Friday, 21 April 2017 to Thursday, 27 April 2017
Today we came a cropper….There’s a little place called Marseillan, about 15km from Séte, which seems really lovely so we were going to take ourselves there today, even maybe stay for supper. But carefully laid out plans do not always materialise, as we would find out, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

After a run of the mill start to the day we did a yoga session with a difference. The Ipad app that we use for our yoga sessions – Yoga Studio – is really great and has a facility whereby you can create your own custom designed sessions. This is accomplished by mixing and matching different poses from their supplied library as you feel fit, no pun intended. It also allows you to copy an existing session and modify it to your liking. We quite enjoy the session called Strength, mainly because that is what we need, but the 30 minutes were getting a bit old and haggard, we needed to do a bit more. I copied the said session and modified the timing of each of the poses I deemed necessary, which took the total time up to about 40 minutes, a work in progress.

This morning we were ready to try out this work in progress. We took our positions, the session was started but things went eerily quiet. The lass doing the session, is normally rather verbose with instructions while she goes through her motions, but today she was zipped up. I was hoping she was not ill. It turns out that when you modify the timings of a session, she only mentions the pose’s name at the beginning of each and no further instructions are provided. Anyway, this turned out to be quite cool for a change, sometimes she gets too chatty.

After yoga we had a hefty breakfast and then we needed to rush, we had a bus to board to Marseillan. Today we found another little staircase/passageway that leads down to the canal area. And by the way, as it is rather overgrown I suspect not many people know about this one. We arrived at the bus stop at 13:25, just in time.

Bus line 915 was scheduled to arrive at Les Pénitents bus stop at 13:30, but the bus did not come. We waited and waited, other busses came and went, but 915 did not come. It was around 13:50 that we realized this was an exercise in futility and took a walk to Monoprix to cheer us up. Maybe the bus broke down or something, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.

What made the missed bus blues disappear was the rum and raisin ice cream we carted home. The stuff we’re used to is a rather bland affair but this one, oh this one was different. One could actually taste the rum in the ice cream and those rum drenched raisins exploded with rum as each was punctured. And would you believe, this was Monoprix’s own brand ice cream nogal (mind you).

The bus was a bother in my brain; normally the busses are spot on time. I once again looked through the paper timetable and the times were correct, 13:30 six days of the week, Lundi (Monday) to Samedi (Saturday) and today was Vendredi (Friday), so all should be okay. It’s only then that I noticed a section that contains office hours, a telephone number and some dates. Long story short, it seems that this particular bus line, during the off season, runs only on request at the stipulated times.

But is this even possible that one can order a bus for a specific trip, just for oneself? It seemed to suggest that as from 2 May 2017 this rather irregular arrangement will be replaced with a regular bus line 9 and 15. But please, this is all just wild speculation; please don’t take my word for it! Anyways, maybe we’ll postpone this excursion to after 2 May or… maybe we should test my theory!

We were scheduled to go out for supper tonight but Adri proclaimed it was too cold at around 12°C. It’s not that it was that cold in itself, but rather that cold wind that kept up appearances.  But, supper was better than going out; we had boerewors rolls, well, pork boerewors rolls. The Toulouse sausage that looks much like boerewors was inserted into a fresh baguette that already contained thick slabs of butter, a mean helping of mustard, squirts of ketchup and fresh slices of tomato. The spine of the baguette was fitted out with a fine line of gherkins, and of course there were frites on the side as well. Man, this went down so well with that Stella Artois.

Saturday and it was rugby day again, and it was too cool to go out in any case. I watched the first game of the day snugly snuggled up in bed with a hot cup of coffee in hand. The Stormers received a spanking from the Crusaders with an eye watering score line of 57-24, it wasn’t pretty to watch. The rest of the day was much better for the SA teams.

Throughout the day, with one eye on the rugby, the other on the Ipad, we continued searching for our future accommodation. We will be in Séte until mid June so it was time to let the imagination run wild and come up with some ideas. And as ideas crystallise, one invariably checks availability of suitable accommodations via Airbnb, Booking.com and the like in such crystallised areas.

We have given much thought to moving further up along the French coast to the Marseille area, about 200km from where we currently live. Searching the surrounding areas there did not leave much to be desired at first glance. There was one apartment though in the city centre that was available and looked pretty good but, alas, Adri read reports of crime in Marseille. To put that into perspective though, the crime index in Marseille is 60.53, in Johannesburg it is 77.89, a city that we called home for most of our lives without harm coming to us. But, I guess one can never be too careful, we’ll keep on searching the surrounding areas.

