My Good Life in France

by Janine Marsh

  They are remarkably ungrateful birds, but I’ve grown fond of them, and they make excellent guards.

  Anyway, on this occasion Mark’s input was all over quite quickly, but the memory of this task will live with us forever.

  ‘My tractor won’t start,’ said Jean-Claude.

  This is nothing new, lately it never starts. Somehow Jean-Claude always manages to get it out of the garage where it lives at the top of the hill in his mother-in-law’s garden. Once he gets it out on to the steep road, he bump starts it on the way down the hill and by the time it gets to the bottom it has, so far, always managed to fire into life.

  This time, however, it had a trailer on the back and Jean-Claude couldn’t move it on his own.

  Mark went with him up the hill. Jean-Claude clambered up into the tractor ‘to turn the wheel the right way’ and called to Mark to push. Mark pushed. He is a big, heavy bloke and very strong. Nothing happened.

  ‘Push!’ yelled Jean-Claude. Mark gritted his teeth, jammed his shoulder against the trailer and heaved as if his life depended on it. Nothing happened.

  ‘We can do it,’ called Jean-Claude from his seat in the tractor, blissfully unaware of the division of labour.

  ‘Un, deux, trois!’ he shouted and Mark pushed one more time and to his utter amazement the tractor and trailer lurched forward and on to the hill. Oh the joy, the pride, the belief in his manly power. Until he looked down and saw Claudette standing there brushing the dust off her pinafore.

  ‘That was heavy, wasn’t it?’ she said without a modicum of irony.

  Claudette has been widowed for many years and now lives alone in the biggest house in the village. Her brother lived with her for a short while before sadly passing away. He was old and disabled and Claudette cared for him and took him for a daily walk round the village in his wheelchair. She is as slight as a sparrow, and her brother was rather larger and heavier. He had been a farmer, short and sturdy, slinging sacks of grain that weighed 45 kilos or more over his shoulder ‘like a lady with a handbag’, he said. But the years of heavy lifting took their toll and, single, he moved into his sister’s house. At eighty years old he could not walk but was confined to a rather sturdy wheelchair. Despite this she pushed him up and down the hills of the village and rejected all offers of help.

  ‘Non, non. It’s good exercise,’ she told me when, concerned for both her and her brother, I offered to help. It’s a steep hill with a road at the bottom, and I had visions of her tripping, letting go and the wheelchair careering down and into an oncoming tractor. When she wasn’t pushing her brother, she’d usually have a basket of eggs, fruit or vegetables to give to a neighbour.

  While everyone in the village grows something in the garden or keeps animals of various sorts, there are also quite a few artisans, who choose to produce food or goods the traditional way – organic, of course. It’s a time-consuming business but these people are passionate about the land and maintaining traditions of the past as a way to protect the future.

  In the tiny village of Hesmond, you’d be forgiven for thinking the residents had dropped down dead. As you drive along the little roads that lead there you may pass a tractor or two, a few cars or a curious cow with its head poking over the top of a hedge. This ville tranquille, as it is known, is rarely lively. Unless, that is, it is one of the days when Valérie Magniez, also known locally as ‘the goat lady’, bakes bread. Then you will find to your astonishment that the single main road of the village is packed full of cars and bikes as locals and tourists alike head for her farm. They are here to buy the organic country bread that goes so perfectly with the fresh goats’ cheese that the goat lady makes daily. Rumour has it that she uses a four-hundred-year-old live yeast mix, although when I asked she would neither confirm nor deny it.

  Valérie’s goats outnumber the residents by a long shot. She talks to them, milks them – the goats that is, not the people – except for the very large billy goat known as l’Amoureux, and makes the most amazing cheese by hand, every day of the week, with love. Eaten fresh, it is a little sour, creamy and seductive, and everyone goes back for more.

  At the counter she will offer to sprinkle fresh herbs as she wraps up the little cheeses and she will encourage you to go to meet her goats in their bespoke barn, usually accompanied by the farmyard cat and often kittens that run about playing with stones and generally getting in everyone’s way.

