Clermont l’Hérault

Leaving Montpellier behind has been far from traumatic. In fact, I don't think I've given that over burdened, grimy city a second thought - other than 'glad we're not there any more'. I really didn't expect to much prefer une vie à la campagne, but that's how it's turned out since we started living in Clermont l’Hérault in June. 

I was here in Clermont last year during a wintery February and a spring like March; the town presents itself quite differently in the full bloom of summer.  There are abundant flowers everywhere, including glorious displays of Laurier Rose, also known as Oleander and dubbed a 'toxic weed' in Australia therefore routinely chopped down.  This opinon is clearly not shared in France, where Oleander is actively cultivated and appreciated, and we now share that appreciation.  This time of year flags, bunting and floral hanging baskets adorn most streets and squares whilst pavement cafés multiply and flourish everywhere.

The bright blue, cloudless skies and long days of sunshine have encouraged wide exploration of the Hérault area and we have ventured further afield than previously, discovering new and memorable places.  

Pepper swims in the Lac du Salagou; Alex paddles his pirogue on the river at Aspiran; we have danced at the Fête in Cabrières; enthusisatically tasted the new season's rosé wine at Fontès (very good, bought a case); we've listened to the free Bach recitals performed every Wednesday at St. Paul's with musicians from all over the world playing the grand organ; viewed the abstract art and photography exhibitions at the Ancienne Ėglise; drunk pichets of wine and enjoyed the Mélo Divin live music festival at Allées Salengro which also hosts open air cinema sessions and jazz concerts.

Bastille Day was a huge indulgence of non stop almost free wine and music, with spectators - including toddlers  - weilding fireworks whilst watching the official firework display. The visible lack of an overbearing police presence, security guards, barriers, crowd control, hooligans, ambulances waiting for business etc. etc. was truly liberating, with everyone expected to regulate their own behaviour - if you maim yourself with a firework there's no chance of a law suit or an ambulance so this has a beneficial knock-on effect!   

We've sampled cheese at the night market at Octon, lit camp fires and roasted marshmallows (this particularly appealed to Alex as the possiblity of just lighting your own camp fire pretty much isn't an option in Oz), listened to salsa amidst the natural wonders of the Cirque du Mourèze and marvelled at the limestone gorges of Saint Guilhém le Desert. We've visited Roujan, Neffiès, Muviel-les-Béziers, Plaissan, Lodève, Cuxac d'Aude, Nébian, Saint Jean de la Blaquière - all places we could easily consider living.  We honestly and truly drive around with a boules set in the boot of the Fiat and whip them out for a wine fuelled challenge wherever a boulodrome presents itself. 

We've only been here four weeks!  Last Thursday I just couldn't summon up the energy for a wine tasting plus musical hommage to Dalida followed by dancing until 2am at Adissan and turned in early.  Who would have thought la vie à la campagne offered so much?!  We selected Montpellier for what it might have to offer and found what we were looking for forty minutes from its bright lights.  So much so that we've talked seriously to a couple of real estate agents.... 

Fiat Punto

Wheels. Pretty much taken for granted.  No longer by us however, given how tricky it is to get on the road in France.  And how important.  France, unlike Australia, has many, many villages and towns sprinkled liberally throughout the countryside, within a few minutes of each other,  each with their own markets, personalities, attractions and appeal.  It's possible to spend a lifetime encountering the villages of France, but impossible without a car!  Having spent a small fortune on hire cars last year, this time round we were keen to earn our independence from Rent-a-Car.  But how?  To buy and insure a car requires the all important utility bill (the golden key to many doors in France) and it's terribly difficult to get a utility bill without references, referrals and a track record of renting a home, or owning your own home.  Problematic.  A long and expensive relationship with Rent-a-Car loomed on the horizon.

Holly to the rescue!  Lurking in the garden of her country house, quietly taking root, was a much loved but ever so slightly neglected Fiat Punto Cabriolet.  A car I'd known and loved in London as it shuttled us from bar to club to party, night after memorable night. It even knew its own way home from Soho House!  Why not rescue, revive and restore the little treasure and drive it down to its new life bistrot hopping in the South of France?  Why not indeed.

 

Thus one chilly Saturday in early April, weilding spades, we dug the car out of the garden.  We heaved up the bonnet and jump started the car.  It started first time!  That earned her the reward of a new battery.  The new battery helped the Fiat limp to the car wash for a spruce up.  Life was improving for the Fiat, but sadly we had to leave her in Samois and head South to take up our new rental home in Montpellier. 

