Missing the bus

I missed the bus the other day by a whisker. It was waiting at the bus stop across the road at the top of our street but the crossing lights were against me. I waved but to no avail. The bus must meet its target times. UK, take note.

I say “missed”. I was actually in good time for the bus I thought I was going to catch. This is because there are two timetables in this part of France - one for weekdays in during the “Periode Scolaire” and the other for Saturdays and school holidays. I was mistaken in assuming that because all the children I know at the Church in Luxembourg are already cooling their heels in preparation for Easter, and those who go to school in Belgium have nearly finished their Easter break, the schools here in France would also have broken up. How is a girl to know?  There are only so many timetables I can hold in my head at one time, let alone cross boundary variations.

Be that as it may, I didn’t fancy hanging about for another half an hour nor did it seem worth my while walking back to the chateau. I thought that, if I was smartish, I could nip down the road and catch the bus further on as it looped round the town to pick up other shoppers for the supermarket complex. So I walked down Mont Saint Martin’s steep narrow main street, where I haven’t been since the heavy ice and snow at the beginning of the year. There was a surprising amount of traffic, with drivers jostling for places to park by the side of the road. But where do they all go? I could see that only the florist and the chemists were open. There are plenty of shop front windows along this road, but like the “Poterie Maeva”, they are now either whitewashed and advertised for sale, or covered with net curtains and made into dwellings. The couscous restaurant at the bottom of the hill near the former railway station is still carrying out its renovations, the friterie next door is not set up for mass catering on this scale and Snack Antalya was not yet open as it was only 10:30. There was no evidence of any mobbing of either the chemist or the florist.  So I can only assume that everyone was making their way either to the hospital or the old people’s home that is attached to it. Like most hospitals, it suffers from insufficient and expensive parking and so my guess is that the frantic driving into recently the vacated positions along the high street was to avoid charges and still be within staggering distance of the doctor.

I very much wish it were different. I accept that the supermarket at the top of one of the hills and its smart complex of stores represent the march of progress and, more to the point, attracted valuable funding to an area so hard hit when the steel world collapsed,  but I regret the loss of the domestic community. Mont Saint Martin was evidently a thriving little town. I walked past large villas in the high street with their many gables, massive wooden shutters and elaborate brick work. I almost expected to go round the corner and see the sea. There is a small terrace on the corner where I imagine a café once put out its tables and chairs to catch the sun and to watch the world go by. A shop now up for sale used to promise books, gifts and flowers, presumably once successful because of its proximity to the hospital. I yearn for the boulangerie, epicerie and charcuterie. But they are gone, all centralised in the plastic fantastic world of international supermarkets, their former presence now only evident in the faded paint on lintel beams.

 I found the bus stop, and waited another half hour for a bus. An elderly gentleman clutching a large white envelope nodded at me, we exchanged bonjours and he inspected the timetable. I moved along the seat and he joined me. He told me his story, starting with the fact that he had an “infiltration” for screening, had been on the “scannaire” and was feeling pretty ropey. I expressed the hope that he would be able to rest that afternoon, and he assured me that his wife had been warned. Did he live locally? Yes, in a nearby suburb.  He is 80 years old, you know. His son lives in Luxembourg, his other son is handicapped and his daughter is 52. He has 8 grandchildren I am sure I have had this conversation on the bus from

Broad Lane

in Coventry. And on the train to London. And probably on a dolmush in Turkey.

When the bus came, it set off, completely ignoring the turning towards the supermarket. It is a circular bus route and I was on the wrong side. Too proud to get off at the next stop and cross over, I sat tight, went the full circle and went past the original bus stop I had failed at an hour earlier. But I enjoyed the tour of the towns with the lilac and flowering cherry in bloom and urban gardens bursting with this years’ bright orange tulips.

A peculiar anomaly this year is the swirling of pollen. We all thought we were seeing spots before our eyes, or imagining a fuzzy horizon. Too many Cremants perhaps.  Bu this year, it is exceptional. The cars are covered in the yellow dust and the house is full of seed heads, which irritatingly enough, have gathered in little webby pockets giving the lie to my premise that I am constantly dusting and polishing.

Dish of the week: Asparagus is now in and, encouraged by a meal in a brasserie in Belgium last week, I consulted Mrs David again. She was not very encouraging, and somewhat dismissive of white asparagus, of which there is a lot in the supermarkets at the moment. Undeterred, I boiled the fat white stems for a half an hour, and served it with home made mayonnaise and wrapped in Lorraine ham. Verdict: quite nice. Wait, as Mrs David suggests, for the tender green stems.