Pin-balling again

...and the marble was released with pent-up energy, and the spring snapped uncoiled from its Covid, masked box, and I bounced like a grinning devil against the confines of my country (with one 'ping' across the Spanish border) and I landed on a little balcony in Figeac, south western France.

In front of me are tiled roofs, oak beams grey and wrinkled with age, strong as concrete, wonky stone and brick walls. Pigeons fly their ungainly flight, clouds of starlings whistle and warble, swallows swoop. This here is one of those areas where rain is welcome, not the kind of place where you spy yet another threatening shower and sigh and roll your eyes like it's another dad's joke. 

Today, fat drops drenched the last hour of the market, the porcini from the forest, the slabs of cheese from the slopes of the Auvergne volcanoes,  the mounds of melons from the river banks, the tomatoes coeur de boeuf from organic gardens. Thunder hums, grumbles, roars, lightning slashes the lead above and buckets of water chase away the stickiness. A breeze wafts, spiked with ozone. Soon, the sun will be back, the street fete will start and kids will be running and playing skittles, dogs will be milling about, tail wagging, mothers will be dancing with their babies to a Brazilian band, couples will jive, others will be smiling to a singer hand-cranking a street organ, 'oh la la la, c'est magnifique', Champagne will be tasted, crepes will be tossed and we will vote on the best jam. 

So, I sit on the balcony of the small flat I rent in Figeac's medieval centre. I sip a kir and reflect on the last months since we all finally could walk further than one km radius around one's home. Were it not for lockdown and for the shocking realisation that it might be wise to have a base again, were it not for the Camino de Santiago and for falling in love with Figeac and the surrounding area, I wouldn't be here on this balcony, savouring my favourite poison. I would be in Indonesia, or in Australia, New Zealand. I would be considering ...erm...Mexico? I would enjoy my daughter's company in Hongkong. I would be pin-balling on a grand scale. I wouldn't be scared out of my nomadic soul. Damn... I wouldn't be discovering that growing roots again, physical roots, I mean, is much more time and energy consuming than wandering.  I would have written this blog at leat a month ago. I wouldn't be letting the home-lover side of me surface back. Not so soon!!

The first dash for freedom is, at first, a series of hesitant steps, a small rodent emerging, bleary, fur crumpled, legs cramped, after a long reclusion of forced interiority, still shy of the fox, the eagle, the owl, the gun. Really? 100km?And 53 nautical miles possible too? Coastal paths free? Golden beaches allowed? The sea, oh so inviting, so clear, so clean, so cold it tickles, after months of non intrusion. The hiking paths around Camaret, Finistere, western Brittany, are invaded with flowers, the sun beats on us, the wind is soft. Spring has never been soeautiful. The joy is simple and essential. It feels like the world is new again. We should do this every year. Give the earth a break. Give ourselves a break. Not produce, not consume, just be. I am sure not everybody will agree.

Families picnic on the sand, youngsters whir on mopeds, visitors saunter on the quay, you have to look before crossing the road. Friends share aperitifs and meals in cockpits. Laughter is again in the air.  'Bon appetit' I say when walking past on the pontoons of the Camaret marina. 'Santé!' Glasses are raised. Busyness clangs and echoes, sailors clean their hulls, coil their ropes, unfurl their sails, tinker in their engines, check their instruments with joyful eagerness. 

Phil, adamant that I haven't really experienced the joys of sailing yet, takes me round the south coast of the peninsula for my first 'ping!' since landing back from Indonesia.  The coast is dramatic, plunging into jade, lapis lazuli, cobalt depths. Maritime pines cling at odd angles on the terracotta granite, waves  sculpted caves and arches. In the hammock, stretched on deck, I rock and read comics. We swim, explore, delight in simple food, protected from the heatwave by the shade of the cockpit tent. One evening, as the sun sets amber and gold, the notes of old jazz classics spiral live from another yacht, overflowing with youngsters, soft sax and trumpet, 'Summertime' ricochetting on the swell. 

This is when Brittany becomes like the Mediterranean, l'île Vierge, Morgat, Crozon, Postolonnec, when it rewards the patient souls that endured its bleak winters. Now, this is for sure the sort of sailing I could get used to. 

