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Week 22 (France 17)

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Where were we?

Here. For the last time.

Though we will be back.

And also here.

Carcassone, where we arrived yesterday

Where should we have been?

In that parallel Covid-free universe, this is the week that Tweed got to Tokyo.

We had a great few days in Shanghai before leaving China on Wednesday on the ferry (slow boat from China?) to Osaka. It has a mahjong room and a karaoke suite…

We got the train from Osaka – our first bullet train – to Tokyo and arrived here yesterday. Ben has enjoyed speaking Japanese, which he has been practising daily on our route here. We have a long list of things we want to do here. Including, by popular demand, Disneyland Tokyo. Some of us are terribly excited.

What did we really do?

St Pierre de Chartreuse

Ben found Harriet’s bank card. It was in Lucy’s pocket. Lucy had apparently looked everywhere.

It’s not here…

On Monday our landlords unexpectedly announced they were coming for an inspection visit and arriving on Thursday. As five of us are their direct descendants this was actually pretty good news, but we did want them to feel we had been looking after the place so a cleaning and tidying frenzy ensued.

The conservatory as no one has ever seen it before.

Shuggie and Ele, Ben’s parents and our enormously kind and generous landlords, duly arrived on Thursday evening after an epic drive from Rotterdam. It was utterly lovely to see them.

We had about 16 hours with them but we managed to cram in a swim, a garden inspection, a meal (and some wine) and a lot of chat and cuddles. Lucky us.

Earlier in the week we had another strawberry-fuelled walk. This time we headed up to the Source du Guiers. The Guiers Mort is the river which features large in many of our pictures, although possibly not quite as many as that mountain. It rises in a deep cave in the cliffs behind the village before tumbling down a waterfall and is a pleasant two or so hour walk up.

The route passes through the usual birch woods and up forest tracks, where the strawberries were thick on the ground, before opening into an enclosed meadow. Harriet and Ben did this walk on 21 July 2004, the day they got engaged, and, although it sounds like they made it up, really did find a four-leafed clover in that meadow. It hangs in a frame on the kitchen wall. A few years ago we did the walk again, as a family, and again Aurora found another clover.

Hopes were high, and we were determined, and ten minutes of searching produced not one but three good luck charms.

The cynical ex-biology-teacher among us points out that having four leaves is clearly a mutation that is simply passed to many of the clovers growing in that field but we (including the cynics) are refusing to let that ruin the magic.

Makes us all smile

We also met a lot of our tadpoles’ country cousins, happily swimming in a large puddle. It was reassuring that they too showed no sign of having legs.

The three girls spent a lot of time with their American friend Riis this week, including a movie night, a trip to the mini golf down the hill in La Diat and an ice cream party.

Aurora and Riis got on particularly well and are now trying to work out a long-distance relationship…

Harriet had her second girly drink in two weeks, again with Debbie and Carol and this time with the addition of Debbie’s daughter Chloe. It turns out that having a giggle, and a glass of rosé in the sun, is very good for you.

Magnus meanwhile discovered an ancient bottle of bubble mixture and drove everyone mad leaving a snail trail of soapy water on all the clean surfaces. Harriet then found an online guide to making bubbles within bubbles and she and Magnus had lots of fun (and some frustration) with that. In an appropriate location.

Magnus was also invited to spend an afternoon with his friend Sam. This was a great opportunity for four of the rest of us to go “climbing in the trees” and for Ben to head into Grenoble to claim back the cost of his doctor’s visit, tests and drugs, and to run some other errands.

The climbing in the trees (Is there an English word for this? – in French it’s accrobranche) was great as always, but Ben had a rather more frustrating time in Grenoble. He didn’t have exactly the right forms in exactly the right order to reclaim the money (although this can be done by post) and the china shop, where he wanted to replace some broken plates (astonishingly dating to before our arrival) wasn’t open when it said it would be, and when it did open didn’t have the plates we needed.

So he consoled himself by buying a fondue set. Retail therapy of the most cheesy kind…

At Sam’s, Magnus made a new friend: Oli, whose dad lives in the village. Oli has a trampoline and a scalextric set. Magnus was very happy there for several hours on Thursday while the rest of us cleaned and packed.

Carcassonne

On Friday morning, 117 days after arriving in St Pierre de Chartreuse, we packed up the car, left the fondue machine in the care of Shuggie and Ele, said our goodbyes to our wonderful friends and headed off South and West to Carcassonne.

This wasn’t the most fun journey we’ve had. The traffic was very heavy and it was extremely hot: 37° when we stopped outside Nîmes for a wee and an ice cream. Nonetheless we arrived safely in our home for the next three days, a very nice flat in a rather less nice corner of Carcassonne.

But this is just around the corner

It is a bit of a shock being back in a hot city and none of us slept brilliantly – the bikers of Carcassonne seemingly holding a rally at 2 a.m. didn’t help – but we were up bright and early to take advantage of the welcome overcast skies and cooler temperatures.

We have left the garden and wildflowers of the Chartreuse behind, but the agapanthus in Place Gambetta in Carcassonne were a pretty good replacement

We walked into La Cité, the medieval walled town of Carcassonne and found it just as beautiful as we remembered (but less steep, says Harriet) We were delighted that all four children asked to go and visit the castle and its ramparts.

