD player, Playstation, computers, Internet connection and stereo system were all out of commission, so children unaccustomed to long quiet evenings by the fire with a good book fidgeted because there was "nothing to do." Morning seemed a long way off, and we could start to imagine what it must have been like to sit in this stone house by the fire every night until heading upstairs to a cold bedroom for an early bed time when the candle burned low.

We also imagined that the reason we woke before dawn was the mooing of a cow downstairs; it was probably the meowing of the cats. In any event it was still dark, and a candle or flashight was needed to make use of the indoor plumbing. The electric coffee maker was useless, so we made a cup of tea on the gas stove, stoked the fire and sat by it for a while, and then cooked breakfast by candle light. When it finally got light enough outside we went out to "work in the fields" clearing fallen trees off the driveway.

So, for 30-odd hours, we had just a taste of things as they must have been in the early history of our house, when life revolved around food and warmth and physical labor and not much else, and when days were regulated by the rising and setting of the sun. We certainly didn't suffer, but we were glad when the power came back on. We made a pot of coffee, opened the refrigerator to look for a snack, checked our email, browsed the news online, and telephoned friends to see how they'd come through the storm. ... read more ...

Pumpkin Soup

Fall is a reliably nice time of year in these parts. Not every day, of course, but on the whole the season is very pleasant. More often than not, days are t-shirt warm and the air so clear that the Pyrenees seem close enough to touch. Newly plowed fields are a deep chocolate brown, turning to tan as the soil dries. Wooded hillsides are a mix of evergreen and changing leaves. In the vegetable garden,
late tomatoes can still be found on the vines, and the potirons have turned a wonderous pale shade of cinnamon. Evenings are cool enough for a fire and a bowl of hot soup. Pumpkin soup. That's exactly what we had this evening and it could hardly have been easier.

In past years we've grown pumpkins for the kids to carve at Halloween, and this year we planted not only traditional orange pumpkins but also a variety of pumpkin known in France as a potiron. As compared to a traditional Halloween pumpkin, a potiron has a more deeply ridged surface, a tan or pale-cinnamon colored skin, and vivid orange flesh.

Inspired by an excellent pumpkin soup served to us last week by some friends who had invited us to supper, we decided to try it ourselves. We looked at several recipes online but they all seemed to be much more complicated than the simple instructions our friends had given us. Granted, our French is far from perfect, but we were pretty sure the preparation they described were very straightforward. It was, and the results were simply delicious.

1. Walk to garden, pick one potiron.

If you don't happen to have any growing in the garden, they're widely available at markets. Wash the outside, and then cut it in half. Remove the seeds and scrape the stringers off the flesh with a spoon.

2. Cook to soften the flesh.

There are three options here: steaming, baking, and microwaving. We steamed half of our potiron, actually just put in a pot with a few cups of chicken broth and let it simmer. Next time we'll try baking it, face down on a greased cookie sheet. The idea is simply to get the flesh soft so you can scrape it off the skin. Forty-five minutes or so should do it. You may have to cut the halves into quarters or further to fit them into your cooking pot.

3. Set aside to cool; when cool, scoop the flesh off the skin with a large spoon and put it into a soup pot.

The only reason to let the cooked pumpkin pieces cool is so as not to burn your fingers.

4. Blend the cooked flesh with a potato masher or electric mixer

5. Stir in a cup or two of chicken stock, depending upon how much pumpkin you have -- just enough to make a thick but still pourable mixture -- and a tablespoon or so of melted butter (if the pumpkin is still warm, just stirring in a chunk of butter will do).

A hand masher or electric mixer in step 4 gives the soup a granular, country-style consistency. For a smoother, more refined consistency, at this point puree the mixture in a blender.

Serve hot with a dollop of creme fraiche or sour cream in the middle, lightly sprinkled with fresh chives and some hot bread fresh from the village boulangerie. Aside from the time required for cooking the pumpkin, total preparation time is 10 or 15 minutes.

Enjoy, and then after supper retire to a chair by the fire. ... read more ...

Le Tour de L'âne (The Donkey Tour)

In the midst of the summer tourist crush, an easily overlooked aspect of the old cité in Carcassonne is that people actually still live there. Today, of course, they have electricity, running water and central heating, not to mention satellite TV and high speed Internet. Yet, medieval traditions survive.

Le Tour de L'âne dates from the middle ages, and was originally held on the 28th of July as part of the feast of Saint Nazaire, one of the patron saints of the city. Currently it is held in October, this year on Sunday the 5th.

