Sept. 2003
Hold it! Where are we?! Well, we've just gotten off the United Flight 961 a Boeing 777 from Charles DeGualle in Paris to SFO San Fransisco, CA. Nice flight, roomy I-can_reach-the-seatbelt econo Y class e-ticket. Lots of water, free red (and I guess...white) wine, ok food = 1.25 meals, 6 movie channels (watched two) and fairly smooth flight with only three seatbelts turned on lites. Early 21st century air travel has actually gotten better overall, especially since 9-11, no, not the security...no, the airlines WANT your business now worse than ever before and United in backrupcy is actually FRIENDLY in demenor. Amazing! It comes highly recommended. Cheap at 576 dollars RT. Ted has done yoeman service AGAIN (Thank You Ted!) and brought our truck to SFO, handed us the keys after helping us load up the overweight baggage and himself taken BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) back to his home in Alameda across the bay. We struggled thru the late afternoon SF traffic and found ourselves at home about and hour and a half later none the worse for wear.
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Paris in early September 2003 was lovely as ever. Cosmopolitan, sophisticated and busy she remains a lovely, people friendly city. A walking city. Awake and lively, many small shops full of goods, streets full of people. We visited only the Cluny Musee this time, an ancient Rioman Site well worth your time. The mansion on top holds Medieval arts and crafts while the Roman baths below just stun you with their precision and size. "Fill 'er up!" you'll find yourself thinking, it's in good enough condition to do just that. The 86 or 87 bus delivered us to within a block from a stop nearby our hotel at One Rue Bastile in Arr #5. Lots of cafes, resturants and shops to gawk at. An excellent Paris location. We walked the streets til 11pm each night with crouds of happy well fed Parisians.
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Our restaurant find this time in Paris was nearly across the Bastille square, Cuisine Napoliana...tiny, 10 table for two osteria (specialty restaurant ). It was tucked neatly half way down the block, the smells eminating from the front door were magical. They asked if we had reservations in broken Italian accented French, "No," I said, he looked about furtively, 6 tables were used and put us in the back corner behind the cold box and the stone wall for our repast. The noise level was like Napoli traffic as the room is beautiful white stone with italian majolica plates and tiles as decoration. We chose an roasted insada mixta salad with olive oil, sesame seeds and aceto basalmico as a first, then followed by a crab fettucini da mer with crab, vongole (clams) and moules (mussels). What a treat! All fresh, all wonderful, all sweet and delicious with a mild picante tomato coulis. Lovely. Dinner took a leisurely 2 hours sans coffee or desert. 70 Euros out the door, money well spent.
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The weather had calmed from the August canicule (heatwave) that killed so many elderly and infirm persons (over 15,000!) in their homes and apartments throught the country. How could this happen? Seems we forget the younger and families take off for their annual vacations in August and couldn't be home to check upon their elderly charges. Many died from heatstroke and dehydration. Few fans, fewer air conditioners as well as a benign climate that doesn't require these items made for depressing sights on the TV. Bodies laid out in temporary morgues by the hundreds as those who didn't answer to calls or knocks at their doors were found. Terrible. It wasn't only in Paris, our little town suffered the same fate with ambulance sirens at all times of the night and day taking people to the hospitals as fast as they could. Alas the heat broke about August 17th and they started to count the dead. Back to 25 C weather...the high 70's and low 80's became the rule again. Crops had suffered too, corn was dead on dried stalks, wheat was shrivelled and burnt looking, the grapes became raisons. Sunflowers whithered with their blooms hung down like weary soldiers on the way back from the wars. Rains visited upon us in late August though it was too little, too late for the ruined crops.
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The day before our British friends John and Hazel (newly bought into Lignieres on a 2.5 acre plot just north of town) volunteered to drop us off at the Chatenuef-Sur-Cher train station at 9:30. They showed up early in their white, boxy motor home and stayed late at the gare (train station) to watch us off to Paris at 9:53am sharp. They are charmingly funny folks and we have grown quite fond of them indeed and (I think) they of us. We laugh a lot together. More about them later.
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Our little 1850 person village, is in the Berry Region...Cher and Indre, here's our little village's website http://www.lignieres.free.fr/versionanglaise/homepage.htm click on the clickable links on the left for all the details. We LOVE it here, it is the right size at about 2000 to have 4 boulangeries, 2 charcuteries, 2 phamacies, one public market every Monday and Thursday, a Champion supermarche, several cafes, a 17th century chateau with a moat, a wild river, a WONDERFUL tourist office and some very curious and wonderful residents. It is a very quiet and peaceful typical French village smack dab in the middle of France about 40 miles southwest of Bourges our BIG city. Many other villages are nearby, some large like St. Amand Montrond and La Chatre, others smaller as in La Celle Conde and St Hillaire. Alas we have no railroad station as you could surmise from the into paragraph, we did once but that was way back in 1952 before the Great Railway rehash...but we have a dense network of highways and byways as well as several branches of the Arnon River that crisscross the village. The residents are of all ages but there are many older than there are younger.
