AND DID THOSE FEET

In the end, it was all about feet. 

For my recent trip to the UK,  I had purchased a new, larger suitcase which would allow me to carry various boxes of chocolates, biscuits and electric custard on the outward journey and fill up the space with pork pies, tea bags and sausages on the return leg.  I purchased it from Midi market for the princely sum of 20 euros.  When I got it home I noticed it was diffusing a ghastly chemical smell.  I had to leave it on the balcony for three days before I could use it. 

The first wheel came off at St Pancras. I fixed it back on with a torn off bit of Kleenex on the tube going to Liverpool Street.   I got it to Tarquin La Folle's bijou East London residence with no problem, but a couple of days later, on the move again, it came off at Manor Park station and had to be re-fixed.  By the time it had come off the third time I was at Paddington and didn't find it, so now there were three wheels on my suitcase, and I was still rolling along.  When I got off the train at Reading, the suitcase felt heavier than usual.  I turned to find the entire undercarriage had disappeared, and I was dragging it on its plastic feet.    I dragged it round the corner into Friar Street and found a discount shop where I bought a slightly better quality cheap suitcase (£28), decanted everything into it and left my wheelless wonder next to the rubbish bin outside Sainsbury's.  Let that be a lesson to me.  If I'm going to buy cheap, don't buy the cheapest on the market.  In fact, don't buy it on the market at all.  My ignominy was compounded a few days later when I saw the very same model of suitcase being wheeled around Albert Square in EastEnders.

'Alf a car

In Reading I picked up my hire car – a Peugeot 107, big enough for my needs but it was rather truncated at the back.  I therefore baptized it Arfur Carr.  (Geddit?)  Arfur and I went all over the west of England and even into Wales, slightly. I spent a few days with Vera and Cyril Slapp down in their delightful chocolate-box village Midsomer Dibley, near Oxford.  I spent a day in the city of dreaming spires, starting off with an hour in the Ashmolean, which is a charming small museum full of treasures.  I love how so many things are free in England - museums, toilets, lockers.  My favourite place to stop for a comfort break in London is in the National Portrait Gallery.  I visited every shoeshop in Oxford looking for some stout walking shoes, as I was planning to assault the Forest of Dean in a serious manner.  For some reason none fitted, which annoyed me as they were on sale.  I gave up and trudged back to the Park & Ride bus in the rain.

Arfur and I headed west.  Our first stop was Ross-on-Wye where I walked around the churchyard for hours in search of Dennis Potter, but found Noele Gordon instead (her off Crossroads).  It turned out Dennis Potter was buried in a little village churchyard a few miles from Ross.  The tourist office in Ross was open on a Sunday and gave me some advice about hotels in the town.  I booked a room at the Hope & Anchor down by the river. The room was in a cottage up the hill a way, but the car park was on the same level as the river Wye, which was running extremely fast and high.  I moved Arfur up the hill. 

The river Wye at Ross

The next day the river had not burst its banks, and I set off to visit the Forest of Dean. The rain had left off for a bit but the ground was extremely muddy and I needed the appropriate footwear if I was going to commune with nature. I stopped in Cinderford to see if there were any shoeshops.  No such luck but in the Sue Ryder shop was a pair of nearly new size 7 high-top Karrimor walking shoes, and they fitted.  £6.95.  Bargain of the century. The lady looked a bit horrified when I told her they cost £100 new.

Suitably armed, or rather shod, with my immaculate barely-worn walking shoes, I strode purposefully into Puzzlewood, a pre-Roman open cast iron ore mine which has been absorbed by the forest and has a magical middle-earth feel about it. It is said that it was the inspiration behind Fangorn forest in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and has been used for filming of Merlin and Dr Who, among other things.  The torrential rain had made the ground treacherous and impassable in places.  Deep puddles of reddish water were in every dip.  There are no maps or directions in Puzzlewood.   If you get lost, you just have to keep following the paths until you find your way out. I was mildly hyperventilating by the time I stumbled out into the light, mud on my jeans and my walking shoes completely caked with thick clumps of red earth.  They spent the rest of the trip in the boot of the car (which was just about big enough for a pair of boots - the suitcase had to go on the back seat) drying out.  Well, who wants pristine walking shoes anyway? 

