Friday, 12 May 2017 to Thursday, 18 May 2017
I was watching rugby this morning when my mind wandered back to those EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) progress meetings I used to have in my office every Friday morning between 10:00 and 11:00. These meetings became known within the organisation as the roompoffertjie (cream puff or cream pie) meetings, but let me explain.

Every Friday morning on my way to work I would stop off to get a box of roompoffertjies which were interspersed with a couple of doughnuts. Just before meeting time tannie (auntie) Rita would prepare two pots of filter coffee after which my favourite meeting would commence. But this only after coffee and roompoffertjies had been had, accompanied by a healthy helping of general banter, jokes and chatter about nothing and everything. It was only after this that the serious stuff would start. Man, how I miss those meetings!

Now you may ask why rugby was the trigger for this reminiscing. Well, let me explain. Johan, who is an avid rugby supporter, like most of us but just more so, cannot go without his rugby, he just cannot. On days when an SA team was playing in either Australia or New Zealand, the game would invariably take place during our roompoffertjie meeting. Johan would stream the rugby, sans sound of course, and place it in such a way that I could keep an eye on the game as well while chairing the meeting. Man, this brings back some really cool memories.

Adri gave me some admin work that kept me busy most of the day. Sorting out rates and taxes for online viewing on a property is not for the faint hearted, it takes grit and perseverance dealing with online officialdom, but I did make some progress. I found the Ekurhuleni system rather user friendly, something felt familiar… and then I saw a name on the web site that I recognised, Interfile, the same company that assisted SARS with their efiling system, people that I worked with closely from time to time.

It was past 18:00 that we took a walk to centre town for supper. I was hoping for a pizza, Adri was just hoping. For the first time it was misty outside, it seemed to cling to everything and I experienced a strange heightened smell of scent. The food smells emanating from private and professional kitchens were like amazing, but on the other side of that same coin were also at times the unpleasant reeks of dog wee and dog truffles. It felt surreal, I was getting worried about by newly acquired heightened senses until I voiced my concern, Adri was experiencing the same thing. Could it have had something to do with the low lying mist? If not, we’re in serious trouble here!

The pizza joint our landlady suggested had either closed, relocated or never existed, but it was nowhere to be found. We walked down and around and came to a little Turkish type restaurant which also had pizza on their menu. By now we were ravishing, the other pizza places we know of were much further up the road; we would never make it. Adri ordered the anchovy; I ordered the chorizo with ham and mushrooms. The pizzas were not the best; they were okay and fit for purpose.

By the time we had finished supper the mist had lifted and my sense of smell returned to normal, so did Adri’s. Could the mist really have been to blame?

Back home we watched the latest two episodes of Better Call Saul. If you’re not familiar with it, this series is a spinoff from Breaking Bad and takes one back to how Saul, aka Jimmy McGill got started in life and how he meets up with some of the characters from Breaking Bad. The series is now in its third season and currently a new episode is released every week. Jimmy, or Saul, is such a douche bag, but one simply cannot resist liking the guy.

Saturday morning there were few clouds in the sky and with a comfortable 19°C in the air we ambled along to Gare de Sète for the bus to Pèzenas 40km away, our target for exploration today. At the train station there are a number of bus stops so we scrambled to get to the right one, ours was actually situated outside the complex.  Bus 320 arrived 20 minutes late but just as well else we might have missed the old chap due to our prolonged search.

On the way to the bus stop we saw a procession of vintage cars pass us, quite cool. Further up we passed through a street car market of new cars which was in full swing, and it would still be swinging when we swung back through it in the afternoon. Renault, Mercedes, Toyota, Citroen and then some, all the latest models were on display on either side of the road which was cordoned off for traffic. We were not sure whether this was a monthly or otherwise thing.

The one car manufacturer that grabbed our attention was the Tesla electric cars. I’ve seen and read about these aplenty but this was the first time I came into personal contact with one. On display were a deep ocean blue Model X and S, truly pieces of art. Of course their Model 3 was not on display, production thereof only starts mid 2017.

