“Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” – William Faulkner
A short walk took me into Bagnere du Luchon and its pleasant tree lined streets. Twinned with Harrogate, it shares that towns propensity to cure ills with sulphurous hot waters. Its architecture too is the French equivalent of Victorian (Loubetian?). I picked out a table in front of cafe and ordered a coffee, dusting off my French and flirting outrageously with the young waitress. At the train station I stood in a small queue that diminished slower than plutonium while I gleaned from snatches of French conversation that there was no train any-time soon.
This didn't surprise or worry me but an English couple I'd met at the camp-site earlier were well put out as it meant them missing their flight from Toulouse to Geneva. They took a taxi while I decided to hitch, but before that I found a delightful little patisserie in an ex petrol station where I stoked myself with carbohydrates and caffeine, wrote notes and watched para-gliders sail effortlessly across the skies.
A chef gave me a lift to the station I wanted and a train took me to Tarbes. Another train took me to Lourdes and I camped there just out of town in a camp-site. I listened to the manager row with his father in law as his wife trudged round the pool with their 3 year old son. Something seemed to be missing, like in those weird French films of the sixties. I ate saussison and bread, drank red wine and felt the sun on my face.
What was I doing there? I've no idea! I walked out towards Ossun in the morning dipping a toe only into the bizarre town that exploits hope in sick people and stopped for a quick coffee at a hotel on the way out. The waitress had a pigeon chest and face that looked like it had never worn a smile. It saddened me. Lourdes! After another half an hour's walk I reached the plane tree in the picture above. It shaded an extended family of Italians all enjoying their Sunday lunch, it would be rude, I thought, not to join them and take advantage of the pleasant setting to have my last meal of the trip.
The waitress explained my options, it seemed cheapest to eat the most so I did. The buffet was an extensive array of little French culinary gems: artichoke hearts, quails eggs, garlicked mushrooms.....followed by steak and chips and the wine was local and delicious.The waitress had lived in London and seemed faintly amused to hear about my strenuous foray into the Pyrenees on a solo mission to raise money for a children's farm, "Those Inglish" I could hear her zink "zay are farming children now! Zut alors!" Her name was Marie-Ange and she offered to give me a lift to the camp-site near the airport. She decided(!) the site was too far from the airport so we drove there to see if there were any hotels. Not one! So after looking cynically at the grass verges and wondering aloud if I'd like to camp there, Marie-Ange mooted the splendidly generous idea of me staying in her modernised seventeenth century farmhouse, with a lift to the airport thrown in!
The ancient wooden gates opened into a beautifully rustic gravel courtyard across which bounded a collie, still getting to grips with the significance of its own body mass index. A golden coloured cat completed the welcome party, allowing me to stroke it before stealing off with one of those over the shoulder Machiavellian stares Eastern cats seem born to.
I'm sure the sun winked at me through the massive fig trees that dominated the garden, heavy with fruit that would accompany the black coffee and croissants at breakfast.
I felt honoured to be introduced to Marie-Ange's family at the farm above. The cows there were hand milked and the horses rescued from somewhere, the pigs were a lesson in close living and the geese were hilarious, like a teenage gang running around bullying anything that got close, now a stray dog, now me! Her niece milked the cows and I was offered a cup full of warm milk, would I wretch at it as I had 45 years ago when trying to swallow warm milk from a half pint bottle at primary school or had the mountains taught me something?
The milk went down, stayed down, all eyes on me were rewarded by an enthusiastic smacking of the lips and a beam of approval.
Marie-Ange cooked a charming meal back at her house and we were joined by her sons, getting ready for University life in nearby Carcassonne.
She was a wonderful host and my first chance to realise how subtle but significant the change in me was after my walk in the Pyrenees.
At the airport below I celebrated the successful mission with a beer!
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