Contents of article "September 2005"

 Thursday 1st September
 Saturday 3rd September
 Wednesday 7th September
 Friday 9th September
 Saturday 10th September
 Friday 16th September
 Thursday 22nd September
 Sunday 25th September

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Thursday 1st September

The daft dog fell in the pool three times today during a volley of failed attempts to burst the inflatable dragon that lives on the surface. She’s lying at my feet now, (the dog, not the dragon) exhausted and smelling like a dead sheep. Everytime she falls in, somebody has to dive in and rescue her as she can’t swim.

The weather has been beautiful all week - not suffocating - just warm and sunny with a light breeze. Preparations have begun for ’la rentrée’ - the return to school that takes over all the shops and costs more than Christmas. Children receive lists of books and items to buy which come to two hundred euros or more on average. The school supplies no materials - paper, pens, books all have to be provided by the child, although some text books are provided.

The list is amazingly precise and woe betide the ’enfant’ who doesn’t have the correct size paper with the required small squares or specified large squares, four holes or eight holes, correct number and size of paint brushes and tubes of ’gouache’, wooden recorder as opposed to plastic recorder (sorry Lulu but it’s such a waste of money - you know you’re tone deaf!) It really is quite a racket and although there is help available for families who can’t afford the materials, it’s minimal compared to the real cost. Of course, I suppose the financial compensation is apparent in not having to buy an expensive uniform but the child with the unfashionable hand-me-downs sticks out like a sore thumb. There’s a lot to be said for the British school uniform.

Saturday 3rd September

Autumn

Looking back over August, I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favourite months in the Pyrénées. Weather-wise it’s been quite uninspiring. Perfectly OK and probably more than OK compared to rainy Leeds (I’m not really knocking Leeds. ’Ah we brung upp theer an’ ah’m proud o’ beein’ ah Yorkshire lass’)) but rather unpredictable with some quite sad, cloud covered days. It’s more than that though. August seems to lack the vivid colours of some of the other months - the brazen, blatant yellow and gold of the Mimosa in Autumn, the girly pink fluffiness of the cherry blossom in May followed by the mature red of the cherries in fruit, the stark and atmospheric brown of the bare vines in Winter against the backdrop of a snow-topped canigou and the beauty and fragility of the wild flowers in Spring and Autumn. I’ve always been either a student or a teacher so I’ve never been able to appreciate the changing aspects of life in a warm country out of term time.

Winter

Spring

The people in the shops and cafés are different too. More stressed, more hurried, less time to talk. The whole region takes on a different atmosphere and speeds up for those precious few months when the tourists bring in much needed revenue. Between ’fete’ and ’bal’ the PO becomes a whirling hurricane of entertainment and restauration as it hurtles along its dizzy course towards the end of the season. The PO are still beautiful now, the mountains adorned in every shade of green imaginable, but in a rather a faded way, as if they are waiting to shake off their Summer fashions and slide into fresh Autumn finery.

Summer

Wednesday 7th September

Yesterday, I put the milk in the wine cupboard and the olive oil in the fridge. Today, the milk is sour and the olive oil has gone all yeuchy and been sent to olive oil heaven. What has this got to do with life in the PO you may well ask? Well, nothing really - I just thought yhou ought to know what kind of person you’re dealing with!

We had some bad rain here on Monday night, accompanied by an impressive thunder and lightening display, but got off quite lightly compared to the Hérault and the Gard departments, both of which suffered bad floods. Campsites evacuated, train timetables suspended and grape harvests ruined. It’s all a reminder of the extent to which we are at the mercy of Mother Nature. Here in Maureillas, the lightening cut off M6, (the television channel, not the motorway) just 15 minutes before the end of a good film so we will never know if the hero lived to fight another day. In Collioure however, a rental car belonging to British tourists, was washed away and numerous boats were flooded. No hosepipe ban for us for a while then!

