My original summer plans included a 6 week trek along the Pyrenees, the chain of mountains that separate France from Spain. I decided to cancel this trip so I could progress with the research work for my walking tours business, but I decided to do a one week walk along the highest part of the mountains, and have just completed this.
The other night, after I had arrived back from one month drive around France, I was invited to dinner in Normandy at a friend’s house. Amongst the guests were four people who spoke Japanese and none of them were were from Japan.
There was a couple from Canada, one man from Holland, and myself, in addition to the French hosts, my mother, and another French woman who was a friend of the hosts.
Suddenly, in the garden of a house in Normandy the talk turned to Japan. The couple had lived in Japan for 30 years.
When they wanted to say something to each other which they did not want others to understand, they said it in Japanese. All through dinner the French and English conversation was peppered with ‘naruhodo-ne’ and ‘ongaku wa chotto urusai desu ne’.
Hilltop village
I am currently in the south-west of France. I wrote the following email about my trip to Ireland last month earlier but had no time to send it. Finally I have a internet connection for my laptop, so I am sending it now.
Just days after coming back from Greece, and with a dark suntan, I headed to Belfast from Paris. As I arrived we descended through grey clouds to land on a rain-soaked runway. The airplane crew huddled inside as the passengers walked down the steps and across the runway in the wind and the rain.
I met my father in the airport, who had flown from London, and we rented a car and drove to the Ards Peninsula, which lies to the south of Belfast on the Irish Sea. The small village of Ballywalter is where my father grew up, and my grandmother lived all her life. I spent my childhood coming up here several times a year, and it is a magical place for me. The sandy beach goes way out when the tide is out, and on a clear day you can see the coast of Scotland and the Isle of Man. Small outcroppings of rocks appear up and down the beach where my father, grandfather and I used to search for crabs.
Now my aunt Mandy lives in my grandmother’s house with her husband Graham, and my uncle Karl lives two houses away. My father and I bought the house in between two years ago, so we stayed there. It was my first time to visit the house since buying it, as I was in Japan when the purchase went through. It’s a 4 bedroom house, with a large lawn leading down to the beach. The views from the house out to sea are wonderful, and I was so tempted to look for a job and stay there.
Apologies to Yannis for the title. I have just come back from a ten day
adventure in Greece. I had one of the best beers of my life there; not
because the Greeks are particularly skilfull at making beer, but because
they are very skilful at making mountain trails that make test you and
tire you, so that by the end of the day you just dream about surviving
long enough to get to the taverna (Greek pub/restaurant).
I travelled with a German IAC friend, Birte Luebbert, who now lives in
Germany, to Thessaloniki first, in the north, and we then took a 6-hour
bus ride to the city of Ioannina, before getting another bus into the
Zagoria region. This part of Greece bears little similarities with the
south. It’s mostly green, mountainous, and there are few tourists.
Furthermore it is only a few miles from the Albanian border, and there
is a frontier feeling about the place.
It’s a misty morning in Normandy I have travelled across France again to visit Perigord and returned. Perigord is half-way down on the left hand side and is a favourite of the English on holiday. It has the qualities of being very pretty, has lots of nice little villages that have been perfectly preserved, has wonderful food (foie gras and truffles) and is just far enough away from England that is has some decent weather.
I couldn’t resist posting this photo of the evening sky here in Normandie.
Click on the photo for the full version.
Here is a collage of photos I took on the Provence walk…
Click on the photo for the full version.
I am writing this from one of those ultra-fast French TGVs, the trains that go about the same speed as a shinkansen, but where you can get a decent cup of coffee and a croissant. I can’t believe it’s only going to take 2.5 hours to get from Avignon to Paris, which are at opposite ends of this country.
I’ve spent the last week in 3 different parts of France. I started out last weekend in Normandie at our family house with my mother. It was lovely April weather; clouds rolling across the blue sky bringing the occasional spring shower. We were out in the garden drinking cidre and eating bread and pate. There was real work to do; we had to clear out part of the house in preparation for renovation work that is due to start about now. Occasionally one of the local ‘artisans’ (tradesmen) would turn up, and we would talk about work to be done, and about how long it takes to fly from Tokyo to Paris, which everyone seems to ask when you say you have lived in Japan for 10 years. To me it seems the most insignificant detail.
(more…)
The cherries trees are out in full bloom in our garden here in France. We have 5 cherry trees, and they are all covered in beautiful blossoms.
Today’s Chilterns walk with my father Bill was a baptism of mud. My new boots got covered in the stuff. The early April day north-west of London was mostly sunny, but quite cold and windy. It was warm out of the wind, but when we came to an exposed section of the path, the howling wind made it feel very cold.
