Six Nations Rugby Championship 2024

Anyone who knows our family will know that almost without exception we love watching, and in some cases playing, a good game of Rugby Union.  With me it started way back in the early fifties, when my father played for Chiltern Rugby Football Club at Chesham, Bucks.  Even now the smell of an old fashioned Clubhouse, bare wooden floor boards, mud and sweat, or the sight of a rather thin, dry sandwich with curly edges, takes me straight back to those days.  I have to admit that I didn’t take much interest in the games then, but clearly the seed was sown.  I progressed to watching rugby at Twickenham with the family for years and then had the good sense to marry a rugby enthusiast!  Richard played at school and then for the ‘Floaters XV’ at Dartmouth, a team in which to earn your colours you had to down 14 pints between opening and closing hours.  He never won his colours! Adrienne played for Wasps in her early days in London after leaving school.  She herself would admit that she did so for the social life that went with it, and particularly because she knew how jealous/irritated her brothers would be seeing her dressed in the Wasps’ strip.  This phase in her life didn’t last long, but we did watch her play once.  The alarm and horror on her face, and the speed with which she got rid of the ball the one time it landed unexpectedly and unavoidably in her arms, was testament to her skill and genuine enthusiasm for the game!  Tom was (sorry Tom, has to be ‘WAS’) a very good scrum half both at school and beyond, and modelled himself on Johnny Wilkinson.  Ben was described by Tom, in his Best Man’s speech at Ben’s Wedding, as ‘a talented yet painfully slow and defensively inept fly half’!’ And now we have grandsons playing the game.

In the Seventies and Eighties we found like minded friends with whom  to watch the 5 Nations Championships.  Thus the Rugger Buggers, who got together to watch all the matches every year on television, was born.  When we were living in Germany in the nineties, an intrepid bunch of Rugger Buggers drove out to Frankfurt just for a weekend of fun and televised Five Nations.  A very depleted version still exists today. This year, of course, Richard and I found ourselves in France for the Tournois des Six Nations without a single Rugger Bugger to share the excitement.  As the date for the first round of matches drew near, we noticed to our delight that Caunes’ rugby club was advertising tickets for the opening match, France v Ireland, watching on a giant screen, with paella and drinks.  We decided to get a couple of tickets as it seemed a good way for us to get into some village life.  However, having made that brave decision, when we approached Mme Boulangerie, who we were told was selling the tickets, she said that it wasn’t happening after all as there hadn’t been a good enough take up.  But despair not, la Grande Fontaine had picked up the baton and the evening would now take place there - complete with paella! 

Sitting in a French bar, surrounded by French rugby supporters, eating paella and watching France being crushed by Ireland, was not the most comfortable of experiences!  What we did learn was that the French quickly lose interest in a match they are losing and are quick to condemn their own team as useless.  Not for them the loud vocal support that Richard keeps up throughout a game when England is playing, optimistic to the last blast of the whistle, whatever the score.  There was one particular character at the bar who was really quite unsettling.  Tall and thin, with a bald head, he made regular sorties to the loo, passing close to our table, stopping every few yards to shout unintelligible words, gesticulate wildly and stare around with wide scary eyes!  We felt he was either suffering from Tourette’s syndrome or was a trifle unhinged.  Everyone just seemed to ignore him, so we did the same! 

Some matches we have watched à deux from the house, with Richard giving the dogs the benefit of his rich seam of ‘Naval’ expletives and vast knowledge of all rules and wiles of the game.  We have also spent many hours in la Grande Fontaine where he is wise enough to keep himself unusually restrained, and it’s been very enjoyable.  We are greeted warmly by the other rugby enthusiasts, with hand shakes and friendly greetings when we arrive, and are always shown to a table with a good view of the large screen television.  France has had an uncomfortable season and that is probably why the support for their team in the bar has been unexpectedly mediocre - except of course for our barking friend with the staring eyes!  He is always there, always behaving in the same way, and we have got used to his odd behaviour.  Despite appearances, he’s not a threat.  

 For the final match of the season, France v England, we just had to be at la Grande Fontaine,  to share the buzz and the atmosphere.  There was for once a smattering of English supporters there, so a few voices joined in with ‘God Save the King’ when it struck up on the television.  However, we all sang the Marseillaise enthusiastically, although none more enthusiastically than you know who!  It was a fantastic game with both teams playing their best rugby of the competition.  We cheered when the French scored and cheered even louder when the English scored.  Everyone showed appreciation for good play from either side.  At the final whistle we were quick to congratulate all the ecstatic French fans in the bar and it was heart warming to see a smile on the face of our barking friend and receive a warm handshake from him as well.  Perhaps it was as well the final result went the way it did!

Halfway and Signs of Spring!

