The beauty of freedom, one week post confinement

The beauty of freedom

We have now been free for a week and what a week’s it’s been.

Monday began with a rather rude awakening at 3.00am when our ‘friendly’ local stone marten (fouine) clattered over the bedroom roof and in its search for sparrow eggs sent a roof tile crashing to the ground. This is its second night-raid on our resident birds and the second time it has destroyed a roof tile as it foraged for food. I’m not sure whether I am annoyed or impressed that something that only weighs around two kilograms can make such a racket and has the strength to move roof tiles. They might be great to have around to control snake, rat and mouse numbers, but their lack of care for our property is beginning to grate.

  

By 11.00am, when the accountant called for a year-end Zoom meeting, we’d walked the dog, hung out the washing and had a picnic packed and ready to go as soon as the meeting was done. With no work for over six months, it was no surprise that the accounts showed a loss for last year, but at least we saved over 11,000€ (based on the previous year’s figures) on flights, trains, hotels and food, as Adrian wasn’t traveling for work. It’s always good to look for the positives.

 

A slice of apple tart on the V93 cycle path in Brioux-sur-Boutonne

With no restrictions on where we go or how far we can now be from home, lunch was on a bench about fifteen kilometres into a fifty-eight-kilometre bike ride, that took us way outside of the ten-kilometre radius we have been confined to for the last month. Freedom was beautiful, as were the deer we saw in a field right next to us, the field of buttercups, the dragonflies and butterflies, and the afternoon patisserie on a bench by the Boutonne river.

 

In typical sods law fashion, the weather then took a turn for the worse with wind and rain battering the garden on Tuesday afternoon and pretty much all-day Thursday. Freedom was curtailed once more and bike rides were limited to quick loops from home, squeezed in around work and breaks in the weather.

Updated vaccination information

 

President Macron spoke on Thursday about changes to the vaccination programme. From 10^th May anyone aged over 50 can have an appointment for a vaccination and from Wednesday 12^th May anyone aged over 18 can look online for availability of last-minute appointments for the following day, to ensure vaccination doses don’t get wasted. A quick check on the vaccination availability website showed almost 5000 vaccination within about 100kms from home, which was great news until I checked Adrian’s work calendar. Having had many weeks of not much going on earlier in the year, we are now in the position where he potentially has work scheduled all the way through to 8^th June. When you are the trainer, running a course and having to talk coherently all day, the possibility of having a fever or flu-like symptoms isn’t something we can risk. We know from experience that his work schedule can change at short notice, so for now we will have to hold fire and hope we can both find a last-minute appointment if a gap appears in his schedule.

 

By Friday the week began to improve once more. We thought Ed was popping back for a few days over the weekend, but one look at the amount of stuff he’d cleared from his flat, and we weren’t so sure. His lectures are finished, and his exams are over, so although he may head back to Poitiers occasionally, university is done, and he’s moved back home. This put a big smile on my face and Mini was delighted her favourite dog-walker is back in residence.

 

Victory in Europe Day 8th May 2021

The weather was warm and sunny on Saturday, so I was up early to make a start on Ed’s washing mountain, which was hung out to dry as the eight o’clock Angelus rang out over the village. Before heading off with a picnic lunch for an afternoon on the bikes, I joined the Maire and few others to pay my respects at the war memorial for Victory in Europe Day. For the second year running there has been no official ceremony, but the flags were flying, and flowers were laid, followed by a minute’s silence.

Vineyards in Le Gicq, Charente-Maritime

 

Our bike ride took us over the border and into the Charente-Maritime for sixty kilometres of cycling through pretty villages, and vineyards just bursting into life, before stopping for a picnic at a lake that we had to ourselves, despite it being a public holiday in France. The sun shone all afternoon and we were back in time to shower and change before pre-curfew apéros in a friend’s garden. 

On my first bike 1979

 

It was certainly a good idea to squeeze so much into one day, as Sunday was wet, wild and stormy, but it did give me the opportunity to sort through some old photo albums and look what I found, the first photo of me on a small-wheeled bicycle. It might not be a Brompton, but that Viky bike from the 1970’s, my first ever bike, holds a special place in my heart. I don’t think for one moment that seven-year-old me cycling around the back garden, would be able to imagine forty-nine-year-old me living in France and cycling around five thousand kilometres a year. 

Vive le vélo!  

