I am now on the ferry home. I must update you over the happenings of the last few days.
I had decided that I would not stay in Bordeaux after Monday night. In fact, I planned to leave that afternoon, were it not for the fact that the restaurant I’d eaten in the night before had invited me to play the piano over dinner. The piano was relatively good (but uncared for), so I was glad of the opportunity. I played from about 1330 to 1630 non-stop. It was a really refreshing experience: I haven’t played like that in a long time – a sort of musical marathon. It reminded me of some the limitations of my technique, forced me to think ahead and to perform (rather than just to play to myself) and I found that very satisfying – my brain was really humming. The music flowed very naturally after the first hour or so. It is uniquely challenging and focussing to improvise for four hours without covering old ground. I was tired by the end.
Interestingly, had I been playing in England, someone would have looked after me; brought me my drinks, or at least asked me if I wanted anything. The French staff were happy for me to fetch my own drinks! Maybe it is a cultural thing. Pianos in restaurants are slightly more common in France than in England. Maybe it is less of a luxury to enjoy music whilst you eat, so the benefits to pianists are accordingly reduced?!
When I had finished (I was hungry and couldn’t play any longer), the staff thanked me, one calling me remarkable for playing so long (I think he thought I was a bit simple!) They asked if I would come back to play for dinner, and as I had no plans, and had thought of a few jazz standards I could run through, I agreed. I slunk off for some food and a rest back at the car. I also changed into my suit – the only outing it has had, as I didn’t make it to any Rotary meetings. In short, I returned to the restaurant at 1930, then played until 2115. I then returned to the car and started the long drive up to La Rochelle.
I don’t know whether it’s Dad’s car, or whatever, but I really enjoyed the drive. It was dark, the roads were quite quiet, and I made good progress, stopping once for fuel, although I didn’t really need to: the price was compellingly good. After about three and a half hours, I arrived in the seaside hamlet I had selected to the south: I wanted to sleep near the sea, and couldn’t be bothered to play around in La Rochelle itself at that time of night. As I drove through the village, I espied a left-hand turn-off, which Jane assured me continued into the sea! I drove past some fishing huts to a wide pebble beach. This was the spot! I wound down one window so that I could listen to the waves, and my final thought as I fell asleep was that I had maybe parked up in what would become a very busy area in the morning, with fishmongers, fishermen and moule-gatherers all over the place…
I arose quite late. It was very cold – the car reported 6 deg. C. I drove into La Rochelle and located the swimming pool, where I requested entry and was denied. It was 1005 and the pool didn’t open to the public until 1030. I decided, with dread and hesitation to extract a cup of coffee from a machine, expecting the worst. I was delighted after submitting my 0€50 to hear the grinder spin up: bean to cup, baby! Of course the French have good instant coffee! Their machines don’t use freeze-dried coffee – they simply make espresso really fast! Didn’t taste too bad, either. A bit over-extracted, maybe, but it will be a long time before they add barrista discretion to the processing capabilities of these machines. I drank up and ascended to the gallery to watch the lessons. It reminded me of mine, back in the day. I don’t swim half as well as I did as a kid. I was surprised to see that several of the instructors (for there were three working with groups in the Olympic-sized pool) were German. I envisage that they were preparing for a gala against Les Canards Rochelaises. I’m betting on the Germans. They’ve conquered the French before without too many problems. (Is that pseudo-racist? I’ll leave it in until I get a negative comment, then I’ll take it out like the coward I am).
I swam for an hour. No one questioned my shorts (hooray!), which was good, because I expected to be using the pool again tomorrow. On returning to the car, I noticed something that made my heart sink: the sidelights were on, but only dimly. I found myself praying, “Please crank, please crank”, but I lost all hope when turning the key in the door wouldn’t even activate the central locking! I remembered Dad saying that he’d had some concerns about the battery, but that he had purchased a conditioning charger and given it a good belt and that everything seemed ok. Of course, though, I have been putting additional load on the battery with the inverter, so I shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve been causing a net discharge over the course of my trip. Thankfully, my paltry French combined with waving the curiously dainty jump leads Dad had left for me (and worryingly so: the ones I keep in my car could jump a truck), a kindly French man, who looked a little damp himself reparked his Renault saloon in front of the stub-nose of the intracontinental cruiser and I was running again in minutes. I took care to run the car for a while before driving it – a stall would have put me out of action again, of course, and I didn’t want that happening in French town traffic! People really have been helpful.
