One whole month!

Just a little `progress` report and a comment on the `service` I received from a famous chain of DIY shops. I won`t reveal the name but I shall  be going back there SELDOM!
  To set the scene, just over a month ago, a near lightning strike knocked out our phone and also our hot water heater. Axa sent us a claim form and will consider when the bills are to hand. An electrician friend established that the heating element in the boiler had been burnt out and a replacement would be needed.
  We returned to the branch where we had bought our heater and asked for a replacement element. Of course nothing could be done without full details of the serial nos etc. -- first line of defence to prevent constructive action chez a retailer! With some difficulty ( the cylinder is in a built-in cupboard) I copied all the figures on the spec. panel, and the résponsable assured me he would order the part and ring me. Nothing heard for a week, I rang to check Nothing yet, awaiting response to his order. He would phone etc Six calls later the sad monthly anniversary has arrived. You CAN keep clean using kettles of hot water, but it is neither convenient or comfortable... A final call found the chief on leave(?) but he had left a note with his deputy to say the serial nos. were insufficient did we have any others? I informed the deputy that we were tired of having no hot water and had decided to replace the entire cylinder. I then cut off his eager enquiries by saying that hell would freeze over before I bought it, or anything from SELDOM.
  It is not so much the inability to replace the missing part that galls me but the lack of urgency or even competence. If he had rung back in say a week I might well have considered replacing the unit at his shop. But I have NEVER had a call back in these circumstances, and an order for a chainsaw bar from a local branch of the same store has also been outstanding some months. I would advise all my readers to avoid these stores, who don`t seem to have heard of the words after-sales service. If you can`t decipher the name of the store from my little riddle I would be delighted to clarify,
  This lack of consideration reminds me of a funny story I read in our excellent local free magazine, `The Tournesol.`  A householder was overrun with mice. He called in the local pest-control operative who arranged the loan of a cat for a period. The cat did the trick, in no time there was not a mouse to be seen. The householder was so pleased he asked to keep the cat and this was agreed for a price. A few weeks later the mice were as bad as ever and he called the pest control chap.  `Well, you see, M`sieur, it`s the cat.... Now he`s on the permanent staff....   Enough said?

    I feel better now. Bye for now.

Cévennes holiday

Before I leave the subject of our recent holiday in the Cévennes region ( Don`t want to bore you to death ) let me add the two impressions that struck me most forcibly. The first is the form of the hills. Though very high, up to 1200 metres, they were much more rounded than the peaks in the Pyrenees near Argelès to which we are more accustomed. They reminded me more of Dartmoor on a more heroic scale, with no peaks as such, just occasional outcrops of rock protruding from the wooded hills.

The second impression is the mania of the inhabitants to erect their houses on the most unsuitable sites imaginable. Not for them a house in the valley next to a main road ( well some did of course ) But some stiff-necked former inhabitants decided to vie with each other to find sites on the tallest rock around Like this pic below. Others built their town at the bottom of a hole in the ground a kilometre in depth, as at Navacelles (see pic on the left ) with access by two frighteningly steep roads winding down the sides of the abyss. I have to admit the result is highly picturesque, but the mind boggles at the effort involved. Just think of the effort required to carry up materials or to dig out the corniches for the access roads!
Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that there just isn`t much flat land to be had, and that land is more urgently required for farming.

 In any event, the result is a landscape most pleasing to the eye, without the benefit of any town planning or architects` drawings!

   Bye for now, time for breakfast.

Cirque de Navacelles

Another stunning site we visited not too far from our Martian base was the Cirque de Navacelles. Here the little river Vis, over many millions of years has cut a canyon a thousand feet deep into the limestone causse. Not content with this, it has eroded a circular meander, then cut across the neck of this to leave a huge basin with a hump of rock in the middle  of an ox-bow lake. This latter has dried up eons ago to leave a circle of fertile ground at the bottom of the Cirque, the only cultivable land for miles around. A little town has grown up in the bowl, the only access to which is by two narrow roads making a terrifying descent or ascent to and from  the rim of the bowl. A very impressive place to visit if you`ve a good head for heights and are not scared to drive in mountain road conditions. In fact we followed two intrepid camping cars out of the depths and marvelled at their bravery, I wouldn`t have fancied driving such a vehicle on the tight hairpins leading up to the summit level. Bravery or foolhardiness who could say!  Still they escaped without damage, so must have known what they were about.

      It`s bed time so bye for now!

La Couvertoirade and the Gorge de la Dourbie

Once installed in our borrowed house on Mars and recovered from the rigours of the journey from Deux Sèvres, we were ready to explore the various attractions of the region. These were present in some profusion but we chose two for a day trip, the fortified town of La Couvertoirade and the Gorge of the Dourbie.

  La Couvertoirade is a restored fortified cité occupied by the Knights Templars and their successors the Hospitaliers from the second half of the XIIth century. As the region was somewhat turbulent with the hundred years war against the English and later the wars of Religion, the Knights created a walled inner city where the inhabitants of the surrounding larger town could seek shelter during an attack. The walled inner cité has been well restored and must look today as it did in the Middle Ages, though I expect more sanitary! There are two large fortified gates with towers either side. The narrow streets are lined with little houses all still occupied and the ground floor stables and sheep sheds have been largely taken over by little tourist-trade workshops and shops, with several restaurants. The church is worth a visit, very simple and small, perched on a craggy rock. Although based of course on the tourist industry, they do not seem to have descended to fleecing their customers and the only payment you have to make is a reasonable 3 Euros for the car park, though there are many opportunities of spending your  money if you feel inclined! There was an ancient cemetery outside the church and a modern one outside the walls, locked, I am glad to say, proving that the commercants do draw the line somewhere in entertaining their clients.

