the crossandshell story: Camino Day 42 samedi 15/5/10 - Les Anglais, bier rural et les pelerins

It interesting that the only time we have had a real misunderstanding with the bill in France it is with an English couple as hosts.

The couple are not planning to stay much longer in France. They claim that they need to get back to England before their oldest is of the age to go to Secondary School as French schools are not very good for that stage in education. They are also talking about different rural businesses they could run back in the UK. But it is clear that they are not really happy here. The house is fantastic but it has been a huge drain on their resources (not just financial resources) and living in France has, I feel, been too much for them. Shame they came to this after the recession began to hit.... They have made a very good effort at it and have achieved more than most who embark on similar adventures in places like France. Small regional towns can be a strain in any country, I fear.

We went through one of the whackiest named places yet this morning.... Sagnemoussouse was its name. A tiny place with a name that just rolls off the tongue, falls on the floor, rolls around a bit more then threatens to trip you up. Picture below... note another rocket shaped spire a la Normandy but perhaps with an odd local twist to it.

The countryside is still very lush green and has an old fashioned English look to it – familiar but dream-like quality and then you turn the corner and the place definitely looks like France and nowhere else.... It is partly a shared legacy and a shared series of Geological ingredients.

When we arrived in the town we went to the place where the woman who owns the refuge lives (she owns a gite and knows Duncan so he advised us to go straight to her house first) Yves and co had already collected the keys and she directed us to the little refuge. She seemed a little bit flustered when we turned up and told us in very worried tones that the place was a bit basic and very small. She wasn’t sure it would hold us all and, as we were an “English couple” she would put us up in the gite if we wanted. We didn’t think that was necessary and wanted to see what the refugio was like so we headed off down to it.

It was a tiny little house on a narrow street of similar houses. The whole town is an odd mixture of things; old and crumbling buildings, small and weary rows of houses and some grander streets tucked away to one side of the town. Like a number of very small rural towns it looks like the locals began to abandon the centre in favour of new houses on the outskirts but they didn’t do the major town centre refurbishments that went on in Britain in the sixties and seventies. Shops, bars and businesses gradually faded and people from outside (quite a few Brits here) including people from Paris and other bigger cities began to buy up houses as semi-rural retreats, second homes and retirement/”start a new life” places before the locals started to dig their heels in and re-think their town. And now the recession is hitting them.

We talked with the English man who is staying in a room in the refugio. It is a bit of a blessing that he can stay there and basically pay for his lodgings by keeping the place going. He came down here with his partner, they had a child, split up, he stayed close, they had a short reconciling, she has another child by him and he is hanging on by his fingernails trying to work out how to stay, make a living and maintain the relationship, especially with his children.

I opened a cupboard to get the cleaning things out and found a store of children’s books and toys. A poignant image echoing an earlier encounter with a similar store but this feels more ordered and more used than the earlier scene I encountered. Simple things can serve to illustrate deep hurts and hard lived stages in our lives.

This evening we had a simple pasta sauce using the usual pack of lardons, garlic onion, herbs and tomatoes...easy, quick and filling.

We all used the washer and drier. Interesting standing there with Yves pulling out socks and pants from the drier identifying who owned what and leaving ones neither of us recognised on the back of a chair near the stove.

See placemarks 104-5.

Camino Day 42 samedi 15/5/10 - La Souterraine to Benevent l’Abbay

When we got the bill after breakfast we discovered that we had misunderstood the price by E20 (i.e. E20 per person not for the room.... grr) and so had to get more cash out to pay – but muesli for breakfast which was great.

Walked through the market and the man who stamped our books last night told us where to find the “Leader Price” supermarket so we went there en route and bought stuff for dinner (to cook). Also phoned ahead for accommodation tonight after talking to Duncan (owner of the gite).

Pleasant day’s walk – up and down but not too long. Stopped at a bar for a beer before lunch and found Rene, Yves and Bernard eating there. Desperate message from Dominique (our middle daughter) on Facebook resulted in a phone call to her to sort out arrangements for her graduation and then later a call with Mike Lagrue. Now we are going to go our own home before and after going to Durham for her graduation.

The gite where we are staying is full (good job I took advice and phoned this morning!) – there are the 5 of us in the top room which has a loo and shower and two French men in a smaller room on the first floor (also with a loo and shower) plus a Brit called Darren who lives here ... but they are all pleasant company... hopefully not too much snoring!

Also a fair number of expat Brits in the town – give-aways are the British section in the local Carrefour and the British bar which has a microbrewery of British style beer – we sampled some and chatted to some English people which was both nice and strange.

Everyone cooked and we sat around the table together to eat. Also good to have a place with sofas to sit on and a wood burning stove to keep us warm and dry things – it went out and was re-lighted by Rene and all of the French men together....

Our bed in the Gite