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We suffer traffic like all modern places, but relief comes as the day grows long and into the night it is quiet, almost silent. Route St. Amand Montrond runs past our front door, barely 5 feet away from the door sill. This can lead to hackles being raised on the back of your neck upon occassion as tractors large and small and huge trucks roar past with their loads of farm crops and animals at all times of the night and day. A sort of muffled peace can be restored by simply closing the window outer shutters to the world outdoors but oft time that is impractical as we like the gentle breeze the open windows allow. Insects are not much of a problem, their are resident spiders, of course, and they are allowed freedom to live as long as their webs don't strangle us. Bees and wasps of all kinds abound and readily pollinate any flower they can find.
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The Monday Marche (Market)
Ligniere hosts its market on Lundi (Monday) and it is very well attended by both vendors and patrons.
It spreads over the village's market place with it's 14th century roof and onto 2 other streets that interconnect at the post office. The entire market can be easily walked in 5 minutes but the variety of goods is quite amazing. Poulet (chickens) ready to cook, geese and other birds, cheeses, goat and otherwise, numerous fresh fruit and vegetable stands, a rolling charcuterie for cut meats and sausages, clothing for men, ladies and children, mattresses (!), and often a goat cheese fromager. Bread is obtained from the corner Boulangerie across from the Post Office in eery variety known to the Berry. It starts about 8 with the early arrivals taking their traditional places, most vendors keep the same locations for reasons only known to them and their cohorts. Even when they miss a week or go on vaction during August the location is left empty awaiting their return. The atmosphere is low grade chaos, chatter among the vendors and more chatter among their patrons makes for a lively and colorful air of excitement. It goes until about noon when slowly but inexonerably theu fold up their tables, fold their table cloths, pack up into their vehicles and disappear for another week. There is a small market on Thursdays that features fresh vegetables, a cheese vendor and sometimes a fish seller.
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It is now March 6th, 2005. We have spent nearly the last three months living the social life in Lignieres with a short three week trip to Sicily thrown in for good measure. The winter here has yeilded much snow, it never sticks but it makes for a lovely early morning surprise then slowly melts into the landscape throu the day. The locals all say "It doesn't snow in Lignieres", well...maybe what they mean is that there aren't DRIFTS to shovel or snow equipment for the roads. It certainly has for the last two weeks off and on. We motored about Sicily to the tune of almost 6000km...3600 miles and though those people are thouroughly crazed drivers I received not a scratch on our new (2002) Toyota Avensis. When we got back to Lignieres we went to our favorite supermarche these days, the Super U in Le Chatelet and as the lady in front manuvered into the best position to park I turned behind her at 2 mph and struck an unseen concrete bollard and crunch! came to a stop with the sound of cracking plastic parts including the bumper and the aluminum heat exchanger for the turbo charger. Oh yes, a trip to AXA, our assurance company for our house and car and noting oh so carefully the agents telling us of our $460 deductable we arranged to get her fixed. 2 weeks and two days (and $2200) later she was returned to us in like new condition and not a single John Deere tractor part was in evidence. She had been repaired by Mr. Coue the "about to be retired" automobile repair/tractor repair and farming equipment repairman to the area. There were 4 such shops in our little town but three of them could not accomodate us with our scheduled return to the US on the 12th. Mr. Coue was "the choice", a man of few words but the one's we needed to hear lest we have to take her 35 miles to Bourge's Toyota dealer. Many trips back and forth to the AXA Assurance person who would then look oh so worried and call Mr. Coue for us and report that all was well and that the "expert" had approved the repairs etc. etc. We just rode it out in Tomi the Toyota Carrena that we hadn't sold yet. Of course we were told that we needed to assure that car too as we wern't coverred at all by any assurance we already had, even if it were stolen! Ohhhhh and so with another $270 dollars we were renderred street legal in the Carrina too.
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Like I said earlier this trip has been the Social Trip. Many trips to neighbors houses for drinks, dinners and hours and hours of laughs together. We had decided to give a French Dinner for the across the street neighbors, St. Angelo and Monique and Mary and her "petite amis" Steven from the local tourist board.
