Can’t see the sea for the Agapanthus Day 5 (The story of the Three Wells)

Tags

baguettes, Boulangerie, Chapels, connemara ponies, creperies, Ile de Batz, Ireland, Lavoirs, pastries, Saint Pol de Leon, the yellow bicycle, wells

 

My dad had an odd sense of humor which veered towards puns and spoonerisms.

When we were young, He would ask us…

‘Did you ever hear the story of the three wells?’

Some of us had, having heard it from him umpteen times before, but as there were many of us he probably couldn’t remember who he had already told.

And anyway it was wiser to humour him!

So we answered ‘No’

‘Well! Well! Well!’ He would shout triumphantly.

Now that he had our attention this would be followed with, 

‘And did you ever hear the story of the three eggs?’

Again we would chorus obediently ‘No!’

‘Two bad’ and he would laugh uproariously.

On the Island of Batz I found three Wells,

and well…..here is the story of my search for them…

It is day five on the island and anyone following my story will see how, as the days pass by, I relax and grow more comfortable with spending time alone, doing nothing more exciting than wandering the Island on the yellow bicycle.

Now and again I have a brush with humanity and this mostly takes place as I join the morning queue at the boulangerie for my pain au raisin, my pet de nonne and my baguette

I think madame keeps them specially for me because now that the school has opened, there is an increased demand for pastries, and even if I am last in the door, she hands me the warm bag before I even get a chance to make my request.

Although done out of a chance to practice my french, I am grateful that I no longer have to rush up the hill but can take time to observe the bay not only for 16th century french Galleons but now also for that 18th century Corsairs ship too (See previous posts)

After the boulangerie, is the cycle up the hill to the supermarket for the filling for my baguette.

After which ‘Le Monde est mon huitre’ (The world is my oyster)

Originally my aim was to head out, each day, in a different direction, no plan, no map, just a spontaneous following of the small roads that crisscrossed the island.

However, after my discovery of Le Trou du serpant yesterday and the story of Saint Pol driving the beast into the sea and giving one of the Island Wells the cure for blindness, I decide to try and find that Well (and any others I can find along the way)

And so off I go, picnic in panniers, ready for the days findings.

At the crossroads I turn right. This road brings me down a narrow street and onto a small square in the center of which stands a circular stone structure.

Although it is now filled with agapanthus, it looks suspiciously like a Well, not just because of it shape but also because of its position in the middle of the triangular square (My dad loved a good paradox too)

But I may be wrong and unfortunately my french does not extend to discussing such subjects. Plus the only person I meet is an elderly man and he is heading in the opposite direction.

I think I will count it as one of my three wells anyway.

With the first Well in my pocket I’m off again, turning left and passing some lovely blue shuttered cottages, one with the tiniest window imaginable.

In Ireland, An old high stone wall in the countryside usually indicates the presence of ‘The big house’

So I am surprised to see a similar type wall on this tiny island

I follow it along curiously and soon reach a gate that allows me to glimpse inside.

I can see a square walled field with rows of cauliflowers not yet in bloom and huge mullein plants growing from the base of the wall.

I move past the gate and come upon a very exciting find.

Inserted snugly into the wall, its roof and bowl intact and protected by the ancient moss covered walls which jut out on both sides like a pair of sheltering arms is a beautifully built Well.

I have found Well number two.

Maybe this type of structure was to stop cows and other domestic beasts getting in an stirring up the water or maybe it was for resting the waiting buckets on. Whichever it is a thing of beauty and a very practical design

But is it the well with the cure for blindness? St Pols well?

Again there is no one around to ask so I dip my fingers in the algae covered water and pat my eyes just in case. 

Further along I catch a glimpse of the extensive roofs of  the big house and turning left at its entrance I follow the high wall as it twists around the property.

Ahead, in the same way that the Well is inserted into the wall, is a chapel. I can only presume this belongs to the big house because it was common in the 18th and 19th centuries for houses of wealth and power to have there own chapel for members of family and staff.

Again no one around to ask.

The lane leads back into open country again and down the hill towards ‘the wild side’

I cycle along a bumpy road that could be straight from the west of Ireland, passing a tethered Connemara pony (I know a Connemara when I see one), feeling very much at home when I notice to my left, a track leading off towards a flat stone slab.

