Seasons Greetings from Provence
Hello everybody, I hope you all are fit and well. I guess by the time you read this you’ll be on/doing ‘cold turkey’ (in both senses of the term). Anyway, for those interested in athletics proceed to the next article. Otherwise read on…….
September: Returning to France
Having enjoyed hard training sessions with you all during the summer, we headed back to France via Sandwich in Kent, to stay with a running friend and his family. Gary always used to beat me 30 years ago, and now his 19 year old son James does the same! Anyway, I trained hard for 4 days with James, and managed 11:37 for 2 miles (Tony please note reasonable performance), but a couple of days later the wheels fell off when I took James on over a 4-mile course.
On the way south through France we stayed overnight in Beaune in Burgundy for one night, to break the journey. We have stayed on the outskirts of the town a few times over the years, but have never visited the centre. It’s a delightful place and I’d recommend it if you decide to drive through this part of the country. Unfortunately, when I left the hotel to go into the town that night I automatically drove on the LHS of the road. It was when I came face-to-face with a car on the roundabout that I realised the error. Luckily no harm done, but I don’t recommend it.
Vendanges (grape harvest)
September was hot, and I got a call from our French friends to ask if I wanted to help them pick the grapes this year. My experience to this point had been one hour during a holiday at their chambre d’hote a couple of years ago. I accepted. For those who have not experienced this, I should explain that it is hard work, especially in the hot sun. We, the team that is (3 female German students, some French people of various ages, including Marthe(?). Marthe is 76 years old and has done this annual task for all of her life I was told) met in the village at 7:30am each morning and were collected and taken to the vineyard which contained the type of grapes that were to be picked that particular day. The co-operative (not the CWS or CIS) decide this, and the members pick accordingly.
The ideal person (victim) to harvest grapes should be 2-3 foot tall, be able to work under hot conditions, and use secateurs, safely. I was just short of being ideal. You work in pairs either side of the row of vines and cup the bunch in your hands, snip, and throw the bunch in your bucket. Since the foliage on the vines is quite thick, it is not too difficult to stab either your colleague or yourself. I was luckily enough just to stab myself once, but I suspect my partner was taking extra care. A couple of young guys keep replacing the buckets every few minutes and emptying them into the trailer. It was clear on day one how slow I was. My colleague managed better output, and occasionally someone from the next row would turn around and cut a few vines for you, enabling you to catch up with the other lines of pickers.
At some convenient break point you gather round the back of a car or van, get a numbered paper cup (this is yours for the duration) issued to you and have a cold drink and rest for a few minutes. Some take a bunch of grapes and start eating them, or you pick some figs off a local tree. In the hot sun, in a tranquil setting surrounded by the hills it is a delightful place. The work is hard, and there were times when I could barely straighten my back.
We finished at 1pm when it starts to get hot!!
I managed 3 days work (I would have done more but luckily some friends visited us, so I was unavailable), and by the third day I was clearly flying along, sometimes helping others. Of course I probably left a load of grapes on the vines, but speed comes at a price.
The completion of the harvesting was marked by a party at the end of September. Seventeen of us sat outside on a warm evening in the covered terrace to a full meal and plenty of wine, hosted by our friends. Sounds like something you see on the telly…..it is. I had just enjoyed my meal when Françoise asked me to stand up and say a few words; in French!!! I find drink gives you ‘courage Pay Bas’ (academics please note: I know this is not a phrase they use in France), so I made a short speech due to a very limited vocabulary, and inability to conjugate the few verbs I do know. It seemed to go down well, but sympathy, alcohol, and lack of understanding of anything I said probably helped me to get a round of applause.
Overall a great experience, and something I will do again in 2005.
No doubt some of you have done this in your student days?
Football
For good reason I had refused payment from my friends for the harvest work, so they insisted on giving me two presents: 6 bottles of wine, and secondly a ticket for the Champions League game: Monaco v Liverpool. What a great night. Five of us went to Monaco late afternoon to allow the two younger members to purchase some DVD’s, and to give us time for a meal before the game. I was given a Monaco cap to wear! Being an armchair Manchester United fan, Liverpool are not our favourite team, so I didn’t feel too badly about wearing the cap. Besides, I was seated in the middle of the Monaco fans.
Security personnel decided my apple was a threat to the peace and confiscated it so I went hungry at half time.
There was a good atmosphere in this small stadium (max. 22,000), but it was not the best of games unfortunately. The drive home took us along the coast road as far as Nice and it felt quite surreal as we meandered around the coastline with the lights flickering in the distance.
Running
It was good to see my new running friends again, and they gave me a warm welcome; I think that’s what they were doing when they shouted. Just to give you an idea of the type of training we do on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. All training is done on the track, apart from the odd time when we do some short hill reps on the sloping road that is the entrance/exit to the stadium. Pascal (the trainer) normally gets us to do reps. on the track, which may consist of a series of 3 lots of 10 sprints by 30secs, for example. The distance to be run in the 30 secs. Is marked out and depends on your ability, and can be quite arduous. Some weeks we run a test distance/time, and the results are noted so that he can see any improvement. He seems to pay more attention to the results of the younger members, but perhaps I’m just being paranoid.