The main tourist type crime in Marseille is apparently pick pocketing in the city centre, mostly around the port area. The violent crimes happen in the slums in the northern part of the city where drug lords occupy many buildings, where apparently even police dare not go into. Now I am sure one such apartment will not be advertised on Airbnb, would it? Anyways, to calm Adri’s nerves we might just try and get an apartment outside of Marseille and rather commute into the city on days that we feel luck is on our side. Or try a totally different area maybe?

I then found a lovely apartment on the French Riviera close to Saint Raphael nogal (mind you). I phoned the landlady Patricia – a sweet old thing – in the UK to find out regarding availability. Unfortunately the place is only available for rental for a fixed nine month period as they are not there to do changeovers… What a pity!

It was Sunday, 23 April, and it was voting day in France with 11 candidates on the ballet. Only four realistically stand a chance of advancing to the second round of voting, which are Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, François Fillon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. France has a two-tier voting process. In the first round, which was today, you get to vote for your favourite, as if there is such a thing as a favourite politician. The two candidates that draw the most votes today will face off against each other in the second round of voting scheduled for Sunday, 7 May. So we’ll keep an eye on how things progress today.

A week or so ago we were scheduled to go to Carcassonne – a town 130km west of Séte – but things did not work out accordingly, and today it seemed to be no exception, but I’m running ahead of myself, again…

We wanted to get an early start which we did, no problem there, and by 09:00 we were at the station. But of course, it was Sunday and the ticket office at the station was not yet open. Of course, I forgot, France is closed on a Sunday. So we had only one option, use those damned ticket machines which look archaic and thus scary as shit… no touch screens. There is a knob one has to turn to choose an option and then you have to push down on that knob to make a selection. Actually, once you get the hang of the knob the system actually works pretty well. I guess this type of system is preferred as it looks very robust and vandal safe.

When I finally got the hang of my knob and pushed it in I managed to select English and things became decidedly less complicated. I selected our destination, selected a return ticket, selected the 50% discount option as per our Carta via Liberté and voila, it requested payment. I pulled out my credit card, entered the pin and soon enough the screen smiled back at me with a Code Bon (Code good). The tickets were spat out with my credit card in tow, all was good, or so we thought…

The train arrived at 09:10 and as we were about to board, the train manager disembarked so we thought it good to check our tickets with her. Bad news, on this specific train we could not use these tickets; one has to have a specific seat booked. Uh oh… I thought as the train disappeared in the distance.

Now at least the information desk was open and this is where I am sad to say, I met my very first French arsehole. I presented our tickets to the guy and he fired French at me. I probably looked shell-shocked because he asked me whether I speak French. I replied in French with a “Non” which I think should have scored me some points. I did not have time to pull out my French phrase of sorry, I do not speak French… you know the one. He was rather unimpressed with my “Non” and brusquely retorted “Well, you are in France now, you should speak French!” Yea, I know arsehole, but I would not expect you to speak Afrikaans when you visit SA. And even if you could not speak English at all, I would still do my utmost to assist.

His college next to him, an absolutely perfect gentleman, like all other French people we have met thus far, saw that this standoff was not going to end well. He grabbed the tickets out of the arsehole’s hand and assisted us, in near perfect English and with a genuine smile, with real concern for our wellbeing.

He explained that there are three types of trains operated by SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais), the national rail operator. The first is the TGV (Train á Grande Vitesse) which is the intercity high-speed train. Second is the Intercités which are medium distance trains that operate on routes not covered by the TGV. And lastly there is the TER (Transport Express Régional) which deals with urban and regional routes in the region. Our ticket was for TER, the train we had wanted to board was in Intercités.

The kind gentleman suggested that we wait for the next Intercités train at 10:15. When the train’s manager disembarks we should smile very broadly and beg him to let on the train. ”Maybe you’re lucky, maybe you’re not” he suggested and continued “Maybe you’ll have to pay an extra €9 per ticket, maybe not”. It seemed like it definitely had something to do with how wide your smile is and what sort of a day the manager was having.

So when the Intercités train arrived at 10:15 we spoke to the manager but he did not fall for the big smile, the train was pretty full and he did not want to play any part in our problem. It might sound brutal but he was actually very nice about it. As he turned around and stepped back onto his train, he had second thoughts, turned to us and invited us onboard, if of course we were prepared to pay the difference in price… but the train was already in motion and the doors were closing… the train disappeared in the distance.

Frustrated? Hell yea! Back with our friendly by now personal information officer we looked more destitute than ever… He now suggested that we wait for the next train at 11:10 which just happened to be a TER, hallelujah! But there was just one more catch… no seriously… it’s not a direct train, we had to change trains in Narbonne.

