The Camargue Part 1

 

We arrived at La Bruguiere – a place that was starting to feel a bit like a home-away-from-home for me – and into the welcoming arms (and multiple cheek kisses, three in the south, left, right, left) of the Boudins.  Since my last visit, Brigitte had fixed up a room on the third floor (2nd floor in France), right next to the room that I consider my room.  I think after the chateau’s hundreds of years of history my three short residencies qualify it as my room, right?  The room that had been redone is primarily for the Boudins granddaughters.  It is pink and fresh with twin beds done up in stripes, old fashioned doll furniture and a writing desk.  Lila and Audrey loved it at first sight.

We were to spend five days at La Bruguiere before our house would be ready for us.  Brigitte and Philippe were, as always, warm and charming hosts.  The girls were welcomed to explore the grounds, play in the tree fort and most successfully, swim in the pool.  This they very happily did at least twice a day.  To the french, 25 degrees celsius is way too cold for swimming, but to my girls, that’s summer weather!  It was much warmer than that most days, but if I hadn’t dragged them out for dinner, they would have remained “dans l’eau” until well after dark.

As much as staying in a chateau in the south of France is an ok thing to do, I did want to take the girls on a day trip or two, to really take advantage of their last week of summer vacation.

A couple of years previous, while staying with Brigitte and Philippe, Joey and I had taken a few days to travel to the Camargue.  The Camargue is a region south of the Languedoc, and includes several beautiful cities on the Mediterranean:   Les Aigues Mortes, Sainte Marie de la Mer and le Gros du Roi.  All three towns have beautiful sand beaches and pretty boardwalks.  Joe and I had been to Ste. Marie, and had loved it.

All of these destinations are about an hour’s drive from La Bruguiere, so I thought this would be a great overnight trip for the girls and I.  They had never been swimming in any ocean, and the weather was hot.  The Boudins agreed this was a good idea, and so the three of us set off after breakfast one day for Sainte Marie de la Mer, in the Camargue.

The first thing you notice about the Camargue, are the marshes.  They are wet-lands with tall reeds and a distinctive, well…poopy smell.  The Camargue is known for its wild horses, flamingos and torreaux (small, back bulls raised for meat and non-violent bull fighting).  It is also home to Camarguese Fleur de Sel – sea salt harvested in salt marshes near the shore…mmm my favourite.

As we entered the marshy landscape, we made a game of who could be the first to spot any of the animals.  The prize was an ice cream cone.  Of course, everyone knew full well we were all getting an ice cream no matter what, but it was fun.  The girls were delighted to see flamingos!  These flying dinosaurs seem so tropical to us northerners.  Like palm trees, flamingos represent “dream vacation” to any and all lovers of the shows Full House, Modern Family, the Brady Bunch or any long-running television series.  Eventually the gang is required to film an episode or two in Hawaii or Disney Land/World.

Having successfully spotted all of our visual prey, we found our way to the Bird Sanctuary and Wildlife Preserve.  I had visited the park with Joey and thought the girls would enjoy it.  We arrived to find the park closed until after lunch.

This happened to us a lot when first settling in in France.  As Canadians we kept forgetting about the inevitable closure of almost everything, except restaurants, between the hours of noon and 2 pm.  We would start off on a new adventure, only to have our plans thwarted by the long french lunch.  We have since gotten the hang of it:  there’s no point heading out in the morning unless you do it earlier than 10 am.  If you dally too long and are still at home at that hour, you really may as well wait until after 2pm, when everyone is back at it.  You’ll have a hard time finding lunch anywhere earlier than noon, and once or twice we have found ourselves in the “in-between” time:  nothing open except bars (coffee shops) and brasseries (bars).  Butcher store closed, restaurant not yet open.  We are still getting used to the idea of plopping ourselves down for a “petit cafe” and a long gander at the passers-by on a terrace  during this transitional time.  With familiarity and confidence comes the adaptation of local customs.

We decided we would check in to our hotel.  I had booked a room on my “smartphone” poolside the evening before, through a discount, last minute website.  The hotel was actually a few kilometres from the town, but the price was right.  I had wanted to re-create my last visit somewhat and be right in the heart of the action: able to walk from the beach to the hotel, from the hotel to the “pieton” (pedestrian) centre of town, from the boardwalk to the arena, but, you know what?  This would be fine.

We drove in to the hotel parking lot and it looked really nice.  There was a fountain, and it looked like the rooms were actually individual cottages with thatched roofs.  We were kind of thrilled.  Fancy.

