The Happy Camper

 

I’ve just spent a wonderful week squished into a tiny caravan in the Pyrénées, at a lakeside campsite in Matemale.

It was perfect! Well...almost so...

We walked in the mountains in the mornings, fizzed in the Jacuzzi and sweated in the sauna in the afternoons and gazed at the stars at night.

We climbed high peaks, paddled in icy lakes, shivered in dark caves...

We saw forest fires...

whispered to wild horses...

and we searched our souls.

Ah, yes. It was perfect.

Well.  Almost so...

Revel

I have recently returned from the set of a Pagnol film.

At least, that’s what it felt like, although the accent was Dauphinois and everything was in colour, not in black and white.

I spent the day in Revel, a village perched in the Belledonne mountain range overlooking Grenoble. The morning sky was a brilliant, gentian blue and the grassy slopes were warm beneath the sun.

First stop was the two-hundred year old bakery to meet the boulanger, Philippe and La Femme du Boulanger, Geneviève. I watched as the baker weighed out flour, yeast and salt on a pair of scales that looked at least as old as the bakery itself, then tipped it into an ancient mixer the size of a hot tub.

When ready, the dough was put into a cold store to rise...all day. Fortunately, Philippe had prepared some kneaded dough for me to form. Easy peasy, I thought, but of course, it wasn’t. I was supposed to be rolling it into a long, thin sausage but by the time I’d finished, it looked more like a giant pork chop.

Philippe came to my rescue and showed me how to make a tresse, which he then popped into the wood-fired oven.

When he brought it out later, piping hot and golden, I couldn’t help but wish I wasn’t intolerant to gluten. But – hey – that’s life. Sometimes we have to do without the things we love...

Mild masochistic tendencies led me to visit l'huilerie - the walnut press - next, where that delicious walnut oil, which I can no longer tolerate, is extracted. It opened in 1928 and supplied the locals with oil for the next thirty years. It closed due to a decrease in demand but was reopened in 2003 by a voluntary association, l’A.P.P.A.R.. The machinery is strangely beautiful: solid, gleaming cast iron that has stood there for over eighty years, dormant in summer but cranking into action from December through to April.

Then a character straight out of Jean de Florette walked in, blue eyes twinkling beneath his beret, to offer us a drink from the spring on his land. Ah! L’eau des collines...

Finally, I visited an elderly couple who lived on a smallholding. The old man showed me his peacocks and his enormous rabbits then told me to take an egg from the henhouse. I did, marvelling at the unusual rubbery shell.

“That’s the dummy egg,” said the old man, bemused and slightly alarmed. Well, I was one of those queer folk, les gens d’en bas – it was only to be expected.

I arrived home, weary and contented: the experience had set me yearning for a simpler, slower existence. Yet I do realize that life in the mountains is no Pagnol film. It is a harsh way to earn a living, especially in winter.

Because, to quote Pagnol: Telle est la vie des hommes...

Paris in the spring

I have always dreamt of a romantic weekend in Paris, in the spring.

Well, I never got it but recently, I was able to experience the next best thing. It wasn’t romantic but it was in the spring.

One of my several jobs is as a classroom assistant in a CLIS, which stands for Classe pour Inclusion Scolaire. These primary school children have learning difficulties: dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysphasia and so on. It is a rewarding job and I’m fortunate to be working with a dynamic (perhaps hyper-active is a better term) and dedicated teacher called Isabelle.

Isabelle decided it would be fun to take the whole class to Paris, so we have spent much of the school year raising money for the trip.

My role was to make cakes with the children to sell. You’d think this would be quite a challenge, especially with dyspraxic children. In fact, the headmistress put a stop to this project after I nearly set the staff room table on fire. Please don’t ask...it’s a long story...

We received donations from various organizations and our local MP, Geneviève Fioraso, invited us to visit the Assemblée Nationale, one of the two assemblies which, with the Senate, constitute the French Parliament. She came to talk to us about it and our photo was in the paper. Hmmm. I never realized just how short I was until I saw myself standing next to a ten-year old...