The next job on my list was my washing. I didn’t have to do it, but I’m trying to judge the sustainability of in-car-living, and keeping your clothes clean is all part of it. I was delighted to have spotted a self-service laundromat so a few Euros and an hour later, I had two large bags of clean and part-dried clothing. Here the fun began. I’ve discussed at length the versatility of the giant car. Little did I know that with some tying of straps, I might be able to dry an entire wash-load within the confines of the vehicle and still have space to sit and blog!? By opening all the windows (including the roof and tailgate) and the rear side doors, it is then possible to hang all the shirts and a towel on hangars from one of the roofrack bars, which of course becomes accessible. Stretching the rear seatbelts across the rear portion diagonally provides loads more drying room. After an hour of blogging, I was able to pack everything away into the cases again! Delightful! I’d hazard a guess that with a little work, I could probably also smoke fish, run an internet cafe and possibly a GAP sweatshop from the car, although all at once would require some planning.
Now, I had been in touch before leaving England with an old friend from uni days, Clotilde, who has been a resident of La Rochelle for 10 months, having moved there from Caen where her parents live. Sadly, none of our communications have included our new telephone numbers – we’d only used Facebook, which is most effective in areas of internebiquity. I didn’t know that she’d replied on Sunday afternoon asking when exactly I would be arriving – I didn’t check my messages until the evening in La Rochelle, when I realised that she might only check her e-mail once a day: I had no idea where she lived! There was every chance that we would miss each other. However, in a Matrix-like moment, I called my dear sister Amanda, who was in front of a computer as we often are these days. She attempted find a number for Clo and failed, but she did post a message on Facebook, and Clo got that and called me, just as I was finishing my starter in a restaurant near the Quay. 15 minutes later, she turned up! We worked out that we had last seen each other at uni in 2003. We had written to each other for a while, but that had petered out. The passing of time had done our friendship no harm and it’s great when you can pick up where you left off. We finished dinner, walked back to my car, then drove over to her place, resolving on the way to start e-mailing again, she in French and me in English, in the hopes of improving each other’s comprehension.
Some of you may have seen Les Miserables. If so, you may have seen, or have imagined the hotel run by the “Master of the House” character – exposed beams, high ceilings but an air of dilapidation. Clotilde lives in a flat within such a building. It was a wonderful evocation of old France – the building dated back into the 1800s and each subsequent landlord had taken less care than the last. The staircase within the flat would not have been permitted for use in a rental property in the UK: one climbed it with difficulty and descended with some of the ease associated with falling. The flat itself was fine, although lacking in light. We had an early night, as Clotilde had to prepare for a presentation the next day and I slept very well indeed. After a breakfast of biscuits and tea, we left the house at 0750 and I drove her to work in Niort, a smaller town with a large prison (its distinguishing feature), about 50 minutes away. From there, I started my long run, deciding at first to return to Chartres as I had first thought to, but then wondered whether driving further (and further north) would make sense as I was fresh and starting early. Accordingly, I decided that I’d break my toll-road rule and try them out. Jane sent me to Angers, where I stopped at about 1115 for a croque monsieur and a coffee. I pushed on, taking the toll road again. They are long and smooth and very unsatisfying to drive on. At first I thought of them as fairly unregulated in terms of speed: after all, they are owned and run by private companies, and I thought that a gendarme would have to drive up behind me to catch me: he would be obvious (a clean car, for starters!). I decided on a rev limit to conserve fuel, rather than a speed limit, and found that the car would bowl along at something like 98mph without exheeding 3500 revs, which is impressive for such a large (and somewhat blunt-nosed) car. After a while I realised with a chill that someone had told me that the tickets, being timed, give away the car’s average speed, and if the time taken on the road is too short, the fine is immediate. I slowed to the perfectly acceptable limit of 130km/h. On my way I did see a Gendarme car and the passenger had what looked like binoculars, so I assume one of two things: 1) it was a speed camera, but the idea is that speeding vehicles are pursued either immediately, as they would be in the UK (I was not pursued), or they were binoculars and the police were looking for a particular car that was expected shortly. I must say that compared with our officers, the police in France seem a somewhat cavalier bunch, egocentric and non-procedural. They seem to be universally disliked, and that dislike borders on fear. They leer from their vehicles at the general public or stand and chat loudly in groups, and demonstrate disdain and pettifogging rather than service, as our officers are trained to. Peel himself said that an officer was merely paid to do (full-time) what was expected of all citizens generally, but of course, the French don’t know about Peel.
