Quelque temps en France

Things do not happen on demand here. 10 years in America has conditioned us (for better or worse) to be able to get pretty much anything we need, any time we want. In France, it seems, you might be able to get something if you follow the rules without fault (irrespective of whether you could possibly know them or not) - and even then there’s a 50/50 chance that it’s a holiday, or just inexplicably not possible today. Things ordered on Amazon do not simply arrive at your door, shops will be randomly closed because it’s a Tuesday or because the owner has found something more interesting to do. For example, as we ate dinner a couple of nights ago, we cleaned our gear in the automatic laverie opposite, not paying enough attention to the closing time - at which point the door instantly slammed shut with our washing inside. We were aiming for an early start the next morning, so came back into town for 7.30am when the shop was scheduled to reopen. Still locked.  Had breakfast. Nope....

Today is our third day of our impromptu, largely unscripted bike tour.  Last night we found ourselves on the kind of campsite that we both last went to about 25 years ago, with a little pool, table football and the tour de France playing in the bar. The evening's entertainment was a guy, perhaps in his late 60s, dressed in a black silk top and taking requests from the assembled campers to sing old French songs white illuminated by a single fishing disco light.  For what he lacked in tonal accuracy, he made up for in enthusiasm. He was accompanied by his wife, sitting looking sightly bored in front of a laptop running kareoke software. Sam was digging it, and at one point led a mosh pit occupied for the under twos. We set off moderately early in the cool morning drizzle to cross a set of hills called the black mountains.  Our early progress was hit and miss - it became rapidly clear that Google had no idea how to make directions here, or its bicycle directions are design...

We have decided we need to go on holiday, even though it sort of already feels like we already are - it's nearly August and we in France and that's what you do. Our new friends scoffed at the idea of our plan to try to see le Tour's Tormulet stage without camping out 3 days in advance (with a baby), so instead we head out on our bikes to the haute Languedoc, a hilly region to the east of Toulouse. As we were packing, la femme de la château drove past in a sports car.  Having yet to see the owners come out in the same car twice, we are beginning to assume they have a BMW showroom up there. We passed the time of day for a while, trying to avoid the topic of carbon guilt, when another lady called from the gate. The newcomer explained that she was looking for her cat, who had been lost for five days - which seemed fair enough, so la femme de la château let her in and left the lady with Rosie and I. As she sped away in one of her many sportscars, cat lady explained without b...

We don't sell pallets The dog is an asshole. Today, he arrived while we were eating breakfast, spent about 15 minutes staring intently at our baguettes and then stole, destroyed and ultimately hid Sam’s ball in what is becoming an increasing fraction of our stuff that he is hiding in his castle. Speaking to him firmly appears to only encourage him. I fear this may go on for some time. Yesterday I underwent a minor blogging crisis, having had a day which mainly involved trips to the park and a pleasant bike ride, which was very enjoyable but terrible from a writing perspective. The reader can henceforth assume that if I’m not writing, we’re having a nice time. We set off for our last day in our blue tank of a van to acquire the remaining furniture - the shops having been closed yesterday, only to find that for the second hand furniture shops, the weekend appears to also stretch into Monday. Many people had also suggested that we used the French craigslist equivalent ‘le bon ...

Exploring the garden Our body clocks appear to have stopped adjusting somewhere around Iceland. We’ve mutually decided that this might be appropriate for the Southern French pace of life, and at least until we start working it’s OK to wake up at 10am and go to bed at 2. This morning I rode through the village, finely honing my preemptive ‘Bonjours’ to at least get that right before I inevitably disappoint people in conversation. The ride to the bakery is a rude awakening, about 400m horizontally at about a 20% grade. The French appear to generally reject the concept of switchbacks, preferring a direct assault on the hill. One assumes that each day involves sweeping up a pile of stalled cars and overenthusiatic cyclists from the bottom. I decided I would need lower gearing. Having confidently ordered the bread (and taking some delight in a conversation which didn’t result in exasperated looks or bailing to English), I returned home to find Rosie and Sam again in the company of Ge...

Dinner? Our new house has shutters. We slept with them closed last night, thus continuing to confuse our already quite bewildered body clocks. Rosie woke up at about 9.30, which I think is a new record for lateness (I would happily sleep until midday if R+S would let me). I was rudely forced out of bed (bed currently being a therma-rest on a stone floor), and instructed to go fetch baguettes from the bakery on top of the hill. I wondered off pondering whether I was experiencing reality or some sort of cheesy French parody. Upon my return, Rosie and Sam were talking to the caretaker of the chateau, really not helping breaking the French stereotype (to be clear, we don’t live in the chateau, we’ve rented the gardener’s cottage). Barely having said “Bonjour” to him, I was met with the now increasingly familiar “Votre femme parle beaucoup mieux le français que vous!”, which although refreshingly honest, is getting a little annoying. Having made it clear that any comparison “n’est p...

We arrived in Paris with 6 bags, 1 huge stroller, 2 bikes in boxes and a baby. Virtually incapable of moving, we struggled across Charles de Gaulle airport desperately trying to avoid any elevators and attracting the first of many glares from the locals for our significant lack of équilibre. We were told in no uncertain terms that we wouldn't be getting in the train with this stuff, so we found one of those dodgy luggage shipping/storage shops and gave them some money to take some of our boxes. Fully expecting never to see them again, I considered it money well spent. Slightly less encumbered, we boarded the train for Lyon, where we were going to spend the first couple of nights. Sam insisted on walking the entire length of the train, greeting each of the passengers in turn - which was, for the most part, appreciated. We then spent the first couple of nights in Lyon, pondering in a slightly bewildered state whether we'd actually, seriously moved to France. A trip to the...