Lyon and more

The idea here is to start with something wild, or as the French might say, sauvage. So far as we can work out this word is used to describe what we would call feral, and Auguste le lézard did look pretty feral to us, especially after we had disturbed him in the  middle of the afternoon, sunbathing on his favourite tree.

But really a most important event in our lives has been the visit to the home of our friends, Guy and Noëlle, who live in an amazing house just outside Lyon. Twelve years, give or take a month or so, have passed since we last visited them and on that occasion  we were drafted into assisting with laying a beautiful tiled floor across, well, most of their house. So naturally, the moment we arrive now, the first thing we do is to take a picture of it.

We were delighted to find it all in perfect condition, just as we left it twelve years ago.

Sadly we are only able to spend a couple of days chez Guy and Noëlle as our next appointment is in the Jura mountains, to the east of Lyon. But it was long enough for us to appreciate their hospitality and Noëlle's fabulous cooking. We were treated like family and our French speaking improved no end in the time we were with them. Neither of them feel comfortable speaking English but this doesn't matter, we always seem to make ourselves understood.

They took us on some long walks around their neighbourhood and in particular along the wooded banks of the river Saône
 which runs close to their home. There are markers on a bridge parapet next to the river which show the flood levels at various dates in the past.... quite a scary sight, but the waters here emerge in the Jura mountains which lie mostly in Switzerland so the volume of water coming from there must be pretty unpredictable. 

We were delighted to find another metal man inside Guy and Noëlle's home although elsewhere, the cow statue installed in the back garden of someone's very expensive looking house seemed a little excessive to us -  it is apparently quite normal here.

But it is time to move on and as we do, quite suddenly the scenery changes. No longer are we driving along the straight tree-lined roads that are prevalent in most of France. As we get closer to the French Jura mountains the roads become ever more twisty and are never on the level, always up or down, ever steeper hills with bigger and bigger mountains emerging all around us. 

We pause briefly at an Aire in Nantua where we experience what is apparently a custom at similar rest stops across the country where they lie close to a town. At around 10 o'clock each night the local youths turn up with a portable sound system and walk along the line of campervans playing some thumping music at full volume. It surprised us when we first heard it as we quite enjoyed what they were playing and the second night it was even better. So no complaints from us then and we didn't hear any shouting from the other campers so they must be quite used to it. I can only guess at how this might be received back in the UK.

Whilst on the subject of UK, readers of this blog might not be aware that our home country, Great Britain, has recently changed its name. For reasons known only to the demons who operate from the lofty towers of Whitehall in London, having a GB sticker on the back of your vehicle, something the whole world has got used to and understands, is no longer appropriate. This is a shame because the translations into French, Grande Bretagne, Dutch, Groot Brittanië, German, Großbritannien, Italian, Gran Bretagna, Spanish, gran Bretaña, all share the same initials, GB, so in those countries they can easily work it out. But no, what we now have to show is 'UK', short for United Kingdom, which translates into French as Royaume-Uni and is similarly  irreconcilable in other languages. Worse still, perhaps, is the coincidence of this change with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and this being at the forefront of everyone's mind now, there will inevitably be some confusion over just what the letters 'UK' stand for. Whatever, from the few British vehicles we have seen on our travels it does seem that the message about the change hasn't really got through.