We left Grenoble on Tuesday morning and arrived in Paris just in time for lunch, which we ate in the Jardin des Tuileries. This park was once an area occupied by workshops making roof tiles (tuiles). In 1564, Catherine de Medicis created her palace garden here and after the French Revolution, it became a public park. Frankly, though, I had more important things on my mind: I’d left my picnic in the fridge at home and I was really, really hungry, penniless and gluten-intolerant to boot...  

Nevertheless, I jogged along to our next rendez-vous: the National Assembly. This is housed in the Palais Bourbon, built at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the legitimized daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. During the Empire period, the neighbouring Hôtel de Lassey was joined to the palace by a gallery.

It is sumptuous. That’s all I can say.

Next stop was the Eiffel Tower. The children had been looking forward to this for months and were terribly excited, although not as excited as a certain Erika Eiffel, an American woman who loved the tower so much, she married it in 2007. Well, I can see the attraction: tall, handsome, dependable and not likely to go wandering off when you’re least expecting it...

The following day, we went to the palace of Versailles. The children were impeccably behaved despite our uninspired guide who appeared to be visiting for the first time herself. The one anecdote I could relate to was the story of the Galerie des Glaces. Apparently, it was the first time people had seen themselves full-length in a mirror and some of the more sensitive ladies promptly fainted at the sight. As I said, I can sympathise, because I caught sight of myself a few times and felt distinctly queasy (well, I had had a sleepless night, having to deal with midnight pillow fights, homesickness and a broken bed which had been jumped on once too often).

  

We visited the gardens with their beautiful fountains and also the Hameau de la Reine, a hamlet and working farm where Marie-Antoinette dressed up as a peasant and milked cows and sheep as a hobby.

 

On the third day, we took in Notre Dame, the Pyramide du Louvre, the Stravinsky Fountain, the Arc de Triomphe - which was closed – and the tacky souvenir shops, which weren’t closed and which turned out to be the highlight of the trip. Fortunately, I didn’t have any money – because I am an absolute sucker for tacky souvenirs.

Ah, Paris in the spring! I may not have waltzed beneath the moon on a bateau-mouche or been kissed in the shadow of Sacré Coeur but I certainly brought back some wonderful memories and - oh all right, I admit it – just one teensy-weensy Eiffel Tower key ring...

It's not all bad

Due to personal problems – of which I’m sure you’ve heard quite enough – I haven’t written anything for a while. Actually, I’ve been waiting for someone to set my car on fire and although I have had to rush down in the middle of the night a couple of times to drive it away from the blazing vehicles surrounding it, my car is still more or less intact. So nothing interesting to report there, I’m afraid.

And I’m certain you have no desire to hear how daily life has become a metaphor, rich in symbolism, for my state of mind. How computers, cookers and fridges have turned against me, how my piano no longer plays F # or A, how the shutter in the sitting room refuses to close while the one in the bedroom refuses to open or how the front door handle now comes away in my hand because somebody tried to break in.

And is it fair that in the third flush of youth, my body has started to fall apart? The ignominy of having to search for my glasses in order to read the small print on a packet of Cup O’ Soup! Gluten and nuts are devious devils…

As for my brain…well, I needed to do a bit of spring cleaning up there as it was getting a bit cluttered and I’m convinced this is the reason my memory is not what it was (as far as I can remember, that is). So I took myself and my arthritic knees off for a walk in the mountains.

The last time I went for a walk in the mountains, I nearly had to be carried down. Now, I have absolutely no problem walking up a mountain – in fact, the only reason I haven’t climbed Everest before is because I hate getting my feet cold. However, as I have developed arthritis in both knees, walking down feels like someone is sawing my legs off very slowly with a rusty cheese knife.

So I had to buy walking sticks. Cool, technical-looking ones, of course, so people will think I’m a seasoned hiker rather than an arthritic old bag.

