What the heck is happening to your blog, Redhill-Simards?

We know, we know.

But here's the problem. Soon it'll be nine months we've been here. And we love it as much, if not more, than the very first day we got here. But unlike that day, these days feel familiar to us, and there's not as much to tell (in that breathless, you'll-never-believe-what-we saw/ate/did tone) and as a result, we've slipped here. A lot. We're still trying to get in our reports of who came and what we all did together, as well as reports of our travels, but there seems to be longer and longer lag times ...

So. We're going to change focus here a little. We're going to try for a monthly report, to be posted in the first week of every month. And we may not be as thorough as we've been. But we'll still be here!

So, April's report in about ten days ...

(Also, for those of you who know how to do it: you can call us, too! We're always more interesting in person ...)

Pictou County comes to Narbonne

Guess who came to dinner?

Boysalooza


It seems hard to believe, but it really happened. Our friends Alta & Tom from Nova Scotia arrived last week with their two sons, Mitchell and Alex. Rue Beaumarchais expanded to welcome our visitors, and the weather decided to be kinder to the Owens than it had been to Julie and Ron. After wetting their feet for five days in Paris, touring the Normandy region and a very long travel day, the Owens made it to our corner of the country. Alex, a lifelong lover of elephants, finally had his first real encounter with the beautiful beasts at the Réserve africaine in Sigean. He said he'd waited ten years and thirty-four days for the happy moment. The whole family shared his joy—and they all had fun encounters with various wild beasts to report (Mitch is still shaking his head in laughter at that ostrich).

Mitch's love of all things skateboarding lead them to locations we didn't know existed and they made quick friends with the owner of Narbonne's skateshop and various market-stall sellers. Somehow, Mitch also found himself behind the wheel of a Porsche. For about two minutes, but he was in heaven.


Lots of shopping ensued as well. Montpellier's parking garages were somewhat unkind to Tom—who had his worst lifetime driving experience while going down the upramp. Luckily, the French drivers (not known for their easygoing politeness) didn't insist on driving up at the same time. And, some nice drivers offered their spot (after they stripped off several layers of clothing to get back into their vehicle). Some drivers seem to forget that their neighbouring car also has doors, especially when parked way way down in those underground parking garages.

"Old" friends in a bind in Figueres

We all discovered that Figueres has one of the coolest playgrounds we've ever played in (Alta and I agree) although the Dali teatro-museo and its two-hour long lineup will have to wait for another time. On Easter Sunday—after picking up our lamb at the market—the Dads planted the eggs for the egg-hunt and supervised their collection (that's them in the upstairs' windows).

Two men locked in the house to keep them away from the chocolate.

Lots of chocolate eating later, Narbonne-Plage beckoned. Alta and I collected sea shells, though it was too windy for one of our patented sand-houses (complete with stick people). In our thirty-six years of friendship, we've perfected their construction. Instead, we wandered about while the boys dug into the dunes piled up near the concrete wall. Alta was spilling sand out of her pockets for days afterwards. Michael's close friendship with M. Séguy introduced us to the delicacy of lamb shoulder and unfortunately, to head cheese. Oh, and if Michael offers you something to eat while in les Halles, consider the old adage: taster beware.


Karting Krazy

Max Andretti

After the beach, we wandered toward Gruissan when we spotted a mecca for boys of all ages: karting! We rushed back home, picked up Tom, Michael, and Mitchell and headed back down for a go-karting extravaganza. Neither Max nor Ben had ever tried it before but they impressed us with their natural speed-demon qualities. I'll let the official race photos do the talking. The older "boys" also raced around like fools, with both fathers obsessively passing poor Mitchell around the track.

We left Aude for the Cévennes on Easter Monday, and wandered into the Grottes des demoiselles. On first sight, the mountain can't possibly have any caves as it looks like a solid chunk of rock. We boarded a funiculaire elevator which took us up into the mountain (*yes, seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?) Les grottes des demoiselles was discovered in 1770 and widely excavated in the 1870s; its funiculaire has been in place for nearly 80 years. So, all that time and human exploration has opened up its secrets to a wide audience. We were struck by how open and welcoming the caves were, with tall cathedral ceilings and expanses of open space.

Anne, unfrightened in a cave, with cute boys

A view of the interior. Cinematography: M. Redhill

Not nearly as creepy and claustrophobic as expected (yes, another Anne phobia). The stalagmites and stalactites were spectacular—here's one the boys took of a dinosaur-shaped form ... that's about a million years' worth of drips ....




Among the trees

Our region of France offers a chance for exploration from the vantage point of its treeline; a sport known here as Parcours arbo-forestier or PAF. Our little group donned the funky safety lederhosen required, learned how to clip on and clip off, and set off on the green parcours to apprentice. Ben and Mitch quickly demonstrated their expertise (they were miles ahead of us), and Alta, Alex, Max, and Anne poked our way forwards, cautiously. With Tom cheering us on, we had a spectacular time, notably perfected our tyrolian techniques (screaming is good) until the thunderclouds gathered and we were repelled down from the blue parcours by a very amiable monitor. As Alta wisely said: I don't do thunder.

Various folks PAFfing the day away:









All in all, a terrific visit! Thank you, Nova Scotians!





Redhill Garden Update (for all you legume-heads)

April is here and things are about to run riot. From my window, I can see the apricots dotted with tiny fruit and the big peach tree is blooming insanely. Here's probably my favourite France pic so far ...




I stood under this tree on the weekend and listened. There must have been a hundred bees in the tree and another two hundred roaming about the tiny white flowers that are growing on the thin green stalks around the trunks. It sounded like the universe's violin section tuning up.

Busy as a ... um ...

Right now both apricot trees are putting out fruit—about five hundred on each tree. When they're about an inch long, I'll have to prune them back to about half in order to get the tree to concentrate its sugars in the fruit we'll want to eat, starting in late May, early June. The tree doesn't care what its fruit tastes like: it's just after dropping as many seeds as possible. But I'm dreaming of jam and tartes abricotes, so I'll be pruning ferociously.

The biggest one on this branch is about 1 1/2 cm long ...

Meanwhile, the potatoes, green beans, cilantro, basil, parsley, and radishes are in, but there is nothing above ground yet. The wild leek transplants are not happy and seem to be dying, but we'll see ...

This, also, is growing ...