Traditionally, the most recently married male resident of the city was dressed in black and adorned with a horned cap from which vegetables were hung, then paraded around the town on the back of a donkey while the kids danced circles around him singing and old song that went "You've been cuckolded, poor man . . . ," while the women of the village kissed and pledged fealty to the horns. Supposedly this was to drive evil spirits away, but then as now it seems really to have been just a warmup for a dance and supper at the Narbonne Gate of the city that evening.

Although the celebration is said to be tamer now than in days gone by, the residents are determined to see it survive. This year there had been no marriages among the residents of the old city, so the most recently retired man rode the donkey instead, in full traditional regalia and to the great amusement of the tourists who were lucky enough to happen upon the event. Any evil spirits remaining at the end of the day were rapidly quaffed by the celebrants.

Much of the information in this post is excerpted from from http://mescladis.free.fr/tour-ane.htm, which has a bit more detail for those who can read French. A link to the newspaper account of this year's tour will be posted here when available.

Speaking of donkeys, one evening this summer we came round a bend in a little country road near home -- fortunately at a leisurely pace, because on one side was a steep dropoff into a cornfield and on the other side an even steeper dropoff into a canal -- to find ourselves behind a donkey carrying all the gear for two cross-country hikers who were a short ways ahead. It was obviously a donkey with a sense of humor because mounted on its rear was a regulation French license plate no. 642 ANE 23. The hikers were dressed in standard hiker gear, so it must also have been a donkey with considerable powers, because when we got home we could find no evil spirits in the house for our aperitif. ... read more ...

Hard Work

In this year of Olympic games, a gold medal surely belongs to our summer guests who came up with the "Les Carries Triathlon."

Bicycle to the boulangerie and back. Run to the pool. Swim.

Not just once, mind you, but every morning. It was hard work no doubt, but someone had to do it. ... read more ...

Obstacle (updated)

The other day the local newspaper reported an accident in which a 17 year-old girl was killed when the car in which she was riding was rear-ended at high speed on the autoroute. Her mother, sitting beside her, was seriously injured. What was remarkable was not that the accident happened, but the newspaper's editorial comment.

According the article the Mercedes, carrying a family headed south for a visit with relatives, was in no hurry. It was in a far right-hand lane reserved for slow moving vehicles on a long uphill stretch. Father was driving, his son beside him, mother and daughter were in the rear. Night had just fallen, supper no doubt had been eaten, coffee sipped. Happy times with other family members lay somewhere ahead.

Somehow, the driver of a Citroen minivan "misjudged" the speed of the Mercedes and slammed into it from behind at a reported 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour;; that's the speed limit, as if the Citroen was obeying it). If the Mercedes was traveling at the minimum autoroute speed of 80 kmh (50 mph; in a lane for slow vehicles it could well have been less), the impact speed was at least 50 kmh (30 mph). The Citroen driver claimed to have tried to swerve to avoid the Mercedes at the last minute. The newspaper, in reporting all this, queried whether the Mercedes, "on account of its slow speed, constituted an obstacle on the autoroute?"

The recklessness of the Citroen driver, and the stupidity of the newspaper reporter and any editors involved (or who should have been involved) is so profound that it is entirely possible to overlook the fact that both driver and reporter reflect entrenched European cultural norms.

A European union report shows that between 2001 and 2007 France made the most progress of any country in the EU in reducing highway deaths. Implicit in this statistic is the fact that in the early part of that time frame the carnage on French highways was gruesome. Older studies show that for a while, at least, France had the fourth worst highway safety record in Europe, behind only Portugal, Spain and Greece. Heady company.

France may be "most improved," but it still has a long way to go. A web page for British travelers in France asserts that in France:

• "Overtaking where there is a solid single line in the middle of the road is heavily penalised;"


• "Drivers must keep a distance of two seconds from the vehicle in front. Any infringement incurs a maximum fine of €750;"


• "Using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is punishable with a fine and two penalty points;" and,


• "Speed limits are applied rigorously, and radar traps are frequent."

The author of this page has obviously never driven in France, certainly not in the south. The lack of enforcement of these rules would be laughable if the consequences were not so serious.

Speed limits are routinely ignored. Radar traps are not "frequent" by any applied definition of the word, the location of each and every fixed radar is available in print and on the Internet, and each and every one is announced a kilometer or so in advance by an enormous sign. Traffic slows down to a good 15 or 20 kmh below the limit shortly before the radar, and then accelerates in a cloud of exhaust just after it. Roving radar patrols are reliably announced in the newspaper ahead of holiday weekends and are otherwise rare.

The ban on use of mobile phones while driving is ignored. Every third or fourth driver on any given road has the telltale cock of the head and hand to the ear. When a Frenchman's mobile phone rings while he is driving, the act of answering is invariably accompanied by a shrug meant to convey a sort of helpless disbelief that someone would actually call while he was behind the wheel.

