Snowed in or Living it Up

 

 

 

 

Waking up the next morning was a delight. Completely forgotten was last night uncomfortable feeling of being snowed in. We truly were lost in wonder. A largely unusual, dazzling and rather exotic landscape was stretching out before our bewitched eyes.

S.P.’s phone rang. It was V., his childhood friend, who had settled down in Brittany a couple of years before. V. is a very experienced snowboarder whose only regret after moving definitely to Brittany is being so far away from the Alps.

“We all are very busy”, he said. “But this is something so unusual that I vote for a snowboarding session at Les Tertres. I brought my snowboard over when I moved from Paris."

Where then? Well, in the meadow that slopes down along the garden and ends on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the beach.

Why not?

In brief, we’d have only one snowboard handy but we could convert one of our many wakeboards into a sled… This is called being resourceful. Now the only problem we had was finding the right and very warm clothes to have fun in the deep snow for a few hours!  

It was sunny and yet much colder than the night before. We have no mountain/snow gear in Brittany for a very good reason. We had to be inventive, adding up layers of sweaters, slipping on waterproof boating pants over our regular pants and for lack of anything better, we put on very old pairs of snowboarding socks (meant to end as polishing stuff for ages). The brilliant finishing touches were rubber boots for some of us…

V. arrived without further delay, on foot and carrying his snowboard. He doesn’t live very far away but the narrow road was blocked by snowdrifts. Snowdrifts 800 meters from the beach!

He insisted on wearing a mask since he is a very active sea rescuer and does a lot of training in teams even in wintertime. Remember, those were harsh Covid times.
 

Our first move was to pack down the powder snow and make a couple of ski runs of sorts. Snowboarding is a very serious undertaking. No ski-lifts though, which is something that our V. remarked upon when tasked with the chore of preparing the grounds. There were several tries. And then we all had a field day that lasted for a few hours!

 

 

 

We weren't snowed in for too long. Within three days, roads were cleared, naturally of course. The coastal part of Brittany is not really well-equipped with snowploughs, etc. Which is not hard to understand  with one snowstorm every fifty years or more. But with such a drastic climate change though, snowstorms may become more and  more common - routine maybe. 

 

This snowy episode which really took us off guard will be one of our best memories from Les Tertres, especially in Covid times. We were very close to a third national lockdown and we had no idea of what life would be like for months to come. 

 

Carpe diem!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Good Night and Good Luck* 

 

 

 

Well, to recap... Whatever Part It Is... Trying to Achieve Closure

 

END OF MAY 2022

I am “home” in Paris, a living environment that is still rather new for me but not for Popeye. Some days it is hard to reappropriate my space because it is so unfamiliar. But it gets better and better every time  I am back from Brittany where I have felt so safe for much too long. Nowadays there isn’t one single cardboard box lying around anymore. Unopened, I mean… My study is looking great with all my books finally on shelves all around me… Thank you, children! And the whole house is very comfy and welcoming… Thank you, all of us!

Now that everything has been sorted, I feel freer to go outside. Stepping out in Paris is still very stressing. Most people don’t wear masks and mingle freely in stores and venues. I have this feeling (fear actually) that my life will never be the same again no matter what. I just feel so distressed and that’s the unadorned truth, I actually feel scared, really scared from time to time. Those two years spent mainly in voluntary confinement in a very safe and isolated place have changed me so deeply that I feel almost unfit to resume life in society.


I know I am still in danger because nobody knows what Covid-19 can do to me with my medical history. I am not sure I would really like to go through another bad experience like my friend C. (who caught Covid during chemo a few weeks ago). People around me have been vaccinated and “boosterized” just like me but they get sick nevertheless, some very badly and others with a couple of very light symptoms, all of them different. So all I hear while trying to come back into real life is : “Be very careful!”. I am careful and I really would like to resume a normal life and then I hear it again and again : “Be very, very, very careful!”

A few months ago, we decided to move forward a little bit. We took a couple of trips. They were very enjoyable but not as enjoyable as they might have been. I saw so many people looking and acting very comfortable while I was shrinking back from time to time…

It didn’t help talking with one of my doctors who has been one of the first cases of Covid-19 in France, in April 2020. The experience scared (scarred?) him so much that he still has problems relaxing and having a normal social life.

