France Travel: Beautiful Pottery

One of our compensations for the encrustations of this home has been the antique liquor and the beautiful blue tea set.

France Travel: Internet Goddess

This is me, being an internet Goddess recharging the WiFi! Here in France we got an Orange Airbox - the same hardware as we had in Sicily, but we had to buy a new piece of hardware because it comes preloaded with its own sim card, which we lost the phone number of. I figured out that if we put the airbox sim into my phone, we could recharge it, yes! It worked!

France Travel: Vide Grenier (Attic Sale)

As soon as I translated "vide grenier" (attic sale) I was off! I was also mad at myself for missing one nearby. I've had a mission for a few years now - linen sheets. Chris is a hot sleeper and linen is just lovely for sleeping on if you are hot. Chris did manage to get some linen sheets, but they aren't what I remember linen to be. Anyhow, my mission at this attic sale was to get some vintage French linen, and lo! I was successful! 5 linen sheets and a table cloth with 12 linen napkins.

France Food: Friday Market

When we arrived on a Tuesday, our landlord made sure we knew about the locations of the markets each day in our vicinity. What he didn't tell us was that last year a market started right here, on our door step in Le Plan St. Bertrand de Comminges. We discovered this last week when we woke up to the sounds of commotion outside our window. Luckily we hadn't any plans to go anywhere because our car was 'landlocked' behind stalls, stands, shade umbrellas, cheese and chickens.

Here's the chickens with our house behind the green car. It has the white shutters.

Sicily & France Travel: cultures of clean

Over the week since we've arrived here in St. Bertrand de Comminges I have been considering the cultural differences between this part of the world and the parts of Sicily we've seen. Perhaps because of the distressing level of filth in our house here, I've thought a lot about what is clean and what is dirty. One of my favourite books about the phenomena is Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas. Look it up if you are interested in thinking hard about why something is dirty to you and not to your husband (for example).

Anyway, the reason I mention this is because here in the Pyrenees we have found that public spaces are very clean compared to Sicily. People care about their lovely villages, streets are swept, squares are kept clean, plants are planted and watered and people come out and enjoy them. There's even a special receptacle  for dog poo by the garbage shed- not often used, but still. There is a garbage shed! Bags of garbage aren't left to be torn open by feral cats and dogs as in Sicily. Private spaces I cannot comment on here in the French Pyrenees, because we haven't really seen any. We've seen people's back gardens and their front stoop, with the occasional glimpse of their TV in the front room, but that's not really enough to say whether their private spaces are cleaned to the same obsessive level as in Sicily. We hope not to measure their attitudes to cleanliness by the home we've rented.

By contrast, even a Sicilian's country home is stripped down to the walls and cleaned, or even re-plastered regularly. The surrounds of most Sicilian homes are tile or stone pavers, which also get the cleaning treatment at least weekly, if not daily. I've observed to Christopher that the 'low maintenance' yards of Sicily are actually maintained by women who sweep, scrub, bleach and maintain them. Men maintain the gardens, women the homes - a very distinct gendered division of labour.

Which leads me to comment on what is a private space and what is a public space. Sicilians are very certain about what is their private space - they fence, gate and defend it (with attack dogs if considered necessary). Anything 'outside the walls' is public to Sicilians, beaches, forests, town square and so no one cleans it, it is someone else's problem. In fact, Sicilians seem to move 'dirt' from their private space into the public space and then just leave it there.

Today our 'femme de menage' finally arrived, after a week of seeking her out. Zor lives across the square from us and we are very happy to have her here. There were many exclamations of 'oh la la'!

Washrooms of the World: Southern France

There are clean, free, public washrooms in our town! A very happy circumstance as far as I am concerned. I have a feeling that this is a normal circumstance for a town labelled as a tourist attraction. The roadside washrooms on the A9 motorway were fairly good as well - a plastic cube with men's, women's and disabled washrooms with a water tap 'round back. All very nice.

France Travels: Update

We arrived safely in Saint Bertrand de Comminges and successfully located our home for the month. Unfortunately it was filthy. The rodents appear to be departed (either dead or gone) but left behind their signature. We also don't believe that the kitchen had been cleaned since it was last painted instead of being washed. Same goes for the contents. The floors are unspeakable. It reminded us both of some of the grottier places we've lived as poor young people. The only upside is the pretty pottery dishes and the antique liquor we found; and the amazing location. Our landlord is nice, but definitely needs glasses. We think the former owner of the pretty pottery, embroidered linen sheets and antimacassars (crochet doilies) must be rolling over in her grave to know the state her home has gotten into. We discovered these things after cautious inquiry into the contents of a few armoire,  liberated them from their arachnid possessors and washed them thoroughly.

After 8 hours labour by us both there are enough clean dishes and clean parts of the kitchen that Sarah cooked an omelet from the delicious eggs brought by one of our neighbours. The positives of this part of the world are many: forest, farmland, hiking, rivers, castles, roman ruins, frogs! These things have kept us from leaving. We do hope that we've managed to engage a 'femme de menage' - which we believe is a house keeper, to come and do war with the filth the day after tomorrow.