Fourth Form of Madness

I’m sitting here with my cat trying to write this piece but she is continuously rubbing her face up against the screen of my laptop that I have tentatively balanced on my lap. I don’t have the heart to end her enjoyment so I am tolerating her behaviour and patting her intermittentedly hoping that I can capture some of the joy she is obviously experiencing. I’m flat lining. It’s my own fault, I decided last night I was going to have a few G&Ts and anyone that has experienced one of my G&Ts, knows I am heavy handed with the gin. That and the fact that I don’t drink more than one drink at a time now has left me feeling revolting.

I dreamt of zombies last night (very symbolic to a philosophy enthausist). This is my second zombie dream in as many weeks. I’m sure its got deeper mythological and symbolic meanings (infact many but that is another blog I can bore you with), but sticking with the literal, I woke up this morning and felt like a zombie. And the fun didn’t stop there. Went to yoga and I felt like I had put on the wrong body for the day. Whose was this body? I had no energy. My body started shaking the first ten minutes of the class and the nice effortless practice that I have, dare I say it, become attached to said “see ya, have fun in the remaining 1hr and 20mins of agony”.

I was just about to do the same, to roll up my mat and grab my handbag and say “See ya, I’ll be back when it’s easier” but thought that possibly there was a lesson, or two to be learned here and that perhaps it was a good time to start learning. Firstly, where was my sense of responsibility? I knew I was going to yoga on Saturday morning, why did I suddenly get gripped with the urge for G&Ts on Friday night and give in to it? Further, after committing to the G&T path, where was my responsibility to my actions. I drank myself into this state, I should at least stick around and bear the consequences of my actions. Be there for the situations I created, even the crappy ones.

Secondly, by following this action path and it consequences, I feel confident that I can make an informed choice next time when the Friday night G&T crazies seize hold of me again. I can say to myself “Shall I have these delicious, mood altering, mind fogging and ultimately soul destroying drinks” (sounds attractive put like that doesn’t it) or shall I give myself the best shot at being the best I can be both on and off the yoga mat tomorrow? After today, I know which choice I will go for, and it doesn’t come with a slice of lemon or a swizzle stick!

This week I fell down a flight of stairs. It was quite a shake up for me. I had just spent the night teaching yoga to friends and then sharing a delicious meal and a few laughs. When I stepped out in the chilly night all prepared in my ugg boots, I hadn’t considered the water on the brick stairs and the slippery rubber souls of my well worn uggs. Before I knew it my feet were where my head used to be and my butt was falling towards a big wet puddle on a stair.

Luckily I was holding bags in each hand and they prevented me from sticking out my hand to break my fall (see sometimes baggage is good for you). It’s funny though as the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. One moment i realised my foot had slipped and then I was staring at the stairs as my feet flew up in the air and I knew I was going to land there and everything in me just relaxed and accepted the destination. I landed bumped down a few steps and then thought “Oh that wasn’t so bad”. I remember hearing my husband who was behind me telling me not to move but I knew I was okay and so I preceded to collect my bags and croaked out a humble “I’m okay”, picked myself up and poured myself back into the car.

In the car I did a better scan of myself. Right side of head and jaw tingling, right wrist and elbow tingling, right buttock aching slightly and mental state in some state of shock. Actually the shock might have been more pronounced than I thought as it wasn’t until I got home that I realised I had been operating in some sort of robotic state when all I wanted to do was crawl up in a nice warm bed. All in all, not a scratch or a bruise on me. When I do yoga I notice signs of the impact but nothing drastic. My husband and myself can’t believe how lucky I was. However, I don’t know if it is related or not but my energy is so flat I could sleep 24 hrs a day. This morning at yoga I was waiting in my car, feeling the sun come through the window and I felt I could have stayed in that car, in the sun all day recharging.

I can’t help relating this incident to my life and how I have become as I have gotten older and more set in my ways, a tad anxious about life and my existence. Somewhere along the way I had incorrectly learnt that if I worried about something then it would turn out alright, that I could control it. I do not know why I believed this but I did, in every cell. That if I worried enough I could actually prevent it, a plea bargain with life. I have come to see that life is an uncontrollable energy that does not particularly care if you worry or fret or laugh or cry, it will be what it is and run free and untamed. It is not life that must heed to your control, your ideals, your beliefs, but you that must heed and surrender to life.

