You couldn’t make it up

Tuesday. We decided to try to sell our lovely table back to the Brocante we bought it from, so trundled into Vaison, first stopping off at Bricomarché to return a gas cylinder and reclaim our €9 deposit! The Brocante were not buying - no one wants big furniture any more…But they suggested we try a place in Puyméras. So off we go to Le Hangar. The lady there was sceptical but at least offered us €100. Peanuts, but we are in a bind so accepted. Then went and drowned our sorrows at the bar in a weak coffee with froth.

And had a little walk round, noting that the Mairie had bought the big house by the fountain and converted it into municipal offices. Very tasteful.

It being getting on for lunchtime we decided Villedieu was the place. Nice square, warm sun and we didn’t fancy the Lasagne du Jour in Puyméras as we have one in the freezer. It was a lovely drive as always. Through the woods and then suddenly over the ridge with vast views across the plain to the next hills and beyond. But oh woe! The café was not serving food today. Big Autumn Clean. The owner was tucking into chicken and chips though, and he said that the village épicerie was doing a plat du jour that we could bring to the square. So off I goes and enquires of lady if that’s OK. It is. Plat is escalope of chicken in cream sauce with chips - amazing. She agrees to bring it over when ready. And in the fullness of time I meet her half way and transport the plates to our table. It was very nice - people at the next table were also tempted.

Now a bit of backtracking. The Brocante man had also given me a card of an estate agent who might have clients who want tables. I'd phoned but got no reply so forgot him. Then just as I was finishing my chips my phone rang. It was him. We got into a chat about him coming over, when all of a sudden the air was rent by the sound of a big roadworks truck followed by ear splitting jack hammering on the corner of the square! Couldn’t hear a word on the phone. I think we agreed a rendezvous here at 2.30 but goodness knows… to be continued.

Well they turned up - two bright young Dutch chaps, Jakob and Sebastien. Only they had thought we wanted to sell the house not just a table! So after some polite pleasantries they took photos and disappeared.

My ears are still ringing from Villedieu. Cup of tea required.

A voyage round Le Géant

It’s a warm sunny day so we decided Wine from Bédoin was required. Monday is also market day there so we were prepared for hordes. First the wine.Trailers were backing into the Cave tipping loads of black grapes, the smell was delicious.

Then the battle through the crowds just to get a coffee. We weren’t shopping. So many people still around - loads of Swiss, German , Dutch and Belgian. But we battled through to our coffee stall and sat watching it all with proper strong coffees and a couple of choc chip cookies..

On the way up there were these triffid-like flowers - datura I think.

We also managed to snaffle a couple of good looking chicken baguettes before heading away up the mountain. Quite a challenge to avoid all the cyclists and we stopped at the plateau just below the summit for a little potter, admiring the long views. And it was warm! No wind, no jacket required.

About face and back down to Chalet Reynard and down the other side to Sault, this time halting at a viewpoint to consume the sandwiches. Nothing dramatic, just lovely scenery. Wide vistas of lavender fields. The circuit ran along the Toulourenc valley and ended in Entrechaux for a drink at the precariously situated roadside café inches from mega trucks and grape harvesters!

And Stop Press…we are returning early so we can turn round and come back! Car needs a service and our travel insurance won’t have enough days to last until end November. Plus we need to fill a second boot load of stuff to bring back.

Depositing stones

Sunny Sunday again. More clearing out - this time it was the big heavy stones from the terrace, These rocks were originally dragged home from the vineyards of Châteauneuf- du- Pâpe over thirteen years ago. We weren’t about to trek all the way back there! So Adrian decided the base of the Roaix pylon was the place to lay them.

And the view was as lovely as ever. Plumes of smoke rising from burning heaps of old vines, sun gleaming through the yellowing vine leaves, Ventoux looming dark and clear. Sigh…

So instead of the Rasteau walk we did our round here. Just as nice. Then drove up and down along the hillside through the lanes to Rasteau Square for the usual sit in the sun at the bar.

Afternoon tea with John and Louise.

Signed away

We’re not very cheerful so this is a placeholder to reassure those who care that we are still here!