We were hugely touched by the response to yesterday’s Instagram/Facebook post. People were enormously kind about what we have written and posted in the last 117 days and in particular about how we, especially the children, have coped with this unexpected situation.

We celebrated how proud we are of them all with a lolly/ crêpe/ very large ice cream in the shadow of the ramparts of Carcassonne.

How was it?

Good bits:

Ben: For our Friday Instagram post, I described the process of losing the dream of our transcontinental journey as conforming to the seven stages of grief. I’ve been through anger, denial, bargaining, sadness, etc. The last of these is Acceptance and Hope, and (for the moment at least) this has been my mood during our farewell to the Chartreuse.

I’m delighted my parents came to see us in our / their home, and pleased with how pleased they were with what we had done to (and in) the house.

I am very grateful to the people who discovered antibiotics. I am feeling much better than last weekend.

On a lesser note, it is good to see our “where we are” dot on the blog move, even if it’s not going to get as far as it was meant to.

Sophie: I really enjoyed Riis coming over lots, the ice-cream party was good and I had loads of fun watching a movie on Riis’s terrace and playing with his cat. I had lots of fun at Indian forest although I got lots of wedgies. I adored being able to see Ele and Shuggie.

Lucy: I enjoyed the Source du Guiers walk especially when I found a four leaf clover because I feel we need some luck in this unlucky year. I enjoyed spending time with Riis especially the film and obviously Shuggie and Ele coming was awesome. I love climbing in the trees so Indian Forest was good. Carcassonne is lovely but I don’t have much to note about it.

Magnus: Oli’s house was good because we got to play on his Scaleletrix. I had a blue Mercedes AMG.

Ele and Shuggie coming was good because, well, Ele and Shuggie are really nice. I mostly hugged Ele.

Source du Guiers is one of my favourite walks, because it has these metal crates that you jump across to get across the waterfall.

Harriet: The Source du Guiers walk is always a favourite and didn’t disappoint. I loved the climbing and in particular being aware of how much more physically able I am than I was five months ago.

It was lovely to see Ben’s parents and (honestly) a massive relief that they seemed delighted with the condition of the house. It is good too, although tinged with all sorts of regrets, big and small, to be back on the road again.

The children hate me saying it but I am so proud of how they have grown and changed over the last wee while and the people they are and are becoming.

Aurora: Hanging out with Riis made me smile loads. Indian Forest was fun but I got loads of wedgies. Seeing Ele and Shuggie. The movie with Riis was fun. I loved doing the ice cream party for Riis, skipping bits of cleaning to have lunch with Riis and making Tiktoks with Riis.

And cleaning windows with Riis…

Bad bits:

Aurora: Not having Duplo A and saying bye to Riis.

Harriet: I am sad, for lots of reasons, to be leaving the Chartreuse. There is the big picture of the fact that this really does mean we have failed to do what we set out to do. We will not get to Tokyo in 2020. There is the medium picture of the fact that we have, over the past few months, really begun to put down roots with people and place in the Chartreuse and I will miss them all. And then there is the small stuff – I didn’t see the tadpoles grown up. I never made any wild strawberry jam. There are walks unwalked and rivers unforded.

I am, and I know it’s a controversial opinion, underwhelmed by Carcassonne. The Cité is of course spectacular, but as medieval walled cities go, I think I preferred Aigues Mortes, and the more modern town feels a bit run down and depressed (though the umbrellas are lovely).

It looks great from here though

Magnus: Riis coming round. Cleaning.

Sophie: I am already missing my friends from Saint Pierre (Riis and Milly).

Strawberries can’t help with that.

Lucy: We didn’t do a red Indian Forest run which I wanted to do, there was a lot of waiting around for Daddy after our climbing and it was VERY hot yesterday.

Ben: My trip to Grenoble was a frustrating one, which made me a bit grumpy, and I didn’t enjoy the drive to Carcassonne – too hot and too many cars, and (I’m sure) nothing to do with the nice wine the evening before.

But at least the car was (briefly) nice and clean.

What did we eat?

A lot of leftovers. And the contents of the freezer.

And some very large lollies.

What about the tadpoles?

One of the many lovely things about Ben’s parents arriving is that they can take charge of the tadpoles. This had previously been a cause of concern. We will be following their progress from afar and will keep you updated.

This week they have continued to swim happily, though appearing only when the sun is off their respective pools.

It is nonetheless a sadness that we didn’t see them grow up. We knew exactly where we were going to release them and Harriet in particular was very much looking forward to having, temporarily, an actual box of frogs…

What’s next?

We are here in Carcassonne, fulfilling all Ben’s nine-year-old Dungeons and Dragons dreams, until Monday when we head to the West Coast, between Arcachon and Bordeaux for a bit of beach and wine. It’s not sake and sushi, but it could be a lot worse.

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The Daily Routine

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Or What it really looks like

Here in lockdown we have – we have to have – a routine. We have worked out in the last seven and a half weeks that no routine leads to chaos and chaos leads to shouting and shouting leads to consequences that none of us will enjoy. So we have a routine. Every day, weekends included.

The routine was widely circulated online when lockdowns started worldwide.

It is supposed to look like this.