In June, the month of my birthday, the first cherries were ripe. They hung from the tree like rubies in my parents' garden. We made jam, school was soon over, there was the anticipation of freedom from overcrowded classrooms and the drone of teachers. Last year, I was in Bali and it was steeped in the magic of this blessed island of volcanoes' summits lost in the haze, of altars and offerings, of incense wafting over rivers rushing in deep gorges, rainbows arcing in the waterfalls, of turquoise butterflies the size of my hand. This year, it has the magic of friendship, a three-fold celebration, the first, the joy of a meal out with Phil on the very day restaurants open again, the popping of a Champagne cork, oysters the essence of the sea. 

The small rodent ventures further, legs nimble, beady eyes shining. Trains are running, there are no kilometre restrictions anymore. Ping! Marie-Hélène and Didier catch me in Dinan, another medieval city inland from St Malo. 

The idea was to help Marie-Hélène in her organic market-gardening business. We share a meal in the convivial garden and I spend a morning weeding and planting in a warm drizzle. Their four daughters converge from all corners of France with husband and partner. The fizzy, the serene, the attentive and the quirky. The joy of togetherness is palpable. 

I am treated with flowers on mother's day. On birthday number 2, not one but two cakes appear on the table and they forget one candle, hurrah! We sing songs accompanied by my new travel guitar, a present to myself. It has a beautiful sound for its size and can be dismantled to cabin-size, not that there is any realistic hope of continent-hopping anytime soon.  In spite of the driving rain, it is sunny inside. 

We've had our fill of walks, the cap Frehel, for once on a calm sunny day, Fort La latte, l'île des Hebihens, along the river Rance snaking from the harbour to Lehon and up and down cobbled streets, windowsills spilling with flowers. 

When I was little, I dearly wished to have a birthday to myself. I had to share it with my sister and she, with me. Born on the same day, a year apart, as different as two sisters can be and good friends, we often happened to offer each other the same presents for our special day. The year I gave her a swatch (I lived in Switzerland), she gave me a clock but the most memorable is the time when we sent each other through the post a video of the same River Dance show. 

Ping! Paris is alive again with people sitting on every bit of grass and chatting in the shade, reading on benches, picnicking, rollerblading, walking hand in hand. My sister has a friend who is rich of a garden, a rare thing in that city. We gather there for birthday meal number 3. Thierry, my brother, looks like he's spent months in a cellar, now pinching himself, unable to quite believe he's outside relaxing under a tree. Catherine and I blow our candles. She will forever be a year younger than me.

I jump on a train to visit my old friends Virgile and Lucinda, north of Paris, the first time in many years. We met, 41 years ago (gosh), in dramatic circumstances. My then boy-friend had been 'stopped' by the police during a demonstration. They badly beat him up and threw him into a police van. Virgile, an architecture student, had climbed after him to take his address. He had seen it all. He would be a witness. And a godsend he was as Pierrot, a sweet idealist soul who wouldn't swat a fly, was wrongly accused of hitting a cop and spent 3 months in preventive detention to be finally released. He never recovered his psychological balance after that. Lucinda is from Northern Ireland and her blond hair used to be so long it gave her headaches. I remember their flat was the only place with cheddar on the table, which she bought at M&S Opera. Within the alternative crowd I was hanging out with, they were the only friends I knew who were married. What a very bizarre thing to do, I thought then... 

Today, there is Champagne, again, jokes, laughter and reminiscence, the glow of a good friendship. 

But I am on a mission. Ping! An old stone country house is waiting to be found, in or near Figeac. Incurably optimistic, I am sure it will be the matter of a week (maybe two, in my more pessimistic moments) and that I will find much, much better than a ruin for my budget. Jacky catches me at his pilgrim hostel, closed because of the virus and, in case I had forgotten what it is like to be in France, there is a succession of convivial meals, barbecues, cheerful toasting of excellent wines from his cellar as friends come and go, as the sun vanishes behind a patchwork of fields in an opal sky, as insects buzz around the fairy lights and the lime tree releases its heady fragrance. 

I shall not be distracted from my mission and I pinball, ping! ping! ping! ping! back and forth, accompanied by patient estate agents. The machine speeds up, the points add up, I will score big. The first time I walked through this area, I was enchanted. From this tower, Rapunzel let her hair down. Sleeping Beauty woke up behind those crenelated ramparts. This fireplace, of ox-roasting size, saw Cinderalla try on her missing shoe. Pointy tiled roofs top dovecotes. Castles, mansions, farms and manors sprout from alder, oak and ash woods, the sandstone the shade of spring honey. Rivers, lined with poplars, sing in valleys between cliffs peppered with caves, already inhabited millennia ago, where horses and mammoths gallop on the walls. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to feel this is a land of legends. 