Yesterday we walked down to the Notaire, met the buyers and signed the Promesse de Vente. The buyers seem nice. Early 60s originally from Normandy but living down here for a long time. Notaire is a charming local, son of the previous incumbent. Bright as a button and equipped with all high tech stuff - documents projected onto the wall like a son et lumière. Interesting sculptures in the courtyard. If you know Lorenzaccio then he is the very spit of how I imagine him! Tall, lean, lank and swarthy🤗

We consoled ourselves in the evening with a Vietnamese/Chinese meal at La Baguette in Vaison which was very pleasant if somewhat overfacing! But it was Civilisation! Cafés, people, etc.

Today is chilly but bright and there were some really extraordinary ice clouds over the plain amongst the bright blue. Task of the afternoon is taking a load of crockery and knicknackery to La Ressourcerie’s depot at the Déchetterie.

Wet Wednesday

And cold. Cloud down to zero marching towards us from the North. They assured us this wouldn't last. Nevertheless we decided to have breakfast before going to Malaucène today.

Two waterproofs were donned as I got out of the car in Campervan Corner. Even more of them this week! It wasn’t so much wet as chilly and a cool north wind. We queued at the butcher for the usual fare and were amused (as was everyone else) to see a big strapping bloke walk up with a Yorkshire Terrier sticking its head out of his chest (zipped up jacket)! He was mocked mercilessly by all. No croissants just coffee. And not much lingering either.

Then up to Suzette to dump books and have a little walk past our favourite hillside garden. A riot of purples today.

Somehow we wanted a little something for lunch though not really a meal. So we tried Beaumes de Venise but the Café du Siècle only seems to serve food on a Tuesday. However there's a little glacier crêperie right in the corner by the church with jolly tables. He did us a basic galette of ham egg and cheese and that was enough.

Sun came out, still chilly though.

le pain quotidien

…or how to obtain it.

On a bright early morning one unlocks the shutters and strides up into the village past early morning imbibers at the bar (coffee, natch), past Proxi (maybe not even open) and through the beaded curtain into the array of pains et pâtisseries. It might be Mme Moulin elle-même or perhaps Delphine the trusty assistant and if you are lucky there will be a full range of gros pain, baguette (ancienne, au levain et normal), Festive, various seeded versions. The Gros Pain goes fast. Leave it until after breakfast or even later and you takes your chance!

So today this is what I did. I went out at 11 and executed my hare-like 1 square kilometre round the vines. Up across the road, straight towards the ridge, hard right along the vines and hard right again back into the village. It was glorious. Sunny, warm, clear, the air full of the scent of fresh-cut verges and cane plants. Wood larks as always. The odd ¡hola! from a Spanish picker and an elderly lady struggling back from the shop loaded with bags. I would have offered to help but had no idea how far she was headed - (thinks…get a wheelie shopper!).

I had pretty much my full choice of pain (no gros pain of course) so I selected une Festive croustillante (pour le mari…they understand this!)

Returning home I winkled said mari out of the house and we walked up to Séguret. A good stretch and one we have neglected of late. The restaurants were all serving lunch still at this time of year. There was a time when all would have been closed by now. We just sat on the edge of the terrace and had two well dosed Kir and watched the odd people. A lot of Americans - younger ones taking selfies, older ones just buying goblets of ice cream to eat standing on the pavement. We’ll go properly next week for lunch hopefully. I quite fancy the Tuna Tatiki .

Lovely and easier walk back down into the village, past a well disguised praying mantis.

The roof men across the way have pretty much finished - Chapeau! Bit noisy now they’re angle grinding but it won't last long. Sorry blurry but ipad doesn’t do enlargement.

Battening down

The sky was a touch troubled this morning- still blue but with an ominous bank of cloud in the distance. So we decided to set off for Rasteau a bit earlier than usual. And we parked the car up by the little cabin on the top just in case we suddenly had to beat a hasty retreat. By then the ominous bank had increased and the sky was darkening.

We managed to walk up to the top pines and back with good views of Sablet in the distance.

The injured pine tree stood out starkly against the sky - not long for this world I fear.