I was looking through pictures from 2020 the other day since I’d really like to resume blogging again, probably my way to achieve closure. It really bothers me that my last post ends with “To be continued…” and dates from the end of March 2021.

I was rather hit again by the fact that we did live for so long in complete isolation. I knew this of course but it did not help to look at those three sad people walking on deserted beaches or in the garden… Waiting desperately for the missing one so far away… And very unhappy...

There was a very happy wedding in February but our children ended up living apart for ten long months because of lockdowns and tightly closed borders.

I found again the “picture of our daughter's picture” I had printed on a transparency and glued on the plate glass that’s between our kitchen and the living room so that our girl would be there closer to us than in a frame! But honestly this really didn’t work much to alleviate the pain of separation, especially for her husband even though her steadfast smile was most of the time very helpful through our personal lockdown tensions.

                                                  

And then early December, one phone call… R. had been contacted by the French embassy… She was allowed to fly back to France on the 11th of December… There were so many practical problems to be solved that we decided to really rejoice only when R. would be with us in Brittany for Christmas.

France was again in lockdown since the end of October. SP had to fill forms and prepare several written proofs to be able to drive back to Paris, meet his wife at the airport and drive back with her to Brittany where they were supposed to stay until… until we had no idea when…

R. would also have to quarantine for ten days and take a new Covid test before being allowed to move from Paris.

So yes, there was rejoicing in Brittany but after ten long months and so many uncertainties, we could only hope that things would go well. We also worried about her parents. India was still in a very strict lockdown. R.’s mom had lost her younger brother to Covid a few months before without being able to grieve properly with her family. There would never be a traditional wedding, such an important event for Indian families. Their daughter was flying away to a faraway country to live with a family (including their son-in-law) they barely knew. They knew we loved her very much but remember, those were Covid times filled with so much anguish…

Since no trains were running, SP drove away a couple of days before R. was supposed to fly back to Paris on the first  French flight allowed to repatriate French nationals and Indian spouses… We waited and waited until we heard that R. was on board. The plane did take off almost on time because due to lockdown, there was almost no smog above Delhi.

And yes, R. landed in Roissy. They were wearing masks for their long awaited reunion… and R. started her ten days long quarantine in our new home.

Eleven days later, the young couple drove back to Brittany, right on time for R.’s first Christmas in France with her husband and her in-laws. 

                    

At long last, there were four plates again on the table… A few months later, there would be only two plates left on our table in Brittany but this would be perfectly alright since there would also be two plates on their own table in London! 

 

 

 

*Good Night, and Good Luck*

My Travel Book - Shortcuts - Part II

Early June 2017, Swee’Pea flew from Boston to San Francisco to meet us there. We were to spend the next two weeks together in California.

You see, I always had this dream of driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the famous Route 1. SP had done it several times while he was living in California. I remember experiencing a disagreeable feeling of jealousy (to call things by their rightful name) while he was showing me his pictures. He wanted to share moments of beauty and happiness with me. But still it was hard on me. At the time, I did feel like I’d never be traveling again and all I was wishing for was to be able to move further and further away from the hospital.

Sometimes dreams come true. We did drive down Route 1, at least down the part that was still open because a few areas had been closed due to landslides. Which meant that we had to alter a few plans, all for the best.

Instead of driving down directly to L.A., we went to Lake Tahoe, another of my dreams. I had spent long evenings watching famous wakeboarders on Lake Tahoe when SP and his friends were trying to master the art of wakeboarding in Brittany. So, yes. Lake Tahoe was a great idea.

By the way, we spent two days there without even seeing one single wakeboarder on the lake. Spring had been very snowy. The lake was way too freezing cold and wakeboarders were still snowboarding on the mountains slopes above Lake Tahoe. 

From Lake Tahoe, we drove down to Yosemite National Park along Highway 88, most of the time that is, because the scenery was breathtaking. So many lakes and so much snow along the road. So many stops and so many pictures.

