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April 14 Friday Bicycle touring France Draguignan France Petit dejeneur was grand! Toast, runny cheese, honey, jam, vanilla-pear tea, muslei, milk, orange juice. That's another thing that I like about the French -- they don't eat much ... so I get to eat more. They like to linger over their meals. Lunch break is two hours. And no banks or stores are open to rush around doing errands at lunch hour, like I do back home in North America. They do what they should be doing at lunch -- eating -- and joking, and talking, with friends. It's an amazing eye-opener for me, someone who had been so used to gobbling lunch as quickly as possible and heading off to do something else. We drove downtown with Madeleine to visit Gilbert at work. Madeleine parked right in front of a fountain. It is illegal, but she joked that Gilbert could fix it if she got a ticket. We returned to find that she didn't get ticketed this time, but she has twice already, she tells us with a devilish laugh. We went to Madeleine's work canteen for lunch. Fish, today. It is Good Friday. I'm somewhat surprised to find that nothing is closed today. Again, like at Christmas time, I find this strange for a country that is reportedly 90 percent Catholic. France seems to have its share of labour problems. The mail is on strike. The electric workers are on strike. The trains, planes, and banks are also on strike. I've never heard of such a thing, all at once, in North America -- at least for Canada and the US. An election is in two weeks. Had a fun time at dinner. Madeleine made chicken. We had a riotous time with her "alcohol tester" -- two long wires attached to handles; you have to pass a ball from one thimble to the other. Madeleine tells us about a blind boy of a friend of hers that she visits. He's ten years old. He feels her boobs to tell who she is. "Oh, Madeleine," he says. Sharon wants to visit. Madeleine lives on a one lane road. And I do mean, one-lane. It's not wide enough for two small French cars to pass if someone meets going up or down. Supposedly, whoever is coming up the hill has the right of way. On our way back from town in Madeleine's car, as we were going uphill, we met what Madeleine calls "the old batty woman who won't back up." After waiting for five minutes, Madeleine finally gave in and backed down the hill so the vehicles could pass by one another. Madeleine told us an entertaining story about the "won't back up" woman. A few months ago this similar situation occurred when a young woman was going up and she met the old batty woman who was going down. The old woman wouldn't back up. The young woman, with the right of way, finally abandoned her car, leaving it blocking the one lane road. She just got out of her car and walked to her house. Later though, in what may be an example of negative reinforcement, she backed down. |