After all this palaver we needed something strong, like an espresso. We got comfortable with such at the restaurant connected to the station, me inside and Adri outside in the sun… I needed to charge my phone; Adri needed to charge her batteries.

You know this thing they say about “third time lucky”, well there might just be something to it. This third time around we successfully boarded the train and 30 minutes later we were in Narbonne. On the way there we suddenly heard a sickening metal upon metal scraping noise underneath the carriages of the train. It sounded like someone’s knight in shining armour just got run over and landed underneath the train. Have no idea what it was and don’t care to know.

We had 40 minutes to kill before our train to Carcassonne so we took a walk around some Narbonne streets and it seems like a lovely and calm city, the minuscule part that did see.

As we exited the station I thought I saw a coiffure (hairdresser) called Reddy’s, and my thoughts immediately turned to Indressan, the keeper of my car in SA, but in turned out to be Heddy’s hairdressers. And thanks again Indressan for keeping my car safe!

 

 

Arriving in Carcassonne, which is famous for its medieval citadel called Cité de Carcassonne, we naturally ambled along in that general direction. As one exits the train station you immediately cross the Canal du Midi, on its way from Toulouse, through Beziers, and down to the Mediterranean.

On the way to the citadel we passed through lovely streets and squares and gardens, this town is really something special. While in awe of our surroundings, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my right knee. It could not be a snapped patella tendon, I’ve had two of those, so I knew what that felt like.

As I continued walking the pain got worse to the extent that I had misgivings about  continuing on this journey. I in any case decided to continue through the pain barrier and by the time we reached the citadel the pain was bearable. I must have twisted or pinched something or other but as the day progressed it just got better to the eventual point of no pain. Whew, thanks for that!

We came upon the Aude River where we got our first good glimpse of the Cité de Carcassonne in the distance, a truly majestic and impressive sight.

As one crosses the river you walk along a narrow little street with many lovely little restaurants where people were heartily hacking away at their lunch, remember, it was now somewhere between 12:00 and 14:00, France’s feeding time.

As we walked along the outside walls of the fortified city we were left in awe of the beauty and enormousness of these impenetrable walls. We reached the entrance and wow! Inside the fortified city there are pedestrian walkways all around, dotted with restaurants, bars, curio shops, clothes shops and more.

 

 

We arrived at the palace within the citadel’s walls, paid our €9 per person entrance fee and took a walk through the museum and inner area of the palace. From there we went back to the courtyard where we picked up the entrance to the outer walls which one can walk along and marvel at the amazing views over Carcassonne and surrounds to the still snow-capped Pyrenees mountains in the distance.

 

From there we went to the cathedral which was rather stunning with beautiful and intricate stained glass windows running up to its ceiling. But my throat by now thought that I had a grudge for not lubricating it and it was about the same time that Adri reminded me to have a beer, so we started searching.

 

 

Now you know how peeved I get when there is no wifi in a pub/restaurant. Well, today when I saw a pub that proclaimed “No wifi” I sat down and had my beer right there. I liked the honesty, I always like honesty, and that needed to be rewarded. And so it was that I was rewarded with an icy cold Leffe Blonde, as ordered by my doctor.

But now it seemed that Adri needed that doctor. When she refused to order a drink I jokingly asked whether she was sick. She replied in the affirmative, she had a bit of an allergic reaction to the environment or something, but she was in fact feeling a bit flu-ish…. ouch!

Adri was keen to rest for a while so we walked to an area where we saw a large grassy area to lay our weary bodies upon. But lo and behold, right there we found the entrance to the area between the two walls of the citadel, so we ambled along there, flu now forgotten, or rather, put on hold.

As we re-entered the castle we found a lovely little square with a few park benches, one happened to be available. We flopped down, sore feet and all. To our right there were moms with their kids doing some kind of target practice, mom holding the target in hand which the various kids would try and hit with a mini bow and arrow.

To our left was a family, at first I thought it was a Sunday school class outing but then realized it was one family… mom and dad and a six-pack of kids, just like Mikey. The kids were young, ranging in age between 6 and 12, at a guess. The parents were also young, probable early 30s or so. Everyone was decently dressed and perfectly behaved, a lovely sight. It was when they started their picnic that my heart went out to them; I felt a pang of sadness rush through me. They are obviously not well heeled and had to carefully manage their meagre picnic fare.

