Val and I spend part of the year in France, mostly in St-Rémy-de-Provence, but we also travel around the country from time to time. I thought I would share of a few stories of what our life here is like.
Getting Sneaky
Rennes is a beautiful town, full of half-timbered houses, and also the former capital of Brittany. We stopped over for a night on the way to see some friends, and we were advised not to miss the Brittany Parliament building, which is quite beautiful inside. Unfortunately, it now houses an appeals court and when we entered, a scary armed guard informed us quite firmly that only guided tours were allowed.
We slunk outside and researched these tours, only to find there were none that day. While we were searching on our phones to decide what to do next, a lady nearby asked us where we were from. She had come outside from the parliament building to have a smoke, and we had a nice chat. Then Val and I went back to checking our phones.
While Val scrolled away, I decided to be a little sneaky and told the lady it was a shame we couldn’t see the inside, as we had come all the way to Rennes and would be leaving soon. “No problem” she said, “come in with me.”
She the proceeded to breeze past the scary armed guard (“They’re with me”) and give us a tour of the place. It was so nice! It’s good to be a little sneaky sometimes.
Cocorico!
Our place in St-Rémy is across the street from a Catholic elementary school. Every weekday, we hear kids playing outside during lunch and recess. And sometimes there are school events for the parents where we hear music and laughter and raffle numbers being called out. It’s all quite charming
We learned last year that the priest lives in an apartment attached to the school. Aha, we thought, that explains all the chickens in the yard. I guess the priest likes eggs.
This year we discovered a new resident, a rooster. I say “discovered” because we heard him before we saw him. And heard him. And heard him! This is one enthusiastic rooster. It’s cocorico all day long, which is the French equivalent of cockadoodledoo. Even our friends who live two blocks away can hear him.
But he must be a happy rooster, the only male among a bunch of hens. I imagine he wakes up every morning and says to himself, “Baby, I’m going to go forth and multiply!”
A Provençal Bottleneck
We were driving to a nearby town when we suddenly found ourselves in a long line of cars, all stopped for some reason. The road bent about 20 cars ahead so we couldn’t see what the problem was. Road work? An accident? An alien sighting?
We checked Google Maps to see how far ahead the blockage was, but it said everything was fine. That meant that whatever happened was so recent that Google hadn’t yet caught up. This ruled out road work, and we didn’t hear any sirens that would indicate an accident, so I was really hoping for that alien.
Then traffic started to move and when we got around the bend, we saw what had caused the slowdown: a shepherd had moved his flock from one side of the road to the other. But of course! This happens regularly.
Maybe we need some sheep-crossing signs.
