Day 23 - SkyLines from the French Lock-down: Sometimes it's Good to be Alone

Bonjour tous les amis!  (Hello all you friends!)

In our corner of the south of France the sun is shining.  It's nearly Easter weekend.  There are chocolate bunnies in the stores but there's a desperation to that.  It feels as if folks are trying to hang on to the idea that everything is normal.  Well, it's not.  France is in the fourth week of quarantine.  The news is we'll continue this until the end of the month.  There are worse places to be stuck.  

Canigou at sunset keeps us inspired.

Day 23  - We open the shutters and it's no longer cold in the mornings.  My French partner, Y,

It's hard to believe it's Easter

asks, "Nous sommes quelle jour?" (What day is it?)  I have to think and then I turn on my phone to verify that it's Wednesday.  The headlines are not great, as usual.  But I read the local news and am relieved to be living in an area that is a bit cut off.  How can that be?  Argelès sur Mer is one of the major tourist magnets on the Med.  Well, it's easy.  We are a long ways from Paris and even a bit far from Marseille.  Most people come here to camp, so they drive. There are mountains between us and Spain. Barcelona is about 150 km from us.  It takes 2 hours to get there in a fast car making it the closest international city.  If you're in Spain, the odds are you will be enjoying the beaches there rather than drive this far for ours. Restaurants and hotels are cheaper in Spain, so it's only if you are already in love with our region that you'd head this way.  

This means that it's not easy for international travelers to get here quickly.  It takes a bit of logistics and patience.  You have to plan ahead some and when the shut down came, people had

Even La Banque de France
is small here.

to stay pretty much where they were. The TGV -Très Grand Vitesse - train (very big speed, literally) cannot travel between Montpellier and Perpignan at top speed as we are last on the list for getting the track upgrades that are needed.  It was projected we'd have it by 2025. What do you bet it takes longer with the inevitable changes to the economy this is all going to bring?  Our part of the line was left to be the last link for a very good reason. It's because we are not very important to the big business hubs. Tourism is cool but it doesn't export anything.  In other words, the big-wigs who decide things couldn't make any money out of us.  We really are alone at last.  And it turns out being a far-flung part of the republic is not bad at all - in fact - for us this is good.

The news today showed that our region is less touched by the virus than most.  We are an agricultural area and so the population is less densely packed.  Our hospitals are experiencing larger numbers of intensive care patients but

Fighting together by
keeping our distance!

there is not a problem with space at the moment.  So far we've had just 19 deaths in the entire region of 5,845,102 people. (approximately - that was in 2017, so I'm sure there are more people now.  It's a desirable place to live!)  This is all good news for us.  We may be the rural cousins to the chic Parisians and I've never been happier about it!

It's a hard time for the locals who rely on the tourism.  We spoke briefly with a neighbor who works at our favorite local brasserie and she's feeling the pinch.  Even knowing that the government will provide aide and that she'll be able to eat and pay her bills, it's demoralizing not going to work.  I held up the box of eggs I was buying and said, "Oui! J'ai envie de manger a la brasserie - Quelle horreur!  J'ai appris a cuisiner!"  (I expect you get that - I long to eat at the cafe - Horrors!  I've learned how to cook!)  She laughed through her stressed sorrow and said she too had learned to cook.  Then

The cops says, "So this is
how you go out to buy bread."

she said, "Quand c'est finis - nous prenons une verre, d'accord?"  (When this is over, we'll have a drink, okay?)  I agreed with real emotion.  I know we're all dreaming of freedom.

So, what are we doing?  Same as you.  We are hanging out, trying new recipes, organizing our lives and planning for the future.  We've no idea when we'll be able to work out traveling again so that will just stay on the dream pile.  But one day, hopefully in a month, we'll be at the beach again.  The tourists will be allowed to return.  We can have a coffee or a drink in public. I don't think things will ever be quite the same.  And yes, we're a little bored.  But sometimes it's good to be alone.  Those microbes are social creatures!

Take care, dear friends.  It's getting to be a long road but we're on it together.  Be strong.  The curve is flattening in Europe.  Keep on doing your best and keep that distance from as many others as you

Y prepares for the dream of liberation by
checking over our windsurfing gear!

can.  One day, we'll look back and this will be behind us.  And we will have made it happen, together.

À demain, nos amis!     Link to Day 24