I walked, mildly confident, up to the reception desk.  The man behind the counter asked my name and I gave it somewhat sheepishly – Whiteley is a tough one for the french, ending up as ‘vit-lay’ most times – oh!  A look of recognition in his eyes.  He spun around and had a quick word with his colleague, opened a cabinet and grabbed a binder.  He flipped through the pages, found what he was searching for and smoothly spun the page to face me:  “the reservation was for last night, Madame.  Desole, you have spent 78 euros for nothing.”

Oh no.  Mais non!  Mais oui!

What to do?  I knew right away he was right.  I had obviously not payed attention to the date of my reservation poolside on my “smartphone”.  The fault was mine, but the fact remained we needed a place to stay.  “You have no rooms for tonight?”  “Well…we do have a room, but it is full price, of course, 180 Euros.”

Merde.

“Non, merci Monsieur.”  We left the lobby a little defeated.  The girls felt the concierge had been very rude, but I think he was just being frank.  I felt embarrassed by my error, a little concerned that it had cost us money, and conflicted about how to handle the situation.  We sat in the car for a few minutes in the parking lot, the girls aware that this was probably a good time to be quiet and wait.  I thought about Joey, off in Ireland, and decided that, really, the last thing he would want to hear was that things were not going well for me.  I decided to make lemonade out of lemons (or wine out of sour grapes!).

There are times in life where, essentially, there is nothing to be done except pretend something did not happen.  I am particularly skilled at this.  I have always identified with Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind:  “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”  I realize that line was meant to show her character as shallow and self-absorbed, but I view it quite differently.  I think that negative thoughts and regret can be absolutely paralyzing.  What we need to do most times is to keep moving forward.  Come up with a new approach, a new plan, a renewed energy.  The thing is to bring yourself into a place where you feel confident and energized, and then, you deal with that mistake.  There is nothing like a shame-over to keep you from taking action.  And regret is deeply selfish.

So, we went into town to get ice-cream.

 

 

 

The Dream Team

Let’s face it, there was no way we could have done this alone.

I am talking about our friends and family, of course – my mom who is taking good care of our house in Ontario, my parents-in-law who had us all move in with them for a year to save up money in Toronto, all of the moral (and financial) support offered by our loving family and close friends – but mostly I am referring to the “Dream Team”.

The Dream Team is made up of Brigitte Boudin, captain, Philippe Boudin, team manager and Mithou Martinent, power forward.

You see, this whole amazing adventure really got kick-started about three years ago when Brigitte Boudin, a long-time friend of the Wrights (Bob and Ellen) travelled to Canada to see her daughter Emily who lives in Montreal, and to attend Bob Wrights’s birthday bash in Toronto.

While in Toronto, Brigitte went down to Queen Street West with a group of fellow revellers to see Joey perform a concert with his incredible band Tuxedo! at the legendary Cameron House.  She loved the show.  Afterward she was chatting with Joey:  “You should come and play a show in France!”  to which Joey replied:  “I would love to.  If you set up some shows, I’ll be there to play!”  Well, guess what.  Unlike most folks who are all jazzed up after seeing a show and want to bring the band to their very own town, Brigitte actually followed through with her threat/promise.

Two years and many emails later, Joey and I found ourselves on a plane bound for France.  We played three shows over a week:  one at La Bruguiere, the Boudin’s unbelievable chateau near Uzes, one in a town close by called Belvezet – it was Bastille Day and we met some life-long friends that night, but that’s another story – and a final concert in Uzes at a beautiful old monastery.  The shows were all terrific in their own way, and had been a ton of work for Brigitte, but, we stayed with Brigitte and Philippe throughout at their home, and that’s where the real magic happened.  We all became great friends.

Brigitte was pleased and proud of us, I think.  Of our shows, of our improving french, of our fortitude. (She would insist that we have a lie-down every day after lunch, which was very luxurious.  For us it’s quite normal to shop, cook, eat, go sightseeing and hike, paddle or play tennis in the same day, but true to french form, Brigitte insisted that was too much for one day!  The Boudins concluded that the strongest breed of French people had left for the new world.)  Philippe enjoyed our company, too, and as our french vocabulary expanded we had long and wonderful discussions about life, history, politics and music.  For our part, we were smitten.  The Boudins offered us perfect hospitality, delicious food and wines and warm and interesting company.

This trip, in many ways, cemented the idea of moving to France for a year.  We now had a destination in our minds, a small community of friends, and a slight familiarity with the region that helped make the whole concept more “real”.  We entertained other ideas.   We thought of landing somewhere near Cognac, where Bob and Ellen and family had lived during their year abroad, and where we also have friends as a result.  In the end, Joey and I took a crazy yet fateful drive from Paris to Uzes last year (a fourteen hour return trip in two days) to confirm our suspicions:  the Uzes area is where we were headed.

