New friends and old friends

I am not by nature a solitary animal. After Derek died, I used to feel guilty about being lonely, or not guilty exactly, but just being cross with myself about not coping. Now I don't feel guilty any more, because I feel that man is by his nature a social animal, and anyway, needing to be with people some of the time is really just how I am.

The difficulty of being without a partner is that you don't have a built-in social life and company, so you need to provide it. This can involve a great deal of effort and a certain amount of juggling - you end up with a surfeit at some times and great empty spaces at others. You can hardly refuse someone on the grounds that you have too much company at that particular point in time.

Anyway, with my stay in France I knew that I had company at the beginning of the stay, and then a long period at the end when I would have a full house. But there was a period in the middle lasting three weeks when I would be largely on my own. It would necessitate either self sufficiency, or making efforts to get to know new people, as well as renewing acquaintance with old friends.

Jim is definitely an example of the latter, someone whom I used to meet up with sometimes on my own but mostly with other people. He belonged to a group of friends who originally met through a shared interest in art and literature and music; I was introduced to the circle by someone I met who lives in Clapham, a shy artist who invited me to come and see his etchings...

Jim is a fiercely intelligent physics graduate, who got into computers very early (he now does not have one), and made a lot of money, which enabled him to retire at 35. He divided his time between a flat in Hampstead (where I attended many parties in my 30s) and a large house in Wiltshire. In addition to being brilliant with computers (and with money) he is also deeply interested in all forms of spirituality and méditation, spending some time with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in India.

At a certain point he began to find the sheer busyness of life in the UK too much for him, and bought a place in France, vaguely in the area of the Loire Valley (the biggest town nearby is Angers). He now has a three-bedroomed house in a rather overgrown meadow, in a tiny hamlet (these tiny hamlets form the basis of habitation in France Profonde). The house is, according both to him and to appearances, very much a typical rustic French house, having had little done to it in all the years that Jim has lived there.

When I last met with Jim in January, I was struck by his deep spiritualité, not in the sense of adherence to a formal religion, or even belief in a particular deity, but rather the ability to draw on deep resources within himself to heal past and present hurts.

I don't doubt his sincerity but I am not sure he is a model to follow - self sufficiency sometimes seems to bleed into insensitivity to others' needs, such as hunger after a long journey, and need for lunch. Anyway, judge not as they say...

I also spent a lovely day in Rennes, having lunch and visiting the art gallery, which has an interesting collection which includes some impressionists and post-impressionists. I was with Mireille, whom I had met on the choral course.

On Monday, I drove my little 'chocolate box' car down to Rennes airport to return it, and then got a taxi (paid for by the AA) to the garage which was repairing my car - which actually had just repaired it, improving on the estimated completion by about 10 days. It was a great relief to get my own car back, even though I still feel nervous behind the wheel. I think I just don't get on with gears.

On Tuesday, I went to see Pam and Bernard Juby, friends of Julie's, who also live in the Loire Valley area, but further to the west than Jim, near the town of Pouance. They love livng in Francd for nearly 19 years, and has no désire to go back to England, although they are downsizing to a smaller house in Pouance.

The Loire comprises a huge area, most of which is nowhere near the famous parts, ie Saumur, Angers, Chambourd etc. You are in an area of mainly agricultural land, with woods and the odd lake, not too dissimlar to where I am. It is pleasant, but not remarkable.

Pam, however, has a remarkable achievement in managing, as a bénévole (volunteer) the local branch library in Armaille: she manages the other volunteers, and has been responsible for collecting and cataloguing. We in the UK, at least in Buckinghamshire, are going down the volunteer route so we could well study this model as a way forward.

At the suggestion of my friend John Charles, I went along to sing at the festival of the Assumption at Pontmain, one of the Virgin's several destinations in 19th century Fran ce. The story is that in 1871, in the middle of the Franco Prussian war, with Prussian troupe storming west, and during a bitterly cold winter, the Virgin appeared to several children with a message of reassurance.

The result was the construction of a large basilica, with stained glass in all different shades of blue, and the establishment of Pontmain as a centre of pilgrimage. The mass was very well attended; it was a big outdoor affair with the altar on the steps of the basilica, thus affording me a ringside seat for the proceedings. During the singing of the Taize Magnificat, sung as a round, the congregation started clapping - happy clappy Catholic style, which I found very moving. One young black priest was obviously having to keep his limbs in check, because he wanted to dance out of sheer joy! Whilst there are many ways in which religion can be harmful, to see people exhibiting genuine happiness is very life enhancing.

That day was a genuinely happy and blessed day, which ended up with John and John Charles. It just happens from time to time in life that one meets up with people with whom one knows one is going to be friends - like the Harrises whom Sandy and I met in Sicily - and John and John Charles are definitely in that category. You never seem to run out of things to talk about, or common interests or experiences.

Down to earth with a crash

Often, during very busy periods, one longs for a time when one is not at the mercy of a very exacting schedule. The choral course was a bit like that - very busy, especially if one also had a house and dogs to see to. I am not sure even if car troubles had not intervened, and I had a forced period of being dependent on others for lifts, I would have been able to keep up the pace.

