Only two more sleeps!

June 15, 2022June 13, 2022 | Mairead

We are nearing the end of our journey but first we have a big meet up before we catch our ferry home. Right now we are in another lovely old town about two hours from Paris called Sézanne. We couldn’t park in the town square on Friday when we arrived because of the Saturday market. They start getting ready for the market at 5am and anyone parked in the square gets woken up and moved on! We didn’t fancy that so we went to stay in the campsite just outside town.

I was very happy to be going to a campsite for an opportunity to use their washing machine. We are running out of clean clothes and as we’ll soon be hugging people again…let just say it’s crucial that we get a washing machine. But their washing machine was broken. No clothes washing but thankfully lots of hot showers.

Market Day with St. Denis’ church in background (yes Denis is a saint here!)

It’s Saturday now and I’m back in the square to visit the market. The van is parked out on the edge of town at the supermarket and later today I will be washing all our clothes in their washing machine. But first, the market… I’m here on my own taking photos, watching people and later I’m hoping to have a picnic. Denis is doing what he loves, finishing work on his latest app project back in the van. This app is lovely, by the way, it’s a creative way to be mindful. Denis and his friend Kyle, who is an artist, are working on it together. It’ll be in the App Store soon. It’s called Lines of Zen.

Anyways, I’m here sitting on a bench in the shade because I forgot about the rules for a hot day. The supermarket on the edge of town is a lot further away than I thought it was and the sun is hotter than it has been and I brought no water – I need a rest. Also, I forgot my sun hat and sun cream. Basically I’m out of my physical comfort zone. But at least I smell grand.

The next phase of our trip involves travelling about an hour west to Disneyland Paris. We are meeting our daughter, Ciara and her friend, Flipp. We haven’t seen either of them since 2019. We have been looking forward to this since we left Portugal a month ago and now there’s only two more sleeps!

Just noticing…

June 13, 2022June 12, 2022 | Mairead

One of the things I have been attempting to do on this trip is spend more time doing nothing, just noticing. Yes I know you already think I’m doing nothing. This type of doing nothing is sitting still, not reading, not writing, not thinking of things to do. Instead… noticing. There’s a lot to notice while we do nothing. This has been the procedure… first notice the things that move into the space in my mind while I do nothing and second let them be and definitely don’t engage with them. Do you follow me?

For example, here we go, a thought just popped in:
No one wants to read this.
Right, I notice what’s arrived in my space. Second part, let it be and don’t engage. Ohh, easier said than done but here goes…
Oh here’s another one, I’m hungry. Let it be… don’t engage.
And another, Did you reply to the text? Oh holy divine, this one is very hard not to engage with…
Another, What if you forget it? Noooooo… DON’T ENGAGE!
Another, Now you’re angry, that’s not helpful is it? Hello emotion that I’m now engaged to…

Dong this nothing isn’t easy, it’s work to notice the thoughts and let them be. It’s a lot of work to not engage. And then when the emotions turn up and they get mixed up with the thoughts and, and, and..

I was thinking about this during our week of thunder storms. About how the blue sky is up there all the time during the storm. About how it is unaffected by the thunder or lightening or rain or any kind of cloud. It’s just there, sort of watching and waiting until everything calms down again. It’s doing nothing. My emotions are thunder and lightening and my thoughts are the rain and they are all connected and they all feed off each other. And they are very loud and they crave my attention. I don’t have to give them my attention.

I am not the thunder. I am not the lightening. I am not the rain. I am the blue sky, they cannot hurt me…

The Weather Show

June 11, 2022June 10, 2022 | Mairead

And then the rains came. Storms all over central France. Bringing a weather show like we haven’t seen in Ireland.

The stage opens with the temperature rising, humid damp heat follows your every move. Don’t move! Except to open every window and door. The skies slowly fill in with white clouds turning to grey clouds. Then something shifts.

The sky grows darker, darker again, almost navy blue. And here comes the music – booming thunder. And the light show – streaks of lightening. And the finale – beating rhythm of torrential rain while we race to secure the roof windows. And all for free.

And then it’s all calm again with a cooling breeze, sunshine and fluffy white clouds.

The heatwave in Spain has made us very grateful for weather, any weather. (Well, any weather except weather with temperatures that start with a 3 and are two digits long.)

By the time we return home at the end of this month we will have forgotten the heatwave and be wishing for a few extra degrees, in the meantime we are enjoying the rain.

Lovely Louhans

June 9, 2022June 7, 2022 | Mairead

And then on Monday we arrived in the very beautiful town of Louhans and it was a market day. What could be better? Old cobblestoned streets full of market stalls… hats, dresses, aprons, cheese and rabbits, among other things. Well yes, that’s even better.

