Home Alone

Wednesday, August5 through Sunday, August 9, 2009

Bill and Joan are probably in Caen boarding the ferry to England by the time Bernie and I awake on Wednesday.

Now we get to know our cats. Sunshine, a ginger cat (like Hermione’s in Harry Potter) is fourteen and does not move unnecessarily, except to our laps - a sweet, gentle kitty. Tinks is mostly white with some grey, and she is a grumpy little old lady, hissing and fussing, even with her offspring, Tuppence. Tuppence, gray with faint stripes, is full of life and full of mischief, pouncing, roaring up the stairs, standing on my chest in the morning and patting my face with his paw. Diablo and Duchess are brother and sister and we can’t tell which is which at first (unless we turn them upside down). We finally decide Diablo, the boy, is a little sleeker. One of them often does not show up regularly for meals, we’ve been told.

They are easygoing cats, going in and out the cat door as they wish, sunning themselves in the courtyard, popping up in the garden when we check the raspberries or tomatoes or hang laundry on the line.

We also have a neighbor cat who comes to be fed. Though Joan, and later I try to keep him separated from “our” cats because he chases Duchess, he wanders in through the cat door on occasion.

Joan asked me to hang a load of laundry on the line, and we have our own clothes to wash. Folks here use the dishwasher and the washer at night, after 10:30, when electricity rates are lower. The dishwasher timer is set; whenever you want to run it just put the detergent in and push ON. It starts in the middle of the night, and voila, clean dishes when you wake up. The washer allows you to choose how many hours’ delay you want before it comes on.

Bernie is alarmed when he sees I’m sweeping and cleaning counters. “You’re not going to spend your time here cleaning, are you?” he says. I assure him I’m not. Putting things in order is just my way of settling in.

We move from the upstairs bedroom to the first floor, as Joan suggested. We look closely at the garden, plan a meal. and take a walk around the village.

The library is just up the street, beside a wheat field. An American company has a plant here, S.A.M.E.X - something to do with extruding plastic, I think. I hope they employ the villagers.

We have a church, but services are rarely held here. We’re on a circuit, and there are several villages involved.

Thursday we walk to the sunflower field just around the corner of the main street and down the road, but today is overcast and the sunflowers, instead of lifting their perky little heads up, are drooping - no pictures of sunflowers today.

Rennie, an elderly man who helps Joan and Bill with gardening, meets me in the street. He has his dog with him and the dog, by way of greeting, does a wonderful trick I’ve never seen before. He jumps straight up in the air, like a Harrier jet, not once but twice. I’m amazed and duly impressed. Rennie shakes my hand and asks me in French if everything is going well here. I tell him it is and he and his dog walk toward their house.

Bill told us about Rennie. Rennie’s French is so colloquial that Bill cannot understand him. He likes doing the gardening because it gives him something to do. I like him, and I like his dog.

The baker is supposed to stop by with bread, but we don’t see him or hear his horn. Later I’ll figure this out, but by Friday we are down to a few inches of baguette.

Bernie’s already been out on Bill’s bicycle, a mountain bike. I try Joan’s, an English bike, but she is much taller than I and I no sooner boost myself up and try to pedal than I fall off. Bernie lowers the seat for me and off I go toward Monce-en-Saosnois, 2 kilometers away. Now I need air in the tires, however, and though I hold steady as two cars pass me - and believe me that takes steady nerves because so many French drivers seem to be playing an eternal game of chicken - I pull off into the first farm lane I see, launch my front brake instead of my back one but still manage to get off the bike without that middle bar breaking my pelvis.

I walk the bike out into the road and after two tries (this thing is still very high for me) I’m rolling again. I’m sooo thankful we don’t get too much traffic.

As I near the house I see Bernie on the bike riding toward me. I’m thinking that he’s been for a long ride, since I didn’t see him when I came out of the house to try the bike after he’d lowered the seat. Wrong.
Just as he finished working on my bike, Marie-Louise, our very nice next-door neighbor came into the courtyard saying “tomber, tomber, tomber.: Her husband, we know, had a stroke and is unable to move one side of his body. He has fallen out of his wheelchair, and Marie-Louise needs help. Bernie and Marie-Louise rush back to her house, where her husband, all 250-plus pounds of him, is lying on the kitchen floor.

A cabinet door, torn off by the wheelchair, is beside him.

Her husband worked for an international airline and traveled frequently. Before he became ill he spoke fluent English. Now, as he lays helplessly on his side on the tiles, he looks up at Bernie, and in perfect English says, “Good morning.”

Bernie cannot lift him into his wheelchair alone, so Marie-Louise calls another neighbor and the two of them get the poor man into the chair.

While all this is going on, Bernie tells me, Marie-Louise is continually heaping a lot of very angry French on her husband.

The cause of the spill is apparent to Bernie - the foot rests and stops on the bottom are missing. Marie-Louise gets them and Bernie attaches them.

Later I check with Marie-Louise about his condition. Apparently he’s fine.

On Saturday we accomplish two things. On a walk to St. Remy des Monts, 1-½ kilometers in the opposite direction from Monce-Saosnois we arrive at the bakery before it closes and buy bread. Bernie also eats the best chocolate éclair he’s ever had.

Back at the house I get online and book a car for us to pick up Monday in Le Mans. We love walking to the nearby villages and don’t intend to give it up, but if we’re going to see Chartres, or the Normandy beaches, or the Chateaux in the Loire Valley, we need a car. As Bernie tells Mary later, it only cost one of his arms and one of my legs.

Sunday we prepare for the trip to Le Mans. One bus goes there every weekday, stopping in St. Vincent at 7:12 a.m, . We’ll walk from the bus station in Le Mans to the train station where the rental office is located. Driving in the city that first time may be tricky, but we’ll take our time and work it out.

With a plan in place, we walk to Monce-Saosnois and back. There’s a note on our door when we return. Dominique has been here, and wants us to call. The mayor of Marolles has invited us to the luncheon tomorrow, the day of the liberation commemoration We need to reply before the end of the day.

We call, and Dominique tells us the program will begin at 9:30 and she will pick us up to be there then, or if we prefer to go later, she’ll come anytime. We explain that we’re taking the bus into Le Mans to pick up our rental car.

She won’t hear of us taking the bus. She’ll be here at 8:30 Monday morning to take us to Le Mans.