Holly took over and found out what was needed to pass the Controle Technique, the equivalent of the Safety Certificate in Aus or the MOT in the UK.  An eye  watering assortment of dings, scrapes, knocks and bangs to a vehicle's body work are considered compulsory in France, and in this regard the Punto passed with flying colours.  What was required was a new motor for the windscreen wipers, a couple of light bulbs for side lights, two new tyres - nothing too outrageous - after four years of taking root, anything was possible!  These things fixed up, a full service and the Fiat was ready to go. 

 We took a train to Paris, enjoyed a fabulous musical showcase by the talented M. Philippe Barbot, drank some wine and retired early ready to drive the seven or eight hours from Samois (well positioned one hour to the South of Paris) to Montpellier. 

 
A nightmare journey ensued where we left Samois bang on time and avoided heavy traffic and scary weather, only to realise my lap top had been left behind, sitting in the hallway in Paris..... No option but to turn back and retrieve it.  This represented a Hideous Set Back.  THIRTEEN hours later, after nearly coming to blows several times in assorted lay-bys, wrestling with folding maps and Sat Nav (twat nav...)  and going around in circles near Nemours, we were still on the road.  We limped in to Montpellier at 1 a.m., having driven through some spectacular countryside - including the amazing Millau viaduct - in the dark. 

Not a good start for the new life au sud for the Fiat Punto Cabrio. However, things have continually looked up for us all, and she has settled in very nicely to the long hot days, the drives through vineyards and rolling foothills, the trips to the boulangerie and local markets -  and is a big hit with Roly and Pepper, who love the wind in their fur as we bomb along at 130km looking for a new adventure. The locals may take us for Parisians due to our proudly Parisian number plates and give us the cold shoulder, but we don't care, we'd rather be shunned than grounded.  Thank you, Holly, for the Fiat we call Freedom!

En Angleterre

Visited the mother country in June.  An interesting and revealling trip in ways I was not expecting.

First of all, I was very taken with how lovely it all was. Just beautiful.  And here was I fresh off the plane from the fabled South of France!  Frankly, where I was (Durham, the Dales, Raby Castle) really held its own, perhaps even excelled thanks to the castles, monasteries, ruins etc. casually scattered everywhere, the deer grazing in the woodlands, the quaint and picturesque villages one after the other in lush emerald countryside. 

I loved the vintage horse-drawn gypsy caravans meandering through country lanes following Appleby Fair, the jaunty bunting strung along every street and square in honour of the Queen's diamond jubilee.  The food was delicious and varied and the coffee wonderful - I even drank a perfect Flat White!  I was delighted to see the endless walls entirely free of any sort of graffiti, streets featuring total lack of dog poo, revelled in the pristine condition of national monuments, stately homes and just about every house I saw, wanted to partake of a pint in each one of the ridiculously quaint pubs, and - most importantly - basked in the warm, friendly, smiling, funny people I came across everywhere. Gosh, why did I ever leave??!

The weather, that's why. It was NINE DEGREES for most of my stay. Nine degrees centigrade. Nine degrees at midday, in mid summer.  NINE.  I went to bed in pyjamas with an electric blanket and the central heating on. In mid summer.  I had packed a coat, a scarf, woolly tights, a thick cardigan and I wore them all, all the time.  Incredible to me was the general up-beat approach of the locals to all this - overheard on an escalator in a department store "for all the rain, it's not that cold is it?".  I felt like screaming "IT'S NINE DEGREES!!!!! THAT'S BEYOND COLD!!".  

Despite the cold, I had a wonderful time.  It was a huge relief not to be struggling with the inferiority of one's French language abilities.  When the sun did shine (for three days of my seven day stay) it was truly inspirational; when it didn't it the warmth of my welcome made up for it.  I think the dismal weather has also given people a humourous, resiliant outlook to life, one full of optimism and one to learn from.  And it isn't always thus - we know it's some bizarre Gulf Stream variable causing the worst summer weather 'since records began', so the papers were happy to reassure the nation that there would be 'Summer in September'!  Glad to hear it, these people and this Sceptred Isle deserve better!

Parlez-vous français?

"Don't worry about the language, you'll pick it up once you're there".... Famous sentiments, still popular and frequently quoted to those about to live in foreign parts.  Don't believe a word of it.
 
Despite a lifelong exposure to the French language, learning it all through school, using it at Uni and on into the work place, a twelve year sojourn in Australia where possibly the only two French words used would be Café and Croissant, has taken me back to what feels like Square One.