Highway 88 was splendid. Perfectly dry under the sun. And cars were very scarce.  Oohs and ahs of happpiness. We’d stop every few miles. The ice was breaking up over the lakes (Caples Lake, Silver Lake, Red Lake, I can’t name them all). And there was still tons of snow along the road.

Actually we were getting very close to the gateway to California Gold Fields which is called the Mormon-Carson Pass Emigrant Trail.

I don’t know why but I had the feeling that Swee’Pea was getting fidgety, sort of. He was the main driver and he had been driving for a long time… Oh oh, should we get ready for a shortcut? A road that would break the monotonousness… Some trail maybe…

There was a road on the right that would supposedly spare us at least two or three miles of that boring highway, he said. And off we turned to the right. 

Popeye and I were so shell-shocked that we kept silent. Silent? Speechless is the right term. That’s it. We totally lost the power of speech. I guess that even though SP was probably enjoying himself tremendously, he did not dare utter one single word. You see, there was this set of parents in the car and this road (was it a road?) was awfully narrow and cramped and endless and, and, and… 

Well, the road was not endless after all. In a way it could be, if you felt like walking to Route 88 on a snowy trail. Because the snowplow had obviously given up in the middle of nowhere. There was no network available but it was obvious that we were still quite far away from the exit on Highway 88.

"Shortcut", he said...

I bet you have no idea how they called this road or this whatsoever… “Tragedy Sorings Road” is its name and I am not even kidding. “Springs” because there is a spring somewhere deep below that thick layer of snow and “Tragedy” because three members of the Mormon Bataillon were found killed there in 1848.

We told Swee’Pea that he’d better get us out of there or… Or what? Sometimes one ends up feeling very dumb. So we found a way. The snowplow men had made sure there would be enough room for a car to turn around. There must be quite a few people like Swee'Pea after all! We did not have to push the car because it did not get stuck which did worry us for a while (the getting stuck, of course!). Trust a Kia! It took a few long minutes but the car ended up facing the right way to go back to civilization and to freedom and away from Tragedy Springs!

Swee’Pea was outrageously jubilant! “I knew it’d be fun!” So annoying not to be able to tell him curtly to get back in the car, “you stupid kid”! Because he’s not at all stupid and he’s no longer a kid either. Maybe mad as a hatter from time to time but also a lot of fun. 

I decided to walk for a while because you seldom get to walk between two high walls of snow, especially not in Brittany! And especially not on such a sunny and warm day!

And my preferred "shortcutter" kept on having fun until we got back onto Highway 88.

Once there, he finally set his mind on getting as soon as possible to this very improbable place called Ahwhanee, our door to Yosemite National Park.

There were no more shortcuts during this trip but a lot of driving around the landslides which probably made up for missed opportunities to drive off the beaten track.

*Good Night, and Good Luck*

My Travel Book - Shortcuts - Part I

Swee’Pea, you remember Swee’Pea? My son Swee’Pea? It’s been a while since I have written about him. Ahem. Quite a while since I have written at all.

Well, Swee’Pea is a wonderful travelling companion. Even-tempered, patient, uncomplaining and (almost) always in a smiling mood. Filled with enthusiasm and endless curiosity about everything. Talkative and yet a good listener. And the icing on the cake, willing to embark on long road trips with me…

But… (because there is always a but, isn’t there?) Swee’Pea loves shortcuts. And thank you "Google Maps”! The only time I never heard him mention the word “shortcut” was in South Africa, because of safety reasons, of course.

The interesting point though is that his shortcuts always end up being fun and hilarious… if you like adventure that is and being on the wild side of the road(trip)!

Our road trip from London to London (almost 4.000 kms in three weeks) was filled with shortcuts. Most of them while we were travelling through Brecon Beacons Park, Snowdonia and the Lake District. Most of the time we ended up driving through fields (yes, Google maps trails and tracks and paths of all sorts) and finding ourselves hopelessly stuck in the middle of nowhere in front of a cattle gate. Which entailed backing up for at least a couple of miles on very winding and hilly pathways.  And then learning from locals much later on that unless strictly forbidden, one opens the gate and then drives away after carefully closing the gate until the next one.

(Do you read Welsh? We don’t! And so we kept backing up. Until the next shortcut.)

