Restless

We went shopping this morning to the vibrant metropolis that is Miélan. Its charm perhaps escaped me. But after living amongst a different sort of iconography throughout my walk, I was intrigued by a shopfront with the sign "J.C. BACK" above it.

Unaccustomed to two nights in the same bed, I am easy at the prospect of moving on tomorrow. But Caroline will miss it here, not least the sunsets. She would like to return before too long, a long drive to do on your own, and not so near either a station or an airport.

Aussat

Caroline has had four weeks here in Midi-Pyrénées while I have been walking the Jakobsweg. (We have been texting each other, apart from an Easter phone conversation.)

Aussat is a scattered hamlet, a few kms. West of the gersois town of Miélan, further South than she was in last year's rented house. The countryside appears noticeably poorer, but undeniably tranquil, unspoiled. Orchids abound, and a nightingale sings in the garden.

Jules and Dave Buckingham have been agreeable landlords, keeping themselves to themselves, but sharing a fish supper one night, Scrabble another. Apart from the first few days, she's been on her own with the dog, walking in the fields down to the lake and sitting weaving out in the garden. Now I've come for two nights to spoil the peace.

Refuge artistique

For Caroline, France has long been where we should go and live, and not just France, but Gascony. It hasn’t happened, mainly because of my intransigence, born of timidity.

So, we are looking for a way that Caroline can at least spend a chunk of time in the Gers each year: this year, it was for the month of April, in this rented house on the edge of a fairly remote village. Suggestions for 2014’s sojourn gratefully received! Does anyone need a house-sitter?

Meanwhile, Grayson Perry’s final Reith Lecture this morning summed things up rather well, I felt: I was reading recently, he said, this psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz. He writes of a patient and during his course of therapy quite often he’d mention this house he had in France and he said oh he enjoyed thinking about how he was going to decorate it and refurbish it and arrange the furniture and it was one of his great pleasures when things got a bit troubling for him; that he would think about this and it would be very relaxing to him to think about these marvellous plans he had for his house in France. And then at the end of his course of psychotherapy, just as he was leaving he sort of turned and he said, “You know Mr Grosz,” he said, “there is no house in France. You do know that?” And I completely crack up at that because it really echoed with me about that place that he goes: his refuge where he’s an artist.

Neuffons

Setting off from the Gers after breakfast, we drove North and in just less than three hours arrived chez old friends for lunch. They live in London during the Winter months, and in Entre-deux-Mers from April to October. Lunch was a little late, but it was good to see them (when eventually they turned up, with both food and a new microwave to cook it). Meanwhile, there being plenty of books to choose from, I enjoyed reading  some of Volume 3 of John Ehrman's life of the Younger Pitt. He hadn't long finished writing it when we went to lunch with him and Susan in the garden of their beautiful house halfway up a mountain in Corfu.

Warm again

My rucksack contained just one light jersey for Spain - a mistake, in view of some of the temperatures in the first fortnight. Arriving at Caroline's temporary home in Castiillon-Debats, I found on the bed a new thick jersey, hand-knitted by her, and put to immediate use. It had been work in progress for a while - she estimates 20 years. Very warm now!

When I retire

At the end of next week I retire, after forty years as a solicitor. In preparation for this we put the house on the market in January, but that - for the moment - is where it rests. Not a good time to be selling a house! But it's a good house, and especially now it's Summertime, we are enjoying being here. The bore is having it looking spick and span all the time for when people come and look round.

If and when we do find a buyer, the plan is to have a Gap Year - renting a house in the South-West of France, the Gers. (This photograph of Gersois landscape was taken near La Romieu on 2nd October 2006.)