However we have no printer, and we’ve also got increasingly poor at getting up in the mornings. Plus the original routine clearly assumes that your children will either a) do all this with absolutely no adult input or supervision or b) do not require food or clean clothes.

So our routine looks like this.

But of course our days don’t really look much like that at all. In fact – with occasional additions of door sanding, supermarket shopping, cleaning and gardening – they’re rather more like this:

Sometime after 8.30:

I know, I know. Really must get up.

Despite doing very little, we are sleeping longer and later. Maybe it’s a subconscious (unconscious) way of passing the days. The children are even worse…

9ish: Time to live up to the 1950s expectations of the Royal Canadian Air Force and do our daily 12 minutes of 5BX or XBX exercises. In fact Ben and I do them twice – once first thing and once with the children later.

Ben does his in his pants. No one needs to see that.

9.23: Amend the attestation

The French government requires us to fill this in every time we leave the house: why we are leaving and when.

9.24 Off to the boulangerie. Only one of us. The other gets the fun of shouting at gently encouraging the children downstairs and laying the table.

9.26 Boulangerie trip. Shopping could be worse. Plus this is the only time in the day we speak to anyone else.

We only allow ourselves croissants twice a week.

9.30 Home with the spoils

9.32. Hand wash. Obviously. Having been outside. Even if the only thing I’ve touched is the bread bag and my own bank card.

9.33 (the timetable is slipping already). Breakfast.

9.55 *voice of doom* WASHING UP.

The dishwasher broke about three days after we arrived here. Dishwasher repairs are not an essential service (though the cheese shop is). A scrupulously fair rota has been discussed and drawn up. I love it (at home guess who does all the washing up?). Some other members of the family are less enthusiastic.

Lucy is one of the more obliging ones.

10.05: Socks on. Teeth brushed. Wash your hands again.

10.09: Change the attestation. Off for a walk this time:

10.15 Quick tadpole check.

10.17 (ahead of schedule now – that’s because we didn’t stop to make pizza dough, or do laundry, or engage with the bickering). Walk. It is odd how whatever mood everyone is in when we leave the house, (and after the washing up some of us are often not at our sunniest) we are always in better fettle when we come back. So, whatever the weather, off we head on one of our walks – all within our permitted one hour, one kilometre radius.

11.16: Wash hands in case the virus has been lurking up a forest path.

11.17: Academics (no screens). Ben used to be a teacher and we both have several degrees. But none of that means we’re any good at educating our children. We attempt maths (lots of maths as it turns out our children don’t know half as much maths as their reports would have had us believe), music, writing – all sorts: we love a haiku and this was a great way of getting Lucy’s thank-you-letters done – problem solving (how to get the children to do their work) and quite a lot of pacifying and cat herding.

Very (very) occasionally it looks like this.

12 ish (depending entirely on how quick and conflict-free academic time has been): Creative time.

1pm: Lunch. Hopefully outside.

1.45: More washing up. Oh good.

1.55: Thank heavens for “Quiet Time”; it’s honestly everyone’s favourite part of the day. The large amount we’ve now spent on Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter was entirely worth it.

3.06. Or 3.08 or 3.14 or really we should go and get them now shouldn’t we? More antiquated Canadian exercises. For the whole family this time. They love it.

Knees up! 1 2 1 2…

Marshmallows are awarded for a) effort (ie actually doing something) and b) chat (ie not spending the whole time complaining about how someone else isn’t trying hard enough while simultaneously doing nothing yourself (see a)).

The mindfulness I briefly tried to introduce afterwards has been abandoned having met with too much resistance. I still think it would be an excellent thing for all of us so if anyone has any good tips on how to make cynical children enthusiastic about lying still and breathing please do let me know.

3.30: “Screen academics”. The original routine says something like “more academic time, you can use your screens if you like“, but funnily enough our kids choose screens. Every time.

It makes for a great picture.

We are in theory each still trying to learn a language on Duolingo (although my enthusiasm for Mandarin Chinese has waned slightly) and so the children do some French (despite their opportunities to practice being limited by not being allowed to talk to anyone else). There are various maths and English programmes they spend time on too. Magnus and Lucy are also adamant that Minecraft is educational. We are not entirely convinced.

4.15: More exercise. Normally our home made circuits.

Keep going….

If it’s very wet or there are vaguely physical chores to be done these are occasionally overlooked. We even did Joe Wicks once. Never again.

That was much too hard.

4.45 or as soon as possible: Free screen time. Cooking (with a different helper each day). Laundry. Instagram. Everyone in their own little corner doing their own thing. Silence reigns. Unless we can agree on a soundtrack.

Magnus normally wins

6ish: Supper. Often with cheese.

7 or so: Washing up, washing selves, family games, or perhaps a film, moods (normally Ben’s and mine) depending…

By 9: Go away the lot of you! And breathe…

With no television, it’s time for some sophisticated adult entertainment.

For those that have been following, Ben is now in the lead. I am totally fine about this.

The chocolate might make an appearance now too. It helps you sleep. Or something.

And so to bed. Tomorrow will be much the same.

