Pass-Sanitaire

THE AUTUMN 2021 JAUNT to Sablet was particular insofar as it was undertaken while Europe was still (and is even more so at time of writing) taking various measures to combat Covid19. In the case of France, a régime-cum-strategy was in place to encourage a reluctant sector of the population to get themselves vaccinated. It started on the last day of our summer visit… I think I may have alluded to it in an earlier post…

This is the Pass-Sanitaire, which required various places such as bars, restaurants, trains and planes (but not hotels or shops) to check their customers' vaccination status before providing any form of service. For us that meant showing a QR-code (or the paper documentation with said QR code on it) certifying that we were both fully vaccinated. Most would do this using a mobile phone, tablet or other device with an App that displays one's status. That QR-code can then be read by the proprietor's device using a recognition App. Ding? OK...  Parp? -– get out of here!! I never witnessed anybody being told to skedaddle, because you wouldn't show up if you weren't kosher would you? Everybody has a smart phone, after-all… no? well those without that insane bit of kit could pull out a good old piece of paper with their status printed thereupon (it seems just everybody has a printer!). We kept our paper print-outs handy in case of technical or digital disaster. 

Close associates will be aware of my personal choice not to sport a smart phone*. I didn't heft round my i-Pad either. I used my i-Pod Touch which looks like a smart phone but isn't (you can't make or receive calls on it) and yet it does carry an App capacity. Mme Melling was kind enough to allow me to snap her smart phone (with my i-Pod Touch I think) showing her Pass-Sanitaire as we negotiated refreshment at a waterside café. The proprietor (or his/her staff) barely glanced at it, and certainly did not wave another phone at it. Some places then were rigorous, some didn't bother at all. And one or two folk more or less said if Macron/police/the authorities wants us to do their legal work they can pay us/do it themselves/whistle for it. Nevertheless it has had the desired effect, especially when the République cancelled the free testing that was clogging up pharmacies across the land up until 1st October (a negative test was the alternative to the pass-sanitaire, but was only 48 hours valid… you can fill in the rest). Well done the French, a strategy that worked!

In Summer we had to have a Fr. PCR test (valid 72 hours) to get back into Blightey and proof we had another one booked once back on the hallowed soil of the motherland. And proof we'd been double jabbed, natch. And a passenger locator form so if they could check up on you. If need be. The Fr required us to have proof of a valid PCR test result before boarding the ferry to La France (which we had to get in Exeter on a Sunday morning FGS. Mme Melling was on top of it all as usual. It's why I stick by her, she rocks!!

In Autumn that was all gone except we had to have proof of a lateral flow test booking before being allowed off the quay. And again proof we'd been double jabbed, natch. Again, another passenger locator form so they could check up on you. We got our lateral flow tests the day after getting back to Bullsmead Court. You had to do it on day two of your return. Mme Melling, a breeze. Self? Er no. Didn't work. Didn't show diddlysquat. I complained. They sent another. It worked. At £22 a pop it bally well should. 

When this blog gets selected for inclusion in some time capsule or other you'll realise why that was, by this crashingly boring detail. Oh yes, you had to photograph your result and send it back to Lateral-Flow-Tests R-Us and they in turn reported back to you that you may either party party party, or must go under the stairs for ten days —or something like that. They tell HM Govt aussi I guess. Anyway, the filth have not been round or telephoned us with menaces so I guess we are in the clear. It's social history all this. I didn't force you to read all this, but in a future time someone might just be doing a PhD on the pandemic and be grateful for a contemporary account graced by my natural clarity on this issue; I expect full recognition in the bibliography (for my descendants, you understand: I prefer Adrian John Smith by the way, in that order… what were my parents thinking of?). 

Incidentally, we couldn't take up our official booster jabberoo summons as we were still across La Manche. Be not afeared, Mme Melling (does she ever rest) got us a booking in a South Molton Chemist (there are two) only a week later… so we are both boosted. And we partook of our 'flu jab, in South Molton (the other chemist) the day before we left this hallowed isle at the back end of September. We are covered. Hopefully.

We are, let me be perfectly clear, not party party partying. Boring boring boring (as the entitled young are fond of declaring).

* This statement is, of course, subject to compromise by the passage of time. You can guess what that means… situations change, you know the sort of thing…

 

postscript autumn 21

ONE OR TWO ASPECTS of the 25th visit to 1rFB not covered elsewhere in this blog. In no particular order. 

