Saturday through Wednesday - France Part 2

I have made myself at home in a cafe in Privas, a small town about 25 kilometers from Le Coulet. Free wireless internet access is available throughout the town because there is an antenne on top of the cityhall! So nice and kind of the French!

So let me tell you a little bit more about the last few days. The trip on Saturday took indeed 12 hours and included a few necessary bathroom stops, driver changes and a grocery run when we were almost there. The two cats, Karel (18 years old) and Lotje (16 years old), were mostly well behaved. Lotje quickly understood what was going on, but Karel was a little bit more difficult and he cried and cried and there was nothing to be done about it until we got there.

Le Coulet is a rather small conglomeration of buildings with a "street" running right through the middle of it: Le Grand Rue is about 4 feet wide and should be maintained by the community of Gluiras (a town with a mayor of dictotatorial tendencies and lots of stories). Gluiras is about 13 kilometers from Le Coulet and nobody there really cares about what is going on in Le Coulet. When you come from the road along the river L'Eyrieux and up the mountain towards Le Coulet, we ended up in a small overgrown parking lot where we unloaded the car, and brought everything down "Grand Rue" (Main Street). On the right side of the Grand Rue is basically one large building which exists out of four separate homes with an inner courtyard and there are several caves underneath the homes which are now storage spaces. All these homes are rebuild, restored and renovated by friends of Hannie and Hijmen: Wim and Muriel. For the last many, many years Wim has worked and worked with help from a lot of handyman friends (Hijmen included) to restore these four homes, and he and his wife now have sold one of them to my sister and brother-in-law (H&H for short from now on) and all four are for rent for any length of time. H&H go to their home when it's not rented out; so they are hardly there in high season (July & August), but in the winter, spring and fall you can find them there; it really is their second home. The cats are at home, and all necessary things are available.

I will tell you a little bit about H&H's home: when you come in through the backdoor from the courtyard, you find yourself on the basement level the door across the back door goes to the storage cave. On that level you will find the toilet and the bathroom, as well as a hallway and a storage closet. Down there is also a gas heater which provides heat to go up through the stairwell to the next level where the kitchen is located. In the kitchen are also some wall heaters, but the greatest joy is the wood burning stove which we call "Jotuultje". Jotuultje is a temperamental little wood burning stove and needs large amounts TLC when we start to build a fire there in the afternoons. But the longer we sit around her and speak kind words to her, she gets more and more content and all is well with the world! Around Jotuultje is a mantle built with very old stones, some of which have writing on them that nobody can read (Wim has had several experts of old languages look at it, to no avail). In the kitchen is also the dining table and the front door which leads to a small front porch and stairs that lead down to a patio covered with fresh new green wine leaves, with a large wooden table and a magnificent view across the valley to other mountain ranges. Yes, it really is like you see those pictures in the magazines. Now up the second stairwell from the kitchen is H&H's bedroom and the baskets for the two cats. When you go to the left (when facing the stairwells) and down four steps you are in the Salon (or living room), with a couch, a few chairs and yes, another stairwell, which leads to another bedroom with three beds right under the roof.

Life here is quite different than anything I have seen so far. When the weather is nice, we go outside and work around the house (potting plants, cutting grass, pulling weeds, rebuilding old walls, going for a walk down Grand Rue towards the point where you have four choices of paths to follow, or just sit in a chair to read and enjoy the view). When the weather is not so nice (we have had a tremendous amount of rain, and thunder storms and even a poweroutage), we stay in the house and reading, cooking and drawing are activities of choice. Yesterday morning the power went out only because there was too much electricity in the air, and the safety feature built into the system made sure we would not be electrocuted. I thought that was fabulous!

But I should continue to tell you about Le Coulet. So the four finished homes are on the right side of Le Grande Rue. First on the left side are the ruins of what Wim and Muriel think was a small castle. I am not allowed to go in there, because it's too dangerous with walls falling over and such; it really is quite impressive. Further down on the left side is the home of Wim and Muriel, and that they have rebuild, renovated and restaured. Saturday evening after our 12-hour road trip, H&H and I were invited for dinner at Wim and Muriel's home. It was delightful and rather uncanny to sit in a room with walls surrounding us that are 800 years old or something like that. In a corner of the room stood a 17th century front loader rifle Wim had found while cleaning out the area where we were having dinner that Saturday evening. Funny stuff to think about, isn't it?!?

Sunday, Hannie and I went on few small walks in the neighborhood even though it rained most of the day. The first walk brought us to the "Rock with a View" from which we saw many kayaks go down the river L'Eyrieux for competitions for the French championships! Later that afternoon we took a second walk along the path of hanging trees aka the Path to the Waterfall. (Path of the Hanging Trees is my invention: in two places there were fallen tree trunks stuck and hanging upside down in other trees.) Both walks were beautiful and the leaves are sooooo green! And of course, I slipped and got one of my feet wet in the little creek while crossing; another war story to tell, I guess!

On Monday the temperature suddenly shot up to a very humid, probably 75-80 degrees and we thought that summer had arrived. Well, it only lasted for about 2 hours after which there was more rain and later even thunder and lighting. Hannie and I went on a little shopping trip that afternoon because we needed catfood and a few other things. I have already cooked a few dinners and a breakfast; so much fun!

On Tuesday, Hannie had a doctor's appointment and Hijmen and I took the opportunity to go to the internet cafe where I posted the short addition to my blog. On our way home we took a detour and H&H showed me the grand town of Gluiras and the home of the mayor, who is actually no longer the mayor, but his secretary is now. Village politics. Go figure.

Today is Wedneday, and we went to the town Privas where there is a nice outdoor market on Wednesdays. We bought fruit, vegetables, goat cheese and local sausage, and we found this French cafe where we had lunch and where I now sit and type this blog. The biggest excitement this afteroon was to see the horse races on television; every respectable gambler seemed to be in the cafe right here to watch the race on the big flat screen tv. Never a dull moment. The cafe owner/cook won 28 euro. Honestly!

P.S. I don't really know how to say this; I will just fumble my way through it, because this is also the reality of my life. I have been traveling now for more than 6 weeks, and I am very tired. I miss Bob. Very much. I have had some (very painful sometimes) muscle-related backaches and spasms in the last few weeks. I have cried a lot and will cry more. I will be ok. Pray for me.