Harriet

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Walks within a km and less than an hour

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The Chartreuse massif is a walkers’ paradise, a designated French Regional Natural Park, and as such is comprehensively signposted, with well maintained paths criss-crossing the hills, forests, streams and mountains. The signs are a distinctive shade of yellow, with small yellow stripes painted on rocks, trees and walls to tell you that you are on the right path, with crosses indicating a wrong turn or false path. There is also a trail running centre in the village, with marked trail runs too.

Signs and markers

Without Confinement the map of available walks is enormous and looks something like this.

The Massif de la Chartreuse

During the current “Confinement”, the French authorities require us to have a written statement (attestation) when we leave the house, signed, dated and timed, and giving the reason for the excursion (déplacement) as one of seven permitted reasons. We use the shopping one, and the exercise one, and that’s it.

The full wording is “Déplacements brefs [Brief excursions], dans la limite d’une heure quotidienne [limited to a daily hour] et dans un rayon maximal d’un kilometre autour du domicile [within a maximum radius of 1km from the home], liés soit à [for either] l’activité physique individuelle des personnes, à l’exclusion de toute pratique sportive collective et de toute proximité avec d’autres personnes [individual sporting activity, excluding all team sports, and all proximity to other people], soit à la promenade avec les seules personnes regroupées dans un même domicile [or walking with only people from the same home], soit aux besoins des animaux de compagnie [or for the needs of pets].”

With the current restrictions, it looks more like this.

Not such massive options during lockdown in the Massif de la Chartreuse

So, mainly for printing out and leaving in the housebook here in my parents’ lovely house, is the definitive, exhaustive, most probably useless (given the lockdown restrictions will be eased within a week of publication) guide to walks from the house, within a radius of a kilometre and able to be completed within an hour.

The Piggy Walk and The Reverse Piggy

The Piggy Walk was our standard walk when the children were much younger. It is just about feasible with a pushchair, if it is a more rugged variety. It involves going down the path to the left of the Hotel Victoria, which descends quite steeply down to the bottom part of the village (la Diat). Watch out for dog poo on the path, and llamas sometimes in the field to the left. Having met the zig zag of the road for the second time, there is a short section of walking still downhill on the road, on the outside of the bend, then over the stream Couzon at the bridge, then immediately right, up a farm track by a yellow sign.

This is a steepish, rough track, going past a farmhouse, usually with a variety of farm animals (hence the piggy walk), zigzagging up to Bernière and a great view of Chamechaude. From here, the road surface gets better, passing Carlinière and Patassière, before it takes you back over the Couzon and up to the St Pierre to Col du Cucheron road. From here, walk down the road into the village, back to the house.

The Piggy and Reverse Piggy

There is a path which cuts across the valley about halfway from Bernière to the main road (utterly unsuitable for pushchairs), well signposted, by which you can return to the Plan de Ville at the Malissarde restaurant. When we were avoiding the farmer at the bottom of the hill, we would often take this way (in either direction), which we knew as the Reverse Piggy, even though we haven’t seen a single piggy on either route this year…

The turn to cut across the valley

The Too Steep Too Long, but Very Beautiful

One day I realised that there was another, higher, path off the Patassière Road (the Piggy route) which did not take us outside the permitted 1km radius. What we discovered, though was that it did take about 10-15 minutes longer than the permitted hour. There was some whinging due to steepness too. Harriet and I loved it, though, and it was very pretty with beautiful views back to the village and the ski slopes.

The extra loop, close enough, but not enough time.

At the highest point of Patassière, there is a road leading higher still, with a yellow signpost, indicating Col du Cucheron. Following the road up a steep slope, there is a wooded path off to the left just before the last (homely?) house. This goes up and up through a steep gully, keeping left if in doubt, until it begins to turn further left, eventually cresting at a wide fork. Turning right would take you to the heady heights of Grand Som, over 2000m up, and left takes you gently down to Bernière. There are great views to your left, between the trees, with an eventual choice of left to Bernière or right to the monastery (outside the permitted km radius). Home either way on the piggy route.

Steep ups and gentle downs

The Chapel

Looking down on St Pierre de Chartreuse is a small chapel, more of a shrine really, which is often lit at night. There is a good loop to get to it. We have on occasion taken croissants up there and had breakfast looking down at the village.

Leave St Pierre along the road to Perquelin, turning right at the Mairie, Post Office, Tourist Office, and just as you reach the sign telling you that you are leaving St P, there is a path on the left, with a yellow signpost, where you can follow the Chemin des Amoureux (Lovers’ Lane) up to the Chapelle du Rosaire.

The Chapel Route, and a large carved lizard

There’s only one diverging path, on up to the top of the Scia mountain (the summit of the KMV – 1km vertical – trail run), but keep to the signs and you will be fine. From the top you can head down the marked path, past a carved wooden lizard, or wander down the grassy ski slopes back into the village.

Down the Hill Variations

Turning right, straight out of the gate to the house, down to the sometimes trickling, sometimes roaring, Guiers Mort river gives the greatest variety of possible routes. Being careful to watch out underfoot on the way down, this being a regular dog walk, at the bottom of the hill, there are three options over the Pont de la Laiterie. It can be nice exploring around here too. A laiterie is a dairy, and there are good scrambles to be had, as well as wild garlic in May.

The three options follow the path of the river downstream or up, or climb the hill up to Mollard Bellet above.