First up (i.e. the view shown above) The gutter of number one, which has twisted out-of-true gradually as our years of ownership have rolled out, to a point where the pigeons can no longer take a bath in the residual water left up there, after it has rained. During showers, until Mr Fernandes intervened, passers-by might have been taken by surprise by cascades from above. Cascades from above are common enough during inclemency in Sablet. Folk should stay home if they can't cope with getting wet. Now we trust at 1rFB at least concentrated downpour will no longer be a risk. I have to point out that the guttering was not put to the test before we had left to return to our UK estates, so we cannot verify that the adjustment made has been successful; but we have no reason to doubt Mr Fernandes's skill in sorting the matter out. It cost enough. Cherrypickers don't come cheap y'know.

Secondly,  I also record here the decision we made this autumn to set in train the redecoration of the shutters of 1rFB. This also included the making of new shutters for the first floor living room, (the existing ones were shot) which we did eventually, at almost the eleventh hour, see delivered and hung, although not painted. Once again, I cannot report the completion of this sprucing-up development although I gather that all the shutters have been removed, painted and rehung, under the watchful eye of Deb (Locke) who has overseen the operation in our absence. Thanks Deb, we are grateful. The garage doors and water meter cupboard door remain to be done, as we didn't think it politic to have open doors to the garage or the water meter (little fingers playing with der stop-cock for example) while no-one is in the house. Someone might nick Fafner, the boiler. Our painter is Mr Boukersanna who used to fly the pigeons. 

The colour? Grey of course. Which grey? Gris Silicum. No point in showing you as every snap taken thus far shows a different colour grey (it's the light appertaining, you understand). Oh alright, here's Deb's confirmatory snap proving the progress thus far. Those shutters were green before. They are not green now.

I record here that we dined deliciously at one of our favourite nearby villages, Puyméras. We planned a second visit to the Café des Barrys there, it is a jolly place, very popular, but we didn't somehow manage to fit it in. 

We noted the increase generally of the mechanised collection of the grape harvest. Many vineyards are still being picked by hand, usually Spanish or Portuguese, but there are many more self propelled picking machines. We noted them particularly on the Plan de Dieu, and watched another at work above Suzette.

Just in case I have over-egged the colour blue, I'll conclude this postscript post with colour from one of our final week jollies, a walk taking in the restored chapel of St Hilaire, just as the colour of autumn was really getting going… and also, after a good lunch, on our last day Sabletside, a final review of the Baronnies from a distance when we popped up to Rabais Sud — of course we did. Rather bleu n'est ce pas? Just could not get round it this autumn: it was blue.

I end with Suzette. Currently my most favourite village* (no shops… but views in all directions, not least to Le Géant). Their wine is top flight, by the way.

*Apart from Sablet that is………

back into the blue

The rain and wind were rattling the tiles as some light started to disperse the gloom of our last day on French Soil. I was realising that our waterproofs were in the motor, parked up behind the Sorbonne Oceanography building, some 100 metres away. Were we to be condemned, at Ibis chucking out time, to mooching round Roscoff until our lunchtime booking became active? No. Not us. 

By the time we had raised ourselves from our couches the rain had abated leaving just a keen wind blowing out of clearing skies, so we left the comfort of our suite and took off westwards to suck up a final few breaths of salty sea air amongst the granite shore landscapes hereabouts. And, er, of course, secure a petit dej… This last was achieved in the usual male dominated bar (top flight double expressi paired with a jug of scolded lait) supplemented with selected top quality pastries from the nearby boulangerie or pâtisserie, this time in the sleepy village of Cléder.

Thus fortified we went off to where the land gives out to the sea, on this stretch of coast, typified by scattered granite boulders, reefs and tors, gritty sands and numerous bays and headlands. Never mind where we went. We just went. We walked a bit and enjoyed the fresh blue skies one last time, plus the frequent rainbows. All very lovely and impressive. I can see why folk want to holiday hereabouts. I have concluded the further west one goes the whiter the sands become and the larger the granite boulders as well, some of them are vast. We contented ourselves for this pre-lunch jolly to going just eighteen miles out from Roscoff, where the granite sweeps are a little more modest. Mme Melling noted a ship that was clearly our ferry,  approaching Roscoff from the direction of Blightey, so anyone who had taken up the ferry company's offer of an early loading would have been sorely disappointed, condemned to loiter hours on the quayside with only the limited-if-any facilities of the so-called passenger terminal to ease the time away…

Ourselves, having largely avoided the odd rogue showers, returned to Roscoff with rosy cheeks and wreathed smiles, to be the first into Le Surcouf at the stroke of midday for our lunch time repast. Très Bon! We drank cider with it, for a change. 

