Feliz Navidad

Christmas Day is very quiet, unmarked by the games, music, present-opening and celebratory feasting and drinking of the English version. The highlight is playing with Ignacio junior, who has been given a complicated build-by-numbers cardboard locomotive that Juan ends up completing for him.

Our "Timba" is an instant hit:

... and when the official version begins to tire, Ignacio invents myriad variations:

 

I love his loud unselfconsciousness and creativity. Hearing him sing Deck the halls... is hilarious ("Don we now our gay apparel" holds no fear for him).

 

Meanwhile I take time out with Barbara Kingsolver's funny and moving The Bean Trees and keep body and soul together with a few sun salutations.

a Sanchez Christmas Eve

23 Dec
Waking spontaneously at 4.30am we hit the still-dark road an hour later. The highlight of the drive south was the most spectacular dawn I've ever witnessed, just before Nîmes:

 

I thought we would be saying goodbye to the sun somewhere on the Castilian plain. But clear sailing and minimal breaks meant we drove into the Sanchez parking space just 11 hours later in full sun and a shocking 20 degrees. Thank you, Juan, for a stoic driving effort, minimally supported by me (the sticky bit around Barcelona, yuk).

Minutes later Juan and Ignacio lept into action, spiking 2 hams to their jamoneros:

Albacete is arguably the dullest town in Spain. Christmases here have historically been an opportunity for me to spend days shopping 'til I drop. But our first stroll around the city centre showed evidence of the depression: several vacant businesses and most people in the street rather than in buying mode.

24 Dec
Juan showed me around his favourite haunts and we had a small, utilitarian shopping fest at the market and local hardware stores:

In the flat I submit to the cocooning experience. It's impossible to help Juan's mum, Pepita, who insists on peeling my oranges, wiping up after me and giving me everything I could possibly want, or not want. There's a seamless transition from one meal to the next, and we gratefully accept the fall-out from the many (edible) freebies Juan's dad, Jesus, receives during the course of his (endocrinological) consultancy work. Juan catches up with family (news), and I am delighted to reconnect with Mar, a friend from way back.

seeing red tape

I have just received in the post a fine (for parking in a handicapped space) for 135€, thereby discovering that the Astra I had thought sold is still in my name! After driving to the buyer's address, discovering it doesn't exist, and leaving 3 messages all unanswered, I have spent the morning ruminating on catastrophe scenarios where the (uninsured) car is involved in fatal accidents for which I am technically responsible. How have I got into this situation? Plans to get a lungful of mountain air are shelved as I scour the internet and find that I, not the buyer, should have gone to Grenoble Préfecture to transfer ownership after the deal was done. And of course today is Wednesday, the one day they are closed (to deal with post!). So that's tomorrow morning sorted for me.

taking the temperature of the commune

During the last 2 weeks the entire line of trees separating the field diagonally across from our house, where five houses have recently been built, has been felled. Do the future owners really want to enjoy the view of us that we now have of them, the gaping hole destroying the charm of the road alongside the stream and allowing clear views into their properties? I feel like chaining myself to the two conifers that remain. So, when our monthly communal bulletin announces a public meeting to discuss the Plan Local d'Urbanisation I hotfoot along.

It was educational. About 50 die-hard Vaulnaviards turned out, with me amongst the youngest. The background to the plan is a) changing demography with an aging commune wanting to attract a more balanced blend of age-groups for a sustainable future, b) increased demand for smaller houses (because of eg fragmenting families), and c) a desire to limit how fast the countryside is built on by denser housing planning. NIMBYist that I am, I was in good company. At times the mayor, leading the meeting, was inaudible as a row of hecklers behind me shouted over him about how no one should be allowed to disturb the deer that graze around their houses. Curiously, though, there seemed to be as many people concerned that their current construction permits might be revoked in the face of the bigger development plan than people concerned about urbanisation per se.

Some of the principles were worthy: trying to forge better communcal links by reinvigorating the (non-existent) village centre. But is this a realistic objective given the increasingly commuter profile of the population? The dominance of retirees in the meeting was a clear indication of the irrelevance of "community" to the incomers. For most, their house is their castle, and neighbours tolerated only if separated by a thick laurel hedge.