The Parting of the Ways at the Pont de la Laiterie

1) Downstream leads to La Diat, where you can turn right over the bridge to climb up the road back home, but this is a bit dull and exposed, so turning up and left is preferable. There is a signed steep path, almost a staircase, which laces backwards and forwards, and very much up, eventually coming out of the woods, where the path continues up, through a small copse, arriving at the head of the direct route (2 from the Pont de la Laiterie) Just below Mollard Bellet.

2) Straight on from the Pont de la Laiterie leads steeply up through, and out of, the woods, arriving below Mollard Bellet and the road.

Straight on to Mollard Bellet

From this point on either walk we normally take the road signed towards the pretty corner at Les Antonins.

3) Upstream from the bridge at the bottom of the hill is very pretty, and tracks along as far as a small bridge, the Pont de Belmond, (almost exactly 1km from home) to the Perquelin Road. There is a signpost along this path which allows you to climb up right to Les Antonins.

The Variations Down the Hill

From Les Antonins, the options are a descent (the reverse of the path above) or continuing along the road away from Mollard Bellet. There is a marked drop off, which leads to a short sharp path down to the Pont de Belmond bridge. Return is by either side of the river, the Perquelin road being the rive droite and the reverse of the upstream (option 3) being the rive gauche.

If you’re going to have a 1km radius cage, it’s not the worst one.

All of these can be done (have been done during lockdown) forwards, backwards, and in multiple combinations providing a little variation within a limited palette. The full outside perimeter of these combined options takes about an hour without dawdling.

By Ben, with thanks to my parents for our extended stay here.

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Week 10 (France 5)

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Where were we?

Still the same view, still sunny. Forecast is wet though…

For the fifth week in a row we remain in exactly the same place. Tomorrow we will have been here for the same amount of time as we were previously travelling.

Where should we have been?

When you left us last week we should have been staying in Oslo with friends. Aurora in particular was totally delighted to be with her BFF. We celebrated Easter with them, before heading off on two trains and a rail replacement bus service (have to admit to not being entirely devasted to miss that one) from Oslo to Stockholm.

Better than the bus

Then two days in Stockholm, staying in a hostel which would have been a new experience on this trip (and a new experience full stop for four of us). On Wednesday night we got another overnight ferry to Turku, which is on the West Coast of Finland (as recommended by Harriet’s brother). An afternoon in beautiful Turku (where the weather was stunning) and then a bus to Helsinki.

On Friday we got a train to St Petersburg, where we are until Lucy’s birthday on Tuesday.

What was new and exciting this week?

None of the above, clearly: no trains, no boats, no galleries, no friends.

But we have not done nothing:

The Easter bunny came, leaving little offerings all round the garden. We have, now, just about finished all of them, although an excess of yeast (sounds unpleasant) means that we may accidentally have to make some more not cross buns later this week or next.

Happy Easter!

We received lovely letters from friends. And some parcels to be opened by Lucy next week.

Sophie and Aurora dyed their hair magenta.

It goes very nicely with Aurora’s socks

After a request for “no more circuits” we tried Joe Wicks’ PE lesson. It was universally agreed that it was harder and he was more annoying than circuits. We will be going back to circuits.

The flag irises are out in the garden and looking stunning.

Our walks continue to provide exercise, distraction and endless beauty. Top interesting moment this week: half a snake.

Magnus’ godfather organised an online quiz with his kids. The Campbells sadly failed to claim the coveted Loo Roll Trophy but a great time (and a lot of shouting) was had by all, even if Magnus disputed a key answer on the Superhero round….

Sophie and Lucy each had a day “in charge”. Lucy gave everyone a notional £500 to buy presents for everyone else (more generous than her parents) and we enjoyed seeing what we were “bought”. Ben is going to be playing a lot of lego.

We earned our keep by doing lots, and lots, of gardening. Some of us are more enthusiastic than others.

One of these people was not actually in our garden

When we made our epic dash here from Vienna we had the idea that the children would use this time to learn French. Of course what we failed to realise is that as the children aren’t allowed to talk to anyone other than us, they’re not exactly getting much exposure to French. They’ve been rather unimpressed by our brief moments of speaking only French (although given that French is what we use when we don’t want them to understand, there could be benefits or other consequences to this, which they don’t seem to have worked out). This week we tried a new tactic and Ben has now labelled all the important things in the house….

Oddly some important things did not get labelled.

Magnus has started reading a story to his cousin by video.

We started gathering and painting stones to put in one of the newly cleared flower beds (as approved by our landlords!)

We take requests…

The Trivial Pursuit score is currently 5:2 to Harriet. She is not smug about this at all. Ben is not at all peeved about it either.

Ben decided enough hair was enough and got his father’s ancient set of clippers out.

Aurora has done a deal: if she doesn’t bicker with her siblings for two weeks she can download tiktok. This is day 2 (and day one went through on a whisper and a prayer).

How was it?

Good bits

Lucy: Easter. Because Easter. It’s got chocolate. Stone painting. I felt it was really nice, especially when we were doing it all together. I enjoyed my day in charge and I think everyone else did too. I tried to make sure that everyone had something that they would enjoy. The weather has been lovely.

