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.

Safe return

My four train journeys yesterday and today have all been uneventful, and here I am back at home again. At Cheltenham Station the reception party consisted of Caroline - and Thomas! None of us were expecting him to come from Lisbon for this weekend's celebrations: a lovely surprise, in springing which Sarah has been instrumental.

For the third time in four, I had a sleeping compartment to myself, travelling from Munich to Paris. No disturbances. The early morning run through Eastern France revealed just how much rain has been falling there recently.

In Paris, I wandered round the 10th in search of breakfast, passing some jolly looking shops. In one window, a sign: "Thanx (sic) God I'm a V.I.P." Another went by the name "Yak & Yeti." Johann Strauss's bust enlivened a square I passed through. On the Eurostar, people around me had been in Paris for the tennis, and were returning disappointed at so many matches being lost to the weather. But today at home it's warm and sunny.

Brasov

The sun is shining here, and indeed it's rather too hot for sight-seeing; so after a mini-wander around (an an excellent lunch), I'm sitting in the cool lobby of Hotel Casa Wagner, in Brasov's main square, away from the Whitsunday crowds, with an equally cool beer to hand. In other words, it's a good life!

My train journey came to an end this morning at 10ish, just under 48 hours after leaving Cheltenham. The best part was the last: I had my 3-person sleeper from Budapest on the Ister Express all to myself, and awoke to see hills peeping out of the mist and the sun slanting across the landscape from left to right, rather than from right to left as last evening.

The train was not, thankfully, in a hurry, so I was able to enjoy the very attractive and varied landscape - fields much divided up, sheep (with shepherds), hay stooks, woodlands with banks of false acacia trees in bloom, lakes and rivers, birdlife (plentiful), and even a couple of horse-drawn carts. They obviously haven't all gone for lasagna.

In the villages, each house with its steeply-raked roof, there was not a lawn to be seen: gardens are intensively cultivated with vegetables - all of course far ahead of ours at home.

The final run into Brasov was across flatter territory, snowy mountains being now the backdrop, a reminder of Brasov's strategic importance in old times. I received an uninvited (but rather welcome) history lesson from a certain Peter, who was unashamedly out to earn a little money: he approached me with a distinctive brand of English (Orwell is his favourite writer) as I stood taking a photograph of three trumpeters in costume high up on the platform of the city centre tower (they perform at 12 each day as a reminder of the role of the human fire alarms of former days, Peter told me). Vlad the Impaler was, he assured me, a goody: having read a full and very gory description of his methods in my Rough Guide, I remain unconvinced.

I really do recommend coming by train if you are thinking of Romania for a holiday. I had a delicious dinner in Paris - at Brasserie Flo, the station restaurant: in Munich, I arrived off the Cassiopeia in time for breakfast near the Marienplatz; and in Budapest I ate well at the recommended Rosenstein. Both German and Hungarian sleeping cars were more than adequate, though, going for a shower this morning, I found it in full use as a broom cupboard. And loo paper is BYO.

Switching between French, German, Hungarian and Romanian may sound interesting, but - though this feels like a contradiction in terms - English is the lingua franca.

The Way of St James

In September 2006, Caroline and I set out from Figeac, North of Toulouse, on the Chemin du Puy, one of the pilgrimage routes to Compostela. We didn't walk far that year, but the following Spring, we picked up the route where we had left off, in Cahors, and walked as far as Eauze. Next week, I am hoping to walk the final French instalment of The Way, reaching Saint Jean Pied de Port. (Actually, it's not really the final French bit: we need to go back and start properly in Le Puy at some stage: rather mountainous, some of that first stretch.)

This month's trip involves some complicated travel arrangements: train from London to Pau via Paris; car hire in Pau (Caroline is house-sitting nearby whilst I walk), and separate trains home which supposedly meet up in Dax. Rail Europe have disconcerted me by saying there are two at the same time from Dax with different numbers.

Last time we walked, I photographed this notice pinned up in the porch of the church at Saint Antoine. (I am hoping the weather next week won't be quite as extreme as mentioned.)

Spain: Hondarribia

Our final single-track, narrow-guage journey took us (via view after view of hideous, tightly-packed apartment blocks, washing draped from their windows, graffiti everywhere) across the French border to Hendaye. With some relief, we traded the train for a taxi: this took us back across to the Spanish border town of Hondarribia, formerly known as Fuenterrabía and scene of many battles.

Our comfortable hotel was a converted 14th/15th century palace in the heart of the historic centre of Hondarribia, within impressive walls. Walking down the steep path through one of the stone gateways, we emerged by the harbour: excellent fish soup for dinner at Kupela, a Basque restaurant in a charming old fisherman's cottage.

This was a good stop: we could easily have stayed here longer.

Gloucs. and Herefs.

On Sunday morning, as a relief from babysitting, I was detailed to walk Rosie (our Springer spaniel – with not a lot of spring). So, I drove to the start of one of my favourite short walks, above and parallel with Coldwell Bottom towards Pinkham – as photographed – and up through Barber Wood. When we first came to live in Cheltenham, in October 1994, the Woodland Trust had just started to plant trees there: now it is beginning to look like a serious wood. It lies in the midst of some of the best limestone grassland, and I was able to admire the orchids (including a bee orchid – my first for a long while).

It will be interesting to compare and contrast the Cotswold countryside with that of Herefordshire, where we shall be spending the next two weeks – at a variety of locations: we had thought of going to France, but decided to stay nearer to home – for a variety of reasons! First, just to cover the remote possibility of someone wanting to buy our house, and to move in quickly, it will be good to be able to get home easily. Secondly, we need to walk the talk about reducing our carbon footprint; and thirdly, I have still to see the colour of my pension provider's money. More in a fortnight.

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.)