3. La famille tortue

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 George the gardener. Today, he was in the process of feeding his slightly excessive collection of tortoises. Sam was delighted, enthusiastically pointing out the ‘dogs’ - a definition he was unwilling to negotiate about.
We spent the morning installing fridges and washing machines, noting that despite the fact we have bought the cheapest (OK, second cheapest) fridge in the shop - it still came with a wine rack. It’s already full, which surely counts as some form of partial assimilation...
In the afternoon, we set out to go for a long overdue run around the local park, “Pech David” which lies between us and the city of Toulouse. We took turns to run while Sam frantically alternated between bits of playground equipment, spending about 6 seconds on each thing before gleefully noting the next.
Shortly after I’d finished my run and Rosie had set off, Sam ran towards an old lady sitting on a bench in the park - inevitably condemning me to a non-optional 1-on-1 conversation in French. I walked over, as the lady initiated rapid-fire conversation in which I was able to process about one word in four, leaving a seemingly uncorrelated sequence of words: bébé, labrador, haricots verts, gymnase... etc. I nodded sagely, adding the odd “ah oui!” and “vraiment?” for effect - which either worked, or more likely, she simply didn’t care.
Rosie finished her run, and was then also duly pulled into the old lady vortex. We gradually began to understand a little more. She’d lived in the village for 70 years, remembered the park when it was a vineyard and when she had to walk 3 miles to the nearest bus. Delightful though she was, we had then been talking for about an hour despite our increasingly desperate references to the need for ‘déjeuner’. We eventually escaped, promising our return to the bench in the near future...
Despite the fact it was almost 6pm, we ate some bread and set off in our van to find some furniture to put in our empty house (despite my suggestion that there was a perfectly good pile of shipping pallets at the airport, just sitting there). By this point, I had mastered the art of driving sufficiently confidently to make the tiny, angry Renaults and Peugeots think twice before crossing my massive blue tank of a van.
My vehicle-induced bravado evaporated as we embarked on a trip to a French IKEA equivalent, which like it’s Swedish cousin, forced you to walk round endless rooms full of slightly cheap looking stuff which you can’t afford. Sam lost his sense of humor and started biting the furniture, so we left with only a mattress (and a tiny, impossibly cute chair for Sam). Shipping pallets it is...