Sophie: I liked Easter. We got chocolate. I liked painting rocks. I also liked getting letters from and writing to Jo and Harry. I like my hair. I didn’t like the dying process because Mummy pulled my hair and my head went slightly pink but I love it now. I love Daddy being a dog.

Ben: The weather has continued to be lovely, as have the food, the drink and the panorama. I’m thoroughly enjoying my current book (Lotharingia, by Simon Winder), though I should have probably read it during our time in the Netherlands, Belgium or western Germany, given that’s what it is about. None of us is ill, which is certainly to be welcomed, and Isère remains relatively lightly affected by COVID-19.

I was pleased to be able to complete my target 10km within the legally prescribed hour-limit on Monday morning, scraping home by the skin of my teeth with 18 seconds to spare. I might have to try to improve. I’m still enjoying getting fitter and stronger and losing weight, despite eating lots (and Easter).

Magnus: I liked Easter. Definitely. Because we eat chocolate and chocolate is yummy. I liked the brightly coloured lizard we saw. I enjoy reading to Amos because it is Bad Dad which is a good book about cars. I like painting rocks. My new t-shirt is awesome.

Aurora: When Daddy ate all my chocolate. It was really funny. I gave him a tiny bit and he just took the rest of my bunny. It was so funny. I liked dying my hair. I liked Easter because we had loads of food. Simon’s quiz was fun and it was good to talk to Isabel and Olivia.

Harriet: Pollyanna alert: the extra four weeks of lockdown gives us a better chance of seeing our tadpoles fully mature (this was a small but real concern). In a similar making-the-most-of-it-vein, not being able to sleep one night meant I saw the mountain at its most spectacular. The weather has continued to be glorious. This would be so much worse if it was pouring every day. I really enjoyed painting stones. I am definitely fitter than I was (not difficult, really.)

It really isn’t all bad!

Bad bits

Sophie: Not having any ankle socks that aren’t in the wash. The French labels are fine but it’s a bit annoying because everywhere you look there’s one and I don’t like it.

Lucy: The glitchiness of WordPress is really annoying.

Ben: Confirmation that we will be here for at least another 4 weeks took a while to sink in, despite not being unexpected, but has not been pleasant. I don’t expect that I’m alone in feeling a bit trapped and uncomfortable, as the worldwide lockdowns continue, but I have found myself being a bit petulant and grumpy. I think that has contributed to poor reactions on my part to some niggly situations.

I have been excessively checking the post for a pair of t-shirts I ordered over 2 weeks ago, and reacting with slightly shameful jealousy when packages arrive for others, especially when Magnus’s t-shirt (which I ordered after mine) arrived. [But thank you to all of you for letters – they bring joy to us all.]

I cooked a tartiflette this week, which I normally love, but I didn’t boil the potatoes for long enough, so it was a bit rubbish, and given the reaction it got, we probably won’t have it again. Grrr.

There’s something too about having achieved various lockdown goals I’ve set myself – whether it’s the running thing, or getting to the top league on Duolingo (a language app) – and being a bit “prowly” looking for something else to fill the days, and trying not to think about the missed / postponed / longed-for / receding possibility of the countries we had planned to visit. That jellybaby jigsaw is keeping me occupied in fits and starts, but let’s face it, jigsaws are just jigsaws.

I might well bite off more than I can chew and attempt to renovate the heavy wooden front door next week. That should shut me up.

Aurora: I am still missing Duplo. I didn’t like Joe Wicks it was really boring and hard. Some of my friends at home are annoying me and so is Magnus. My knee hurts.

Magnus: I have no idea. Fighting, but I don’t want to say that because I say fighting every week. I don’t have anything else bad to say.

Harriet: I found Macron’s announcement of a further one month extension to our lockdown (which, if anyone is comparing, will mean that France has been locked down for 8 weeks as against the UK’s 6) very difficult to take. I know it is the right thing, but on a personal level it makes the hope of our travels continuing recede ever further. This is not something we can easily postpone until next year (for all that we could then go to the Olympics) – there were years of planning and saving and negotiating with employers to get to this point. We can hardly take the children out of school again. This was a once in a lifetime event and it has been, at best, changed beyond recongntion. There is a part of me that is very angry about that.

Even the things that some people are enjoying about lockdown aren’t necessarily “good things” to us: My brother-in-law said to us that he is quite enjoying not having to get on a commuter train or travel for work and instead having time to spend with his family; many of the children’s friends are loving not having to go to school. We can of course see that these are good things and at home we would be enjoying them too. Indeed we are enjoying them here, but we had set aside this six month period to do exactly that.  So while it is a good thing, for us it is not a consolation for the dreams we have lost.

“It is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it.” (Dennis Potter. If you haven’t seen the interview, go and watch it now. You’ve got time.)

Generally my emotions are very variable. Mostly (my family may disagree) my rational, sensible side is to the fore and I know, and believe, how fortunate we are. Sometimes, particularly if the children are fighting or being difficult (unhappy, recalcitrant, argumentative unenthusiastic, sullen, phone-obsessed, delete as applicable) I sink into what can feel very much like despair. It passes, as these things do, but it’s not much fun for any of us.

The passing overhead of military aircraft which we believe are transporting the ill to Grenoble and other nearby hospitals (Isère has a comparatively low infection rate), was a timely reminder of how lucky we are.

