SPRING Spring in Navarrenx brings rain showers and sunshine in equal quantities, turning the countryside into a thick, green carpet. We spend one beautifully warm March afternoon drinking Guinness to mark my Irish Citizenship status on the Boulevard des Pyrénees in Pau, in the same bar where 20 odd years ago, Neil used to be a barman during his year there as a student. Over the Easter weekend, Navarrenx hosts a foire artisanal, where artisans, food stalls and music all blends into a festive weekend. This year we were part of the animation commitée and we helped out on the buvette, repeating French phrases of politesse to punters so many times it we turned into natural ham actors, embellishing our French with gestures and facial expressions. "Et bonjour messieurs-dames. Qu'est ce qu'il vous faut? Bien sur. Avec plaisir. Avec ca? Et voila pour vous. Passé une très bonne journée. Egalement. Au revoir messieurs-dames. Ciao." With the intensity of the first half a year working in France now behind us, we settle down and enjoy more certainty in our routine of work and life between the school and Navarrenx. We feel truly part of the community in Navarrenx, as we organise dinner parties and drinks with people when we return from a week in the busy environment of a boarding school. When we first began working in France, we struggled with missing our previous lives, our old job, friends, and especially the city of Cambridge. Moving to a new country turns the notion of 'home' into an emotional dilemma, riddled with incertitude and caprice. As we make efforts to try and make Navarrenx home, the home of our history, our family, friends and memories, remains a powerful feeling which can leave you feeling torn.
Navarrenx is now our actual home; it's where we live, and it is equally capable of pulling at heartstrings with a simple walk along the ramparts in the evening. The reality is, we are, and will be for some while, outsiders in Béarn, as much as we feel like we now have a deep understanding of the local people and way of life. However, despite this feeling of vulnerability and stranger-ness, just being alert to new cultural intricacies is an exhilirating feeling which can dispel any doubts about the move. Learning the social and cultural codes of a new country (and in France 'country' means at multiple levels, including the ways of the pays of Béarn) makes life interesting, so that even going into the local papeterie to buy a newspaper becomes a social adventure.
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WINTER Winter is a season of fire and ice. We head straight to the Pyrénées Béarnaises as soon as school breaks up and enjoy racing each down the blue run La Boulevard des Pyrénées in La Pierre Saint Martin ski station. There is surely no better view of Béarn's Pyrenees than this run offers; it is such a pleasant blue that you can simply point your skies straight down and stand up straight taking in the magnificent view as you glide down several kilometres of piste effortlessly. On winter nights we light the fire and cook hearty meals such as magret de canard (duck breast) and garbure (a Béarnais broth). Christmas Day in 2022 brought surprise temperatures in the mid 20s and so we put on our lighter clothes, opened up the windows and changed our indoor plans for outdoor meals and drinks in the warm sun. In late winter, we explore the snowy frontiers of where Béarn meets Spain, where just enough snow has been moved or melted to allow our car up the mountain passes. We look at the historic landscape in its seasonal changes as we travel from Navarrenx to the border with Navarre. A journey pilgrims have been on for many, many centuries.
AUTUMN Autumn brings freshly crisp morning air and dusky, pink evenings. Walks in and around Navarrenx in this season happen under changing skies, with clouds that scud across the vastness of the rural scene. Autumn brings the first hints of snow atop the Pyrenean summits. The rugby season kicks off and we dutifully attend as many Stade Navarrais and Section Palloise games that we have the time for. The mud and the rain come back, something we are used to at least, and the shouts from the rugby pitch bring back memories of school sport, albeit exchanged for a cascade of mellifluous French and long, drawn out "Hop-op-op-op-op-op-op!" or "Oh lo lo lo lo lo lo looo!". Hats are put on, but it is still warm enough for morning coffee in my "office" on the ramparts adjacent to our house, and an Oldarki beer with friends in the Place de Casernes before the evenings really draw in. Autumn is the busiest time at work for us, with the school Michaelmas term always a hectic time of fresh starts with new classes, lessons and students. During our one day of congé per week, we head to Navarrenx from our school in le Gers for some respite, even if it is for less than 24 hours. Even if all we manage is lunch in the taverne, followed by a balade digestive on top of the ramparts, before a swift couple of beers in the evening alternating between our English and French social groups, we feel like we have come home.