One of my best memories, shortcut wise, happened on our way back to London. Driving from Edinburgh to Durham. From the very beginning of the trip, we had agreed upon travelling through the countryside as much as possible, thus avoiding big cities and congested road networks. Thus probably getting to know Great Britain better.

We decided to avoid driving through Berwick-upon-Tweed, quite a huge town - population : 13.000 people! Google indicated that there would be a shortcut that would take us right to the coast and Bamburgh Castle with its Armstrong and Aviation Artefacts Museum.

Google Maps also indicated that we had to turn right away and drive across a golf course…

I was truly shocked when Swee’Pea, laughing his heart out, took the weediest and narrowest lane on the left or was it the right… and there we were… going through a golf course where actual people were playing and you could hear golf balls whizzing by.

I was so shocked that I probably closed my eyes for a few minutes or maybe a century. I never took any pictures of the going through! But I found a very explicit picture on the web.

©geograph.org.com

 The crossing was short. Thank you. But the shortcut kept getting worse. You see, it had been raining a lot in the area and the lane that was supposed to get us safely to the seaside look more like a shelled battle area than a leisure countryside whatever. The water holes were very, very deep and even wider. The few hikers on the way looked rather amazed that a car would make it through.

Well, we did. The mood in the car was not at its best. Mine at least. Swee’Pea was thoroughly enjoying himself and the car was obviously built to last. (I got my fun a few hours later watching SP getting rid of the caked mud in a very ancient carwash while I was munching away at a bag of M&M’s!)

And there again - a gate! I knew it! Except that this one would be a little bit more dangerous to handle than the cattle gates. My mood was getting from bad to worse. I had to manoeuvre the gates, of course since I don’t drive. It all was a matter of being cautious and fast at the same time.

Take a big breath!
Open both gates. Check! Breathe!

Cross the double-track line with the car. Check! Breathe!

Walk back to the first gate to close it. Check! Breathe!
Walk back across the railway line. Check! Breathe!
Close the second gate. Check! Breathe!

We had done it. Safely. (I didn’t trust much the green light in such a forlorn place! This was the railway track from London to Edinburgh after all. Fast trains!)

I hopped back in the car. We were not very far from the small road to Bamburgh. And the countryside was pastoral and colourful. And peaceful. My mood went up to feeling good. This had been quite an experience after all.

A few minutes later, some Northumberland witches decided to use every trick in their power to kill the fun.

There we were with no way to do a U-turn. 

One weak bridge… mentioning “road vehicles” and not “trucks”. We had driven over quite a few “weak” bridges in Wales because they were prohibited to lorries but not cars. But this one in the middle of nowhere was clearly stating that no vehicles were allowed on it, not even cars.

We decided that being stuck there wouldn’t help and that it would be better to go check the bridge before making any impulsive decision.

While we were pondering the pros and cons, a train whizzed past us on its way to Edinburgh. At top speed. We had the same question: “Was the “green light"  

still on or had it turned “red” a few minutes ago? We’ll never know because we definitely decided to drive forward and check the bridge.

All those fields around would need to be harvested. And harvest means harvester and tractors and trucks… Maybe the bridge was not this weak after all. Except that all those vehicles and contraptions could be driven through the fields and never use the bridge because it really was “weak”.

We breathed in and out. At least I did. And we drove forward. We had set one rule while being on this road trip : let’s not vent our feelings (the negative ones, of course) while in the car. Not enough space for a fight. So I probably kept quiet, trying not to fly off the handle.

Once close to the bridge, it was time to play it like in South Africa. Rangers in Kruger Park are always checking animal tracks on the trails. Very useful. And there they were. Tractor tracks all over the bridge. We could not be heavier than a tractor, could we? 

Hopefully we wouldn’t be the last straw that would break the camel’s back. And we were not. Or I wouldn’t be telling the story, would I?

For those who are still looking for thrills, we had to drive quite a few miles off the beaten track. On a very grassy path that took us straight to a very small asphalted road.

To Bamburgh Castle, at last!

 

Going Back to School or Going Back Home?

It all started again with the picture of the Canal du Midi my friend Carol published on Facebook. Memories emerged from way back in my life and they kept on pouring from my mind or wherever they were hiding.

