Gnome Trek. Episode 1: Escape

It’s been a long long time...

Well, we’ve finally managed to get to the Pyrenees, to the very edge of what could, at a stretch, be called civilisation. At least, it used to appear civilised, but it now seems that it was but a thin veneer, a joke, a virtual reality easily broken by any passing would-be king. Maybe that explains my constant striving to get away from it, whatever 'it' is. 

However, getting away is nigh on impossible. Even here we find the dreaded broadband. It's true that the 'broadband' here might better be called ‘narrow-dribble’ but it does keep us connected. Of course, we can never truly get away from it all can we? Responsibilities are ever there, shadowing our every move. 

Still, I’ve gotta say, so far so good. That is, if you ignore the fact that the Motherer-in-law (the new 'er indoors) had her first real fall (or ‘Chute’ as they call it over here; great word) just before we left on our sojourn. Thankfully she has a few vertebrae left untouched. 

And if you ignore the cleaning that needed doing in our spider and mildew ridden Hydeaway in the Pyrenees. 

I must say I think I should be congratulated here. On choosing the right wife. She somehow manages to alter the laws of physics when cleaning and tidying. Whereas my superpower is more along the lines of the creation of chaos. 

We fit together well. I think that’s what she means when she says she can’t do without me...

Anyway, despite all of the above, we gradually developed what was close to a sense of freedom. As much as we love maman, she has effectively tied us down a little. Cough cough. 

This is the longest we’ve been away from home for four months. FOUR BLOODY MONTHS!! The previous record being three hours when I went to pick up the vehicle of our new-found freedom, a VW transporter. Possibly the pandemic has also had some little part to play.

Our van really does need a name you know, as I think we may become very dependent on her over the coming years. If we can survive the coming apocalypse engineered and aided by Trump, Cummings and Johnson. 

Hang on, stress is returning. I’m going to relax in a bath.....

......

My god! My first bath in over five months. Jesus it was good. 

And to add to our pleasure, we were just about to head off beyond the borders of 'civilisation', deeper into the Pyrenees. And our first stop was to be at Peter and Babette’s auberge! Christ, I can’t type for salivating. 

Day 2

And so we passed our first night in our camper. 

Spoiler alert: it did not go well.

Setting up the van was no problem. Bed; sorted. Canopy; sorted. Hot water; sorted. Beverages; sorted.  Security; sorted. Anti-viral missiles; sorted. All, that is, until we came to the humungously difficult task of turning the stupid lights off. 

Normally this would take the opposite approach to turning them on, wouldn’t you think? Turning them on; sorted. Turning them off....

Motor lights; off. Kitchen lights; off. Reading lights; off. Cabin lights; off. Ambient lighting.... WTF is ambient lighting? 

Whatever it is, it would in no way desist from blasting its mini-LED sun-flare emission multi-bulbs directly through our lidded corneas and into our retinas and thus onto our visual cortices. 

Ambience dislikes being turned off. 

Ambience wants to stay on. 

I tried the usual high-tech stuff like pressing on the fucking light switch, but all to no avail, despite pressing the bloody thing multiple times casting multiple foul aspersions. 

Thus we attempted to sleep in what felt like a flood-lit Millenium Stadium. Albeit slightly smaller. 

As if this were not to suffice, the local religious orders in the form of the Catholic Bleedin’ Church had decided that all their sheep needed to know the time every quarter of an hour, twenty four hours a day. Praise the Lord! 

That meant that the three nearby churches rung their sodding cloches every quarter of an hour, with the nearest and dearest doing that quaint frenchy thingy where they repeat the chimes after a couple of minutes. At midnight, most of the village must have thought that’s it was 48 o’clock. 

They kept it up all night. Very fucking quaint.

The addition of yowling cats and yapping chihuahuas was nearly irrelevant.

Nearly.

.......

The following day, which arrived after an interminably long time, led me to search for the cause of the blazing laser beam problem. 

Totally disconnecting the switch, that which would normally be considered a final solution, made sod-all difference. 

This came as something of a surprise. 

Thus I set off in search of the fuses. How difficult could that be? 

Several hours later..... 