A course at Alliance Française before we left had me feeling rather confident, chatting comfortably with Geoff and Cathy the language presented no problems.  Try chatting with Gaston and Carine and it’s a different situation entirely.  They have accents, you see, use slang, speak quickly and don’t care whether you know what’s going on or not.  We don’t want to be the ex pats who can order a meal and ask directions and that’s it, so off to School we went.

Most unpleasant.  I spent a lot of time sitting there seething that the French see fit to have eight ways of saying ‘this, that, these and those’ whilst we have only four, and insist on frequent use of the relative pronouns ‘dont’, ‘que’, ‘qui’, lesquel’, ‘laquelle’, ‘ou’, ‘auquel’, ‘duquel’ – remembering to change things for masculine / feminine / plural !! – all of which can be entirely omitted in English, or the use of ‘that’ will suffice.  I sulked for days about such preposterous nonsense, let me tell you.
 
After settling down and accepting I just had to learn all the ‘nonsense’, things improved somewhat and I enjoyed my school days. Alex enjoyed his too and had quite a fun class.  We were both interested to note our schoolmates were Swiss, Italian, Swedish, German, Brazilian, South African, Australian, Dutch, Austrian – all of whom spoke excellent English, which is possibly why there were no British there – why bother??  Everyone speaks English and if they don’t, we can just shout and point – or use Google Translate on the i phone...
 
We have come to realise, however, that our biggest stumbling block is each other.  We aren’t going to speak to each other in French, so our home environment remains English. We have French TV, subtitled in French, which helps, and we are looking forward to the day we can grasp every word without the use of the subtitles. We try to speak for twenty minutes a day to each other in French but usually end up just shouting and pointing – or using Google Translate.  Roly and Pepper have learned to ‘restez’ rather than ‘stay’, but Oscar remains resolutely indifferent. 
 
Trying to apply our new language ‘skills’ out there remains frustrating.  French people almost always reply to you in English no matter how abysmal their English is and no matter how competent your French is.  I have been asked directions, given them perfectly, only to find the recipient asking the next person on the street, and receiving the exact same directions I’d just given! Was I not understood – or trusted, perhaps?  I’ve been asked in supermarkets, restaurants and airports if I speak French, have replied in the affirmative and then been spoken to in halting English. Most confusing. It’s hard not to feel insulted when one’s French is routinely ignored, so we are trying to pretend that the French just want to practise their English and aren’t being rude.  Unlikely, but it helps keep us calm.  We’ve even noticed that Google France takes this approach – after initially presenting the page to us in French it has now decided to default to English! 
 
These difficulties really do batter confidence and it’s easy to see why people just give up, especially if the language of the world seems to be English and the French seem thrilled with their own capabilities in English too boot.  Short of living in separate homes in remote countryside and learning a rural argot, there seems little Alex and I can do other than persevere. I suspect we are being impatient and a little hard on ourselves. After all, I can argue in French with Orange Telecom over the phone, organise pet sitters and rental cars, send back rubbish coffee in cafés, chat to fellow dog walkers in the park and even talk drunkenly for hours with our local restaurateurs – what more do I expect after only ten weeks in the country?   Just think, after a year I may be able to run for French Parliament – or they will all decide to speak English instead, seeing as they are so good at it.....

The Housing Crisis in France Part 2

Well, we have been here seven weeks now and it's been a steep learning curve.  Interesting for me has been the - quite sudden - falling out of love with Montpellier.  Unexpected to say the least!  I don't know if it's me and I am no longer hip and pert enough for such a young city, but I find myself stomping around disgruntled by the dirt, the hoardes of people, the disgraceful defacing of historic buildings by graffiti (I've asked residents about this and apparently French people don't mind graffitti - say what?? I think the council are just lame/lazy) dog poo festering everywhere and a general feeling that if Montpellier were a person she'd be a grubby, harried, over taxed, under age, single mother on benefit - with a creative streak. 

Compare this with the fresh, optimistic and pristine face Nîmes presents to the world, and it's a push over.  Again, I am happy to accept it could be that I'm just too old to find grimy old Montpellier wearing its cloak of vibrancy attractive. But give me Nîmes any day!  This city feels like it's interested in life, not taking it for granted.  We loved the spaciousness, the shining streets, the Roman remains and the quietly confident cafés.  The Haussmanian edifices just begged to be lived in, and the exhuberant fountains beckoned in the sparkling sun. Yes! Yes, we thought, we shall live here.  Bring it on!  Then we found out about the bull fights.  Nîmes is France's biggest bull fighting city and the 150,000 population swells to one millon twice a year as blood lust afficionados throng to the city.  Oh, dear.  We didn't even realise bull fighting was big in France, never mind that it is overtaking Spain as champion of this barbaric ritual.  All this takes place in the stunning Roman Arena; might as well bring back public executions as far as we are concerned.  Okay. Nîmes is out.