Our appetites thus sated, we hurried off to beat the 1400 last booking-in deadline for our ferry back to Blightey. Hmmmmm. We arrived at 1300. It took at least two hours to proceed from the collection point into the ship itself and then a further two hours before the vessel made any sort of move to get going. For reasons beyond our control we were advised. Whose ship is it that is beyond our control we wondered. I wondered if the fact that the time on board is British Time and that British Time is an hour behind of French Time, that once on board under the impression the ship would sail at 1530 French Time, the punters then came to realise that the ship would be sailing at 1530 British Time i.e. an hour later. Do you follow? Well. That is what happened in effect. It sailed British Time, Greenwich Mean Time! The Captain agreed to put his foot down so as to get us into Plymouth as close to 2100 GMT as could be managed. And indeed, we were in twenty minutes before his estimate. In, yes, tied up no doubt, but not 'off' by any means. 

But my, it was a rough crossing. We had taken the precaution of booking ouselves a day cabin and we got allocated the foremost outside slot on the port side, with a window no less (porthole if you like) where we witnessed the foaming seas and pounding thumps and crashes of the breaking waves on Pont Aven's bow doors and forward superstructure at close quarters, but in comfort. The ship was fairly well peopled with travellers, it being the last crossing of the year from Roscoff, yet there were surprisingly numerous French clients heading for our darkling shores… we remained largely aloof in our quarters until the guttering lights of Plymouth docks suggested we might make our way down to deck four ready to drive off to have it out with HMRC.

And so we sat in the motor, on deck four, amongst the long lines of expectant travellers, in their various cars, vans and people carriers… for an hour. Finally we managed to get off the ship, only to join another immense and mostly stationary queue of vehicles edging its way to passport control. 

So it was that we finally arrived back at the Devon estates, not on the day we had set out to reach them but on the Monday morning. Our documentation had all been in order so the exhausted chap in the exit booth almost waved us through with a sigh of relief. The vehicle checking station was closed and shuttered, the customs officers there obviously preferring normal office hours rather than stocking their mess with confiscated hams, wines, sausages and other recently declared illegal party goods. Our illicit walnuts, quinces and garlic bulbs thus escaped detection, not to mention our butter, salami butts and raspberry jam.

Notwithstanding the dragged out ship trip, this return goes down generally as a bobby-dazzler; we shall no doubt do it again in a similar fashion next year, when the son-and-heir might be availing himself of the opportunity to travel with the aged parents once more, circumstances allowing. 

out of the blue

We were on the move earlier than usual on the day of autumn departure. Normally we aim to ship out of 1rFB around 0730 but this time it was 0640, so rather dark, not assisted by the last gasps of summer time. So. Shutters shuttered and barred. Water off. Trip switch off. Doors locked and shuttered… us stealing away in the night, and with our roadside breakfast requirements firmly on our minds.

But we know our way. Like last autumn we went through the Cévennes via Alès … then we fell down badly on the sustenance stakes … but this year we called time at Alès where we ensured we got the breakfast croissants although only achieved execrable coffee; yet importantly, secured rather excellent sandwiches for our lunching time. 

Like last autumn, the forest colours (once the morning light was upon us) were wondrous golds, copper and yellows… we passed by Florac,  doubled back a bit on the A75 (our only use of an autoroute on this return) to continue our westward progress past Rodez; consumed those superb filled baguettes near Dècazville — down a by-road to some river or other — then onward until we came, once more, to Sarlat-la-Canèda. I dare say you know it, or at least, have heard of it. A cameo of the town graces the head of this post.

That was day one of our return. Out of the blue? Because we left behind three and a half weeks of almost continuous cloudless days, back in Sabbers. So blue: I understand the Sablet weather deteriorated within 48 hours or so of our departure. It was mild still in Sarlat (and quite blue too, mostly) even though we clocked a low of 3° en route. Having made good time, we got in a bit of a walk-about, sampled the centre a touch. Not like 2020 when the weather was dire, precluding anything beyond a dash to and from the motor.