I haven’t always been good at this (actually I am still in the infancy stage of learning this). I have always feared the fall, clung to the good, demanded only fun times of life. There are many ways this has played out in my inner and outer life. Commonly I never stuck at anything for a really long time. When you are only chasing the good, fun time, you have to keep moving on. In my studies, I have read about Tibetean monks that prayed for bad times and difficult situations so they could learn. These monks who also sat in graveyards, night after night, so they could conquer all their fears by conquering the grand daddy of all fears, the fear of death. I used to think these monks were crazy and I feared them. Now I respect their journey into understanding the nature of the illusion of fear and the freedom that they must have discovered along the way. I am learning that the fall often isn’t that bad and is often mostly in the anticipation not in the doing. I am learning that the “bad” times do indeed teach us more than we learn in the good times and that is, as one of my teachers said the other day, a beautiful process (even if it doesn’t feel so beautiful at the time!).

In my house there hangs a silk screen with Japanese text written on it. It says “Fall down seven times, get up eight”. I bought it for my husband as he had said the saying several times. Well that’s one down……six more to go.

I had an experience on the train this week that left me really aware of the way we have devalued humanity to the point that we don’t even recognise when we are doing it.

I get on the train at the second station from where the train starts off. I go in so early that I am one of the lucky ones that always gets a seat (or is that unlucky one cause I go in so earlier?). On this particular morning, there were a few more people than usual so I sat down to a lady who had also got on at my stop. There was a lot of huffing and puffing as she removed her gym bag off the seat that she had put it on and I was beginning to sit down in. There was a long hard glare at me which I deflected by fussing around with my ipod and being oblivious to her anger. As usual as the train journey progressed the train reached its capacity and people were standing in the aisles. I had convinced myself during the journey that I had imagined her anger, why would she be angry over me sitting on a seat that was essential free (once she had removed her gym bag)? However, when I stood up to get off in the city, the huffing, puffing and glaring started up again as she aggressively put her gym bag down again on the seat I had vacated. She must really love that gym bag, maybe she was smuggling something precious within it, to have evaluated its worth over that of a living and breathing being?

The whole situation would have been laughable if it didn’t allude to a more serious problem that runs through our society, the objectification and devaluation of human life. In Western society where we now have been sufficiently conditioned to value money and external goods as marks of who we are and how successful our lives our, the measure of a good life is no longer internal. Often now you are not evaluated for how you live your life, how you treat people and for what you give back. Now we consider people successful if they have a big house, fancy car and money to spend. The makings of a good life seems all to be external and easy to purchase.

I guess the internal good life is being drowned out by big businesses because they can’t sell it to you. It is not in their interest to tell you that doing a totally selfless act or refraining from drinking yourself into oblivion every night is going to lead you to a richer inner life. It is in their interests to advertise in a manner that will make you associate success and feeling good about yourself with their product. But when did external things ever replace or even emulate inner happiness, inner peace? External things only produce happiness when they are obtained, when they are present. Inner happiness is always there provided you are truly present, and you are the only necessary ingredient required to uncover it.

The fact that the most valuable thing about being human lies within us, makes as all innately extremely valuable and precious. And it makes us all deserve a seat on that train over a bag.

A couple of months ago I brought an iPhone. I didn’t want one and kept resisting my husband’s pleas with me to buy one. I was comfortable on my soap box protesting how certain new forms of technology are making us more anti-social. I had watched the morning commuters never lift their heads from their phones barely acknowledging the person sitting next to them even when they moved to get off. Then I brought my iPhone and I joined those head down commuters into a world that is surprisingly social. Within 5 mins into my first train journey with it I was on youtube watching clips of surprised squirrels and sloths and laughing with every abdominal muscle and I never go on youtube! I felt more destressed and light than I had in ages.

It opened me up to iPhone scrabble which I now play with a few friends, who pretty much beat me even when I am using descrambler (a free app that advises what words you can play with your tiles). I know it borders on cheating but I have justified it’s use with my survival of the fittest clause (which Darwin never actually said though he is coined with the phase). Maybe I should just go back to relying on my own ability. See how much this device is teaching me about life.

I also download movie of the week, which sometimes develops into movies of the week and watch these on my train journey in. Nothing breaks a stress cycle better than simply hoping on the train, plugging into the old ipod and watching a movie and letting go of that harmful neural pathway you have locked your mind into. My recommendation this week is 127 hours. I met a wonderful random person on the train one journey home that had just been to see this film and he kept urging me to see it and saying what a wonderful philosophical film it was. I was smiling and nodding on the outside but thinking on the inside what the hell is philosophical about cutting your arm off whilst pinned under a rock. I couldn’t have been more wrong. See the film, they have managed to capture the essence of living and learning on film.