What about Avignon?  In lovely Provence?  Beautiful, with a song dedictated to its bridge, endless ancient history (of course), wide, impressive streets,the papal seat from the 14th century, quirky cobblestoned quartiers, on the banks of the majestic Rhône.  A strong contender, and no bull fighting. Great. What about a place inside the old city walls with a garden? Um, maybe not. What about the Mistral howling through the streets and driving the inhbitants famously mad in winter months? Oui, you can count on it. Okaaay. Back to the drawing board.

So we turned our attention to St. Rémy de Provence. Picture perfect town, full of quaint streets and charming squares, not to mention affluent inhabitants and eager tourists. Pretty much the story book French town. Fab, we both liked it, plus Roly and Pepper were most popular with the locals. And, result! They were serving FREE WINE in the market square - our kinda town! Rushed home to research available properties in any budget never mind our own, and found, wait for it - two (2). Seems St. Rémy de Provence is popular with many culture and free wine liggers, not just us.

Sommières is well situated, half way between Montpellier and Nîmes, in lush countryside and another Roman settlement with a typical bridge, a walled centre, a ruined medieval castle and a square so charmant it looks like a movie set.  Excellent. Oh, and a rather fabulous chocolate shop. Double excellent.  So far it's still high on our list as a strong contender. 

Visits to Toulouse and Marseille are still necessary - we need to see as much as we can - and another foray into Béziers is probably a good idea. We would like to find that place that really is 'it', the one that feels like home, the right fit. We are possibly being too fussy, too picky or too un-French in our mindset, but after the huge upheaval necessary for such a big overseas move, why not hold out for the dream location?  

Maybe we will grow accustomed to the idea of the Mistral (it does cover pretty much all of the South of France), turn a blind eye to poo and graffitti (or turn vigilante, equipped with paint, rollers and copious poo bags) and come to view La Corrida as an integral part of the Midi lifestyle (highly unlikely). Every place has its pros and cons - Sommières is prone to flooding and a lot of their postcards seem to feature bulls running through the cobbled streets à la Pamplona - and we could still be viewing everything through Hollywood movie eyes.  Or Aussie eyes. I do miss Target a bit. But I'll get over it. I guess it's all part of gradually Becoming French.....

The Housing Crisis in France - Part 1

We have been here for seven weeks now, so in terms of finding our long term home, where are we up to?  Presently, we are living in Montpellier in a pleasant one bedroom apartment with a roof terrace, very close to Place de la Comédie which has its advantages (it's in the heart of it all) and clear disadvantages (it's busy, dirty and noisy in the heart of it all).  Coming from Australia we are accustomed to plenty of space, so whilst a one bedroom apartment in the thick of it is fine for now, ultimately we want a home where we can welcome guests, potter in the garden, light a fire for the winter nights, have a study or music room, that sort of thing.  

We decided that renting a place for the first year, say, would be the best thing. That way we wouldn't have commited ourselves too much to any one place and we could use it as a base to research our options and find the perfect place to settle. Plus, French rents are signifcantly less than Australian rental prices.  Makes a lot of sense, right? 

We started off looking on seloger.com, the French equivalent of realestate.com.au, and found about a thousand properties to rent in the Montpellier area. Great! Then we specified we were only interested in properties 60 M2 or over. That cut the properties down to about a hundred. Then we specified outside space - a garden, courtyard or terrace. That left us with four places. Four. And we hadn't even limited the budget! 

Undaunted, we thought we would take a look at these properties.  This is when we found that renting a home in France - a permanent rental not a holiday home - is really difficult. And it's become more difficult since we did our intial research last year.   You see, in France it's very common for someone to rent a home their entire life, as no one really has a burning need to own a house or an apartment. This means a contract between tenant and landlord can go on for twenty odd years. French law makes it very hard indeed for a landlord to evict a non-rent-paying tenant and impossible to evict one during the months November through March, due to hardship / winter stipulations. Thus, offering to pay a year's rent up front is of no interest to a landlord or agency - what about the other nineteen years you might possibly reside there rent free and unevictable?? Also, letting agencies have taken out insurance against being sued by disgruntled, out-of-pocket landlords to whom they have referred dodgy tenants, thus any letting prospect now needs to suit very stringent letting stipulations. 

