Insuring our Future Happiness - Monday 8th Sept.

The stone cross in the countryside outside Montaud. Crosses like this are hidden away in every village that we see, often draped in ivy and built into old stone walls.

“Bonjour Madam. I am calling to insure my car”
Pardon Monsieur:
a) It is Monday and the office is closed
b) the computer system is down
c) I will call you back in forty minutes
d) We are waiting to hear back from the other insurers

End result: It is now 5.30pm and we are still sitting here looking at our smashing new car and we can’t drive it. I have even gone so far as to sit in it with the French handbook trying to decipher the difference between the air conditioning operations and the rear windscreen washer. So much for insurance agents pounding the pavements looking for business. We were quite surprised because when we phoned someone on Saturday lunchtime, he was round to the house within half an hour handing out business cards and a series of numbers that would ensure us instant service.

It’s a bit annoying because this is one week that I want to pass quickly so that it will be Friday and that monster truck will stop outside the house and offload our forty boxes. “Forty”! What on earth have we got coming? I’ve looked through the inventory and it sounds as though it should all fit into ten boxes, but clearly this is not the case.

We took a chance on all the insurance offices being closed at lunchtime and nipped into Castries to get some groceries, and it was evident that the grape harvesting is just about to start. Coming towards us was a peculiar slimline tractor that appeared to be built like a sort of catamaran, and behind it followed a slow moving procession of about forty cars. If this had been Miami, there would have been short tempers and dangerous overtaking going on, but at this time of year, the drivers seem to understand that it is of vital importance for the machinery to get to the vineyards if we are all to benefit from the end product.

We went out for a drive last night so that I could bump up my portfolio of photos to show you, and at the same time, take a look at a very picturesque village up near Pic St Loup where Jean’s other daughter Carol Lynn is going to have an apartment. It still amazes me how a distance of a few miles can alter the surrounding countryside from rolling vineyards to olive groves planted into the rough stony hillsides. The garrigues which is the rocky countryside covered in coarse bush and stunted trees is still in its original form from the time when the Romans tramped through here, but metre by metre, the land is being tamed and put under vines. The late evening sun throws the most beautiful glow on the old village houses, and around every corner there is the possibility of a good photograph, although more often than not, immediately behind me is a small white van driven by a man in a hurry to get home for his supper.

We called into our favourite fruit and veg market in Castries today and the brother who served us (we don’t know which one as they appear to be identical), greeted me in fractured English and I responded in equally fractured French, and I realised that if I gained pleasure from hearing someone trying to speak my language, then maybe the French also took pleasure in my desperate efforts to speak theirs. I do hope so because I make a stab at most things but rely heavily on Jean to straighten out my messes and relieve the confusion. It usually results in lots of laughter and “Au Revoirs” and “Goodbye’s” and the standard “Bon Journée”.

Whoever says that the French are rude and refuse to speak English, clearly haven’t done their shopping at the Castries Fruit and Veg Market or bought their stamps at the local post office. I can’t speak for the shopkeepers and cab drivers of Paris, but there are no complaints with the service providers of the Languedoc Roussillon as far as I am concerned.