I discovered iTunes and went to download more yoga music which I am fond of listening to but instead gravitated towards the more classical and downloaded Canon in D. I love this piece of music. I find myself listening to it over and over and something in it just makes me melt away. I do house work to it, walk the dog to it and yes, have even started doing yoga to it. When I do yoga to this it is like my body just responds to the rhythm and flows freely with it as part of it. I think to me if life could be represented in sound, this would be how it sounds, Canon in D. The ups and downs, all the joys and all the sorrows are there in this piece together with a surrender, and an acceptance that this is the consciousness that we call life.

Now I’m off to play a word on scrabble that I have thought of by myself and to download some more surprised squirrel videos.

I’ve heard it said that the enjoyment of life is all about managing your expectations. That all experiences are pretexted by your hopes and desires and influence the actual perception of the experience. I like to think big in terms of where humanity is heading, I’m an idealist, the kind of person that after I deliver my thoughts on a subject I hear “uh huh, sounds great, and when you return to real world drop me a line”. I don’t mind, I love the way I see the world and how it could be if often we just shift our way of thinking or release our death grip on our opinions being universal truths. However, it is also a way of being that can leave you feeling crushed by disappointments of your hopes and dreams for yourself and humanity if you attach to the anticipated outcomes.

Then yesterday at yoga I found myself in a wonderful conversation with a interesting soul and devotee of yoga and heard myself say “Life and yoga are not about results or goals”. I have read something similar many times in countless yoga publications. I have heard many wonderful teachers say it, but this time it came from a place within me that knew it in every part of my DNA to be innately true. It’s not what you achieve in life that is important, but the way you live as a being, the decisions you make about living your life and how you treat other beings, the knowledge that you gain about yourself that is infinitely important, to your existence and to all beings collectively. This knowledge comes not from an intellectual knowing but from an existential knowing and it feels very authentic and something you can really base your approach to life on.

For the last year of my practice, I have felt competition drop away and instead a love and concern for my fellow beings has taken it place. A capacity to forgive has emerged which kind of took me by surprised because for so long I had cultivated bitterness and revenge against all who have wronged me, even for situations I had pretty much imagined. If someone had only just told me about the sweetness and freedom that forgiveness brings I wouldn’t have wasted so many years living in anger and closing my heart off from the world. They should teach this stuff in all of our schools forget algebra you’ll never use it, but forgiveness, now there is a tool for life! All of this came from practicing yoga, not focusing on the results, not caring if I achieve a pose or not but from showing up to practice and letting go. My husband has always had the saying “Life is 99 percentage about just showing up”…. I am starting to see what he means. I practice, I contemplate my existence and I listen to my body and my soul and they respond to the attention and show me the direction I need to grow in. They even invite my mind along for the trip but with some strict ground rules to ensure it doesn’t take over and run the show.

Everyday life is the best university you will ever find and the best thing is it is accessible to everyone. All you need to do is just show up and you start learning. The trick is to pack up or let go of your preconceived beliefs and opinions and anticipated outcomes and just breath in and breath out, totally open to and accepting the day and events as they unroll. This is the tricky part and let’s face it if it was easy we would all be enlightened being with no requirement for therapy or alcohol and/or chocolate. But I can say yoga is definitely a tool to help you to let go and just be. I don’t know how it works, I just know it works, so long as you practice and not just asana. Yoga is how you live your life on an everyday basis, it’s in every breath and decision you make. Practice, practice, practice and the rest kind of just comes in its own good time.

I woke this morning 40. Nothing hurt or felt different. Tried getting all birthday bluey as is my tradition but hey I’m in France eating myself into eaters anonymous staying in a picture perfect vineyard, it is hard to feel sad about that. To mark the occasion husband and I headed off for a long lunch at a local restaurant in Berry Au Bac called La Cote 108 (http://www.lacote108.com – turn the corny music off). We were really keen to try their 7 course degustation menu as we had dined there the night before and the ordinary menu had been incredible.

It was absolutely sublime. Every course was amazing and made you remember that food can be the greatest artist creation when done right. I won’t bore you with words, I have put together a nice little picture show below of the courses!

I’m off to lie on our bed and digest, us oldies need to do that after a big meal!

Annecy turned out to be a great place to crash out. I got up the second day there, all intending to read my book and perhaps do some writing by the pool. I lay back in my deck chair and looked out across the pool at my feet and the lake below. An hour and half later I found myself still looking out. I had gone into a catatonic stare, which is very relaxing. I didn’t feel bad though, I spoke to one of the American exchange students staying at the house and she said she finds herself doing the same catatonic stare when she sits out by the pool trying to write French literature term papers. Her Boston uni (umm I think she may have meant Harvard there) has an exchange program with Annecy university (or some town close). Her and a bunch of her friends from uni are all staying around Annecy with host families. She couldn’t believe her luck when she saw where she was staying and is wondering how she is going to complete her course work with a view like this.

