Fountain 19. Le Monastier sur-Gazeille 2nd August

  

In 1878, Robert Louise Stevenson began his two week trip through the Cevennes 

with Celestine, his donkey, from Le Monastier.

In 2013, I was two weeks into my seven week trip with my motorbike,
Louise, when I arrived in Le Monastier.

Robert and I have much in common it seems. 

And I quite admire many of his remarks

eg

" For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake."

and

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. "

and

the little sign that my son gave me a few Christmases ago which

 hangs next to the this and that of my house

"That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much."

Very optimistic advice from a man who suffered ill health all his life and died aged 44
while opening a bottle of wine in Samoa.

 

I doubt that Robert left with a fan fare. But I was lucky enough to arrive with one.

 As I strolled through the shadowy aisles of the 10th century abbaye, 

where even the dust hovered in a static denial of time passing,

 wild Gypsy/Balkan music blared and echoed and thrashed off the rough volcanic walls.

It was the 25th Festival of Brass Music.

Unfortunately, I had a thumping great migraine at the time.

To see and hear for yourself: visit this website link

   http://www.festivaldumonastier.fr/HAIDOUTI-ORKESTAR-FANFARAI.html

the wonderful rough hewn volcanic blocks that make a mosaic of the west front, 

squashed between buildings and awkward to photograph

Fountain 18. Source of the Loire 2 August

                                              This wide plain opened out before me.

In the distance I could see only the plain, because indeed it is a high plateau, where fresh cut fields exposed the shy pale blades of grass and the grey tarmac ribbon curled gently along the contours. A surprising wind clipped me sidelong from time to time, propelling me across the lanes like a drunkard. Flocks of Harleys overshot me and then pulled over to roll cigarettes, slip off studded jackets and shake golden tresses out of helmets like they do in the movies.
Following the tradition of the tortoise and the hare, I chugged on and got there first.







 Mont Gerbier de Jonc is one of the 450 extinct volcanoes on  the Massif Central, an enormous and remote area which covers 15% of France. The peak rises to an altitude of 1,551 m and from its base are three springs that are the source of the Loire, France's longest river which snakes along for 1,012km before it reaches the Bay of Biscay.

At the time it seemed like such a bother to get re-togged up into walking clothes, which of course, now I regret. Nevertheless, I did hover round the base and stuff myself silly on wild raspberries, strawberries and myrtilles.







Across the road, was the unlikely emergence of the source. I had driven several hours to arrive at the birth place of this great river that I have crossed so many times as it widens near Nantes. I have swum in her tributaries, slept beside her listening to frogs and hedgehogs, watched the night lights: stars, cafes, street lights and fireworks dance on her surface, so this felt an important deepening of our relationship.

The water flowed through an oak pipe into a trough that was built into the porch of an old stone farm building.
Now the building is a shop and visitor centre selling everything you could possibly make with mrytilles.  Little human traffic jams built up on either side of the door as family groups, cyclists, seasoned walkers with thick socks and badges, filled up their bottles, blocking the entrance to the shop.

between the fountains

 

( a wall in Arles)

 I've had a few more thoughts on radiation.

 Maybe it is all just fine the way it is.

The dinosaurs "naturally" became extinct due to environmental factors. I don't have the statistics but are there many people who are upset that the land isn't awash with Tryannosaurus Rex?

Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, man's self-induced destruction is as "natural" as a collision of comets. Who will be bemoaning our demise? Or perhaps we will eventually mutate into a radiation tolerant species.

This isn't to say that I'm condoning the present financially driven disregard for our exquisite planet. 
These are just thoughts on the topic.

This video is a worth a view.
http://memolition.com/2013/10/16/time-lapse-map-of-every-nuclear-explosion-ever-on-earth/ 

Fountain 17 . ? 31 July

                     I have no idea where Fountain 17 was. no photo. no notes, apart from: "31 July. 17"        scribbled in my notebook.

                                 I was heading north to the Auvergne and Le Puy-en-Valey.

 

  I vaguely have a recollection of something somewhere between 

the massive hands and grapes on the roundabout and the tomb of St Andeol.