I left feeling uneasy. Whilst Juan and I don't live in either of the areas in the village chosen for the main development push (5.5 new houses per 1000 of population = 7 per year and 65 over the 10-year period of the plan) it may ultimately depend on the willingness of villagers in those areas to sell their land for building. If they are reluctant (and who wouldn't be) individual plots already granted permission will be prioritised and we stand to look on as green gaps between the houses (and ultra protected agricultural land) fill in. Ah well, 'twas ever thus.

sloth rules

On Saturday morning, behold, a rare and wondrous sight: Juan joining me for a 3-hour yoga class (going his own way and taking breaks whenever he felt the stretches were too repetitive!). But this was the exception in an otherwise inactive weekend, where the best use for a yoga mat was considered by some to be this...

... and even the effort of holding up The Inflationary Universe was too much. The alerte orange avalanches provided a handy excuse for loafing chez nous.

Ya pas mieux

Just back from an exhiliratingly beautiful loop on the nordique skis in dream conditions at  Les Signaraux, near La Mure. The 360 degree views of every massif in the area were as stunning as I've ever seen them. Minus 15 when I arrived and an awesome wind chill at the top (your birthday puffa jacket was ticket, Juan!). I tried out the skins and could walk up as steep a slope as I'd ever want to. Coming down was interesting, but in the white powdery stuff, pure happiness.

Now back to reality and an afternoon of Berlitz. Life could be worse!

rando vs nordique - testing our skis

Well, it was clearcut. In the rolling terrain just above St Jean de Vaulx, after a recent snow fall of over 30cm ...

... going up we were more or less compatible (though I had the edge, gliding, without the friction of skins). But coming down, the gradient was insufficient for Juan to slide at more than snail's pace. Absolutely not his style. So I had a ball and Juan was, er, just a teeny weeny bit frustrated.
BUT it is exceptional for us to have snow at these altitudes so this dream where I can almost ski from chez nous is not the norm. I anticipate being envious of Juan's future sorties at higher altitudes (currently ruled out for me because of my weak technique). And hope this doesn't mean we see nothing of each other for the next 4 months.

In the afternoon we took it easy, strolling in our valley, enjoying the first rays of sun for many days:

body sculpting in a winter wonderland

Thanks to Kelli, and a pile of American-imported DVDs by ex-ballerina-gymnasts with permanent smiles, I am going to kick ass, shape my butt, get streamlined, tone my muscles, and develop core body strength. Three times a week. Kelli swears this will make me a better skier. I'm looking forward to it.

As I drove to Berlitz afterwards (for a 7-hour lesson with the same student) this is how the road looked:

Sunday, snowy Sunday

Juan walking home from Jacques and Michelle's

home sweet home

I think I must be getting old. I am very, very excited about the recently installed furniture bought at Ozanam recently. As from yesterday I have been enjoying the bliss of...
1. no trailing hi-fi leads
2. having all our CDs and DVDs conveniently shelved at a height where they are visible
3. photo albums in a dust-free cupboard
4. the absence of the ancient IKEA shelving, whose ugliness had been niggling me for years

We now have a slightly eccentric solution for housing the "TV" (screen only)...

... and upstairs, instead of the rickety IKEA shelving, the guest bedroom features a mock
Troisième République cupboard where sheets and pillow cases, games and ancient documents are in orderly, accessible piles:

I'm not exactly sure why it has taken us such an unconscionably long time to make ourselves at home chez nous, but tonight happiness rules. All we need now is somewhere for guests to stow their gear...

metamorphosing violence

It's time I said something about aikido, my Monday evening activity. When I joined the group, just after we arrived in Vaulnaveys in 2005, my motivation was opportunistic: it was convenient (a kilometre away in the same village), and I could relate it to shiatsu and tai chi, which I was already familiar with. Now I go because the club, run by Serge Scotti in the dojo created in his converted basement and supported by a small but faithful band, is my community.

So this is the team: Serge who generously gives us his time come rain come shine; Véronique, a kind and supportive friend who tied the knot with Serge three years ago; Philippe, from whom I've learned as much as from Serge; Claude, an experienced, but sporadic member of the club; Isabelle, with whom Juan and I have shared suppers and walks, and who has helped me with graphic design on my shiatsu publicity; Emma, who Juan and I met last Christmas Eve chez Kelli and Olivier. It's good to have Emma in the group as we are long overdue new blood. Annoyingly, she is picking up the concepts way more quickly than me! It means I have to relinquish the comfort zone of know-nothing baby in the group and grow up a bit.