We arrived at the Boudin’s and were so warmly welcomed (“They came all this way just to embrace us!”) and Brigitte had even secretly invited our new guitar playing friend Benoit Robbe to join us and we all ate and played music and had a wonderful time.  It would be crazy not to go somewhere where we had a base of friendship already, we decided on the drive back to Paris.

So.  Once we had made up our minds, the real work began.

There are many steps to getting a long-term visitor’s visa to France, including finding a place to live.

We had great fun surfing the internet looking at homes, apartments, walk-ups, pied-à-terres, villas and townhouses.  It was a great way to get Lila and Audrey excited about the adventure, too. (“That’s our room?  There’s a pool?  Look at the orange trees.  Awesome!”) Everything was pretty pricey, and many did not rent during the off season (a.k.a. the entire time we were going to be there!).  We considered renting a small place for a month or two, then looking for something while “on the ground” in France.  We had asked Brigitte if she might be able to look around for something, and, in inimitable Brigitte style, a few months later, we were thrilled to open our email and see “your new house” in the subject line.

Brigitte had gone to a local realtor, with little success.  As she told us later, the houses were all “moche” (ugly) and “triste” (sad) and “tres,tres chere!” ($$$$).  She mentioned that she was on the hunt for our house to her neighbour, Suzette in La Bruguiere.  Suzette thought of her good friend Mithou.  “Mithou lives in Celas (pronounced Say-Lass), near Ales(Al-ess), 25 kms from Uzes (eu-zess).  She owns and rents out the house next door during the summer, maybe she would like to rent to your friends?”

It turned out she did.

We received two photos of the house:  one of a charming bedroom and one of the stone exterior with Mithou and Brigitte in the foreground.  It was hard to tell much about the place, but Brigitte and Philippe had gone to see it, and said it was “tres charmant”, so that was good enough for us!

With the house in place, we could proceed to get the girls enrolled in school.  Ummm….Brigitte?  How do we…?  Well, once again we were saved.  Brigitte went to both the schools and started the process, and got the paper work in place.  We had to take it from there, but good lord, we really, probably, literally could not have done it without her – and Philippe, I know he dealt with many emails and faxes and so on for us, too.

So, back to the Dream Team:

As I arrived and settled in at the Boudins with the girls, still sans Joey for another week, I was told things like:  “Today we are going to see your house and go to the schools, and you will meet Mithou, and she is coming with us to the schools because she used to teach at both of them!”  What?  I was so grateful.  I was still coming into my own linguistically, and very unsure about french manners, mores and norms.  If you could have two french women on your side when you walked into a french room, these ladies would be it.  Confident, powerful, gorgeous and gracious.  People just couldn’t and didn’t say no.  Not once did I hear the dreaded “Non, non, non.  Ce n’est pas possible.”

In the end, Mithou came with us to get our insurance, to sign up for our internet and cell phone service and to help us start our french bank account.  All day trips to Ales.  So generous.

That’s my Dream Team.  I am thinking of writing a song:  Brigitte: elle nous a trouver une gite, Mithou: admirer par tous….Philippe:  le president de l’équipe….

I’m working on it.

About my amazing children.  The girls were absolute champs.  Not only were they dealing with day to day hustle and bustle, and a new bed every couple of nights, but also a very different set of expectations from the french regarding manners, posture, traditions, habits and comportment.  There was no tolerating bad table manners, and we were schooled early on about how the french eat.  You hold a piece of bread in your left hand and use the fork to push the food into the bread, helping to secure it on the tines.  Unless, of course a knife and fork are required, in which case it’s basically the same as Canada, knife in right hand, fork, tines down in left, not turned over nor switched before reaching the mouth.

Audrey soon learned not to over-serve herself as she would be expected to finish all the food on her plate.  Lila was sure to keep upright at the table, never slouch.  I was happy to let the french polish my daughters manners.  The first night alone in our own house, however, I was also happy to serve dinner without placemats, pour myself two glasses of wine, and leave the dishes until the morning!

Our house is a cozy, three bedroom cottage.  Transformed by Mithou and her husband Philippe (that’s right, another Philippe) 15 years ago from a granary with three rooms into a beautiful and charming rental home.  We have a pool, and a lovely big garden, a fireplace and a terrace.  The girls and I were instantly thrilled and couldn’t wait for Joey to see it.  For everyone to see it!  I had to hold back tears of joy when I first came here.  It already feels like home and it seems strange that we will only be here until July.

Maybe we will come back some day?  We certainly have more than a small group of friends here now.  We have the Dream Team!