I Took a Nap and a Drive: A French Afternoon on Vacation…or La Farniente, Almost

There is life after lunch. Right after we’ve had a nice nap to recover from lunch. Which is after the hour of coffee-drinking in the shade of the trees in the garden. The nap, I mean, not lunch. I know, there is a lot to keep track of.

We go visiting or are visited. Marie-France, my French mama and I do much of the visiting. It is a day by day affair. The telephone is picked up around 3:30, a number dialed and I hear, "Alô? Angela est là, can we stop by?" and we are out the door. This will be one of the families who hosted me years ago when I was an exchange student. They have had dozens of exchange students in the Rotary club over the years, but not many ended up married to a local and with French citizenship. I also write at Christmas.

 

I chauffeur, Marie directs and tells stories. She has stories of her childhood in le Berry, where her father ran a great farm. There are tales of voyages around the globe, of great hardships, great joy, and hilarity. I try not to murder our backs with my driving, that second gear is always hard on the coccyx when poorly executed, but she is a model of graciousness, never once agreeing with me that I might have jolted her right out of her skull.

 

 

Contis-les Landes

The roads are the tiniest things you ever did see. I know I said that about the store yesterday, but the roads really are as teensy and tidy as those shelves of biscuits. See below (isn't that just peerless?)

Spar in Mezos, on the corner of Avenue des Écoles and Rue des Tilleuls

The "routes départementales" in les Landes are lined with the golden and green shades of burning ferns and pine trees mostly, with bursts of wildflowers in purple and yellow. Every three and a half seconds one comes to another roundabout signaling another village. The driver has just time enough to make it back up to the ninety kilometers an hour speed limit when it drops back down to fifty and then thirty. 

The main streets of villages are lined with hot pink flowering trees, glorious hanging baskets of flowers, and pretty little ninth or tenth-century churches. We can spot a small chateau or two, wells with wooden roofs, bread ovens, old communal schools; girls on one side and boys on the other, and town halls. I slow down to a crawl to get over the HUGE hump of a road bump. Every town has added these, sometimes two or three of them. They are called "dos d'âne" or "donkey backs" in French. The size of these has me thinking of much, much larger animals, maybe brontosaurus backs. I shift back into third and fourth gears and wait for the sign to signal the end of the village to speed up again for a very short while: fifty, seventy, ninety -roundabout.

 

Our teatime excursions took us to country places with stables and others in little villages. One property was tucked into one of the few hills in les Landes, most were on the plain, all surrounded by the endless pine trees.

On one occasion, a last-minute decision to go our for lunch was taken, highly unusual here. My French mama had just received bad news about her car that had been in the garage awaiting repairs; it would take longer than expected and she would soon be stranded with only an ancient, beat up truck to drive and besides, she just needed the cheering up that only a good meal would provide…I could but acquiesce and drive. It was not far, a small town a few miles from the coast. After a small glass of red wine and a giant plate each of all the good parts of a duck: gesiers, foie, magret, some pine nuts and a few leaves of lettuce to permit the name of “salade”,  the waiter brought out a little selection of cheese and then an expresso. If only either of us had had any remaining appetite left for the chocolat liegois...another time.

What next? It was raining lightly, but it might let up. It was decided that we should trust the fates and we drove the two miles to Contis plage, my first beach experienced in France. The rain let up as I snagged a parking spot vacated by a disappointed vacationer. We made our slow, digestive way up and over the dune. I will not attempt to describe how captivating the sea is here, but I have included a couple of photos above.

On either end of my week with Marie-France, I am back in my husband’s home town. In this space of "after the noon hour" here, my mama-in-law, my son and I make our leisurely way over to my sister-in-law’s to take a dip in the pool with the cousins or watch them do so from a cool spot on the patio. This has, of course, been preceded by exactly the same morning scenario, up to and including the sieste.

 

 

Today, I see that my kiddo is busy hammering and sawing things out on the patio with his Papi, so I think I will go out alone to fill up the gas tank of my little car that can go for 690 kilometers on a single tank. 

