Blue skies, white caps, red tape

Continuing the Camaret chronicle...  

Sittin in cafés is conducive to writing. "Putain, ça caille" (Fuck, it's freezing), declares the young lady behind the bar, slim in black trousers and white apron. She just stormed back inside with a bag full of bread crusts. She bangs it on the counter in front of a client perched on a stool, wrapped in his anorak, a grey woolly hat with a wobbly pompon still on his head. "Pour tes poules" (for your chickens), she tells him. He's doing crosswords with another customer who just announced he saw a dolphin yesterday by the Pen Hir headland.
I have caught the 7 am bus to go to Crozon to the dentist's. The only sign of life in Camaret was the bakery, a fragrant cave full of light in the dark coldness of the quay.
While I wait for my appointment, I dunk my crispy croissant in a satisfyingly big cup of milky coffee.
These days, my reading companion is "Sur les chemins noirs" by Sylvain Tesson.  He's walked from the Italian border to the tip of Normandy through the "zones d'extreme ruralité", the most empty parts of France. He calls our time "the age of Flux" (after the stone age, iron age, etc...), the age of constant movement, relentless communication. How best to escape it but to tread the forgotten paths where the flight of a buzzard or a slithering lizard make the news... We have left millennia of rurality during the last couple of centuries... "l'univers, c'est le local moins les murs", he quotes (take away the walls from the local area and you have the universal). He is a poet. I haven't yet reached that stage of wisdom yet and do not feel ready to be so contemplative as the little wings on my feet have at last matured to their full flying capacity.

How we are constantly plugged in is what I realise when I purchase a new phone. I am unsettled. Surely I will lose my contacts, be less connected while fumbling with the intricacies of sim cards, new providers, various mysterious codes, new swipes and clicks...

I had forgotten the "death by paperwork", that typically French slow torture. The aptly named Marine, the friendly lady working at the capitainerie was emphatic in the harassment felt by the population in general when confronted with administrative procedures. Opening a bank account or setting up monthly payments on a new phone is a series of hurdles...
Phil and I are in this intermediate, no-man's-land, state experienced by those who are on the move. That doesn't help "les paperasseries" (red tape).
So, armed with a proof of identity and bank details, I went to purchase a phone in Brest last week, not meaning to dedicate too much of my time to it, as shuffling in big stores in front of an assault of products is not my idea of fun. OK, phone, cover, go to desk, give paperwork for setting up monthly payments... Ah, but they also need a proof of address. Damn... Go to your bank, around the corner, they'll give it to you. Ah, but it is closed for lunch. OK, let's go to lunch too, walk down to the harbour and find three delicious courses for 13 euros. So far so good. OK, walk back to bank, get proof of address. Ah, but, their computer can't do that because my bank is in Paris and we are in Brittany (!!!) Damn... What to do? Ah! But I have on my phone a photo of a proof of address. Smug, I show it to the nerd at the desk. Ah, but it is too old, see. It needs to be less than 2 months old. This was when weariness settled in...
That was saga number 1.
Then there is saga number 2 on the red tape front. Then, that's it, I promise.
The discovery that it was possible for Phil to open a French bank account with an English address was a welcome one. The realisation that it required multitudinous proofs of address, (none of which he had) much less so. Hum... But France hasn't changed since I left it 30 years ago so my suggestion to provide not necessarily the right papers but a whole lot of them worked a treat. Frank, the spiky-haired young chap at the Credit Agricole assured us with a smile that all would be sorted in Quimper within a week.  A month later, there was still no sign of life in that area and Frank went on holiday to be replaced by his spiky-haired twin. Frank 2 had no idea whether his colleague had ordered the card to be delivered at the bank or at our English address so he ordered a new one. Then Phil received the pin number for the wrong card. After a few daily, weekly, comings and goings between the marina and the bank, all was in place, cards, pins, access codes to get onto the internet, etc... Hallelujah, it took 2 months.
The other day, I went to withdraw some cash and both Franks were there, having a quiet laugh in a very empty bank. "ah, both of you here! At the same time? Gosh, you must be so busy", I joked. They had a big grin under their spiky hair. This is one hell of a cool job.

Apart from that, it all goes like clockwork. The supermarket has local fresh, unpasteurised milk every Friday. It plays rap and French pop in the background. The restaurant has reopened in the "place des artistes". In the alleyways of Camaret, palm trees grow, sheltered from the wind. Our marina neighbour, Pierre, a cheerful, enthusiastic soul, often shares our evening meals and gives us rides in his car. I stayed for a day in a private hospital and received swift high quality treatment for 30 euros, thank God for "la sécurité sociale" and to be still enjoying the pre-brexit European health card. For how long, hey?

The north and east winds have brought cold and clear skies and enchanting treks along the cliffs. Surfers ride the waves. The crêperie by the beach is opened on weekends. They have a collection of guitars in the corner for whomever wants to play or sing.

To be continued....