 The magic forest

From Puzzlewood I drove south heading for Chepstow, where I planned to prepare my assault on Wales.  It was a great surprise, then, as I hove over the bridge into Chepstow, to see a big sign saying “Welcome to Wales” and the equivalent in Welsh.  I had no idea Chepstow was in Wales.   I stayed in the Castle View Hotel at the foot of Chepstow Castle.  The Wye valley was lush, as they say in Wales, and the drive via Tintern Abbey is breathtakingly beautiful. 

 Proof that I was in Wales.  The Virgin Mary in Welsh is
Forwyn Fair, Mam yr Iesu:  Jesus's mam!

Next stop was Minehead, Somerset, where I called in on the Queen Mum of blogging, Dame Pat Mackay, who had kindly invited me to lunch.  I had left my muddy walking boots to dry out and put on my best patent leather pumps and a flowery dress, knowing that she was, like me, a refined lady with impeccable taste and manners.  Of course we hit it off immediately, and by mid afternoon were swapping anecdotes and cake recipes as if we had known each other for years.  Which, in fact, we have, only we had never met in person.

I started heading back east, and stopped in Glastonbury.  Nothing so banal as BHS or M&S here.  All the shops had names like Yin-Yang, The Goddess and Lilith.  There were a large number of bookshops, full of guides to magic spells, ley lines, crystals and 50 shades of woo woo as they say in New Mexico - and they should know.  A number of the tourists, not to mention the locals, were middle aged if not elderly new agers, with long grey hair and that weatherbeaten skin that comes from not moisturizing regularly.  There is no festival this year, as every portaloo in Britain has been commandeered for the Olympics, and so the town was relatively quiet.  I am a great fan of the Glasto festival, but I  hate to think what it's like when the great unwashed take over.

A whole lotta shekin goin' on in Glasto

I visited Glastonbury Abbey, of course, and the interesting little museum you go through before visiting the ruins.  Apparently there is a legend that Joseph of Arimethea, who it is claimed was Jesus's great-uncle, visited Glasto in 63 AD, possibly with the Holy Grail in his luggage.  Now if he was JC's great-uncle, and JC died in 33 AD, he must have been a very old man by the time he got to England.  There are even rumours that JC himself visited England, and may even have died here.  Hence there has always been woo-woo down in these parts.  It appears that there was a thriving trade route between the Levant and Cornwall, bringing silks and spices west, and sending tin back east, making a visit from OLJC not entirely beyond the realms of possibility.  William Blake's words to the famous hymn "Jerusalem" ponder the question:  "And did those feet, in ancient time, walk upon England's pastures green  ...."   I just hope they were shod in stout walking shoes, if they did.

England was indeed very green and pleasant after all this rain, as was the bit of Wales I saw.  The hedgerows are all overgrown and jungly, and I came over all last-night-of-the-Proms as I drove up and down the Mendip hills, thinking what a beautiful island Britain is and how if exchange rates swing back in my favour, I might like to settle back in the land of my birth.  Although when the rain started again the next day, I changed my mind.

 Sheep may safely graze on Glastonbury Tor

After visiting the Abbey, I climbed Glastonbury Tor.  Yes, I really did!  Although I did not exactly resemble Kate Bush running up that hill, it was virtually on my hands and knees for the last half.  It got very windy as I went higher, but the sun was making a rare appearance that day and I even got a bit sunburnt.  At the top there was a stone tower, a 360 degree view and a lot of noisy German teenagers. My walking shoes were still drying out in the car, but the main part of the climb was steps so my hush puppies suffered minimal damage.

I managed to arrive in Bath in full rush hour with Arfur down to the reserve tank.  What do so many people find to do in Bath I wonder?  I inched right through the town until I saw with relief a petrol station.  Arfur bravely swung in with his last gasp, and I filled him up - only £41!  I began to overlook his, er, shortcomings.  It was impossible to find a hotel in Bath, the tourist office were quite snooty and said I would not find anything under £100 a night.  So I took my business elsewhere.

I stopped somewhere between Bath and Swindon to see if I could get a hotel room, and was directed to one by a well-dressed businessman whose tortured vowels combined with an Armani suit hinted that he was an Essex millionaire.  He knew his hotels, though, and wangled me a sizeable discount at Guyers House, a gorgeous old manor house with outbuildings and a stonking restaurant.  The foodie details will be on Daphne's Dinners shortly, but as I sat at my large table for one in the chandeliered dining room, with ancestral portraits looking down their noses at me,  I felt quite at home.  It was the sort of place where One Dresses for Dinner, and I'm breathed a sigh of relief that I had had the presence of mind to pack a ball gown and tiara.