I couldn't lie awake any longer. It was just before 7am on my wedding day, and despite having been asleep for only a matter of hours, I was ready and excited to begin the day. The past two weeks, the last of August, it had been heat wave conditions in Navarrenx, however, we were all relieved by the overcast conditions after days of sweat and red faces. At least I was used to getting less sleep than usual, as the preparations and the hot nights had adapted my body. Despite ticking things off our to-do list, today was still going to rely on the one or two conversations we'd had with the hotel providing our canapés and food, and even the deputy mayor himself, standing in for his very first marriage ceremony. My father drove me to the mairie in Navarrenx, even if it was only a tour of a few streets, perfectly in time for the 1pm ceremony. The first person I see is the local barman, Benoit, who had come to take pictures of this British spectacle right in the centre of Navarrenx. He seemed more interested in my dad's old Land Rover than anything else, but I suddenly felt aware that the whole town felt just as involved in our wedding as we did. A feeling we had come to love being welcomed with open arms into a new community. I think our French friends were just as curious about us, a couple who work in boarding schools, moving to France for work and adventure, as we are about them. Neil's fluency in French, and my own unique French, which at once manages to be idiomatic and soutenu (sometimes resulting in a mini round of applause which I have come to crave), as well as halting and occasionally incomprehensible, have endeared us to our local community. We came here to speak a language we are passionate about. Our ceremony commences, in French, with the deputy mayor clad in a patriotic tricolour sash. We said our vows in front of an old fireplace with Navarrenx's motto "si you ti bau" engraved above the crest of arms. The English translation of the Béarnais dialect means "If I go". Here we go. Married officially in France. With Neil's best man Pierre (fortunately half-French) providing not so much as an accurate translation from the deputy mayor, but more of a running commentary as if at the horse races. The deputy mayor then plunged into a prolonged speech in which the silent room could feel the weight of French history, its revolutions and empires, which have shaped the laws of today, as he declared the Napoleonic conventions of marriage (during which we were all warned seriously "not to interrupt"). Pierre summarised succinctly saying, "He said, basically, just be nice to each other and you'll be fine". BasquewThe ceremony wasn't intended to be humorous, but ended up being a case of no one really knowing what was happening next until finally, the deputy mayor, without a word of English himself, heroically got us married after a rather bizarre struggle through the contact details of our witnesses. He even read aloud their postcodes. Neil, a lifelong Arsenal Football Club fan, had the moment of his life declaring at the end, "We are off to the Arsenal!" as everyone moved to la cour de l'Arsenal, one of the central squares in Navarrenx which used to contain over 30,000 cannonballs, hundreds of cannons (see photos below to spot the canons) and was used as military quarters. These were munitions for the soldiers kept in the bastide ready to fight against the Basques in the 13th/14th centuries or the French Catholics or Protestants in the 15th/16th centuries, depending on what religion the King or Queen of Navarre held at the time. Navarrenx was a strategic town and part of the kingdom of Navarre until 1620 when Louis XIII annexed Navarre to the French crown. Our canapés, congratulations, and relief, were shyly observed by a group of novice nuns. My mother took this as a good omen, as coming from an Irish Roman Catholic background, it made up for the fact we didn't have a Catholic ceremony in Navarrenx's seriously Catholic, cavernous, church. I took a moment to talk in French with them, babbling with nervous excitement, whilst wondering what they must be thinking about all the things marriage has become that perhaps has taken it further away from anything religious. From here we went to the Hotel du Commerce, where the team had put together a beautiful meal (which far exceed our expectations considering we had one conversation loosely based on what might be served on the day) centred around local produce and producteurs. They carried on serving as if during a normal restaurant service, bemused by our formalities of speeches and wedding traditions going on around them. What followed was a soirée of dancing under a parasol, leant to us that very morning by the aforementioned Benoit-the-barman, drinking the local plonk, and pouring our own pints from the local brasserie, Le Shakespeare's mobile bar, and more dancing and singing. All the way through until the next morning. We held the party in our own back garden, put together in professional event management style by my brother and father, complete with fairy lights twinkling in our palm trees, the garden wall softly lift, a fire pit blazing and everyone taking it in turns to share their best music and moves on our improvised dance floor/lawn in the summer air. We did it our own way. And we did it in the Navarrais way. It simply would not have come together without the tips and individual efforts of the local people. Our great friend and local man Régis at one point sprinting back to the mairie to collect a speaker when our large one driven over from Germany by Neil's other best-man Miles fused. We had had a few rain showers which we all danced gaily in and which provided relief from the humidity of the previous weeks. From the mairie, to the ramparts (above), to the Arsenal, restaurant and back garden, we were so happy and proud to merge our wedding day with the history and specialness that Navarrenx offers. It felt both familiar and strange as our story now begins to overlap with centuries of what makes Béarn and Navarrenx a unique culture to now be a part of.
As Franz Boas (1858-1942), an early anthropologist believed, one's physical and cultural environment determines the way in which one sees the world. We wear 'kulturbrille', or 'cultural glasses', which are lenses that provide us with a means of perceiving the world around us and interpreting the meaning of our lives. Therefore, our culture influences how we see the world. This to me is travel, adventure, and life itself. We have moved to France for the joy of finding out new things everyday. Cheers to the continuing journey. SUMMER Summer, my favourite season in Navarrenx. Every day brings a touch of the exotic to our lives. We live outside during this season where temperatures hover around 30 degrees on average and are often much hotter. The palm trees rustle in our garden, the gave flows gently, enticing me to pass whole days reading my book whilst lounging in the water and the return of swift-song high in the blue skies punctuates the Meridional calmness and timeless days. The see-through waters of the Gave d'Oloron provide a haven of cool. A gave is the local word used for the torrential rivers which have their source in the Pyrenees and make their way to the Atlantic ocean. Navarrenx peers over the steep-sided banks of the gave d'Oloron within the communauté Béarn-des-Gaves. August is the time of the fete de Navarrenx. Four days of events, parties late into the night, repas in the street with friends, cow spectacles to watch and an impressive fireworks finale lighting up the rampart. During the summer season, the market of Navarrenx (first established in the 13th century to make the most of the passing trade of pilgrims on their camino) occurs twice a week, still attracting passing pilgrims but now also selling fresh, local produce to villagers who for whom it is a cultural norm to do their weekly food shop here. We try to emulate this habit during our summer holiday, and plan our meals around what is fresh, such as the salmon from the gave, smoked, and tossed into a huge salad furnished with tomatoes, peppers and lettuce twice as big as anything to be found in the UK. With the market, the fete, river swims, sundowners on the ramparts, and plenty of socialising and putting the world to right with our local friends over long lunches, we like to simply relax in the verdant back garden, tucked away from the stresses of the world outside. We go back to work with a smile on our face and a very decent tan!
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AuthorMy posts are reflections on living in Béarn. They are inspired by the history, culture and landscape of this rural and little-known corner of southwest France. |