meechays overseas: Heading South

There’s something perversely attractive about heading south as everyone else goes north. Maybe it’s the spirit of rebellion, which needs the occasional outing in all of us. My insurrection is very simple - I visited Northern France and detested it!

In my early twenties I’d cycled through France for a month or so and had a wonderful experience. Yet, returning to France thirty–odd years later, I thought it hideous… Haute cuisine, croissants with coffee, manicured foliage, charming chateaus – you can keep the lot! Yet, before we left Australia everyone had raved to me, about their wonderful time in France - the people, the food, the lifestyle – so what was I doing wrong?

While in North-western France we visited the Somme where my grandfather, a Private in the A.I.F., was wounded and where so many young Australians lie buried. We went to the villages of Villers-Bretonneux and Le Hamel (Papa Hooper named the family house in Pemberton Street Parramatta - Hamel). It's significance to him may be attributed to a story he once related of waiting at a field-dressing station nursing a wound, when another soldier arrived to whom he surrendered his place, as the man had suffered a nasty injury. Moments later the field-station took a direct hit, killing everyone inside. Perhaps, as one friend quipped, the Aussies should have stayed at home and let the Germans take over – would have served them right - having to live with the French.

Certainly the countryside is very picturesque with its abundant pastures delineated by stands of trees, wooded hillsides, ancient stone cottages with bucolic hayricks, sheds and assorted machinery artistically arranged to resemble a nineteenth century oil-painting. The quaintly narrow, cobbled streets of a French town with its daily rituals in each café/tabac, pâtisserie/boulangerie, charcuterie and marché where the people greet, or pause to conduct a polite conversation before business.

But wait, a stranger has arrived in town, a nemesis beyond imagining. Oui – a person who has improper French! They strangle the delicate vowels, abuse their consonants with jack-booted abandon and even truncate their sentences like some disgusting linguistic dwarf! Sacre bleu! It seemed that every time Heather or I attempted to converse in the native tongue we encountered a curt and lipless response (as per ‘we are not amused’). I even thought to surreptitiously check the underside of my shoes for canine excreta – such was the detached and aloof manner of the proprietors. Certainment – it was very easy to step on dog droppings – as French streets are littered with woofer’s eggs.

Thinking back to my cycling days, I didn’t have cause to speak to people that much and when I did I requested a limited range of foodstuffs and the occasional direction for which my French quickly became quite passable. Quite possibly I also put any upturned noses down to my sweaty demeanor – having exercised on the bicycle all morning and most likely slept in my clothes from the day before... But this was different – it was like encountering racism. That’s when some social habits of the French began to really annoy me.

Habits like: Witnessing their dog depositing a steaming barker’s nest on the footpath then sauntering off. Jumping out of a car left blocking a pedestrian crossing and traffic with an arrogant shrug and the comment – ‘time for my coffee’. Rarely indicating a turning intention in traffic – (‘And why should I – after all I know where I’m going!’). Speaking very swiftly in French using complex sentence structure, rather than using more carefully chosen words as one might when speaking to a child or an international visitor… Oh yes, and the bored ‘when you leave I’ll get back to my life look’ that many have raised to the level of an art-form.

Mind you – some of our conversations of necessity went beyond the everyday (like having to explain that my Australian USB stick needed a sim-card for mobile internet access). The crunch came for me when we arrived in Bayeaux – you know the famous town with the tapestry (actually its an embroidery). Having discovered that the sim I’d been sold wasn’t working – I went to an outlet of the ISP (Internet Service Provider) – Orange. Their technical expert divined that the sim was incompatible with my Australian device.

An English-speaking staff member was summoned to explain the problem. “That’s a shame,” I responded, “but as it hasn’t been used – I’d like my refund please”. I was informed that I’d need to return to the store I’d purchased it from 100 kilometres away. “But mademoiselle, I have the receipt from your company.” At this point the woman made the mistake of flashing her colleague what I took to be a conspiratorial smile as she repeated her no refund mantra. My blood was up - “Please explain what you think is so funny?” The smile disappeared, but so too did my 24 euros.

I might add at this point that we’d had a fairly major family melt-down about an hour earlier – the sort where you’re ready to toss in the towel and head back to the UK or even Australia, just to get shot of France…

Retiring to a small campsite outside the town we hunkered down to lick our wounds and reassess. An expensive operation this coming from Australia business, only to throw it over to return with our tail between our legs, but I was really feeling burnt out. Fortunately an early morning Skype (free wifi at the campsite) with friends and family revived our spirit of adventure, though not our affection for things French and we resolved to go south to Spain or Italy – in fact anywhere outside France.

That’s how we got beyond the middle of France before the exhaust blew off the header outside Poitiers. Maybe the mobile tissue-box (as the Hymer is affectionately known) had had a gut-full too – who knows. An hour later I was still under the vehicle, shaking violently due to the cold, wearing a plastic garbage bag to ward off the grease and cursing the tools, nuts, u-bolts and all things mechanical. Desperate, I decided to take a converse approach - I commended the tools, encouraged the nuts and U-bolts to do their best and lo and behold the broken exhaust went back together easier - I was calmer - God was nearer (did I mention I'd decided to can the Christian walk as a waste of time the day before??). I fired it up again and off we went until – clang - the exhaust pipe hit the deck completely this time. I wired it onto the sub-frame and five minutes later we were back on the road (sounding like a fleet of outlaw Harleys).

We stayed overnight in a car park and located a mechanic the next day with the help of - wait for it - a friendly, English speaking, French camping-car driver. The Lord had responded I realized. We eventually found another friendly English speaking, Frenchman - a Fiat dealer- who showed us our broken header pipe, saying he would order a replacement part while offering for us to camp overnight in his car-yard.

Later that afternoon he informed us that the part wouldn’t be available until the following week before suggesting to have the damaged part welded and replaced the next day (Friday). Two-hundred and seventy-five euros later we were back in business. For disconnecting the header-pipe, time and the type of weld (inner and outer tubes), as well as accommodation, I thought that the Fiat dealer had done us a good service - we thanked them profusely. Thank you Jesus – thank you Lord!

Continuing our flight south, we decided to stop in to Montignac, in the vicinity of the Lascaux caves. By now Heather was too intimidated to enter a French restaurant to order a meal, but I insisted we try. Shock/horror – the menu was available in translation and the waitress was friendly and helpful! We dined heartily on crepes with salad before some cycling during a break between downpours. Several days later we arrived at a farm-stay in the Dordogne region, where we were once again, greeted by friendly faces. Although it rained non-stop, the kindness of our hosts was memorable.

Then it occurred to me –this is the other France –the France of the South, of farmers and of a less rigorously formal society. And so it continued – moving south to seek the sun and to exit France we actually found the France we’d come looking for. In Carcassone and Villefranche du Périgord friendly smiles, curiousity about Australia and positive experiences, all of which will bring us back again – to the South.

Commending the owner of a boulangerie on her excellent English in Carcassone, I asked how she’d come to learn it so well. “At school we all study English,” she shrugged.

Must be only in Southern France, I reflected, that the schools teach English and good manners.