Friday, 14 April 2017 to Thursday, 20 April 2017
This morning was Good Friday, and what a good Friday in turned out to be! We were on our way out the building for a walk when a cursory glance towards the mailbox revealed two white envelopes with our names on. Turns out it was the acknowledgement of receipt from the OFII (French Office of Immigration and Integration) in Montpellier advising that they had indeed received and processed our documentation we posted to them a while back. Truth be told, we were rather worried about this step in the process so you can imagine our sincerest relief when we found these envelopes. As Neil Armstrong would have said “A small step for mankind, a giant leap for this man and woman…”, or something like that.

Each envelope contained four pages. The first was a welcome letter of sorts. The second informs that we need to go for radiological and clinical examinations on 4 May 2017, first thing in the morning. It also specifies that we have to produce our immunization record which of course we don’t have, hmm? If you’re wearing glasses (like me) or a hearing aid (fortunately not me) they seem to request documentation of such. I’ll have to check whether I can get something in this regard from my optician in Pretoria. Also, if you’ve been hospitalised during the last year they require the details thereof (fortunately not me).

The third page informs that, after completion of the medical exams, you need to provide the OFII with your passport, a photograph, proof of residence in France, e.g. rent receipt and also the radiological and clinical examination certificates Then you also need to provide them with a revenue or tax stamp of sorts that can be obtained either online from OFII, from certain tobacconists or from the personal income tax services.

The fourth and last page is where it hurts. This is where you are informed that the revenue/tax stamp that you have to obtain beforehand will cost you €250 per person; they certainly leave the best for last! But I guess this price tag comes with the territory.

If all works out as we’re hoping it would, after completing all the above formalities on the day, our visas in the passports will receive a special stamp that will be proof that we are legal residents in France for up to one year.

There was a huppel in ons stuppel (spring in our step) after this good news as we walked off into the wilderness, onwards, to overcome Mont St. Clair situated on the western part of Séte. Adri was carrying our yellowy/mustardy coloured rucksack that we received as a gift at Thea and André’s last Christmas eve supper on Koh Samui. We use this bag whenever we intend on taking both Ipads and water and stuff along for longer walks, rather than burden Adri’s handbag with such. Adri always insists on carrying this bag on her back and gets peeved whenever I ask her if the needs help.”I’ll tell you when it gets too heavy”, she would scold, so after the 9^th scolding I refrained from peeving her off.

 

And let it be known, when that bag is strapped to her back she’s out of the starting blocks like an arrow, brisk walk, half jog, I struggle to keep up. This scenario reminded me of the time when Don, Sam, Marc, Sandy, Adri and I went away for a weekend to Kaapse Hoop in Mpumalanga, back in September 2014. And what a weekend it was! Don, being an avid photographer – I say professional, he says avid – invariably brings along a mountain of equipment, the weight of which of course hinders his artistic flair. And so it is that Sam carries Don’s equipment, his camera equipment that is. And man, once that rucksack is slung over her shoulders you must see that girl go! And there’s no stopping her, she just keeps on walking… just like Johnny. Maybe Adri inherited this trait from Sam?

The walk up Mont St. Clair ended when we reached the viewpoint and the church, Chapelle de la Salette, situated right at the top. The views from the viewing platform of the surrounding area are simply stunning. We then visited the lovely little church which is rather unique inside with its arched roofs and murals, quite special. We continued walking around the area and had just started our way back down the other side of the hill when I realized that Adri was still carrying the Stella Artois that I had brought along, or rather that she had brought along. We found a spot of green grass with a view where that puppy hit the intentional spot.

We got home thoroughly tired after the steep walk up, with the obviously resultant steep walk down. At one of the viewpoints we visited there was a small parking area where a few RVs/auto villas were parked, the scene looked so peaceful. Adri has always had this thing for an RV holiday and when we got home we looked at the possibility of perhaps renting an RV for a month sometime. They do not come cheap. If you get a smallish but decent one with a shower and toilet, you will be out of pocket to the tune of €3500 for the month. And then you still have to add RV park fees and diesel. For triple that amount you could probably buy an old second hand model and travel perpetually with it.

