How Blue Is My Valley

by Jean Gill

  We definitely saw the teams, groups of riders wearing the team colours; John saw the US Postale team, with Lance Armstrong presumably in there somewhere. He also saw the yellow jersey, currently worn by a very popular young Frenchman. I am disappointed – I didn’t.

  I think I might, perhaps, have seen the spotty jersey of Richard Virenque, among the front riders, but it is only when I see le Tour on television that night that I am convinced that I was right. I was expecting the spots to be all over like on the teddy bear’s Tshirt but they’re not. There are pink stripes up both sides and the spots are more like a dalmation’s than like measles. Why did no-one tell me this? Never mind, I’ll know next time.

  18.

  Don’t worry, only the females kill

  It is true, however hard to believe; I am wishing for rain. I am a changed person after four months without the wet stuff (unless you count a few drops which didn’t even change the colour of the paving stones).

  There are hosepipe restrictions but we can ignore them because we have the spring water, true wealth. The daily watering ritual starts as soon as the sun can be trusted to have called it a day and we are proud of our flowers and crops, nurtured through the drought. Monsieur Dubois takes one look, shakes his head and says we are not watering enough.

  ‘How much water do you think an apple tree needs each day?’ he asks. I am not good with quantities. Neither am I any good with the French for quantities. I have recently ordered a fifty-litre ‘pichet’ of wine in a restaurant and my smiling waitress brought me the usual small jug – ‘centilitres’ is not a word that trips off my tongue. Then there was the purchase of a babyseat when petite-fille came to stay. I was asked ‘How old is the baby?’ and four people queuing to be served laughed out aloud at my answer, along with the salesman and my husband, who helpfully corrected my ‘eighteen years’ to ‘eighteen months’. It’s because you don’t say the ‘years’ bit in English at all, I tried telling John afterwards, that it’s a habit in French to add ‘ans’ automatically. No quarter was given - or is that twenty five centilitres. It could be worse; I could be called Connor, like a daughter’s Irish aquaintance. It is tricky introducing yourself to French people when your name means ‘F’ing Idiot’ in their language.

  To be on the safe side, I mumbled something inaudible in reply to Monsieur Dubois, who told me, ‘Fifty litres a day’ (so my wine-ordering habit would have worked), ‘Fifty litres a day... and they are like people’.

  I look at my apple trees, impeccably pruned on their espalier wires, fruit swelling. What sort of people are they? Cattle rustlers strung up? Pregnant women at the clinic? Jolly rosy-cheeked farmers and their wives, straight out of ‘Old Macdonald’?

  Apparently this is not the point. ‘Just like people. To be healthy they need their water every day, a bit at a time, not all in one go...’ Tell that to the provençal skies which gloom and gather, then deposit their treasure in the neighbouring valley, whatever the weather forecast says. We play out the scene in ‘Jean de Florette’ where the townie shakes his fist at departing thunderclouds which have passed by his garden yet again.

  We use all our old standard guaranteed rain starters. We hang out the washing, John waters the garden, we walk the dogs... nothing works. The air steams with humidity, our shirts run with sweat, we snap at each other as we wait for the storm that doesn’t come. It is like going through labour without giving birth. We are exhausted by two complete days of nearly-about-to-rain-honestly-perhaps-well, maybe not. Then the sun comes out again and we get on with our rainless lives.

  It is August so all roadworks are suspended while the council workers holiday. I just beat the down-tools and managed to sweet-talk two men with a digger into taking a scoop out of our drive, so that the car doesn’t crunch the tow-bar on the turn. Before the wonderful new road, there was no problem, and I am assured that it will be made good .... some time in September. It is not just the council workers who take August off. Even my optician is shutting up shop and I won’t be able to get my new varifocals until he comes back, by which time I will have thought of a way to raise the required cash – the cost of a new laptop.

