Le Franco Phoney

Nothing says ‘You live in the country’ quite like experiencing the local fairs. If donkey racing at the Fête du Reblochon was not enough, last weekend’s fair in Thônes, the Foire de la Saint Maurice, topped it off. Now, just to give you a bit of background, the 22nd of September is the memorial day for this particular saint, who is the patron of many and varied things, including soldiers, weavers and, of all things, cramps. Thanks, St. M, but I still get terrible cramps in my right foot when surfing, so can you do something about that please. Eating a banana before surfing just doesn’t seem to work anymore.

Anyway, back to the fair. Thônes, pronounced ‘tone’, is a small village between Annecy and La Clusaz. Its highlights are tours of a local small cheese factory, a steep rock climbing area, and a choice of two supermarkets. Parking is free: it’s not a busy place. But that all changes with the fair. The never-used car park at the end of town, that sometimes has a truck parked in it while the driver takes a sleep break, was completely full of cars, with fair-goers making full use of the free shuttle bus to town. The roads were lined with parked cars, but I decided, being more local than many of the visitors, that I should try my luck in the Lidl car park. This involved going through two ‘No entry’ gates, which others with the same thoughts as me had kindly left open. Anyway, the signs are more of a suggestion than an order. My luck was in and I parked my car.

The fair itself offered the usual regional stands: sausages, cheese, cheap clothes and sweets. The rural aspect of the fair was reflected in the row of horses tethered outside the town hall. But three other things really made it stand out as a rural fair for me:

1. tractors for sale;
2. cows for sale; and,
3. the hay bale competition.

Yes, that’s right, a hay bale competition. Sadly, I did not have my camera to capture the moment, but the competition was a bit like a pole vault competition, except instead of people vaulting themselves over the teetering horizontal pole, they were chucking over bales of hay. I think I must have arrived at the time when competition was fierce, as the pole was high and the bales were low: someone must have made some freak high bale throw and nobody else could attain the same height. I couldn’t stand the tension in the crowd and opted for a crepe instead. Bring on the apple and donkey fête in Serraval next weekend!

The Coupe Icare (Icarus Cup) was held last weekend, just south of Chambéry. So, in our typical disorganised manner, we decided at 1am on Saturday night to spend Sunday watching the paragliders take part in the annual event. Although a strong wind at the landing area prevented many paragliders from taking off, the day was lots of fun and the entertainment was great. One wing that did take off was a tandem team with an eagle attached to the passenger’s arm. As they took off, so did the eagle, who then flew behind and around the wing as if it was a giant mum. Every now and again, it landed on the passenger’s arm again, and they stayed airborn for quite a long time.

Meanwhile, the on-ground entertainment took over. Adam and Eve featured in a show where a flying apple was offered to them. Eating it, despite God’s warnings, gave them wings, and, had the wind not been as dangerous for landing, they would have flown at that point of the show. Instead, they flapped their arms around like birds and ran around to emulate flight. Airline hostesses (not all females) arrived for the next show, before they handed out free drinks to the crowd in proper airline hostest style. Meanwhile special solar balloons, made by a Brazilian man (pictured  in a photo below) who is now an outlaw after the balloons were banned in Brazil, floated and sank above the crowd and into the distance.

Other notable parts of the day included:

• seeing the famous speed rider (a sport like paragliding, but with skis attached and using a very small wing), Michael Reignier, who spends most of winter speed riding in La Clusaz take off and sink fast with his tiny wing (but apparently landed without a problem);
• watching a replica of an antique NASA test wing be inflated (red, white and blue in photos below);
• checking out the atrociously bad fashion on offer for paragliders needing to stay warm in the air (it was so 80s!); and,
• seeing a photo I took at the Dune du Pilat in a paragliding magazine!

Okay, okay, so it might offend some people to put a drug-wrecked singer, who has probably hacked off his fellow/ex- band members from both Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver more than most singers, in the same category as someone as creative, innovative and talented as David Bowie. But to be honest, I think Scott Weiland has those same qualities and could be so much greater if he just laid off the drugs. And Bowie certainly has had his fair share in the past anyway. Weiland has sneak-previewed two of tracks from his up-coming second solo album and I just can’t help thinking of David Bowie when I listen to these two songs. I think it’s the combination of melody, chords and production, together with Weiland’s singing style in Paralysis more than in Missing Cleveland, that reminds me of Bowie.

Anyway, I know it’s completely off my usual topics, but it had to be said. Maybe the lovely people at RadioMeuh here in La Clusaz will start playing his stuff…

When walking through Annecy’s lakeside park on Sunday, we noticed a crowd at the Point des Amours — the bridge over the canal. On the bridge was a generator, some guys in wetsuits, and a big wheel of cable, unwound. The cable was floating calmly up the canal, and at the other end, another guy in a wetsuit with a wakeboard attached to his feet, floating in the water.

After a few false starts, the nod was given and the generator was switched on. It pulled the cable back towards the bridge — with the wakeboarder attached. He jumped over buoys and did lots of little tricks before he reached the bridge. He ended his run with a big jump and a bigger splash in the shallow water below him, much to the applauding crowd’s pleasure. Luckily, I happened to have my very uncompact SLR camera in my handbag(!), so I snapped some photos. See below, with commentary.