Reality check. Old houses are vast. No, thank you, I am not planning to organise summer camps. Ceilings are low, windows do not let in much light. This one has a titchy garden because it is in the centre of a village. That one is completely isolated and has thousands of square metres of fallow land, a forest and an orchard big enough to open a jam factory. No, I don't need a crumbling bread-oven and two ruined outbuilding and I don't need this old barn either, gorgeous as it is. It requires years of work. Life's too short. This small manor in the valley is beautifully done up, but too expensive and faces north. It won't see the sun for 3 months in winter. That country home is in the flood plain. This one shouldn't really be for sale unless one is keen on lost causes. This one has a beautiful view but the renovation has erased the wonky, magic patina of old. At night, I toss and turn. Decision, decision...

This is exhausting. Enough. I need a break. Ping!!

In November 2017, along the Camino de Santiago, on the day I had resumed walking after a 10 day break, I had met Charlotte in a Spanish albergue bulging with pilgrims. After almost 30 kilometres and no available accommodation, my legs felt like jelly and my feet weighed tons. She invited me to share a meal with their little group and there started the sort of instant, true camino friendship. A young lady of unfailing no nonsense commitment, she had shaved her hair for the journey. She is blessed with a peaceful, generous soul. 

We stayed in touch and now, after 3 years, we are able to meet again, in the Lozere 'departement', over an hour north of Figeac, further from the madding crowd there is not, the most empty area in the whole of France. We cook, sing, swim in a forgotten river, at the foot of a rocky path through dense forest. 

The flat is fragrant with drying herbs and foraged fruit. Strange concoctions age in bottles. Books pile in corners. The little group she shares dreams with are gathering in the village that weekend. They plan to start a commune really close to... Figeac, as it turns out. We laugh at the twists of fate, curious to see where it will lead.

Our talks meander between the I Ching, astrology, philosophy, destiny, not unlike the passionate discussions I had in my 20s with friends in smoky cafés and tiny bedsits. They are a rare mixture : an open, non-judgemental, idealistic, intellectual lot with a strong practical sense in their hands. For the first time since I returned to France, I feel completely at home in my country. Yes, I can find here a community of spirit. They don't know it but they help me land back in my shoes. 

After a few train connections, I get off in a subdued San Sebastian, well, as subdued as a Spanish city can be. Ping! My old friend Idoia deplores the absence of fiestas and festivals, feels she has lost her bearings without the traditional rhythm of summer celebrations. 

Still, we meet friends and relatives in bars, delight in countless pinxos and potes (tapas and drinks), the light local white wine, the txakoli, poured with dexterity from high up into tumblers, like it should be. The damn virus has struck, masks are mandatory everywhere except on the beach, the crowds more fluid, less heaving than usual. No matter, we have plenty to share and a lot of catch up to do. Long swims in the warm waters of the bay, playing in the waves, a trip west to a stunning bit of coast, chatting along the waterfront, quiet evenings listening to music, watching a grim and gripping New Zealand detective series. I recognise the area around Queenstown and I am seized by an intense nostalgia.

But, there is no choice, distant destinations are not on the agenda these days and I continue what I now see as a reconnection with the community of friends, with life on the continent, 'in Europe' the English would say, to my ever renewed amusement. 

I discover the efficiency of car-pooling. A driver takes me on the long road to Brittany for a pittance, all of the 750 kilometres from the Basque country. Ping! Phil and I leave the quiet waters, cafés and sunny alleyways of Loctudy, South Finistere, for the Glénan archipelago. 

After 4 hours of sailing, we anchor off l'île Guériden, a vision in golden sand and turquoise sea topped by a tuft of hardy weeds clinging to a bed of granite. High water will almost completely cover it but right now, it is a Carribean-like heaven. 

L'île Penfret offers a good shelter for the night, between the bird sanctuary and the 'teenager sanctuary', the reputed Glénan Sailing School. Throughout the evening, we are sandwiched between two cacophonies of similar intensity, shrieks, squawks and screeches on one side and French rap on the other. In the darkness of night, all is finally quiet. Just the light slapping of the chop against the hull and myriads of stars, the Milky Way in its full awesome splendour. 

This will carry me through the ups and down of property hunting. I have secured a base in Figeac because, yes, I know two things now. First, it will take time. Second, a home is nothing without the community of friends.

The joy of togetherness, what makes us human, will not be denied. Ping!