Feliç Any Nou

As They Say In Catalonia

Port Vendres:– Monday, 2. February:–  When last seen here it was November and it was snowing and I wasn't having any luck, good or bad, finding a new apartment. I was living in a hotel and searching. All of a sudden, right out of the looming gray overcast, I was struck by the notion that I was crazy. Did I truly in my heart of hearts want to find an overpriced dank and dim hole at the mercy of every screaming ambulance and firetruck siren?

That's when watching the nightly TV weather reports paid off. It took 32 years but I finally noticed that one part of France had consistently better weather than what passes for it in the Paris region. Night after night the little corner right around Perpignan just above the border with Spain was highlighted with sunballs and temperatures at least twice the Paris average.

I glued my eye to the glotz–box. Sunnier and warmer, sunnier and warmer. Then I went online and looked at apartments for rent down there. Bigger and cheaper, bigger and cheaper. Yes. And perhaps best of all, right beside the sea of dreams, the friendly and cozy Mediterranean. According to legend, a lake full of dark wine.

That was in November. I was frazzled from Paris. Nearly thirty–three years of it. Cold and damp. I immediately snagged a flight to New York by falling on a fare too good to pass up. Yeah, so the food was terrible, but everybody is having some financial doldrums so I had a couple of extra seats. Fat lot of good they were! It was some old clunker of a jet, with new horrible movies on far–off screens, but I had a window and the immigration was sweet at Kennedy. The TSA has nifty new uniforms!

What would you do if you were homeless and had seven weeks to kill in New York in the middle of winter, between the Vote for Change and the inauguration? I killed the seven weeks by eating ethnic in Queens and buying gadgets. It was great, it was warm. Lower Manhattan seemed a bit morose so I bought a skimpy–brim hat from Mr. Negrin on Orchard Street. Motto: "Always Great Lids," since 1968.

When I got back to Paris with luggage no lighter than when I left it was still dark, cold and damp. As soon as I could I caught a TGV from the Gare de Lyon and rode it nearly to Spain, to Port Vendres, to the Midi, to the Côte Vermeille, on the southeast Mediterranean edge of Languedoc–Roussillon, in the foothills of the Pyrénèes Oriéntales. The sky was blue when I arrived.

Every one of the estate agents had apartments for rent. I signed a lease for one within a week. I will get the keys today and Mr. Doudou the mover brings my stuff tomorrow. The slight matter of the winter rains over the weekend is of zero consequence. I have a new home.

Your Cards and Support

While I was in limbo some alert readers noticed that Metropole Paris seemed to be doggo and meetings of the Café Metropole Club were not happening every Thursday like clockwork. Both observations were correct. Thank you for your welcome support, cards, emails and messages of encouragement. I appreciated it even while wolfing down Dan–dan noodles at Spicy & Tasty in Flushing.

The End of Metropole Paris?

I do not know the correct answer to this question. Obviously if Ric and Ed are hundreds of kilometres away from Paris the regular weekly updates concerning Paris and the doings of the Café Metropole Club are unlikely to be weekly or regular. I didn't plan this, this retirement, it just sort of happened.

But as you can read here with your own eyes, this is an issue of Metropole Paris. It just isn't about Paris. Sorry about that. Paris has an army of boosters so one less will make no difference. Not to me that is. I did my part from 1995 to 2008, the club had about 430 meetings, and I wore out a lot of shoes. I could have worn out more but I wasn't in a hurry.

Change the Name, Game the Same

Between extended sessions of sitting by the dock of the bay I expect to be reporting about nearly nothing around here. The fishermen go out in the sea and bring back sardines and anchovies for me to eat. There are small towns and history to explore, mountain paths, creeks, inlets, falling down fortresses, cargo ships unloading containers full of bananas, rugby matches, vineyards, bullfights, sun–blasted painters, tomatoes and garlic, café terraces, gypsy musicians, olive trees and swaying palms. There may even be museums, galleries, aquariums, dance troupes, folklore and small beaches lapped by the soft wavelets of the Mediterranean. Why not call it the Patazone?

Stupid Weather Updates

According to what I've been told the weather in Port Vendres can be characterized as two weeks of spring, two weeks of fall, three weeks of winter and 10 months of summer, with one floating utility week for miscellaneous. Look at the evening TV weather map of France and if you don't see a sunball glued to this corner, I'll eat my new hat, slathered in local tomato sauce loaded with fresh garlic.

Some alert folks may have noticed wild reports of a major storm here recently. This was staged for my benefit, to counter complacency, and I got the message. When Météo France says it's an alert rouge you better believe it. While the winds howled Port Vendres seemed to take it in stride. The palms are still standing.

Café Life

The strike of the week was more successful than usual but if you missed it, it's over and you'll have to wait for the next Strike of the Week. TV news reported that our leader, Monsieur le president Sarkozy, was impressed but vowed to continue his reforms despite a couple of million folks protesting in the streets against them.

Not What It Used To Be – the Café Metropole Club

By now it should be clear that the club's secretary is no longer able to host meetings every Thursday in the club's café, La Corona, in the centre of Paris. This may dismay some of the loyal members. The non–existant club dues will be refunded in the usual manner.

Others may choose to venture to the extreme south of France in search of a meeting, possibly on a Thursday. If so, there will be one major change. Henceforth, if meetings are to be held, they will be held outdoors, on a suitable café terrace on the dock of the bay under a sky so blue it will melt your socks. Be aware that if you are fond of heavy traffic running past your nose, this feature of club meetings belongs to the past. The club will not be responsible for stuff seagulls may drop on your hat.

The Ex–Question of Schleswig–Holstein

Some alert readers, and you are many, might believe that it is apt to recall that it was today in 506 that the Lex romana wisigothorum was declared in Toulouse. Also known as the Bréviaire d'Alaric, it was a code destined for Romans subject to Visigothic management. Some time later, today in 1194 to be exact, King Richard the Lion Heart ceased to be a captive of Austrian King Leopold V, thanks to a tidy but tardy ransom payment. That set the stage 500 years later, for Pedro de Mendoza to found Puerto de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre in 1536, which is known as Buenos Aires today. But Pedro was unlucky, especially in love, and the Indians objected. The Spaniards' mud walls melted and famine was their lot. Pedro died and Buenos Aires was abandoned. To be continued... Shortly thereafter, in 1653, the town of New Amsterdam became a city. In 1664 the English grabbed it, and the Dutch grabbed it back in 1673 and renamed it New Orange. Then they ceded it to the Brits a year later, without a fight. But before this, in 1654, two groups of Jews arrived, with and without passports, and Nieuw Haarlem became real in 1655. Today's birthday baby is James Joyce and the year was 1882. It's worth a quote from Ulysses: "History," Stephen said, "is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." That done there is no need of the quote by Edmund Burke. That's our little world, folks!

A bientôt à au soleil