I recognise that familiar shape too and arriving breathless and slightly shaken from the uneven surface I find Well number three.  It is so reminiscent of an Irish Well that, together with the wild landscape and the Connemara pony, I have to remind myself I am actually in France.

This is surely Saint Pols Well!

Its position is perfect. A triumphant Saint Pol having successfully thrown/ enticed /ordered the serpent into the sea, would have strode this way, clapping his own back (Remember the agreement was if he managed to get rid of the serpent the island was his) as he headed towards the town.

It would be no skin off his nose to give the Well the cure for blindness as he passed it.

Again I dip my hands in to the water and splash it on my eye’s and looking up from my task I see a path of smooth flat stones leading to another structure.

How clever! The Well feeds water to the communal washing area Le Lavoir

But all this searching for wells and mulling about the history of them is hungry work.

I lay out my picnic and sitting on the low stone wall, look back at the lavoir, trying to imagine the scene where the women of the village would gather to do the weekly washing.

The facility is so well laid out with the smaller pool for soapy water perhaps and the larger for rinsing.

The overflow spouts between the pools, I presume, kept the water flowing, clearing the ponds as it did and the low walls were just made for sitting and gossiping on.

Sadly now it is full of algae and I have no one to gossip with.

A familiar blue figure catches my eye.

It’s Regine and when she spots me, she hurries over kissing me on both cheeks and greeting me like a long lost friend, her ancient Pentax camera bouncing against her chest, her lashes an even more startling blue than I remember.

‘Tomorrow’ she exclaims breathlessly, before I have even time to say Bonjour. ‘The market is on in Roscoff!’

‘It is not to be missed’ She frowns as she takes off her rug sack and rummages in the pocket of it, pulling out her small note book.

‘Regardez! I have a list of the tides and the boat times here’

She runs her finger down the timetable.

‘If you get the 10.30 boat, the tide will be coming in and you wont have to make the long walk along the jetty’ (when the tide is out the ferry cannot get into either the island harbour or the mainland one and instead it moors at a long pier which means the passengers have to walk about half a kilometer to the shore)

‘Are you going? I ask her

‘Bien sur‘ she nods furiously. ‘It is fantastique‘

‘Mais maintenant, I am going to meet my friend at the Creperie Du Phare! Please join us. The proprietors are tres sympathique, the food is formidable!’

And because I miss having someone to gossip with and I like the sound of sympathetic proprietors and formidable food, I decide that I will.

to be continued………..

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Can’t see the sea for the Agapanthus Day 3 (Resisting that plate of nuns farts)

Tags

A viking ship, beaches, camera, chablis, french pasteries, Ile de Batz, Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, oncologist, painting, Royal Galleons, the yellow bicycle, wells, writing

It is my second morning waking in the house of the blue shutters and I am up at cockcrow.

I didn’t sleep too well as I feel there is a nightly presence in the house whom I have disturbed.

But no time for that now.

I don’t bother with the view.

I know the boats will be slumbering in their usual fashion. I am up earlier than yesterday and high tide will be about an hour later so nothing can have changed that much.

But as I rush out the gate and around the corner and lean the yellow bicycle against the wall of the not yet opened boulangerie, I feel a pang of shame that my fear of being too late for a pastry is making me presume my morning view will be the same as yesterday!

What if this is the morning a viking boat sails into the bay?

Or four Galleons.

On the morning of August 13th in the year 1548 the people of Roscoff, on the opposite side of the bay, woke to see such a sight.

Four French Galleons dropping anchor.

One of these was the ‘Royal Galleon’ belonging to the King of France and it was carrying a very important person.

At only five and a half years of age Mary Stuart was already Queen of Scotland and was now engaged to be married to the heir apparent to the french throne, The Dauphin, Francois II.

The Galleon had carried her from her home in Dumbarton near Glasgow and, avoiding the English fleet, landed safely after an apparent rough crossing.

The next morning the people of Roscoff gathered again to watch as the small boat containing their future queen, her four handmaidens (all also called Mary and all also only five and a half years of age) , their housekeeper and their nanny, pulled up at the slipway from where they proceeded to the church to give thanks for a safe crossing.

 

The sound of the boulangerie door being unlocked brings me back to the present. I may have missed some excitement in the bay but nothing as exciting as being first in the queue.