Diary of Covid-19 confinement, day fifty-three, Victory in Europe Day

Village war memorial VE Day 2020

Day fifty-three, 8^th May 2020

75^th anniversary Victory in Europe Day

8^th May is always a public holiday here in France to commemorate VE Day, the end of Second World War in Europe. We usually mark the occasion with the laying of flowers at the village war memorial accompanied by an address from the government, read out by the Maire, and a minute’s silence. We then congregate in the salle des fêtes for a shared moment of conviviality with friends and neighbours, where apero nibbles and drinks are served. 

Village floral tribute VE Day 2020

Despite today marking the 75^th anniversary of Victory in Europe, the current war with Covid-19 meant this morning there was no ceremony, no gathering of villagers and no vin d’honneur or tasty treats from the boulangerie. I popped down to take a photo after the Maire had laid the floral tribute, and the only movement in the centre of the village was the fluttering of the flags in the breeze. It was a rather subdued and ordinary day to mark such a momentous anniversary.

From Monday the strict rules of lockdown will be relaxed here in France, however social distancing is something that will remain for the foreseeable future. The virus has not gone away, but we need to adapt our way of life and find a way to live with it. With bars still closed and no date yet given for their reopening, and most summer events and festivals already cancelled, it will be the lack of community organised social gatherings that I will miss most this summer. Nothing says French village life quite like the coming together of friends and neighbours, sharing a meal and dancing in the bar or salle des fêtes, or just a fun afternoon of games and picnics in the village park. We do need to find a new normal, but it will be a sad thing for small communities if we can’t continue to hold events that celebrate village life.

One of our village summer events

Tonight, we shall be raising our glasses in memory of all those who brought peace to Europe on this day seventy-five years ago. Santé !

8th May Victory in Europe Day 2019

The grave of Fernand Prevost

8^th May Victory in Europe Day and public holiday in France

8^th May 2019, a damp morning where villagers, hidden under umbrellas, coats and scarves, congregated in the cemetery to stand by a plain grave, situated against the far wall. 

Fernand Prevost

Died for France

Shot by the Germans

In the woods at Bois Cambert

24^thJuly 1944

At the age of 18

There was no official ceremony, or laying of flowers, just a moment of quiet reflection for the loss of a young life to war, almost 75 years ago.

The slow procession then made its way to the village war memorial outside the salle des fêtes (village hall), where the Maire read the address from the French minister in charge of the armed forces.

Ed at the village war memorial

Three years ago, our village lost its last war veteran and since then our son Ed has often been asked by the Maire to hold the flag, both at the 11^th November and 8^th May memorial ceremonies; where the French stand alongside the British, and the young alongside the old, united in remembrance.

Ed is 18 now, the same age as Fernand Prevost, and away at uni with a world of possibilities ahead of him. But he is home today, to do his bit once more and we are very proud of the man our village has turned him into. My mother lost her father in The Second World War, my father’s father was in northern France, possibly on 8^th May 1945, so ensuring Ed remembers has always been important to us, as is the idea of a united not divided Europe, something we will never give up hope of.

To read more about the shootings in our village in 1944 see my post from last year here.

To read about my family’s history in the war see these two posts

Remembering Victory in Europe Day

D-Day Remembered

8th May 2018, Victory in Europe Day

This morning, as on every 8^th May morning, the anniversary of the day the Second World War came to an end in Europe, our village stopped to remember the lives that were lost. It took a united world to end the war and it was fitting that, as usual, we were a united mixed-race bunch who took the time to remember; French, English, some of us with Irish ancestry, Welsh, and this year, two visiting Americans.

One of the benefits of blogging and sharing your life online is meeting people from the other side of the world, even if it is usually only an online kind of a meet. Today I finally got to meet in person writer and blogger Paulita and her husband Earl, all the way from Ohio, although their journey today to take part in our village remembrance ceremony was only about an hour from their current base on the river Charente. Paulita and Earl are almost halfway through their adult gap year in France, and they have probably visited more locations in the last four months than I have in the last four years so I’m rather jealous. We have been following each other’s blogs for more years than I can remember and as we sat on the terrace of our village bar, just minutes after saying hello, the conversation flowed, and the caffeine made sure we were ready for our walk to the woods.

As well as our village memorial in the square, about two kilometres from the village, in a small clearing in the woods, we have another memorial marking the spot where three young men were shot by the Germans in July of 1944. This year the weather was warm and dry, so some of us decided to walk to the woods for the ceremony and Paulita and Earl joined in too. The maire said a few words and then read out the sad story of 24^th July 1944, taken from ‘Histoire de nos Villages’ by Marcel Daniaud. Three members of the local Resistance were captured in the vicinity that morning and held in a convoy of lorries that was patrolling the area. A local lad spotted the convoy as it passed through our village that evening, and as a refugee from the forced German labour camps he was lucky not to have been seen. The convoy stopped at the corner of the Bois-Cambert woods where the three men, one from our local town, were executed. The gruesome discovery of their bodies was found the next morning by a 19-year-old from a nearby hamlet.