How are the tadpoles?

Our frogs-to-be are continuing to thrive, although oddly one of the groups of bird bath residents seems to be fewer in number. We can’t work out if they’re just shy and hiding at the bottom or if something is eating them (possibly at night), or even, horrors, if they’re eating each other. There’s no sign of bodies so they may just be hiding.

We are hoping for legs next week.

They certainly don’t seem traumatised. Their eyes are visible and they are becoming more froggy in shape. In the sunlight they are flecked golden and shimmer. They seem to enjoy turning upside down at the surface and their mouths open and shut, presumably as they eat microscopic things off the surface of the water. They remind me of lambs as they butt up to the side of the pond to feed and wiggle their tails.They are (proud mother – honestly, it’s like having another baby) visibly pooing.

Any new foods? Plastic update?

A lot of Easter chocolate, of varying quality, a mediocre tartiflette, some good vegetable curries, excellent cheese (a Tomette de brebis was/is a winner), saucissons from the still-open local Sunday market, and plenty of beans. The live yeast naan breads that we are having this evening are exploding as I type.

La Crystal IPA from the Brasserie de Mont Blanc is going down well, better than the tizer-like Aperol mix I thought might work well. Lots of tea.

Tartiflette, Naans (before and after) and a pair o’ apero aperitifs

Squadrons of fruit pots and yoghurts as well as plastic bottles of milk is not helping the eco-friendliness situation, but it remains much as previous weeks.

What’s next?

The French lockdown has been exended for another four weeks (from last Monday) so we will be here until 11 May at the earliest. What happens then will depend on what is then allowed in France and all the other countries we still hope to travel to.

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A Run in Every Country

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One of my goals for this adventure has been to run in each country we visited, and I have managed this to date, recording each of them on Strava, a phone app which tracks your progress by GPS. Since we have been stuck in France, this challenge has changed somewhat, but that’s the nature of most things today.

The Strava app encourages you to sign up for challenges, such as “Run a 5k this month” and being a shallow sort of fellow who doesn’t like to back down (see the horrid cricket jigsaw) I have found these quite a useful way of forcing myself to run. For instance, I signed up for the March 10k badge which meant that I had a fabulous morning running along the Danube in Budapest.

The runs started with a dark evening getting lost in the wetlands north of Amsterdam. Slow, wet, meandering, getting darker with each minute, but a start which gave me hope and a small kernel of inspiration that this might just grow into something that I might enjoy.

Dark beginnings – Netherlands

Brussels was another exercise in getting lost, this time finding myself in the tabloid-favourite “terrorist hotbed” of Molenbeek, before heading back to Grande Place and tourist loveliness.

Not the route I had planned at all

No picturesque windmills or guildhalls in Rommerskirchen, outside Cologne. But a couple of very impressive power stations. I did this one in my Where’s Wally carnival top too.

Where’s Wally?

An early morning in Berlin gave me a beautiful view of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, before the tourist hordes (remember them?) arrived. I even remember feeling a bit like a runner on that one.

Getting better

No tourists at all in the Oder Delta, but I saw my first ever wild boars in the wild – I don’t know which of us was more startled – and ran to the accompaniment of woodpecker rattles.

Oder what can the matter be?

My run in Kraków would have been better had the bridge I wanted to cross not been completely shut due to tram works. Quite a lot of central Kraków was blocked of because of this, and it was raining. Bleurgh.

Horrid run in lovely Kraków

Budapest was my favourite, and longest, run. The early morning Danube, Imperial Palace, and Parliament were magnificent, and I was pleased to have completed my 10k challenge.

Magnificent Budapest

From one Austro-Hungarian capital to the other, and though we were much less central here, I thought I would try to spot the wild hamsters we didn’t see the day before, in the great Viennese Central Cemetery (Schubert, Beethoven, Boltzmann, Schönberg, allegedly Mozart, and countless others). I’m not sure running in a cemetery is appropriate, but it was early, so there were not many people around to be offended, and the dead did not seem to mind.

Enjoyed this one too

Since then, we have been locked down in the Chartreuse in France. I managed my “usual” 5km once, before the restrictions came into force, but since then the regulations are such that there is a limit of a 1km radius around the house, and a maximum of an hour.

Round and round the garden, probably very like a teddy bear…

In the spirit of challenging myself, I signed up for the April 10k badge at the end of March, so I have been plotting how to do this 10km within the time limit. This should be achievable (I can normally do a 5km within a not very impressive 28 minutes) but it means working out where to go, and how to be back in time, given that there is hardly anywhere flat here, and there are not many circular routes within the permitted radius.

The other thing is that we generally use our permitted up-to-60-minutes-outside time for a family walk, and I also signed up for an April walk challenge, so my days for running are very limited. I can generally count on the Mondays that I go to a supermarket in a neighbouring town, but not much else.

I am enjoying this though, and I’m enjoying being fitter and stronger. It’s also a chance for some headspace alone, which is always welcome.

Tomorrow is a Monday. This post is another way of making me do this. Wish me luck.

Ben

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On Control

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The lack of control that we have over being in lockdown, and what we do while we are confined, is something which I expect is affecting many of (the wider) us.