‘Bonjour Madame’

‘Bonjour’.

~~~

As Madam pops the still warm pain au raisin into a bag, she looks back over her shoulder to regard me, one eyebrow raised, hand still hovering over the heap of cinnamon smelling pastries and enquires ‘Deux?’

I dither.

There are more than two hills on the island. At least four I would think, and I remember my calculation!

Two hills = one french pastry!

I feel the now gathering queue shifting restlessly behind me.

‘Hold on! I’m not delaying things with idle chat like you lot did yesterday’ but of course I don’t say this out loud (I wouldn’t have enough knowledge of french to anyway)

So I nod.

‘Deux pain au raisin s’il vous plaît’

My accent is improving

‘Et une baguette’ I add (remembering that ‘Baguette’ is feminine)

‘Une seulement’? she calls back over her shoulder as she plucks one baguette from the basket in which the deliciously crispy breads stand upright. She remains poised.

Again the queue shifts

‘Qui…. une.’ I nod.

‘C’est tout?’ Madam enquires, She is back at the till, holding my order in one hand whilst the fingers of the other hover over the keys. She senses my weakness and is still not convinced I am finished.

My eyes scan the delicious treats in the glass case in front of me.

Brioche a téte, Pain au chocolate, Clafoutis aux cerises, Chausson aux pommes, Tarte Breton, Tartes aux fraises, Tarte Tatin, Tarte au citron, Far Breton. Laid out neatly in mouthwatering rows

Oh and look! a plate of Pet de Nonne (literally translated as ‘the nun’s fart’) a sort of small chocolate covered profiterole which I adore.

But my oncologist is also there looming in the impatient queue, his fictional presence more powerful than her real one.

I drag my eyes away.

‘Oui….c’est tout’ I reply firmly.

~

So Day two of my day on the Island and I’m once again pushing the yellow bicycle up the steep hill though not as far this time.

This time I have managed to cycle about one quarter way up to the supermarket before the hill proves to steep and I have to dismount.

Once more I am on my way to buy my filling for my picnic baguette.

Did I really eat all the Camembert yesterday AND finish the whole bottle of sancerre? (Four hills equals one Camembert. 12 kilometres equals a bottle of white wine)

I am well within the perimeters and breath easily.

This time I buy some brie instead and a piéce de saucisse and a bottle of Chablis.

Then with my shopping complete I take a different route, no map needed.

I am getting a sense of this Island.

I always dreamed of living the rest of my life in a small cottage by the sea where I would spend my days writing, painting and tending the garden.

I always imagined it would be in the west of Ireland but I actually found it here on Ile de Batz.

At the end of a small gravel road which heads north west from the village, I come on a small blue shuttered cottage. The sea in front of it, a sheltering hill behind, It is built in a place of complete perfection.

I would willingly give up one years supply of pet de nonnes for it

Unfortunately someone has found it before me and I know that even if they loved these small profiteroles as much as I did they would not part with it.
I sigh sadly but then I see something that cheers me up!

A small sandy track leading on passed the house. Immediately my sense of exploration takes over and without further ado I’m off again, pushing my bicycle along it as it winds up and around a rocky headland. I am now approaching the ‘wild’ end of the island.

And I find the perfect place to sit and have my picnic.

And its while having this picnic that I meet Regine (I could have used her real name as she will hardly read my blog for when we talked about computers her face took on such a look of disdain it led me to presume she is not in favor of using them. Instead she pulls out a small note book from her pocket which is filled with the neatest painstakingly tiny writing and proceeds to slowly add the name Stephanie and a description of the yellow bike using, I note, the older bicyclette rather than the newer word Velo.)

It is hard to tell her age but I would imagine she is about 65.

She has dyed blond sholder lenght hair and bright blue mascara and is wearing a frock. An ancient Pentax camera hangs round her neck and she has a small faded rugsack on her back. She is here for two weeks, walking and taking numerous photos with her vintage camera. Her sentences are filled with such words as incroyable, formidable, fantasique, fabuleux which she pronounces slowly emphasising each syllable

She is intrigued and delighted with the yellow bicycle

‘Is it your mothers?’ she asks excitedly

I tell her its not and go on to explain that though it looks rusty it is actually not that old, just has spent too much time at the sea.

She looks so disappointed that wished I had lied to her.

‘Are you sure it isn’t your mothers’? she is circling  it reverently as she points her camera this way and that at it.

She stops to run her hand along the rim of the basket.

‘Incroyable’ She exclaims.