Anyway we enjoyed the views and the tight packed bunches of tiny grapes all set to make Rasteau vin doux, and just made it to the bar as the first drops were falling.

They were but the advance guard and we had no more until we were driving up into Sablet. The heavens opened as the key turned in the lock! Nicole had her sandbag out in preparation. It’s now thundering.

Sunny Saturday

Another wall to wall sunny day but quite likely the penultimate. Torrential rain is forecast for tomorrow night. Grapes are rapidly being harvested by pickers and the huge mechanical strippers. We follow both across le Plan de Dieu on our way to market. The air is perfumed with winey aromas.

Ste Cécile was busy but not unmanageably so. We got yoghurts, fruit, bread and garlic and even seats under the trees in the café. All very pleasant so we lingered with extra coffees for a while. For some reason the church bells peeled out at quarter to ten…is 20 September special? But I was somewhat alarmed to see the laser display board opposite forecasting temperatures of 31 degrees for this afternoon!

So home circuitously via Vaison to get cash and, as it happens, tomatoes because there was a small local producers market in the carpark.

And luckily when we got home we also caught up briefly with neighbour Hilarion, he of the fabulous wine! He’s flat out at the moment harvesting and is keen to get it done before the deluge. Although he reckons the rain won’t damage what’s left because the skins are tough!

Chaps redoing the roof are beavering away, presumably also to beat the downpour. They’ve relaid crosspieces of wood and new battens and had a crane loading new tiles up yesterday, Busy busy.

Girlies‘ rugby world cup semi-final this pm so Adrian will be on the sofa with beer and crisps!

Sorting problems

Stress. We discovered a water leak by the washing machine that seemed to have affected the kitchen tap pressure. Just what you do not want! I phoned Andrew who gave me the number of his mate, a plumber, and told me to say I was a good friend of his🤗. Amazingly this man came straightaway bless him. He identified the problem, a redundant bit of pipe that was oozing, cut it off and capped it…80 euros. Fingers crossed it has solved the problem.

Then today I decided I must cancel our landline. We haven’t used it for years and in fact Orange owe me €14. So off we set for the Orange Boutique situated in some commercial centre by the motorway. I resorted to Google Maps that lead us by various twisty turns into Carrefour Mega Supermarket. Inside there are zillions of outlets among which right at the far end Boutique Orange. A young chap, the spit of Amol Rajan, used his internal Orange phone to get me through to the cancellations dept and five minutes later it was all done! Phew.

Our reward was lunch in Caderousse at the bar. Very nice under the shady plane tree that dropped the occasional shrivelled leaf with alarming thuds! Just the plat du jour and coffee.

And finally a little walk along the Rhone to see how the renovation of Hers Château was going. They seem to have finished and it looks rather good.

It was very hot, no river craft and nasty biting flies so we didn’t linger.

This evening we met Louise and John at the bar for a pizza but really mostly to catch up on news. The place was heaving with English speaking groups of residents and an awful lot of loud Australian second homers. Yuk. Why do they come so far? This is something I do not like in Sablet but I suppose soon I won’t be part of it…☹️

Sad farewell

Liz and Keith are off to Sanary then home. Who knows when we will ever meet again. This is hard. In fact it’s all hard and not much sleep being had what with wrestling with the imminent logistics. Oh woe.

But today we took ourselves to Malaucène market for a few essentials and breakfast. Bumped into John and Louise briefly! We’ll see them properly on Friday. They too were bidding farewell to friends.The place was full of mostly Belgians and those mostly in their ghastly vastly camper van motorhomes. And they all seemed ancient and shambled along at a snail’s pace clogging the pavement! Why can’t people walk at a decent speed🤗. I wore my summer dress but have the wrong shoes so felt frumpy. As you can tell I was not in a good mood. We suddenly felt no longer part of it.

However, home again and out again - this time for lunch with Liz and Keith and Jen. Gérard is not well so didn’t come. It was lovely - As de Coeur under the mulberry trees. So nice to see the familiar faces of David and Elodie. Then L and K were off. We consoled ourselves with a brief trip up to the top of the hill to enjoy the view one more time.