Guyers House Hotel, Corsham, Wilts.  So moi.

It is true that you get what you pay for.  The next morning, after a good night's sleep and a full English breakfast, I set out clean and refreshed for the final stages of my UK tour.  In Boots I found a useful piece of kit for my tortured shower heels:  the Bullet PediPro, which is like a mini sander for that hard skin that comes from not spending enough time luxuriating in the bath.  I tried it out when I got home to Brussels -  works like a dream. My plates of meat, as they say in Walford, will be sanded to the texture of a baby's bum in time for my pilgrimage to the south of France next month in search of the Holy Grail.

VALLEY GIRL

The Loire Valley is a mere three and a half hours from Brussels on the train (including a metro journey across Paris) or five hours by car.   You can visit it in grand style, staying in a chateau, or on the cheap, as I did.  I chose my hostelries mostly from the Logis de France guide, small hotels in the 65-85 euro bracket, with good restaurants attached.   In the run-up to Easter, most of these hotels were underoccupied so you could just turn up, although these days my nerves wouldn’t be able to stand the uncertainty of finding myself without a bed.  I worked my way downstream from Orléans to Chinon, stopping off at Bourgueil, Vouvray, Saumur and Chinon. Just to see the chateaux, you understand.  It was purely coincidental that all these towns make stonking wine.

Le Pavillon Bleu, Olivet 

Orléans is an elegant town built mostly in white stone. It’s smaller than you would expect of a regional capital, and most sights worth seeing have a Joan of Arc connection.  It’s got quite a bourgeois feel to it, and it’s the sort of place where well brung up young men take their ancient mamas out for lunch.  I stayed at Le Pavillon Bleu, a delightful olde-worlde hotel-restaurant in Olivet, just south of Orléans, on the banks of the peaceful Loiret.  On weekends in summer it turns into a "Guinguette" - one of those olde worlde riverside open-air restaurants with accordion music and dancing, as seen in Auguste Renoir paintings.     I arrived mid afternoon to find the place shut up, and a sign saying that the hotel opened at 5 p.m., so  I went for a walk along the river path which was popular with the old dears from the old people's home along the road.  I could think of worse places to retire.  There are only four or five rooms, which overlook the courtyard and the river.  My room had a gorgeous walnut "lit bateau" or sleigh bed.

The €33 menu gourmand comprises no less than six courses - an "amuse-bouche" to get your gastric juices going, a starter and main course of your choice, then a "pré-dessert" before your chosen dessert, and finally "mignardises" which I think used to be known as "petits fours" in the better class of Harvester, with the coffee.  I fell into my sleigh bed a happy bunny and dreamed I was riding through the snows of Siberia wrapped in furs with Omar Sharif, the tinkling of the rain on the surface of the Loiret somehow transforming itself into the sound of sleigh bells.

 The next day I swung by Chambord and Cheverny to Blois, and then on to Amboise.  That’s four castles just in that last sentence.  Amboise on the left bank is a delightful town stuffed with history.  The castle is the last resting place of Leonardo da Vinci, which is reason enough to visit.  I paid my respects to the Maestro, whose presumed remains, as far as they could tell after they had been chucked unceremoniously into the communal pit by the revolutionary hordes in 1789, are interred in a special chapel under a marble slab engraved in French and Italian.   Nice touch.  About a mile down the road is Le Clos Lucé, the mansion where Leonardo lived for the last 3 years of his life as a guest of King Francis 1st.

Il Maestro

But can’t hang about, on to Tours where I stayed in the Hotel du Manoir, a small hotel with its own (small) car park, although it’s only 5 minutes walk from the main railway station where you can park a car underground for €10 a day.  This hotel didn’t have a restaurant, so I had dinner in Le Bistro du Chien Jaune, an old fashioned bistro next to the tourist office which does a pre-theatre menu for theatergoers to the Salle des Congrès across the road.  While I waited my turn, I tipped my head back and looked at the original artwork on the ceiling.  I had the €19.50 three course "menu gourmand" and treated myself to a half litre of Chinon for €12.50.  

Tours old town, place Plumereau

Tours is an eminently pleasant town which behaves as though it was the regional capital, although that honour falls to more sedate Orléans.  It has a university, a cathedral, a big Préfecture, a big opera house, an old quarter, a market, a big station, the TGV, and, more importantly as far as I was concerned, a Monoprix, a Galeries Lafayette and a Printemps.  The old quarter around Place Plumereau is delightful and stuffed with restaurants.   

My next stop was Saumur, which I reached via Bourgueil and St Nicolas.  You can tell you're in a wine growing region when the road into town is lined with wine shops.  The  Hotel Cristal in Saumur has rooms overlooking the Loire with a 180 degree view.  The rooms are clean and quiet, but I literally did have to open the bathroom door to turn around.   The hotel restaurant Au Quai de la Loire offers a €19 gastronomic menu which did not disappoint.  I washed it down with a half bottle of Réserve des Vignerons white Saumur for €11 extra.

Azay-le-Rideau

From Saumur, my westernmost point, I headed back east via Azay-le-Rideau, one of the fairytale castles.  It sits in the middle of its own lake and has lots of pointy turrets where you might expect Rapunzel to stick her head out the window and empty her chamber pot.  The roof space of one wing has been opened up to show off the magnificent eaves.  French roof timbering has been classed as of exceptional cultural importance by UNESCO.  In fact, the whole Loire Valley has been classed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.  It struck me that maybe UNESCO is not situated in Paris for nothing.  I stopped by Rigny-Ussé where there is a gorgeous chateau that allegedly inspired Charles Perrault to write The Sleeping Beauty.  They are milking that for all it is worth.  They wanted a whopping €14 to visit, and you can't even get into the grounds for free.  All of the chateaux charge, but usually €8 or €9. 

I veered away from the Loire to spend the night in Chinon at the Hotel Boule d'Or which is situated on a pedestrian street.  There is free parking on the riverbank, a few minutes walk from the hotel.  The town was gridlocked the day I arrived by a huge crane on the river road.  I read in the local paper over breakfast the next morning that the crane had been fishing out of the Cher a car which had been stolen from the very car park where my car had spent the night.  Fortunately it was still there when I arrived.  The hotel restaurant is called At'able (geddit?) serving a superb menu for €22.40, with excellent service by a charming young waitress who spoke good English.  I had the honour of being the first person to taste the first asparagus of the season, which came from a local supplier and melted in the mouth.   Only three tables were taken on a Good Friday evening, two by British people, one by a young American couple.  Some French people came in at 9:20 and were seated without a murmur.  There's no separate entrance to the hotel, but there's not much else to do in Chinon so unlikely you'll be out past midnight.

Chenonceau

En route to Bourges I made a detour to visit the stunning Chateau de Chenonceau which is actually on the Cher river, although generally included in the Chateaux of the Loire.  The €11 entrance charge here is entirely justified, as it is truly magnificent and extraordinarily well maintained, down to the fresh flower arrangements in every room.  If you only do one chateau in the Loire region make it this one.  It has a wing built out right across the river, which of course makes the river unnavigable.  You couldn’t get planning permission like that these days.  During the Nazi occupation of France, the Cher formed the boundary between Free France and the Occupied Zone, and resistance fighters were smuggled to safety through the basement of the Great Hall and the door that opens onto the opposite bank of the river.  Chenonceau is the most visited castle in France after Versailles, and the car park was full of tour buses.  However the gardens are vast, and there was no crush inside the castle. 

Easter floral arrangement at Chenonceau

I must say the Loire region ticked all my boxes.  The climate is temperate, the landscape is gentle and green, and the city of Tours has everything you could need, including not one but FOUR Irish bars;  property prices are alarmingly reasonable; it's an hour and a bit from Paris on the train, has good public transport (like all French towns) including a new tram network under construction, and the food is amazing.  You could eat your way round Tours every night of the year and never come back to the same restaurant twice.  Every village in the region has at least a couple of top class restaurants.  And then there is the wine. 

Oh yes, and I nearly forgot -- the chateaux.

THE SOUND OF ONE MARACA

The Queen Mother of Boogie-Woogie

In order to warm up for the marathon of partying that is May in Brussels, at the end of last month I dragged Scouse Doris and her swain Rupert Posz-Jordie to see Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra at the Ancienne Belgique.  Jools was accompanied by his 16-piece band, comprising a 12-piece brass section that filled the KNOB-shaped hole in my life: all superb musicians, as well as singers Louise Marshall, who reminded me of Amy Winehouse with talent, and the magnificent and Junoesque Ruby Turner, who turns out every third Wednesday in August for Jools on his televised New Year's Eve Hootenanny, and in the flesh is quite something to behold:

Every number was a foot-stomping boogie-woogie, and the house was rocking.   Each musician got a solo spot, and drummer Gilson Lavis' five-minute virtuoso drum solo (during which the rest of the band went out, had a cup of tea and a fag and a quick nap, phoned home, then ambled back in), the likes of which had not been heard since Cozy Powell, whipped the crowd into a frenzy.  Jools' tinkling of the ivories was up to his usual standard, and he did his party piece which involved taking a rollicking boogie number, segueing into a long stretch of Bach, and then seamlessly segueing back into the blues again.

All the brass section were superb, but a special mention for Rico Rodriguez, aged nearly 80 and still going strong.  He can still blow that 'bone, and led the crowd for the final encore in a rousing chorus of "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think."   We certainly did.  It certainly was.

The grand old man of ska

I feel like writing to UNESCO to recommend they give Jools "Intangible Cultural Heritage" status.  Or to the Culture Secretary reiterating Prince Charles' recommendation: "Why don't you make Jools an official National Treasure, Hunt?", although that would inevitably elicit the question "Where did you dig him up from?"    

If Jools and his band are touring anywhere near you, I highly recommend you go and see them.  If you don't come out singing, check your pulse, there's something very wrong.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to apply some Superglue to my maracas.  I got so carried away during Gilson's drum solo that I cracked them.  A new pair are on order from Nicaragua. Meanwhile, a true diva can always perform with one arm tied behind her back:

BETTER DEAD THAN ..... MAUVE

Tomorrow, under a peculiarly Belgian system, the employees of every company in the kingdom with more than 50 staff will vote their union representatives onto the works committee and health & safety committee, choosing from 3 lists representing the three main trade unions:  the Greens (Catholics), the Reds (Socialists) and the Blues (Managerial).  Nowhere else in the world, I believe, is democracy so compulsory.  Personally I think it's because their only decent football team has chosen mauve as its emblematic colour.  MAUVE!  Which self-respecting beer-swilling Belgian woman would want to be seen dead in mauve?  So, instead, they dress up in red or green bin liners and march through Brussels at the drop of a hat.  Demonstrating, along with tax evasion, is the national sport of Belgium.  It is particularly popular round about this time of year, and cafés on the main north-south road through the city make a killing on refreshing the revolutionary spirit at regular intervals along the march.

Hot Flash has a works council and H&S committee, and I have been co-opted onto one of the lists (modesty forbids me from saying which, but let's say the binliner matches the cherries in my fruit basket) since it was thought that my gay umbrella and my fruity hat would be vote catchers.  Now, much as I support the rights of the working woman, I am personally a bit backward in coming forward.  I don't like speaking in public, although I don't mind standing at the back and tinging my triangle.  I hate confrontation.  But, as is the way in the workers paradise, those with the loudest voices will inevitably impose their will on the more timid, and I feel it is incumbent upon me to be the elder stateswoman in the nest of menopausal vipers that lurks at the heart of Hot Flash.  


However, it is probably a little early in the day to apply the soft pedal.  Wally von Klampwangler, our lederhosen-and-monocle wearing lady bandleader, has turned out to be something of a dictator, and is more concerned with correcting our fingering and tonguing than giving some overall direction to our musical productions or feminising the programme.  It doesn't go down too well with the musicians.  Millicent Tendency, the head of the "red" delegation, is a lady with a sax to grind.  It is turning into a bit of a Mexican stand-off between Millicent and Wally.  I am standing firmly - well, lurking furtively actually - behind Millicent.  But it could get very nasty in the next few months.


I am by no means a fifth columnist.  I do not really want to be on the works council at this stage, but I could not say no to Millicent, especially when she was holding an AK47 to my head.  I am only there to make up the numbers.  So whatever you do, don't vote for me. No offence to any of our simian friends reading this, but I don't want to end up like Stuart Drummond, alias H'Angus the Monkey, who is now serving his third term as Mayor of Hartlepool after entering the election as a joke in 2002 on a manifesto to provide free bananas to schoolchildren (which he broke as soon as he reached office, of course).  It explains a lot about Boris Johnson's recent victory in the London election.

The thrice-elected Mayor of Hartlepool

My long-term strategy is to insinuate my reasonable ideas slowly into the delegation's modus operandi, and embarrass the top brass into giving us what we want.  I shall gradually introduce tea-drinking to union meetings, which I think will calm down the raging hormones.  If it gets too bad, I may be forced to add some HRT to the PG Tips.  Having lived through the 1970s in Britain, I am all too aware that strident militancy led directly to strident Thatcherism.  If Arthur Scargill had only used his maracas to play a gentle samba to Mrs T rather than banging his big drum, history might have taken a completely different turn.

CHATEAU CRAWLING IN THE LOIRE

On my recent tour of the Loire Valley I visited a number of Chateaux: my favourite was Chenonceau. Not, please note, Chenonceaux with an x which is the name of the village. Chenonceau had kitchens that would be worthy of Renaissance Masterchef.

 

Its ancient history - the rivalry between the Queen Catherine de Medici and the King's mistress Diane de Poitiers was fascinating. Diane seduced the King when he was 19 and she was 39. She became his lover, confidante, political advisor, emissary, and muse.  When he was dying of wounds inflicted during a jousting tournament, it was her colours that were tied to his lance, and her name that he called out in his dying moments, although the Court (and specifically, the Queen) refused to allow her near him.  She was exiled to the country after Henri II's death, and died aged 66. Her remains were unceremoniously chucked in the communal burial pit by the revolutionaries in 1789 but were disinterred later.  Scientists found traces of gold in her hair, which she had consumed in liquid form to preserve her beauty, and which may have ultimately killed her. 


Chenonceau also has magnificent nurseries where they grow masses of flowers which are used by their own floristry team to fashion the extravagant flower arrangements in every room. These are fresh every week, and often themed: they were all on an Easter theme when I visited.







Its more recent history is also fascinating.  The Cher river, on which the castle stands, formed the dividing line between occupied "Vichy" France and free France.  During the second world war, partisans smuggled resistance fighters into free France through the lower section of the part built across the river, under the great hall.


I attempted to stalk Sir Mick Jagger, but he seems to have camouflaged his chateau so well that I couldn't find it, despite having been driven past it some 20 years ago. The French radio teased me all day, playing Maroon 5's "Moves like Jagger" and various Stones numbers. Still, even that was better than Adele's "Someone like you" which they played every half hour. Having played all my Bai Kamara CD's several times, I tuned into Radio Nostalgie which at least didn't bang on about the French elections all the time.

Il Maestro 

Amboise is a lovely town with a fascinating castle sitting high over the Loire. It is the last resting place of Leonardo da Vinci who spent the last three years of his life there as a guest of the King. It also served as a prison for Abd el Kader, the Algerian rebel leader, who was under house arrest there from 1848 to 1852, allbeit in luxury conditions. He came with a retinue of 80 people, 25 of whom died in the four years they were resident in the cold, damp castle. They are buried in a small Moslem cemetery specially made for them, and their names are inscribed on marble slabs in French and Arabic. 

Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau

Azay-le-Rideau is one of the fairytale castles of the Loire region, not on the Loire itself, but sitting in its own lake. The roof space has been opened to the public to show off the masterful French timberframe roofing which has been given special UNESCO "intangible cultural heritage" status. The Loire Valley area itself is recognized by UNESCO as having cultural intangibility, and French cuisine also bears the coveted label;  one wonders why UNESCO doesn't just name the whole country culturally intangible and be done with it. It is perhaps no coincidence that UNESCO is situated in Paris ....




After cruising down alternate banks of the Loire from Orléans to Saumur via Bourgueil and Vouvray (purely in search of chateaux, you understand)  I cut across country back eastwards to the Berry, and Bourges, which is where the "Printemps" store chain originated. Le Printemps de Bourges. I made the mistake of arriving there on Easter weekend. Bourges is not the most throbbing of towns at the best of times, outside of its annual spring music festival,  but on Easter Sunday it was as dead as a dodo. There was a market (for all their Sunday closing laws, French Sunday markets are open even on the holiest Sunday in the church calendar) , but after a quick sniff around the cheese stalls at Les Halles, there was nothing else to do until lunch, and it was only 11 o'clock. The only free show in town was in the Cathedral, so I decided to go to Easter Mass.

Perhaps just as well the shops were shut in Bourges, I might have been tempted .....

Now my religious upbringing was somewhat patchy. Christened R.C. in homage to Grandpa Harridan who came from Ireland, I was brought up in a vague mixture of Anglican, Baptist and Spiritualist, with flashes of Hindu or Moslem depending on who our lodger was at any particular moment. I respect all religions, although subscribe to none, and do not go around taking flash photographs during a service. I took a place about halfway back, on the end of the front row of a block of seats, from where I could make a discreet escape should this prove necessary.

I love a nice flying buttress. Bourges Cathedral has got a lovely arse end.

The altar boys rushed past giggling and kicking each other, then reappeared 10 minutes later in the procession looking pious and holy, carrying huge candles, their eyes upturned to heaven. A stupid tourist woman tried to stand right in front of the procession to take a photograph and was swept aside unceremoniously by the verger.  One does not pap God on the march.  The Bishop of Bourges led the procession - at least, I'm guessing it was the Bishop, he had a pointy hat on - which went right in front of me.  My large handbag was on the floor, obstructing the processional glide every so slightly, and the Bish gave me a dirty look and swung his incense in my face. If he could have exclaimed "A HANDbag????" à la Lady Bracknell, he would have. The audience - sorry, congregation - knew all the actions, and were standing up, sitting down, standing up again, shouting things out, and waving their arms about (making the sign of the cross, surely? Ed.) I was not au fait with the audience participation bit, and the singing wasn't all that, so after half an hour I slipped away discreetly. Still, I like to think that my presence, allbeit brief, will have been registered somewhere.


After a short spin out to St Florent sur Cher with lunch in mind, and finding a very pretty village on the river with a lovely castle used as a town hall, but nothing resembling a restaurant, and nowhere to even buy a sandwich, I returned to Bourges too late to get a seat in a decent restaurant (one must be seated by 12.30 sharp in France or starve) and had an overpriced and very late lunch in the Taverne de Maitre Kanter by the Cathedral. The waiter was Colombian and the service appallingly slow, since anyone who does intangible French cuisine the disservice of sitting down to eat after 1 o'clock is considered an ignorant peasant and does not deserve to be served promptly.

By mid afternoon I was sitting in the Cathedral gardens wondering what to do for the rest of the day. On the map I saw what looked like a large park just outside the old town, so decided to mosey on down.  It was the best surprise of my whole trip - Les Marais is in fact a vast watermeadow which has been parcelled off into 1,500 or so allotments, where the good people of Bourges grow fruit, vegetables, flowers, or just laze around in deckchairs. The patchwork of gardens is divided up by a couple of rivers and a network of canals, and you can walk along the river banks for a couple of miles. It is idyllic, the peace broken only by the loud squawking of mating ducks. I realized why Bourges town centre was empty - everyone was here, walking their dogs and children, riding their bikes, fishing, rowing a boat or cultivating their gardens. Bourges was redeemed. 

Easter-themed arrangement to beat even Chenonceau, spotted on Easter Sunday

I stopped in Sancerre on Easter Monday to buy some wine, as you do, but by now the long-threatened bad weather front had materialized, and a small French hill town on a cold and damp Easter Monday is no place for older women, so I moved on to visit some friends living nearby who fed me royally for two days and helped me sample the small collection of local specialities I had collected from Chinon, Saumur and Sancerre.

One of McChé's French relatives, Mademoiselle Lucie

The Loire Valley ticked all my boxes. The weather defied the gloomy weather forecast right up until Easter Monday, and although chilly it was mostly sunny. The countryside is lovely - rather reminiscent of southern England, with soft rolling hills. The house prices were alarmingly reasonable. I didn't hear English spoken once until I got to Chinon on Good Friday. I found a big town I liked - Tours, which has everything you could want: a main railway station connected to the TGV, a medieval quarter, a Cathedral, a museum, an opera house, not one but four Irish pubs, and more importantly, a Monoprix, a Printemps and a Galeries Lafayette. I may well go back to Tours.  And the food defied description.  For an average of 20-25 euros (with the exception of Bourges on Easter Sunday) you can enjoy a 3-course gastronomic menu of exceptional quality.  As long as you are seated by 12.30.