On Tuesday morning we went looking for coffee and with all the market stalls gone we found the arcades – there’s 157 of them! They are covered walkways along each side of the main shopping street and they allow you to walk shaded from the sun or sheltered from the rain. There’s a lot of road works, bridge works and rebuilding going on in the town but no matter its beauty is still visible.

The official motorhome parking spot is about five minutes from the shops and cafes, beside one of the two rivers running around the town. For €4 a night plus tax motorhomes have a river view surrounded by trees with walking access to cafes and restaurants – very lovely.

There and then we invented the habit of going for coffee each morning. It’s such a simple thing, we sit outside in the fresh air sipping coffee and watching the French people getting on with their day.

On the way back to the river we’d collect our baguette from the Boulangaire and notice how lucky we were to be here. By Friday the waitress was asking, deux café allongé? (Two Americano’s?)

It’s very nice to be remembered.

The Picnic Food Shop

June 7, 2022June 6, 2022 | Mairead

Pont du Gard, pink arrow, Vion, purple arrow

After our trip to the Pont du Gard we drove to a small family run campsite near the town of Vion, beside the Rhône. On route we stopped off for lunch and were intrigued (again) with the love of picnics by the French. We want to try it too, we always do and it wouldn’t be so difficult, but it does require some prior organisation. We felt jealous walking past as we headed for the motorway services cafe.

We are guessing their picnics are more special than traditional Irish picnics. I see no tin foil. I smell no egg sandwiches. No Fanta bottle with gone off milk in it (for the lukewarm tea.) What are they feasting on? And they don’t need picnic tables, they eat standing at their car boots. They don’t even need children, we’ve seen grown adults meeting at the car boot for lunch. Some have cool boxes, others have baskets! Willow baskets! We have tried to linger longer beside them and have a good look but the baskets… they are so distracting we don’t see the food. Oh and the neatness of the boot? Very neat.

Today we think we might have cracked it…. the charcuterie (you might know it as a delicatessen?) We haven’t been inside one yet because it’s a little overwhelming not knowing what everything is but the whole picnic mystery is making us brave enough to give it a try.

View of the river Rhône from the vineyard at the top of the hill along the old path

Plus, this could be the solution to eating/not eating the pictures of food on the ferry… do you remember? If we can locate a charcuterie near Cherbourg, we will not be tempted by the pictures of pancakes, white sliced pan toast and lumpy porridge. It will be worth the effort. It’s a bank holiday in France today as I write and the local charcuterie is closed but maybe tomorrow…

These little guys could be in your Côtes du Rhône 2022

Our Daily Baguette

June 5, 2022June 2, 2022 | Mairead

On our way to the Pont du Gard on Saturday we called in to a boulangarie we had seen on our first day here, Marie Blachère Boulangeire. It’s a chain of bakeries, there’s many of them around but we packed this one because of the parking – plenty of room for us to fit in without bumping anyone. Yaa.

By Saturday we had been there three times and the lady was beginning to recognise us. She didn’t quite understand my version of French so she always helped out by speaking a little English. I wanted an Americano but with extra hot water – no one in France wants this so it’s always more difficult to explain. Added to that the queue in every (yes, every!) boulangeire is long but moves surprisingly fast because the servers zip through the orders. Zipping through the orders does not allow for hard to understand Irish tourists. But this lady slowed down and got what I was trying to say and I got my hot water every morning.

Thank you, lovely lady and your colleague❤️

On Saturday, maybe because I was so excited about going to the Pont I forgot to buy our daily baguette but she realised I had forgotten and brought it over to me when there was a break in the queue. Then she said, that’s for you and wouldn’t take payment! Are you feeling the love? I certainly felt it.

And at the same time I was conflicted. It’s hard to accept a gift, isn’t it? I find it hard. I wondered what should I do for her. But what can I do… just accept her kindness and feel grateful? It is something I have been thinking about during the pandemic times. I received such generosity at times when I could do nothing to repay it and I was uncomfortable. But when I got the opportunity to be generous, giving felt so good that I realised accepting is necessary. For giving to happen, accepting the gift is part of the contract. Accepting is part of human connection. It’s Give and Receive, not Give and Give.

Photos from Le Pont du Gard

June 3, 2022June 2, 2022 | Mairead

Approaching Le Pont du Gard from the Rive Gauche (Left Bank)

We went back to the Post du Gard last Saturday and I got loads of pictures. It really is a beautiful peaceful place, in spite of all the people visiting. We arrived a little before opening time – 9.30am. The sun was shining but it wasn’t too hot. We have become experts at working out the best time of the day to do things in order to remain cool.

Early morning – 8am – for walking outside, but you have to get back inside before 11.30am. Mid morning for walking or sitting inside – if it’s air-conditioned or there’s a little breeze through the window. Mid-day for driving with the windows down.