                                             


There was a particular patch of about 30 miles that was so ugly that I forgot that I was in my beloved France. Tangles of motorways and flatland along the Rhone, a stench of chemicals, giant electric pylons marching off into the distance,  a nuclear power plant, barking dogs and sadness. A veritable desolate wasteland of dust and despicableness where for a short while I felt that I had lost my soul.


Not surprisingly, I just found this on the Guardian website:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jul/25/nuclear.industry.france

'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream

"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.
The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.
Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. ....French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps...."

Quite worryingly I live not that far from Hinkley Point where the British Government is quite happy to allow EDF and a group of Chinese investors to build another reactor. In this age of mistrust and distrust it is quite interesting to encourage "foreigners" to build something so lethal in this green and pleasant land.  They expect it to take 10 years to complete. So, if I haven't died of radiation related diseases by then, I can go.... hmmm... where I can go that hasn't been poisoned by humans... let me think... umm....well....maybe I might as well just die of a radiation related disease and be done with it. Surely there won't be nuclear power in the next world.

Fountain 16. L' Abbaye Notre-Dame de L' Annonciation 31 July

The monks recommended that I stay the night at the convent where the Benedictine sisters had a guest house.

An exquisitely dear nun greeted me with playful laughter, it was as if she had been waiting years for me and finally I had arrived. Although all the rooms were full she insisted that I stay and that she would find me somewhere to sleep. We wandered down the hallway and up and down the stairs and as we passed each door she would point and smile and announce the nationality of the guests inside. After the room with the Portuguese, we arrived at a cupboard where she dragged out a camp bed which we screeched along the tiles past the room where the Italians were staying to a small conference room. "This will do? Yes?"

                                                        

 My bed.

 It was was phenomenally uncomfortable, but a snug nest compared

 to a night on the plastic chairs at Athens airport.

 People come and stay here for all sorts of reasons. There was the group of Italian girls spending a week working with the nuns in the garden. A Belgian woman who smiled a lot came to walk in the hills. There was the family of a young monk who was taking his vows the next day.

Now, I have always had a fantasy to join a monastery and live in a peaceful community praying, working and studying. It doesn't seem a million miles away from what I already do alone.  (apart from the freedom to take off on a motorbike and a general lack of obedience)

So when I looked dreamily into a rose-tinted future of prayer and simplicity they corrected me with tremendous gravity. "C'est une vie très difficile". And as a mother of a young man, I could feel their worry, their sense of loss as well as their respect for a son who had consciously made an all encompassing commitment.

   

       

Ringing bells for 10 o'clock Mass.

 The church and convent were built 1986-2005 

a half hour walk from the monastery.

The nuns live a cloistered life so when their work demands contact with the public they are separated by a grille. In the convent shop, a nun sat by the till behind bars chatting with a customer. I presented her with my purchase, a cd of traditional French children's songs. For some reason I needed to explain that the cd was a gift for my great nephew in Las Vegas and that as children we sang of these songs. Such as Frere Jacques and Alouette.
 And much to my surprise, for I am not one to burst into song, I began to sing. After one line of missed notes and mispronounced words, she came to the rescue and joined in. Life could not get any more delightfully ironic than this: two women of a certain age, one in her religious habit and the other in her motorcycle leathers singing nursery songs together.
After we exhausted my repertoire I explained how I had met the monks at the fountain the day before. I showed her their photos on my Ipad.  I told her about the water fight and she squealed with delight as she called out their names.

                                      An Italian girl helping to cut the lavender by the car park.

Fountain 14. Abbaye de Sainte Madeleine le Barroux. 30 July

 I met Mariette Oudon while we were both sorting through a mound of enameled holy medals at a stall in the market in Malucene. She complimented my choice, the Virgin Mary on a pale green background, which made her look rather more like a Hindu goddess than the Mother of Jesus. We chatted a bit about holy medals, lighting candles and she urged me to go to the Abbaye, adding, with very sparkling eyes, that they bake the best bread in all of France. We paid for our medals and said a reluctant goodbye. As I stepped away she called out that she would remember me in her prayers.

Abbaye de Sainte Madeleine 

Crickets and lavender and me. 

The car park was "landscaped" like a Californian country club except that it was natural and there were no Mercedes or BMWs. There was only me, Louise and a flock of bees huddling around a dripping tap.