 

We disembarked in Mèze and transferred onto bus 103 which passes through our destination of Pèzenas on its way to Beziers. On our journey we passed through lovely towns such as Bouzigues, Loupian, Mèze, Montagnac, all finely dressed for this beautiful day. The space between these towns is rather splendidly dotted with pastures and vineyards, all green and handsome. I was just easing into an appreciative mood when we arrived in Pèzènas, I had hoped the journey would last longer.

As we walked across the road from the main bus station at Gare Routiere Pèzenas we were met by an array of restaurants with plentiful seating under the protection of huge old trees. It was lunchtime and the various restaurants were packed to almost capacity.

 

 

 

I was thirsty for beer, Adri was thirsty for water, she settled for an espresso which came with water on the side, at Brasserie de Moliere. We got connected to their wifi and between surfing and people watching almost an hour passed before we re-realised that we did not have much time.

The bus connections to and from Sète is such that we could spend a maximum of four hours in Pèzenas, or else we would have to spend the night. Saturday is market day in Pèzenas so we strolled among the multitude of stalls along the main little streets in the old town. The stalls here contain a much higher quality of goods than back in Sète, something we immediately recognised; there were some beautiful clothing and such on display.

Once we passed through the market area we walked among the narrow little streets and found the ancient buildings and cobble stoned streets beautifully kept and manicured. One immediately feels a connection to Pèzenas, a strange sense of belonging quickly enfolds you, it bewitches, weaving its magic into your mind, soul and senses without any effort. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was the espresso, but before too long Adri proclaimed “I want to live here”.

 

 

We ended up at the wonderful Saint Jean Church, beautiful and intricate in its interior design. The gorgeous organ pipes high above started playing wonderful tunes as we strolled along adding to the already ample ambience. We assumed the organist was practicing pieces for the performance of the boys’ choir that was scheduled for 20:30 that evening, we would have loved to have stayed and experienced that.

As we exited the church a cacophony of sounds greeted us, it was the Le Poulain (the colt) of Pèzenas. Apparently many of the towns and villages in the surrounding area have a “totem animal” and in the case of Pèzenas, it is a huge hobby horse, manned by nine men inside it, one man leading it and a band of drums and flutes following it.

Legend has it that in 1226 Louis VIII visited Pèzenas when his favourite mare fell ill. He had to leave her behind but when he returned she was fully recovered and had also given birth to a beautiful colt. The king was of course overjoyed and decreed that the town construct a wooden colt to be used to celebrate all its public festivities; and this was what we now witnessed.

Our four hours was almost up but of course, I was thirsty, again. We went back to Brasserie de Moliere for some sustenance before boarding our colt back home. I ordered another Pelforth bière pression, Adri wanted one as well, and I rubbed my hands in glee. By now I know that when I reach a third of my beer, Adri would be on two thirds, and she would subtly swap our glasses around with me getting an automatic top-up of sorts. Today would be no exception.

The way back to Sète was mostly uneventful barring the near mishap with the bus stops, no error on our part though. In Mèze where we had to change from bus 104 to 320, the bus stop marked 320 is not where the bus stops, it stops at 104, just further up on the other side of the road. Confusing, yes I know. Fortunately, as the bus drove past he made eye contact and motioned us along to where we shouldn’t be, but had to be.

 

We had about 40 minutes of dead time between the two busses so we took a walk down to the port of Mèze. We only had time to stroll up and down along the port, which is similar to Marseillan, just larger and may I say even nicer. We should definitely go back there sometime.

 

The bus ride home was pleasant and reaching the bus stop at Gare Sète everybody was encouraged, read ordered, to disembark even though the last station is Quai Pasteur, closer to home. Methinks this bus driver was in a hurry to watch a soccer match on TV with his friends, judging by the soccer match blaring over his portable radio in the cockpit.

We got home thoroughly tired, had a Toulouse sausage hot dog type roll for supper with chips and retired for the evening, watching the last three episodes of The Driver. The series of four episodes was not bad, not great, but definitely watchable.

A lovely Sunday morning arrived with coffee in bed but no sooner had I had mine and Adri was once again fast asleep. I decided not to wake her up with a second so had mine out on the tiniest of balconies, that one with the distant sliver of a sea view. I sat outside blogging with laptop perched on my lap, a trusty strong brew lying at my feet, life was good!