It’s pouring down now, still very warm, and the garden is sighing with pleasure as the water reaches the very roots of the trees and shrubs (mainly weeds actually in our garden but I’m talking generally)

I joined the parent-teacher’s association at Lulu’s school today and had to pay 35€ for the priviledge! It seemed a bit of a cheek to have to pay to volunteer to become a member of a group trying to look after the interests of the students and I will be interested to see what I get ’for my money’ Lulu’s timetable has some quite odd bits in it. For example, on Friday, he starts at 8am until 12am, then no more lessons until 16h, at which point he has an hour of Latin. Pupils who stay for school dinners have to remain on the premises - those who go home for dinner do not have to come back until 16h. I have a feeling that this is not a lesson that will regularly have full attendance, or full concentration from the customers!

Friday 9th September

9am Friday

They got me, the little divvils! One of the mozzie foot soldiers must have snuck up on me during the night and injected me. Had he been reading my diary and felt sorry for me - unloved and unwanted by the mozzie community? I just KNOW that readers will be passionately interested in the photographic progression of a Pyrenees-Orientales mozzie bite over a period of, say, sixty hours, so here is the first photo. Enjoy!

On a slightly more contraversial note, I have just been over to La Jonquera to do some shopping. Driving through le Perthus is such a nightmare, not because of the quantity of shoppers but because of the quantity and quality of the parking provision. Cars can park all the way down the road, on both sides and jams are caused by drivers trying to manoeuvre in and out of inadequate parking spaces and therefore holding up all the traffic on both sides of the road. The shops there must be raking in a fortune - why doesn’t the commune ask them for some money to create better parking facilities outside the town, and make the main street into a no parking zone?

Saturday 10th September

Saturday 15h00

The bite continues to evolve - I think matters might soon come to a head!

Tonight, we’re having a surprise party for Lulu, as he spent his birthday in Paris with his french grandparents and didn’t really have any celebrations. He’s not supposed to know about it and his friends Tristan and Valentin have organised all the guests, but in true kiddie style, I don’t think they’ve kept a very good secret! He was awake this morning at 6.30 and is very excited about something! The weather is undecided - cloudy one minute and bright sunshine the next, but it’s warm and with a bit of luck, they’ll be able to spend the evening in between the trampoline and the pool and not bother me! Just in case, I’ve got the karaoke ready, but will these french 12 and 13 years be able to sing karaoke to Queen, Tina Turner, Meatloaf and Bruce Springsteen? I suppose it’s a bit like me singing Vera Lyn in Greek!

Friday 16th September

Ooops! I just didn’t notice the week slip by. The bite didn’t merit another photograph as it resolved itself quickly and I was unable to delight and entertain dinner guests with a magical explosion over the coq au vin. What a disappointment for my friends.

Lulu’s birthday party went really well. Everybody turned up and, as hoped for, they spent the evening in between the pool and the trampoline. Although there were only 14 of them, the noise reminded me of the school playground at break. French children of this age tend to be more naif and unworldly than english children. After the pool and pizza, they actually wanted to play games and really enjoyed participating in some of the silly ones that I pulled out of my ’teacher-on-residential’ repertoire - a must when you regularly take groups of 50 children to stay in isolated youth hostels in the middle of the English countryside.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful all week - blue skies and warm sunshine. Wednesday afternoon is ’Lucien time’ as he has the afternoon off school (like all French children) and we always let him decide what he wants to do - safe in the knowledge that he usually prefers to stay by the pool and ’chill’ This Wednesday, however, he chose to go fishing in the creek at Argelès. Perched on the rocks overlooking the shimmering ’grand bleu’ and listening to the gentle whoosh of the waves breaking on the beach, watching my son and husband giggling, heads together in unspoken conspiracy, tanned, happy and healthy, reminded me why am I here - not that I ever forget.

Grape picking has begun in earnest around here and everywhere you go, there are groups of people wandering around with buckets, laughing and chattering, mopping their brows and grimacing at the sticky grape juice as it rolls down their arms, an open invitation to the local wasps and buzzy beasties.

The green of the vines against a background of cloudless blue sky and purple mountain sets off the colours of the clothes of the grape pickers and creates a festive atmosphere. When I pass by, I want to dance!

