Mardi, 30 aout. Je vais en Belgique

It felt like a good day to go to Belgium today, a flatter and much less challenging version of Mallory’s “because it’s there.” Nevertheless, I donned my urban strolling equivalent of tweed trousers and a corduroy jacket (long shorts and a sleeveless top, plus running shoes), went through the front door and turned right. That was about it in terms of route-finding: all I needed to do was keep going until I crossed the border. There are other bits of Belgium which are closer, if you could go direct, but the roads seem to get close, then wimp out, running parallel with the border before plucking up courage and going across.

I know the first mile or so. There’s an interesting church and some houses with unusual tiling but otherwise nothing special. I’m relieved to see that it’s market day in St Saulve: it’ll distract me from the road for a while. As I walk along the line of stalls, I hear the usual “Bonjour, madame” from a vendor trying to attract my attention. He succeeds when it’s followed by “Good morning.” It’s one of our usual suppliers, known in our family as Le Prof because he helps me with pronunciation wrong. Another regular is there too. He’s privately called Eeyore, a reference to his usual air of gloom, though we suspect that this is a façade. He catches my eye, looks questioningly and I tell him what I’m doing. He tells me it’s quite a long way. Maybe I should have looked at the map more closely.

I stop for a coffee at Onnaing, where the bar has the usual clientele of men over 50, one of whom comes over and shakes me by the hand. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this sort of extreme politeness and worry that if I don’t do it I’m seeming rude. I turn round after I’ve crossed over the road and see the church.  I have chosen the less interesting direction, I think, as I could easily have missed this.

More houses, mostly redbrick, terraces with no gardens. The shops are nearly all closed. The thought of lunch is like the light at the end of the tunnel, the carrot on the stick: I have in mind a lunch of moules frites with a beer in a pavement café in a square, warmed by the sun but shaded by a parasol.  Nearer the motorway, there are views of fields in the distance, then one field of maize next to the road but not much else. Another maize field appears and as I look, I have a glimpse of something bright orange: a field planted with vivid orange marigolds. It’s lovely and is one of the last fields I see before I finally reach Quievrechain.

Golden arches tell me that the town is two minutes away, though I guess that’s as the car drives but eventually I see “Bienvenue a Quievrechain” and know I’m there. All I need to do is continue until I reach the Belgian side of town, across a river. 

I walk on, then realise that the shop across the road is called “Le Premier Magasin Belge,” the one next to it is a tabac with a painted Belgian flag, there is a Coiffure de la frontière and I am, it seems in the Belgian town of Quievrain.

I go back to find the border. There it is: a small river just over a metre wide. I must have blinked.

Most of the stores seem to be tabacs. Some sell beer to take out as well as serving it at the bar and they all sell cigarettes – lots of them, in large quantities (bucket of fags, anyone?). There is a large beer-and –tobacco store so I go and look for my favourite beer. I buy that and a couple of others as a souvenir of my trip to another country. The cost is 4.48€, including ten cents deposit on each bottle, just under £4.

It’s lunchtime and I’m hungry. I look for my pavement cafe but the only food on offer seems to be pizza so I cross the road and turn back towards France, looking in the shop windows as I go. There is a mind-boggling display of ash-trays, shisha pipes, bongs and buckets of cigarettes.  I find the Café de Paris, eat, relax and then, eventually, find the bus stop. 

By the time I get home, I’ve walked about ten miles and am feeling tired: it's about twice as far as I've walked for quite a while. I have time to reflect upon the day: not the most exciting walk in any way but I've saved myself a lot of research time if I ever want to have a life which revolves around drinking beer, cigarettes and drugs.

Yet another pretty roundabout.

20-26 août

Samedi 20 août
La voiture devient française

There were two English people, a Spanish Frenchwoman and an Italian Belgian (with a Polish girlfriend)………….

It’s three weeks since the paperwork arrived saying that our car was now registered in France. It will now be known as EE-937-EN.

Wilf went out for a bike ride and found a shoe-maker/key-cutter/number-plate maker so he went back and ordered the plates. The owner “seemed like a good guy” and he had a good chat while placing the order with a man whose small daughter, on being told that Wilf was English, proceeded to shout “good-bye” until he was out of sight on his bike.

We went back later to collect the plates. The picture of the owner in the window reminds me slightly of Bruce Forsyth. A woman is sitting in a chair chatting to a customer and the man behind the counter, much longer-haired and younger than Brucie. I hear the word “anglais” but am not really paying attention until the customer goes out, she hears me and Wilf speaking and starts to apologise, though we’re still not sure why. The owner gets the new plates, goes out with Wilf to fit them, and we continue the chat. Within five minutes we have covered Brexit, (I think her earlier comments must have been something along the lines of “the English are crazy”) David Cameron, Boris Johnson, the Euro, her family background and where her son worked near Birmingham. The other two return and we find that Owner was born in Italy but became Belgian, while she is of Spanish origin. Owner has a beautiful girlfriend, as Woman agrees. Owner grabs me by the wrist and takes me behind the counter. There is much comment about this: “What’s going on now?” “Give us half an hour.” “He can keep her.”  I’ll let you work out who said what.