Down the lane a huge dog was barking, it must have been huge by the sound of his voice. Be as it may, I could not determine its presence when eventually my eyes picked up some motion down the lane at a second level apartment where he was peering out from his balcony, greeting people with his Sunday morning cheer. I then noticed that it was a perfectly politically correct dog, his various body parts were covered in equal patches of white and black fur.

The lady across the way greeted me with a hearty bonjour monsieur as she swept the dust out her front door. A short while later I received a hearty bonjour from her husband as he peered out from their balcony on the second floor. People came past down below excitedly chatting about this and that, not sure what this and that was all about though.

A 4X4 truck came past and from my elevated position I could see a map of Sète on the lady’s lap, it screamed “tourist!” Not in a bad way of course. More tourists walked past and one can easily identify them by the rucksacks on their backs, locals have no need for that. And this is why only in impossibly extreme cases, which is normally when beer is involved, that Adri and I ever take a rucksack on our walks. We’re not tourists!

While sitting outside watching other people’s lives go by my mind once again touched on the issue of renting a car. One seems to get the best deal on longer term or monthly rentals from Hertz as was suggested by Philippe a while back. We’re now thinking of renting a car for our last two weeks in Sète going into the first two weeks of our time in Marseille. Dropping the car off at a different location comes at a cost of roughly €70, but that would be offset by the cost of driving back to Sete and the subsequent train ride back to Marseille, so all good.

A three wheeled motorbike came past, two wheels in the front, one at the back, a model that is rather popular here in France. Didier has one just like that, a 400cc, and the reason it is so popular according to Didier is that you do not need a license for these three wheelers. It has something to do with a legislation loophole that is being exploited, bizarre, but true and quite cool.

Adri awoke an hour or so later and received her second cup of coffee in bed, and also a croissant with Comte cheese and Mortadella, delicious! I know it was; I had one as well with my third cup of coffee out on my perilously diminutive patio.

I opened a new pack of coffee this morning and oh la la (oh dear), it is not terribly good. How I miss the Douwe Eggbert we used to get in Thailand or the Italian blend from House Of Coffees in SA. And that reminded me, next time we’ll be sure to try a pack of the San Marco coffee at Monoprox  which states on its packing Il vero gusto Italiano (The true taste of Italy)… Hmm, we’ll see about that.

Then I saw a lady standing in the street opposite our building, just biding her time…. staring up the street to nothing in particular. At first I found it strange but then realized that she had found a parking spot and was keeping it for hubby who was obviously on his way there to stake his claim, and gold it is. Parking is a scarce commodity around here and that is certainly something to consider either buying or renting a car. Be as it may, my suspicions were proven correct when seven minutes later hubby pulled up in a huff… it was a Renault actually.

We started watching a series called The Americans which IMDb describes as “Two Soviet intelligence agents pose as a married couple to spy on the American government.” We finished the first three episodes and thus far it seems pretty good. Must be good, else we would not have made it to the third episode!

It was Monday and I was once again alive… finally. After the cold spell of last week and the lovely sunny weather this past weekend, summer finally arrived today, in all its 25°C glory!

Having my coffee out on the patio with that warm summer’s sun on my face, man, I felt like a million dollars… just wished that dollar part was real.

Today was Marc’s birthday, maybe he wished this weather for us, maybe not, but either way, we decided to have a drink to celebrate it any case, his birthday I mean.

After dawdling with admin, completing and signing document and generally slacking all day, it was around 17:00 that we strolled down to our local pub/restaurant just a short way away. We settled in at Au Bout d’la Rue and ordered beer. With fear in my heart I asked for wifi but I need not have worried; they had excellent wifi. This place should have been our local go to pub a long time ago. The first and the second beer were as good as their wifi and we spent a lovely late afternoon with Marc on our minds.

Tonight we booked an apartment through Airbnb for mid June in Marseille. The owner has 24 hours to accept or reject the request, so we were now playing the waiting game and getting rather anxious. Europe is ever so slowly morphing into high season mode so we probably left this booking too late; there are not too many places available anymore, but we’ll see.