And off I went to Chamrousse.

Chamrousse is a ski resort perched above Grenoble in the Belledonne range of mountains. It was first mentioned in 1260, when it was referred to as Culmen Rufus (Red Peak) and it appears on the map for the first time in 1744 although the discovery of Roman coins at the summit indicates that the Romans were familiar with the peak.

After the creation of the Uriage spa in 1823, curistes would regularly climb to the top of Chamrousse as part of their treatment. I’m not sure how efficient this was as the waters of Uriage are used to treat arthritis amongst other things. Perhaps it was just a scam by doctors to have their patients coming back for more?

The ski lift was built in 1952 and was deemed to be the safest and fastest in France, along with that of Courchevel. And of course, the Winter Olympics were held here in 1968.

My destination was the Lac Achard, a tiny lake above the resort and apparently named after a man who once owned a hut nearby. It’s an easy walk from the ski resort and at an altitude of 1 917 metres, the view is wonderful.

I sat in the autumn sunlight, contemplating the reflections playing on the surface of the water, and realised how fortunate I was to be able to enjoy such stunning scenery. My mind cleared and my problems suddenly seemed so insignificant…

Then I reached into my rucksack for the bag of delicious apples I had hurriedly packed for my picnic and pulled out…a bag of lemons.

Is Somebody trying to tell me something?

Au voleur

On Saturday morning, I was rudely awakened from my sleep by a neighbour shouting down the intercom “Madame, they’ve smashed your car, they’ve smashed your car! Get the police!”
 

As I was wearing a henna-stained nightie, two shower caps and a woollen bonnet, I couldn’t rush down immediately. However, once my Golden Oak locks had been rinsed and dried, I nervously made my way downstairs with a feeling of dread.

If I didn’t know better, I would say my car is cursed. The very first time I parked it in front of my flat, it got keyed. Then some drunken thugs backed into it, leaving a dent. Once, I had to call out the breakdown truck at two in the morning because the car just stopped as I was driving someone home. I still cringe at the memory of Mr Breakdown Man saying “Um – you’ve run out of petrol”. To be fair, I use LPG but nobody told me it needed petrol in order to run. Nobody ever tells me anything.

Then I had a violent tussle with a kerbstone in the rush hour and had to buy a whole new wheel.

And now this.

In fact, when I saw what they’d done to the car, I was relieved. Only the window was smashed and the radio-CD player stolen. Or rather, the façade had been stolen. I’m a bit thick when it comes to practical matters and I hadn’t realized that the façade was detachable and I was supposed to take it off in order to prevent people smashing the window to steal it.

I know now.

I took photos, like the police told me to, using the last of my precious ink to print them and photocopy all the documents they asked for. Then I spent two hours waiting at the commissariat and reading every single copy of Femme Actuelle and Auto Moto before a policewoman took my statement. She was far more interested in the fact that I’d been born in Cambridge than looking at my photos and kept throwing oddly inappropriate phrases at me in broken English.

I finally got through to the insurance company who told me they didn’t need the dépôt de plainte at all and that they couldn’t reimburse the radio or – and I swear I detected a snigger here - suggest how to extract the George Benson CD.

Thank goodness for Golden Oak Herbal hair dye, that’s all I can say. The stress of living here is turning my hair completely grey…

Notes

I volunteered to play the piano in church last Sunday. I have no idea what possessed me to volunteer, given my previous rabbit-in-the-headlights experiences. Although I can play the hymns perfectly in the emptiness of my own sitting room, I am invariably struck by the musical equivalent of Writer’s Block in front of an audience.

Child prodigy I was not. My piano teacher was a lonely spinster (am I still allowed to use that word?) whom I could manipulate into telling me her life story for the duration of the lesson. By the time the following pupil arrived, I had managed to avoid the piano entirely. So I saw no point in practising.

Probably the best-known composer for the piano is Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849), who was Polish. His father was French though and Chopin himself came to Paris in 1831 and stayed there for the rest of his life.