Dad was in charge and carefully managed proceedings. There was one packet of cookies that was carefully opened by dad at the one end. Each kid received a cookie which they carefully nibbled on to make it last longer. Mom and dad also received one each. When all were done dad gave each another cookie with the same process being followed. Then out came plastic cups and each kid fetched it from dad as he read out the names from the bottom of each cup. Each received half a cup of water from the 1.5 litre bottle they had. After this, each kid received a sachet of juice which they savoured on for a long while. After the picnic was completed the family packed up and left, the kids happily tagging along with mom and dad. I was wondering, had I offered to buy the kids an ice cream or something, would the parents have been affronted?

We wanted to have supper in Carcassonne but it was now getting late, it was 18:15, our train was at 19:25, so we could only afford to get a quick takeaway before our train would pick us up. On the way back to the train station we ordered a Chicken Chika, whatever that was, from a Turkish takeaway joint. It ended up being small blocks of spicy/curried chicken with some salad on a toasted roll and accompanied by a small punnet of frites. It was 19:00 when we made ourselves comfortable on a park bench opposite the train station and started munching, and man, was that munch good.

 

 

At 19:10 we were halfway through, we packed up, there was no way I was going to miss this last train. We rushed off, found our platform and a bench and continued supper. As I took my last bite the train was fast approaching. When I swallowed that last bite the train stopped in front of me. Sheesh, that was close!

We slept like logs and the first flutter of consciousness on Monday morning was presented by Adri just after 09:00 when she got up to make coffee. She was still not feeling well, runny nose, slightly sore throat… you know the tune. She took an Ibuprofen 400 which seemed to calm the symptoms down somewhat.

The news this morning revealed that the first round of the French elections saw Emmanuel Macron end first with 24.01% of the vote, Marine Le Pen second with 21.30% followed by François Fillon with 19.94% and Jean-Luc Mélenchon with 19.62%. The rest of the field lagged far behind. This means that Macron and Le Pen will face of in the second round of voting scheduled for Sunday, 7 May 2017.

It was around 11:30 that we moseyed on down to the dick, I mean dock, to meet Didier in front of la criée (the fish market) for drinks and lunch. And what a happy reunion it was, it was so great to see Didier once again, looking great and doing great, we’ve missed the “old man” since we saw him last on Koh Samui in January.

We sat ourselves down at a restaurant overlooking the marina and after ordering drinks found out that they don’t serve food. Now normally I would not take issue with such minor details but we were all getting rather hungry. After a beer we ambled further down past the la criée and came upon a lovely little restaurant right next to the canal.

Adri and I had the fish of the day, Dorado with a salmon mousse sauce, or something to that effect, and that effect was delicious. Didier was not feeling fishy and attacked a very rare rump steak with a vengeance. It was so good to see Didier again and apart from catching up on the latest news he gave us invaluable information about France and its people, and threw in a few free French lessons as well! It was after 16:00 when we said our goodbyes, we’ll see Didier, if not before, at least on 4 May when we’ll be in Montpellier for our OFII appointment.

Didier suggested that we could use his car when he’s not, he mostly uses his motorbike, and we really do appreciate his offer but, as a matter of course, I am nervous using other people’s things, especially vehicles. But of course we’ll keep the offer in mind. We’re still mulling over whether to buy and old car or to rent one as and when required, obviously it depends on how long we will be in here…

By the way, the restaurant we had lunch at was called La Mauvaise Réputation (The bad reputation) which I would agree does not sound very appealing, until Didier explained where the name comes from. It is the title of a song written and performed by Georges Brassens, a very famous and well loved French singer who was born here in Séte. Georges described himself as an anarchist and he was rather anti-establishment and generally a bit of a rebel. This song La Mauvaise Reputation is described as a semi-autobiographical tune

with lyrics such as: “Mais les braves gens n’aiment pas que l’on suive une autre route qu’eux” (But the good folks don’t like it if you take a different road than they do.)

Another song of his that caught my attention was Supplique pour être enterré à la plage de Sète (Petition to be buried at the beach of Sète) describes in a colourful and poetic way, his wish to be buried on a particular sandy beach in his hometown’s “Plage de la Corniche“, which is where Adri and I spent some time a few weeks back. Below is a verse from that song translated by Google.

Right by the sea just a step away from the blue waters
Dig a small fluffy hole if possible
A good little niche
With my childhood friends, the dolphins
Along this strike where the sand is so fine
On the beach of the Corniche

Anyways, he ended up being buried in Cimetière le Py in Séte and I wonder why they never gave him his wish, although he did mention in an interview “I tell you that I don’t care to be buried at the beach of Séte, completely don’t care. I did this for fun”.

