Politically Correct

I’ve just spent one of my regular weeks in the UK, visiting family, friends and Marks and Spencer.  It was the week leading up to the European elections so naturally there was much discussion in the media about Brexit and how strange/stupid it was that Britain was still in the position to have to elect EMPs.  All of this (as usual) went a bit over my head as being a permanent French resident apart from having the final document, I seem to have no voting rights in any country.  Or so I thought…

I returned home to find a Voting Card and a large envelope full of leaflets outlining the manifestos (or manifestiii?) for about 27 different parties all pleading with me to vote for them!  To be honest I wasn’t particularly interested but the voting card says ‘To Vote is a Right, and also a Civic Duty” so I thought I would have a bit of a read.

In the ‘olden days’ it was much easier – you had the 2 or 3 major parties and the Monster Raving Loony Party for whom you voted if you wanted to prove a point.  Among all my leaflets it was hard to see which were the ‘Loony’ parties and which were the ‘normal’ ones, but I finally made a choice and went off to the polling station.

Access to the hall was difficult as this is a small village and the entrance was blocked by what seemed to be the entire population exchanging greetings and kisses.  Unlike the UK system where you are given a voting slip and disappear discretely behind a curtain to tick a box, in France you are given a small brown envelope and are directed towards a table with all the leaflets from all the parties (including some new ones I hadn’t even seen before).  You then take your chosen leaflet into the ‘booth’, fold it up and put it in the little envelope.  Everybody in the hall can therefore see who you are voting for – but I’m guessing that some of the more secretive voters had taken several leaflets as a kind of ‘smokescreen’ as the bin in the booth was full of screwed up documents.  The Green Party would be furious at the waste of paper!  The Mayor himself then signs your voting card and off you go.

 I see this morning that Marine Le Pen’s party has won and I can assure you this was not my fault.

A friend in need - is a pain in the neck!

Nearly all the tourist information and publicity for this region talks about the Med and Mountain aspect – the fact that the Mediterranean sea is just a 2 hour drive from the ski-slopes of the Pyrénées.  The most adventurous of tourists could be skiing in the morning and then swimming in the Mediterranean in the afternoon – but probably in full ski-gear as the water is pretty cold in winter.   I can’t claim to have done that but here are a couple of photos taken just 24 hours apart:

On Saturday we took the dogs up the mountain to play in the snow!  The temperature when we set off was 15°– and just 1° when we arrived at Les Angles.  The dogs were having such a great time that they didn’t even notice a herd of wild deer crossing the path just 100 metres in front of us – and yes I did manage to take a picture but there is no point publishing it as they just look like rocks in the distance.  But they were definitely real deer!  We also saw 3 eagles flying slowly just over our car.  A fantastic day out – also helped by a delicious lunch in front of a warm fire at l’Ermitage (just before Font Romeu).

This next picture is taken the following day – Sunday lunch at the port of St Cyprien.  20° of sunshine.  T-shirt weather.  Incredible to look back at the snow-capped mountain in the distance and remember that we were there just the day before, wrapped up in coats, hats, gloves etc.

But the main purpose of this blog-post, apart from boasting about what a great place this is to live, was to give credit to an excellent friend of ours.  Halfway through our snowy walk we found a children’s park and spent some ‘silly time’ playing on the swings.  Then we got back to the car to discover that the keys had dropped out of somebody’s pocket – and I am here to tell you that it wasn’t me!  Luckily we had left the car unlocked (not many car-thieves in the middle of nowhere) so while the guilty party retraced his steps in an attempt to find the keys in ankle-deep snow, I sat in the car with the dogs, quietly panicking and going through the options:  a) He finds the keys and we drive home, b) We walk miles to find the main road and hope to see a bus/car/taxi to take us back home, c) We spend the night in the car and they find our frozen bodies the next morning, or d) Phone a friend.  I chose Option D and rang our ‘closest’ friend at the time – Robert who lives 1 hour away.  What a hero he is – when he had stopped laughing he said he would set off immediately.  Luckily for everybody, Option A miraculously happened and I was able to ring Robert and try to convince him that we hadn't had a problem, nobody had been silly enough to lose the keys and that it was just a test of his friendship – which he he had passed with flying colours!