Overtaking where there is a solid center line happens frequently enough that it is something to be anticipated at all times. Once, while turning left we were nearly broadsided by an impatient driver who had pulled out over a solid line to pass the line of cars slowing behind us.

Regard for safe following distance is practically non-existent. To drive at the speed limit is to be tailgated mercilessly and passed at the first opportunity (safe or not). To pass another vehicle yourself on the autoroute is to risk having someone come flying up the road behind you, headlights flashing, and advancing to within millimeters of your bumper until you pull back out of their way into the right-hand lane.

It's not personal. They just want you out of their way. As soon as you pull back into the right-hand lane they'll blaze on by without a sideways or rearward glance. Or, from the same lane they will pull out around you with inches to spare. No hard looks, no shaken fists. You are in front of them so they have to pass you. Simple as that. You are an obstacle.

This behavior is by no means limited to young drivers. The offenders are as likely to be middle aged as twenty, as likely to be women as men. Nor on French highways is it limited to the French. The Dutch, the Spanish, Swiss, Belgians, Germans and Luxembourgois all play this high speed bumper cars game, almost invariably in high horsepower German luxury cars, or in the case of the Dutch, pulling camping trailers. One can only wonder about their observance of traffic laws in their own countries; in the south of France they display an arrogant disregard for speed limits and safe following distance.

By now, what really happened between the Citroen and the Mercedes should be pretty clear. The Citroen driver's usual habit of racing up behind the car ahead, whipping around it at the last second and barreling on down the highway left no room for mistakes. But this time the driver did make a mistake, and his reckless, self-centered driving habits cost a young girl's life.

Changing this culture is not a simple matter of lowering speed limits. It's going to require a sort of personality adjustment on a national, if not continental level. A regular feature in the local newspaper is the "question of the day," followed by the photographs and responses of five randomly selected people. Recently, following a spate of highway accidents, the question was "Would lower speed limits result in fewer accidents?" Although EU statistics show a direct correlation between speed and accidents, five out of five French drivers said, "No." One even expressed concern that lower speeds would be less safe because drivers would be less cautious.

If you were to walk up behind a Frenchman on the sidewalk, put a gun to his head and ask him to step out of your way, he would regard it not merely as a criminal assault, but an attack on his dignity and a gross breach of egalite and fraternite, not to mention horribly impolite. But, if you tried to explain the analogy to following too closely on the road at high speed he would stare at you uncomprehendingly.

Obviously, not every French driver is a maniac. Some are actually quite considerate and safe. But not nearly enough, and it only takes one reckless idiot to ruin your holiday. Drive carefully.

20 Sept 08 - There's a very amusing article in the Times Online suggesting that French drivers are starting to get the message and that now it's the foreigners who are the problem. As in days of old, the news is still slow trickling down into the south. Yes, the foreigners do blast around in their big cars (did I already say "arrogantly?"), but the French are the real problem. Note, however, the remarkable French creativity brought to bear -- importing British traffic police! ... read more ...

Another Reason to Visit Carcassonne

Over the past few years we have visited the Cité in Carcassonne many, many times, and each time we seemed to discover some corner or aspect of the place that we hadn't noticed before. Eventually, however, one too many hot, crowded days took their toll and we stopped going. Now there's a new reason to go back.

As of May 10, visitors can now see frescoes dating from the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries in the "keep," or central stronghold, of the chateau at the heart of the Cité. The frescoes, which have been under restoration for two months, are believed to depict battles between French and Saracen soldiers and perhaps illustrations of scenes from the Song of Roland or events from the crusades.

During the Middle Ages the name "Saracen" was used to refer generally to all Muslims. The Song of Roland, the earliest known major work of French literature, is a poem believed to have been written between 1040 and 1115, about an ill-fated unit of Charlemage's forces attacked by Basques at Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees (roughly one-third of the way from Pamplona to Pau) while retreating from Spain in 778. Originally passed down by oral tradition, the story became widely popular in the mid-1100s when it was transcribed in several different manuscript versions. By this time, the original historical facts had been skewed significantly: among other things, the minor nobleman after whom the poem is named had become identified as Charlemagne's nephew and the Basques had been transformed into Saracens. These frescoes, then, may represent the artist's representations of a "popular song" of its time.

One can (and people do) debate the accuracy of aspects of the 19th century renovations to the Cité at Carcassonne, or complain about the summer crowds and the souvenir shops that line the main street. There is, however, no gainsaying the historical pull of the place. With these frescoes now on display, even those who have already been several times have a compelling reason to return.
... read more ...