The big P

24/05/2010

Perigueux is a lovely medieval city perched on what looks like an escarpment overlooking the river. We are in a hotel just across the bridge from the city and just below the Cathedral. Pilgrims get a free tour of the cloisters and stuff so we were treated to a fast circuit of the cloisters in high speed French which I understood more of than I had expected to – weird!

We have talked a lot about the nature of story telling in the context of Matthew’s Gospel (and other texts) and how the story emerges from a series of characters driving along the narrative using different angles and commenting from different points of view. Perhaps the basic framework was used to also tell the story as a spoken narrative with the storyteller’s own asides (of course, said the storyteller, as I stood there listening to Jesus this man came up to me and I had to explain this point to him before his donkey would get off my foot, etc....). Lots odf ideas and thoughts to process on this.

We also talked a lot about the nature of hospitality and the difference between being given or even buying hospitality and being allowed to take part in the process.

Sometimes we can help make food or clean up but a lot of the time, if the food is being provided or if there is a hospitalier on site, you are told not to do anything – even doing some of the cleaning up before leaving, etc. Then, in ones without a hospitalier you have the freedom to make your own food and take responsibility for keeping the place clean, etc. Everyone takes part and gets the job done quickly and it feels right to do this and leave the place as you found it.

Although being served is great, being involved in a community of shared service/responsibility can also be really good. This can extend into people’s own private space, too, but it is all related to what people are comfortable with and the like. But it is also related to issues of cost and what you get for payment and other value related things.

Which has lead us back to discussions we have been having about value systems in today’s world and about the corruption of values, how they are conceived, measured and applied. That whole area of debate needs to be revisited – tout de suite.

So, now we are in a small, steamy hotel room in Perigueux checking the weather and thinking it is moving from seriously hot (it was 30 degrees C at 5.30pm today) and dry but will be thunderstorms and rainy for the coming several days as far as we can see.

I append mots jotted for the most recent of days and hope to sort out more as we go. No editing, no serious critical reviews ... just blurbs. But when the internet is only available from time to time and we are in so many different types of places with so many different types of situations it is all a bit of a blur for us – sorry folks,

Your vagabonds or marching on their footsore way, thinking of you all....


The truffle ruffle (23/05/2010)

We arrived in Sorge to find cars everywhere, parked in difficult and impractical places. We expected to see a market in the square (there was a classic car fair in the previous village and it is/was Pentecost) but it was actually the boys and the girls having their First Holy Communion in the church. Everyone was dressed up and the children were beautifully attired too. The girls were in a variety of dresses that seem to flow and were made of off-white/cream silk. The boys seemed to be in varying get ups with stylish waistcoats and open necked shirts.

We passed them and headed for the Refuge which was open and looked really good. The temperature was at its highest level as we got here just after 12 noon so walking into the building was superb with its shade and cool. The floors are tiled and the ceiling is very high, supported by massive wooden beams. But we could not come in yet as they were preparing the place so we left our bags, took our lunch with us and went off to find somewhere in the shade.

Sorge is the capital of the truffle (yesterday Thiviers claimed to be the capital of Foie Gras) and it looks like this is where they hold regular sales of the stuff, etc. They also have a truffle museum and a hotel named the Auberge de la Truffe. We had lunch sitting on a bench in the shade, had beer in the truffle hotel (where the beer came with a dish of freshly shelled walnuts) and walked back to the refuge where we were warmly welcomed and found ourselves to be the only guests tonight as the other two people due to get here had ‘phoned up to say that they had been overcome by the heat and were making plans to stay elsewhere this night.

Today was the hottest day yet and we had set off early in order to get the walking done before the day got too hot and we had to spend too much time walking in the sun. There were lots of hills, walnut trees, some cherry trees (with sweet fruit on them) and we saw our first vineyard (Yeh!) and we even saw a farm’s-worth of pigs, too. The wildlife seems to get more exotic as we move further south but the countryside that we find it in does not seem to be changing much yet. So we have more lizards, the birds and especially the insects are getting more colourful and yet the landscape is straight out of an 18th Century painting by Constable or a Capability Brown scene manufactured for a large country estate in Buckinhamshire.