For our last night in Annecy we drove up to the lookout where you get this amazing view of the second cleanest French lake in it’s totality. As luck would have it, there was also a Fondue restaurant at the top of the look out. Our fondue search was over. A big plate of stale bread and a huge vat of what looked like thirty blocks of melted cheese was delivered to our table along with a plate of meats and salad. Husband and I skewered up and began dipping our bread in the molten cheese, which promptly softened the bread and coated it with bubbly cheese. First piece delicious, second piece delicious, third piece might vomit as awfully rich. Regardless, we pressed on and consumed almost the whole pot of cheese. Not mentioning names, but one of us had a very upset afterwards and it was a very quick drive back down the mountain.

Then it was good-bye alps and hello…………Switzerland. That’s the good thing about travelling, some times you even surprise yourself. We were travelling along admiring the French countryside when all of a sudden up sprang border control. I thought it was another toll collection but thought otherwise when I saw the big France written on one side of the road and Switzerland, written on another side. All of a sudden we were in the Swiss line and being waved through the border. This is by far the easiest border crossing we have done. Our minds flashed back to Vietnam where on crossing out of their country they searched all our backpacks and fired twenty questions at us and we were leaving into China.

Back in Switzerland, we were very excited and I immediately broke out into a verse of my Heidi song which husband agreed never gets old. I snapped off as many photos as I could around Lake Geneva that included the red and white flag. To celebrate the occasion of a new country, we decided to stop and eat at a Swiss restaurant (motorway chain called AutoGrill hee hee) and check our Swiss bank account (go to the autoteller and get some money out hee hee). Husband purchased a swiss t-shirt to mark the occasion and also because we hadn’t done any laundry for a while and he didn’t have clean t-shirts left. Then it was on the road again in search of the French border.

There was a bit of a nervous moment as we drew into the French checkpoint. A car had been pulled to the side and there were about 3 French border police going through every item in their car. It was then I wondered if Australian’s needed visas to go into Switzerland and I was wondering how the excuse “…but the nice Swiss border control person said we could go into Switzerland” would hold up? Husband stopped the car right on the border to wait for the French border control cavity search. Then we started hearing excited shouting from behind us, it was the French border police telling us to hurry up and cross the border and stop holding up the traffic behind us. We complied and once again we were in France and it almost felt like we had never left.

Onto the Jura region and husband had a yearning to relive his farm boy years. Actually I have always fancied myself as a country gal, proving once and for all day dreams are not based on reality. Jura is beautiful farming countryside with a couple of lovely lakes, waterfalls and mountains thrown in. It is meant to be good tramping countryside, I think I would even tramp here it is so beautiful and doesn’t have snakes (must check this last point before agreeing to French tramping holiday experience). We are currently staying in a magnificent cedar and stone farmhouse called Ferme Auberge Du Rondeau. Breakfast this morning consisted of mostly products from the farm including a pot each of their natural yoghurt. I thought I was going to take one or two spoonfuls and then try and make husband eat my pot as well so as not to appear rude. No need, it was amazing and not like the natural yoghurt we get. I wolfed mine done and checked husband’s pot was empty.

Following breakfast, we drove to Arbois, mostly to checkout the surrounding countryside and to tour the home of Louis Pasture. After an hour of driving we arrived in Arbois just before lunchtime to find that the Louis Musee was closed until 2pm. Something to remember if you are ever touring the French countryside, most things close between 12 and 2pm for their lunch break. And Australia calls herself the lucky country….. 2 hour lunches that is what will be my vote decider in the next election. No problem there was a much written about restaurant, Le Balance Mets et Vins (translates as something like the perfect balance been meal and wine), that we were keen to try. All local produce especially local vinos. We thought we were having the cheaper Menu du jour but as we found at out bill time, we were experiencing the much dearer and elaborate Gastro Menu. One translation error I was very happy about.

We started with a taste of Vin Jaune (yellow wine which has been fermented for 6 years and 3 months without being disturbed). I would have left it for another few years, I swear I have drank nail polish removers less harsh than that. Next we had little mini starters in shot glasses which had something like leeks chopped and soaked in the Vin Jaune resting in a crème and topped off with a slab of pig fat. Surprisingly it was quite delicious. Next I had scallops in the best orangey cinnamon juice I have ever tasted, whilst husband enjoyed asparagus in a lovely green sauce. Husband and I then enjoyed Coq au vin with morelles (local mushrooms). Delicious although I did spare a thought for the one less rooster that would not be greeting dawn tomorrow. Then came dessert. Husband went for the reliable profiteroles, I went for dessert of the day which seriously was the best thing I have ever tasted. It was like a chocolate and mango crème slice with a scoop of rhubarb ice cream. It was whilst eating this extraordinary dessert that I decided that the best meal in the world (for me and it is open for argument) would consist of Japanese cuisine for entrée, Thai for main and French for desserts. No body can hold a candle to French pastries and I have done the research on this trip to substantiate it.