   After this interesting visit and a picnic lunch we returned to Mars via  Millau and the Dourbie Gorge. This latter was a very impressive canyon scoure out of the limestone rocks of the area by a little river. It is deep and creepy with the road running along the bottom and villages hanging on the sides from place to place.

   After a brief detour provided by the GPS which adopted a route 10 kilometers shorter but several thousand feet higher, we were glad to return to our Martian house for tea.

 I will tell you later on of our further adventures in the region. I`ll bet you can scarcely wait!

  Bye for now.
   

Mars; a bit of history

The little village of Mars, where we spent our holiday. is very small, though it does boast its own Mairie and salle de fetes. It had just 31 inhabitants in 1968 though the number had increased to 174 at the last census. It seems a thriving and go-ahead little burgh but unusually has no places of worship, either protestant or Catholic. I think I can cast some light on the above info.
  If you leave the village centre and take the mountain road leading steeply upward via some hairpin bends, you pass two other hamlets, Le Puech and Le Truel. Continuing on, you arrive at the desolate Col de Moussolé at 830 metres of elevation.
  There you will see a sad memorial to man`s inhumanity to man. A lonely column commemorates the fate of a group of Protestant worshipers, whose only crime was to be at a church service. A bit of history follows.

     In the early 1700`s Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which gave a limited freedom of worship. This enabled a severe repression of all religions apart from Catholicism, and the King`s Dragoons were involved in brutally suppressing the local Protestants. To allow them to worship as they wished, local Protestants held open-air services in wild and desolate places, such as this Col. In April 1742 such a group was surprised by the Dragoons, due to an informer. Refusing forcible reconversion to Catholicism, the men were sent to the galleys as galley slaves, and the women sent to the notorious prison called the Tour de Constance at Aigues Mortes. Here are pictures of the memorial and the ancient dolmen around which the service was being held. If you look closely, you can see a modern Protestant peering around looking for Dragoons...
   A lonelier place could scarcely be imagined, they must surely have thought themselves in security. However, the local Protestant group caught up with the informer and invited him to dig his own grave....
    How lucky we are to live in more liberal times.
    In my next blog I hope to cover a more cheerful outing.

  Bye for now!
  

Holiday on Mars.

  I expect the more quick-witted of my readers will have worked out that we did not pass our week`s holiday on the planet pictured to the right, but in the village with the same name situated in the Gard near Le Vigan and Nîmes. That is not to say that we didn`t spend an out-of-this-world time. The little village of Mars is absolutely charming and I can thoroughly recommend a stay there to anyone who likes peaceful, mountain scenery. The houses straggle up the mountain valleys from about 300 metres to some 800 metres of elevation, and it`s not for people who like walking on the flat!

We were very lucky in that a friend had lent us her old family home to spend a week. The only problem was that she was very vague about the address or how to find the house. All we knew was that it was in Mars and that it had a terrace.
We had to pick up the keys from a café in a village in the valley. This was a problem in itself as the sat-nav tried to take us, not to the main road passing below where the cafe is, but to the village centre, served by a mule track, blocked in turn by a crane lorry loading tiles onto a roof. Below is a pic taken from a distance of the surroundings! We managed to turn round on a table cloth and found the cafe in the valley with the aid of the artisans on the crane-lorry. We then had the keys, still no address but continued hopefully to Mars. We tried the keys in a couple of likely looking doors with no result, (perhaps luckily!) We then did what we should have done earlier and asked the Maire. He was helpful, and we found that the house was not in Mars at all, but in a little satelite village forming part of the commune.
At last we were able to locate the missing house at the top of a flight of stone steps. Our keys opened a front door leading off the terrace and we were in, We had a bed for the night! It had been a long day and I reflected at times that it would have been almost easier to reach the red planet...

  Still, it was worth the effort. The house was charming though slightly primitive, a bit like ours at Mort Limouzin, I suppose. It seemed like the family had got married, moved away but left the family home fully furnished and equipped as if they had popped out for the day. The weather was hot and dry all week, and we soon got used to sitting on the terrace for all our meals. I am an early riser and to see the dawn breaking over the valley with all Mars spread out below was a daily delight.

In my next blog, I`ll tell you about some of the fascinating and dramatic places we visited from our new base. Don`t go away, watch this space!

  Bye for now.

Red planet, little green men...

Well, we`re safely back. Those of you who wait impatiently for the latest edition of the Ark(  both of you ) will have noticed we have been on holiday for the last week. I thought it best not to publicise on line in advance. But now we`re back I can let the world know the momentous news--- our holiday destination was none other than Mars!
  Yes indeed the Ark has undertaken a trip that all others have feared and have pioneered the advent of interplanetary tourism. We have spent the last week sampling the delights and new sensations that this unique destination can provide.
  Now I realise that you may find this difficult to believe and you may even go so far as to accuse me of deliberate untruths. You may well say that the trip to Mars takes some eight months at the speeds that space-craft can attain. However the engines of the Ark, working on a new principle, have reduced the transit time to a matter of hours. If NASA would like to write a request on the back of a suitably large cheque, I will gladly tell them how they can save millions.
   But no, I assure you that what I have said is the exact and literal truth.  Still dubious?  Well I will provide photographic evidence of my bona fides.

Here, for example is a typical Martian sunrise.

The type of rock formations often seen on the Red Planet

  And finally, Mrs. Noah  in front of the entry-sign of the Martian settlement. Look into my eyes, would I tell a lie?


 Well, no time for more now. I`ll tell you more soon about our truly out of this world holidays!


    Bye for now!