It is a fairly clinical approach to training and enjoyable, but sessions are not normally as arduous as Tony’s, which are probably better suited to me. What is slightly amusing is that the members are used to warm weather, whereas we… They rarely strip off for training during the cooler months, and someone usually asks me if I am cold when I get down to shorts and T-shirt.
For the first time since I joined a year ago, we did a session on the country on Sunday 19th Dec. starting in Ramatuelle (a hill top village near St. Tropez and well known to Arabella, Richard, and Neil D). Like Tony, Pascal had taken a lot of trouble to work out the route the day before, and he shepherded the group around the course. It was a beautiful day, and the views across the sea towards islands and the alps behind Nice were “magnifique”.
Races: I entered the St. Tropez Classic (16.5km) in September, which had 1100 participants. They close off the roads into the town for the duration of the race, and the route takes you around the centre and up and around the citadel, again a route with beautiful views. Not that I had time to take them in, I was more concerned about avoiding tripping up. At the registration hall before the race they had a little bit of trouble locating my entry form, but all was well: I was no. 15! Since I’d entered at the very last minute I admit to being a little puzzled by the low number. When I jogged near the starting area the marshals pointed me towards a pen immediately behind the starting line. It seems the organisers (i.e. my club) had entered me as one of the elite runners. So there I was rattling around in this pen with about 30 other people, whilst the masses were crushed against the barriers behind us: great.
I should stress this treatment was almost certainly down to sympathy and entente cordial, rather than ‘good for age’ type classification. It didn’t influence my performance however, and I finished 262nd in 75mins which was disappointing. I aim to do better next year.
The weather
They estimate we get 300 days of sunshine down here in the south, which sounds reasonable given my limited experience of living here. As I write this (Boxing Day) it has rained for the last 24 hours, but as yet the really cold weather has not started, so the winters tend to be short and sharp. The middle of the day tends to be warm normally: for example on the 11th Dec. the days were sunny and warm; T-shirt weather.
I gather you have enjoyed some nice weather in the NW so I don’t feel to bad about telling you about our conditions.
A visit to SW France to see Mr and Mrs Nelson
Peter and Sue kindly invited us over to spend a few days with them at their new abode. It was a 300 mile journey across to their region, and interesting to see how the scenery changed from the more rugged Provencal ‘cols’. to the more gentle and greener rolling hills of the Aveyron. They live in a picture postcard village in an idyllic setting.
We were looked after extremely well (our thanks to you both) and had a very enjoyable stay. Peter and I managed to get two strenuous training sessions in which was great for me since I got to see more of the local countryside, and meant I had some company on a longer run.
The language
We go to French lessons twice a week. I’m still pretty hopeless, but manage to get by, and I enjoy the challenge. One lesson is with our friends, and on a Wed. night we have resumed lessons with the association called AVF. This translates to welcoming visitors to the villages of France. We thought that membership was reserved for foreigners who have emigrated to France; not so! We were encouraged to go to the annual ‘bash’ on the 18th Dec. whereby you take some food that is typical of your home area. Mince pies are the norm it seems for the Brits, so we managed to buck the trend and get a neighbour to bring back a pork pie from his business trip to the UK (nowhere near Glossop/Hadfield unfortunately) the night before. Good thinking eh? (ND please advise when you open up a shop in the Reading area)
When we arrived at this function in our casual outfits, everybody was ‘dressed up to the nines’ (where did this expression originate or have I invented it? Answers on…). They were all French people apart from one Scot and one English lady. It seems AVF is also for people who move around within France. Anyway, by the time I went for a piece of pie all the savoury dishes had gone, and the crowd had moved over to tackle the desserts. Next year I’ll forget good manners and wade in along with the rest.
The House
Finally, progress on our petite maison. The target date for completion is the end of March (2005 that is: must double check this). It now looks like a house, and just before they finished for Xmas they did the final rendering of the walls, which turns it from a cement grey colour to a light yellow.
The electrical work is well under way, and to keep the cost down I had decided to do the painting of the shutters, grills, and walls. At one point I considered using M&I International, but there’s no sign of their number in the yellow pages. Perhaps they’re a smaller firm than I was led to believe.
Xmas tips: You are supposed to tip the bin men, postman, and the fireman. To-date we’ve only had a visit from two burly pompiers (firemen), and a good tip along with a chocolate each seemed like a good investment given the fire risk in this part of the world.
March 2005
I have booked my flight for a visit from 17-25th so that I can run in the half marathon. I still intend to try and find a suitable race over here whereby those interested can come over, have a long weekend, race, and see some of the sights.
I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year and look forward to seeing you again; take care of yourselves.
George Livesey
My apologies this missed the December newsletter, I’ll include it in January. Ian