Tuesday morning we started working on a backup plan should the booking of last night not be accepted. For the first time we also started looking at properties listed on the HomeAway app, a similar concept to Airbnb. It’s pretty good but I must admit to like Airbnb’s interface just a tad better.

And just as well we opted for a backup plan, it was around 11:00 that we received a response that the Airbnb apartment was no longer available, someone must have gotten in just before us. Drat! We then booked the apartment we identified through HomeAway and it was an hour later when the booking was accepted… Great, soon we’ll be off to Marseille!

I received an email from Ashley wanting to know if I was aware that Travelpod was closing its doors and that one had until 19 June to back up and remove oneself from their system. If you are not aware, I used to do all my blogging on their platform before creating www.travelandall.com using WordPress. Wow, didn’t see that one coming, and there were still a host of posts that I have not yet migrated. I needed to get my arse into gear… a high gear that is.

Fortunately Travelpod is not leaving one totally in the lurch, it has created a procedure whereby you can create an archive of your blog and import it into a WordPress site. Reading up on this process it seems like it’s rather straightforward, but having spent my life in IT I knew it would not be, it never is… but we’ll see.

Adri wanted to do some exercise, she wanted to go for a walk, a long walk, and I by now I know that these long walks are undertaken under false pretences. And today would be no different. We walked to the northern side of Sète, where we have not been before, ended up back on the main road and that’s when I learned that the Auchan Supermarket was just a short way down that very same road.

I must admit that I was rather impressed with the supermarket which is similar in size to the large Carrefour in the area. We had a few kilometres to walk back home so we had to carefully pick the weight of our soon to be belonging. One of our main finds was an amazing tiramisu but, the cherry on the top of that cake was, a punnet of chillies. Since we left Thailand Adri and I have been craving chillies which are rather hard to come by in France, seems like the French do not like spicy spicy.

Now here’s the rub. We paid €2.90 for 50gr of the stuff which translates to €58/kg. In Thailand, a kilogram of chillies would cost you around €2.90, the price we paid for 50gm. Ludicrous, but of course we just had to have it! As Sakkie always used to say, no matter what the cost of beer is, it is still a bargain. And these chillies were still a bargain.

Tonight our boere (farmer’s) curry mince was spiced up with our chillies that were worth its weight almost in gold. And man, was it worth it, every single ounce of it.

Wednesday being market day in Sète we tried to find a reason to go there, we tried really hard, but we already had everything we needed. The only thing we really needed was yoga so we did that instead. And of course, there was that not so small task that needed to be initiated, that of migrating the old blogs from Travelpod to www.travelandall.com.

After a hearty cold breakfast of croissant, Mortadella cold meat and cheeses, I reluctantly started with the migration process. First one has to log into the Travelpod blog and request an archive to be created. This archive ostensibly contains the blog and all its entries and supposedly contains all the HTML and XML files one would need for the migration. This I initiated with a click of the big green button and an hour or so later the process was complete.

I clicked on the link provided on the confirmation email and downloaded the archive to my laptop. Each trip on Travelpod, of which there are three, is contained in separate folders within the one archive, and contains all the relevant posts for that trip. One major flaw in this process is that the images are not stored with each post but are rather contained all together in a separate folder. This means that each set of images would have to be reinserted into each post after it is migrated. Ouch!

After doing a backup of the current site I tentatively selected the import function within WordPress, selected the archive of the first trip (Spain/Portugal), closed my eyes and… Within a few seconds all 15 posts were imported and published within travelandll.com. This was great but there was some editing to be done.

Each post is imported with a banner that needs to be removed, also the text is contained within one paragraph so one has to go through each post and reinsert paragraphs. Furthermore, one has to reassign the post from uncategorised to the correct category and also include the relevant tags. And then the big job starts, naming, selecting and inserting the relevant images for each post.

I contacted Travelpod and they confirmed that the paragraph and image issues were indeed unsolvable issues that I would have to live with… sorry. They actually said sorry. This was going to be a tedious job, but somebody’s got to do it… Adriiiiiiii!

