Anne & I have exceeded 365 days on the road, so it’s time to take stock.
We visited 14 countries, used 40 airbnbs, and made 30 border crossings - the early ones imposing mountains of Covid regulations. Those logistics do at first sight make it look like we were rushed. More significantly however, we managed to stay more or less put for at least a fortnight in 15 different places in the course of our year away: this means that, for about nine of our months away, our goal of slow living was in fact accomplished.
The other weeks were spent on lesser places, especially including Winchester (!) which we visited many times for reasons of family, dentist and hairdresser. Some of those obligations were dutiful, but in addition we were blessed by 3 new grand-daughters in the period we were away: so those were delightful reasons to break our plans.
Nearly nothing went wrong with our travel arrangements. Despite periods of delay and uncertainty in the planning, the various countries we wanted to visit did in fact lift their Covid restrictions in line with our original outline hopes: so our overall strategy was implemented. Only a couple of the airbnbs we booked were truly disappointing; and many of the good ones were spectacularly attractive. It rained twice. Nothing got lost. The car didn’t breakdown or crash (though there was a speeding ticket at one point). Anne and I both had occasion to trouble the medical services a couple of times, but we like to consider little time was lost thereby. We probably spent more money than we intended: and this will be taken in count when we – separately – weigh ourselves upon return home.
What Anne & I learned from the experience will become more clear as the years pass. One thing is the delight of travelling at comfortable times of the day, off season, in mild weather, with the personal needs of only one other travelling companion to satisfy. Another is the luxury of planning meals and outings with a maximum of flexibility and a minimum of reproach if things don’t work out.
Anne & I really enjoyed learning about each place we visited. By and large this is because we chose well, or luckily; and found there were always points of access to help us in our curiosity to understand a little of each new place we saw. For examples, without fail Anne would check out estate agents’ windows, and decide where we’d live IF we should choose to retire there. In turn, Crispin would purchase intuitively in food markets everywhere we went, and then serve up supper to Anne accordingly.
The other aspect of the trip that delighted was domestic harmony. Even slow travel only takes up 5 or 6 hours a day, so there’s plenty of opportunity for misunderstandings to crop up in the rest. Separate sets of reading books was one solution. Otherwise, Anne & I took care to establish separate responsibilities for travel plans, tickets, daily catering and laundry (replicating roles from home – Ed); and then make space to assess and digest the experiences of the people & places we’d seen. The whole routine was therefore unstressed between us, and a real pleasure to live out: day after day, slowly.
And so to Tours, our final stop before home. We arrived after a long drive through the bountiful big prairies of western France, along roads lined with wild flowers – blooming golden broom, and candle-like blue lupins, in silent tribute to the travails of Ukraine.
A little like Winchester’s formative experience in England, Tours is a one-time capital of France, and was on the frontline during the early tussles of nationhood, in its case with Normandy and Brittany. Thereafter, the action moved elsewhere and the city focused on steady commercial wealth even as it lost influence. Since WWII, Tours has redeveloped its city centre quite nicely, compared to say Southampton, and has a lively old quarter with half-timbered 17th Cent houses (in one of which we stayed – Ed) with streets full of cafes, language students, and Americans touring the chateaux of the Loire.
Tours gave Anne & me the opportunity to tie up some loose ends in our discoveries of the past year. Its renewed cathedral is light serene and lovely, with the best-ever stained-glass windows; and it has two big white flamboyant gothic style towers from the 16th Cent, to compare with a flamboyant spire in Rouen and just the one tower in Rodez, and to contrast with all the domed churches we’ve seen from the same era. The Beaux Arts museum had, inter a lot of alia, more examples of beautiful old alabaster from Nottingham. And Tours represents the furthest inland the Vikings reached in their 8th Cent incursions, in this case commemorated by a garden (!!?! But the Vikings were not known for their gardens – Ed). However, there was bad news for lovers like Anne of the Arts & Crafts Movement : the French were so involved with Art Nouveau, it passed them by completely.
Finally, Tours has some great restaurants, enabling Anne & me to round off our relaxing trip to France (NB: in restaurant terms, relaxing means never having to worry that the menu or service might disappoint. Over all of the 14 countries we visited, only France qualifies for this word).
And yet: it was the restaurant in Avignon, not Tours, that produced The Fright, and it happened like this. As with other ladies who lunched there, Anne had placed her bag by her feet; but it was only Anne’s bag that was visited by a dog: a fluffy sort of handbag-dog, which lifted its leg and weed all over. Quel horreur!
It is true the owner dashed over and swooped up the pooch: but he didn’t think to apologise. It’s also true the other ladies at neighbouring tables giggled nervously; but they were at heart unsympathetic and distant, thankful it hadn’t happened to them. It’s realistic, too, to acknowledge the bag was in fact fine, and perfectly capable of withstanding the assault.
But amour-propre was damaged, the whole ambience of lunch had been ruined; and suddenly it seemed to us that everyone else there was a bit other. Anne & I concluded our thoughts: we looked at each other and said: “That’s enough of being abroad. It’s time to go home.”
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