A bit of a honey pot, Sarlat, but rather charming in parts… a lot of folk still about, plus their children – must have been half term (as it usually is for someone somewhere in France). Very Pèrigord. Same hotel as before, garage parking. same eat-out as before, I suspect it was the same menu as before, and that we ate the same dishes as before. Good if a little more expensive than I think it was in 2020…  Creatures of habit? Steady-on, we had a different room in the hotel! And very comfortable it was too… sadly this market garden just across the road from our accommodation is now abandoned and going to waste. I thought it warranted a snap before it is cleared for luxury flats. Probably.

After Sarlat-de-Canèda our next destination was Les Sables d'Olonne, day two of our return. Blue skies mostly gone and rain, some of it as heavy as one should tolerate while proceeding down the highway, but mostly the occasional showers we associate with very late October. A good/picturesque drive, breakfast taken sitting at the same table of the same bar in Les Eyzies but not out in the rain this time as was the case 367 days previously. It held off. Note Mme Melling's smart phone, tuned to the pass sanitaire page, but not requested by the proprietor here. 

Later on en route we were followed for quite a way by a Citroën DS... After several dozen kilometres this myth-of-motoring history trailed us into Surgères and then disappeared. We proceeded, to be confronted shortly thereafter by a route barrée, sans a diversion-suggested alternative. Only by dint of strong resolve and an unerring instinct for what was right, supported by blind faith in her navigational skills from your author, was Mme Melling able to direct our progress (via some charming byroads I have to say) back to our intended direction. I am pleased to report that the language remained civil and what expletives that were employed were directed to the authorities responsible for sending us in entirely the wrong direction for several thousand metres. Mme Melling retrieved the situation with quiet grace and a minimum of choice epithets.  

The lunchtime sandwiches today were eaten within the confines of the motor (under some giant wind turbines in pouring rain) but tasted so good; I'm mildly addicted to these quality eats now… Hours later, as we waited, unfrench-like, to take our turn on a roundabout somewhere before Luçon, a Citroën DS rounding same took our route, the very same DS we last saw in Surgères, way back… how did they do that? It turned left in Talmont-St-Hilaire, seemingly lost: we did not encounter it again.

I am sorry to confirm that there were some harsh words associated with how far into Les Sables we should go to best reach La Chaume, mindful as I was that a river and port divided the suburb from the main town. Nevertheless our destination was reached and our hotel located in a street obviously not designed for motors and yet frequented by them. So we were initially and eventually grateful for a parking space in a back yard for which we paid good money, but that required skills of a superhuman complexion to negotiate, so narrow was the entrance and so tight the street from which one had to turn. It was achieved but the expenditure of expletives was exhaustive. They were all my own and strictly copyright. I can confirm that no 'polar white' paint was left with the traces of other car colours that indicated previous less successful attempts to enter the sanctity of Les Embruns parking lot. I am indebted to Mme Melling's shouted instructions (from outside the vehicle) concerning accessing our booked slot and can only apologise for the responses she got back by way of answer from the man at the wheel.

The hotel was worth it though. Charming. Lovely. Comfortable. Spotless. Even chairs! Quiet yet almost waterside. We went for a stroll. We walked the jetée St Nicolas. We breathed in the sea air. We took refreshment in front of a portside bar. As we did so, the couple who had been sitting at the next table at our restaurant of the previous night in Sarlat sauntered past, I kid you not. She (they were not a gay couple you understand) started, while he (husband, lover, brother I cannot be sure) did not break stride. How could they have got here, how did they do that?

NB, for the lighthouse aspects of this choice of our day two stopover I have to refer you to another place. My Phare Sighted blog number 53 in fact. You can get there by clicking on this here! I'll be rather upset if you don't carry this task out. Go on Go on, you know you want to. The 2021 footnote at the foot of that post covers this visit…

After Les Sables-d'Olonne (La Chaume)

overnight and having extricated the motor from the hotel back yard, again without touching the sides, we paused just round the corner from St Nicolas to savour the dawn starting to colour Phare de l'Armandèche and distant Les Barges. Saturday morning and just the run to Roscoff to achieve.  