It was just before 15:00 that we walked to the Saint Joseph church a few blocks up for their Good Friday service. Of course we would not understand a thing but Adri wanted to go. On Good Friday last year we attended a service in Bangkok, but that was all in English, this time it would be different, and just how different we were about to find out.

The service started with the minister saying a few words after which two men, one holding a cross in front of his face and the other there only for support, moved to strand underneath the first mural that was situated to their right. The whole congregation moved with them, we did too. A blessing by one of the members of the congregation was read out, followed by the recitation of a few verses from the Bible and the singing of a hymn by the congregation. After this process the two leading men would move to the next mural, congregation in tow, and the same process would ensue, there must have been about 20 murals around the church that received this blessing. A tired 90 minutes later we were out of there.

We had a cold supper tonight… two types of baguette, each slice drizzled with olive oil and adorned with a rotating selection of Camembert cheese, duck pâté and humus, washed down with Adri’s red wine and my white, a lovely Sauvignon we picked up just the other day.

We watched a few more episodes of Fargo season 2 and it was only just okay, the first season was excellent, the second is barely watchable.

When out shopping the other day Adri found baked beans, which we have not had in a long while. We were also looking for bacon and I’m speaking under correction here, but the French do not seem to like their bacon with breakfast as much as I do. In SA, back and streaky bacon is widely available, but here you have to look carefully to find it. What is mostly available though seems to be a variety of thinly sliced bacon bits which looks great, and of course we just had to try it.

So Adri put these new additions in our pantry to work this Saturday morning, and may I say, to great effect, breakfast was better than better. Fried eggs, bacon bits, baked beans, fried onions, Camembert cheese and a healthy number of baguette discs with thick butter. Need I say more!

I tried to work for a while but I sidetracked myself so many times that I gave up on my effort. It was 15:00 when I switched on the rugby and continued watching the next three matches, so total of around six hours. Apart from the rugby, this time was filled with Stella Artois and a huge bag (400gm) of crinkle cut chips. Not to worry, I finished neither all the beer nor the whole bag of chips.

Supper came along somewhere during the last match and you can imagine I was not overly anxious to eat after my belly-filling afternoon in front of the TV. Adri brought the selection of four cheeses we bought at Carrefour the other day to the lounge where we had supper, while I was still watching that last game of the day. In that selection was a small white round mound, fortunately it was small because it was huge on smell; it stank up the apartment like a fearless fart could never fathom.

This thing was evil, it had the innocuous look of a Camembert but smelt like an old goat that was on its way to heaven, whose body was already in an advanced state of decay, poor thing. Added to this smell, in a mix of 70/30, was the stench emanating from the spot this old goat had used since birth to unload his urine loads his entire miserable life on earth. And it was out of this perpetual wet spot that this cheese was grown from and harvested. And true to the hints provided by the stench, it tasted exactly as expected… putrefied and vile.

You will remember that motivational book called “Who moved my cheese”. Well, now I’m thinking of writing a follow-up called “Please move my cheese”, which is exactly what Adri did.

It was just after supper when things took a turn for the worse… and I blame that cheese. Adri had just removed the supper stuff from the lounge when I decided to lie down and stretch out on the couch. While jostling for position I inadvertently kicked my nonagon shaped beer glass off the little table next to the couch which went flying east. With not enough thrust it quickly lost altitude and came crashing down on the tile floor below, splintering into a million pieces. Weird thing though, this glass somehow broke up into pieces of glass reminiscent of a shattered windscreen. Quite neat I thought as I eyed its mate in the cupboard wondering whether it would break up in the same way. It refused to make eye contact so I let it be. Fortunately though, that glass was devoid of beer, now that would have been a catastrophe.

