Weekend in Brittany, part one
Jul. 23rd, 2003 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetJuly 12, 2003
The nocturnal TGV train from Lyon to Quimper was not really traveling in style. J. had never taken a night train before, and was perhaps disappointed that it meant, in our case, trying to make ourselves comfortable in reclining seats, being dressed for hot weather, but feeling frigidly cold because of the rushing breeze outside the bullet train, and waking up when new passengers got on. At least our seats had little side-of-head supports, something the airlines might look into.
(But not, I assume, the airline I shall call "N---W---": J. reports that on her return flight on the 16th -- we flew on different planes -- the captain actually announced that they were in the business of safe and secure transport and any "customer service" was incidental; this announcement was matched by the attitude and behavior of the flight attendants. But I get ahead of myself.)
At any rate, we arrived in Quimper around 9 AM, and if on our European night train there were any incidents of international espionage or bizarre crimes requiring the attention of Belgian detectives, they seem not to have occurred in 2nd-class car number 17.
I was out of sorts for much of the morning, having slept reasonably well only one night of three (and not the most recent), but I put on something of a happy face when we went (by bus) to Les Halles Saint-François, a bustling indoor farmers' market where our friends the B--- family (known to long-term readers of these pages from the "famous American actress" tale) sell organic herbs on Saturdays. We exchanged greetings, left our luggage behind their table, and then went out to walk around the rest of the market and the surrounding bits of Quimper for a few hours, purchasing Breton music and tasty kouign-aman.
Early in the afternoon we returned to the market and ate lunch with the B---s and some of their friends, a lunch improvised from fresh herbs, tomatoes and cheese from neighboring stalls, and organic bread made by Youn (or spelling to that effect), a friend of the B---s whose farm/bakery produces the bread from seed to loaf.
The B---s took us home, stopping along the way to drop off a couple large crates of Youn's bread at the natural foods store where their daughter Marie works. (Our arrival with the bread prompted some shoppers who were leaving to turn around and re-enter the store).
After we left our things in the guestroom, J. and I helped Michele, our hostess, move the two goats they keep for clearing fields from their pen to a grazing area. J., summoning up that inner reservoir of quickness that let her win a 4-H Pig Scramble some time in the early 80s, managed an impressive full-body catch when one of the goats bolted away. The goats, you see, really only respect Gérard, the man of the house, but a few days before our arrival he had accidentally dropped upon his foot one of the heavy iron wheels to which the goats are tethered when they are taken out to graze (thus breaking his foot; for this reason, he does not figure much in the following accounts of our outings), and they barely heed Michele; still less did they mean to behave for visitors from imperialist America.
Nonetheless, eventually the goats were tethered, and Michele took us to the beach nearby. We had visited this beach in March, 2002, in the company of Joachim, the B---s' photographer friend from Alsace; it was much more hospitable now, if less dramatic. I understand Joachim has a picture of me standing on that bleak rocky beach in my long black coat; this time, however, I was less photogenic in my green swim trunks. The waves were mighty, and the water was rather cold, so J. and I contented ourselves with walking along the beach, taking care to avoid occasional small blobs of tar-like oil (remember hearing about that oil-spill off the coast of Spain a couple of months ago?) while Michele surfed with her body-board. I fear I may even have gotten some sun.
Christian, a neighbor who keeps a house in Brittany but works in Vietnam, came over for early evening apertifs and conversation, bringing his son and daughter, ages, oh, 12 and 8 or something. The boy coached his sister (privately, several paces away from the table) to say things to us in English, which she repeated back in an unbelievably cute and thick French accent, reminding me of the scene between Catherine and her nurse in Henry V. After a while, they left, and we ate dinner (salmon).
At about 10:00 dinner was accomplished, but sunset was still roughly an hour away, which was a bit disconcerting. Soon after, Michele was ready to take us into nearby Pont-L'Abbé, where a weekend-long festival was underway. We were about to get into the car when we remembered the goats. This time, I volunteered to take the one J. had handled so well earlier.
Now, there is a ditch that one must cross in order to get from where we were to where we were going. It's only a little ditch, easily stepped across. Easily, that is, if you are not holding the end of a chain at the other end of which is a charging goat. I had just crossed it, and all of my weight was on the forward foot, when the goat took off at full speed; I was dragged along for a few feet until I heeded Michele's quite sensible instructions to let go. The incident resulted in bruised fingers, a scraped elbow, and grass stains.
So far as I know, no goats were harmed in the making of this livejournal entry.
For the festival night itself, that's really best summed up in my unchronological entry from a couple of days ago, with the added detail that one old woman demonstrating the flax-to-linen process cheerfully harangued bystanders about the evils of artificial fibers and of bathing too frequently.