Here in France, I think we are probably a week or so ahead of the UK and about 10 days behind Italy, in terms of lockdown. I have noticed changes in my psyche and mentality over the two weeks since M. Macron instigated his restrictions.

I like being in control of what is going on. So does Harriet. As previously stated, we have been planning this trip for more than 7 years, and in earnest for several months. We had a Cozi family calendar which showed that we knew exactly where we were going to be for almost every night until leaving Tashkent, in early May. (Ironically, we were actually meant to be where I am right now, right now. We would be leaving for Paris on Wednesday, in some parallel universe.) We were very much in control of this trip.

Until COVID-19, and Corona Virus, and Lockdown, and Social Distancing, and Border Closures, and all that. Now, we are not in control of any of this. Not just the difficulty in sourcing a replacement pair of socks, or pair of glasses, but also what the restrictions will be tomorrow, or next week, or next month. And what the restrictions will be here in France, or in Russia, or whether the train will run from Paris to Moscow (currently suspended due to Poland border closure).

The FCO is advising against all foreign travel. Entry to UK citizens is currently not permitted in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, or China, although we did have a nice message from our AirBnB host in Kyoto Japan asking whether we were going to need parking in late July.

Continuing our trip, which remains our goal, is dependent on any number of current regulations and restrictions being lifted. And we are not in control of any of that. All the discussions we start turn into a great game of “ifs”, so we have stopped having them. Mostly.

I read an excellent piece, which was shared on Facebook by a wise former colleague, by a psychologist who summarised her advice, given to 31 patients over the course of a week. I recommend it to you. There are several parts in there which we have also found to ring true, by trial and error. One which struck a particular chord was the one which stated “Find something you can control, then control the heck out of it.”

I have found myself drawn to puzzles and games which have a solution, however tricky. I started and finished an epic jigsaw of the South Rose Window of Angers Cathedral, and have reinstalled Flow Free on my phone. These things are tricky, but not impossible, and they have a solution. I have enjoyed much of the maths home schooling with the children, for much the same reason (though I’m not sure the feeling is mutual).

The Rose Window of Angers Cathedral, and Flow Free

I have enjoyed setting up and using our home “gym”, and even going on a run or two. (Those that know me can vouch that this is not a usual situation.) I have been the laundry person (monitor?, manager?, prefect?) in our family for a good few years, and the laundry here is running like clockwork.

Because until we can start really planning what on earth we are going to do with the rest of our adventure – we are only in week 7 or 8 of a 26 week trip after all – that’s one part of what I can do to stay sane. And thank you to the Kyoto AirBnB chap, who unknowingly gave us both a lift with his question about car parking. If he thinks there is every reason that we will be in Japan in late July, why shouldn’t we?

Ben

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Fair Wear and Tear

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I was so proud of all of our packing for this adventure. Each of us packed a minimum – clothes, toiletries, luxuries (cuddly friends, jewelry, etc.) – with the expectation that each place we were going would sell clothes appropriate to location and climate, if we needed a change, and we could replenish soap and toothpaste when required too.

Very proud of my minimlist packing

Harriet wrote about her dissatisfaction with her traveling wardrobe while we were back in Brussels (that feels a long time ago…), and bought a very useful bright pink jacket there and has subsequently bought a t-shirt in a Berlin market.

There have been a few more purchases along the way – some pants for me and Lucy (different styles and sizes…), some socks for Sophie, some trainers and a cap for Magnus – and we had always planned to do a wardrobe review about now, probably involving a family trip to Decathlon in Grenoble, to get shorts, t shirts, etc. and convert our winter wear to spring/summer, and eventually to send back our heavy duty cold stuff with our car.

Being stuck in one location, with a minimum number of shops allowed to remain open by law, just as Spring is springing, has meant that this has been a little more challenging recently. Clothes shops are not “essential services”, and are closed. Supermarkets and hypermarkets remain open, but the two closest to us are pretty small and don’t run to clothes beyond slippers, bras for enormous people and awful nighties.

Constant wear, and an annoying tendency of our children to grow, has meant that some of our clothes are either worn out, or too small. And it’s not just clothes – Harriet has scratched the lenses of her glasses, making them virtually unusable (she has contacts, so it’s not catastrophic), the dishwasher here has packed in, Magnus’s headphones broke, and loads of other utterly normal and banal stuff has gone a bit awry.

Magnus’s ex-socks, his ability to grow out of everything, and Harriet’s scratched lenses

And here’s the thing. Because of the lockdown, we can’t get them fixed or replaced, or at least the lockdown has made it much more difficult. While we were sitting down to our Fondue Savoyarde, Lucy made the valid point that the French Government clearly consider a cheese shop an essential service, but not an optician. Harriet has ventured into online glasses shopping.

As the UK and other areas enter lockdown too, I expect many of us will be experiencing the same thing.

I fear for the long term prospects of smaller shops, selling clothes, stationary, electronics, sports equipment, etc. if the only available source of these is either an online giant, or a hypermarket.

Cousin Freddie in the UK also has a worrying tendency to grow

Until then, I shall continue to wear my grey winter kit, do the washing up by hand – this and all the handwashing is playing havoc with my skin, darlings – as will we all, and look forward to having a little splurge on something new when I am allowed.

Stay home, stay safe, stay well.

Ben