Thursday 22nd September

Please don’t think that I’ve abandoned my Life in the PO (with apologies to Roger for the abbreviation) Quite the contrary as I love writing about life here, and ’fret’ when several days go by and I haven’t had the chance to catch up with my ’goings on’ However, I have mislaid my camera and don’t want to bore you into submission with an unillustrated monologue. It isn’t lost and gone for ever as I know that it is somewhere ’dans le coin’ but it is probably languishing between a couple of books or peeping our from under some unopened mail or a grubby dishcloth, or even worse - oh, horror of horrors - it might just have found its way into Lulu’s pit, amongst the piles of stiff, stinky socks and sticky sweetie papers, never to be seen again.

Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday. We picked him and Irene, his lady, up in Barcelona on Sunday and booked them in at the Lido hotel in Argelès. One of the things I think this region lacks is a consistent hotel accommodation. Hotels tend to be either cheap, small and poky or very expensive for nothing that special. The hotel chains on which you can usually depend for a consistently acceptable standard are few and far between (Novotel, Ibis etc) and many hotels masquerade as chic and fashionable when in fact, once past the reception the general standard leaves much to be required. Total generalisation here - there are also some very nice hotels, particularly if you’re looking for authenticity! Anyway, the Lido is perfectly pleasant with nice rooms overlooking the sea and beach and friendly staff, although I would book in for B&B rather than half board personally.

We celebrated his birthday in true French style with a birthday lunch which started at midday and finished at 22h30. French and english friends were invited but the oil and water syndrone so often applies to these sort of gatherings and it is quite difficult to get them together. It reminded me a bit of my first disco - boys in one corner, girls in the other, casting longing glances over but not quite daring to be the first to make the move!

Sunday 25th September

ripening olives

Found it! The little rascal had secreted itself at the bottom of my bag (where I usually keep it) and had disguised itself as a camera (which it is)

Back to life in the PO. I don’t know what’s happening to Winter fashion in the UK, but I can tell you that fashion in France at the moment is strictly for the long, tall and thin, none of which quite describe me! Full, flouncy gypsy skirts in black, purple, gold, rose-petal red, chocolate brown, violet, olive green, plum - all the warm Autumn colours in fact - with fitted, blazer-style jacket or cardigan, look fantastic on the five foot five plus but less inspiring on the five foot minus! Never mind - my smile still looks good on me!

maybe a marrow?

The weather was cloudy and warm this morning - perfect cycling weather - so we packed up three sandwiches and a doggy chew and set off to explore our natural habitat ’en vélo’. On the outskirts of Céret and Maureillas, you can literally ride for miles and miles without being disturbed by a hill. We headed towards Le Boulou on off-road tracks amidst the vines and allotments. When villages in the PO such as Le Boulou and St Jean Pla de Corts were built, the town house or ’maison de village’ was often owned and let by the local landowner, (living usually in the village in the ’maison de maitre’ - the poshest house around). Those living in these ’maisons de village’ did not have gardens but tennants were allocated land on the outside of the village to grow fruit and vegetables. These allotments are still very much in evidence in the region, and many of them have Summer dining areas and terraces where the grandparents entertain the family during the fine weather and receive visitors. What a lovely idea for those who don’t have gardens.

bear trap

These green fingered Catalans produce some of the most wonderful fruits and vegetables. This morning, on the route between Le Boulou and Argelès, we rode through corgettes and khakis (sharon fruits I think in English), grapes and tomatoes and apples and pears, peppers and pomygranates, chillis, figs, herbs and kiwis, and so many more. The sweet smell of maturing fruit always gives me a thrill.

On the way back, we stopped at the lakeside restaurant in St Jean Pla de Corts and downed a very welcome ’perrier tranche’ (with lemon) next to the lake before heading for home.

Lulu avec Papa

If you know the area, you will probably have taken the road from St Jean to Maureillas at some time. Not long after the bridge, on the right there is a bear trap! Apparently, it has been there for years as there used to be bears in this area but fortunaltely it is now obsolete. The bear would fall into the shute and be caught by the enormous teeth of the awaiting trap - man has a great deal to answer for!

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