We rolled to Louis Pasteur Musee for our guided tour, in French, and for which we were the only two participants. We all had fun trying to understand each other. To be fair husband played a very useful role as translator and commented on my ability to say “wee” after everything the woman said. I like to be agreeable. Returning to the car, we found that despite husband’s best efforts, we still could not give away the camera in France. He had left the car window down on the driver’s side with the camera in the back of the car on the floor for the last three hours. Obviously the French are too honest.

We returned to the farm, where luckily we had booked in for dinner. Eating was starting to feel like an endurance sport and trust me I had gold nailed for Australia. Not letting the fact that we were still full from lunch stop us we embraced the experience and devoured 5 courses of fresh farm with matching wines. We did start with a lovely dandelion wine which was delicious. There were fresh farm meats, which made me feel instantly bad for the goats and wild boars we had seen earlier in the day. For entrée I had an amazing courgette tart with the infamous French pastry. For main husband and I shared the wild board stew and my favourite, gratin dalphinoise (potatoes and cream). Thanks to husband’s French skills we were able to negotiate our way out of the cheese course (and a possible coronary insistent) and go straight to dessert. By this time I was asking husband to look up in his phrase phone app how to say “I seriously need my stomach pumped”. Then we retired to our cedar smelling farm house room to lay on our backs and groan.

The next day it was a mammoth drive to Champagne region where we are intending to hang out for the next 4 days. We have managed to find the most wonderful B&B in a converted cellar overlooking a winery. It is just outside Epernay (you can’t image how many times we have done the Kath and Kim “Look at me look at me look at me Epernay” joke). We are going to spend this time working our way though the champagne cellars of this region. Now we are off to Epernay for dinner and to steal some wifi so we can post this blog!

Finding our way out of Grasse was as hard as finding our way in. Our GPS went a little crazy and had us turning into one way streets and turning off exits that were not there. This is all on narrow, steep medieval streets. I was officially sacked as navigator in the first 5 minutes when we left Paris to go through Normandy, however, I was looking a pretty hot ticket for navigator that day! My official title now is spotter – I spot supermarkets and the occasionally tourist attraction. I don’t stress myself too hard – I don’t really want the job of navigator. After much reversing and swearing we eventually got to Gourdon, an ideallic pre-alps village with a traditional perfumery. We wandered around the town, which seems to be a town of cats (they even have t-shirts declaring this). The perfumery was in full swing when we got there. I started smelling the wares and it wasn’t long before everything smelt the same and I needed a good lie down as my head was all giddy from the smells. The sales lady must have got sick of me pawing her merchandise cause she ended up selecting a perfume for me to try and buy. I took her suggestion on board and purchased it and left.

On we travelled in the pre-alps. The travel books weren’t calling this the alps yet but everywhere you looked there were signs saying alps this and alps that. Driving in the Alps (or pre-alps) is really beautiful. You are surrounded by scenery that Heidi would have felt at home in. The only thing is the driving is quite hard for some of it. Lots of narrow roads and trucks, not a good combination. It was easy for me, I just sat in the passenger seat and yelled supermarket or petrol station very occasionally between packets of chips, but poor husband was trying to drive the continuous maze of roads, read the sat nav and avoid crazy drivers who had decided to pass a truck and were heading straight for us in our lane. For these reasons, when we arrived at Dignes-les-Bains, the land of the hot thermal springs, we decided to stop for a night, get out our togs and sample the guaranteed soothing and relaxing effects of the thermal springs.