After seven years of painfully slow progress I'm beginning to appreciate that it's not about bringing your partner to the floor in whatever way possible - hard to resist though that can be. It's about the way you are in contact during the movement: Acceuillir... Absorber... Accepter... Accompagner... Apaiser... (how neatly it works in French - confirming, for some, that France is the centre of the universe?), with the aim the métamorphose de la violence en soi. If you can then allow this body awareness to transfer into day-to-day life you are on the way to getting somewhere But its a subtle business and a lifetime's work or more.

Here's Serge demonstrating with Claude and Isabelle:

Although I am sometimes sluggish about turning up each Monday, I always feel better at the end of the evening. Perhaps it's the sense of liberation I feel on the tatami, communicating via the body rather than expression-limiting French. Or that, for once, I am really seen, and accepted in all my guises - sulky delinquent, depressive, crazy wild woman, flirt, clown.
Occasionally we link up with another local group from the same school (Sumikiri) under the guidance of a visiting teacher. Here's the group practising at the Meylan dojo:

... with me looking a prat in civvies, having forgotten my hakama:

... and again, with Emma:

Apart from a way of developing our aikido skills, Monday evening is an excuse to have a beer together after the class - and to celebrate the highs is life: birthdays (see earlier post), promotions etc.

Thank you, comrades!

Viktoria Mullova

It would be worth travelling a very long way to see this exceptional violinist. Following a hot tip from our friend Nicholas, who had seen her in Bristol, we got tickets for her recital of Bach partitas in Grenoble. It started bizarrely, with the audience kept standing outside the auditorium for over half
an hour while the primadonna was said to be "warming up". But her playing - which we enjoyed from 2nd row proximity - was transcendental. She finished with the Chaconne from the second partita and I felt as though I was being showered with gold, alternating between ecstasy and agony, and nostalgia for a time when I played my violin more regularly. Such effervescent, light-fingered sensitivity, and power.
I will be making friends with my fiddle this week.

Juan and Rebecca buy some furniture - at last

This is Ozanam, our local flea market a stone's throw from the house. We've walked around it a dozen times, more for amusement or to entertain visitors than with serious shopping objectives. Where else can you buy waders, an ox's yoke, a Scottish biscuit tin, nick-nacks galore, books, furniture good, bad or indifferent - all in the same place? Inspired by our friends' Antje and John, who have made more progress in cost-effectively furnishing their house in CH in 5 months than we've made in 7 years, we made some quick decisions - two colossal pieces of furniture. See the video at 1 min 42 for the mirror-fronted cupboard that will adorn the spare bedroom (a challenging style-clash with our modern house) and the smaller two-piece unit at 1 min 57 (far right) destined for downstairs. I hope this bold move away from IKEA isn't madness. At least we were in agreement, and free from our habitual analysis paralysis.

burn baby burn

From...

to...

- and two months' of heating. Nice work, Rebecca.

across the border to CH

Record-breaking rain ruling out the mountains, plus an exhibition we had long wanted to go to, were the spurs for a "cultural weekend" based at Juan's Yverdon flat.

We started with a stroll around Fribourg, including Saint Nikolaus cathedral. Given that church and
state are separate in Switzerland it was surprising to see an out-sized Swiss flag filling the choir:

Elsewhere in the city Christmas was getting into swing:

The following day the expressionist-fauvist exhibition at the Merzbacher Collection, Martigny ("one of the finest private collections of pre-World War II 20th century art in the world"), was fabulous. Juan, initially (uncharacteristically) respectful of museum security, was soon snapping at jewels by Vlaminck, Kirchner, Kandinsky and chums:


"Sertigtal landscape", Ernst Kirchner, 1924



"Autumn landscape with boats", Vasily Kandinsky, 1908



"Potato pickers", Maurice de Vlaminck, 1905-7

We thought of our friends Antje and John, with whom we'd had a fondu the night before, in the throes of a kitchen tiling-scheme decision. Any one of these paintings could be the inspiration. Gorgeous.

From the exhibition at Martigny, the village of Gruyère was a short drive, helped by sat nav. I love the way Juan puts blind faith in the equipment. It results in unpredictable outcomes - especially if you key in a random address like "1 Beauregard". As Juan said, even the dog was surprised to see us arrive at this isolated house at the end of a track:

I would never have got away with such a scenic diversion. Sat nav must oil the wheels of many a couple's navigating crises.

Gruyère was a tourist trap par excellence...