Sunday was never going to be a normal day. We planned to attend the Montpellier/Bayonne Top 14 match, a French rugby union club competition that was created back in 1892. Well, when last did I attend a live rugby match? I don’t even dare think about it, I do though have very fond memories of attending a few matches with Sakkie many years ago. And these I might add always turned out to be rather entertaining, not always because of the rugby though.

I remember one particular day, Transvaal and Vrystaat (yes, it was a long time ago) played at Ellis Park stadium and the match was in full swing. Everybody around us would cheer and shout either “Transvaaaaal!” or “Vrystaaaaat!!”, Sakkie, at the top of his voice would scream his support for “Stellalaaaand!”, an obscure little rugby union somewhere around the Rustenburg area. Of course everyone around us had a good chuckle about this and needless to say, after that beers just seemed to appear in our hands from all around, from both Transvaal and Vrystaat supporters!

It was that same day after the match that we ended up at the Ellis Park Hotel just down the road; a rough joint is a rough neighbourhood. The characters in the bar were unsavoury, tattooed and grisly, and as I remember, this description fell far short from the reality on the ground. We placed ourselves at the bar; we had obviously not yet had our fill, or we were too inebriated to realize that we had. After the first round we found that we had run out of drinking money, but that was not a problem to Sakkie. He took up position at the entrance to the bar and charged everyone a R2 entrance fee. Quite extraordinarily, these unsavoury characters thought this to be quite cheeky and unique and happily contributed to our drinking kitty. Nobody other than Sakkie, and I mean nobody, could have pulled that off!

It was after 09:00 and we had to rush, we dared not miss our bus Line 102 to the Sabines bus/tram station in Montpellier. On a normal day there are busses every 30 minutes or so but on Dimanche (Sunday) there were only three.  Miss the 09:35 one and we miss the match. We got to the bus stop with plenty of time to spare though. The wind was icy cold in the early morning across the canal, I wished for a later bus.

As we got onto the bus, the guy in front of us seemed to be in love, rather than just love his dog he was holding close to his chest. He was stroking it while whispering sweet nothings into the dog’s ear, all the while looking into its beautiful brown eyes. I guess this is what prompted the friendly bus driver to joke when he asked whether he should charge the man pour deux personnes (for two persons)?

The bus ride of 65 minutes does not follow a direct ride to Montpellier, it goes this way and that, in order to fill its belly with paying customers. We passed through a little village where a horse show of some sort was underway. The first horse that came into sight was a peitit cheval (small horse) which reminded me of a band by the same name back in the 1980s in SA. And damn good they were too.

From Sabines we walked to the Altrad Stadium, home of the Montpellier rugby team, about 1km away. Arriving there just over two hours before kick-off, people had started to gather, most notably the brass band. We would later find out there were actually two brass bands that places themselves in the stands high up behind the poles on opposing sides of the field. Sometimes they would play solo and other times they would compete, the two different tunes interweaving to almost sound like one.

We bought cheap tickets which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Unbeknownst to us, they were standing room tickets and we were right in front of where all the action was, at field level, quite amazing. Turns out they were the best “seats” in the house. The game was great even though Montpellier won by a large margin, to the tune of 61-22, but it was not as easy as the scoreboard suggests. It was great to see all the SA players in action, Bismarck du Plessis at hooker, Jacques Du Plessis at lock, Willie du Plessis at fly half and Francois Steyn at inside centre. After halftime Jannie du Plessis took to the field at prop with Nico Janse van Rensburg also coming on as a substitute later on in the game.

The atmosphere was very festive with the two brass bands striking up a tune more often than not. At some point a scrum was being set and there was a slight lull in the game as the scrum kept collapsing. Joe Tomane (ex Brumbies) was on left wing and biding his time close to the touchline right in front of us. A man a few bodies up from us, reached over the railing and offered him a swig from his beer. He good naturedly declined with a smile and a slight shake of the head. He went on to score three tries, could he have scored more had he taken that swig?