Mightily Maritime

As I am hunkering down in the main cabin of our yacht, Zingara, I now know why November is called "Miz Du" in Breton. It is, without a doubt, the "black month". The capitainerie du port has secured the pontoons with extra ropes, we have removed the tent and lowered the sprayhood so they don't get blown away or shredded by the wind, forecast to reach force 10 a bit later today. Gusts cuff the hull, we roll, Zingara tugging at the many ropes that secure her, trembling with anticipation, like an over-enthusiastic dog determined to go for its walk. The slight pitter patter of drizzle on the coach roof, a gentle hopping of birds' feet, has evolved into a stampede of bisons. The riggings are clanking, tapping, whistling. The pitch increases with the wind speed. 

In the 3 minutes it took Phil to check the decks, he got thoroughly soaked and brought in through the hatch a mighty blast of the southerlies that have been buffeting this coast since the beginning of the week. 

Earlier today 

I am grateful to be in a dry boat, with a heater, and only a few isolated drops dripping from portholes slashed with rain. I would have to be paid dear money to go outside, unless it is a dire emergency.

Over the last 10 years, the pontoons of the "Port du Notic", our friendly marina here in Camaret, were torn by storms twice and have been secured with new solid chains. Or so I have been told. I am not feeling completely relaxed with the repeated slaps of an irate weather, while Phil is bright-eyed and energised by it all. 

The "route du rhum", a boat race from St Malo to the Guadeloupe, started last Sunday with up to 4 million spectators massed on waterfronts, cliffs and headlands. A third of those incredible trimarans have been obliged to sit it out in various harbours of Western Brittany. A few are moored here, to the general excitement. Others managed to out-distance the weather and will be arriving as I write, while the rest are keeping a low profile, just like me, and I don't blame them. There will be enough of them for another race. The interest is in participating, of achieving your dream, not in winning, if that's what rocks your boat, hum... 

Thinking of global warming, of this unprecendented weather font that covers most of the North Eastern Atlantic, how can we not see that the Earth is stronger than whatever we throw at it. It will dish it back to us, with interest. As we are witnessing. 

On a lighter note, meanwhile, life goes on during the lulls between blasts, with timid sunshine and fluffy clouds. But never, never say "oh, I think the wind has stopped, hasn't it?", because a gust will suddenly come out of nowhere to prove you wrong. Camaret is unfazed. It has already seen it all. Life continues. This morning, on my walk along the quay to the supermarket, a lady was optimistically moving tables out on the the terrace of a bar, under the awning; two chaps were having a natter in the middle of the most busy crossroads; the same familiar smell of croissants and fresh bread was wafting from the boulangerie. The cinema will be open tonight, for whomever feels motivated to walk the alleyways.

I relish being back in France, storms notwithstanding, reacquainting myself with a more direct, and for me easier, manner of being, enjoying the slide from the formal "vous" to the informal "tu",  a sign of acceptance. I smile at shops being closed between 12 and 2 for lunch, at the conversations in the cafés, at the newspaper-reading coffee-swilling small crowds on the terraces. In spite of my decision to embrace vegetarianism, (or at least pescetarianism while I am here),  I had to, absolutely had to,  eat a "bouchée à la reine", with "ris de veau". It had the taste  of the Sunday lunches of my childhood.

 Views of Quimper                 

  

Conversation in Camaret

At the very edge of this continent, at the end of a cross-shaped peninsula, tucked in safely against the worst winds, the multicoloured houses of Camaret-sur-Mer reflect in the waters lapping the harbour quay. Mullets splash in the marina, cormorans dive among the fishing boats and sardines heave in black swarms not far offshore. There are fresh oysters at the end of the quay. 

 

We walk on the cliffs, following jagged dizzy paths to golden sandy beaches with surfers' waves. Cafés and restaurants' tables spill over the waterfront, a smell of butter and buckwheat wafts from the crêperies, the "Irish" pub offers Belgian beer on tap. 

 Alleyways twist and turn, artists have painted the cobblestones, flowers in tubs adorn squat granite houses with bright blue wooden shutters. It is not all a bed of roses, though. From 1960 to 1980, the cameretois had money coming out of their ears from lobster fishing in Mauritania. Tourism is now more or less the only industry but, thank God, Camaret is remaining unpretentious. No bling. A small tight-knit community. The post office clerk knows everybody by their first name. But "Bonjour madame" to me. 

The library, a modern big-windowed cube has a reassuring collection of comics. I discover a sci-fi collection I didn't know and sit in the cockpit of the boat in the marina, with the evening sun streaming through, a cup of tea by my side. I am keen to read the sequel of the "Aldebaran" stories. Gwenaëlle, the librarian, is all friendly smiles and light chuckles when I bring back the sack load I have already read through. 

'I am having a comic book orgy.' I announce, 'Do you have the first 3 books of the Betelgeuse series?' 

'Ah, I need to buy them again. Monsieur  X, (Let's call him Kerguelen) is the last person who borrowed them. 

'Ah, but he's dead' declares a lady in black, firmly ensconced across Gwenaëlle's desk for a natter.

'Ah yes, and he died suddenly' volunteers a stocky man with a weathered face. 'He's probably taken them to his coffin...'

Gwenaëlle laughs. 'That's pushing the love of comics a bit far, no?'

'It will be written on his grave', the lady in black declares. 'Here lies Mr Keguelen who loved comics too much'.