First of all, they WILL be served. No amount of slowness, hesitation, confusion or indecision will
cause them to pour their own drinks. Not wine you understand, no...that's a cool and easy California thing that we all do and take for granted. Why wouldn't the French (of all people) be drinking merrily along like US with
a wine glass in their hand full of some semi-exotic wine bottling? Because
you see...they don't. The want BOOZE. Pastis (Licorice flavor) with and without water,
Straight bourbon, Suze (herb liquor), Mure (berry liquor), gin, rum, port, martini...the liquor, not the mixed drink! All manner of these bought and kept for The Big Day. They drink like fish once I get the "orders" straight
and am guided through ! the process by Mary who was a "bar-maiden"
- (her phrase) in an earlier life. "how do I remember?", I asked innocently. "By the smell", she exclaims,"smell the glass". Oh boy...they settled in the tiny front room in chairs taken from the kitchen and
gathered around the cautious setting of mixed olives, crackers, olive tapenade and fresh anchovies laid out on a plate as a school of the living creatures might be found if they had heads and were in one or another of
the earth's oceans. I was the only one to eat anything from this offering, munching on green and black olives, crackers with tapenade and several of the anchovies on crackers. No one Blinked when so instructed. Oh sure, Eric choked back a small fish after Kelly almost jammed it down his throat, but that was that. They wanted to DRINK. Drink they did, round after round with me providing the table service while they chattered along, any subject brought new la! ughs and a barrage of excited French talking over, under, around and through each other. Everyone talked at the same time, different subjects sometimes, to each other and to us, in French and halting Eeengleesh (not much of THAT!). One and a half hours later, the rice cooked and ready and the chicken in vinegar steaming we were ready to Plate and get on with eating. They hesitated at moving wanting yet another round...I balked then gave it under pressure and poured glass after glass, dropping
ice into each drink. I summoned Kelly, ever entertained by her position in the middle of the gay and now thoroughly drunk crowd, to help me serve up the vittles. Called to the table they at last responded.
The men sat together at the other end so they could elbow and eye to eye yell at each other and the women and young boy sat with me at the other end. Wine was, at last, poured, a Quincay (Can-See), a favorite white of
the area and without pau! se they dug into the repast before them with gusto. Of course the little boy wasn't up for par-boiled rice and vinegar chicken falling off the bone and had to have Potage du Carrot from a box. Gads. I heated the soup and grabbed a bowl to pour it into, a sudden fuss...a smaller bowl! He settled into drinking the soup Chinese style after balking over the over-sized magnum silver spoon we furnished with the tiny bowl and then substituted a small teaspoon from our lovingly purchased, alas mis-matched, silver. The scene was fantastic, a repetition of the Living Room drinking bash resumed only with the clank of spoons and forks
and pouring of copious amounts of wine. Talk, talk, talk...not a quiet second, animated with sign language and clearing of used plates and glasses by Kelly relay-style along the table to her position then hustling them off
to the ever mounting pile in the sink. I gave my digital camera over to the 7 yr old and ga! ve some swift non-verbal instructions and he began to play photographer to document the proceedings. I consulted with my dinner partner, Mary as to what comes after the chicken, "cheese course", she said nodding to Kelly. And it was served with a flourish, goat (Chevre), sheep (angeau) and "kaw" (cow). It was
hardly touched, little slices being taken from the already smallish round loaves and eated with the tip of the knife. Then came the tossed tender green salad, oil and vinegar only, eaten vigorously. "When the desert?", I
asked munching on a tender leaf. "In a while or now if you want", well that about covered the available time spectrum I had in mind so we waited and chatted and drank, two more bottles were opened, a delicious 9 Euro
Sancere, rare as all get out too, the clearest wine I've ever seen. Then the desert at 10:30 sharp, right on time. The dished climbed to the level of the count! er and beyond by now and we were into new territory with the
addition of the cheese/salad plates (double duty here!). On with the Creme Brulee, it was soooo pretty, some of it prettier than others as the damned 10 Euro heat gun gave up the ghost on #3 and from 3 on they were a hard cracked candy I dreamed up in haste and poured with great hope and care upon their tender creme brulee tops. Beautiful each one and downed to the drop by all, a raving success! More wine then some stomach settling aperitifs, desert wines and my 40 proof Lemoncella from Sicily, made from
Sicilian 95% alcohol (thier white lightning), lemon zest and sugar...of course cut to a more delectable 40% (80 Proof) with the addition of a sufficient amount of spring water from a plastic bottle. Delicious! All sipped merrily away,
some beginning to show a bit of droop albeit but still all smiles and endless chatter right to the Bon-Noir (Bone-nweee) at the door at 11:30! Yes, 4 1/2 hrs! of non-stop talking, drinking and eating, a fine French
Dinner consumed by all...excepting John-Sebastion, our intrepid photographer,
who drank carrot soup from a box.