Pictures are sometimes fearsome. The role they play in my life is boundless.

In 2011, Popeye offered me a wonderful birthday gift. He flew with me back to Southern France - Carcassonne and Arfons and Lastours and quite a few other places in Languedoc. The trip triggered a lot of memories and I harvested so many pictures that I think I could write a novel. Well, probably not.

The summer before last, Swee’Pea and I went back to Southern France again. We needed to find someone to mend our wall in Arfons. We had also decided to stop in Saissac on our way back from Arfons to Carcassonne and visit my mother since we had not seen her for a long time. (The visit ended in a fiasco and no pictures were taken which can be attributed to that.)

We travelled by train from Paris to Béziers where we rented a car and then proceeded to Arfons. On our way, we went through Capestang where I had spent my first school year. Leaving the village, Swee’Pea noticed a road sign.  Montels, 4 kms. He said: “This must be the village where you lived while you were going to school in Capestang. Let’s go. I’ve never been there.”

Honestly, I did not really wish to go back there but what can you do to put a damper on a young man’s enthusiasm? Or was it my idea after all, on the spur of the moment? I am not really sure now.

Anyway, we drove to Montels on the same road I had walked on every school day on my way back from school. From junior high school in Capestang to the Montels elementary school, the one where we were living in since my mother was the teacher there.

My life has revolved around schools for a long time.

I still remember living in Normandy in a very small cabin, a gift from the American government to the village which had been heavily bombed and had lost its elementary school for girls. We lived there in two rooms (two adults and three children plus my Bonne-Maman whenever she came to help us). There was a bigger room where my mother taught school, which we used as a living room and where the children would sleep as soon as school was over. This was a few years after the war. My sister and my brother were born there.

Then we moved into a much bigger and brand new house by the new school when my brother turned one and I was seven. There wasn’t much privacy. The house was really close to the school, less than ten meters away in some sort of a compound. At that time I was mainly homeschooled, most of the time on my own… Funny for a headmistress’ daughter. Life was very complicated, I guess.

Then my parents’s relationships went from bad to worse and my mother decided to move back to Southern France. She was transferred to a very small school, in a tiny hamlet, Montels. One school and a few houses. 20 kms from the city (Béziers) and 4 kms from the nearest village, Capestang.

She had been the headmistress of a three classes school in a big village in Normandy.

In Montels, they had reopened the school because that year, there would be 6 children from 4 to 11 years old (including my sister and my brother) in the hamlet. Two children spoke only Spanish. I remember my mother really felt demoted instead of relishing in the challenge. Besides the fact that we were free from our father’s violence.

For me, this all turned out to be a happy year. I was going to school for the first time. I loved the new experience. I developped an extremely good relationship with all the teachers. For the first and last time in my life, I did not have any trouble fitting into the system. I did not make a lot of friends there since I was not living in Capestang. But the kids in my class, boys and girls alike, were nice with me even though I was from 2 to 3 years younger than most of them.

The school in Montels was a derelict old house. Nobody had lived there ever since 1940, I think. There was no bathroom. No running water either. One sink. And no heating system besides a huge fireplace in the living room. We did have electricity though! And I had my own bedroom.

Getting water from the public pump was quite a harrowing experience. The wheel was huge and water would only get to the faucet after the wheel had revolved at least five times. I remember the village women would queue to get water at about the same time. They were mostly Spanish refugees. You only needed to energize the wheel once… So there always was one very unlucky woman to start the process! And afterwards, we’d talk a lot, mixing gleefully French and Spanish.

Once again, I was the youngest one. There were only a couple of boys my age in the hamlet and there was not even one teenager there.

The house was in a sorry state, gloomy and very moist inside. I remember that my mother kept the footboards of our beds dipped into deep bowls of water to prevent small and rather dark scorpions from getting into our bedding. Every morning, we’d shake off our slippers and shoes and clothes… and one or several scorpions would run away… We had a big bucket outside filled with water where we’d throw the scorpions as soon as we caught them! It was fun… and not fun…

Mice and spiders have never bothered me very much as I grew up!