The nocturnal TGV train from Lyon to Quimper was not really traveling in style. J. had never taken a night train before, and was perhaps disappointed that it meant, in our case, trying to make ourselves comfortable in reclining seats, being dressed for hot weather, but feeling frigidly cold because of the rushing breeze outside the bullet train, and waking up when new passengers got on. At least our seats had little side-of-head supports, something the airlines might look into.
(But not, I assume, the airline I shall call "N---W---": J. reports that on her return flight on the 16th -- we flew on different planes -- the captain actually announced that they were in the business of safe and secure transport and any "customer service" was incidental; this announcement was matched by the attitude and behavior of the flight attendants. But I get ahead of myself.)
At any rate, we arrived in Quimper around 9 AM, and if on our European night train there were any incidents of international espionage or bizarre crimes requiring the attention of Belgian detectives, they seem not to have occurred in 2nd-class car number 17.
I was out of sorts for much of the morning, having slept reasonably well only one night of three (and not the most recent), but I put on something of a happy face when we went (by bus) to Les Halles Saint-François, a bustling indoor farmers' market where our friends the B--- family (known to long-term readers of these pages from the "famous American actress" tale) sell organic herbs on Saturdays. We exchanged greetings, left our luggage behind their table, and then went out to walk around the rest of the market and the surrounding bits of Quimper for a few hours, purchasing Breton music and tasty kouign-aman.
Early in the afternoon we returned to the market and ate lunch with the B---s and some of their friends, a lunch improvised from fresh herbs, tomatoes and cheese from neighboring stalls, and organic bread made by Youn (or spelling to that effect), a friend of the B---s whose farm/bakery produces the bread from seed to loaf.
The B---s took us home, stopping along the way to drop off a couple large crates of Youn's bread at the natural foods store where their daughter Marie works. (Our arrival with the bread prompted some shoppers who were leaving to turn around and re-enter the store).
After we left our things in the guestroom, J. and I helped Michele, our hostess, move the two goats they keep for clearing fields from their pen to a grazing area. J., summoning up that inner reservoir of quickness that let her win a 4-H Pig Scramble some time in the early 80s, managed an impressive full-body catch when one of the goats bolted away. The goats, you see, really only respect Gérard, the man of the house, but a few days before our arrival he had accidentally dropped upon his foot one of the heavy iron wheels to which the goats are tethered when they are taken out to graze (thus breaking his foot; for this reason, he does not figure much in the following accounts of our outings), and they barely heed Michele; still less did they mean to behave for visitors from imperialist America.
Nonetheless, eventually the goats were tethered, and Michele took us to the beach nearby. We had visited this beach in March, 2002, in the company of Joachim, the B---s' photographer friend from Alsace; it was much more hospitable now, if less dramatic. I understand Joachim has a picture of me standing on that bleak rocky beach in my long black coat; this time, however, I was less photogenic in my green swim trunks. The waves were mighty, and the water was rather cold, so J. and I contented ourselves with walking along the beach, taking care to avoid occasional small blobs of tar-like oil (remember hearing about that oil-spill off the coast of Spain a couple of months ago?) while Michele surfed with her body-board. I fear I may even have gotten some sun.
Christian, a neighbor who keeps a house in Brittany but works in Vietnam, came over for early evening apertifs and conversation, bringing his son and daughter, ages, oh, 12 and 8 or something. The boy coached his sister (privately, several paces away from the table) to say things to us in English, which she repeated back in an unbelievably cute and thick French accent, reminding me of the scene between Catherine and her nurse in Henry V. After a while, they left, and we ate dinner (salmon).
At about 10:00 dinner was accomplished, but sunset was still roughly an hour away, which was a bit disconcerting. Soon after, Michele was ready to take us into nearby Pont-L'Abbé, where a weekend-long festival was underway. We were about to get into the car when we remembered the goats. This time, I volunteered to take the one J. had handled so well earlier.
Now, there is a ditch that one must cross in order to get from where we were to where we were going. It's only a little ditch, easily stepped across. Easily, that is, if you are not holding the end of a chain at the other end of which is a charging goat. I had just crossed it, and all of my weight was on the forward foot, when the goat took off at full speed; I was dragged along for a few feet until I heeded Michele's quite sensible instructions to let go. The incident resulted in bruised fingers, a scraped elbow, and grass stains.
So far as I know, no goats were harmed in the making of this livejournal entry.
For the festival night itself, that's really best summed up in my unchronological entry from a couple of days ago, with the added detail that one old woman demonstrating the flax-to-linen process cheerfully harangued bystanders about the evils of artificial fibers and of bathing too frequently.