Mme Melling had received intelligence that Brittany Ferries were all at sea with the workings of their ferry (and our mode of transport across La Manche) and that Pont Aven would not depart on the morrow at 0945 as timetabled but should sail at 1530 local time. Joy! This would give us a Sunday morning extra on the coast of Finistère. We'd already relished in advance the extra hour we were to receive as the clocks went back… now time enough to go and potter coastally. 

So the trek over the St Nazaire bridge and right round the Brittany peninsula seemed to have a bit more purpose to it… there was more to come! No sandwiches today: we were after bagging ourselves a galette! And we achieved our objective with consummate ease, down on the riverside at La Roche Bernard; the best galettes and crepes we've tasted for some time, even though it was ages since we have dined on either. We beat the Saturday rush aussi! We felt smug! Best table in the place. But had to sit inside due to threatening inclemency (it materialised while we ate). We took advice.

Thus to Roscoff and our last hotel for our last night on French soil this year. Unlike our previous stay at this Ibis hotel, when we inhabited a room with two (2) bathrooms, this time we were on floor four,  right under the roof. Perfectly adequate you understand but not quite as roomy as our 2018 chambers… 

No matter, we'd pre-booked a table at Le Surcouf, still our favourite fish restaurant in these parts of Fr; at the stroke of 1900 we were presenting our passes-sanitaire and taking up our table. We were not disappointed in the slightest by what seemed at first a more modest menu than heretofore … we dined royally. I half joked that we could take a lunch here on the morrow now the boat was delayed… Mme Melling sprang to it, booking us in as the tartare de poisson and platter of huîtres came into view. A smart move m'thought when we finally took to our beds and heavy rain began drumming on the tiles above our heads… smart move…

 

blue october

 

… BECAUSE IN THE AUTUMN OF 2021 the month of October was for us, a month of blue skies… often horizon to horizon. After the wettest day in years, on the fourth of the month that was, we saw no further rain. There was about 20 minutes of rain before dawn one morning but that was just to wash down the haze to give us an even more brilliant azure.  We noted it particularly when sipping our restoratives at the café in Rasteau square, but also when tramping through the Alpilles, when filtering back home above the Gorges de la Nesque, when down at Saumane-de-Vaucluse (where the young de Sade was brought up — so he might have spotted it too on occasion). Almost everywhere we went in fact. It gave us a lot of (here it comes, grit your teeth) blue sky thinking! (…… and relax…). 

Of course, if we'd had any visitors hoping for similar, you know – a week or so with the Melling & Smith partnership in Provence – well it would have been quite another story. But we weren't hosting this time round so Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur came good, to finish the summer season on a blue note! A day or so after we left? That's right, it got started on the winter gloom. Stick with this blog and all your days will be fair weather! Er… unlikely.

cypresses in a blue october

I"M GENERALLY NOT A FAN OF CUPRESSA, Leylandii etc: wrecked many a garden and view poisoning the soil and driving other plants out by sucking up all the rainfall. With the possible exception of the Cypress tree, as it manifests itself in and around the Vaucluse, Drôme etc. Here they grow exceeding tall if left to their own devices and can be extemely slim, perhaps no wider than two metres on a full height tree, much less on junior growths as you'd expect. They punctuate the landscape. I think they are mostly if not entirely planted but in some places you would hardly know it. In others… well it is extremely obvious. Birds seem to like them to roost in and the trees certainly show you which way the wind is blowing…

This autumn of twenty-twenty-one we observed for the first time we could recall, several cypress clipping and pruning events. A pricey task I shouldn't wonder. Our neighbour across the road in Rue Fortuné Bernard demonstrated the only way to do it when your trees are higher than your house: get a man in. With serious kit. 

I don't approve of the habit of some clients to require a rounded off top on their cypresses… I prefer the more naturalistic appearance, when the tree is left to grow on up at its tapering top.  But just look what elegance they add to this hill top village (Suzette). 

Some communes use the cypress as a quick growing plane tree substitute along roads they want to give a bit of gravitas to. Alright if the mistral doesn't get right into them when they can become most untidy looking. They seem to recover…pull themselves together as it were,  or get clipped. Could be either. Could be both. 

One can of course go a bit overboard with cypress trees…… they can be rather intimidating.