Then, perhaps I may just return to the boulangerie (bakery) where I found a delicious chocolatine and éclairs au chocolat yesterday to make the most of the beautiful fact that someone on this great green earth took the time to bake such a thing. I believe I really do owe it to bakers everywhere…don’t you think?

 

 

***There are more posts, videos and thrilling adventures, like; taking out the rubbish in the countryside in France and real photos of the weirdest parking lot ever invented (which happens to be at that very same boulangerie) on my Instagram: French Dialogues. Come see me there and please hit "subscribe" would you? It would make my day. 

Bonne journée to you!

I Had Lunch: Daily Life in a French Village

That has been the sum of my days until 4 pm every day this week. What did I accomplish today? I had lunch. Here is what it takes to make possible a meal here. 

A bergerie in the forest of Les Landes

The old house

I sleep too late; the charger for my phone is too far from the bed, so I leave it unplugged. Phone goes dead, most likely from failed attempts to join an inexplicably complicated wifi, and alarm is missed. Or I did not set an alarm, sure I would wake up with the sun.

But the sun is perfectly blocked out by heavy wooden shutters closed tight against the light and weather. No wakey. I rush to dress and be ready before it is “too late”. People keep reassuring me that it is fine, I am on vacation and I should sleep. But there is the midday meal to prepare.

Breakfast is a bowl of café on my way out the door to help with the grocery run. We have to go to the next village over for a real store, and it is the tiniest, tidiest thing you ever saw. Every bar of chocolate and every package of lardons is beautifully aligned. There are three people at the butcher counter in the back, and the owner is either welcoming you in at the front while she rings up another client’s things, “Bonjour mademoiselle, bonjour monsieur,” or busy cooking delicious dishes for the deli in the back kitchen, like lasagna with clams and cauliflower baked with white sauce and cheese, crisp on top. She will be out shortly if the latter is the case.  The greetings are effusive and detailed with my host-mama; bisous, inquiries about health and the book of her son and the cat…

These are the best dry sausages (saucisson), the ones that look rugged and artisanal because they have the most flavor, the best density and chewiness:

One might stop and have a coffee while out in the morning. Here maybe, with the best chocolatines in the world:

We return home to begin lunch preparations, or rather, I am shooed out of the kitchen while the real cooking is done and only allowed to return when it is time to set the table. Nothing has changed. I came to help out for a week or so, instead, I am being fed and taken care of and only allowed to do the most basic of tasks. I am allowed to chauffeur, sweep and take care of the kitchen after meals. I am not sure where the rest of the morning has gone, maybe I walked to the Tabac* hoping to buy stamps in one more spot-no dice here either, or I ran to another village with my host-brother to pick up some forgotten item. One morning we visited the tomb of my host-papa, the amazing, energetic, full of life, Tano. His absence is so large now.

Lunch is glorious, a feast of ridiculous proportions for my American habits. Here or at my in-laws, there are three courses and coffee. Many days we have a glass of sangria with sausage or chips. Today we’ll begin the meal with langoustine, a salad of grated carrots and probably some of the graisserons with foie gras (which would be lumped under “pâté” in English and that would be a great disservice to humankind’s palette, but never mind). The next course is a meat course, chicken in a delicious sauce or merguez or an omelette or both because there are leftovers of one or the other. There will be lettuce and vinaigrette, and sometimes the salad has walnuts and cheese in it if it is part of the opening course. 

Then comes the cheese tray, with another piece or two of the oven-fresh baguette we picked up this morning. The choices range from ripe and creamy like the chèvre to hard and just as pungent, like the P’tit Basque. Dessert may be a lemon tarte or yogurt and coffee will follow. By this time it is 2:30 pm and the kitchen can be cleaned and naps taken. Are you getting the picture?

And if that is not enough, the beach is half an hour away. Capbreton, les Landes, town of the bakery/café aforementioned.

***The Tabac is a shop in which things like tobacco may be sold, but also all stamps needed to send mail and pay for traffic tickets. You can also find the newspaper, a variety of books, postcards and other odds and ends. 