These springs have been around for a long time (yep I’m too lazy to get my Lonely Planet to tell you exactly how long). Doctors are still sending patients up to the springs for treatment. Even though the tourist office said they were closed, husband and I persevered and found some thermal pools that were open on the edge of town. We were given lovely blue robes which, as fashion fate would have it, matched the shade of my blue bikinis perfectly. We were also given a towel the size of a serviette and a cloth swimming cap that we were told was mandatory. As we strode into the thermal spring, which actually looked a lot like your average in door swimming pool, we were instructed to shower (they can pick a dirty Australian a mile off) and then proceed to the waters. As I slipped my bikini clad body into the pool, whilst at all times trying to keep my bum out of direct view, the delicious warm and slightly sulphury water gently engulfed my body. It turns out that bikinis might not be big in Dignes as I was the only one there in one. Everyone else was in a painfully sensible one piece. As I adjusted my red and white cloth head cap that clashed with my bathers and made me look more like a surf life saver than the sexy middle age piece of fluff that I was angling to be, I noticed that the other patrons, mostly 60 year old women, were giving my husband the sly once over. Admittedly they were eyeing off all his tattoos and it did look like they were contemplating hiding their purses, but I kept my eye on them. Sulphur can make you do strange stuff and the springs do make you feel younger. Husband discovered the underwater entertainment, if you hold your head under there is relaxing, yogic kind of music playing. I spent the rest of the time floating on my back, drifting aimlessly around the pool bumping into whoever was not quick enough to get out of my way. Afterwards over a bottle of wine, we both agreed we felt more relaxed.

We were extremely lucky to find yet another wonderful B&B. Seriously, this is my favourite way to travel now in France as you get amazing places to stay in that are individually decorated by the owners, great food and quiet surroundings. We were staying with Anne and Tuy Nguyen in the mountains of Dignes. The place was so beautiful and was traditionally French provincial from the outside. Inside our private little space was a Vietnamese heaven with a jet spray power shower. I felt like I had been transported 10 years back and now in the middle of Hanoi, the main ceiling light was that of a pink lotus bulb. It was wonderful and I have posted separately their website details on facebook. We ended up having dinner there as we have never done this at a B&B. What have we been missing out on!!! We had the most amazing three course meal which was the perfect blend between French and Vietnamese cuisine. Anne and Tuy are definitely candidates for “My Kitchen Rules” which is a really popular show over here also (I call it McDonald TV – served up with the same ingredients in every country ). Every course had a carrot or radish carving on the plate with it. Menu was starter – asparagus souffle with vietnamese style salad and king prawn, main – beef mignon with a teriyaki like sauce and dessert – banana pancakes with toffee sauce (done like banana spring rolls), red bean ice cream and a black bean shotter. We rolled out of the place the next morning not before Anne gave us one of her lavender pillows as a farewell gift.

More driving in the Alps, followed by more driving in Alps proper. Finally arrived in Annecy which is a very pretty city situated around a lake. I don’t know why but I thought this was a sleepy little town but it is a thriving tourist spot and I can see why. It is so beautiful and there are a million things to do. Hiking, rock climbing, paragliding – all of which I won’t be doing. I am quite content to sit on the deck overlooking the swimming pool and lake of our new fabulous B&B and sip white wine from the region and eat my newest find, cheeseburger chips (they really taste like a McDonald’s cheeseburger and every cell in me knows I shouldn’t like them but I can’t help myself). With this view why move?

Well as it turns out Montpellier wasn’t much chop. The tour books had talked it up a bit and I was left dealing with my over estimated anticipations about it beauty and culture. To me, and to be fair I was still getting over the stress of the near miss kidnapping experience of Paris, it looked somewhere you would send someone if you wanted them to be well versed in guerilla warfare techniques. On the other hand, we did have the best meal that we have had in the whole of France so far in Montpellier. I had duck salad to start and then duck breast for main (I’m a themes girl). My duck was amazing (both courses) and husband’s food was good too. After saying I wasn’t going to drink I ended up helping husband finish 3 smallish jugs of wine (on top of my mandatory kir that I have been having as a starting drink all around France). Needless to say we slept well that night.

In the morning we picked up the next hire car, which was surprisingly even smaller than the Ford Festiva – it was an Opel Corsica, loaded up the sat nav for Provence and started off for some more hair raising, knuckle gripping car tours of France. First stop was Pont du Gard, a very old (50 AD) water duct left behind by some kind Romans. We oohed arhed and climbed as much over the surrounding countryside that they would allow in search of the perfect picture. Then it was back in the car and on the roads to Arles. Being a bit over citys or large towns we opted to go to the tourist office and select a more provincial B&B. I am so glad we did. It was like staying in a French museum with very pretty gardens. Our room was like it had been reconstructed straight out of the 17th Century, the 17th Century with a swimming pool. The only minus (and it was very minimal was that it didn’t have wifi).

After depositing our luggage in our new stylish chambres, we drove down to the Carmague, where the white horses run free and the flamingos roam the marshes (and the old huge swimming rat or two). We visited the bird park as we were guaranteed of some pink flamingos (or big pink chickens as we have fondly come to call them do to their sound). We wondered around the park pretending to be interested in some of the very unattractive birds they house down there when we heard the squawk of our pink chickens and came across their marsh. It is rare you have a truly breath taking moment, the last one I remember was when I saw my husband for the first time (hee hee), the next was coming through the marsh clearing (after seriously psyching myself up as I was sure this was definite snake country we were treading through), and seeing the glorious pink flamingos. It was later in the day so the sun was that forgiving hue that makes everything look soft and beautiful and there they all were in the sunlight, sleeping, eating and fighting. So majestic, so peaceful even when they were trying to peck each others eyes out or get a bit of flamingo loving.