  The shop is only open a few hours a week, on days when Valérie fires up her big old wood oven and the smoke rises above the roof of the Gothic-looking wooden home that she and her husband built. On those occasions, this normally placid little village comes to life.

  A little way down the road in the village of Offin, François Delepierre grows vegetables. Not just any old vegetables either. He and his mother grow heirloom produce in a field at the back of their house. In these lush valleys the soil is rich and nourishing. Drive down the somewhat misleadingly named Grande Rue where the Delepierre farm is located and, if you blink, you’ll miss the sign for Aux Légumes d’Antan (d’antan means ‘of yesteryear’). And that would be a great loss for you because this little place is a treasure trove of fabulous vegetables and fruit, sold in the ancient shed that serves as a shop and dished up at lunchtime in the front room of their house, which functions as a restaurant on Sundays only. It is like having dinner with friends: unpretentious, modest, hearty and wholesome, and, like Valérie’s goats’ cheese, made with passion.

  Wash it down with local beer or cider, or even sparkling wine made with redcurrants, strawberries or raspberries by Hubert Delobel in the village of Loisin, made to a recipe his grandmother used, now an award-winning, wonderfully delicious drink, perfect for festive occasions.

  Here in the countryside, people may not be wealthy or live in swish posh houses, but in so many ways the good life is all around if you take the time to find it.

  CHAPTER 23

  Home is where the heart is

  FRANCE IS FAMOUS for its second-hand markets, brocantes, marchés aux puces, braderies and vide-greniers – flea markets are known by several names and they are held in all regions. They take place throughout the year, mostly on weekends, the majority of them from March to October when better weather means stalls can be laid out in the streets of towns and villages with less chance of getting drenched. Going to a flea market is a way of life in France; it isn’t just about finding a bargain, though this is a nation of recyclers. For the French it’s a great way to meet with friends and socialize. For visitors it’s a chance to get under the skin of a place, to experience the national culture.

  There is almost always a ‘buffet’ of some sort, often involving a frites wagon, and delights such as local sausages, pancakes or a hog roast. Some flea markets are specialists where vendors sell only high-quality antiques, stamps, military memorabilia or clothes. Other markets are full of local people who empty out their lofts and cellars, pile up their odds and ends on a blanket on the ground or sell off unwanted farm machinery. You’ll usually find stalls specializing in old linen, china, religious relics, ex-hotel tableware, and of course there is a lot of junk. I’m always amazed by the number of people who sell way-past-their-prime collections: there is always a motley assortment of jam jars, broken cups, gas pipes, light fittings, rusty garden implements and even old bottle corks. It’s a mystery to me who buys this stuff but I suppose someone must or they wouldn’t be on show.

  I’ve rarely been to a bad flea market. There’s always something new to discover, if not on the stalls, then on the journey, which you can be sure will involve a road diversion of some sort, guaranteed to create chaos on the way in as well as out.

  Saint-Valery-sur-Somme on the edge of the Somme Estuary is where you will find arguably one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It’s a town with a lively atmosphere and some grand villas that once lured writers from Victor Hugo to Collette, Anatole France and Jules Verne, all inspired by the scenery to stay awhile and write. As well as the stunning views, the oth
er big draw here is the harbour, which is lined with restaurants whose tables sprawl on to the pavement, filled with diners indulging in fresh, locally caught fish.

  The town has several claims to fame, not least the fact that Joan of Arc was held in a château here (it has sadly long gone) prior to being taken to Rouen and her horrible demise. There is a statue dedicated to her on the edge of the bay in Place Jeanne d’Arc with a lovely little walkway where boules is played and children scan the inlet for basking seals. It is largely the French who visit this family friendly holiday haven and it’s a well-kept secret. I first went there with my dad, and if you ever worry about how bad your French is, you needn’t, there’s always someone worse. There was a poster in the town advertising something to do with Jeanne d’Arc or, as my dad pronounced it, ‘Jenny Dark’.