The road was still the same. But the hamlet has grown into a small village with brand new houses, all of them with swimming pools. The school and its surroundings still look quite neglected though.

I expected a surge of emotions but I felt ok. Almost as if I had never belonged there… However memories came back quite easily.

There have been a few changes ever since we had left Montels, never to come back, in 1959.

The two gates are still there. One wonders. Why two gates for such a small school? When we arrived there in 1958, the school had been closed for more than fifteen years. Before and even after WWII, boys and girls were not supposed to mix at school. In Normandy, there were two separate public schools. One for the boys and one for the girls.

In Montels, there never were enough pupils to have two schools. The playground was divided in two by low railings. Boys and girls would enter the school through two different gates, left and right and then they would get into the schoolroom through two different corridors. Then they would sit on their designated side of the room, one for the boys and the other one for the girls. No mixing of the sexes, you see. Even though the curriculum was exactly the same.

The school boasted a sign that said “coeducational school” since they could not have two different buildings after all.

When my mother arrived in Montels (before we did), she had a meeting with the mayor, I think or whoever had authority over the school and she asked for the railings to be removed. The discussion was extremely stormy, she said. The man had gone to school there and he just couldn’t see the point of allowing boys and girls to mix anyway. But she finally won.

At the start of the new school year, the railings had been removed. And on the first schoolday, she opened one gate. Only one. The children went in together. All this fuss was pretty incredible when you realize that there were only one girl and three boys coming from the hamlet since my sister and brother were living in the school building.

They also went in the classroom through the same door, the left one. My mother had barred the door on the right since it also opened onto our private stairway. Which gave us some privacy, after all.

At first, parents looked worried but since they were really too busy to come and look for them after school, the boys and the girl would walk back together to their homes. My mother’s decision never had disastrous consequences for us since all year long and almost every morning, we found fruits, vegetables and even sometimes small game (plucked and flayed) on our doorstep. Anonymous but nice.

The school still looks more or less the way it was 55 years ago. Two gates. Two doors. There are a few changes though. On the left, a small building has been built above what used to be a wall and a door has been opened up, probably to accomodate a teacher. And on the right, a very tiny public library has replaced one of the small covered playgrounds.

Our old living quarters above the classroom looked totally forsaken. I wondered if someone else has ever lived there since our departure. People moved away from Montels after we did. There were no children there once more. They closed the school.

Since there are now 229 people living in Montels, there are most certainly several young children who go to school there again. The classroom windows and doors look new and they have decorated the covered playground with a most awful fresco! So weird!

Nobody was there. We decided to have a look around. I was afraid the door to the garden would be locked. It was not and obviously someone had kind of tried to break in a while ago into the building. 

I was very surprised by the size of the garden. It looked so small. I remembered a huge fig tree and several pomegranate trees because we gorged with their very exotic fruits. In 1958, it was just like being in the Jungle Book, minus the wild animals. Well, we were ten, six and four years old!
In 2014, it looked like a sad and small litter tray.

I stood looking at the backdoor for the longest time. Behind this door, there used to be a huge bookcase, from floor to ceiling. I had never seen anything like it before. And it was totally filled with books, dozens and dozens of old bound volumes. Dusty, smelly and mouldy books. Lovely books.

I became a bookworm in Montels. No friends around and so many books at my entire disposal. They were all there. So many great authors from the past, from Homer and Victor Hugo to Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas and Pierre Loti and Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll and so many others who broadened my mind and probably triggered this unquenchable thirst of learning and reading I have felt all my life.

I would like to know who has built up this incredible reservoir of knowledge nobody ever used for ages until a ten years old girl discovered it. And why?

I wonder if the books have been kept safe after we left. Could I have found them in that tiny village library in the schoolyard? I’ll never know but I hope they are still there.

My mother was promoted, the following year. Besides the fact that they had to close the school once more. We moved to Béziers. A big city with a public high school for girls and a public high school for boys. No kidding!

My parents were back together, alas. And my troubled school years were only beginning but I could care less. I had discovered a new endless treasure trove: the  town library!

Good bye, Montels and the school I never went to but which I called home for one whole year.







*Good Luck, and Good Night*