None of them were much older than Ed, a sobering thought for me during the minutes silence that followed, especially as he was stood next to the Maire, and proudly holding the village flag. The ceremony finished off with the Resistance call to arms anthem, Les Chant des Partisans, and then all that remained then was to retrace our steps back to the village, where a kir and aperitif nibbles (from the village boulangerie) were waiting to reward our efforts.

I am so pleased Paulita and Earl were able to share for real a little piece of my French village life. You can follow Paulita's blog here to read more about her adventures in France this year.

Victory in Europe 2017

Ed holding the flag at the village memorial service 8th May 2017

Every year on the 8^th May a small ceremony is held in our village to commemorate Victory in Europe Day; a public holiday in France.

Flowers laid at a grave in the village cemetery

This year, just before the official ceremony at the memorial a moment of silent reflection was observed at a simple grave in the village cemetery; the resting place of Fernand Prevost, aged 18, who was shot dead by the SS troops just outside the village in July 1944.

Now we have sadly lost our old soldiers, the holding of the flag has been passed on to the younger generation and Ed did us proud once more. I think he is hoping that photos like the one above will help him with his French nationalisation request in a few years.

The vin d'honneur

As usual, after the ceremony we gathered in the Salle des Fêtes for a vin d’honneur (wine of honour) and aperitifs. It seemed only a few hours since we had been drinking aperitifs with some of the villagers, which if I’m honest it was, in celebration of another victory for Europe, the defeat of Marine Le Pen.

Bureau de vote

I had helped man the bureau de vote on Sunday afternoon, where strict controls and counts are kept on who arrives to vote. I checked their voting cards and date stamped them, initialled a register and sent them off to the voting cubicle. Upon their return I got to open the slot in the ballot box and then we all cried out “A Voté” (voted) as the envelope slipped in. My colleague then requested their signature on another copy of the register and handed their cards back. Despite the seriousness of the event, all this was done with the usual kisses, handshakes and conversation that is normal in a French village and made me feel included even if I had no right to vote.

Awaiting the national results

Our village had a turnout of 190 voters and Macron won with 56% of votes, slightly less than the national average and it was a very close count at one point. With the hope other towns and villages would follow our trend I began to relax a little about our future for the first time in a few weeks. Once the official voting documents had been deposited at the local Gendarmarie, the aperos were served and we all gathered around to await the eight o’clock announcement on French TV as to who was likely to be our president. An hour of light hearted political banter followed before we all made our way home, relieved and happy.

It certainly has been an action-packed couple of days in our quiet village.

You might also like to read my previous VE Day posts from 2013 (here) and 2016 (here).

8th May, Victory in Europe Day

Victory in Europe ceremony

The 8^th May is a public holiday in France to commemorate the anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. Every year our village, along with other communes, large and small, holds a small ceremony of remembrance; the Maire wears his sash, the village flag is unfurled and a small group of villagers gather together.

Until today, the flag has always been held with pride by one of the old soldiers, but sadly we lost our last one earlier this year (see here). Our Maire has decided that now is the time to pass this honour to the younger generation and today he asked Ed if he would hold it, and as you can see from the photo above, he did it with style.

It was a proud moment for me, but tinged with sadness as I stood next to the widow of our last village soldier, whose absence today was felt by all of us there. This week, our family have also lost our own old soldier. My Dad’s cousin, Cyril, who was only 19 years old when he was one of the first to land on Gold Beach on D-Day. I wrote about Cyril here and when we visited Normandy in 2014 we saw a bulldozer just like the ones that he drove in June 1944 to clear the beach of mines. Without Cyril and the thousands like him, there would be no Victory in Europe Day to remember today and I think it is important for the younger generation to understand this. As Ed stood tall with the village flag, I took a moment to remember Cyril, my Grandad Albert and Jacky who always held the flag with pride.

Norrmandy Beaches D-Day

After the ceremony we gathered in the Salle des Fêtes for a vin d’honneur (wine of honour) and aperitifs, and the tables had been decorated with lilac flowers that looked stunning.

Lilacs decorating the vin d'honneur table

Food and flowers have been a bit of a theme for today as before the ceremony we held our annual plant swap. An informal gathering where seedlings, cuttings and anything plant related is brought along and shared with coffee, cakes and friendly chatter. Village life at its best.

French Village Plant Swap

This post has been linked to Paulita's Ponderings Dreaming of France blog link-up.