He points to a picture of a very attractive woman, blue eyes and blonde hair. She’s Polish, he says, and as kind as she is beautiful. I wish him well. We emerge from the behind the counter, stopping on the way for him to give me a large bottle of water. He points to the label: it’s local, doesn’t have nitrates and is something to do with a friend of his. I hope the friend and the bottle haven’t been too closely connected.

He can also fit jeans buttons, rucksack strap buckles, do any sort of shoe repair and car keys, so we will go back and get the key fixed soon. We’re hoping that we need to use his services again: it’s such good entertainment.

Mercredi 24 août
Il fait chaud

The temperature is over 30 Celsius. We have all the doors open (four onto the balcony) and four smaller windows and there is still no air. In the afternoon, after the morning’s two trips to the market and one to the supermarket, I decide that a stroll will be a good idea and set out across town. I stop to look in the window of a bookshop which never fails to intrigue. As well as a range of very old books, there is a newer one, whose title includes the word “Satan.” On display are also an engraved jawbone of a large animal, a red-painted skull, what appears to be a pickled baby and a shrunken head. I take a couple of photographs but they have disappeared from my camera. Spooky……………..

After strolling for twenty minutes I can feel my skin starting to burn so shelter in the Place St Nicholas and order a Perrier. One of the local congregation of homeless people comes to a nearby table. He’s extremely happy, has his bottle of whatever well-stoppered to avoid spillage if he sways too much and, after a while, is quietly removed by the bar owner.

As I walk back past the square in front of the Eglise St Gery,  I see an elderly man still sitting in the same spot as forty minutes ago. He is wearing a spotless pink shirt, pressed trousers and explains in a querulous voice, that he is in a bit of difficulty and asks if I can spare some change. I tell him, in my best English accent, that I don’t understand and he goes. I have only rarely given money to people on the street since seeing a tv documentary twenty-odd years ago when a former social worker had lost her job following an accident and ended up on the street. She was adamant that it was better to give food rather than money.

Back home, later, I make the most of having the warm evening by having a glass of wine and admiring the flowers and the view, with a niece (in Brighton) as a virtual companion.

Jeudi 25 août
Je vais au lac

I get up early to go for a walk before it gets too hot: across town, then along by the canal to the lake at Le Vignoble. There used to be a vineyard there and vines have recently been replanted, though nothng’s been produced yet. 

I’m at the lake for 9am and get ready to try out my new Nordic walking poles. There are plenty of people around, though it isn’t crowded: walkers, runners, fishermen, a father and son watching the ducks. The poles do make you walk a bit faster and I get up a decent pace while still keeping a reasonable technique. I usually manage one or the other. It’s too lovely not to take a couple of photos, though, so I get a chance to cool down. 

I take a different route back, with another stop for a Perrier. Five and a half miles in all, and finished by 10.30am.

Vendredi, 26 août
Je trouve un nouveau marché

There is a Friday market at Anzin where we had the number plates made. I’m trying to walk more so set off up there. I wander round looking at the stalls and wonder what a visiting alien would make of it. He’d probably deduce that the people of Anzin eat comparatively little fruit and veg but wear out their shoes very quickly, as there are only five greengrocers and at least as many shoe sellers, who also seem to have bigger stalls. Despite not needing anything I buy a plait of smoked garlic and a spread made from red peppers which tastes lovely but looks rather less appealing.

When I get back to Valenciennes I diverge slightly from my outward route. A friend had commented yesterday that I’d had lovely views so today I’ve been taking photos of the less touristy parts of town (railway lines, a street with tramlines (but no trams) a “Danger of Death” sign). I give up the idea when I see a lovely building with stone carvings on the façade, take a phot, then notice that two of the carving represent Aesop’s fable of the stork and the fox. I cross the road for a closer look, hear a family of birds and spot them, at home on a ledge next to one of the carvings. 

 

Samedi, 27 août
Au marché de bonne heure
We have learned that we need to get to our favourite stall, a small local grower, early if we want to buy a variety of vegetables. I’m there at 8.15, having bought the fish, and join the queue. I am seventh in line. Anyone who knows me will know my love for queuing: there always seems something better to do. Here, though, on an already-warm summer morning it’s very pleasant. All the customers are regulars and so there is news to catch up with, banter to be made, “mistakes” with the amounts of potatoes and the totalling of the bill, done by hand in a battered book. Half an hour later, it’s my turn and I’m able to buy what I want: our basics of potatoes, a bunch of carrots, tomatoes, courgettes and, for the first time this year, a punnet of cherry tomatoes. It's worth the wait.