First Tuesday

I am not feeling very social - well I never do as you know! However, last evening Keith popped round and winkled us out of our shell to have a small apéro in their bijou rental in the vines. We were actually second choice - the Kaisers had refused🤗 But we’re not proud. Anyway it was a warm, not to say hot, evening and interesting to go to a neutral environment - a modern flat with pool, attached to the owners‘ house, where we were greeted by a group of geese being shepherded into their enclosure. Liz had warned they were potentially aggressive but I don’t think so really. We left at dusk and had a new view of the village all illuminated with a backdrop of dramatic clouds.

Today dawned sunny and warm again and after a lateish breakfast the decision was made to go up to Durban to see if Adrian could manage the walk. First stopping at Beaumes U to get water filters. A woman in front of us at the till was actually doing her veg shopping as she was checking out! Totally unconcerned for the vast queue growing behind her as she popped back and forth to gather odd vegetables. I took the opportunity to snap the jolly array of squashes by the door.

We drove up to our usual spot under the pines by the vines and set off. There was a chap - and a Berlingo tucked away along the track with table and chairs- pottering up and down with coffee mug in hand but other than that no one. Not even any pickers. A quick inspection showed that most of the vines have already been done. It was a nice walk towards Lafare and then up the slopes and back down. Wonderful views, quiet. Only one tractor hidden in a dip and still some unharvested rows of grapes.

We rewarded ourselves with a drink in the Café du Siècle in Beaumes - lucky to get a table in fact. The market was packing up and it was actually hot. Still lots of tourists about.

There‘s a stiff north wind getting up now but this is not deterring men on the roof down the road! Tiles are being removed and stacked up and roof beams revealed…

just keeping in touch

We’ve settled in, entertained Liz and Keith, visited Gérard and Jen and are rather tired. But the weather is great - sunny, warm and still. The pelargoniums are thriving! We’ve frequented the bar and seen Mme Moulin.

Today it was wine buying at Puyméras followed by a sit in the shade under the plane trees in Villedieu for an impromptu lunch. We’d only gone for coffee but it was too nice to leave…

Keith has just popped by to ask us for apéro so we’ll see what their rental is like.

Le Vivarais

We left Le Puy actually in the dry, even a promise of sunshine later. In the car park we were greeted by a strange vision... several vehicles in graffiti camouflage, all registered with Baden Baden plates, all electric. How do I know? Ah, well each one had a stick-on red arrow pointing to the charging socket on the front🤗. There was also a black Mercedes alongside, also with Baden Baden plates so, as Stuttgart is near to BB, QED the mystery cars were probably also Mercedes. Still awake? Adrian thinks this is dull beyond measure but I am fascinated. Why were they in Le Puy of all places? Not a motor show. So maybe they were going to do one of those aspirational road adverts with beautiful people driving on mountain roads. Keep your eyes peeled!

Right then, back to the journey. I wanted to see more of the Vivarais area so we didn't come directly down to the Rhone. Instead we came a bit higher along via St Agrève and then Privas. It starts on the plateau then descends along hairpin roads through steep wooded valleys. Stone houses and scattered villages. The sort of area where young folk of back to nature inclination would settle. And also where Jewish French families found shelter during the last war.

However no bars! In St Agrève we did manage to get the last croissant in town but found no way of driving into the centre to find coffee. Every road -honestly, no kidding- was No Entry. We gave up. Some kilometres further we found Désaignes, a small pretty stone village with not only a boulangerie but also two bar cafés! And fabulous coffee too. All run by young people so there is hope.

I'll spare you the minutiae of our final hours. Suffice to say we got in at 1.30 having done a mini shop in Tulette. All is well. Good to be home. The geraniums are luxuriant! And it started to rain at once. Thundering now!

On the roof opposite are what looks like a flock of swans but I think are actually sandbags holding down some tarpaulin. Liz and Keith are coming this evening.