 

We’ve now been here for nearly two months and daily life is showing signs of Spring in a number of ways.  The plane trees that line our street have all had fierce haircuts and are looking sad and unattractive.  This ‘pollarding’ is happening everywhere and I hope the new growth will be very much in evidence before we leave in May.  On our walks ever more wild flowers are appearing, meaning that there is more and more colour.  Mimosa trees are in full bloom and although the almond blossom is going over, small vivid green leaves are taking the place of the flowers.  We have picked handfuls of almonds that still cling to the branches of the almond trees, but then found it impossible to crack the shells.  Needing a nutcracker, we went off to a large shop in a nearby village that sells anything you could think of, and cheaply.  Having looked up the word for nutcracker on Google Translate, I asked one of the shopgirls if they had one. Her reaction was to ask me to repeat the word and then with a sidelong look at another girl, giggling, she led me off and found me one. She was still chuckling with her friend as I checked out and I can only assume that the word ‘nut’ has the same connotation in French as in English!!

On the 1st March there was a lot of mention of something called ‘Mars Bleu’ in the press. We asked our fount of all knowledge, Madame Boulangerie, what this was and apparently it’s a term used at the beginning of March, when many people develop health problems related to the time of year.  She is clearly very sceptical about this (she did a lot of eye rolling and eyebrow raising) but added that in October they have ‘October Rose’ when another lot of health problems regularly occur!  It’s clearly related to the Equinox and in Germany would send the population scampering off for weeks at a ‘Kur Klinik’!

In all the vineyards workers are busy finishing the pruning and tidying.  I don’t envy them.  There are rows and rows of vines and usually one man, bent double, clipping and tying up one vine after another.  Very often there’s a brightly coloured vehicle parked at the side of the huge area they are working on, presumably chosen to make it easier to find when they finish!  We have done a fair amount of driving around the Minervois area and there are miles and miles of beautifully tended rows of vines in vineyard after vineyard.  I had no idea that this was such a productive winemaking region!

On a walk a couple of weeks ago we were greeted by an enormous dog.  At first we were a little nervous of it, it was very large and clearly very keen to make our acquaintance, but we quickly realised that, like many giants of the animal and human kingdom, it was a real softy.  It conversed with Annie and Laddie, refused Laddie’s offer of a game and as we moved on, it ambled back from whence it came.  We have subsequently seen and learnt more about these dogs.  Just lately we have noticed herds of sheep in the vineyards, grazing between the rows of vines, presumably doing a good job keeping the weeds down for the winegrower.  To protect their herds the shepherds use guard dogs.  It is recommended that you keep your distance, stay calm and put your dog(s) on a lead if you come across one of these dogs!!

  Well nobody warned us!  To be fair, our gentle giant was clearly ‘off duty’, or perhaps had failed the ‘Get Offa my Land’ test!  They have very long legs and stand in ‘first position’ with their feet turned out, like a large hairy ballerina.

Another sign that life in the village and beyond is beginning to stir from its winter slumber, is the number of ‘events’ being advertised on flyers in shop windows and around the streets. Caunes is having  a Jazz Evening on Friday this week which we intend to go to and, to my delight, our favourite bar/restaurant, La Cantina de Curée, is opening its doors again with a bit of a party on the 28th March.

Trying to make headway with our conversational French is not proving easy.  We read the daily local paper every morning without much difficulty. We watch the evening news and associated discussion programme every evening and find we are understanding more and more, but we have few opportunities to speak it at length.  However, last week as she cut his hair for the second time, Mme. Karine told Richard that there was a group of English people who met weekly at La Grande Fontaine’ to speak French with each other. She suggested he popped back later when one of the regulars would be having a haircut and Richard could learn more. So, later that morning we both met Paul Brown, a man of almost exactly the same age as Richard, and learnt more. There’s one group of men who meet for lunch a couple of times a month on a Wednesday and rant about the world in general and what should be being done about it (sound familiar?!) and then there’s the weekly Thursday mixed group that Mme Karine mentioned. Paul was a pleasant man who has lived in a nearby village for 20 years or so.  We decided we would give the Thursday lot a try and rather warily tipped up at the appropriate time. I felt that the least the experience would do was to provide fodder for the Blog!!  However, I’m pleased to report that we found a group of about a dozen people, male and female, all very friendly, aged (inevitably) in their sixties and seventies I’d guess.  They do all speak French to each other and there are a couple of native French speakers too. It was a good first experience for us and we’ll be going along this week again.  I am interested to find out more about individuals, what brought them to France, how long they’ve lived here, do they plan to return to the UK ever etc.etc.

Almost lastly, the worrying tale of the Subaru continues.  Richard’s hopes for a resolution with the mechanic who took me for a ride ended up with Richard rather being taken for a ride.  When he went back to collect the car he was told that the problem did not appear to be the wheel bearings after all.  He had pumped up all the tyres hard, given the car an oil change and the problem persists.  However, we have a new source of hope!  Richard was telling our tale of woe to one of the men at the Thursday table.  He has lived in Caunes for a number of years and highly recommended his mechanic in a nearby village.  He’d hardly finished his sentence before we were hot footing off to track down our new would-be hero.  We located his garage and have a rendezvous-vous booked in a couple of weeks time - with absolutely everything crossed!!

And lastly lastly, we had a happy day last week visiting Lagrasse, a village that is part of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France.  It is beautiful, with medieval streets and houses, and an old bridge that crosses the Orbieu river to the Sainte-Marie Abbey.  After strolling around in the sunshine with the dogs, we sat outside a small restaurant and had lunch.  I thought you’d enjoy the sign that was on the wall in the loo………