Imposing may be but a bit pompous don't you think? I don't think these have been clipped. Making a rod for your own back if you start clipping them, I'd imagine. That's the trouble with cupressa. Specially if you run to cypress counts like these drives above. And as for the rounded top thing: well they hardly look like trees at all when that's done to them. These (left) are at Durban: a wine domaine of distinction (and crus) that faces the St Hilaire ridge above Beaumes-de-Venise. 

You haven't the faintest idea where I'm talking about, have you? Never mind. Just envy those blue skies and try and get to being 'cypress aware' should you come this way sometime. 

Some are slimmer than others. 

Some are taller than others. 

A bit like the folk who like them…

monieux & gorges de la nesque

We decided to take a visit to Bédoin simply because the place holds a market on Mondays and it is the village (town?) where we first came to an affinity with the southern slopes of Ventoux. The market is extensive but these days a little too focussed on the tourist perhaps. Not us of course, we're not tourists.

We stayed long enough to discover again that the café we seem to end up at because of its central position still serves the worst grand-crèmes in Bédoin. Never mind. They do good lunches. Had one last year there. Just before lock down.

To compensate perhaps (for the grim coffee) we took the road through Flassan and then twisting over the southern Ventoux slopes, the D217, which rightly gets the green pencil* from Michelin, joining the D1 (a yellow road, Michelin) direction Sault… then doubled back on the D942 to Monieux (we are on p 286 here Michelin fans!). A village of complete calm and sleepily dozing in the sun; bypassed previously by us, one has to come up the hill into it, it looks daunting but as usual there is a way. Lovely, no main thoroughfare through, it is still not too compromised by the visitors it must get in modest numbers during the summer season. Full of horse chestnut trees. Château above. 

After pottering around Monieux and nodding at a few locals, getting introduced to the gallery/card shop ginger tom called Picasso, skirting round a small group or two of folk with similar aspirations to ourselves, we contemplated and then began our return to Sablet along the tortuous D942 that takes the northern edge of the Gorges de la Nesque. I'm not sure we have used this wonderful road in twenty-five years or more. Increased traffic of course but even that was light, mostly.The route hasn't changed much. Spectacular views into the gorges and across to the other side. Important to us (the other side) as we once did a long walk there, above the Nesque —back in 1990. Merde! That's more than thirty years ago. And we still cherish it!

Back then, we walked almost onto the roof of the Rocher du Cire. Neither Mme Melling or your author can rightly remember where we started from or how we returned but it was a walk amongst ancient pastures and scrubby forest where yer shepherds had employed troughs fashioned on the limestone slabs to channel water for livestock. Hard walking at times, part of one of the national footpaths (GR). We saw no one, incidentally we were walking in spring… Good views across to Le Géant but hardly any into the depths of the deep Nesque gorge. I aspired to get into that vast cave on the Rocher du Cire, but time was against us; and look at it, how the hell did I think we could gain access to such a place? I'm not sure you can amble into it without benefit of fixed ropes. No, I am sure: you can't.

The D942 leads on from the viewpoint (all motorists must stop to gaze across the vastness exhibiting crazy parking to do so)  through a number of rock cut tunnels and thus brings us back to Flassan via Villes-sur Auzon. A ride out without a great deal of exercise I'm afraid, like what oldies do in their motors. >sigh<. We quietly enjoyed it though, didn't we Mrs Melling? We certainly did, Mr Smiff. And we quite enjoyed that walk, did we not, all those years ago? Certainly did, it was a corker. No that's not snow in the upper distance, that's Ventoux.

* the green pencil is applied to roads in the Michelin Atlas which it deems to be pictureseque, as I am sure you knew all along. It sometimes informs our decisions…

a walk to the top

We do quite a number of walks when in the south. There is a decline in the distances we are able (or willing) to put into these excursions and perhaps a reluctance to go uphill for protracted periods (we like being uphill rather than toiling uphill). So a walk to the top might come as a bit of a surprise, but I think it goes down as my star walk of the autumn stay, 2021. 

First off, it was in Les Alpilles. These delectable miniature mountains with their distinctive ravines, valleys, views, vegetation and brilliant limestone crags have been calling us back for thirty years. They were damaged somewhat by fires around 20 years or so ago I think it was, so that the authorities close them to the general public for summer seasons now. Luckily the land is seemingly recovering quite well where scorched. The hills have several roads through them from which one can get a good impression of the limestone wilderness but to really experience it one has to get off the tarmac. Not in summer though — it is strictly interdit, monitored, watched; it needs to be. It is all protected now. 

