Tails From Provence

Dude, where’s my Horse?

Flurry and Aero are delayed. The transport company I’m using, George Mullins, offers the best rate I could find, but unfortunately this means that they wait until they have a full load, in order to keep prices low. Their departure date has gone from being “the 6th or 7th” to being “maybe at the end of next week.” I’m…well, “annoyed” is too strong, “irritated” is not strong enough. Disappointed? Gutted? Not happy? Desolée? Some combination of those, anyway, with a little frustration thrown in for good measure.

So Aero & Flurry will continue to munch grass in my good neighbour’s paddock, and I will continue to wait. The LSH will be back to “business travel as usual” from next week, so I may very well have to collect them from Macon on my own, which I’m not entirely happy with – I always feel it’s better to have two people travelling when there is more than one horse, in case something goes wrong.

Flurry & Aero checking out their new digs. They have a great view of Cork Airport, the runway is on top of the hill in the background – I waved at the Queen’s plane from this field in May 2011! (There was an anti-aircraft battery stationed two fields away, gulp!)

Other than the acute lack of equines, we’ve made good progress this week. The LSH missed a day’s work with the move, but barely broke his stride and is now back to full-steam-ahead mode.

Our house has been rented – a great relief, and the tenants are happy to look after the cats and chickens, too.

We’ve unpacked pretty much everything except the horse gear, and fitted our own stuff around the house here in Les Granons. We’ve taken down a few of the landlord’s pictures and mirrors and hung our own favourites instead, which makes it feel more like home!

Giles Norman prints, Tony O’Connor original “Blue” (prized possession, and doesn’t he look like Flurry?) and Judge the dog. No, that’s NOT a man-bag on the floor, it’s eh… an iPad carrier. Really.

I’ve made an attempt to sort through the tack I brought. When we were leaving, I essentially loaded the entire contents of the tack room into the trailer. Now, I’m trying to sort it into boxes :

Stuff I’m never going to use, but want to keep “just-in-case.” A bit like the jodhs I’m keeping, just-in-case I lose 5kg.

Stuff I will need when we start some serious trekking – seat-savers, breast-plates, saddlebags, that sort of thing

Stuff I might need if other stuff gets broken – spare bridles, reins, stirrup leathers, bits and pieces from old grooming kits to replace anything which goes missing

Stuff I will need straight away, which will be hung up in a tack-room sort of arrangement (when I get a few more shelves)

The “horse” plan for the next few days is to continue sorting my gear and to clean and oil all of the leather bits & pieces – bridles, reins, stirrup leathers, breast-plates. It’s incredibly dry here, and a good oiling will stop the leather from drying out and cracking (this is never an issue at home, usually it’s damp and mouldy).

Finally, the dogs… they’re both a bit out of sorts, especially Cookie. She’s not poorly enough to bring to a vet, but she’s uncharacteristically mopey.

Mopey Cookie. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her eyes closed before

Our best guess is dehydration, caused by char-grilling herself in every available ray of sunshine which hits the floor. We’re trying to enforce some coolness for a few days, by closing the curtains and by locking Cookie in her crate in a shadey part of the house whenever we go out. We’re also soaking her (dry) feed, to try to keep her water intake up. We’ll see how she is for the next day or two, hopefully she’ll be back to her normal irritating self before long. Cinnamon just seems a little tired, she is quite content in the new house but is sleeping a lot. I suppose we have to remember she’s getting older, and she has the heart murmur, too.

Fingers crossed that both dogs will improve and I will hear good news about the horses next week, meanwhile, the Boyz are enjoying their time in Frank’s paddock.

Dude, where’s our Mum?

Our Nearest Village

Two days, two walks – we’re not doing too badly! Yesterday I walked about halfway to our nearest village, Villemus, and early this morning we walked all the way and had a stroll around. Yeah, I’ll admit it, it’s only about a mile, but baby steps, folks, we’re both a wee bit squidgy around the middle!

From about halfway up, we had a magnificent view eastwards towards the Alps. See that tiny dot in the middle, just above the mountains? That’s a hot-air balloon! Cool, eh?

East, towards the Alps

Looking NorthEast, we could see the little village of Lincel, on the right of the picture, with the mountains of the Lure (I think) behind it.

Lincel

Looking due North, we could see Reillanne. Peering over the hill behind Reillanne is the Mont de Vaucluse – Anne & I rode Gigi and Flurry over that on day three of Le Big Trek! Flurry and Aero will be living at the top of the hill which climbs towards the right hand side of the picture (can’t wait for them to get here, now).

Reillanne

To the Northwest, there’s a clear view of La Gardette and Céreste, with the Grand Luberon in the background. Our house is hidden behind the trees in the bottom right corner of the picture.

Céreste

We didn’t know what to expect of Villemus – I imagined it to be similar to Les Granons, which is basically an overgrown farm. It turned out to be a fully fledged village, very pretty

Villemus

with lots of narrow windy streets just begging to be explored

Villemus

and this gorgeous fountain and lavarie near the Mairie – dry, unfortunately, but perhaps that’s because it’s been so dry here this summer.

Villemus Fountain

It would be nice if there is a little shop or a cafe here, but we couldn’t find one. Cookie did find an interesting hole in a door…. can you make out what it’s for? (Hint – those aren’t Cookie’s whiskers!)

