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………