Forging Ahead

Much of the Easter weekend was spent on the back of my TWDB's BMW 1200GS. Yesterday, the weather was so glorious that we were able to bike a circuit which included Pezenas, Bedarieux, Lunel and Aniane.

It brought into sharp focus the disparity in attractiveness between small French towns in a fairly restricted area, and how the unwitting foreigner could buy a cheap property near a lovely place like Pezenas only to find it's in a former mining village and a real run-down, miserable dump. The Orb river valley seems to have a large number of depressing shit-holes which, in early April were damp, covered in moss and certainly nowhere you'd want to spend more than the time it took to drive through.

The inhabitants were of the stumpy, furry-teeth variety, traits that years of in-breeding had developed. A friend of mine has a husband who used to work in the small town of St André de Sangonis. He is a doctor and she said he was constantly amazed at the ingrained stupidity and mental handicap of many of the  inhabitants.

If you are thinking of moving to a French village, this is what you will have as a potential pool of friends. Retired execs enjoying the fat of the land after a brilliant career they ain't.

I had wanted to stop for lunch in Pezenas which had plenty of places open and lots of people mooching about, but it was only just after midday so my TWDB suggested we have lunch in Bedarieux instead. It'd been a long time since I'd been there but the last time I was, I remarked on what a dump it was. You'll be interested to know it hasn't changed. As we drove slowly around looking for somewhere to eat, and failing, I wished we stayed at Pezenas where we'd have been able to choose from any number of cute yummy-looking places.

Eventually we found one restaurant - La Forge - open. It was a surprising place because it was stunningly and authentically attractive. Set in an old forge, the ceilings are vaulted stone, there's a huge open fire place with cast iron tools and stuff decorating it and the food was fantastic. The place has no website; being in the middle of nowhere I suppose it's only the locals who eat there, and as there's no other choice, it was heaving. I remarked to the waiter on the lack of restaurants and he agreed saying that the ones that opened had difficulty succeeding and usually closed after a short time.

Well, I suppose, Bedarieux is such a dump it gets few visitors and the locals eat mostly at home. I could be wrong, of course.

Having stuffed ourselves with a delicious lunch, we were in need of a snooze, and found it off the road in a quiet spot. It was so sunny that my face has turned a delectable shade of red and I can be know for the next few days as Sarah l'Homard.

We contined on to Lodève and then over the plateau to Aniane and home. The weather was fantastic, the little minor roads great fun and amazingly good quality, and we had a lovely drive. It's a very beautiful part of the world and if you're not stuck in a bog in some shabby backwater, a lovely place to live.

Yorkshire Tea by Bus

I've been driving about more than usual this week during my mother's break here. What caught my eye was a poster for Hérault Transport's new fare policy starting on May 5 - Tout l'Hérault à 1 euro. You can go anywhere in the region for the princely sum of one euro if you buy a card of 10. Otherwise it's €1.50 per trip.

That's pretty cheap because Hérault is a big place. It stretches from Ganges and Le Caylar in the north, Béziers and St Pons de Thomière in the west, to Marsillargues, Villetelle and Lunel in the east. On the coast you have Valras Plage to Cap d'Agde, Sète, Palavas, and La Grande Motte. In the middle you have St Chinian, Bédarieux, Clermont l'Hérault, le lac de Salagou, St Guilhem le Desert and les Matelles.

All that for one euro. There's one place that interests me in particular and that's Pezenas. If I could go and buy my Yorkshire tea for one euro each way at the English food shop, it would be a bargain! Plus a nice day out and hardly any driving. It's the only place I know that sells Yorkshire Tea, my favourite. I can get PG Tips at Intermarche, but I prefer the hefty brew that's Yorkshire.

Petrol is now at €1.36 per litre and according to mappy.fr, I would need 5litres to get there so it would cost me €7 one way. It would take less time of course to drive, but buses are cool - you are high up, can see more and it doesn't matter if you have a drink at lunch time. Next time the boys are in Paris with their dad, and my TWDB is not around I'll do it. Actually it would be better if he were around to come to but he's not really a bus person. Public transport and all that.

Mind you, the police are getting very agitated about drink driving and speeding and are setting up radars all over the place without any warning that they're there, so the bus might be a good option in order to enjoy oneself. And beware if you have a radar detector that picks up mobile radars; you could get into big trouble because they are illegal.

The cybercriminal police targeted one website located outside France which sells these detectors. They sifted through the names and addresses of all the buyers to find those in France. Six hundred people then received a visit or were invited to present themselves at the gendarmerie. The penalty is a hefty €1500 fine and 2 points on your licence. You might even lose your licence.

I don't have one, I don't even have a GPS because I never really go anywhere to need one. However, I do think the government is pushing us slowly but surely towards using our cars less and less. High petrol prices, lower bus fares, improved public transport, draconian road rules, repressive penalties and the like all point in one direction. What they should be doing, I think is investing in hydrogen-run engines. Then I'd be able to whoosh over to Pezenas to buy my tea cleanly, cheaply and efficiently. I'm all for saving the planet with a decent cuppa in hand.