We slept until 9.45am the next morning. The lovely B&B lady had closed over the shutters and we found out that without ques such as daylight the body will continue to sleep unperturbed. We raced out to the courtyard to enjoy our complimentary B&B breakfast (that finishes at 10am) and were not disappointed. There were about 10 jams that all looked and tasted as if they might be home made, fresh croissants and bread, melon and strawberries, freshly oj and of course fresh black coffee French style! I must have taken about 50 photos of the courtyard all bathed in morning sunlight. It didn’t matter where I pointed my camera the photo looked amazing (and I am no photographer) everything was just so beautiful. The lovely french B&B lady and trusty sidekick Barloo (the dog) then gave us directions for an amazing provincial drive. Let me say at this point, there is nothing like driving in the Provence, it is so beautiful. Whilst driving it became clear to me that there had been a big karmic mistake and I was really meant to be born in the Provence. With light I have seen no where before and a perfume on the air that is so sweet it could have been only manufactured by nature, I was sure that to live here would be to really live.

We returned early afternoon to the B&B to test some bright blue swimmers I had brought earlier in the day out in the pool. The sun by this stage was rather warm and I had spent most of the day slowly roasting in the passenger seat so the cool water was welcome on my skin (even if the occasionally wasp did float by). I was overcome by the fact that I didn’t seem to care about wearing a bikini. Back home I am strictly a board shorts and bather top girl. Here I was parading about in my new bright blue string bikini with orange sparkly stars like I was the next Elle McPherson (My good friend Suzy had mentioned this strange no bikini fear factor to me from her travels but I had never unto this point experienced it myself). Mind you there were no other guests and no mirrors. Either way I owned that poolside. Then I had three glasses of Kir Royale and a big packet of blue cheese chips and I felt like I less owned that poolside. Unfortunately at that point, madam B&B lady decided to show a prospective guest through the B&B. Did’t see him again after he spied eyes the drunk Australian in her swimming cosie with blue cheese chips down her front.

That evening we drove to St Remy for dinner. St Remy is where Van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself into an asylum for a year after hacking off an ear after an evening drinking Absynthe with a friend. Looking around at the beautiful town of St Remy which is shadowed by hauntingly striking mountains, I would have gladly hacked off an ear to stay here as well. Dinner, once again was amazing with husband having the provincial fish stew and myself the lamb done with potato daphanne (lots of cream and lots of potato – mum if you are reading this stop using skinny tinny to make this dish -it’s a crime again cuisine!). All was well, as fate would have it we realised that there were three tables of Australian couples all grouped together as we could hear their accents. Then the newly arrived Aussie couple declared that they needed someone that could read English to them as they couldn’t understand the menu written in French in their best and loudest Queenslander accent. When the waiter arrived, they berated him for there being no English on the menu. The waiter didn’t miss a beat and in the only English he had spoken that night said “Why don’t you speak French?”. Have I mentioned I love the French directness and wit, it is very refreshing to be told the truth bluntly all the time. I stifled a laugh and tried not to speak English again without an American accent for the rest of the night.

With much sadness we left the beautiful B&B and heady on down the french coast, past St Tropez and Cannes. Well you can tell Cannes is on at the moment. There are about 30,000 more people than there usually are in Cannes and they have all left their cars in the turning lane along the coastline. Miles and miles of traffic and not one superstar spotted, not even a B grader. Why aren’t they out in the public where we can maul them? Cannes was to full so we continued to the perfume capital, Grasse. But not without husband firstly just about running over a Cannes policeman whilst running a give way sign on a roundabout. The policeman took one look at husband, another at the hire car and obviously thought “Another stupid tourist way to hard to process” and let us continue on. Grasse too was full and surprising unpleasant smelling for the perfume capital. Finally we made it out to Le Relais Gourmand hotel in Mousans Sartoux where we have decided to stay so as to give husband’s nerves a break after driving one to many goat trails with sheer drops off one side of 500 metres or more. After trying to give them our camera (we left in the foyer for 30 mins unattended and surprising it didn’t get stolen which I truly believe is some sort of miracle and we should be phoning the cathelic church), we fired up the laptop and checked emails. Got an email saying that my good friend had broken her ankle – Stacey if you reading this, hope you get better soon!!!!!!! We are both thinking of you and don’t get your cast off until we return and can write some rude words on it. Oh and I have some excellent yoga ankle moves for rehab (love you).