The best thing, though has been walking into the church next door to the refuge and discovering that the stations of the cross, the altar and all of the associated furniture and the tabernacle have all been designed by an amazing artist (who also did the stained glass windows) They are worth visiting this place if nothing else. Forget the truffles and get into the art of the place!!! They bare an inspiration to me and add to my conviction that I will produce at least one set of “Ways of the Cross” in wood on my return but now I will have to make all of the furniture for the altar in the same style, too!!!

I think the artist (M Riche) was also the person who designed the windows in the cathedral in Nevers, too (so similar in style and spirit).

Our Hospitalier has been wonderful, too, of course, feeding us and providing us with great accommodation. As I said, the building is ancient – probably part of the collection of buildings constructed next to the church to serve the large house located besides the church facing out onto the small square at its front. This building had been a garage in the past and I suspect it had been part of the stable yard as it has a large set of windows that fill the hole that used to be big enough to drive a large carriage into and the other door is big enough for a stable door.

Anyway, I must toodle off - perhaps tomorrow I will be able to send some of this stuff., Last night I put together some stuff at the campsite but the Wifi failed me. I will try again in Perigueux. More unstructured nonsense on its way at some time in the near future!

Night sounds on a camp site – crickets, toads, teenagers, wind chimes 22/05/2010

Typical sort of thing... we are in a campsite tonight sharing a tiny “cabin” with two Dutch pilgrims and everything is a bit cramped. We have wifi but only if I go down to a place next to the camp office but this has no night so I am typing by the light of the screen, feeling the mosquitoes nibbling at my legs.

The day was not long. We walked a slightly shorter day yesterday and added some distance to today but it was still only 24 km or so. The sun was pretty relentless and the route took us along old Napoleonic roads and through tiny hamlets which were all very nice except that there was nowhere to stop so we arrived in our night stop just after lunch time having no stop for lunch and little rest en route. We then ended up doing all of our organisational things (washing, etc) and shopping and then spent the evening having dinner with our new Dutch friends which leaves me here trying to catch up and Alison heading for bed. Ho hum...

I’m going to stop before my legs are eaten down to the bone and just add some very recent stuff. Will add more and so on when I am somewhere a bit more conducive to doing this sort of thing. Toodle pip! Oh, and on a personal note I just want to say that we are both thinking lots about Jim and Elizabeth – they know what I mean...

Love from a moonlit France and sorry this is all so ad hoc and with no time to check what I am putting up...

Piglets and poo 21/05/2010

Today we were walking towards our evening stop at St Pierre de Frugie and Alison had to stop because she had something in her boot – on rough tracks you often kick up twigs and stones that work their way down the back of your boots.

We were on a deeply rutted sunken path in the middle of a small forest with the trees towering over us on the high banks by the side of the path. As she leaned on me to get her shoe off we heard deep rumbling, grunting sounds from just a few feet away on the other side of the high bank. Something moved against the trees near us and more rumbling growling sounds kept emerging from the undergrowth. Alison finished sorting her boot and we moved on. As we did so I held the camera over the bank and took a few ‘photos. Looking at them later there is nothing to see but we were very close to a wild boar.

Then, an hour later, Alison and I were coming to a sharp turn in the forest path. Alison had slowed down because the thing in her shoe had just re-emerged at her heel and she was thinking of stopping to sort it. We were looking out for somewhere to stop when I turned the corner and there by the edge of the path, in a large pool of water, was a massive wild boar. It had been quietly wallowing in the water and mud but when it realised I was right next to it the thing just leaped out of the pool and crashed away through the undergrowth. As Alison gave out a scream of surprise it turned immediately and rushed off at right angles to her disappearing into the depths of the woods.

We were both shocked by this. The thing was big bodied, low and powerful with a very broad body and it moved so fast if it had decided to charge us we would not have had time to evade it. Later in the bar at St Pierre I started to tell the story and the bar man knew exactly what I was going to say as soon as I started. “It was a wild boar – yes, they are very common in this area and can be extremely dangerous. Just don’t corner them and never go near their young. There are stories of nursing mothers killing someone every year around here.”

So, if we see little piglets on the path in front of us as we walk along a forest path we will immediately turn and walk speedily in the other direction!

P is for Paella 21/05/2010

Sitting in the bar at St Pierre was interesting and full of things that will keep that place in my mind for a long time.