Finally the fuse was discovered cowering timorously underneath the fridge. I ripped it out with a vengeful yank.... and the ambience became non-ambient.... we were finally free of retinal burns and could continue on our way....

Which we did.

We headed off to see various medieval villages and castle ruins. First came the village of St Bertrand-de-Comminges, 

with its overlord edifice the Basilique St Just.

This quaint village had much to offer, such as arcane queers...

Moving on...

We headed for a little known ruin called Chateau de Bramevaque

this remote spot could provide us with protection perhaps from the dreaded bells. Yes! Shelter...

or not...

The view wasn't bad though...

Having decided to try a second evening in the camper, we headed for the mountains well away from other human life, bells and chihuahuas. 

We found the perfect spot, with formidable views of valleys and mountains. 

Perfect, as I may have said.

A glass or two of wine later, I trialled the kitchen unit, cooking steak, sweet potato chips with onion and various spicy stuff. 

“Oh yes. This is good” I said. 

“Oh yes?” spake another voice. “We’ll see to that” and the skies opened, with thunder, lightning, hail, cats and various dogs. This is, after all, the Pyrenees. 

It looked like tonight would be a much better night....

Day 3. And we awake to a brand new day...

We had actually managed, beyond all expectations, to sleep. This could have been due to the extreme sleep deprivation that we were both suffering, or possibly to the lack of interrogatory torture devices, but we were both pleased with the resultant dormant states. 

I had slept like a log, although logs normally do not make a huge amount of noise during the night, so maybe you should say that I slept like a dog. Not one of those little yappy things that some dog owners mistakenly take-on ‘cos they think they look cute, then turn into miniature ugly raving lunatics, not one of those that wake you up for a pee at 4:30 in the morning, but more one of those big fat hairy things that I am more fond of, and to whom I more accurately resemble.

So, all in all, a much better night than the previous one, thus a good start to the day. 

Opening the curtains to a mountain vista certainly ups your spirit somewhat,

helping to put aside those woes of real life, such as Bori.....’ang on, I’m drifting off subject again...

My morning walk down the mountainside allowed my trusty camera to take pictures of insects small and mountains large, with a few trees in between. 

On reaching the bottom of the mountain, I was somewhat surprised to see that my return trip to the (as yet still unnamed) van involved a steep uphill climb. 

My bad.

After recovering my breath and my sanity alike, we moved onto a neighbouring peak to stop for lunch. By now the clouds were emptying themselves of their burden. The magnificent views had to be believed to be seen. (See what I did there?) There being nothing else to do, a siesta seemed like a sound plan of inaction. 

By the time we moved on, the clouds had decided to descend somewhat, transforming themselves from fluffy white stuff packed with angels and the like, into dense impenetrable thick pea-souper stuff designed to make you think that the road is over there and not over there... 

Me? I preferred the angel-packed stuff. 

Then it went from fog back to rain again, which I felt was totally unnecessary. 

You gotta love the mountains.

As a point of order here, I do love the mountains. The ever-changing scenery is so much more interesting than the more popular option; the sea. The sea has a strange tendency of being flat, wet and boring, except when it isn’t flat, in which case I, even more, do not want to be there.

Besides, Annick gets seasick stepping over a puddle. 

Other choices are available. The coast, for example offers huge possibilities in the viral transmission, skin cancer, wallet emptying department. Me? I prefer a more natural nature. Call me old-fashioned...

We stopped overnight outside our favourite restaurant (again) and somehow got sucked inside. 

Restaurants can be dangerous places. They are like Sirens. They call, they lure, you follow. You feed on their flesh. You fall spent to the ground. 

I think I may have been reading too much Greek tragedy lately...

It was a dark misty night in the dark misty forest on the dark misty mountain...

Sleeping in the van got me out of having to drive in a state of recently enhanced inebriation, and further allowed us to test both the van and our resolve.

There was an eerie familiarity trying to sleep inside our new cosy womb. 

There were bells...

More bells...

This time; not the bells of future glory in the sight of our most beloved super-being vampire despot. More the bells of a future dinner or two. The local cattle herd was nonchalantly wandering around the mountainside, bells a-clanging. That, combined with a gentle rain, was almost hypnotic. 

“This is so romantic” I said, to a by-now-sleeping lover....

Maybe next time...

......