Contemplations from the south of France

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Our days are now spent reading, writing and school work, planning meals, shopping for food for meals, cooking and walking through the vineyards either early morning or evening or both (its too hot during the day). We go out every second day or so to look at the sights, shop, or just to the pub in the next village, which is our closest wifi access, to do our internet stuff.

I’ve been enjoying cooking here. After eating out at restaurants for two months it’s nice to have home cooked food. I’ve been trying out lots of French recipes from an excellent recipe book that was in the house.

The weather has been in the high twenties to thirty this week with no rain, so very pleasant. It can get quite breezy at times, which is welcome in the heat, but was a bit too cooling when the temperature was down around twenty. I’ve determined that a temperature of around 26 is the cut off point for wanting to walk on the shady side rather than the sunny side of the street.

We have a nice serene outlook over the vineyards but there is always some noise. Usually its engine noise from the skinny little tractors, going up and down the vines either spraying or trimming, or just on their way home for lunch. Then there is the church or school bells, as well as the school PA system reading out the school notices. Not to mention the birds and dogs. The constant chattering tweeting birds are fine but there always seems to be a particularly loud squawky one, or deep voiced pigeon constantly coo-cooing. I do love the swallows though. In the evenings they dip and dart all over the sky and swoop in quite close to us sometimes. As with the rest of France everyone here has a dog, although here they tend to be more of the guard dog variety than the handbag variety as in Paris. As soon as one dog starts barking at some perceived threat (eg passerby, cat, lizard, butterfly) every other dog in a two kilometre radius responds. They just settle down before the next threat arises. Luckily they are mostly in the distance and not too loud.

We’ve met a couple of friendly neighbours including the English family opposite us whos mother washes our sheets once a week, and the son who is our pool boy and puts the rubbish out. And a very kind French lady a few houses along who invited me into her house to connect to her computer when I was trying to find internet connections close by (it didn’t work). The English family opposite also gave me their password but I couldn’t connect to theirs either. I think the local internet technician must have put extra blocks in place.

This week we’ve spent a couple of days in Beziers (20min drive) and a day in Montpellier (1hr drive). Passing by Beziers is the canal de midi (another UNESCO world heritage site) which includes a series of seven locks taking the canal up 21 metres. There is also a canal bridge taking the canal over the Orb river. We walked alongside both of these in the stifling unbearable heat – although we never contemplated jumping in to cool down after Alison reported how the waste is dealt with from the canal boats (mulched up but untreated and straight into the water). Both the locks and bridge were quite intriguing to see, and especially being able to see the locks in operation. Two largish boats were being taken up at once (one had 10 adults and a baby on board). It took about half an hour for them to go from bottom to top.

Beziers has also got the nicest shopping centre I’ve ever been to (and I’ve been to a fair number in my time). Its modern fresh and new and has the feel of being outside (which it mostly is, yet protected from the elements). There is a mini canal and heaps of planting down the centre, a mini version of the seven locks as a water feature, amongst other sculptures. The shops are mostly small boutiques but anchored by the larger department stores and supermarkets at the ends. It also has an excellent range of restaurants on the top level – each with seating half in and half outside under shade. There is also a cinema and ten pin bowling. The car park even feels fresh and nice with hot pink and lime green painting on polished concrete. Needless to say I did a bit of damage there (especially after recently checking our baggage allowances and finding we had more than we thought). The girls weren’t as impressed as the shops were more my style than theirs.

Montpellier was a lovely city and we are all keen for a repeat visit. Again the main objective was shopping, but we all enjoyed it and found plenty to our liking. We were mainly in the old area (I haven’t checked but wouldn’t be surprised if it was another UNESCO site) which was lots of winding narrow pedestrian only alleys. The shops were mainly independently owned small boutiques which is a welcome change to the large format chains we see everywhere.

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Photos

St Geneis de Fontedit
our village

My favourite shopping centre
Polygone