Bimbo a Bordo

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Busty blondes in France’s most famous wine region, that’s what this post is about”. Not so, I’m afraid. This is the tale of four adults packed into a car with a crying baby, a Michael Jackson CD and as much Parmesan and pasta as the boot could hold.

There's something odd about being on holiday in September here. That's because of La rentrée- i.e- the back-to-school, the end of summer, the muffling of the collective European sigh of relief. Sure, you'll still find Dutch and German tourists beached along the Mediterranean coast, but most French workers are back on the metro grinding their teeth. Supermarkets have been advertising school supplies since late July but la rentrée isn't a real issue then- it's just a vague and distant threat, like liver disease to the alcoholic or the apocalypse to the non-Jehovah's witness. But in September you can feel the whole of French society gearing up to get back to work. There's a stress and a hopelessness that overcomes you, even if you are on holiday. I was under this spell, sitting in Katy and Jean-Michel's backyard as the cold wind descended through the valley from the north. A chill overcame me, but then it turned into a shrill of excitement as I realised we were to head off to Italy during the night.

Pre-dawn car trips bring up positive memories for me: driving across the harbour bridge to go surfing, awaking to 'Sweet Dreams' by Eurythmics on Andrew's phone alarm and getting up to go spear-fishing, watching Baywatch re-runs, aged 11, as Dad packed the car for our holidays in the South of France. There’s magic in the air at 4 am. And despite this, the too-early-in-the-morning-demons assault you. The hangover-like feeling upon waking up; the over-enthusiastic morning glory; the general hatred of being conscious- these are their weapons. Thus, as you pack the car under the starry sky with your droopy eyes and mostly numb limbs, you pause and think:

Then in the stillness, you drive through the narrow Alpine roads, up and up and around the never-ending bends. Suddenly a deer dashes off into the trees, and then a wild pig stumbles over its awkward tusks as it flees from your path. The rest of the animal kingdom, having been taught to stay off the road, leaves you alone. All that remains is the rumbling of your car. Dawn gives one last big push and lo! Light fills the sky, and the silhouettes of trees become... er... trees. And it is all so climactic! And you feel like breakfast now! And the words come to you as if Nature itself were singing them in your ears!

So we stopped in Barcelonette, filled up the car and bumped into this guy.

And of course had our morning coffee and croissants.Thomas was happy as Larry in his yellow jumpsuit.

Barcelonette is one of the oddest places you'll see thanks to its colourful history.

Soon after crossing the border into Italy signposts stop making any sense and speed limits become arbitrary (despite signs everywhere telling you 'the cops are watching you'). As we approached Alessandria, where we would attend our friend Nathalie's wedding, Nigerian prostitutes lined the road and cars could be seen stopping here and there. It was a bit disheartening to see businessmen pulling over in broad daylight at 1pm. It made the practice seem really accepted and banal.

We stayed on an old ranch with the rest of the Kasmierzak family. The wedding was in Italian with bits of French here and there, and, Nathalie's new husband being quite the connaiseur in food and wine, the reception dinner was very nice right through from the hors d'oeuvres to the desert liqueurs.

Nathalie's dad, Jean-Pierre (pictured right) is a counselor in France and it was nice to chat to him about the profession he is passionate and knowledgeable about. Hannah and I are hoping to do a three year course in counseling starting next year.

We spent a week in the mountains of Tuscany, near Castelnuovo di Garfagnana and mainly just lazed about. It was pretty wet and cold and we had the sniffles so we puddled around the region- a hike here, some pizza there.

We nipped in to Pisa for a bit of a look around at its architectural marvels. Yes, the tower is on a bit of a lean and yes, all the tourists are taking the photo where they are holding it up with their bare hands. "It's on a lean and therefore induces a sense of the comical in us" they shout at me in unison.

Pisa seems like a pretty vibrant student town and yet all the tour buses really just spill out around the tower and people don't venture much further into the heart of the city. It bucketed down with rain while we were visiting the massive cathedral and baptistery and when we finally emerged a beautiful rainbow had been drawn across the sky.

Our trip finished off in Massa, on the west coast. One thing that Italy has seriously messed up is the privatisation of its beaches. They are all broken up into private deck chair areas, and there's naught but one 50 meter-wide beach per town that's free to the general public. That's where we spent our beach days, between two fences. But it was lovely, really. Lying on the sand with hardly anyone else around.

Some facts to finish up.

