Driving Home for Christmas
I’m looking at Meteo France weather predictions for Lescun even though I’m sitting in my office 700 miles away, back in England. A number of family and close friend commitments meant that we needed to be home for the month of December. Not that I am absolutely sure where home is any more. The sky has remained a tarnished aluminium since we arrived with scarcely a dash of blue. Back in our other home, however, le grand bleu has reigned supreme since our departure, much to the annoyance of Alf who is now impatient to get skiing. So the first item on my Missing You Already list, despite the fact that I know it is a “now” thing and not an “always” thing and that, in the past, I have revelled in the low sun and the astonishing colours of my English winter… just now I am missing the light. It seems that since arriving we’ve been continually on the the move, sorting things out and visiting those who do not have the capacity to come to us. But the first thing that hit us after the long journey North was the garden. It was a mess and, obviously, the arrangements we’d made hadn’t worked. I’d received a number of fretful emails from my daughter on the subject but I’d chosen not to involve myself as managing people from a distance is never a good idea. She had been right, though, with the result that we’ve spent a lot of time in the garden carrying out remedial work. I suppose, though, it is exercise of a sort - something we’re not getting as much of away from the mountains. And yes, I do feel a physical ache for the blood-pumping stubborn effort required to get us up, sometimes, a thousand metres of altitude… not quite ready yet to ease into the comfy slippers and on to the daytime sofa, tempting though it occasionally seems. Second item on the list, then - “exercise”. So, that’s the garden? And what about “Gardens”? One of our trips to friends trips took us to Pembroke and Picton Castle where we strolled briefly around a very soggy, out of season, landscape. It was, perhaps, the worst possible day to visit, yet there were still plants in bloom with vestiges of summer and autumn splendour but, most of all, the spirit of the British Garden. The Australians do it, the South Africans do it, the Japanese certainly do it but we do it really well. Earlier in the year, for example, the town of Beaminster and the Village of Netherbury, both in Dorset, hosted their “Open Gardens” weekend, where grand and humble plots were made accessible to the public and, I have to say that the level of horticultural excellence at grass (or maybe herbaceous border) root level are beyond compare. At home, visiting gardens whether they be small amateur plots of the grand affairs of Forde Abbey, Rosemoor or Stourhead has been an important part of our lives. And though the French have a go, they don’t come within a million miles of the creativity and knowhow of Brown or Lloyd or Jekyll. And you know what, if I were young, I might just see that as a business opportunity. So, just to start loading the other side of the scales, I will plonk “gardens” into the “What I Miss About Home” side of the equation. The trip back had seemed more tiring than usual, even though we had broken the journey by visiting friends in Brittany. The time of year, I think, is the major factor with much more driving having to be done in the dark and, regrettably, my vision is not as keen as it used to be. Of corse, nothing is as it used to be but my simple philosophy of carry on doing it for as long as possible seems to pay off. So, for example, the more I keep climbing mountains the longer I feel I will be able, with a bit of luck, to continue. It’s when we say “I can’t be bothered with that today…” that the rot starts to set in.
But, if the driving in France was tough, over here it was like wading through treacle. The road West from Portsmouth was three lane-stuffed all the way to Ringwood where a broken-down vehicle prepared us all for the two lane crawl to Wimborne. When it comes to infra-structure the French win hands down. Bordeaux to Paris by train in two and a half hours? And auto-routes work like… well… autoroutes… take your foot off the accelerator and cruise-control at 70 or 80. Ecologically it works, too, because the most polluting vehicles are those going nowhere in a jam with the engine running. So, guess what..? Even though I hate the drive back to Christmas, it’s better there than here. Another stone in the plus balance. But on the subject of infra-structure, here’s another thing… in our village in Dorset we have a 2-4 megabyte internet connection at the moment which frequently drops below that. In Lescun, with a modest population of 180, some of which have never heard of the internet, we have fibre-optic to copper connectivity of up to 14 megabytes. Consequently, we can listen to Radio 4, stream or download any film in real time or watch myriad TV channels digitally (not that we do the latter as the quality of programmes in France is no better, probably worse, than those in the UK). We can also FaceTime with family (when their internet is working) and I can post the large files that are my Letters from the Pyrenees on the Lescunwalks website quickly and without frustration. We are connected, both culturally and personally. Another plus. When it comes to Culture, however, language is, without a doubt, the key that unlocks the access gate. Luckily we speak French well enough to participate in the social life of the village and my involvement with the story-telling group is pushing my abilities into a new area. But, for me, French will always remain a second language, where the subtleties and nuances that I so much enjoy in my native language, I will never fully grasp. People often ask me whether I will translate my writings about France into French. But it’s hard enough to fashion a good sentence in English, I reply. It wouldn’t work. So, do I miss being surrounded by my first language? Not really. We have films. Kathy and I talk more than we ever did before because there is more to talk about and we have more time to do it. We have British newspapers online and, of course, we have books. One of these - The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse - is a must-have for any Englishman or woman abroad and I recall one sunny day in October sitting on the balcony playing the poetry tennis game where we take it turns to select and read aloud from the collection. Simple pleasures! Curiously, though, I think I’m having speaking-French withdrawal symptoms. It might simply be that I’m missing the friends with whom we communicate using that language. It might be the way people treat us as a bit special because we are foreigners who speak French but it feels more than that. I’m coming to the conclusion that I like the challenge of communicating in another language. I’m pretty good at it and think I can get better. So that’s a challenge and another item on the French side of the scales. And now I’m thinking… oh dear! We’ve come back to an awful situation; so much is better over there. But I don’t think that’s the whole truth. Naturally, it’s been very important to see our family and our friends. It’s been good to be in our own house with our own stuff and our own space. It has even been good to be outside working in the garden and, despite the light-starved weather conditions, just sometimes the Dorset landscape, in contrast to the grander the Cirque de Lescun, has forced me to appreciate again its elusiveness and subtlety. Rather like the language.
Living in the Pyrenees is an adventure. I love it. My wife loves it. But we are, at heart, English. There are great pulls here, too. Which way will we go at the end of the year? I do not know. December 19th 2015.