I think we are off to the alps tomorrow but for now, I am off in search of food and a vin (or maybe a starter Kir).

Do you know when you wake up and you just know it is not going to be a good day? I had one of those yesterday.

I have always wanted to see Versailles Palace since I saw a photo of it when I was 9. Finally, I was about to. We arrived at the palace gates at 8.30am. We had previously purchased our tickets online as per the travel guide recommendations. Husband and I proceeded to argue about the parking of the car, it was over the lines and I had suggested it be re-parked. It was one of those travel fights that seems so important at the time and then 5 minutes later you couldn’t give a toss about it (my friend Tanya could attest to this when we were in Spain when I told her to ..”Have back your f…… watch then” – whoops can’t even remember why we were fighting). Between fighting and breakfast it took us up to the 9am open sesame moment of the gates. By time there were quite a gathering at the gates.

Once inside the palace it was well worth the wait. It truly is beautiful. The paintings on the ceilings, the furnishings, the gardens. They give out free tour headsets so I was meandering along nicely clicking buttons and ohing and arhing at the sights and information I was hearing and pretending I was Marie Antoinette fleeing from revoluntionaries when suddenly I realised how crowded I had become and how I was getting jostled along even though the palace is quite large. They were packing her to the rafters with tourists. You couldn’t get near most displays because of large tour groups. At one point, I was standing looking at something when one of the tour guide ladies led her group right up to me and proceeded to wave her tour pointer with a pom pom on top right infront of my face and person. Another time I was doing an extreme close up of a statue of Diana the Huntress (one of my favourite goddesses) when just as I was about to push the button I saw a face that did not belong to Diana in front of my camera – a tourist that had jammed herself between me and Diana. As we were leaving the palace I saw a sight even more incredible than the palace – 100s upon 100s of tourist buses lined up in the car park (if you don’t believe me ask my husband he actually pointed it out, he might not be able to park (hee hee) but he doesn’t exaggerate).

Next we said goodbye to our trusty Ford Fiesta back in Paris and hello to the TGV at Gare de Lyon. This is where I leave my dignity at the door. We went to print out our tickets that we had previously booked back in home. After several attempts it was clear it wasn’t going to work so we needed to find a ticket booth. I spied a sign which led downstairs and had my back turned from my husband, at the same time husband said “Look there is one down those stairs over there’ and had his back turned to me. I thought we were talking about the same stairs so headed off and half way down my stairs before turning around to talk to husband and realising he wasn’t there. My mind did a back take – how did he disappear so quickly, I had just heard him talking to me. I retraced my steps and waited. No husband. My mind immediately remembered “Taken” a Liam Neeson film I had recently watched which was set in Paris and involves girls getting kidnapped and drugged and sold into the sex trade. Admittedly husband isn’t a girl and has been doing martial arts for about 20 years so that fact that this was highly unlikely to have been my husband’s fate didn’t seem to register with my brain. In my mind, he was being drugged and was half way out of the country. I started calling his name out, loudly. I am rather a reserved person but when I think a loved on is being bundled across the French/Spanish border I can become quite boisterous.

Several French people came to see if I was ok and if I needed assistance (even in my kidnapping crisis I did register that this would be a good social experiment between cultures to see which culture rendered assistance in the least time – hee hee). One particularly lovely woman gave me her mobile phone and helped me try and piece together husband’s phone number. My mind was too focussed on husband being in someone’s car boot trying to kick out the lights and go all Chuck Norris on their arse to concentrate on numbers. The poor woman must have thought I was having some mid-life existential crisis right there in Gare de Lyon particularly as I had started to semi-hyperventalate. After what seemed like hours, but husband assured me was only 10 minutes, husband appeared. Of course I immediately did what any relied person does and started yelling at husband – it must have been a very moving scene for the lovely french woman. Husband explained that he too had turned around on his set of steps to speak to me and had been surprised to see me not there. After dismissing the thought that I had been kidnapped as he reasoned no kidnapper would have been able to shift me that fast with the over stuffed backpack I had on my back, he retraced his steps to find me. I had luckily chosen the only part of the train station to stand where I wasn’t visible for the way he was looking. It wasn’t until he approached another way he saw me and my new french friends.

Afterwards, hurtling along at 300mph on the TGV and after my second mini-bottle of Rose, I was able to smile about the ordeal and agree that, granted, I had over reacted and that perhaps I need to cut down on watching action thrillers. Hopefully such like adventures do not await us in Montpellier.