It is run by and English couple and there were several English people there when we first went in for a drink at the end of our walk and when we went in to have our dinner there in the evening. Eating there was our only real option as the shop in the village was a very posh shop of the sort that sells gourmet foods to a predominantly tourist market (cheapest wine was about 8 Euros, small jars of Bison Pate for 6 Euros, jam for 10, etc...) Even if we could afford such things we would never buy them from such a place given a choice. And our choice was paella at the English bar so that’s what we did. Makes a change from buying food and cooking it at the refugio (though that can be very nice too, see yesterday...).

Memories I will hold include: Alison wanting a Gin and Tonic so we both had one and they bumped up the price of the dinner by a considerable amount (they were GOOD); very good and copious amounts of paella – very nice and filling; the Kinks music continuously being played in the background squeezing out old memories and thoughts; lovely conversation with Alison as the sun went lower in the sky; overhearing weird bits of conversation between ex-pat Brits; hearing the sad news about Jim’s father dying and wishing him and Elizabeth all the best ... doubly sad because it may mean that Elizabeth will not be able to join us on this trip; considering the possibility of taking the band on a summer tour of the Dordogne, convinced that they would be very popular (a series of gigs at village fetes are being planned); walking back through the pretty village with Alison feeling tired, full, a bit sad and almost ready to think about tomorrow.

Look away now all vegetarians and squeamish peoples 20/05/2010

Flavignac has a great refuge across the road from the church. It is also a great little place with a good Boulangerie, a nice little general shop, a very odd Presse that sold everything as well as papers, and the usual pharmacy, flower shops, hairdressers, etc. It also has a great butchers!!!

We needed to have some food and went out to hunt it down. We knew we had some Puy lentils in the refuge and some mustard dressing in the fridge.... Went into the genral store and looked at things. Possible sausages or other meat but not particularly good and pricey. Some vegetables looked OK. We left and went down to the butchers. For some time we have been talking about having form liver for tea but when you share places with others it may not be possible to cook what you want so we have refrained from getting liver. In Flavignac we had the lovely little refuge all to our selves so when we saw the liver in the butchers we had to have some.

She said it was calves’ liver and we said OK we’ll have four slices. It came to over 8 Euros!!!! That is a small fortune to us for one ingredient in our tea but we paid it and left. We bought an onion and a tomato in the shop along with a bottle of plonk Corbiers), some bread and pain au raisin in the bakers and went home.

I cooked the lentils with a bit of garlic and parsley until they were tender then drained and put them to one side. I cut off a bit of the onion and roughly chopped it, chopped the tomato and mixed them together with dressing and extra vinegar, some pepper and parsley. I used this to dress the lentils and put them to one side again.
The rest of the onion was thinly sliced and a couple of cloves of garlic were added to this as I fried them, browning them off, then I added the liver and quickly cooked it, finishing it with a bit of pepper and red wine.

That all sounds good if you like liver but I must tell you now that the liver was not worth 8+ Euros.... It was worth much more than that. It was the best liver either of us have ever had. It really did just melt in the mouth. It was not mushy or in any way without texture. It had the lot - flavour, texture, character, colour smell and any other characteristic that makes a food good, it had it in shovelfuls! Move over goose liver, this beats the best hands down!

Of course, we have been walking through beef country for about two weeks and know that this is where calves are reared in the fields by their mothers and that the cattle are extremely well looked after. It is the place where we went for a meal with some other pilgrims, including a French man (Yves) and he got into a heated discussion about the colour and character of different types of French beef which ended in the waiter going away, using his I-phone to search the internet and come back with a photograph of the particular type of cattle they had been arguing about. We got our copious amounts of wine with the meal for free, by the way. And, yes, I had the best steak I have had in France (and for a long time) in that restaurant which was on an 11 Euro, 3 course menu.

So, when in France, buy local when you can and get your butcher to serve you what is best locally. Our butcher there (the butcher was a woman by the way) was very pleased that we were choosing her best liver and guaranteed that it was very fresh (I could tell that when I took it out of its wrappings and placed it in the pan.

Such culinary delights will draw me back to this place more than once in the future. Yes, folks, I am still a sad old carnivore but I’m sure that that gorgeous liver did me a power of good!!!