Mon Carnet de Voyage

(This is the night-time view from the Recollets Convent. In the background to the right you can see the Sacre Coeur above the Gare de L'Est, about a 2.5 kilometre walk from here).

Sometimes I find our senior citizens, just the nicest people. Some of my best friends have been in their eighties…in fact, my good friend Elizabeth is 94 and still going strong.

So who could say that the French dislike foreigners, after this experience I just had?

Tonight, having been away for the weekend in Bretagne, I needed to pay a visit to the basement of the convent, to do my washing. Entertaining stuff for a Monday night.

I arrived in the Rez-de-Chaussez to find that the one and only washing machine had 20 minutes of someone’s else’s washing to whip into a front loading frenzy, so after signing with impatience, I settled in for making a queue for the machine, albeit alone.

In what is normally the freakish silence of the convent basement, I overheard voices in the next room. Lots of voices. Rather unusual for the basement of the convent, at 8pm on a Monday night.

When I turned one of the dark corners of the mouldy and quite frankly, scary basement, I found a darkened room, candlelit with tables and chairs covered in red chequered table cloths. A few people were standing around talking, obviously a social gathering of some sort about to start up. People were arriving as I stood there, mouth agape. A temporary sign on the door read “Liger Club,” and inside, fraternizing over wine, were some of the nicest French septuagenarians I have ever met. On this very cold and windy night whilst a three day storm batters the coast and inland regions of France, you couldn’t even try to accuse them of leading a tame life.

Dressed "a la maison" (hey…it’s washing night), I suddenly felt a little underdressed to have popped into what appears to be the equivalent of Rotary. The Liger Club exists to celebrate, discuss, and learn more about, the culture of the region known as the Loire. Essentially, these clubs (several of which exist in France) meet once a month to chat about all things Loire. It’s the French answer to Rotary, Probus, or your Nana’s bridge club.

In the basement of a convent at 8pm, I had thought I had stumbled into a rare cult (which is still a possibility…). An elderly lady saw me at the doorway, and looked up. A smile a mile wide.

Slightly embarrassed by my attire, all I could muster was “C’est quoi, Le Club Liger?”

Thus began my entertaining conversation in French with Liliane, who at about 80 years of age (I am guessing, though she is one of those ladies whose souls shines in their eyes) was the happiest and most open minded dame I’ve come across. What I love about her is that she speaks at a calm and moderate pace, and I can understand everything she says. We talked about the 14th century manuscripts in the BnF that her husband has loved to peruse, and the controversial architecture of the Francois Mitterrand site (not everyone likes it, you see…).

She just loves foreigners, especially Americans, but she was very excited to meet an Australian. She thinks that Heath Ledger was wonderful in Brokeback Mountain (“that film about the two men in the mountains” she says) and she just loved Priscilla (“the film about the men that were dancing together”).

She tells me that she lives in a lovely quarter of Paris - the left bank, and would love to show me around. I said, great, we’ll do coffee and we swapped mobile numbers.

And she is really excited about the L’Enfer exhibition at the BnF. She had thought that she had missed it.


My Weekend in Bretagne

This weekend I took the TGV out of the city and stepped into the real France, the countryside, where accents are fort, and I was the only blonde.

Benodet, Bretagne. Or rather, that was the closest town… I was actually staying in a 300 year old house about 16 kilometres from the village, down a long dirt road.

My friend Henri put me up in his house as I am researching his family history. I ate real home cooked French food and enjoyed warmed Winter Pimms in front of the fire. I held up the bar at a few local establishments, and enjoyed the good sea air.

Benodet is a small fishing village on the south coast of Bretagne. The tide is long, so you often find boats on their sides in the river, when the water has gone out to sea, and then when the tide is higher, sailboats glide past the house in the light breeze.

Bretagne is famous for its crepes. Not just your sweet crepes, that you see on every street corner in Paris, but savoury crepes.

All in all, two days to remember.