The day is wearing on. we talk some more and then I make my excuses. I still have a swim to fit in and I had passed a well on the small beach with stone steps leading down to it, which I wanted to go back and get a better look at.

She waves goodbye

‘A toutes alore’

Yes I suppose I will see her again. The island is too small not to.

As a cloud passes over the sun, I pass a group of old men playing boules in the middle of the road.

‘Bonsoir Madame’

‘Bonsoir’

A woman whizzes down towards them on an old moped, face wrinkled by the sun and hair dyed bright auburn, helmet-less, a cigarette hanging from her lower lip which is a slash of bright red.  Leaving behind a trail of petrol fumes mixed with the smell of Gauloise’s .

I pass the now familiar windows as I head home to my blue shuttered house.

 

I am beginning to feel part of the island.

To be continued…….

I can’t see the sea for the agapanthus Day 1 (slow cycling round a small island)

Tags

agapanthus, brittany, france, google maps, happiness, Ile de Batz, rain, Roscoff, seaweed, shutters, the yellow bicycle, vegetables, windows

“Happiness is the biggest window a house can ever have”                                                                                                              Mehmet Murat Ilden

Part One: I arrive on The Island.

The first thing that struck me as I stood in the rain waiting for the small ferry that plied backwards and forwards between Roscoff and the island, was the happiness of the people around me.

It may have been bucketing down from the heavens but they piled on that boat, laughing and chatting as though it was the sunniest day the summer could offer them.

Old ladies with pulley baskets, elderly men with shopping bags, glamorous people with beautiful dogs, walkers with the correct gear and a crowd of teenagers hauling tents and their belongings.

And not a scowl between them.

The handsome young man who lifted my heavily laden Yellow bicycle as though it was as light as a feather and of no inconvenience to his strength, smiled and placed it carefully along with the other two on the front deck.

It stood forlornly, water dripping off it’s panniers (and into them too as I discovered later) while the other two bicycles, if bicycles could, were smiling along with everyone else.

Some people leaned forward, regarding me with interest as I took my seat and greeted me with a merry ‘Bonjour’.

I would guess this was not because they recognised me as someone not from the island, (I’m sure there were others like me coming for the first time) but because I was the only one NOT smiling.

Rain belonged in Ireland for heaven’s sake and you see I hadn’t accounted for it here in France.

I also didn’t expect everything to be so straightforward and had giving myself too much time when arranging meeting the woman of the house to collect the keys of what would be my home for the next week.

I could expect to be out in this rain for another three hours.

But I found I couldn’t help smiling back at them as I replied to their greeting.

The second thing that struck me, fifteen minutes later, as I pushed the yellow bicycle with its sodden belongings up the hill from the harbour and past an old church, was the Agapanthus.

It grew so profusely that in places it blocked my views of the sea.

But it got away with being a nuisance by the sheer beauty of its flowers

Blue stars reaching to the heavens.

I was beginning to smile again.

Then there was the perfect rows of cauliflowers, fennel bulbs, kohlrabi, potatoes, growing in small fields fertilized by sea weed which I spied through the misty rain and between the gaps of the clusters of houses (the fields that is not the seaweed)

Add to that the wild sea which I could now get a glimpse of (I had reached the brow of the hill) and surely that was a white beach in the distance reached by small sandy roadways scattered without plan.

The rain was beginning to ease now.

The last thing that struck me (but should have been the first that I mentioned) were the gorgeous colorful shutters surrounding small lace curtained windows that I whizzed past as I freewheeled down the other side of the hill.

And for the length of my stay those windows stopped me in my tracks time and time again and me smile.

“Happiness is the biggest window a house can have” wrote the poet, Mehmet Murat Ilden.

Well that must be so, as it did not seem to matter that the windows of the houses here were small because the people continued to exude happiness the whole time I was on the island.

The Island of Ile de Batz lies a 15 minute boat ride off the town of Roscoff which is on coast of brittany.

It is the only small island (and I have been on a good few of them) where even cycling is going too fast.

I had been planning a larger cycle along some of the greenways of Brittany when I spied this tiny island on google maps. The more I read about it, the more I was drawn to it and soon booked a small house in its village for the week.

My plan was to cycle, walk, swim, write, draw, paint and take photographs.

Oh and eat good food and drink fine wine.

And I am inviting you to join me.

To be continued……….