Well, I found myself longing for periods of pottering, book reading, télévision watching and generally loafing about my house, with the odd potter down to the village, much in the same way that a busy working mother must find herself longing for a good night's sleep. But, thanks mostly to the car, the pleasant loafing time did not happen. For one thing it might in theory be possible to have a pleasant stroll, but having to combine exercising one's dogs with buying groceries does not constitute a potter, if one of the dogs is not easy to walk with.

Honda's idea of walks and mine are different. My idea is to take dogs who walk obendiently at my side, then as I let them off have a jolly good sniff round doing their own thing and always come back when called. Honda's idea is to pull ahead for her life's worth (she might be missing something?) and then when I put her on a long lead she charges off, this time legitimately, because I want to give her a bit of freedom, but she is still pulling on the lead.

One of the tasks I accomplished on the Monday morning was the collection of a parcel at the post officd (it only opens for two hours in the morning) which was as 'figure of 8' dog lead which ties round the dog's neck and then round the dog's nose. I was really exciteD a) to have completed and b) to have got a solution which might work. It does work in the sense that it prevents dogs pulling, but they dont like the way it covers the nose. So when I now take H for a walk, I am always having to balancd her dislikd of the Halti with my dilike of her pulling. I tried to persuade her to listen to reason, but did not get very far.

Any way, having at least got her a lead where there was a small chance she might give me a slight respite from her usual pulling, I felt a sense of achievement.

That slight triumph was short-lived - I mean not the fact that I had bought Honda a lead which solved her pulling problem, although it hasnt, but I then discovered that the insurance hadn't rung me, so I rang the insurance broker who said I should chase the AA, which I did and from whom I got little clear result. So in the end I spoke with the garage direct and persuaded them to come up with a written estimante. Thank heavens for speaking French! The next day the phoned to say they needed some special implement to check the tyres which we enventionally found our was the wheel locks, but for the moment I felt in a deep linguistic morass.

Jean Charles very kindly came to lunch to take me to Rennes airport, and I picked up a little Renault Twingo, the cheapest hire car I could find, which got me around when my car was being repaired. The garage emailed me through an estimante late Tuesday night, which I forwarded to the insurers.

Waiting for the insurers then became a nightmare, not because they took particulalry long - in fact, I think Service was the model of customer support. My friend Simon said that I should sell it off as scrap metal, and buy a new car, several of which he found. However, it would have entailed a trip back to england which would have been costly and difficult to leave the dogs when so many people o away and the kennels are full.

When they came back to me on Thursday with a settlement of over £24000, I was relieved and overjoyed and told the garage to get on with mending m car.Hsd the insurance want me to write jt off, I would have had to go back the UK to get a new one, which would have been a great hassle, although my dear friend Simon proposed several cars to me, which was a great help.

Dinan

Today was a glorious mellow summer day, and I went to Dinan. Dinan is a very famous little town in Brittany, beautifully situated on the River Rance which leads to St Malo, and just over the border into Cotes D'Amor.

It is just at that point in the geography of the river where the latter is sufficiently wide to be dramatic, and have a long bridge crossing, but not too close to the sea to have relinquished its beautiful shore-line, undulating wooded banks with that combination of deciduous and coniferous trees, which gives Brittany countryside that peculiarly satisfying geometrical outline, with a combination of curves and points. I wish I could have taken some photos, unfortunately there was no way of stopping so I have plagiarized the following picture from Wikipedia commons.

Unfortunately, the powers that be have decided to make the N176, the major route over Northern Brittany, one lane only in a crucial area which caused a huge 'bouchon' which meant that a journey of just over an hour took two hours. As I hadn't arranged cover for the dogs, that rather curtailed my time in Dinan. Also, a mental note to self was made not to travel far on a weekend in August.

Dinan is, according to the guide books and the tourist 'blather', 'well preserved' with narrow, old cobbled streets and timber-framed buildings. I won't argue with that description, except to point out that whilst the old buildings have been preserved, it has been done in a way that the town seems to be self consciously touristy, with more or less every building in the centre dedicated to some form of tourist entrapment, whether it is a restaurant, an ice cream parlour, a luxury goods shop, or a souvenir shop. The town seems to be saying, 'Look at me, I'm pretty', rather than just getting on with its business, or letting us imagine how it would have got on with its business in the past.

It that, it rather resembles the centre of St Albans, which is very upmarket, lots of boutique shops, a total contrast to Tring which is equally historic but seemingly quite unaware of the fact: the high street boasts a couple of hardware shops, a couple of dress shops (not exhorbitantly expensive) a newsagent, a stationer, several estate agents, and a funeral parlour.

As mentioned, time was limited, but I did managed to see the St Malo church, which is the epitome of the High Gothic tsyle, and which has some really fascinating stained glass windows, 19th century, depicting the life of the town. After that, needing something to eat and drink, I had some muscles in a restaurant where I saw another lady sitting on her own eating muscles, which gave me confidence.

After that a wander round the town, back to the car park, then a beautiful cross country drive through Combourg and Tremblay, feeling very happy and content to have a house in this part of the world.