Jannie scored a try and was visibly elated, but on review the try was disallowed, he unfortunately took a forward pass just before crossing the line. Francois ran over from the opposite side of the field and, while resting his head on Jannie’s chest, he gave him a big ol’ comforting bear hug as consolation. I’m sure Jannie felt much better after that.

Notwithstanding that disallowed try, points scored by South African players included two tries by Francois, one by Willie and eight conversions, also from Willie. The game finished far too quickly and before we knew it the people started pouring out of the stadium. We thoroughly enjoyed the game, the atmosphere and the people, we’re already thinking of going back for more.

We walked back to the Sabines station and because of the retarded Sunday schedule, there was not a bus back to Séte until 19:30, it was 15:30. We took tram Line 2 into central Montpellier for a walk around and to catch a train back home, with a train scheduled almost every 30 minutes.

We ambled up to Place de la Comédie, the large square in central Montpellier, where street performers were entertaining the crowd as well as restaurant patrons in the vicinity.

After watching for a while we ambled up into the old town area to a much smaller square called Jean Jaurès where I announced that it was either beer or we were going home. Of course the beer won this particular skirmish and we sat ourselves down outside at the Cafe Joseph. I ordered a big Heineken draught and Adri rosé wine, lovely stuff, both of them. The sun dipped behind the buildings as I finished my beer. Adri ordered me to order another, no problem there.

The sun was fading fast by the time my second Heineken was consumed so we moseyed back to the train station. The same group of beggars we saw on our previous trip here was there once again with the same sign that read “For weed”. I so wanted to take a picture but Adri was adamant, don’t provoke them, they might be weed killers. Anyways, next time I will offer a generous tip after which they would have no reason to disallow a perfectly honest picture to be taken.

We caught the 20:20 train, and there I though 20:20 had something to do with your vision. The ticket office was closed by now and the lady behind the information booth advised Adri to buy tickets on the train. The train ride home was a pleasant 20 minutes but no-one came to collect the monies. When we disembarked we looked around but still saw no-one, so that turned out to be a free ride, not something that was planned.

As we walked the 2km stretch back home from the train station, that one litre of beer that went down the old gullet needed to go somewhere, but where? We came upon a public toilet but it was closed. Closed? No! Now things were getting really desperate. I walked faster but that was uncomfortable, walking slower felt as bad and would also prolong my suffering… I settled on a pace somewhere between a sprint and a crawl with my back awkwardly rounded, not sure why. What seemed like an eternity of eternities we finally got home, me bursting at the seams.. I made it… I just made it.

At the behest of Mimi a while ago we started watching Shetland tonight. IMDb describes it as “Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez and his team investigate crimes within the close knit island community of Shetland.” And if you were wondering, the Shetland Islands lie northeast of the UK and forms part of Scotland. The first episode started off slowly but promises much.

Monday Adri was restless; she needed to go for a walk… or was that shopping I heard? We needed fresh veggies for supper and my coffee creamer had almost run out… or was that had run out I heard? We have only managed to find coffee creamer at Carrefour and that was at the hypermarket type one we were at last week. But of course we forgot about the creamer so today we would have to try out our local much smaller Carrefour in Sète for that.

It being Easter Monday and all I was rather sceptical that the place would be open but there was hope in Adri’s quick stride, “As long as we make it there before 13:00 they should still be open”, it was 12:40. And of course we arrived at dead man’s door, seemed like that place had been closed for a century.

We traipsed all the way back to Monoprix, our trusted old friend, and found everything we needed, even coffee creamer, albeit the sachet type ones which I am not particularly fond of. But, you know what they say about beggars…

On the way home we stopped off at the greengrocer for more veggies and also at our local boulangerie, man, this place’s baguettes are just the best. And by the way, across the road from the greengrocer is a boucher (butcher) where I saw sausages. I also saw that it was a halaal butcher, I put two and two together and came up with a result that said those sausages were probably made from beef… and it was, he also had mutton ones. His stock did not seem awfully fresh so we’ll wait a few days for fresh stock to be displayed, probably after the long weekend.