Now, he was a child prodigy. Already composing at the age of six and giving public concerts when he was seven, he was frequently compared to Mozart and Beethoven. His success as a composer and performer led him to Europe, where he stopped off in Paris and settled there for good.

In 1836, Chopin met the feminist author, George Sand, at a party. He didn’t fancy her much at first – in fact, he found her repulsive and asked, in a way that would do Prince Philip proud:

“But is she really a woman?”

Nevertheless, they became lovers. Their relationship was difficult as Chopin was often depressed and always ill. In 1847, Sand published a novel where one of the main characters bore a strong resemblance to Chopin and the portrayal was far from flattering. Chopin went into a big sulk and before the year was out, the relationship was over.

He died aged thirty-nine of suspected tuberculosis.

Here’s a Chopin Nocturne: Opus 9, n° 1:

Camille Saint Saens (1835 – 1921) was another child prodigy and he was simply brilliant at everything. He had perfect pitch and began learning to play the piano when he was two. He wrote his first composition aged four and he was five when he first appeared in public.

Saint Saens had learnt to read and write by the time he was three. At seven, he was studying Latin. He was also a scientist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a poet and a playwright.

Oh – and he played the organ in church too, although I’m sure he didn’t stop half-way through a hymn mumbling “Hang on, hang on, I can get this bit…”

Saint Saens married a woman half his age when he was forty and had two sons, both of whom died within weeks of each other. He blamed his wife for the second death (the child had fallen out of a window) and left her. She never heard from him again. The fact that he was rumoured to be homosexual might have had something to do with it too.

He died of pneumonia in Algiers at the ripe old age of eighty-six.

Here’s the Andante from his piano concerto n°2:

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) studied music at the Ecole de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris. Camille Saint Saens was his piano teacher there and they became life-long friends.

He also earned his living as a church organist but he didn’t get on very well with the priest. This is because Fauré used to sneak out between hymns for a crafty cigarette and when he turned up dishevelled one morning after a night on the tiles, the priest asked him to resign.

In 1905, Fauré was appointed head of the Conservatoire de Paris where his ideas were considered far too modern for certain members, who promptly left. It was also around this time that he started to go deaf.

His love life was a bit of a shambles. Brought up by a wet-nurse and packed off to boarding school when he was nine, he wasn’t exactly familiar with normal family life. He married in 1883 but was hardly ever at home, due to his horreur du domicile. He also had several mistresses including the married singer Emma Bardac, who was also the mistress of Claude Debussy.

Fauré died of pneumonia in Paris at the age of seventy-nine.

The following clip should bring back comforting memories for those old enough to remember Listen with Mother. Here is the Dolly suite…are you sitting comfortably?

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918) was born in Paris. He started taking piano lessons at the age of seven and entered the Conservatoire when he was ten.

From the beginning, Debussy was a rebel. He rejected the rigid, traditional methods of composition in favour of unusual intervals and dissonances which shocked his teachers. I’m quite good at unusual intervals and dissonances myself so I can sympathise.

Between 1885 and 1887, he studied at the Villa Medici in Rome. He didn’t like it much there either and complained about the company, the accommodation and the food. He didn’t even like Rome and got quite depressed about it all.

But his turbulent love-life surely provided relief from all that boredom. He was a heartless womaniser, having affairs with all sorts of women, including married ones. He left one girl for her best friend, Rosalie, a fashion model, whom he married. She turned out to be a bit thick and Debussy got bored again and embarked on an affair with the ubiquitous Emma Bardac (see above). When poor Rosalie found out, she tried to commit suicide by shooting herself and consequently most of Debussy’s friends turned against him. Well, he only had himself to blame…

Debussy’s other claim to fame is that he was one of the first people to undergo a colostomy operation. He eventually died an unromantic death from rectal cancer at the age of fifty-six.

