Tag: France

Where It All Began 24

The wind whistled through the narrow arrow slits, and the crows cawed as they circled above. My eyes are locked upon the empty space between the inner and outer walls below, where men must have bled out in battle centuries ago. I was deep in thought when she slapped a hand on my shoulder. “There you are! I was looking everywhere!” To say I was startled is a huge understatement, but she thought it was funny. Carcassone 1992.

After Paris I decided to head south. Fruit picking seemed the obvious choice for work, after all I was an accomplished grape harvester, and I figured there’d be more work in the south. We visited Carcassonne because it’s a famous castle, and it was used for the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. We all like a bit of Costner don’t we? And who can forget Alan Rickman?

But it was time to make some money. Now, at the time my French was pretty good, at least speaking it was. We camped in a field owned by Fred and Elsie, they might have been called Raphaël and Geneviève, but I thought Fred and Elsie suited them far better. They told me to go to the market at 5am and speak to les producteurs. For those of you who aren’t fluent in the language these are the producters 😂 In other words Growers. Upon arrival I headed directly for the cafe and asked the owner, in my best French, where I could find les producters . He kinda shouted about three sentences. This was my first inkling that speaking French and understanding French are actually two different things. I gave him a smile, in truth I probably looked ‘gaumless’ and left. We asked a few producters if they had any work but to no avail. A few days later I called in on a farm, the farmers wife leaned from the window and I asked if there was any work. She spoke for about five minutes, as I listened attentively. I thanked her and returned to the van. Sally asked me what she had said. I looked at her and said. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” 😂 Without labouring the story this was the overriding theme for the next four months.

One day we had a crash. Who puts traffic lights behind a tree? Later, after we had swopped details, I realised my insurance had run out. Luckily I had a friend back in England who could be described as ‘Shonky’ Liz Makenzie describes the word very well on her blog Mywordshare. He sent me a backdated insurance certificate three days later. Shortly after that the van was broken into, strangely all they stole was my income tax documents which I had intended to complete, en route. I’m not sure if that would make my tax debt null and void, but at least I had a witness in Sally. 😉

After four months it began to dawn on me that this wasn’t Gran Canaria, we couldn’t go fishing, and Sally wasn’t Peter, although she was having fun (stop it! we’ll keep this a family show 😂) she was getting a little fed up. Decent amenities were rare, plus we were running out of money. So my offer to return to England was well recieved. But I couldn’t go back to where I’d come from. I looked at a map and decided that Torquay, Devon had a certain attraction. After all, in 1815 Napoleon Bonarparte gazed from HMS Bellerphon at the Torbay coastline and said “Quel bon pays,” comparing it to Porto Ferrajo on the island of Elba. Hence the term, The English Riviera. If It was good enough for the little corporal, it was good enough for me. I was sure some form of adventure could be extracted from the place. 😉

Happy Trails, Folks x

Where It All Began 16

Légion Étrangère

Ken and I disembarked the ferry in St Malo. Using my limited French I managed to get us to the main road leading to Rennes so we could hitch a ride. Eventually we got a lift with a chap, but Rennes was as far as he was going. From there we gave in and caught the SNCF locomotive to Gare Montparnasse. There had been an interesting train crash there in 1895, luckily for us this was 1985, but Ken did remark about the similarities of the year, and so we left fairly briskly.

We knew the Legion headquarters were at Fort de Nogent, we just weren’t sure where that was. People we asked directions from, bowed their heads and scurried away. Eventually one chap took pity on us, told us the correct term was Légion Étrangère, gave us sound directions, and explained that people who sign up for the Legion are generally criminals escaping justice, hence the reluctance to engage with us. He said it was best not to keep asking or we may be reported and arrested. We walked for hours until eventually we saw the gate to Fort de Nogent.

To be honest we weren’t quite sure what to do, so we knocked on the door. A small hatch opened and a rough, scarred face grunted. “Oui?”

What do you say? Apart from. “Hello we want to join the Légion Étrangère.” The hatch slammed shut, and a few moments later the huge door groaned on it’s hinges and we were ushered in. Mr Happy pointed to a bench, growled something in French and marched off. A few minutes later a chap arrived. He introduced himself, with a cockney accent, as Corporal Yarring and took us inside. At this point I was quite excited, as some people had said we would be turned away at the gate.

What I wasn’t prepared for, was what happened next. I expected we would hand over our belongings, be ordered to strip and given some kind of uniform. From thence (i do like that word) marched to a bunk house. We hadn’t researched this adventure but we had seen the movies!

Corporal Yarring sat us down in an office and explained that he was full. My heart sank. We didn’t have the funds to hang around for long, and so my mind was racing with a plan B. Then he smiled and said not to worry (he must have seen my expression) There were a lot of recruits being shipped out that night to Marseille, and could we come back tomorrow?

Really? now I was puzzled 😆I had presumed, once we set foot over the threshold, we wouldn’t see civilisation again for five years. He explained the Paris Boat Show was in full flow this week, hotel rooms were in demand and expensive. Were we ok for money? He didn’t want us sleeping rough and getting arrested. Ken and I looked at each other in amazement, shrugged, and nodded. “Good stuff,” the corporal smiled. “I’ll show you out and we’ll see you tomorrow.” I asked what time and suggested 5am, I knew these boys would be up and at it early doors. “About ten o’clock,” he said. So we left him at the gate and set off in search of a hotel. Wandering the streets of Paris was fun and we found cheap accomodation in an impoverished area (the ladies on the street gave it away😆

We ate and turned in for the night, uncertain of what tomorrow would bring, but we were committed to the unknown.

Happy Trails, Folks x