You may recall that I had a run-in with Diners Club while still in Thailand, they refused to send my replacement card overseas… they just don’t do it! Anyway, I tried again today but it got even worse, today I was told that if I am out of the country for longer than six months I have to cancel my account! Wow! Anyways, I was assured that the manager will give me a call to discuss my grievance.

I then once again tried my luck with MTN to get my deactivated sim reconnected. I will spare you the gory details, for now, but I was assured by the helpdesk supervisor it was not possible but he would follow up and provide feedback within 24 hours.

This afternoon we bumped into Renate, almost literally, she was on her way up to her apartment, we were on our way down to go for a walk. She had obviously been for drinks with her buddies; there was a thick alcohol waft in the air as she introduced herself. Renate is from Germany where she worked as a translator and on retirement she moved to Sète 22 years ago. We had a spirited discussion and as we said out goodbyes she invited us to her place tomorrow evening… for drinks of course.

We had a gentle walk along the coast and just past the Théâtre de la Mer (theatre by the sea) – which stages open air shows in the summer with the sea in the background – we took a seat on a cement bench where Adri produced the goods, a Heineken and cacahuètes (peanuts). And of course the sea view in front of us was also impeccable.

 

 

Supper tonight was more remarkable than normal. We have somehow not had steak in a while but yesterday we bought a few pieces of rump. We each had one of those surrounded by an armada of chips, the steak was immaculately done, mine medium and Adri’s medium-rare. I can’t wait to tackle the rest of that cow.

We watched a couple of episodes of The Americans and that’s when I felt the urge for chocolate breeze through my veins. There was an untouched slab of Suchard chocolate that contains tiny chips of Oreo cookies, man, this stuff is… or shall I say, was amazing!

I read today that Trump, at some gathering, mentioned that “No politician in history has ever been treated worse” and he’s probably right, but what he failed to mention was that no politician had ever been worse…

Be as it may, the last week had been worse than normal for toddler Trump. For a rundown of his daily mishaps, please watch A Closer Look with Seth Meyers below. It has gotten to a point where some publications are starting to use the “I” word… Yes, impeachment, and of course that cannot be too farfetched when one looks s at all that transpired over the last week.

Because the bedroom as well as the lounge’s doors were closed this Thursday morning I had to call my coffee order in by phone, Adri did not hear my helpless yells for assistance through the thick brick walls.

It was mid afternoon when we took a walk to Monoprix for a few items, you know the drill by now; I had a heavy burden to carry home.

It was just after 18:00 that we crept upstairs to Renate’s place. Her apartment is on two levels, the bottom contains a bed and bathroom and the next level up is the living area and kitchen. But what makes this old apartment unique is the large terrace which you step out onto where an amazing view of the port, marina and the ocean greets you, rather enticing.

The bottle of red wine we brought along went untouched; she favours her red wine that she buys from a local winemaker in a 5lt plastic container, which of course she pours out into a glass flask. I took a sip, and then another from Adri’s glass, this stuff was divine, much better than most. And it is a steal at €2.10 a litre; we will surely accompany her on her next wine run, which I don’t think is far off.

Renate is, or shall I say was, a very healthy person. Two years ago though she was bitten by a deer (and that’s deer, not dear) tick in town and contracted Lyme disease. The symptoms of this disease include fever, tiredness, joint pains, severe headaches, neck stiffness, heart palpitations, and so on. There does not seem to be any specific cure for this affliction although she does take antibiotics, but still today and especially at night, she still gets severe burning sensations down her legs and arms. Poor dear (and that’s dear, not deer).

Renate loves to talk and she shared many wonderful and interesting segments of her life with us; it was a pleasure to be in her company. She was born in Germany in 1939 and once she finished school and university she lived in Birmingham for a while. From there she went back to Germany and then it was on to Monaco where she worked as an au pair over the next six years for two very wealthy families. From there she moved to Italy… but a number of hours had slid by so suddenly, it was time to go home, so Italy and the rest of her story will be continued during our next visit.

When we got home there was good news waiting for us in my inbox. Earlier today we had identified and booked accommodation in Lyon through Airbnb and we had now received a booking confirmation. We’re really looking forward to our trip to Lyon mid July as it is there that we will meet up with Estie and Dries mid August. Can’t wait!

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