Quirieu, France, Saturday July 12th

Keith and Christine would love to hear from you with questions, comments, personal news and any news at all from Australia or wherever you are. We will reply to all emails! Please write to either windlechristine@gmail.com or windle.keith@gmail.com
I assisted with some domestic chores and realised that my idea of a domestic chore is a quick tidy of the back pack and a rinse out of some knickers. There I was, wielding the vacuum for the first time since January, and enjoying it! Actually Jean-Pierre arrived in the middle of the cleaning so it had to be abandoned until later. Yves and Jean-Pierre are great ones for jokes and we are occasionally getting them now.
The market at Montalieu was enlarged for the holiday weekend, an important one in France since it is July 14th, known to us as Bastille Day. There was lots of traffic, obligingly stopping for pedestrians to cross, and more people shopping. We had hoped to find a little gift for the garden here in Quirieu but there were none to suit in Montalieu. In a week our skills had improved so much that we were confident in asking for advice and following directions to various shops, as well as in negotiating the purchase of nine metres of clothes line in a hardware shop. We bought credit for the phone but our registration form cannot have yet been received so it couldn’t be used. I think that Keith will be able to write a book about mobile phone frustrations when we return. All the fruit and vegetables looked so fresh and like illustrations in cook books, and this week we looked carefully at the cheese shops and saw that many of the cheeses (at around 16 euros a kilo) were more expensive than the ham (12 -13 euros a kilo). We caught up with Anne-Marie and came home to a delicious lunch, which she whipped up from her purchases.
After lunch I wrote some blog, Anne-Marie did some tasks and Yves and Keith absorbed information from a TV program about Viking culture, by osmosis between snores.
At last everyone was conscious and we set off for a walk along the Rhone. As we neared the bridge, we saw a road sign that advised that cars crossing the bridge should have a thirty metre gap between them. I had been thinking about how delightfully expressive the French language is - full of superlative type words like ‘superb’, ‘marvellous’, ‘adore’, ‘catastrophe’, ‘torrent’, ‘invasion’ – and how speakers appear to be emotionally involved with what they have to say. I have yet to meet a French speaker who mutters out of the corner of the mouth, without much change in facial expressions. The next road sign, advising caution when parking near the river bank, seemed to continue the theme of my impressions for spoken French.
The walk along the Rhone was gentle exercise in beautiful and interesting surroundings. White swans glided by and the rain in the distance didn’t worry us since it made for an interesting sky. The houses along the river banks were generally very large, with enormous grounds and probably gardeners. Some had private jetties. Occasionally there would be a section of smaller houses and even a couple waiting for loving owners to renovate them, but we were definitely in the more up-market area.
Yves led us into the village of Briord to see if the archaeological museum was open. On the way we passed a house and garden that took over top place on my wish list, especially since it would be large enough to have lots of family and friends to visit at the same time. There are not so many houses in Australia that have such a direct appeal to me, so it is safe to go for walks there. Here, I seem to be very susceptible and Keith finds many that he really likes too. The museum was shut and sadly we will not see it, since it opens again after we leave.
This village is very compact and pretty, with a war monument for ‘All the children of the Commune who Died for the Fatherland’ directly opposite the Virgin Mary, who is part of everyday life and very close to the surrounding houses. Her inscription appears to explain the nature of the immaculate conception (really it explains what the immaculate conception was not) but we need a bigger dictionary to be sure. Houses and walls sometimes have little niches for religious or other symbols, with one from Briord having an anchor, for life on the water, and a small statue of Mary with the infant Jesus.
Our gentle stroll was interrupted by gentle rain, which chased us all the way home. It was still hot so no-one minded the sprinkling and we dried off quickly. That evening we packed up for our trip to the Alps the next morning, where we would be staying the night with Anne-Marie’s mother.