  If you live in Dieulefit, where do you go for your holidays? The Alps, I am told, or Brittany, or the Pyrenees. Exploring France is a matter of local pride but cheap flights and package holidays are attracting more clients. A market-stallholder is just back from Thailand and my optician is off to ... Ireland. When he heard I was from Wales, he sniggered, then apologised. I asked him to explain, He said, ‘No, I shouldn’t say,’ I said, ‘Go on,’ and eventually, he did. He had just watched a film about a mountain in Wales, no, he corrected himself, about the mountain in Wales. Did I know how high it was? I did. He laughed, ‘And they are proud of it.’ I told him that if he only had one mountain, he’d be proud of it too.

  When I walked out of his shop, I could see the encircling mountains, the ridge of Dieu Grace, the St Maurice range, Mielandre ... all of them around a thousand metres or more and considered nothing by the locals, who live within an hour of the Alps. I ask about Ireland to distract myself from the pain of the estimate, barely eased by having a pair of prescription sunglasses thrown in – for that price I should be getting a cute guide dog thrown in.

  My optician is looking forward to the countryside, the culture, the people, the unspoilt beaches, the swimming... The swimming? Ireland is a lot like Wales, I tell him, gently, and it might not be as hot nor as sunny, as it is here. I don’t tell him that I remember the swimming all too well ... every time I opened my back door.

  It finally rains, with cymbals and drums that send Sensitive Dog into a frenzy. She has almost got over her fear of men in yellow jackets, thanks to the daily immersion therapy provided by Dieulefit council; she’s no longer scared of ambulances and fire-engines as she now sings along - the particular note in French sirens has taught her to howl for the first time in her life; she has not had a recurrence of the blue-balloon-in-the-sky trauma; fire risks have led to a fireworks ban so we are spared that bout of hysteria; but the natural bangs in the sky turn a dog, supposedly of the only breed capable of taking on a wolf, into a hyperventilating, shaking, whining Mummy’s girl.

  I’m not surprised that increasing numbers of wolves are worrying sheep in the Vercors, if Pyreneans have anything to do with stopping them. I suspect the Pyreneans are worried too and if you’ve seen a worried Pyrenean, you’ll know it’s not a pretty sight. It seems to consist mostly of something heavy and panting racing round the room and trying to jump on furniture. Why the floor should seem a more dangerous place, I haven’t worked out yet.

  Still, whatever the costs in dog, and consequently people, trauma, it is raining proper rain. I enjoy the freshness of the air and we even leave windows open, seeking out the spray. We listen to the orchestral performance on the house instruments, the clay tiled roof, the metal shutters, gutters and drainpipes Then I remember that I don’t like rain and sulk at the lack of light. The dogs won’t go outside and their tails droop; the cats have to be carried over the wet paving to get their food. Everything is back to normal.

  After-rain is dirty. This is not soft Welsh water; it is loaded with minerals that leave streaks and scum on every surface, on the garden chairs and the windows. The supermarkets sell a hundred anti-calcium products to add to your wash-load, your kettle, your showerhead. The mobile toolshops sell as just as many gadgets – magnetic circles to clamp around your pipes to ionise the water and convert the calcium into harmless deposits – or some such pseudoscience.

  The gadgets are about as effective as the flykillers and I have to take much the same measures – regular, tedious, old-fashioned removal. I discover how effective vinegar is on limescale, and I add descaling the kettle to my Sunday jobs. In twenty five years in Wales, I only once realised that water could leave dirty tracks, and that was when we had a freak wind blowing from the Sahara that deposited sandy streaks across cars and windows. Soap always lathered, bubble bath left baths clean, irons and kettles nev
er furred. Now, I de-scum the bath and the tiles, and although I quite like the extra shine on my hair, I know exactly where it comes from and I call it ‘minerals’. It sounds nicer than scum.

  It is unfortunately not vinegar that scents the bathroom but, umistakably, the new fosse septique. The plumber suggests that I use a lot of Scotch as a temporary measure; he will even get the Scotch for me from his van. My parents warned me that the bottle was never an answer, even temporarily, even good Scotch, but I am tempted. The plumber reappears with a roll of bright orange sticky tape. It seems that the smells from a very active septic tank are feeding back somehow through the bath and to see us through the visiting season we need to seal the overflow and a gap in the tiles with Scotch, and to leave the plug in and some water in the bath all the time. Why, we ask our septic tank expert, has this only happened after our brand new tank has been installed. He doesn’t catch my eye as he answers. Because, he says, the old one was foutue. Ah. I try not to think about where the gunge used to go.