The church was absolutely still. I sat and listened to the blood course through my body and perhaps an hour passed. An older couple opened the north door and the sharp yellow light cut across the floor, the pews and my cheek, blinding me in one eye. I squinted to see their silhouettes: a broad bellied man with thin arms and a tiny woman with close cropped curls. They stood outside looking in, discussing something at length in loud breathy whispers. Their shoes scraped on the gravel underfoot and they let go of the door, returning me to the darkened silence.

Despite the tranquility and timelessness, the monastery is surprisingly new. 

Around 1970 a Benedictine monk pooteled up to the small church of St. Madeleine on his moped

 and was given permission to stay and live a monk's life. A couple days later a young and determined postulant appeared, and within a few months he joined the monk in his programme of prayer and thus the 'community' had begun. 

 Within a year, their numbers had grown to eleven monks and they started to restore a small ruined priory which they quickly outgrew.

 On the 21st of March 1980 they laid the foundation stone on which is engraved the motto of the monastery : Pax in Lumine (Peace in Light). This describes the mission of the monks: "to bring down a little of the peace of heaven." By 2002 there were sixty monks living a cloistered and prayerful existence in this little bit of heaven in the Vaucluse.

According to Benedictine Rule they devote their life to prayer, study and manual labour. Between their prayers, (seven times a day starting at 3:30 am on weekdays and nine times on Sundays) they bake the best bread in France, mill flour, tend vineyards and make wine, build, grow vegetables, keep bees etc.etc etc.

Four times a year the monks go walk about.

I wrote about this already in the August 1st posting.

The monastery can be Googled and youtubed. Moreover, one can download their services, 

sung in Gregorian chant, in real time on the computer or via an app on one's mobile!

My utterly naive and hand flapping amazement seems to indicate that I, 

Ms. Terribly Modern Cosmopolitan Woman, am a total luddite

 while these cloistered men are the ones who are digitally savvy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYRhbvKsCl8

from their website- http://www.barroux.org/

“There is only one problem in the whole world: restoring spiritual sense in people. Shower on them something like a Gregorian chant. ”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Fountain 13. Vaison la Romaine. 29 July

                                                        Bicycle Tree with fruit.

On the road linking Malaucene and Vaison la Romaine is a grand old oak tree dripping with bicycle fruit. Perhaps the seeds were sown by passing cyclists peddling to Mt. Ventoux. 

I almost said that taking this photo was my nearest brush with a car, then I remembered several other near death fountain experiences. Especially the one in Aix. Fortunately it is generally acknowledged that tourists, especially those with a camera, have no fear.

 Vasio Vocontiorum, or Vaison la Romaine to you and I, has been inhabited since the Bronze Age and by the end of 400 bc it was the capital of a Celtic tribe known as the Vocontii. They were later taken over by the Romans who left a mass of ruins, mosaics, a theatre, etc. including a sculpture that is now in the British Museum. After that it was taken over by the various Barbarians: Christians, who used the theatre benches as tombstones, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Clotaire I, the King of the Franks, various bishops and counts whose disputes were settled by Good Pope Clement etc etc. It was then nearly washed away by a flood in 1632 and then by another flood in 1992 which gained it a spot on prime time telly, in Discovery Channel's Destroyed in Seconds.

Whew, and now, all this history is history. Vaison is a gentle place with many tourists, geraniums, art galleries, gem stone shops and the very helpful Willy's Motorcycles where Louise gets new tyres, and more importantly, brakes, while I use their computer to catch up on emails.

                                  
                                  

 

                   Fountain 13 in the vernacular style surmounted with a pineapple.

In the haute ville, where narrow arched ways lean left and right and rough cobbles passively threaten to trip up and twist delicate ankles, the counts made life difficult for the bishops.   

     

Down below, on the other side of the river where the land is flatter, is a large, almost modern square. In the shade: a group of musicians sit with friends and snap open plastic take-away containers of anti-pasti. In the sun: readers tug their shorts higher up their thighs, pull out the bookmark and re- enter their imaginary world. In a dappled light: a toddler makes a beeline to a column of water which rises and falls from a hole in the pavement. Silent and purposeful, she attempts to hold the water down with her foot until her disposable nappy sags and her skin turns blue.