Before such restrictions came into operation I had one of the most memorable and difficult solo trips of my short life into that interior, a ridge ascent/traverse and staggeringly harsh scramble through garrigue strewn limestone ridges and spines. To the highest bits. Very long views, complete isolation, solitude, yet within sight of civilisation, roads even.  I'm sorry to say the simple old style 1:25000 maps I used back then (1996!) have gone missing so until such time I buy an updated but less convenient modern sheet, I have only the transparency snaps I took to relive that trip. Les Opies those hills are called or is it Le Grand Brahis? The highest has a hut on its summit for reasons that escape me (although the views from it are startling, jaw dropping even: go and see!). Rest up, because after that it gets hard going. I did it in temps around the 30° mark. It aged me.  

Distances on the ground are not excessive, heights are modest. Some valleys and ravines are completely inaccessible, trackless and remote. Often the going is tough and rough although there are tracks.  I still bear the scratches (well sort of).  Since then we've come back several times, preferably not in the closed season, done some track walks, explored other bits. For birds and flora the Alpilles is hard to beat. Sorry, I am going on and on about this area because it is unanimous in this family: Les Alpilles is five star, limestone country par excellence.

But this time we stuck the car in a big but fortunately quiet car park on the northern edge of the area, south of St Remy-en-Provence and took ourselves onto one of the more popularly frequented walks. We didn't have it all to ourselves but the higher we got the less we saw of others. The ridge traversed back in '96 was visible, marking the edge of Les Alpilles to the east. 

We generally try not to road-walk, but there it was: a road, and given the French skill at grading inclines we were happy to follow it this time, because it is closed to public vehicular traffic and because it was going where we wanted to go. It took us an hour and a half to reach the plateau.  I can report that we enjoyed the ascent, the potter along the plateau (now off road and on track) to a second minor mast and the return back down the way we came (Mme Melling leads the way as, you may discern, above). Good views, good air – fragrant with herbal and tree odours and not too much wind. Very satisfactory.

And do you know? I wasn't entirely pooped when we got back down! Perhaps I've finally arrived at the new reduced limits of my capabilities hill-wise …… but we took some lunch in Mme Melling's favourite town in these parts, Maussane-les-Alpilles, and then visited these three (but you can only see two) towers, 12C, as you'd expect. On another limestone ridge of very modest height indeed, south of the town. 

After which… we drove back to 1rFB. 

The sky was blue. It's very nice you know, very. Tops in fact. House prices? Beyond the reach of most, and most certainly us.

acutély gravè in drôme

Here’s another of those post card thingeys I’m thrown back on during this critical period of not having internet access. It’s a second posting devoted to the wee village of Piégon and its environs, which we seem to have gravitated to again… we like the proximity to the Baronnies, and the narrow roads perhaps remind us of Devon, or not; it is quiet, off the beaten track — and rather lovely. 

Sharp eyed patrons of my singular drivel will note that the accent in Piégon is correct this time, an acute rather than a grave. No? Stay alert there! Those of my patrons who claim to be au-fait with the language (if there are any, which I doubt) must have had sleepless nights over my earlier Piègon post when it should have been Piégon. Frankly this accent business has become so acute it’s driving me to an early grave.

See what I did there?

Anyway, Piégon is a village we first stumbled into with the son-and heir some years ago, in searing heat I seem to recall. It has a seriously bad rock carving as its centrepiece, so bad in fact it’s good. Like those concrete hands at Beaumes-de Venise. We noted that rain is washing away this artistic enterprise gradually, in places anyway.

But look here, if you want chapter-and-verse on Piégon you can go on line and read it up, I’m no travel writer as I am sure you will have concluded long before now… or anything else much, I expect you are muttering, if you’ve got to this point… But interestingly, this village got tired of being up a steep hill and decided to relocate itself about 100 metres lower down. Which is why it has (or had, for a short time) two churches, the upper one being in ruins these days, like the rest of the abandoned Piégon — but with a well maintained clock tower that chimes out the hours, at the appropriate time and interval.

Sorry about the dead poplar, dead centre in the view below: I tried to skirt round it but to no avail: try to live with it will you?