Needless to say, we don't suit.

Furthermore, French houses are not equipped in the way we are used to. Most of them don't have a kitchen, just a sink, and the tenant is meant to supply the rest of the kitchen fittings, because he will most likely stay there for twenty years and will want to choose his own. Something we are not used to, needless to say.   Que faire?  Well, time became of the essence as our Montpellier apartment lease is over at the end of June, and being homeless in France over the summer would be very difficult given that the whole country goes into 'closed down for the holidays' mode.  Rather than struggling to build up rental dossiers, purchase entire kitchens including white goods, put our household shipment (arriving soon from Australia!) into storage and go without internet and telephone for several months, we looked for a holiday rental to see us through. Not easy at this time of year, and we were getting rather desperate.  Just as Alex was talking of camper vans and tents (rather too excitedly, I have to say) our luck turned.  Unexpectedly, a perfectly suitable place came up in the same Residence des Pins we lived in last year, and we gratefully took it. 

This does not solve our long term challenges nor is it exanding our horizons, since we are familiar with Clermont l'Herault, but it means we will have a very nice summer!  It means we will have a garden for pottering, a fireplace for wintertime, room to welcome guests and a lovely base to do more research into the Languedoc and Provence and hopefully find our future home.  And that can't be bad....in fact it's vachement bien!

Things We Miss and Things We Don't...

So we have been here a month now, and certain things are starting to feel normale and there are other things we really miss.  Here's a run down - in no particular order - and any suggestions / donations gratefully received!

Miss - Tim Tams.  No further explanation needed.

Miss - Crackers for cheese!  Love, love baguettes but sometimes would just really like a cracker.  My favourites in Australia were Premiums but, really, any cracker would do, and I don't dare dream of oat cakes or Carr's Water Biscuits...

Don't Miss - Colorbond Fencing.  Suffice to say this form of utilitarian, ugly perimeter containment was originally designed for detention centres and industrial estates.  And that is where it should stay. No one in France would ever consider surrounding their personal living space with such an affronting material, and I can only applaud their sound judgement.  If I never see Colorbond again I will die happy. 

Don't Miss - Humidity.  Always my bete noire, I am naturally delighted that there is no humidity here whatsoever (not even when it rains, it seems, although I know that's not possible!) and EVERY SINGLE DAY IS A GOOD HAIR DAY.  Without any effort on my part.  A good enough reason to be here, no matter what. Why did I wait so long..???

Don't Miss - Coles / Woolworths.  The supermarkets here are stunning displays of abundance with bewildering choice.  A recent visit to Géant Casino, a hypermarket the size of Heathrow Terminal 1, required a map, walkie talkies, supplementary fluids, four hours and a fully loaded credit card.  But the cheese we bought!! And the charcuterie!! The choice, the range, the selection!  All this and weekly markets, too.  Coles and Woolworths would sink without a trace.  No crackers, though..... 

Don't Miss - Utes.  Have not seen a single ute since arrival, and that's just fine.  Especially don't miss flamboyantly coloured, souped up V6 Utes secretly aspiring to be fancy sports cars but masquerading as work vehicles. However, am learning to be wary of white Renault vans and the drivers thereof, usually in possession of ruddy faces, loud music, aggressive attitudes and scant regard for pedestrians &/or their dogs.

Miss - Cattle dogs.  I just like their sturdy shape, blue coats and die-hard attitudes. Wonder if they could be happy here?  Probably not, as they are happiest in the back of a ute!

Miss - NZ Marlborough Whites.  Cloudy Bay.  No further explanation needed.  Oh, maybe there is for my legion of French followers (!). The flinty, fruity flavours, the prickly acidity combined with the rounded body of the palette = superlative and I have yet to find an equivalent here.  I do plan to keep searching, though...

Miss - homes with gardens.  Not at all the norm here and something we have come to realise we can't do without.  To have a garden one almost has to live in the country, and we can't make do with a balcony or terrasse it seems.  Nor can Roly, Pepper and Oscar.  Hereby hangs a very long tale, and a whole other blog. Watch this space.

Miss - Friends!  Irreplaceable, unforgettable, worth finding, worth keeping and the real reason a place on the map becomes a home.  Look forward to seeing y'all here soon and our new place will feel all the more like home!