What’s a road trip around a European country if it doesn’t involve a castle? Chateau de Beynac can now be added to the long list of castles I’ve visited. The castle overlooks the Dordogne river, and its prime position has made it a popular castle to attack. The British declared it as British territory at one point, and Richard the Lionheart was rumoured to have climbed through the toilet holes to take the castle by storm. Most recently, the castle, in ruins, was (from memory) bought in the Seventies by a French man for around €30,000 (again, from memory). He was told he was crazy for buying a ruined castle and that land it sat on was more valuable. He started restoring it without commercialising it with tourist traps like gift shops: all entry fees went — and still go — towards the restoration of the castle.

Although the French man passed away in July 2008, the castle, now in great shape, is still being restored. Guided tours given by volunteers are free and a great way to see the castle. All the usual topics are covered: life in a castle, toilets in a castle, how to heat and light a castle, a kitchen in a castle, and defense mechanisms of a castle. One thing that I had not seen before was a table in the kitchen with a long hole at one end for the men to put their swords (see photo below). This was the only place where they could relax without fear of attack, and one of the few times they removed their swords from their bodies during the day.

If you visit this castle, remember these important bits of information:

1. They do charge for public parking on Sundays, despite what French travel partners say.
2. If you don’t want to do the fifteen-minute heart-starting (or stopping) walk to the castle from the road below, you can drive to the car park right outside it the castle entrance.

We discovered both these things the hard way.

In a bit of a role reversal, I went to England for the weekend with a French man. Hearing his observations about London and Cambridge — the two cities we visited — brought a smile to my face as I remembered thinking some of those same thoughts when I first moved to the UK years ago. The full English breakfast, or ‘fry-up‘, was a big hit, as was Camden market. The new, funky Stables area of the market, complete with wi-fi café and private stables for each group, decked out with chairs and tables, impressed us both.

A low point was using the Tube. I asked why. He said it was the smell. I no longer notice the smell and I had forgotten it had one. He noticed a tube stop called Ealing Broadway and said: ‘Ealing. Does that mean you can go there and get better?’ If you add an ‘h’ to the front of Ealing, you will see what he was getting at. French people don’t pronounce ‘h’s, so he had figured out that Ealing Broadway was a place you could go to for healing.

Once in town, he didn’t understand why people queued when there was room further ahead or why nobody in the shops replied to him when he said ‘bye bye’ to them on our way out. In France, it’s polite to say hello and goodbye, and even nicer to thank the shopkeeper whether you buy something or not. In England, shop staff don’t bother making eye contact with you, let alone greet you on your way in or out! Regardless, he could not break the habit and I heard ‘bye bye’ followed by silence many times over the weekend.

Walking in central London, the French man was weary and he wanted to stop for a drink in a ‘traditional English pub’, so I took him to the first small, dark pub we came across. ‘No,’ he said, ‘this is too dark.’ So, I took him to a trendy wine bar. ‘But this doesn’t feel like a pub,’ he said. I explained that English pubs were traditionally small and dark, but he wasn’t happy until we found a less-dark pub. He tried a half-pint of London Pride, commenting that it was warm before falling asleep in his chair with a few drops left in the glass. I was on the phone arranging to meet a friend and hadn’t noticed his closed eyes. Within minutes, the pub landlord was hassling me to wake him up or get out. The sleepy French man felt refreshed from his few minutes of respite and we continued on to Trafalgar Square. Any beer he consumed after that point was always something marked as Extra Cold.

In Cambridge, he wanted to find out more about a product created by university students. We split so that I could shop while he went to a college for more information. We met an hour later and he looked dejected. ‘I see that British red tape is as bad as French,’ he said, explaining that he had been told from one college to go to another college, who then told him to go back to the first one. He was, however, given a course outline for post-graduate studies! He has no intention to study in Cambridge, but it’s good to see the British staff are on the ball for luring in foreign students. Highlights were, apparently, the Mathematical Bridge on our punting trip, bacon, and brown sauce (thanks to the lovely Railway Lodge, where we stayed). Speaking of food, Marmite joined warm beer, the Tube and British weather as elements of the UK that the French man hopes to avoid on his next UK visit. Fry-ups and Krispy Kreme donuts will, however, be sought out!

I dropped a friend off home ten minutes ago, and a car pulled up next to us, right by a roundabout. The passenger jumped out of the car, ran towards my window and handed me a pink geranium. He said: ‘Here, this is for you,’ then sprouted some Italian in my direction followed by a little French, then ran back to his friend’s car and they drove off smiling. I can’t figure out if I know him or not but it bemused and amused my friend and I greatly.

Other strange stranger behaviour I’ve experienced over the years:

• a man in a street in Annecy stopping me and pulling out a bottle of white wine from under his coat and a glass in his other hand and offering me a drink;
• a crazy lady at the supermarket warning my mum and I about her son or Christmas turkeys or maybe it was both: whatever it was, it took us half an hour to escape the freezer aisle;
• a man-sized donut in a Melbourne shopping centre asking me if I would consider dating a donut;
• a man on a bus telling me I was a bad person because I was Australian and the Australian prime minister was making asylum seekers stay on their ship at sea so clearly I deserved the abuse for his actions; and,
• an Irishman in London tearing his £5 note in half and giving me one half so I’d remember him (I still have it in my purse!).

It’s late and I can’t think of any more of the top of my head. Please feel free to add your own strange stranger experience(s) as comments below!