4 jan

Bourges. I couldn’t help myself for a quick stop in Bourges, church fatigue or not. On the way to Chassenat, where we would meet the owners of our house for the next six weeks for a drink, we mad a quick stop in Bourges. Drive into Bourges, stop in front of cathedral, have a quick run around the cathedral and then on again. All this should be possible within fifteen minutes.
It is not.
First of all, it is a bad idea to drive Merlin into a medieval town. I know this since Perugia and thought of it in time to stop outside of the Bourges city centre and drive on in our fixed Berlingo – which we picked up at twelve, an hour after the mechanics had promised the ball bearings would have been changed.
Second, it was a saturday. although it didn’t seem extremely busy, everything takes more time than on another day.
Thirdly. Bourges was bigger than I expected. The Michelin map showed it wasn’t bigger than Nevers, which had been very easy to access a few days ago. But french maps lie, or hide the truth. Can not be trusted, as I was reminded of.
Fourthly. We didn’t know where the cathedral was. These funny French cathedrals, with the tops of their towers never finished or burned of a long time ago, always disappear out of sight when you are approaching them. As soon as we got into the historical centre, we parked the car, went to walk (into the wrong direction we found out) and kept looking for a sign that said cathedral. The fifteen scheduled minutes had gone by this time and it still was a ten minute walk to the cathedral and a fifteen minute walk back.
Fifthly. The cathedral itself is enormous. I might have seen a cathedral with five isles before, but not on this trip. Most of it was built a little later than the period we are looking after (only the closed crypt is Romanesq), which probably was one of the reasons it was so immense.
I get a sense of feeling lost though, in this sort of immense building with light pouring in through the high stained glass windows. Those windows deserved a closer look, I knew, but I was realizing it was going to be more and more difficult to be in Chassenat at the arranged time. So I just glimpsed around, looking for the Pastor of Ars, not there, Jeanne d’Arc (there) and a picture of the Christmas scene in one of the stained glass windows (probably there, but I didn’t look well enough).
And then we were out of there again, walking back to the car, realizing that fifteen minutes had become one and a half hours, and still with a lot of driving in front of us.
We did arrive though at Chassenat. A little late of course. But the welcome was warm and the house amazing. I was pinching Julie, Julie was pinching Claire and Claire was pinching me. This was going to be our house for the next six weeks. Unbelievable, somehow.
‘I could get used to this’, Claire said, on our way to the last night in Merlin for the foreseeable future. I could too, I suppose. But it is better for my inner rest that it takes a little longer than just six weeks. Which it probably does.