For more photos, videos and petites histoires, come visit me on Instagram: French Dialogues.

Day Eighty-Nine of Ninety Days in France

Day Eighty-Nine

Sick kids. Does this happen to everyone else too in the last hours before a trip? Two of my little munchkins, the youngest, had red-hot, burning up fevers all night. The kind where they cry because their throats hurt so much they can't stand it, their heads hurt worse and we change the sheets so many times we lose count from various leaking or spurting bodily fluids.

Tonight is so much better. A third one is ill, fever, hallucinations, (he keeps waking up and yelling "don't take the plane without me!"), and it is as hot as an oven in here so no one can get to sleep. I wish I wasn't wondering how on earth I could be cruel enough to drag them onto an airplane to get home, but plan B seems out of the question.

Today my little Arthur turned six, sweet guy. Some birthday! An aching head, a doctor appointment, parents crazy with attempting to stuff an entire apartment into five suitcases and nothing on television. It was somewhat redeemed by lunch with his grandparents, a movie on tv in the afternoon, and last visits with cousins, uncles, aunts and his beloved great-grandmother. The warmth of the family rivals the warmth of the weather and comforts us much more as we prepare to leave.

That's where the post ended, I was out of inspiration, out of energy and ready to get home. I'll make the post-script into a new entry, we need a little comic relief after that!

Market Update

Well, it has been four years since I visited the farmer's market here, but I am happy to report that all is well in the tiny town square. The beautiful displays of tomatoes, spinach, zucchini, salad and tiny local strawberries, bright red and sweet, a hundred sorts of cheese, fresh bread and glossy prunes, were enough to make me almost cry. I was with my mother-in-law, she knows everyone, from the local policewoman to each stall holder and just about every customer. To a one, when she introduced me, they knew all about our trip and our "harrowing adventures" as they put it.

I had a harder time getting through the crowds than I remembered. The little elderly ladies are on a mission; they just bull-doze their way through, showing no mercy, yielding no quarter. If you linger too long over your choice of tomatoes or can't find the right change, there will be a hand in front of you with its own vegetables or money in it, getting on with business.

After selecting all of the above, each from the right stall, guided by my "belle-maman"; goat cheese, ewe cheese and fresh whipped cream as well as farm eggs, we met up with her sister and another friend for coffee. It was in a tiny tea and coffee shop that smelled heavenly, no flavor dominated over the others. It wasn't like walking into a cafe and having the overwhelming odor of fake hazelnut knock you over. It was more of an aroma of good things, unadulterated with cheese souffles or baked goods. The proprietress sent me away with three chocolate lollipops and two other chocolate goodies for the children. She had asked and noted how old the kids were, then prepared a little bag of treats while I was choosing tea to take home. Did I mention the tea? Oh, the tea...over 100 kinds, I just counted them on the menu I brought with me. Each smelled better than the one before. I narrowed it down to four, my husband's aunt wanted to offer me some. There were people in line behind me, so I forced myself to stop sniffing and just choose; two black, a rooibos and a green, but I will go back. I haven't even touched the Chinese, Japanese, Earl Grays or decafs!

We drove home to the children at a usual French, break-neck speed. Did I mention my mother-in-law drives like the ladies shop in the market, fast, furious and without pity? Well, not too fast, don't worry, Dad. She is, however, not someone to mess with on the road or in a parking lot. The kids had spent the morning devouring chocolate bread (pain au chocolat) and playing with their cousin, a little three-and-a-half-year-old darling. We all had lunch together; pate, bread, a rice salad, strawberries with whipped cream, and they ran off to play some more outside. I am starting to miss them, it feels like I haven't seen them in two days. They came home at five last night and we had dinner together, but they only woke up as I was leaving this morning. My in-laws report that they are all quite capable of making themselves understood in French when they need to, even the little guys. There may be no formal school work for a couple of months, but I am pretty sure there will be a little bit of progress in the foreign language department of the Academie C.