  You assumed from their absence that the electricians had finished? No chance. We are not at all surprised that there is no question of them working in August and we will welcome them back in September if they arrive as promised. It is no longer a question of basic living requirements, so we are more relaxed.

  The key moment was when André sang the fuse box into being. Always one to sing and talk to himself while working, he created a folk opera around the triumphant climax of connecting dozens of wires into the new fusebox. Working my own kind of magic in the kitchen, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, as each wire had its own little melody and, with a verbal accompaniment of ‘Voici le micro-onde,’ the cable for the microwave was sung into place.

  Every time I switch on a light, I know it is part of the circuit of home, made safe by this wizard of the wires who has given us the key to the magical cupboard, in his own handwriting. When the storm crackles, André’s surge-protector trips the whole system and the house blinks into darkness in deference to the elements, then dances light again, clicking and whirring as the gadgets wake up.

  The rain brings out even more insects, which reach their summer peak, or rather pique, and ‘pique’ they do, snacking on my arms and legs. I read a helpful leaflet from the local chemist, telling me what is mostly likely to kill me in the summer and what to do to prevent this. My brother-in-law looks at the pictures and is convinced that he held a deadly millipede in his hand while in the Lot.

  I am reassured that our big black ‘bourdons’, the not-bumble-bees (whatever the dictionary says), are ‘inoffensive’ and ‘only sting on rare occasions’ – which is just as well, given that they are 24 to 28 millimetres, with ‘massive bodies’. This I know already.

  I am glad I am not swimming in the sea, facing lethal jelly fish, Portuguese men o’ war and sandflies, nasty little stripy mosquitoes with black eyes. These pass on ‘highly dangerous’ diseases, but it’s actually only the females that draw blood, so as long as you only mix with the boys, you’re all right.

  I pat myself on the back when I see ‘ticks’ among the ‘highly dangerous’ because I can use the old nail varnish remover/alcohol trick to get rid of those little buggers. I become more thoughtful at the information that between 10,000 and 28,000 people die in France each year from a disease passed on by a tick (again, only the female).

  As cause of death to those allergic to the venom, bees and wasps are right up there with the ticks, scorpions and vipers. Whether you’re allergic or not, a hornet sting is no fun, and I note that wearing perfume winds up the ‘hyménoptères’, the winged stingers, especially in autumn. My medicine cabinet is sadly lacking in specific anti-venoms but what I do have is exactly the pump kit recommended in the leaflet. I have irritated everyone who has been out walking with me over the last five years by complaining that none of them have been bitten by a poisonous creature to allow me to test out my Antivenin kit. Some sensitive souls even got so jittery that I wasn’t allowed to mention it.

  This pocket-sized essential has a suction pump and different sized attachments (big for viper, small for wasp) to enable you to suck out the poison efficiently. I have investigated the kit and how it works, in the privacy of my own home, but it’s really not the same as applying it in the field to a very grateful human being. Thanks to my leaflet, I now know that a viper will bite without injecting venom in 90 per cent of cases, so I won’t worry if, when someone’s bitten, I can’t get any poison up into my syringe. I suppose it’s just possible that I’ll be the one who’s bitten but that’s not nearly as satisfying a scenario to imagine, so I don’t.

  Pyrenean sister has had two weeks of rain, of which we achieved two days. I don’t think she believes me. The Pope is visiting her, or near enough, for the Fête of the Assumption and I decide to honour the religious festival in true French/Welsh fashion. If there’s a special day in France, there’s a cake for it and you don’t have to be religious to make a ritual of the appropriate food. There is the ‘galette des Rois’ for Epiphany, with a gold paper crown on it, sold for two months after the day the three kings must have reached Baby Jesus, even allowing for leaves on the camel trail. Like an old-fashioned Christmas pudding, the galette contains some trinket related to the nativity.