The quality of the products and produce in France is just awesome; everything you eat here just seems to taste better, whether fresh, packaged or tinned. Many items may be much more expensive than elsewhere, but one can literally taste the difference in most products… I guess having the cumbersome EU rules and regulations does have its perks even though it does add up at the checkout counter.

And supper tonight was a treat, as always, but tonight it was a special treat… pork chops grilled to perfection, fried slices of aubergine, fried asparagus and fried potatoes. I realize there’s too much “fry and grill” in there, but what the heck, we only die once. But let me tell you, there’s no way you can eat in any restaurant like this, it was quite amazing!

I was still nursing my second Stella when Adri requested a glass of rosé. She had no sooner taken delivery and taken a few sips when she proclaimed she was no longer in the mood for wine, I think all that glorious food just got to her. Me, waste wine, never! I gulped down the last vestiges of my beer and attacked that rosé with gusto. Man, was that good or what?

Tuesday morning the strangest thing happened… I found a squatter on my site, my web site that is. Checking whether www.travelandall.com still existed you can imagine my surprise (read exasperation) when I was rerouted to another site that I have never seen nor heard of. I tried again and again with the same result. It was Albert Einstein that said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Now I’m no Einstein, but I’m also not insane… so I stopped.

But what could it be? I tried the same thing on my Iphone a few times with the same result, and Albert started whispering yet again in my ear. I stopped. I then moved to my laptop and tried the same and would you believe, I got to my blog, so it was something on those Apple devices. I tried the same on Adri’s Ipad and Iphone and it worked just fine, so now the issue was isolated to my Apple devices. After restarting and clearing the Safari history and website data on both devices things returned to normal. I contacted my hosting company and they seemed to think that there were no squatters involved, just a case of corrupt cache. I hoped he was right.

“Are you coming?” I heard a voice say from another part of the apartment. Uhm, did… I… miss something? There was nothing specific on our itinerary today. Adri had decided it’s time to try to get to an open Carrefour.

As we were approaching Carrefour I saw an older gentleman running along the road, or rather in the road. When he ostensibly looked back to check for cars, he tripped over his own feet and came crashing to the ground, spectacles went flying, man down, specs down. Cars were now stopping so I went over to assist the old man to his feet. As I tried to pick him up he said “Non non, monsieur”, picked himself up and started running, again in the middle of the road. The next thing a much younger man came trotting past, in not so hot pursuit of the older man, caught up and grabbed him by the collar. The older man refused to budge and sat down in the middle of the road, like a stubborn kid, refusing to move, halting all traffic. He tried to coerce the older man to accompany him but he point-blank refused and the younger man gave up.

I was not sure what to make of all this but the situation became less muddled when I saw the younger chap walk back into the Carrefour where he works. The older guy I assume had nicked something from the store and was chased down by the store worker. And here I nearly helped a dangerous criminal escape the long arm of the law, the long arm of Carrefour!

 

 

Bypassing Carrefour we first continued on to the Netto Supermarket across the canal to check for dates for Adri… really. She bought dates there a while back which were stupendous and she went back for more. I wanted to get another 600gm plastic container of those delicious Haribo jelly sweets that were on special but they were all out… pity.

But, it was not all bad news. We have been craving Thai food and especially green and Penang curry, but without the readymade paste it would be a futile attempt. We so missed Oi’s Thai food from Cheunjai Resort in Nong Song Hong, we so missed Pen’s curries from Pen’s Kitchen in Pai, we miss, we miss. We’ve looked in every grocery store in every conceivable corner, but those pastes eluded us. As we walked into the Netto Supermarket, right there where the Haribo’s should have been, were packets of Penang curry paste, wow! Some you lose and then some you win, I guess.