Thomas went for his first dip in the ocean. Jean-Michel had his birthday. Katy is a wonderful mother- and very rock'n'roll. (She also had a cool 'blue' party for her 30th birthday which was good fun. We had fresh lamb from the farm. Yum). Our BnB host in Massa was a very nice guy. I wrote postcards which I never sent [stamps and post-offices. It's a bit complicated for my generation]. We went to a restaurant that brought us huge disgusting charcoaled steaks and charged us $7 per 100g. Hannah gladly discovered that Italians make a lot more shoes in her size than our Anglo-Saxon-Viking nations. I tried to go for first-thing-in-the-morning jogs whilst in Massa. One morning I ended up in some run-down park that was filled with rabbits. It was a bizarre experience. The rabbits seemed very cute and friendly. Then I grew faint. And it seemed to me that the rabbits all turned and stared at me. And they gathered around me, slowly approaching with their twitchy little noses, whiskers wriggling, tails bobbing, fangs protruding... Then I blacked out, thinking:

Most of that rabbit story is actually true. But the moral of the story is- don't go for a run first thing in the morning. It's no use, really.

PS-

The four of us are disappointed we can't make it to Koro's book launch this weekend and hope all the Fordes/Whileys have a good time!

Only 2 weeks left for Hannah and I in France after which we fly off to America :-O

Oh and it's my birthday on Saturday! Huzzah!

How to Feel Homesick

Thanks Jono.

Summer

This is me these days- on a rock, facedown, vacant, content.

Ah. Provence. Finally to be enjoyed as it ought to be- lazily, merrily and without specific purpose; picking up a book between sleeps and staring at the words while daydreaming about something else... But, for you, I’ll summon up my energy, cast my thoughts back over the last couple of months and give you a bird’s eye view of what happened.

The cherry harvest was long and tiresome.14-16 hours of work per day, 6 days a week. Jean-Michel ought to be given a trophy for managing such a crazy business. However, I did say to Katy when we got home one night after midnight: “To be working these hours we should be saving lives or making millions- and we’re doing neither!” It was a stretching experience and quite character building.

We had a few days off after the cherry episode to beat our ploughshares into wine bottles and cash in some sleep. Some good friends came to visit, including my own flesh and blood- Xav who was passing through on his way to his mates wedding in Switzerland. Cigars and wine ensured this was a colourful reunion. We also partook in the ceremonial burial of Katy’s placenta. It had been resting in the freezer while we waited for Thomas Manatoa’s French godmother Elise [pictured] to

get a chance to come down.

Xav prepared a nice service in te reo with French explanations and we sang Ka Pinea Koe* to wrap it all up. It was very special.

*Ka pinea koe e au I will adorn you
Ki te pine o te aroha With an ornament of love
Ki te pine e kore nei With an ornament that will never
Te Waikura e Rust away

Thomas [pronounced ‘toh mah’- a la française] is a delightful chap. I’m very fond of him and its strange to think we’re spending so much time with him now but will then be absent for most of his childhood. That is a saddening thought, but it

will give me a shot at been one of those enigmatic old uncles who send one line birthday cards and expensive gifts to their growing nephews only to meet them properly later in life and develop a strong adult friendship.

The lavender harvest was next. This was quite an enjoyable job. It was a lot more ‘normal’ in terms of farm life. Just Jean-Michel, his dad and I. Hot days, lunch breaks, lavender smell filling the air. It was great. Its only defect, really, was that it came after the cherry harvest- meaning that we were pretty zonked. Here’s a little video to show a day of lavender harvesting. You can see the cutting in the tractor, the drying and then the harvesting of the flower. There’s another type of lavender that gets sent to a distillery to have its essence sucked out but I didn’t get a video of that process. Tiki and Tahi the goats also feature in this video as I milk and feed them every day. They’re super placid in the film because I’ve already catered to all their needs. Otherwise they’d be climbing all over me and trying to eat the camera.

Hannah and I and our friend Mishal- who came to visit for a week- went to Perpignan for 3 days to see a friend of mine I met when I was flatting in Granada.

Abbaye Saint Martin in the Pyrenees. It’s a bit of a hike to get up there but it’s worth it!

Perpignan is tucked into the South-Western corner of France, near the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees and also on Spain’s doorstep. Its Catalan heritage is still relatively strong and the language is spoken in Gipsy/Spanish communities. There’s a push for French people of the region to rediscover their Catalan roots and from what I could gather there’s some progress in that area. While we were there we went to a photo- journalism expo which showed the works of dozens of photographers around the world for 2010. There were some interesting themes:

Islam in Bangladesh; cops in the Bronx; the survival of the homeless in New York; the Amazonian rainforest etc. There was a series on the civil unrest in Thailand from March-May this year, which showed among other things the burning of a massive shopping centre in Bangkok. We’d been there a month before (days before the blood protest)

and I can easily see why this massive money machine was targeted in the protests. Seeing it utterly destroyed was quite potent and you could feel the powerful rage of communities looking for justice. And of course you can't help but feel the strange paradox of being a tourist- knowing that all this was brewing while you were head down in a map trying to find your way to the nearest noodle bar.

On a different note- we are currently in the mountains of Tuscany with Katy, JM and Thomas! More about that another time.