I forget exactly where I was on the road, but I inadvertently left the toll section somewhere in Normandy. I didn’t mind, but I had yet to decide on a destination. At that point, I resolved to go to Le Havre. It was a place I didn’t know and thought might be worth a look, and as I was only a few hundred klicks from the coast, I thought it might be satisfying to make it there. As I had time on my hands, and was enjoying the driving, I told Jane to take me via the shortest point-to-point distance. This can be amusing over, say, 30 miles in England, but over 150km in France? I shouldn’t have had regrets. The route took me through beautiful villages, smart towns that had banners proclaiming the flower awards that it had won, and by swift-flowing rivers and over their bridges. This was some of the most challenging driving of the trip, presenting narrow lanes, steep inclines, farm tracks and tight bends and turns, but it was very satisfying to be stretched. At one point, I came across an impressive estate car towing an even more impressive caravan. The driver had stopped to take navigation advice from a local, who was discouraging him from driving down the very lane I required. Where this might have caused me consternation in a different time or another place, patience reigned over my leisure-drive and I was delighted to see a cider farm signed ahead, so I went to poke around this most rural of enterprises. Overcome with tourist delight, I spoke to the lady and resolved to take a bottle of Calvados (I tried some there and it was wonderful), some cider and some pear cider. I checked my wallet and to the consternation of the proprietress as much as to me, found the contents to be deficient by one Euro. Not to be discouraged, I ran back to the car, which I had parked on a charming turning circle, where a less charming but no less earthy farmer was navigating his tractor with deliberation and inexorability. Sure enough, with my swimming and washing things was the Euro I kept for the lockers! Grinning (as I have with considerable continuity), I exited the shop-den with two bottles of the softer stuff and one of the hard, to continue my journey on to Lisieux and the huge basilica there which certainly deserved the photos I took of its exterior.
My line-of-sight route seemed to cause Jane a few problems. I found myself parked in front of three cones at the bottom of a long, rough country lane, which the Mayor of Lisieux had installed (or his rough-shaven, hi-vis-touting agents – who is to know?). I had it in mind to move them, as I’d passed what I know realise was a works vehicle coming up the other way and knew that the route was passable. My civil disobedience mentality was put on hold when I read the very nice letter with threatening undertones attached to a nearby sign, the Mayor’s seal quite visible if photocopied. It was clear that motorway works were the problem. Heavy-hearted, I reversed, turned around and made my way down Jane’s next suggestion. It was with a leaden heart that I came across the works themselves. I signalled to a healthy-looking hi-vis touter, in the hopes that he would move some bollards for me and let me on to said motorway, but with the best will in the world, there was no way I was going to get my vehicle, now dwarfed by the yellow earth-movers over the huge piles of ballast. I was advised to follow a lorry which was headed back to Pont l’Eveque (a few klicks in the wrong direction, but my other options were few). It was grudgingly that I set up in the huge truck’s slipstream, but I was glad he was surveying the oncoming vehicles for me. One van he presented with no choice but to mount the bank. As the van driver passed me, he made fingers-to-the-temples indications, expecting me to agree with him. I found that I could not: this lorry was leading me to my destination! How could I curse his driving machismo!? I grinned and proceeded unabated.
Next: the Le Havre leg. Stay tuned my dear readers.