  As well as the usual Easter eggs, there are special appetizers for religious highlights in between, melting confections to celebrate Jesus resisting temptation, and other seasonal treats, anomalous to the outsider. My favourite indulgence (shouldn’t that be a cake too?) is a ‘jesuit’, choux pastry with patissery cream filling, closely followed by a ‘religieuse’, a nun, and a ‘sacristan’. I wonder how the advertising campaigns in English, empasising the ‘sinfulness’ of ‘naughty but nice’ cream cakes (did Salman Rushdie really coin that one?) would go down here. ‘Feeling wicked – try a nun,’ doesn’t quite work.

  With outdoor temperature at 32°C in the shade, I cook comfort food, baking Welsh cakes on the griddle, the way my Scottish aunt made drop scones. It’s not only the cakes that bake in the heat but it is worth it as they magically disappear from the wire rack, without time to cool. The day eases to a lazy close and we head for bed – to re-emerge an hour later. The ban on fireworks has apparently been lifted and Dieulefit celebrates the fête with no consideration for Sensitive Dog, who is no longer destroying her bedroom door but has not yet stopped trying to jump on the couch, a quivering wreck. I had hoped we were past the sleepless nights stage, but no. Here we go again.

  19.

  The village where no-one is a stranger

  Sunflowers have self-seeded along the banks of the Jabron where six weeks ago amorous frogs were revving up like Harley Davidsons. The yellow-headed stragglers are small, pale relatives of the cultivated sun-slaves that fill fields with their huge golden faces. I am wary of their obedience and I only tolerate the wild accidents in my garden – I will not plant these aliens. I remember too well a nineteenth century poem by Dora Greenstreet, portraying the woman as a sunflower and the sun, her lover;

  ‘His eye is like a clear

  Keen flame that searches through me;

  I must droop

  Upon my stalk, I cannot reach his sphere;

  To mine he cannot stoop.’

  I might be 5’ 1’ but he can damn well stoop, I tell the sunflowers, and there will be no drooping stalks around my garden so cut it out now. I do not think you can love someone unless there is a ‘you’ to do the loving.

  Madame Dubois is also thinking about love. When she and her husband visited her mother-in-law in a retirement home, an old lady talked to Monsieur Dubois, thinking him her dead husband. She stroked his cheek, looked into his eyes and said, ‘Que tu es beau... tu étais toujours beau.’

  ‘We don’t say this to our husbands today,’ Madame Dubois laughs and finishes lightly but her hand rests on her husband’s arm and her eyes tell a different story. ‘You look so good ... you always looked so good...’

  It is a year since we watched Mars at its ten thousand year clos
est; it is also the best two nights in the year for watching the Perseids, a meteor shower which seems to come from the constellation Perseus (although of course, despite its name, it doesn’t. They don’t make life easy, these astronomers).

  The night is clear and so, armed with binoculars and telescope, we choose a window and wait. I am getting better at waiting and I lose myself in stars, my focus blurring until they all seem to dance around the sky.

  The moving light of an aeroplane tricks me into a ‘There’s one ... no it isn’t’ but after about twenty minutes, they start, one white squib flashing across the sky. ‘Is that one?’ we ask, not trusting our eyes any more, binoculars and telescope abandoned, useless in tracking a moving object.

  The second confirms our sighting, then a third ... and a fourth, some more dramatic than others, a quiet firework display on a universal scale. I wish upon our shooting stars, a wish for someone else, so that it will be protected from the caveats imposed by the gods on dreams come true. John does not wish. Where did it come from, this fear we both have of letting even the air hear our hopes? We watch ten or so of the four hundred meteors in the shower and are contented.

  The next night is cloudy and the night after makes the firework display, the meteors and the previous storms seem mere rehearsals. It is not just sunset wall that turns pink when the lightning strikes, but the whole landscape, up into the hills where the eerie outline of the fork shimmers a few seconds before night falls again, too early in the evening.

  The storm plays overhead and we watch it instead of television, the house electricity having flashed a few times in empathy then submitted to total power loss. All the electric lighting in the valley now comes in jagged strikes, no time to count after the thunder that shakes the house like the road roller used to do. Bursts of heavy rain add to the percussion, and Sensitive Dog contributes some of the higher notes as we switch viewpoints. I have never seen an electric storm with forked lightning in all directions, west, east, south – the house has no window looking north – but what amazes me most is the pink light that flashes on and off.