  You can take a boat ride around the horseshoe-shaped bay and watch fishermen bringing in their haul of the day on their bright little fishing boats. At the Chemin de Fer railway station, from late spring to the end of summer eager passengers hop on board a steam train and ride round the bay through picturesque countryside, stopping off at the bigger towns like Le Crotoy, across the bay.

  This is where hundreds of sellers meet once a year to sell antiques and all manner of junk. It never ceases to amaze me that parking is so easy in most of northern France and usually free. Aiming to find a café where we could start the day off properly with a steaming cup of strong coffee and a pain au chocolat, we wandered along streets full of little cottages from which the local fishermen were selling fresh seafood. An old salty seadog type, wearing his sou’wester and boots, was carrying a tray of shrimp he had just caught and saw me admiring them.

  ‘Come back in five minutes when they’re cooked,’ he told me. How could I resist?

  When I returned, he had set up a table on the pavement under his front window and did a roaring trade selling the still-warm shrimp; they were so fresh and sweet. At the brocante that ran along the seafront, about three hundred stalls in all, the whole place was buzzing as the early morning mist cleared, the sky turned a deep blue and the warm sun made it a very pleasant occasion indeed. At least until I managed to tread in dog poo.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you unless you clean it off,’ said Mark.

  So I found a bit of grass and was busy rubbing the offending foot.

  A man standing close by was watching me, cursing.

  ‘Anglaise?’ he asked, and then told me that I was lucky it was my left foot, chuckling to himself.

  ‘If it was your right foot, not so lucky,’ he chortled.

  The old man wasn’t kidding. Treading in dog poo with your left foot is considered fortunate in France. I even found an online shop trying to ‘crapitalize’ on this weird superstition by selling ‘Lucky dog shit from Paris’, though apparently it wasn’t a bestseller.

  Further round the coast, a very special festival takes place in the little fishing village of Audresselles, also in spring. It is tucked away off the main A16 autoroute that leads to the south, on the glorious D940 coastal road, which starts at Calais and runs along an undulating, green and sometimes dramatic shoreline.

  Along this twisting, winding road, which meanders through picturesque villages and clifftop towns facing the White Cliffs of Dover, you will find a rather hidden part of France. It is known as the Côte d’Opale (Opal Coast) and runs for 120 km from Dunkerque on the edge of the border with Belgium to Berck-sur-Mer, 20 km from Le Crotoy. The name Opal Coast originated from the many nineteenth-century painters who flocked here to capture the area’s natural beauty and the light’s opal-like qualities. The great British painter J. M. W. Turner loved this region and his painting of Calais pier on a stormy day hangs in the National Gallery in London. Visiting the little hamlets on this route will take you back in time to a more gentle age when the families of fishermen would be waiting on the beach to help take in the day’s catch and sell it to the public from their homes – a practice that continues to this day all around this stretch of the coastline.

  Indeed, nothing much seems to have changed in the village of Audresselles in several decades. Fish are caught by hand from flobards, the traditional flat-bottomed boats that have been used since time immemorial in this area. Tractors pull the boats up on to the sandy beaches and the bounty is sold direct from the homes of the locals. Madame Baillet sells the fish from the garage of her house at rue Gustave Danquin, brought in fresh each day by her sons Stéphane and François. She tells customers how proud she is to be a part of this tradition, and is typical of the people that live and work here.

  The annual Fête du Crabe is held in honour, of course, of the crab, which is plentiful in these parts. Fishermen and women wade out into rock pools via a Jurassic-looking natural breakwater formed of immense boulders. Carrying crates to put their catch in, they return to the village with fresh shellfish to sell to visitors, who arrive here for a fabulous lunch and to enjoy the fête.

  Bands play, there is bagpipe music, majorettes and sea shanties. Local folk-dancing group Les Bretons de Dunkerque perform on stage to huge applause and I always think how warm they must be in their heavy, dark costumes, the gold brocade glinting as they whirl around.

