Bonjour my
little chipirons ,
Oui I agree it has been a long time, beaucoup des gaves sous the pont as they may say in the Bearn Patois. Tempting tho’ it is to furnish you with a brief synopsis of blogs that should have been I do not wish to bore you rigid, first time round this was the Freudian typo – frigid..appropriate when I started to write this on St Valentine’s Day, I thought.
Oui I agree it has been a long time, beaucoup des gaves sous the pont as they may say in the Bearn Patois. Tempting tho’ it is to furnish you with a brief synopsis of blogs that should have been I do not wish to bore you rigid, first time round this was the Freudian typo – frigid..appropriate when I started to write this on St Valentine’s Day, I thought.
Why now?
Well I couldn’t let the moment pass without saying goodbye to the circumflex.
Yes the Academie Francaise which rules on all things lingual in France has
decided to banish it. A welcome move for those who do not sign language and who have been
misunderstood for millennia (well since about 1740) because
the sometimes there is no difference in pronunciation e.g. “sur” -> on and “sûr” -> certain. For more detail:
And if you
haven’t the time – it seems to boil down to monks feeling guilty about sloppy
diction and so the loss of letters like S – “Pity ...INIT BRO”.
From Academie Francaise we move effortlessy to the opposite end of the spectrum culturally when yesterday whilst at the market in Navarrenx we tried to teach P’s personal cheesemonger, Marion, to say “Tighter than a duck’s arse”,
I started it with “short arms and deep pockets” and he just had to lower the
tone. It was in response to her recommendation for a café at a café round the
corner which was “pas plus cher”. She knows more than one way to charm a Yorkshireman.
The French saying is “Tonder des oeufs” which literally means “To shear eggs”.
Anyway no
such angst at the attrition of a noble language for P who, whilst understanding
all that is said to him by our Gallic friends continues, through modesty
primarily, to struggle to articulate his thoughts and desires. Not that this is
a hindrance; he has Marion’s telephone number in case he has a cheese emergency , at any village repas the ladies of the parish have this overwhelming desire
to feed him up and make sure he is well tended and the wives of the village
mayor and builder swoon like Sleeping Beauty on account of our latest project.
Oh
Philippe, Mon Dieu, c’est superbe (no
circumflex….never was). And his fame is spreading as we receive a request from
a friend of a friend in the metropolis that is Sauveterre who has requested
that her French husband come to see what P has built. Note the nesting box at the side
Not unlike
Saint Valentine I have been at risk during this cause, though he was the patron saint
of chocolate and martyred because he wouldn’t reduce the amount of cocoa solids
in his Nipples of Venus (I think that’s true) my downfall is likely to be eggs.
We are moving into the final stages of
preparation for les poules which is the run, I find myself on the end literally
of a 2.5 metre pole which is being split down the middle using a circular saw which the previous inhabitants left us in the garage
This piece of kit is to
me, what the furnace in the basement was to Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone” and I have similar trepidation when it comes to our hydraulic log splitter which according to the runaway best selling author Lars Mytting is only used by tough old timers when they reach the age of 95.....
I digress, my job is JUST to hold the wood steady at one
end. P commences feeding the jagged toothed beast, at first I feel like the
fodder in a medieval trebuchet, if the physics goes wrong I am likely to be catapulted
over his head to either hit double tops on the dartboard or discover whether
the beams are fit for purpose as I sit astride one. As the sawing progresses I
am drawn inexorably towards the jaws of death which start to “fulminate” with blue
smoke, no worries, methinks that’s just friction. P stops to allow for cooling off and a slurp
of tea. We are a third of the way but resumption finds the blade refusing to
spin on account of the pole not wanting to be split asunder (now I see the
point of physics). So we return to
trebuchet formation starting at the other end of the pole and whilst
concentrating on not having "mi skin nipped" between what is now two bits of wood
I miss the aroma of burning synthetic until a brief downward glance reveals my yellow
body warmer is responding warmly to the slops tray of the saw which is responding
to the sawdust which appears to have spontaneously combusted. I utter a
squawk... a huge sigh from P which translates to an incredulous "And your problem is?" so all is turned off and the remainder of the Yorkshire tea
is chucked on the flames for another cooling off period. The obstinate third of
a length having been reached, the only answer is to cut the middle section by
hand. I am told to just hold the wood
and not lean on it…I can only stop it jiggling up and down under the force of P’s
sawing action if I lean on it. P makes good progress, I am approaching from behind, and he starts to get narked
when the pole begins to jiggle again. This is for his own good or he will have to
buy a French version of the tshirt “I do not beat my wife” the English version was
in response to when like now he just hadn’t seen me standing behind him as he turned
round elbows first…..initially it was a common occurrence...Bruce Armstrong
of Kingston University and half the Law Department of Northumbria University
can attest to my black eye/swollen cheek bone.
Yesterday's trip to Navarrenx was to offset P’s other labours one of which is lagging the loft, a king’s
ransom of Kingspan would be required so we have standard loft insulation for
above the ceilings and quilted tin foil to fit under the roof tiles and staple
to the roof battens.
There is a lot of contorting to achieve this…he is a big
bloke trying to fit in some teeny spaces. He is valiant…I am scared witless of
heights. My role in any of these situations is generally to make cups of tea
and cake and at really great unpredictable heights foot the ladder. Here I find
P’s grasp of physics rather flimsy for an engineer …I am never going to right a
ladder with my 7 and a half stone at the bottom and his 15 stone at the top. At
least he won’t be laying there undiscovered for hours/days being nibbled alive
and possibly to death by the bats.
So, to return, we wandered
out of Navarrenx, meandering along the picturesque Vallee d'Josbaig to Oloron Ste Marie so P could pick his own birthday
chocolates from the Lindt factory outlet shop http://www.pyrenees-bearnaises.com/en/a-land-of-art-and-history/tourist-sites-and-museums/lindt-and-sprungli-master-chocolate-maker/master-chocolate-makers.htm,
there seem to conflicting messages on tinterweb about whether there is a
factory there or not but having grown up in a town which was home to British
Oil and Cocoa Mills I can’t believe that all that chocolatey aroma is just escaping
the foil wrapped chocs. OSM is a place we
regularly circumnavigate twice in our attempts to get to Gourette ski resort,
Eaux Bonnes
After being turned away from Aux Pyrenees where the tables were rammed or reserved we seek out an alternative and then decide to walk around OSM and discover
lots of crooks and nannies and an amazing mediatheque building erected at the
confluence of the Gave D’Aspe and the Gave d’Ossau. What I
loved is that it is a risky place to build such a structure but it tries to
harmonise with its environment by allowing the water to flow underneath it and
out of outlets but they only come in to play when the water is at a specific height.
A great example I think of person/persons trying to live with nature not fight
it.
Proceeding with our perambulations which took us past more public conveniences than usual, I select the only foot hold pissoir and then arrive at France’s response to the Tracey Urmin Sloppy Bed..”Le
Lit Ecologique
And a wrong
turn to this sign
which translates roughly to “For his/her safety (and to protect
us from litigating relatives), if an old geezer or gal is trying to make a run
for it at the same time as you, please alert to staff so they can let the dogs
out and put the kettle on.”
And to
finish off the day I persuaded P that we needed to pootle along the Valle d'Aspe to try to find the remote
valley where we almost bought a house which had a moat and where I also wandered with Roisin and
Finlay on a roundabout route to pick P up from Pau airport. We didn’t get quite as
remote as last time but will be going back to get closer to this:
Adishatz (common au revoir)
xx
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