Cookie seeking felines

I found this very large and gnarly bracket fungus. These things fascinate me, we rarely see fungi this size in Ireland.

Bracket Fungus

Finally, this one’s for Anne:

Horse Balisage

Yup, horse-trail balisage! There’s a horse trail practically passing my door!

Nous Sommes Ici! (We’re Here!)

As I write, Cinnamon is stretched out on the couch beside me

Zzzzzzinnamon

Cookie is curled up in what she deems to be an ideal dog bed (it’s a pouffe!)

Cookie on the pouffe – this reminds me of 101 Dalmations (the book by Dodie Smith) where, after escaping from Cruella DeVille, the puppies all slept on hassocks in a church over night and in the morning, the verger thought there was something wrong with the church boile, because on each hassock, there was a perfectly round (puppy-sized) patch of soot

In the corner of the room, the LSH is working. It’s just like home!

Our journey was completely painless, thanks to Irish Ferries’ ability to seamlessly absorb a load of extra vehicles, passengers and animals. I’ve never seen their kennels so full – up to now, Cookie & Cinny have had a double sized large kennel to share, but this time they were in a single. No matter, they were remarkably content. Cookie was even relaxed enough to “use the facilities” each time we took them out for a leg stretch, and Cinnamon eventually condescended to have a wee, too, about four hours before we docked.

Driving off the Oscar Wilde in Cherbourg – note the Brittany Ferries ship tied up on the right

The only minor issue that we had was with the sailing time. The last two times we sailed with Irish Ferries, we left mid-afternoon and arrived the following morning, but, this time, the Oscar Wilde left Rosslare at 9.30pm and arrived in Cherbourg at 4.30pm. We had 500km to cover before we reached our hotel in Vierzon. Dinner was a sandwich picked up along the way – a far cry from the luxury of pulling into a hotel at 6pm with plenty of time to relax and freshen up before a delicious dinner.

We arrived at the hotel at 10.40pm and fell into bed. We still had another 650km to go, so we were up at 7am and on the road before 8.

It was a beautiful morning, crisp and fresh,

Near Vierzon

The mountains of the Auvergne, with Puy-de-Dome shrouded in cloud just to left of centre

starting a long descent

although apparently the weather was not so good in Provence!

What lay ahead of us, according to my brother

Jeepy was struggling with the heavy load, particularly in the mountains after Clermont-Ferrand, so we went easy on the throttle and let her find her own speed up the hills. We slowed down a lot and burned a lot of fuel, but eventually we left the hills behind us and descended towards St Etienne, thankfully, with a still-functioning old Landcruiser.

Joining the Autoroute du Soleil at Lyon felt like we were nearly “home”, but there was still a long way to go. We ran into some of that rain-belt just before Lyon and the skies remained very overcast for the rest of the journey, but temperatures were a toasty 18C – I think that’s as warm as it got in Cork all summer!

Our old friend Mont Ventoux, who watched over the first 200km of Le Big Trek, peered over the horizon just after we passed Orange – now it really felt like we were close!

At last, we arrived in a rain-washed and deserted Apt – half an hour to go! The landscape became ever more familiar, this Cabanon selling fruit and veg was just being built while we were here last winter.

Then we could see La Gardette in the distance, with a cloud shrouded Grand Luberon to the right

La Gardette, which overlooks Céreste, on the left, with Le Grand Luberon on the right

and before we knew it, we were at the roundabout in Céreste.

La Belle Cour, our home for three months last winter!

This time, though, we still had a bit further to go, so we continued out the East side of Céreste, through this wonderful tree-lined section of the D900

until FINALLY, after 52 hours of travelling, we arrived at Les Granons and our home for the next year.

…just as a mighty thunderstorm descended and the heavens opened! Plans for unloading were deferred to the following morning and we just unpacked the basics needed for ourselves and the dogs.

The house is lovely, here’s a quick tour. This is the kitchen, looking towards the door pictured in the exterior shot.

It’s all open plan, there’s a dining area beside the kitchen

and a little sitting room with a big wood-burning stove off that.

There’s a bedroom downstairs

and an “under the stairs” cubby which is a great dog bedroom!

This corridor leads to a back door, loo and utility room

and on the other side of the utility room is this enormous storage area. This is where I’ll keep most of my horse gear.

Upstairs, then, there’s another bedroom, which we have appropriated.

It has a lovely terrace off it, which was very wet, with a very cloudy view of Le Grand Luberon on the day we arrived.

Then there’s this sort of landing area

with really cool stairs leading nowhere.

And finally, there’s the TV room/office area.

Well, actually, not finally. There’s also the Bergerie underneath the house itself, which used to contain animals but now contains the landlords cars and motorbikes. There’s also a little garden and a summer house, which is like a teeny-weeny little chalet, and could probably house any visiting young people who want to feel like they’re camping.

The packed up horsebox

Today was our first full day here. We unloaded the jeep and horsebox first thing this morning, and I’ve spent most of the day unpacking. It’s about 70% done now, I’ll get a lot more done tomorrow, though I’ll leave the horse gear for a while – I need to figure out just how and where I will keep it. I’m thinking I’ll keep the smelly rugs in the Bergerie and everything else in the big storeroom.

The other thing I really need to do is a big shopping, so tomorrow I’m off to Manosque.

And so, a new normality evolves!