Le Puy continued…

Having settled into our oddly austere room - view of a blank wall and two pigeons - we mustered our strength and headed out to see where we were. It is supposed to be Le Puy Centre Ville but certainly didn’t immediately appear so. Le Puy is strange. It has ghastly Catholic statúes on rocky outcrops. Is the start of the Santiago Camino and full of religious folk. But also quite arty with plenty of young trendies.

We trudged up the cobbles towards the cathedral and found ourselves in gaily bedecked streets where many houses were painted in jolly colours, covering up the somewhat dour local stone. We didn’t actually go into said holy building and so failed to see the famous black Madonna. And we had a really nice meal of mixed salad then fresh pasta in delicious sauces (carbonara him, pesto pinenut me).

Progressing up Loire

Cue for a song… Wait a minute, it‘s stopped raining…

Yes, sunny morning if a bit cool as we left lovely Nevers and the best Ibis ever. And trundled south through open country.

I forgot to mention the grapes yesterday. The Loire harvesters were out in force. And our supper. Not the Mercure, but instead, just on the other side of the bridge, the Café Vélo. We strolled to it across the Loire where young folk were swimming and heron flying. Had a delicious glass of Pouilly Fuissé and another of red Anjou, chili con carne in baked potato (me) and salade niçoise (him) followed by the best carrot cake I have ever eaten! Owned by English of course but discretely so.

Back to today. No breakfast for hours - we are now in La France Profonde where café culture is hard to come by. So many closed businesses. So we got pâtisseries in one place and managed to tramp through civic beautification works to the only open café in another. Good coffee however.

Then it got more hilly and we approached Vichy. Don’t think the English are alone in being disrupted by fibre broadband. Oh no! Same here.

Lunchtime approached as we hit the steep road down the river towards Ambert. There’s an interesting little town called Olliergues where 26 years ago we stopped and had a sort of pôtée auvergnate soup served in a hollowed out whole cottage loaf - each. The café is still there but much smarter. We sat on a civic terrace cantilevered over the river and ate our delicious sandwiches. Learned about the famous local photographer and walked over the mediaeval bridge before continuing towards Le Puy. We detoured down the upper Loire gorges road expecting riverside caffs but once again nothing doing. All barred and shuttered and for sale. France is in a bad way.

The usual nightmare finding our hotel in Le Puy but we made it. A tired Ibis… still has actual keys for the door. But spotless and nice staff.

Ambling across

OK. One more go! I am refreshed in spirit! And I can add pix🤗 all at the end of post. Or this album

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wLp9dSwUPorKC4Zd9

We left our very well equipped top floor flat - no lift… - having spent a comfortable night, awaking to watch the trains come and go and dawn break over Saumur. Then along the river to Montsoreau for breakfast. We often do this. Today we got delicious croissants, pain aux raisins and up-market sandwiches from the pâtisserie then strolled over to the better, traditional bar café, which was open today. They have an inscrutable cat with a diamante collar who sits on all shelves and drinks milk from a saucer on the bar counter! We sat and watched the river and reluctantly left at 9. A manifestation of folk in Andean type garb - the sort of things I wore in years gone by - arriving on bikes, carrying knapsacks - started to assemble around a lorry bearing the legend 25 years of UNESCO. I imagine a Gaza fundraiser rather than ‘bloquons tout’.

After that we made our way through renaissance château country, lovely creamy white stone, hunting forests warning of imminent leaping wild boar, deer and stags, two flying storks. Made a slight detour round Valençay despite knowing it like the back of our hand! But no harm done, many white roads of interest and eventually back en piste.

The weather is not good. Mostly rain, clouds and occasional sunny outbreaks. The array of wind turbines fading into the distance occasionally became invisible behind the mist. Quite ghost-like.

Sandwich stop by the Cher where the landscape turned into MacArthur Park through the waves of water rolling down the windscreen. And then an hour in Bourges in the wonderful cathedral. It never fails to impress.

We are presently the guests of Ibis Nevers and arrived to the earsplitting sound of fire alarms being tested. But it’s a pretty spot by the Loire just across from the town so hopefully we’ll make a break in a minute or so to seek out sustenance. Liz recommends steak and chips at the Mercure on the opposite side, so that sounds good to me!