There was no price attached to this Penang puppy but I was never gonna let it off its leash. When I asked the shop assistant for the price he started to explain the cooking instructions, I think, it was all in French. I found a single French word that I had learned, and remembered, and uttered “Combien?” (How much?). “Ah, le prix” (Ah, the price), he seemed relieved as he scanned the item, it was a mere €0.79, we took three. While I had his attention I thought to ask him whether they had green curry, but that was clearly beyond my French capabilities. I then pointed to the word “curry” on the packet and muttered another one of the few words I could remember, ”Vert” (green). Once again he looked relieved when he could answer, unfortunately with a “Non, desolé” (No, sorry).

We entered Carrefour, and the man we saw earlier was now chasing trolleys rather than old criminals, he looked much more comfortable with his current job. We didn’t buy what we came for, coffee creamer, they simply just don’t stock the stuff. Okay, my mind was made up, tomorrow I will stop off at Monoprix and buy the normal powdered milk variety and see how that works out for me.

We got home as the sun was trying to set; it was already nearing 20:00. I poured myself a glass of ice cold white wine and continued working. Adri was off booze for the day and declined, she started supper.

It was Wednesday which means it was market day in Séte. I would have loved to have joined Adri for the excursion but I had a blog post to publish.

It was past 11:00 when Adri left and just after 13:00 when she returned, almost empty-handed. I was flabbergasted, how is this even possible? But, apparently the market was extremely busy with so much variety, that after a lengthy walk-around she decided to rather go to Monoprix for the few things we really needed, like toilet paper.

After not finding coffee creamer yet again yesterday, Adri today bought a box of the normal powdered milk variety for me to try. A teaspoon of milk powder was swirled into the black coffee  which quickly turned to white. I took my first tentative sip and voila, my coffee creamer problem has been solved!

I’ve been trying to get current with the blogging but finding it increasingly difficult… there was so much else to do so I keep on getting sidetracked, and sometimes it is just pure procrastination, which I have no excuse for. Be as it may, I finally managed to post the blog by 21:00 and decided to reward myself. The beer was cold, the beer was good.

Thursday after yoga there was a flurry of text messages with Didier. He was now back from his trip to the US and we made arrangements to meet up on Monday in Séte on the “dick”. As my frown turned to a knowing smile the next text came through correcting the typo to “dock”.

It was past 17:00 when Adri and I went for a walk. As I pushed my nose out from behind the door and onto the pavement, I retreated with speed. I needed something warm. Although the sun was out and the sky was a brilliant blue, there was an uncomfortable nip in the air. This was the first time in a while that I had to commandeer up my leather jacket.

Now dressed warmly for the journey we walked down to the canal, up past all the little restaurants, across the canal and down the other side where we thought we may find more restaurants and pubs, but there were none.

We returned to “our” side of the canal and settled at La Marine Pub for a beer. Adri was not in an alcoholic mood so I ordered only one Leffe Blonde on tap. And of course it was great as always. You may remember we had plenty of these at the Irish pub in Budva in Montenegro. There was only one difference in these beers… the price tag, the Budva beer was one third of the price.

Asking for wifi I was again told that the wifi was not working. This wifi situation is now starting to peeve… no, piss me off, it is the same mantra in each pub/restaurant you go into. At the prices these guys charge for their drinks you would think they would give you the fastest wifi available this side of the universe, but they just seem to be on the cheap, or so it seems. The answer is always the same “We have wifi but it is not working”. And this pisses me off even more because they’re insulting my intelligence by being bête (stupid) themselves.

Wherever we’ve been during the last two years, whether it was Thailand, Indonesia, Serbia or Montenegro, almost all pubs and/or restaurants have good wifi.  For heaven’s sake, they’re all third world countries, and this is supposed to be first world? I will in future make sure they have working wifi before ordering anything. Okay, now that I’ve vented my spleen I’ll go home and use my own blerrie (bloody) wifi.

Just before going to bed there was a breaking news article of yet another shooting incident in Paris, with the whole Champs-Élysées cordoned off… Will this madness ever end?

Home