Maubourguet is a small village and like many small French villages there is a town centre with a some basic shops including the post office, a few pharmacies, banks, some restaurants, a couple of bakeries and other food stores. The market comes to town every Tuesday. Madame's house which was also the B&B was within walking distance of the town. There was an infrequent bus service from Maubourguet to the next biggest town centre of Tarbes which is 30 km away.
After settling in at Madame's - it was so lovely to have my own room and bathroom after all the hostelling throughtout the Camino - my first venture into the town was to visit the pharmacy. I did my best to explain my itching to the pharmacist, suggesting that perhaps I had fleas or bed bugs or some allergic reaction to the ham. As far as I could understand, he reassured me that the itching was caused by a seasonal insect. I was dubious about the diagnosis but went home with ointment that was supposed to fix it.
Staying with Madame who understandably was very stressed, having sold her house, turned out to be an unusual experience...In the first few hours of my arrival she had confided in me about her divorce and her children who did not visit her enough. She told me about how she had come to set up her B&B and how she now wanted to do that somewhere closer to Paris. I had come prepared to work hard in her B&B, helping to care for her guests and hopefully in the process improve my French. I had not anticipated being a counsellor...
The first day was actually very pleasant. She welcomed me to her beautiful home and after we arrived from the station, we sat down to a delicious light lunch in her courtyard garden. The weather was still balmy and the autumn had not yet fully set in. As the hours passed, little by little, the expectations I had of my stay with her started to come apart. I wasn't to take any food or drink into my room, the cheese had to be stored in the pantry fridge and not the one in the kitchen but the butter was to go in the kitchen fridge and not the other, the crumbs had to be emptied out of the toaster after each use, she couldn't afford to feed me lunch so I should buy my own ingredients to make my lunches (as it became apparent, the rest of my meals consisted of reheated frozen food so she could empty her fridge out), I wasn't to come into the main house until late morning (my room had its own entrance) because she was busy and didn't want to be disturbed. And the stories continued about her ex-husband and her children who were hurtful and disappointing and who did not want to visit.....
In and amongst Madame's idiosyncrasies, there were moments of fun and delight - I had swims in the swimming pool that was set in a garden of lavender and cosmos. We went to the market to buy groceries and the French markets are real produce markets and a way of life. The French have their own chains of supermarkets which all appear to be thriving and yet the market culture is still strong and one can find them throughout the country. I helped Madame prepare meals for her final guests. We made a dish which consisted of a whole leg of lamb placed inside a pain de campagne with vegetables and olives and baked in the oven. It was like making a stuffed pumpkin but out of bread - we cut a lid off the top, scraped out the bread, and then placed the lamb and the vegetables and tied the whole thing up with some string. It looked quite spectacular. The only problem was the whole construction was too big for the oven and the door had to be forced shut. I also had time to write and reflect on my Camino. It was a restful time for the first few days until it became evident that I couldn't keep this up for two and a half weeks...
And I had no transport except the limited bus service to Tarbes, 30 km away, the nearest airport was Aéroport de Tarbes Lourdes Pyrénées and even further away....I suppose I could have walked and continued my pilgrimage... but by now, I had all of my luggage with me and not just my pack.
No comments:
Post a Comment