On the way home we stopped off at a pharmacy and bought Adri tablets for her flu-ishness or allergy and an anti-allergy nose spray. That first tablet knocked her out of the park and it was mid evening before she woke up and we had a cold supper of fresh baguette, cheeses, olives, gherkin and a green salad. Adri was already feeling a bit better.

Tuesday morning I woke up at 07:00 and then at 09:00, and that’s when the coffee fumes entered my universe. Adri had a good sleep and was feeling slightly better, even better than last night.

Clouds had started gathering yesterday, and this morning the sky was filled with the stuff, rain was forecast for the afternoon, it was a golden opportunity to get stuck into blogging.

After a breakfast of fried eggs, Roquefort and brie cheeses, fried onions, bacon and baguette I continued to blog and published just after 13:00. I continued blogging, I still had a few weeks to catch up. I continued into the early evening with a glass of red wine by my side, I so love good company.

The cloud cover remained in place all day and the sun made no attempt to reveal itself… later in the afternoon it started raining softly, there was a chilly chill in the air, we stayed put.

Adri continued to feel a bit off-ish today although the tablets we got from the pharmacy did help her to face the day in a slightly better shape. The packet contains 16 tablets good for four days, one to be taken after breakfast, one after lunch, one after supper and one when you go to bed. Strangely enough, the tablet for bedtime looks different, it seems to be specifically formulated to induce a sound sleep, I guessed.

Wednesday the cloud cover remained in place and the wet street below was evidence that it had rained during the night. It was still cold outside so another day to stay inside and enjoy the warmth of our world in here.

There is a little area in Séte called Pointe Courte which is referred to as a little village within the larger village of Séte, it looks rather pretty. I was hoping to take a stroll there this afternoon but with Adri still not feeling up to a brisk walk or otherwise, we rescheduled for tomorrow, or another day, weather permitting, Adri permitting.

I continued to blog but soon enough I was distracted by a breakfast of scrambled eggs, fried onions, baguette, Roquefort and brie cheeses accompanied by a small green salad, we do need to get greens into our system. There was some leftover rice from last night that Adri added soya sauce to which she had as a side dish, reminiscent of our Thailand days.

Early evening we took a walk to Monoprix, we needed veggies and stuff… It was cold, it was friggin’ cold outside. I had to wear my leather jacket, Adri her thick winter coat, clothing that we had nearly packed away the other day with a note “Not needed for eight months”. It was not only cold, it was downright miserable, the wind was up and the clouds above were swirling, it looked like rain was imminent.

Adri was feeling much better but not exactly 100% yet. The idea was to stock up on veggies but Adri changed the menu mid-aisle when she came upon a rich tomato pasta sauce with green and black olives. That, dumped over gnocchi, would be supper tonight.

We got home and literally 10 minutes later supper was ready with our ready-made gnocchi and pasta sauce. There was still a chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese in the fridge which was sliced up into thin slivers and liberally distributed over the dish. And wow, that sauce, a Monoprix brand, was truly excellent; we are sure to try the other flavours on offer as well.

Thursday morning Adri was feeling 100% as she took her very last tablet, what a relief! I received my first cup of coffee in bed while paging through some uninteresting news so my second cup found me in front of the laptop. The weather was still same same, cloudy and cold, another day to stay indoors. But, truth be told, I was not really complaining, it was a perfect opportunity to catch up on my blogging. It was 7°C outside with a max of 14°C forecast for today. Perfect weather for being forced to be committed to this blogging thing.

I did some serious damage to my grossly overdue blogging and it was early evening that we needed to get out despite the cold weather that raged outside, it was 12°C at the time.

Monoprix was the destination, the prize would be sugar, and we know by now that it would not be the only item in the bag…. And of course I was right, I am always right… yes, no? The manufacturer of the sugar is called Daddy, and that sugar daddy attracted other items that we have not thought about in months. For example, when last have we bought corn flakes… like never? That flew into our basket along with other pasta sauces we wanted to try, fruits and veggies and…

On the way home the weather had deteriorated, it was now much colder than cold, it felt like deep winter. I requested soupe de légumes (vegetable soup) for supper, there was neither question nor frown from Adri; we were on the same page.

And by the way, it’s a fallacy to believe that one cannot drink and enjoy an ice cold beer on an ice cold day, and I proved that once again today. I opened my freezing Stella and its golden goodness streamed down my throat. I continued working, beer by my side, while the soup continued to simmer until it was perfect, and I was called to arms. I armed myself and man, was that soup good, as always.

Home