Mid afternoon – find shade or keep driving with the windows even further down. Late afternoon – poor you, just suck it up. Late evening for walking, in general you’ll feel better if you get a walk in now, I promise. Night time for sleeping as best you can with the windows open near a source of breeze, sea breeze is the best.

Looking down at the river Gardon from the Pont du Gard

Anyways we were there at the perfect time of the morning in this beautiful place. First stop, we went to see the museum and the best video presentation I’ve ever seen at a tourist site. Seriously. Just enough information, given in a way I could understand. Plus the photography was superb.

View from the very top and more tiny humans

I always find it very difficult to grasp big numbers when I hear them. For example, the Post du Gard is 50 meters high but really, how high is that? Well in the video they had different items pictured beside the Pont like 16 elephants standing on top of each other to help show how tall that really is. Good, right?

This door is at the very top of the Pont and leads to the water channel but it is only accessible on a special guided tour

And they had cartoon planes standing one behind the other on the top level of the Pont. I love how creatively helpful that is.

Apprentice stone masons used to chisel their names on the stones. Can you see 1905?

Doesn’t this look like a pint of Guinness? It’s a picture of a picture of the inside of the water channel. The bulges on either side are limestone deposits left by the running water. The aqueduct was in use for 600 years.

You’ll have to go there and visit the cinema in the museum to see all the other creative things they did to help explain this amazing monument. I just love it.

Asking for Help

June 1, 2022May 31, 2022 | Mairead

We were still in the town of Remoullins when we realised we needed water. There is water available at this parking but it’s a bit too close to the toilet cassette empty station… if you know what I mean? I mean the tap may have been contaminated… But we had a plan, we know a place nearby with a grand tap. The place where it rained!

So we packed up and drove the 4 minute route to water. While I emptied the grey water (dirty water from washing dishes and showers) into the drain, Denis got the hose to fill up with clean water. But… there was no hose, the hose was missing. We looked everywhere, there’s not a lot of places and we always put it in the same place… but you know what it’s like when you can’t stop checking just one more place. It wasn’t anywhere.

Questions:Where did we get water last? Did we leave it there? Did it fall out when I was taking out the table and chairs?
Answers: Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know.

Not very useful answers. We have no idea where the hose and the many connection attachments (needed for different countries/areas) have gone. We felt the disappointment of loss… small enough loss for me but a little more upsetting for Denis. He had spent years of happy searching for those connections. He had his favourites – the metal ones. His least favourite but good in a pinch – the plastic ones. In a situation like this there is an opportunity to search for blame. As in, finding the specific person (out of two…) who might have forgotten to put the hose back after using it. It must have been our lucky day – we did not take the blame opportunity. We took the ask for help opportunity.

There was a French man standing outside his motorhome at the parking and Denis went over and with his best French asked for a loan of a water hose, which was given freely. Five minutes later we had water and I had assembled a Merci pour le tuyau d’eau card. I just hope it says thank you for the water hose and I just hope it means the same thing… We will need to buy a new water hose and start rebuilding our supply of connections.

Loss can create opportunity and you can choose the opportunity you want.

Glorious Rain

May 30, 2022May 27, 2022 | Mairead

Can you see the rain dripping from the open window?

We reluctantly left Béziers after two days and travelled north again for an hour past Montpellier and to motorhome parking outside the town of Remoulins. It turned out to be waaaay outside the town and there were no path and fast cars on the roads making walking perilous.

We struggled to go for a walk but there was something even more beautiful, something we had missed. Something we have not been about to get a hold of since Zafra in on the west side of Spain, 32 days ago… Rain. It rained! Not for long and not very heavy but enough to remind me that rain is a good thing and I’m sorry for not appreciating it.

And then it stopped and the sun came out and it’s even cooler. All is well in the world.

Next morning we moved. There was parking closer to the town with walking and cycle paths nearby. The town is very old in the old part and very busy in the new part. And there’s what I have started to call the singing bridge between our parking and the town. We went for a walk to get groceries in the morning and although the bridge has a very lovely singing voice, I do not feel at ease crossing it by foot so I went in the opposite direction for my afternoon walk.

The church seems to have a birdcage on top…

As I have repeated to you often (sorry) the afternoon is the hottest time of the day but… this is France and hundreds of years ago someone had the great idea to plant trees along the road and today I benefitted from their foresight. And the shade they provide. I know I’ve also mentioned shade a lot on this journey but I have to mention it again – shade is a precious, precious thing and trees give it unselfishly. Thank you to the trees and thank you to the planter of the trees.

It was 2km down that shaded road that I found a huge surprise – an aqueduct. Yes! Another one! This one was built by the Romans in the 1st century AD. I think it is magnificient. It’s called Pont du Gard, Bridge over the river Gardon. Its purpose was to bring water to the town of Nîmes, 50Km away! Those Romans were something else. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site and it’s just down the road. This France… is also something else.