  There is a lot to enjoy but it’s the crab that hogs the limelight. Served with freshly baked bread, it is simple but delicious.

  Take time to explore this beautiful coastline and you’ll discover ancient forts and Second World War bunkers and museums. Climb the Colonne de la Grande Armée in Wimille, near Boulogne – a fifty-metre tower erected in honour of Napoleon on the spot where he issued the first Légion d’honneur medals on 16 August 1804, and where almost two thousand years earlier Julius Caesar planned his invasion of Britain. The countryside here is delightful, a mosaic of colours against the backdrop of the English Channel. Tiny towns with artisan boulangeries and charcuteries tempt you to stop and discover the local specialities and stay to enjoy the peace and tranquillity.

  On the last Sunday in August the town of Le Touquet Paris-Plage holds its annual flea market. We sat at the little Café Le Copo listening to the band from neighbouring resort Berck-sur-Mer. Me, Mark and our friend Gary.

  This trendy seaside resort in northern France is the secret ‘get away from it all’ destination of Parisians as well as Brits in the know. At less than an hour’s drive from Calais it offers the chance for a perfect break all year round, with its long golden sandy beaches and pretty Belle Epoque villas, gourmet shops, fabulous restaurants, great golf courses, horse riding, tennis – I could go on and on. For a small seaside resort, Le Touquet packs a big punch.

  I don’t need any excuses to visit Le Touquet, I adore its retro style – from the listed historic covered market place to the glorious early twentieth-century villas, the town hall and hotels. The whole town is like one great homage to art deco and hints at its hedonistic past as the playground of choice for the wealthy and famous in the first half of the twentieth century. Noël Coward, Marlene Dietrich, P. G. Wodehouse, Winston Churchill – they all loved this little town – much for the same reason I love it today. It has class.

  So, there we were, the band playing ‘Peter Gunn’ (think Blues Brothers). It was overcast, the first time in weeks after a good long summer, but everyone was smiling and happy.

  Mamans stopped with babies in pushchairs to listen to the band, two little girls with braided hair were dancing in the pedestrianized road, and oldies were tapping their feet, arms crossed. Gary pointed out that the cool dude playing the tuba was only using one hand and indeed he was – it was that sort of band.

  We ordered three grands crèmes. I always hope to have American-style big cups of coffee but, as often happens, it was a miniature strong espresso, in a big cup. At least there was an entire day for my eyes to be wide open after this hit.

  An old lady, tiny and crooked, ambled past with a basket and a baguette, waiters wandered in and out of the tables and chairs that spilled out of Le Copo on to the pavement. Fashionable Parisians, tanned from
a month at their impossibly posh and stylish second homes in the north, sat and enjoyed the last of the summer before La Rentrée (the return to normal … work, Paris), the men wearing leather hats, pink jumpers tied jauntily round their shoulders, the ladies wearing Hermès scarves and carrying chic shopping bags.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Gary, ‘living in northern France is like living in Trumpton.’

  I know what he meant. Trumpton is an imaginary town that featured in a children’s programme in the UK, where the town hall clock told the time ‘steadily, sensibly; never too quickly, never too slowly’ – the perfect town, the one that fired children’s imaginations.

  A man walked by; he had a rolled-up carpet tucked under one arm and balanced on top of the plaster of Paris that covered his other arm. We were reminded why we were there and set off to look for something unique with a bit of history.

  Since this town is such an art deco utopia I hoped to find something appropriate and I wasn’t disappointed as, almost immediately, I found an immaculate 1930s toaster and then a silver art deco desk calendar – in perfect condition and just a few euros each.

  We browsed and bargained and bought until lunchtime and decided on a whim to go to the café Le Fireman. Just off the main high street, this place is not touristy – it’s authentic and very friendly. The waiters wear long red aprons, and call out orders to the bar staff while balancing their trays precariously and with style. It seemed we were not the only ones looking for the real deal, as the place was buzzing with glamorous blondes and tanned gents quaffing pre-lunch apéritifs.