Country Road…

…take me home to the place I belong. 

Being a child of the 70s, I am doomed to have John Denver songs popping up when I least expect them. This is a recap of the other excursions I took while I still had Camille the rental car, and during which I confirmed I would be best served by staying here and making the town of Moulins my home for now. The French countryside is outstanding, but I think it is something one has to ease into if not French in the first place. And besides, no place has had people as friendly as the people I’ve interacted with in Moulins, which at this point is quite a few. I’ve toured four apartments, set up a cell phone carrier, tried to open a bank account, done a lot of shopping and dining and dealt with bus drivers and car rental offices, and nobody has made me feel unwelcome. Well, I did get into a tiff with one bus driver, but the town is so small that a couple of days later I had him again, and he was especially kind, in a rough sort of way.

I’d been west of town, and south of town, so decided to go north, or rather northwest. My endpoint was Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, just over in the department of Cher.

The road along the Allier north from Moulins is nice, lots of pastures full of gorgeous blond Charolais cattle. They don’t stand out so white on the deep green fields like they did in April, because the fields are turning tawny green.

In Châteauneuf, it was obvious the town is dead. The pretty little islands in the center of town were not quite as pretty as photos online because the canals and river are already quite low. I was thirsty and had badly needed a ladies room, so what to do? The one restaurant and bakery were closed, because Sunday afternoon. So it was just the one bar-tabac.

It almost looked closed from outside, but no. Inside, the very nice bartender directed me to the back, that opened onto a very small stone courtyard surrounded on all sides by the high sides of adjacent buildings. There was a table to one side that was in front of an alcove of stone, that had water seeping into it.  Maybe it was once a sort of refrigeration. A steady, cool air wafted from it, and it was better than air conditioning.

The locals back there were having a nice time, smoking and drinking. One guy and one old woman seemed pretty drunk, and eventually they got in a tiff, in which I heard some classic swearing. Then they got over it.

A man who looked like he spent his life sitting and chain smoking in front of a screen sat more quietly with the other two, chain smoking. His pale, almost grey skin, and really brown, crooked teeth were unfortunate, because he had nice big gentle eyes and fine, arching eyebrows. And eventually, I guess having heard me speak, he turned and said something to me in English. Now of course this happens, but doesn’t mean they really speak it. But he really did. 

He was back after living in New Zealand for thirty years, working in IT. (I was right about his main activity). His parents were getting old, so he bought a house in that little town. But he said he’ll return to New Zealand. He said his whole retirement program is there.

So the afternoon passed with me drinking wine, and a bottle of water, and getting a cigarette from the bartender. Eventually English and French were being spoken, out of consideration for the drunk old woman, mostly, and he asked me questions about the States, and my experiences. He offered to buy me another drink and I said no, I’m driving home, so he bought me an iced tea. He said his name is Paul. Poor guy. I bet he has an ex-wife and kids in New Zealand who don’t like him very much. Long-time ex-pats I’ve known seem to end up not knowing where home really is, after they start to get old.

I had decided the day before to give up on going to bed at my usual time, since it wasn’t fully dark here until after 11:00, and planned to drive home through the bocage again, late, to see if I could find a vantage point for a good photograph. It is a difficult area to really capture, because it is the continual unrolling of it, hill after hill, that makes it feel special, so one shot can’t get it. 

First we drove through the charming Forest of Tronçais, glimpsing a white fishing lodge and trail heads leading into the forest of tall oaks and pines. At the forest’s edge I got out and got a picture of Camille the Peugeot.

 

A few days later I took a little road trip southeast of town, to Jaligny-sur-Besbre, stopping at Neuilly-le-Réal about halfway. At the small plaza in Neuilly, I found the only parking spot, while women in a car stared at me. As I walked into a store for a bottle of water, more and more women showed up. They were just standing about, like sentinels or drug dealers waiting for a pick-up. By the time I got back in my car, there were even more, and they all just kind of stared at me, and not in a terribly friendly way. There was no other sign of life in town. As I drove out of the square, I saw some more women, and rolled down my window and asked them what was happening. A very nicely dressed, stylish and yes, friendly woman said that school was out. Oh, I said, and this is all the mamans picking them up. She said yes, with a nice smile. It seemed like serious business. Nobody wearing shorts, just short summer dresses. And no fathers. I am definitely in a more conservative part of France.

Another ten minutes or so down the road and I was at Jaligny-sur-Besbre, another of many, many little towns all over France that never get any press. It was kind of amazing. Like Brigadoon. Next to a small river in a gentle, wide bowl of beautiful farmland. And a stout, turreted fairytale castle right on the edge of the small village. The pastures full of contented golden cattle came right up to the edge of the road in front of the castle. There were nice old buildings and of course a war memorial. They lost a lot of men in WWI, but the population was probably higher then. There were a fair number of ornate 19th century buildings, mostly abandoned. I did see schoolkids though, so there is life. There was one small grocery store, and getting water, I happened to notice they only had canned milk, no fresh.

I asked the woman at the counter if they had a farmer’s market.

No, no they didn’t.

Really?

Really.

Can you buy fresh, raw milk from someone local?

No.

Anything?

No.

Ok, thanks.

Turns out, she was lying. I found a notice for their farmer’s market. They do NOT want outsiders. Good for them.

I’ve driven a little in Spain, and England, and Switzerland, but nowhere have I seen the shocking number of castles that you see in France. It got to the point where it was funny, because no matter how small the backroads you choose (and they get very small), you will come around a corner or pop over a hill and there will be a castle. Often it will just be looking out its empty windows at the domain it was once the center of. I’m not counting manor houses in this category, either. Some are rather modest, with sometimes only one turret. Many are abandoned, but many are still part of farms and homes. I read that there are 50,000 castles in the country, all told. The one in Jaligny seemed unoccupied, though not seriously neglected.

There was no other village visible in this little nook on the small river Besbre, that had at least two weeping willows hanging over its banks. 

So I have learned a little about the landscapes of the Allier department that surround Moulins. The Bocage Bourbonnais, the Sologne Bourbonnais, the Val de Sioule, the Val de Cher, and of course the Val d’Allier, where I am. It is all rather homey and feels somewhat overlooked by the online influencers desperately trying to make something happen in real estate.

Yesterday I got the keys to the little house that I will make a home in for the next year. It was a carriage house or something behind the much larger house and high stone wall that encloses the garden, between the old town center and the riverbank trails. It is a bit irregular, and the very elderly woman named Marie-Hélène who owns it might be too. She informed me that she does a simple contract and isn’t concerned about the enormous amount of paperwork that is involved in the usual French lease agreement. I showed her my carefully assembled dossier locataire, and she laughed and said she trusted her gut, and didn’t look at it. 

I will be moving in this Sunday, in three days, and will pay her cash at that time. 

In the meantime I’ve been invited for wine on the patio a couple of times with Sabrina and her neighbors and friends, and again to meet two more of her daughters visiting from Lyon and Paris. It was really very pleasant. I hope we stay in touch.