We'll find such lovely things to share again

It has been three years since covid had prevented me from seeing friends in France freely, especially those with children. End 2020 I thought best not to visit friends so as not to spread the virus. End 2021 I chose not to see anybody indoors and unmasked for fear of catching the virus and not being able to go back to China. Now that I have been fully vaccinated, and having caught covid just before leaving for my holiday one month ago, I felt free this year to go on a big tour of France to visit my friends who were available to see me!

My tour of France was principally centred on the sea, friends and food. I left my parents' country house in Southwest France on 3 January for Bayonne, still on the Atlantic coast and close to the Spanish border. I finally took the time to visit the historical centre of Bayonne which I had not managed to stroll through during the three years that I was stationed in that region from 2017 to 2020. I did go back to the beach in Anglet where I would sometimes go for a lunchtime swim break when visiting my colleagues who were posted there. I also went back to the local restaurant serving delicious and simple local food for a bargain, targeting the armies of builders, painters and carpenters who are constantly erecting new houses on this highly sought-out coastal area.

I rented a car in Bayonne and drove all the way to Nice on the other side of France by the Italian border. There was unfortunately no snow for skiing in the mountains this early winter so I spent all my time seeing friends and former colleagues. My first stop was in Pau from 4 to 7 January. I had seen most of my friends and former colleagues already last winter or when I had left town two years ago. I enjoyed deliciously crafted food at L'esberit and Maynats restaurants. The foody scene in Pau is becoming increasingly elaborate and it is more and more difficult to find an empty table in a good restaurant by chance. Bookings are highly recommended even for the simplest bistro. I managed to be there to see the new year's concert of the Pau orchestra and choir, which I was part of when I used to live there: a great show with lots of jokes between pieces and the usual festive Blue Danube, polkas and other classical hits. This being the 20th anniversary of the new year's concert in Pau, the producer had interwoven the Happy birthday theme into several of the orchestral pieces as a clever leitmotiv emerging from the music all along the concert.

I drove along the Pyrenees mountains to the Mediterranean Sea for my next stop in Agde where I was hosted by Brittany S. with whom I had sung in small ensembles when we both lived in Bangkok in 2009. However, we had met again since then and our latest reunion was in Nairobi eight years ago when Brittany and her husband Bruno C. were driving through Eastern Africa with all their possessions and themselves tightly fitting inside a van. Their small house just by the beach had a marvelous view on the sea and they prepared delicious vegetarian food during my stay there, sharing viewpoints about life with their volubile son Phoenix.

I continued hopping along the Mediterranean to visit my current Beijing colleague Julien B. who was also on holiday at his parents' house in the oyster-producing village of Bouzigues, close to Sète. Unfortunately, there was an administrative order preventing all the seashells to be consumed because of a temporary food safety problem. However, they had prepared and frozen lots of stuffed mussels, a local specialty, before Christmas and I got treated to a delicious home-cooked meal of Mediterranean seafood in Languedoc style.

From Bouzigues, I drove on to Montpellier where I stayed with my postgraduate school batchmate Vianney H. I had last seen him in the Summer of 2020 when I had come to Montpellier for a job interview. I also took the opportunity to meet some of my former colleagues from Cirad, some of whom were on the opposite side of the job interview table last time I had seen them, or with whom I had worked in Vietnam when I was based at ILRI in Nairobi eight years ago. This was an opportunity to share insights on covid management in France, Vietnam, Western Africa and China. To take a break from the feasting of the past two weeks, I had very simple fare of butternut soup and pasta with grated cheese at home with Vianney, who was ridden with flu and had no appetite himself.

I then moved on to Marseille where I met up with Thibault V. whom I had last seen in 2017 just as he had come back to Paris from Cameroun and I was moving out of Paris for Pau. He took me to the Miramar to sample an enormous serving of traditional bouillabaisse fish soup. I had more local seafood with deep-fried squid rings and baitfish, along with lots of olive-based veggie dips the next day in a small provençal restaurant on the old port of Marseille after visiting the exhibition dedicated to Mediterranean food cultural heritage at the new Mucem museum of Mediterranean civilisations.

My last Mediterranean destination was Nice from 12 to 14 January where I jogged along the famous Promenade des anglais, went to visit the sites where Henri Matisse had painted colourful art, went to the opera house for a staged show of Schubert Lieder, and ate more seafood in Mediterranean style. Overall, my trip along the Mediterranean allowed me to taste many facets of the Mediterranean diet. However, having eaten in rather large quantities, it would be difficult to still call it a diet in these circumstances.

After four days' of shopping and seeing other friends in Paris, I took a train to the Western-most part of France in Finistère (meaning, the end of the Earth!) in Brittany. I had more seafood and lots of the local crepes specialty while also meeting with very old friends. I met Thomas V. and his family in Brest. Thomas was a high school student with me in the Netherlands from 1988 to 1991. However, we had seen each other again afterwards, most recently when we were both Parisian in 2016. 

 

 

I then went South along the Brittany coast to Penmarc'h in French Cornwall from 19 to 22 January spent with Cyril A. Cyril and I were boarding together during graduate school in Paris. Although we were not from the same batch year, we kept close contact after graduating to different postgraduate schools. I had visited him in Montpellier and he came to visit me in Bangkok in 2009 but we had not actually seen each other in 14 years. The big surprise was that Cyril happened to live just 50 km away from his graduate school boarding mate Michel D., whom I had probably last seen in 2002, more than twenty years ago!

 

I found it very satisfying to interact freely again with old friends after three years of covid wariness about in-person meetings. I am now back in Paris with my parents but I will still be meeting with many of my Parisian friends in the coming days. This tour of France reinforced my strategy to keep regular contact by email, Whatsapp and post cards with my good friends. Although we do not see each other often, when we do meet, it seems like just yesterday and there is little catching up to do. We just need to exchange the latest news and enjoy our mutual company, until the next time comes to meet again. 

We'll gather lilacs
Ivor Novello, Julie Andrews