1er avril au 26 mai Running, walking, eating, drinking and a man with a very big instrument.

We’ve been here over a year and we’re reminded summer is on its way when the bars have music playing. It started on the 1^st April, the eve of the Foulëes Valenciennoises, the town’s running festival and my lullaby that night was Uptown Funk.  I Nordic-walked the 7.5k route and Wilf ran the 5k. Security issues mean that the route has been changed from previous years and now, for the runners, sticks more closely to the town centre. The walkers had a long out and back stretch by some water, pleasant in the sunshine. I’d obviously relaxed a bit too much as I decided to do the Foulëe Santë afterwards, a real family fun run, though the four year-old girl in pink showed determination and a disappointing (for me) turn of speed on the home straight and beat me by several metres. The afternoon cool-down was, literally, a walk in the park.

The local “Embar(o)quement Immëdiat” festival was loosely based on Baroque music. We entered into the spirit of things by going to a beer-tastingand two "local speciality" lunches, all good.

Of course there was an accordeon!

I went to a concert in a church after the second lunch, part of the reason being that the church is connected with the Chemin de St Jacques which leads to Santiago de Compostella. I don’t like going to events by myself but will do if it’s the only option. I’d come prepared to sit in a chilly church but the heating was on and three hundred peole give off quite a lot of heat.

The band came on, about six of them. One had a very large instrument. I don’t know what it was but he was quite tall and it was much bigger than him, like a lute with a very long neck. I puzzled over it for a while: there was no way he’d be able to reach the top end of the fingerboard but he just played the lower end of it, with an apparently superfluous metre or so pointing to the heavens. The music was all on the theme of illness and curing it. One tune was by Purcell (go, the Brits!) and was, I’d heard, played on a collar-bone. The heat was getting to me. Man next door was looking down at his programme. One of the band read a description of a kidney-stone removal five hundred years ago. The man next to me had travelled from Lille  but nodded off. The music was dramatic, the patient laid out on the operating table, the incision made. MND wakes up but nods again a minute later The patient was carefully carried to a recovery bed and the music became very cheerful. I hoped it meant that the patient had recovered well and not that the surgeon was glad to get home for a quick drink.

It’s difficult to work out where we were on the programme but we come to  a piece that seems to consist of Viva, Viva, Viva, everyone plays and the music finishes with a loud flourish and it’s all over. Everyone is invited to have a coffee and cake outside the church - it's France, of course they were - but I go back to the flat.

The weather’s been lovely for walking. I’ve been to Sebourg (goes up and down a bit, is nearly in Belgium), Hergnies (flat, is near Belgium) and Condë-sur-L’Escaut (flat with a slag heap, near Belgium). I’m beginning to think that Belgium’s reputation of being boring is rather unfair as I’ve been told that it’s the best place for going out in the evening, the markets are better and beer costs less than in France.  Perhaps the Belgians just want to keep it for themselves

There was more music at the Place d’Armes for the dance weekend: groups doing folk, hip-hop, ballet and Argentine tango. There will be free lessons of the latter in July and August at the bandstand up the road.I may be there.

The following week we were supporting the town's link with Burkina Faso, the “Weekend in Ouagadougou” (pronounced Wagadoogoo and I’ll apologise now for putting that annoying tune in your head). There were bands, craft stalls, local and African, with a stone carver offering workshops. This involved letting anyone pick a piece of stearite, very soft stone, and filing it down with various large files, then sanding it smooth. Mine’s not quite finished but he let me take more paper and stones so I’ll have plenty to practise on.

There was also a bronze-casting demonstration, with a workshop showing how to make a beeswax model, which could be used in the casting process. The artist was a lovely guy, very interesting and interested, and we chatted about Paris, Giacometti and bronze sculptures. My workshop had to stop as he needed to fire his traditional forge, the one that he uses for all his work. It took about two hours for him to produce the model and made me understand why his work costs as much as it does. Each piece is unique because the mould is destroyed in the process. 

There are still some days left in May but they'll have to wait for a while. I'm too busy!

Mars: Le beau temps, des fleurs et des gateaux

The weather’s been mostly kind this month so it’s been great to join the longer Nordic walks and get out of town to see new places.

The first was to Caillou-qui-Bique, about forty minutes’ drive away in Belgium, to see the wild daffodils. The name means “Stone sticking up” so I was hoping to see the stone and marvel. I started marvelling with a minute of setting off: there were daffodils everywhere under the trees. We were out walking for nearly two hours and could always see a carpet of flowers.

 It was beautiful but I was a bit bothered that people seemed to be quite unconcerned about picking them until someone told me that it’s allowed, but limited to one bunch per person. I suspect that as there are so many, the impact is balanced by the pleasure a small child will get from seeing the flowers growing, picking them, looking at them at home and remembering the experience. We did get to see the Caillou. It’s a huge piece of rock, different from surrounding ones, which the Devil dropped there when he got fed up of carrying it somewhere. A Belgian poet, Emile Verhaeren, lived nearby and parts of the woodland are used as his memorial, with lines from his works carved into stones.

We’ve had a few undulating walks in Sebourg, a village not-quite-in-Belgium. The first walk gave us wood anemones and a stunning gate; the second gave us ducks, a peacock and trees loaded with blossom. 

A gate fit for a prince

The furthest walk of the month was a running event (32k, 19k, or 10k) with walkers taking part in the two shorter distances. It was 45 minutes away, at Val-Joly and near a snigger-worthy place called Willies. If I’d seen a sign there would be a photograph. The 10k course wound backwards, forwards, up and down along the shores of a lake. I don’t like courses that twist around so much – they take a lot of time to get nowhere - but at least we saw the other runners and walkers. I’d been warned that it went up and down a bit and at least two of the uphills made me curse gently. One made me curse rather less gently but all were fairly short. I was pleased finally to get into the swing of it all after about 7k (better late than never!) and overtake a few people on the way up. No medal, thank goodness, but the ham and cheese roll didn’t last long! 

 

The following day, 27^th, was another trip to Sebourg and because the ground was dry and I was there, we went to an English war cemetery a mile just outside the village. There were only 61 graves here, close to where the soldiers fell. The simple fact that there are so many cemeteries in such a large area gives an idea of the scale of the First World War. Every village seems to have some war graves, sometimes in a separate cemetery, or a few tucked in with the locals. About a mile beyond is Belgium. That’ll be a pleasant stroll in the summer and thanks to Google maps I know there are three places to eat or drink en route. 

 

Flat lands do mean that you get plenty of sky.

On a less physical note, we continued our research into items of local interest. Carpeaux was a sculptor born locally, Le Rieur is a statue in the square near our favourite bakery, the pave du Nord (cobbles) are famous among cyclists and the gland was bought purely for the childish comedy value They were, in order, too sweet, apple-y, chocolate and filled with a sort of squishy cream.

Carpeaux and Rieur

Pave du nord

Gland

       Bon appétit!