We’ve now been here for nearly four weeks. I think it’s time to move away from focussing on ‘challenges’ and hurdles and turn the spotlight on our new life here in France.
And this is the house that, in a typically French way, fronts straight onto the street. It is a roomy, comfortable, unpretentious house, with an area at the back outside the kitchen for warm weather eating and living, leading to an attractive steep bit of garden with a place to sit at the top, which catches the last of the evening sun.
Tom and Reggie the dog were here to greet us when we arrived, which was really nice. Tom had filled the fridge with food, there were bottles of wine and spirits and the house was toastie warm - a lovely welcome. He stayed that night, did his best to get various instructions, directions and bits of advice to stick in his parents’ unreliable brains, and departed after lunch the following day. We were on our own and in France - we’d made it!
Being on our own, à deux, for a length of time holds no fears for us. We’ve achieved 54 years of a happy marriage after all! During our sailing years we spent weeks at a time confined in a small space, with all the tensions of unreliable weather and fierce tides - not to mention misread tide tables, the occasional dragged anchor and even running aground! We survived all that, loved it in fact, and see this as being a continuance at a gentler pace. The living accommodation here stays on an even keel and I won’t have to put up with getting regularly soaked to the skin!
We decided to start slowly, getting into some sort of a routine. It hit us that we had no need to refer to the diary every day, each day was a blank page! This meant that there was no framework to our days and frankly we are still finding it difficult to remember what day of the week it is. We could easily drift through the day without paying much, if any, attention to the clock. However, this can lead to difficulties here in rural France, as the local shops all slam their doors shut promptly at midday with no intention of pulling back the bolts again until at least 3pm.
The first part of our daily framework is set in stone, the daily 5 minute walk to the Boulangerie. This serves a triple purpose. Firstly, there is a little area on the way where the dogs can be let off the lead and where they do their early morning ablutions, which are then bagged and dropped into the bin provided. Secondly, the super friendly woman at the Boulangerie talks to us in nice clear French and provides us with information and new vocabulary when necessary. Thirdly, we buy two croissants and a baguette to take back for breakfast!
The rest of the day is divided into periods for working on our projects, for giving the dogs (and ourselves!) a good walk and extending our knowledge of the area, either on foot or by car. There is also the inevitable occasional sortie to the nearby Carrefour to be slotted in somewhere as well.
The village of Caunes-Minervois is very rural and, as with most rural French villages, you see very little activity on the street. Driving through a French village can be like driving through a ghost town. Caunes has few shops. It has a Boulangerie, a Pharmacie, a Poste and a rather old fashioned Supermarché tucked away in a back street. At the moment, being February and out of season, the only restaurants open are a rather good pizza restaurant and the Grande Fontaine Bar/Restaurant in the middle of the village. .There is a school but we’ve never seen many children on the streets and certainly not a noisy flood of school children being let out at the end of the day. There is a rugby club and we have heard distant shouts clearly emanating from a rugby game, but we have yet to see any action. Village activity takes place mostly on a daily basis in the Grande Fontaine. Here, we’ve discovered, the same faces can be seen propping up the bar at any time of the day. Having had a few Plat de Jours there and joined in on watching a couple of the Six Nations Rugby Internationals, we are now recognised and greeted as we go in. The locals have been very friendly, although we do struggle with the very strong local dialect and, as we were warned by Valerie in our French lessons, the speed at which they speak!
Settling ourselves into our new life has been made a lot easier by the unusually warm and sunny weather that is being experienced in this part of France at the moment. Having the two dogs with us means that we are going to be doing a lot of walking and the good weather while we begin our initial explorations is a bonus. However, there is one problem with our dogs in that physically they are ill matched. Annie is now 13 years old and walks with a pronounced limp because of arthritis in one of her front legs. Laddie, on the other hand, is a 4 year old spaniel and therefore hyper-active and seemingly inexhaustible. Fortunately for Annie she has two septuagenarians choosing the length and type of terrain we walk and that is in her favour! However, although parts of our respective anatomies are experiencing signs of wear and tear, our legs are still in good working order and a walk of a couple of hours on the mountain is easily managed. Annie can cope with that, even though at times she lags behind exaggerating her limp and definitely saying “Are we nearly there yet?”
So, to summarise, we’ve made a good start. We arrived here pretty weary after all the preparations for leaving. It has been wonderful to be able to take things at a gentler pace, to recharge our battered batteries and ease ourselves into this new way of life. With energy returning, there’s a lot to learn and a lot to see! Bring it on!
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