Listen to Two Arabesques:

Erik Satie (1866 – 1925) was born in Honfleur but moved to Paris when he was four. His mother was English (born in London to Scottish parents) and when she died in 1872, Satie was sent back to Honfleur to live with his paternal grandparents. When they died six years later, he went back to live with his father, who remarried shortly after.

Satie’s step-mother was a piano teacher. Either she wasn’t a very good one or – more likely – Satie was a bad student. When he began his piano studies at the Conservatoire in 1879, his teachers soon let him know he had no talent whatsoever and labelled him the ‘laziest student in the Conservatoire’.

He was sent away for two and a half years, but was readmitted in 1885. Unfortunately, he was still deemed to have no talent, so Satie stormed off to join the army. He managed to stick it out for four months and then, desperate to escape, he endeavoured to catch bronchitis by sleeping outside in the middle of winter with no shirt on. It worked and he was discharged.

He moved to Montmartre and began to hang out with all the arty types in Le Chat Noir café-cabaret. During this period, he started publishing his Gymnopédies – he was, after all, more gifted as a composer than a pianist.

In 1893, Satie met Suzanne Valadon, an artist’s model and an artist in her own right. After their first night together, Satie asked her to marry him. She wouldn’t and he became obsessed with her. She finally left him six months later and poor Satie was heartbroken. It appears to have been his only intimate relationship (so where was Emma Bardac when he needed her?).

He died, aged fifty-nine, of cirrhosis of the liver.

And on that cheerful note, I leave you with his Gnossienne n°1:

By the way, the piano playing at church went very well. There were a couple of moments where I inadvertently slipped down a semi-tone or two, lending an interesting jazzy element to What a friend we have in Jesus, but – hey - there’s nothing wrong with dissonance. If it was good enough for Debussy…

Losing it

I’ve spent most of my life trying to lose weight and there’s absolutely nothing I don’t know about calories, ketones or cottage cheese.

I have consumed gallons of glutinous milk-shakes, swallowed fistfuls of fibrous pills and detoxed myself dizzy. I’ve even joined slimming clubs in the hope of humiliating myself into submission.

But nothing ever worked for long and it was all so boring and expensive…especially the slimming clubs.

French slimming clubs are no different from English ones. You pay to get weighed once a week by a celery-stick thin woman who clucks as she notes down your weight loss (or gain, in my case) while you stand there shivering with indignation and cold because it’s the middle of February and you’re wearing a chiffon sundress and no shoes. It’s worth a try but it fools nobody.

And while food is indeed an interesting subject, there’s a limit to the amount of enthusiasm I can drum up for endless discussions of fat-free fairy cakes, frozen yoghourt and Naughty Doughnuts. So I left the local slimming club before they threw me out.

However, I have finally discovered the secret to easy weight loss.

It started with nuts: peanuts, cashew nuts, hazelnuts…anything with a shell. I found myself writhing in agony at the mere whiff of a walnut.

As someone who can finish a jar of organic peanut butter at one sitting, this discovery came as a shock verging on the anaphylactic.

And once my doctor had ensured, through a series of scans and examinations of various bodily fluids, that my intestines had not taken up macramé and my womb was not about to drop out, she came to the conclusion that I was suffering from food intolerance.

Gill Baconnier intolerant to food? That is one oxymoron of a diagnosis.

And it didn’t stop there.

I suddenly became intolerant to gluten, too, which seems pop up in the strangest of places: vinaigrette, chocolate, crisps, beer…in fact, I’m having trouble finding anything to eat at all.

The Health Food shop is no help. Their sad little stock of gluten-free products consists of urine-coloured pasta, bread the texture of damp sand and biscuits that are so expensive they should be chained to the shelf.

I could, of course, get an allowance from the Social Security to enable me to buy these ersatz products masquerading as food, but I haven’t got the courage to fill in all the forms. I suppose I’ll just have to do without.

And that’s the secret. Do without. I’ve lost ten kilos so far so it works well.

But what I wouldn’t give for a Naughty Doughnut…