... verging on kitsch, stuffed with hotels and restaurants with meringue and cream topping every menu. Its quaintness made it feel a long way from its roots. At the visitor centre the most impressive thing was the sheer quantity of the over-rated cheese:

In France there would have been a whole marketing thing around the families, the history, the terroir, the savoir faire... What the Swiss wanted to tell us was the number of cheeses their robots could make per hour. Say no more.

wine, ochre and stones - the Vaucluse

Just occasionally, Juan and I don't head for the Ecrins at the weekend. In between seasons, when the high mountains can feel hellish chilly without the magic of snow, the south beckons. Taking advantage of Juan's days in lieu we headed for the Vaucluse region in Provence for a short break based - on our friend Isabelle's recommendation - at a friendly B & B just outside the former ochre-mining village of Roussillon.

On our way we cruised the Route des Vins, the autumn vines sumptuous gold and magenta...

We were just 2 hours south of Grenoble but the light and vegetation felt like driving in another country. Seeing the villages of Gigondas and Vacqueyras, after having so often enjoyed the wines at home, was a real thrill. At Gigondas any sense of awe at the wine-tasting experience was dispelled by this reassuringly funky translation, writ large on the wall:

And bewitched we were, having fun tasting wines using the most spurious of criteria.

In contrast to classy Gigondas we stopped at Vacqueyras at "Vins du Caractère", a highly commercial wine superstore. The deals - of a "3 crates for the price of 2" variety - were amazing. After a short time tasting, everything was going to our heads as we tried to make the right decision, remembering that we only drink together at weekends and do we always want to be drinking Côtes du Rhone. On my own I think I would have bought half the shop but Juan's restraining influence limited us to just 18 bottles...

This was Toussaints, the last holiday weekend of the year, and when we arrived at Rousillon it was pulsing with every nationality of tourist.

We had arrived in all ignorance that the extraordinary soil and colours make this a mecca for artists. Courses, exhibitions, and gift shops were a constant temptation (resisted):

But Roussillon's main claim to fame is its ochre, and mining heritage. Mining, and the associated manufacture of pigments, ceased after synthetic dyes replaced ochre in the mid-20th century. As a tourist you can walk the little sentier des ochres trail...

... and do a guided tour of the nearby mine at Gargas (all but Juan and I in post-Halloween fancy dress). At least in our imagination, we had a sense of the mining process in previous centuries:

The 40km labyrinth of vaulted tunnels was dug by miners from the top down (to avoid digging through harder rock that was immediately above). The spaciousness and regularity of the arches suggested a series of temples - pleasant to walk through. It was hard to imagine the cramped, dusty working conditions of that time. But oil-lamp scars on the upper walls were a reminder of the reality of the work. The mine is now waiting for a new use. (Mushroom farming failed as recently as 2000 when the supply of local horse manure ran dry.)

Within a small radius of Roussillon are several fortified hilltop villages, each attractive in a different way. We explored several of them (Juan musing on how we always seemed to gravitate, like goats, to the top - our mountain-climbing obsession?!). One included Lacoste, home to the infamous Marquis de Sade, and now a real jewel, not a cobble out of place: 

Lacoste

Saturnin lès Apt



looking east from Saturnin lès Apt



reservoir and castle at Saturnin lès Apt

Ménergues

On the way back north, we were curious to see the ancient dry-stone settlement of "Bories":

These buildings probably date from the 14th century, but could be much older. It's hard to imagine how life would have been in such cramped, windowless holes. And strange to think that people all over the world, from Ireland to Peru to Spain, were living similarly.

As we lit the fire at Vaulnaveys we were newly appreciative of the comforts of the 21st century.

the end of the road for the Astra?

I waited just a bit too long to contact a garage about a long-term motor-starter (starter-motor?) problem.
Now waiting for the diagnosis, I realise - for the first time ever - that I have an attachment to a car!
To repair or not to repair... The market for right-hand drive cars chez moi is, umm, non-existent. So push may come to shove more quickly than I would like. Watch this space.

and then "The white silence"...

From T-shirts and 25 degrees last weekend to this:

our first nuthatch in seven years!

 

Malemute Kid out checking snares (see http://www.online-literature.com/poe/110/!)

"The stillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest; the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote the trembling lips of nature. ... The woman threw off her gloom, and in her eyes welled up a great love for her white lord..." and the late birthday present brought home from the frozen wastes of Yverdon: