I had thought collective effervescence was a term coined by Brene Brown, mais non. It was the French sociologist Émile Durkheim who created the expression to articulate the shared experience of religious worshop. Brene has enlarged its use to encompass the feeling we get in a crowd, say at a music or sporting event, for example.
My city of Fremantle turned purple for the Australian Rules Football grand final this weekend. After three decades, the Fremantle Dockers had ended the season top of the ladder and our very first championship was just two hours of play away from becoming a reality.
Ignoring my wise child’s warnings that I would not be able to get a seat or a meal or a drink in Fremantle, I nonetheless ventured in to the choked city centre to immerse in the collective effervescence.
“Call me when you’re off the ferris wheel,” she said. I’d wanted to witness the purple crowd from on high in my ferris wheel carriage just before half-time. There was no queue, and I was delighted in the slow revolutions up among the pine trees, looking at all that purple below.
“Meet me at La Sosta”, was the gist of my wise child’s second call, and she shepherded me into the only Fremantle restaurant offering walk-ins. Weaving through the throng reminded me of my days commuting in London in the 1990s, battling against the oncoming foot traffic like a salmon attempting to get upstream.
We were ushered in to a table; we ordered lunch and shifted positions until we had a good view of the television; the wait staff accommodated our every change with grace and still delivered our food to the right table.
It just so happened that there was a slight audio delay between La Sosta’s television and the giant screen that had been erected in the cappucino strip below us. We would watch our players line up for a goal, hear the cheer and relax, knowing he’d nailed it, then celebrate when we actually saw the slightly delayed footage.
I wasn’t just experiencing collective effervescence, I was contributing to it; shrieking at the television and high-fiving strangers. I surged in the elation all the way to the last heartbreaking four minutes when the opposition came from behind, scored two goals and ripped the trophy from our grasp. Their third flag, when we have none. So selfish.
I watched a ten-year-old sobbing into her mother’s chest. Her mother bent over, kisses dropped onto the top of her head. I thought I saw her mouth the words “it’s only a game”.
Most restaurant patrons, including the by-now sniffling little girl left. We lingered in the restaurant; stayed up above the sombre sorrow that gripped the street below. Lunch turned into dinner as we were invited to joined tables with another group who rushed in to help us absorb our sorrow.
The collective effervescence, the excoriating disappointment combined with excellent wines then cocktails contributed to us sharing real issues that we were dealing with in our lives. Grief, parental worry, the big problems that are not only a game and are not going necessarily going to be OK.
And for that, I will have to be grateful. Goddammit though Fremantle. Next year, surely.
After Saturday morning yoga, I sat having a coffee with my teacher and we got to talking about cancer, and the concept of the “cancer personality” Gabor Mate explores in his book When The Body Says No. In extreme summary, his research revealed that cancer can often afflict people who do the following; meet others’ emotional needs by suppressing their own; identify with responsibility and duty; repress healthy anger when boundaries are violated; believe they are responsible for how others feel and believe they should never disappoint anyone.
While I resonated with these research-based insights, I also said immediately, “yes, but also, shit just happens. Cancer tears through a family like a wrecking ball even if they tick none of these boxes.”
“Yes, as the Zen buddhist saying goes, life is 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows.”
I had to bustle off soon after; I wanted to see the movie Holy Days before it disappeared from the big screen. There were hardly any sessions to choose from, so Saturday morning it was. How rebellious, decadent even, going to the cinema while the rest of the world are ferrying children to sporting fields, cramming in the shopping, cleaning the house.
The movie had a poor IMDb score, and the Guardian had panned it (two stars). A nun road movie with the three nuns played by Judy Davis, Jacki Weaver, Miriam Margoyles; no matter how worn the tropes might be, I knew I would love it. I marinated in the paradigm of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows as I farewelled my yoga teacher and drove to the cinema.
Walking the alleyway between the car park and Windsor Cinema, I was accosted by memories of my last trip there, years ago with my daughter; we had chaperoned my mother. It was a three-generation outing to watch Mumma Mia. Mum tottered along the laneway between us, and because I am somewhat time-blind, we arrived when the ads were already starting to play. The theatre was dim; and Mum clutched my arm.
“I can’t walk in the dark,” she said. As a young thing in the 1940s she had gone out for a late night jaunt with friends in Kalgoorlie and was sauntering arm in arm with her best friend until she stepped on the edge of an old mineshaft and plummeted to the bottom. One broken pelvis later, she survived but so did the fear of walking in the dark.
“Sometimes my feet just won’t move forward.”
Chastened, I got us safely to our seats and promised I wouldn’t do a last minute dash to the cinema next time. But I never did get a chance to accompany her again. So I treasure the precious memory of sitting on my velvety seat, flanked by mother and half-Greek daughter. We marinaded in the poignancy of Abba’s Slipping Through My Fingers song, Mum singing for her daughters, me singing for mine, tears because our daughters always grow up, that we all have to say good bye, that we know we’re going to die.
Holy Days delved into a child’s grief of losing his mother, admittedly without nuance, but I wept all the same.
“Death is a journey, and journeys are nothing to be feared,” the Judy Davis nun said. It was trite and true and false all at the same time.
I emerged into Saturday lunch time, the flowers in the verge garden bed nodded in the sunlight, and everything sparkled.
This week, my four sisters went up to Kalgoorlie on a reminiscence tour. We lived there from 1965 to 1968. I had planned to go as well, but a last-minute change in work commitments meant I had to stay home, Cinderella-like, sweeping up the workplace hearth cinders while they swanned about the goldfields. It’s times like these that I realise my bohemian, transition to retirement plans are not always progressing in line with my expectations.
Perhaps to exacerbate my melancholy, I ferried a couple of my sisters to the East Perth station to catch their train, The Prospector. I then headed to my platform to continue my journey in the opposite direction, into the CBD.
All this week while my sisters were away, I was assailed by memories not of the Kalgoorlie home; I was only eight months old when we arrived and three when we left; but images of our permanent childhood home in Scarborough. A flash of the kitchen area as it used to be. The back yard before the dining room extension was built in 1975. See for example the image top left of we sisters in 1971. I’m the youngest one clutching the book.
As I waited for my train to the CBD on the opposite platform, I had a good view of their Prospector train ready to depart in about a quarter of an hour. Should I take a picture of it? That’s exactly the sort of thing my mother would do; take a photo of a plane or train that had no significance, other than someone she loved was on it, outward bound. Documenting partings and reunions.
Note as evidence the image she took of me aboard the Indian Pacific train in May 1990. I was headed to London via an overland train trip to Sydney. Not pictured; Mum running alongside the platform as the Indian Pacific picked up speed and we waved and waved until she fell out of sight. Neither of us knew my two-year sojourn to London would balloon out into a decade.
So I walked down the platform to get a close enough image, and I took the pointless photo of the train because Mum couldn’t, then I boarded my train to work.
Hidden in last week’s Sunday Blog where I dramatised my Kitty’s Gorge walk was another kernel of a blog that I started but didn’t finish. It was about my own long Road to Damascus style conversion to becoming someone who not only does exercise, but enjoys it.
I’m lucky enough to still be connected with people I went to school with, all the way from year one to twelve. Friends who cheered me on as I came last in running races on sports day. (See picture on right).
I was still wearing my school shoes rather than trainers as it wasn’t worth the effort of changing them. In high school, I survived sports lessons with Mrs Maggius as we shivered in our tunics and bloomers and hung our head in shame as she warned us that having a period did not exempt us from participating in sports. These friends can understand the scale and height of my Damascan road and why it has taken me six decades to arrive.
I’ve been a health advocate for nearly three decades, and have argued for a kinder, safer health system. That fight needs to continue, and its urgency if anything is heightened by the advent of digital health and AI. But what about the sad truth that staying well isn’t what our current health system is designed to do. There is no connection between our health and food systems, for example, even though what we eat is absolutely key to how well we are. Choosing to eat healthily can be an act of resistance.
One thing that helps to even out the rocky ground of taking control of our own health, just a little, is the use of smart watches and apps. The light didn’t properly turn on for me until I was sitting on a committee about health prevention apps, doing my consumer rep thang.
“Why don’t I have a smart watch? Why aren’t I creating my own personal dashboard of health and wellbeing?” I thought.
So after the meeting ended, I rushed off hatless and ordered a reconditioned smart watch (from Reebelo in case you’re interested). I downloaded an app to track what I eat and linked it up with my health app which tracks my activity. Yes, I am aware the tech overlords are milking all my data for their own evil multi-trillionaire gains, but I may as well use the tech to my advantage.
As well as my smart watch and new food journal, I’ve found the right online functional weights program for me and I just have to press the button and follow along.
I’m not sure if you needed to hear this today, but sometimes the three-year-old roaring in the cold beach water (top left image) can grow up and mature into an unlikely outdoor type. If that is the message you needed today, consider it delivered.
“It’ll seem much quicker on the way back,” darling husband reassured me.
Here I was again, hoisted on my own petard of faulty memory, thinking that this time I could add in a new activity for us to do together. Having regular beach walks, going to the movies, having dinner, or more likely, breakfast is about as far as our list extends. He’s extremely fit, and I am moderately fit; and only from the beginning of this year, when I bucked a lifetime of disliking exercise by starting, then enjoying, a weekly functional weights regime. With my new-found strength and stamina, could we add hiking onto our list of mutual pastimes?
Did I not remember our Bali honeymoon trip when instead of lounging by the pool reading, I ended up parasailing? I hung in the sky, and far below me puttered a banged-up dinghy, and I wondered if this would be my last hurrah.
Had I forgotten our bike riding trip to Cambodia, where halfway into the muggy ride I was overtaken with a migraine, and had to hail a tuk-tuk, get the driver to strap the bike to its flimsy front and ferry me on the ostentatious ride of shame back to the hotel?
No, dear reader, I did not remember any of these salutary lessons. Or instead, I believed in my new-found strength due to above-mentioned regular weights training. Hiking Kitty’s Gorge together would be a breeze. Level 4? Pshaw. No sweat.
As today’s quote highlights; “Experience keeps a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other.”
So accordingly, around three hours into the walk, we had made it to the destination where there was a carpark, toilet and tables. It’s a spot that would have been discoverable by an Uber. That was my tuk-tuk escape moment, but I let this rescue rope slip from my grasp without even reaching for it. After a short rest, we turned back to make the trek to the starting point.
It may not surprise you to know that it was not quicker on the way back. If anything, it was more taxing than the walk there, because I was already tired. By the end, I had dubbed the Kitty’s Gorge walk “Always Another Hill” because the path followed the river at times, then scaled the magnificent hills in an undulating pattern which is lovely to look at but challenging to walk. There was always another hill. Like a woman in labour, I reached the transition phase where I believed I could never make and it would never end. And then, one last hill and we were delivered to the car park.
Did I mention that Kitty’s Gorge was absolutely beautiful? (see pic) That the trees, flowers, waterways were almost enough to obliterate the sensation of blistering feet and tired legs? That despite everything, my teeth became dry from all the smiling I was doing in the forest bathing extravaganza?
I’m taking it as a good sign that even darling husband feels we overdid it by starting with a 19km level four trek. He’s suggesting that our next excursion will be a flat rather than hilly level 2, with a more manageable seven or eight kilometres length. Maybe I can slot it onto our short list of mutual entertainment.
For a while, a week at least, my body still imagines how I’ll walk through my sixth-floor Paris apartment for my nightly toilet stop; return to my low-slung bed with its blackout screen on the dormer window in the attic roof. How in the morning, I’ll slip a coffee pod into the machine, walk across the main room while it gurgles and brews. To the left is the dining table, the right is the lounge. A large space punctuated by three Turkish rugs. I’ll open one of the full length windows and step right out on the tiny balcony, above the roar of the street, and look right towards Mont Martre.
Instead, I’m in Perth. My bed is king size and is easy to get in and out of. The toilet has just one door, not the weird two door arrangement of the Paris place. The morning is a chorus of birds which excavate memories of Perth laid decade upon decade from my childhood to now. I’m back at home with my deluxe yoga altar instead of my cut-down travel version. My life is fortunate, privileged and rich with family and friends.
And yet. And yet.
I continue to wrestle with the mystery of travel and its immense hold on me.
As a fourteen-year-old, making the long haul flight back from London to Perth, sobbing the entire time in the wake of the excruciating parting with my brother, I declared travel to be destructive. It cleaved kith and kin apart. But as I wandered the empty suburban streets after landing back in Perth. They were such a contrast from the bustle and rush of European cities, and I wondered if there’d been a nuclear holocaust to clear the streets so completely.
By the time I was a young adult, I was counting down the years and milestones (degree, early career) before I could move to Europe, and was contemptuous of my peers who’d never left Perth.
Once I’d settled in London as my home in 1990, I focused not on travelling, but living somewhere else, trying on that life as my permanent future. I visited Perth twice in six years, ricocheting from one joyous hello to a tearful goodbye with friends and family before returning to my London life.
Fast forward four years to me as young mother, back in Perth while I worked out my next steps, grasping my half-Greek baby to my breast and hearing each plane overhead as another siren call of her Greek father’s abandonment.
Or not even another year when I was a jaded single mother, returning for good to Australia, having having failed at building a Greek-Australian family. Once I re-settled back in Perth, the sound of planes overhead no longer conjured abandonment; they were a neutral hum in my once again free and enjoyable life. I turned my face away from Europe and focused on building a life in Australia.
By the time my daughter was seven she’d become an excellent long haul traveller, and we made two Greek summer holiday visits to her father, until financial circumstances put a stop to that. My daughter and I both missed Europe, but what to do? By 2016, I’d rallied to be able to afford to travel independently to Greece with my daughter. I could enjoy the wonders of Greece’s beaches and islands without having to teach English, or parent a toddler.
And since 2016, it’s become necessary to get myself to Europe once a year.
“It’s home,” my daughter and I agree. A second home. Not a home we’d like to live in permanently, with its endless winters and poorer lifestyle. But it’s a place we need to visit to feel whole.
I travel and try on daily life, for weeks at a time, pushing back against the reality of my home, my life here. Like a I’m pushing against a leg press machine that will never want to return to its resting position.
And then, I come home. And am grateful. And plan the next trip.
And now to the meat of my French trip; the writing retreat.
You may perhaps recall my unsuccessful French writing retreat experience in September 2025, when I bolted 48 hours into a nine night stay. With bare-faced lies about an invented family emergency, I managed to get a lift to the train station, (there being no taxis, buses or any other means of escape), a train to Toulouse where I hired a car and drove to Biarritz and back. (When adventure comes knocking…)
This year, I chose to attend a week’s French writing retreat convened by Mariel Hacking, owner of the Limnisa writing retreat in Greece. I’ve been to her idyllic writing centre three times so far, and I knew Mariel would guarantee quiet mornings for getting on with the work, and a writing consultation with kind, incisive feedback. She was the guest facilitator at Nathalie Edward’s exquisite The Mill in the small town of St Georges de Luzencon in the Occitane region of France.
The Mill is a magnificent four storey building which is well into the process of being lovingly converted into a creatives’ haven. My bedroom was both redolent with historical charm as well as offering a fresh new ensuite bathroom. Plus there was the rush of the river, its incessant sound day and night was a balm in the French heatwave. This was the week of the horrendous Bordeaux fires on the other side of France.
The library at the Mill is an incredible feat of renovation which retains much of the mill’s mechanical parts with a funky, sympathetic interior design. Plus, every book I ever wanted to read on writing (and many more I’d never heard of) were all there. I compared that with last year’s French fizzog where the “library” consisted of ten books, one of which was the host’s self-published memoir. Plus this year, I was allowed, even welcomed in the kitchen, which is a must for me. I’m not the type that thrives being catered for; every now and then I just need to prepare something for myself.
And of course, there was the company; I had travelled with my dear writing buddy Karen, and met two other women there. How wonderful it was to suffer side by side in the morning as we wrote in silence until 1pm. Over lunch we broke into endless discussions of our works in progress, and all things books and writing. Of all the art forms, writing seems to be the one that most encouraged procrastination; a writing retreat seems to be the winning formula for me at least.
I think back to my excited blog on 28th June 2926 (On the Eve of a Journey) as I was about to embark on this 2026 French odyssey. I reflect on this new layer of experience and how much this year’s trip added depth and breadth to my love of all things French.
Was I ready to come home? Perhaps not. Am I happy to be home? Yes, and no. This week, after trying to curb my impetuous travel urges, I succumbed and booked a mini getaway in the south-west of Western Australia, three hours from home.
“I just need to book something on Airbnb,” I explained to my long-suffering husband before heading out the door for two nights. I offered for him to accompany me, but he wisely refrained. Perhaps he recognised the look of the writer seeking to recreate that writing retreat feeling.
I’ve been back in Perth since Wednesday 5th August. But I will continue to wallow in photos, and plunge myself back into the sights, sounds and smells of my French Extravaganza. Sunday Blog-wise, I’m still only up to Saturday 18th July on the trip, when I boarded the train to Paris from Chartres, car-less and once again burdened with my voluminous baggage. I reflected that the solo part of my trip was over, and from that point on, I had friends to continue the endless “comment ca marche?” (how does this work) moments of travel.
You know the kind; the alphanumeric code to open the main door of the accommodation, the numeric code to open the lock box to extract the key, negotiating the mysteries of tiny, cranky, intermittently working Parisian lifts, an idiosyncratic key to open the apartment door, and a hundred and one logistical questions about the features and appliances once you finally gain entry to the accommodation.
The week’s itinerary was Paris (again) for three nights, Rouen for three. The first of my two main priorities for the three-day Paris sojourn was the Renoir exhibition. I wanted to slip into the current of 1870s Paris and all the “fetes galantes” that were going on at that time that he so loved to paint. Plus, I have Dad’s old print of The Boating Party on my wall at home, and I just wanted that moment with the actual painting.
The second priority was Montmatre, sniffing out clues for my fictional hero of my next book project. I may have already mentioned that this character is inspired by my previous lifetime I had on earth as revealed in a past-life reading. I assumed she’d spent time in Montmatre, being such a rackety, bohemian type. As we emerged from a Montmatre restaurant on our last night, I was plunged into the thrill of a full-body resonance of having been there before. Perhaps I may be on the right track.
On the train from Paris to Rouen the next day, we checked in about our goals. My travelling companions are sisters and were seeking information about their ancestor; whereas I wanted to immerse myself in Rouen because I’m locating my character there for her early years from 1850-1862.
As well as the central attractions of Vieux Marche and Saint Maclou, I sought out the Musee de Corderie, a working factory in the hills of Rouen, in Caille valley which was once dotted with factories. And I couldn’t miss the quirky little Flaubert museum; Gustave Flaubert’s birthplace and family home, with a gallop through medical history as a nod to his father’s profession as surgeon of Rouen’s former Hotel Dieu hospital.
Also on our list was a day trip to visit Monet’s beloved Giverny where the lily ponds immortalised in his artwork are. When I first visited Rouen in 2024, I watched as Giverny flashed past us on the train to Paris. This time I wanted to visit this magical place, just a short train ride from Rouen. After a longish ride on the tourist train from the Giverny station to the stunning grounds and home of Giverny, we joined the conga line of people with the same idea. And yet we managed to get photos that looked like we were almost having a private tour, and the charm of Giverny couldn’t be erased by the throngs.
Our digs in Rouen were characterful and charming (see below) with a parquet floor that squeaked like a grand old wooden sailing ship on the high seas. This made it impossible to sneak around quietly at 4am so I could jump on a Zoom to do a three-minute pitch to a couple of literary agents.
But by travel companions tolerated this with equanimity and even sprinkled a little good luck, as one of the agents requested I send some material to read. I wouldn’t find this out until I was at the writing retreat which had formed the kernel of this whole trip and about which I will rave on about next week.
As I cling to the last days of my fabulous five weeks in France, I’m eking out the travel blogs, still several weeks behind reality. You can expect more after my return to wintry Perth, as I savour holiday moments like macaroons.
On Friday 10th July when I left Chartres for Bordeaux after my crowded shuffle around the Chartres labyrinth, I had a five hour, two minute drive ahead of me. I’d abandoned the 6 hour 24 minute, no toll option; hang the expense.
In many ways, the cost ($35 toll charge, if you’re interested) was the least of my problems. It was determining comment ca marche, aka how do toll gates actually work. A little bit like this.
The motorway suddenly fans out expansively, and around 10 gates open up, with different symbols above them. It seems I’ve learned nothing from my madcap drive from Toulouse to Biarritz and back last year. My mind scrambled for memories and I somehow thought the tollgate with just one symbol was the one for me. I was squeezed through the narrow toll gate to find out just how poor my memory is.
Being in a right hand drive vehicle means I struggle to pull up close enough to reach the ticket or proffer my credit card for the next whack of tariffs. So the driver assist in my hire car shrieked that I was too close the right hand barrier, and when I had to open the door on the left to reach the incomprehensible toll booth screen, the shrieks from my vehicle only accelerated. The toll machine swallowed my ticket but didn’t open the gate, and the only thing I could do was the reverse of shame out. With four French drivers behind me, all of them had to reverse out to release me from the trap, beeping and gesticulating just as you might expect.
With the sour taste of cortisol bathing my mouth, I tried another gate (the correct one, which shows more payment options. More = better. Not hard.) But of course, I now had no ticket. With another two cars backed up behind me in this new lane, I got out of the car (I’m leaving you to imagine with what cacophony of complaints the car was registering) and I gesticulated helplessly to the car behind me.
“Press the button and call for help.” And that, dear reader, worked like a treat.
I arrived at my Bordeaux region super sympa Airbnb with air-conditioning and pool, realising as I pulled up at the house that there are in fact areas of France which are not beautiful. The accommodation itself was exactly as pictured; blistering wifi, aircon, a lovely backyard pool, full kitchen and plenty of room for one. Situated under the family house, I was a slightly unwelcome guest in this suburban wasteland. There was nowhere, and I mean nowhere local to go. No walks, no cute little bistro, no boulangerie turning out warm baguettes for petit dejeuner. Any errand at all required me to get in the car.
I did try a local walk, but not only was it ugly, I soon spotted two condom wrappers on the meagre path. So depressing to think people had nowhere else to express their furtive passions. My lonely footsteps set the dogs up and down the street to barking as I walked past. A couple of times I wondered if they would leap over the fence to continue their challenge to my promenade face to face. They didn’t but about 500 metres from my pad I saw a black dog jogging the empty streets freely and I hastened my steps towards safety. It didn’t seem the kind of neighbourhood for fur babies; these were guard dogs.
Abandoning any local walks, I drove the thirty minutes to the beautiful city of Bordeaux. I’d shaken off the previous day’s disgrace at toll gate; today I was going to tackle a multi-story car park.
My method for this is to keep on driving (with a bit of shrieking from the driver assist system, because those corners are tight) until I’m almost at the top and there is at least one free bay on one side of me. Just one floor into this mission, I watched as a British tourist attempted to squeeze his large vehicle into a tiny bay, and he scraped the neighbouring car so badly, it lifted up of its wheels. Stricken, he gestured in apology to me, and you can imagine how patient I was, being in no position at all to criticise anyone’s driving manoeuvres. I even lent him pen and paper so he could leave a note on the damaged car with his contact details. Two young Bordeaux boys had filmed the predicament and walked off snickering.
Safely out in the streets of Bordeaux, I had a small taste of this wonderful, vibrant, diverse city. But by 12 o’clock, the pitiless sun had warmed it to an unpleasant temperature which was only going to steadily rise over the next six hours. I found the car park again, paid my ticket, found my car, exited the car park without incident; all minor miracles. I returned to the blistering aircon in my pad in the light industrial area, reflecting that it was the perfect place to get stuck into the writing, and keep up with my work commitments.
Other short Bordeaux expeditions included the sweet town of Libourne, where I’d tried and failed to book an Airbnb for that same week. I tried not to lament the outcome of that snafu, and stay Zen about spending a week in an industrial estate. But most importantly, I got to connect with a friend from University years, and see her beautiful home in France.
This was all just before the wildfires broke out; I was safe in South East France by then, in a fabulous renovated millhouse with the constant hum of the river for company. While the wildfires are now contained, thanks to the selfless work of firefighters, two of whom lost their lives, this traumatic evidence of climate change has surely registered around the world.
But this was a blow still to fall, as I repeated the journey back from Bordeaux to Chartres to return the car. This required not just filling up the tank but also getting air in the tyres. In the true style of travel, all this required several attempts, google Translate, broken French and a lot of gesticulation to get sorted. Triumphant, I drove the short distance from the petrol station to the hire car company, basking in the smug knowledge I hadn’t damaged the car.
But when I drove a little closer I could see the gate of the hire car venue was closed until 2. It was 1.30pm, so I figured I could use that time to organise my luggage, and pulled up just around the corner from the entrance.
In the complicated mental gymnastics that re-adjusting to the closed hire company created, I pulled up, then looked to my left, thought the car next to me was reversing out.
Mais non, it was my car, sliding forward down a very modest slope as I hadn’t applied the handbrake. The bump of the hood against the metal pole fence alerted me that me that was moving; too late I jammed on the handbrake. I got out to assess damage and while minimal, it would have cost me the considerable excess. The driver assist had stayed eerily silent as I slid forward into the railing.
And that, ladies and gentlemen is why I take out no excess insurance when I hire a car. Next week, I’ll share more about Rouen, Paris and the wondrous writing retreat.
I’m a couple of weeks behind in posting; this was before the Bordeaux fires. Thinking of everyone impacted by fires across Europe.
It all started with my misunderstanding about the distance between Chartres and Bordeaux. When initially planning my holiday, I mistakenly thought I could walk the Chartres labyrinth as a cheeky little day trip from my base in Bordeaux. More thorough research showed that these cities are just under five hours apart. Then accommodation booking snafus meant I had about four days to account for before I could move into my super sympa Airbnb with air-conditioning and pool in a Bordeaux satellite area, Ambares et Lagrave.
So I decided to spend those four nights in Chartres before picking up a hire car and driving to Bordeaux and back. I needed to be in Chartres on a Friday, in order to tick off my bucket list activity of walking the Chartres labyrinth. That’s the only day of the week the Cathedral removes the chairs.
My accommodation was directly opposite (and I mean, directly opposite) Chartres cathedral, and I settled in for a glorious four days. Bottom left is a snap of me sitting next to the heart of the labyrinth earlier in the week. Once, there was a plaque in the centre, showing the Minotaur and Dedalus (the maker of the labyrinth that trapped the monster) but that was ripped up during the French Revolution and used to help make a canon.
I must have looked particularly beatific as I sat there because after a few minutes a nun approached me to tell me of all the treasures in Chartres, not least of which is a morsel of Mary’s veil, (or perhaps a close approximation of same sold by a wily entrepreneur?) said to have miraculous properties.
I came back on Friday, the chairs were pulled back (middle image), but we were still forbidden to enter. A funeral service took precedence over a bunch of crazy tourists who’d travelled from afar to walk this beautiful eleventh century labyrinth. And then, by 12 o’clock rather than the advertised time of 10am, we could finally walk its winding path.
They say don’t meet your heroes, and while there were truly transcendent moments for me shuffling along the path into the labyrinth whose image is so familiar to me, it’s simply too crowded to turn around and walk back out again. But I still have had this walk in this iconic labyrinth. It’s one of the few remaining from this period as cathedrals elected to rip up the wonky floor tiles and add a smoother surface.
And then, it was time for me to leap into my hire car and make off to Bordeaux, laden with my Chartres souvenirs from this amazing building. Labyrinth fridge magnet? I don’t mind if I do. Next Sunday I will fill you in, dear reader, with the drive to Bordeaux. What indeed could possibly go wrong with that?
