Day 7 - SkyLines from the French Lock-down: Week 1 - Only a Beginning

Salut les amis!  (Hi, friends!)

The bakers have been told to stay open 7 days a week

  It's another windy and overcast day here in the south.  I dressed like it was February again.  Yep, turtleneck, sweater, leggings and heavy jeans.  But, it's a beautiful day.  And you know why?  Because you and I are still here, still thinking about the future. Spring is everywhere, even if we can't be, and that makes it a good day.  Meanwhile, the news doesn't really inspire.  Thank goodness for all
your memes and jokes to keep us smiling!

Day 7 - one week since the quarantine began in France.  Today's news showed police giving fines of over 100 Euros for being out after "Couvre-feu" last night in a big city.  Ah, yes, that's "cover-fire" from a long time ago.  During the World Wars, France put in place this "curfew" (oh, so that's where our word came from.  Cool.  Love learning things.)

Closed for spring...

They wanted to hide the lights of the towns from the bombers.  It made sense.  I went on a search to discover when the tradition began.  Seems it was in the Middle Ages around the 13th century.  And they think the first "Cover your fires" was ordered by Guillaume Le Conquérant - yeah, William the Conqueror.

Nobody these days thinks of it in terms of covering a fire.  They think of it as curfew and the hours for us are as in Perpignan - from eight in the evening until six in the morning.  The message is as loud as and clearer than the police van's bullhorns telling people what they must do.  Stay home. 

It's dark enough by eight that we don't mind.  It's not warm out at night and there If this lasts into the summer, that will be harder to do.  But by eight, we've had dinner - soup for the entrée, un plat principal (main dish), bread and cheese afterwards, and fruit or maybe chocolate as dessert at this time of the year.  Last night it was a rich soup puree of chickpeas, onion, garlic, ginger, coconut milk and spinach. Mmmmm!!!  No, do not even think of taking seconds.  It will be just as delicious another day too.  (Found several recipes online and then adjusted it to what we had in our pantry. Being in France, we used the plunge blender on it to make a uniform "soupe velouté.)

For our entree, we made a "Gratin" (casserole to those of us born stateside on the west coast).  It made you glad to be human and at the table of life.  We started by making two cups of

Potatoes, Carrots, & Mozzarella Gratin

bullion (veggie because of me).  Then we braised some onion, added a veggie ground burger patty and sauteed that for a minute then let it cool.  Meanwhile, chopped up potatoes and carrots and some firm mozzarella.   Buttered a casserole dish and mixed the veggies, cheese, onions, and ground in it then poured the bullion over it.  While the oven heated up, we put the dish in the microwaved, covered it with the plastic guard, and let it cook for fifteen minutes.  Then we took it out, added a couple of slices of Dutch cheese (that should have been in my sandwiches for skiing - - except that there is NO skiing now... sigh).  Into the oven it went and twenty minutes later, when we'd enjoyed our soup, the gratin was bubbling and had turned into a golden cheese heaven!  I decided to have only a sliver of blue cheese with my two inches of baguette afterwards, ate a tangerine and skipped having chocolate.  When I stepped on the scale this morning, it reassured me that I hadn't overdone it.  

A pretty door, probably the most
photographed in the village,
owned & painted by a friend. 

On the way to get our daily bread, I snapped a couple of photos for you.The bakery decorated their window for Easter and I took a few photos while Y was inside getting our daily bread this morning.  When he came out, I called over to him at a safe distance and said, "You see, there is good chocolate!  You know what to get me for Easter!"  I doubt that the idea will stick. I'll just have to buy it myself, assuming that we aren't in total confinement by then.  Three weeks is a long time... as one journalist said on the news today, "The things that we are being told about this virus are changing every day.  What we believe one day, may turn out to be wrong on the next day.  We must adapt to the new information or the mutations that we discover."  It wasn't very nice to consider.  But, I know we are going to get through this.  The scenes of the Chinese returning to work, albeit still masked and under curfews, makes me have faith.  

We walked past the fish mongers and headed home again, I took some more photos of the t

Why does "fish" look like poison in French?

hings I see every day.  I love the tiling on the store, even if I don't eat fish.  I wonder who Clara was and if the boat in the painting is based on a real boat named Clara.  This village of Argèles-sur-mer is ancient!  The house we live in is built on the citadel wall.  It's why we have such an unobstructed view.  You can see vestiges of it in many places.  The houses in our streets are all different.  There were no "Choose your plan from our models" in the times that these buildings went up.  A lot of it was done "by guess and by golly" just like in my little village.  

Over the centuries, houses were improved, reworked, renovated, destroyed, or rebuilt.  New houses are sandwiched in with old ones. I’m often impressed with the way an old wreck of a stone house is renovated to incorporate sleek metal balconies or wide modern windows.

These panels around the village
tell the story of Argèles.

A house or three built in and
around an ancient tower in
the city wall.  Our house is
on the other side of the tower.

  But they do have rules these days that keep a harmony to the rooftops and some of the facades.  It is fun to try imagining what the streets might have looked liked 200 years ago and there are drawings that date back to then and even further into the past.  Photos of the last hundred years exist and sometimes when I look at them I recognize the buildings around us.  

And that is another reason to look up and have hope.  We humans have gone through this before.  Plagues and pestilence have swept across our planet since the dawn of civilization.  It's best for us to try to avoid getting ill or infecting others because, hey, we like being alive and healthy!  

So, with that kind of hope and belief, we went home and made lunch.  We worked on our separate projects, my partner doing DIY in the garage and me here at my computer.  We took a break and did another Yoga lesson, thanks to YouTube.  Mina, the cat, thought this was wonderful and played underfoot and generally made a nuisance of herself.  

Half an hour later, we smiled and agreed that it had done us good.  Then it was time to chat with family.  My dad and talked on Skype and I got all the news from the States.  Y spoke with his aunt, his cousins, an a sister-in-law.  Everyone agreed that the only way forward was to try to keep our distance.  

Decoration on a neighbor's house
a reminder of the power of belief

And so another day has finished.  We lost a lot of people in France today but then I look at the numbers from Italy and Spain.  It's not finished yet, not by a long chalk.  But, we will see this through.  It will end.  There will be loss but we will win, just as humans have always done.  Be safe, be positive and know that I'm here at the other end of the internet writing to you.  And I will keep on being here for you, just as I know you are there for me.  

À demain!

Link to DAY 8