Dazed, Confused and Grumpy

Bézier, France

30 August 2024

Dear Family and Friends,

When last I wrote I was preparing for Feria. By and large, blizzard preparations were warranted. In fact, next year I plan to prepare earlier and for a longer storm. The set-up process for Feria takes days and so does the recovery process. That means the vegetable vendor that I frequently use was gone for about two weeks, the local grocery stores were impacted for almost two weeks, and healthy food to eat was just generally more difficult to find during the lead up to, the duration of and the recovery from the Feria. The buses are still running, but they are not running on their normal routes because of road closures and the number of riders is significantly increased. This leads to lots of dazed, confused and grumpy people at bus stops. I gave up on using the bus because I didn’t want to be any more dazed, confused and grumpy than I normally am.

Next year I will plan not just for the five days of the event but for the preparation and recovery. I didn’t quite do that this year and I’m too old for a steady diet of street food and frozen pizza.

That said, I had fun. Generally, the crowds didn’t come down my street because all the shops were closed, so the noise on my street was bearable. The roaming bands varied in quality widely! Some of them were downright delightful. Some of them, downright horrible. The one that passed my bedroom at midnight and couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, was in the latter category. Fortunately, they kept moving and didn’t stay within earshot for long.

The bull fight I was planning to attend was rained out. The arena floor was too wet and slippery, and it was not a foregone conclusion that the bull would lose, therefore the evenings fights were cancelled. To be clear, it’s not a fair fight and it is a long and brutal death for the bull.  The six bulls that were scheduled to fight that night were spared and lived to fight another day. Passionate defenders of bull fighting will speak eloquently in defense, I cannot. I am interested in the cultural significance and would like to experience the crowd in hopes of better understanding the importance of the tradition.

The other experience that does not sound like fun for the bull but is not terminal for the bull is an event that involves a bull and a swimming pool two teams of people. I do not know the particulars of the event, but it’s on my list of events to attend next year.  What I do know is there are teams competing and they get points for enticing the bull into doing things like knocking down a wall that they build, popping balloons of the team’s color, and ultimately getting the bull to enter the pool! I missed it this year, but fingers crossed for next year.

One of the highlights for me at this year’s Feria was the soap box car race.  These are not the toy sized soap box cars of the Boy Scouts, these are the grown up version. They have brakes and steering but use good old fashioned gravity for their power.  The cars start at the top of the hill in Poets Park. I’ve mentioned the park before and the hill that you climb after you have arrived at the Béziers train station. Well, that same hill is the site of this race. I have a new fondness for the hill. I will post a pic or two and perhaps a video of the event on Instagram. This was truly a hoot. Grown adults, costumed and helmeted climb into cars that they have built and decorated and roll down the hill to the cheers of the onlooking crowd of more adults than children. If nothing else, youth is recaptured and hundreds of people are entertained.

The other big event since I last wrote was a join birthday party with friends Katie and Rupert. It all started one day when we were attending an event in our village and got on the topic of birthdays and realized that the three of us were born in the same year about seven weeks apart and the idea of having a joint birthday party was hatched. We had a lovely day with sunshine and moderate temperatures (89 degrees Fahrenheit, my how my definition of moderate temperatures has changed.) Katie and Rupert graciously hosted in their lovely garden. For you and me, readers, that is what we would call a backyard, but they are British, and they call it a garden. Don’t call it a backyard! It has a whole different connotation for them; however, don’t picture in your mind what you and I would call a garden, picture what we would call a backyard. We had a cookout with lots of great food and great company and celebrated our birthdays appropriately.

So that’s kind of what has been keeping me busy. That and more paperwork. Being an expat in the South of France involves lots of “paperwork.” Things like gathering documents that say documents are real, collecting records, having official translators translate the records, and uploading and downloading documents for hours on end. Thank heavens for the internet, I cannot imagine what it must have been before we had the technology to find a document on another continent, deliver the document to a translator in a city hundreds of miles away, pay to have it translated and have it delivered back to you in a matter of days without ever leaving your home.

Happy Labor Day!  Have a great long weekend, enjoy your backyard BBQs and the backyard swimming pool while you can. Fall is upon us, my favorite time of year, but winter is coming.

Bonne journée!