Tuesday 28 December 2010

On getting on


Wait, what's all this? Monday here and we're back to work.  Or so I woke up thinking. It's quite a nice thing, dreaming about normal things like beautiful women and wide open countryside.  Up until recently dreams have been of bringing a thesis paper to turn in, and finding myself with a ream of blank, white papers, which promptly turn into a handful of maggots as soon as I realize that I'm wearing an unflattering shakespearian codpiece in place of trousers.  
It's pretty nice to not have to worry about writing thesis papers.  In fact, I think I might missphell something just for fun.  That sorta thing's allowed in "blogging" right?  Who cares, I'm in France now and happily re acclimated to the traveller's world of visitings, drinking, noncommittal commitments and vague conversation.  This has been aided by early morning runs up and down hills, through countryside.  Wine.  Rich food.  English people who like being expats.  French people who don't mind French-speaking English expats. And more wine.  
 So what's gone on? Well, the weather's been good by all standards, in the mornings before I run I can see the Pyrenees to the south.  As the sun comes up it hits the snow on them for a short while before hazing them out of sight.  The last few days have been awash in eating, drinking, talking to nice people or trying to string enough cognates together to understand and then cobble together enough Franglais to reply intelligently.  This has had mixed results.  The French don't seem to mind my slaughter of their language, but rather appreciate the effort.  

Thursday 23 December 2010

Yell "Vive le France" pull pin, throw grenade and run

Arrived two days ago in Pau, southwest France.  Pau has the small and efficient airport Anne and I came into before shooting off with Father to the house they share slightly outside the little village of Castillion Debat.  The weather was, and continues to be what I had hoped for in England.  Rain, bit of wind, 50-60'F, wonderful winter weather in my opinion. "Weirdo" you call me?  Sure, snow is pretty and white christmases are supposedly better christmases, even though and it must be said that wee baby Jeesus didn't have one.  Anyway, keep the snow in the mountains where it's useful, the sky grey and the temperature in the region where one appreciates roaring fires, whiskey and heavy sweaters.

So, the house here, called Bel Air confusingly just like another one down the road, has all the exposed wooden beams, stone work and wrought iron fittings that belong quite happily in a cozy little country house.  The exterior is charmingly disheveled, and the interior is roguishly crooked, all of which reminds one that the house has been here long enough for the ground to have moved beneath it, and has been lovingly restored, maintained and expanded by Anne and Andy.
The main hallway leads into a rough finished work zone, a labyrinth of barny attached buildings, and a attack bat guarded wine cellar   The place used to have a forge, make wine, insult English, fight Germans, Romans and Visigoths before making love long into the night.  Well, that's what it would tell you anyway, if it could.  There are old farming implements and machinery, the most notable of which is an old steam driven hammer, used to pound hot metal into useful things.

The house is perched, as with the village, at the top of one of the higher points in the surrounding area, looking down at surrounding hills, valleys, fields and woods.  In the evening, low lying fog creeps up towards the house from the valleys, shrouding the landscape in a attractively eerie, think mist.

Christmas and New years parties are being held here and preparations are being make for nice things to  eat and drink.
I've been running around the countryside in the mornings for excersise. Jet lag is fading, but I'm still waking up at weird times of night.
Initially, the only French I was able to remember from high school, was a gracious apology for not being able to speak French.  More vocabulary has been forthcoming, but Arabic words keep rising from mind to tongue.
More soon, and pictures- a tout a leur-

Monday 20 December 2010

Test Drive

So alright then.  Here we are blogging.  Seems like something that should be done alone in a hotel room somewhere near Stanstead, doesn't it? Anyway, if this thing works then it's the efficient way to inform You, sitting there at your computer where ever you are of what I'm doing sitting at my computer where ever I am.  Keeping in mind that I am writing to many of You, and I'm not going to censor myself, because then you're not going to know what I really think if I'm not free to use all the damns, shits, and hells that I like.

So here we go.  Got into England on Saturday morning. Fine flight from Detroit into Heathrow.  Ice had frozen the doors of the plane shut for an additional hour after we landed. The norse gods seemed to realize, that they could seize attention by messing with heretical christmas malarky by throwing down lots of heavy wet snow and chasing it with a sharp arctic wind.  I'll admit I was skeptical of it being any worse then Michigan, but it's been seriously cold and the snow's been heavy.

Shortly after arriving in Newport Pagnell, I had tea, a sandwich, beer, a snowball fight against the fearless young Currie brothers, more beer, short conversations about sleep and long conversations about the scurge of the snow.  There were good, hard hugs, a few names I couldn't remember and more then a few faces I wish had come out as there was loud laughter that lasted late into the night.
And there are pictures, as I became uncharacteristically snap-happy as lack of sleep dementia and silly drunkenness set in.

On Sunday, we fetched Vince's van from the mechanics, and the hill going down from the church to the river was full of kids sledding and playing in the snow.  We saw his boys and they were bigger and hairier then I'd expected.  We spent the rest of the day inside watching movies and ate a big lovely roast beef lunch with roast potatoes, peas, and Yorkshire pudding drowned in gravy.

I hadn't managed to fool my internal clock with saturday night, and jet lag woke me up early monday and I took an early morning walk in the freezing fog.  Later, around noon, head down to London and met up with Anne.  And there we are now, waiting to go to France early tomorrow morning.