A Day At Grez-Sur-Loing by Brian Whittingham

Grez-Sur-Loing is situated about 1 hour south of Paris. I was fortunate enough to have been awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson writing fellowship with which I was staying at the Hotel Chevillon, now run with Swedish, Finnish and Scottish interests. I was working on writing a screenplay and having spent a couple of weeks solid writing, decided to have a day off relaxing, walking, reading, listening to my iPod before an evening meal where all the artists were bringing something to the table, foodwise. A non-eventful peaceful day apart from the constant hoo-hoo hoo, hoo-hoo hoo of the local doves.

It started off with the daily ritual of buying a baguette at the boulangerie. Everyone in France seems to walk about with 2 or 3 baguettes under their arm and I felt as if I blended in by doing the same.

I would make a brie and tomato sandwich for my lunch. I also purchased some grapes, mayonnaise and small potatoes to knock up a simple salad for the evening meal.

After my lunch and with the salad prepared and cooling in the fridge I set off on the short walk over the 12th Century bridge heading for a riverside bench for a relaxing afternoon sitting under the drooping branches of the willow trees.

On the bridge was a man wearing only trainers and shorts. He was dripping wet as if he'd been showered with his own personal raincloud like you get in the cartoons. The bridge was about 20 ft. above the river. The man crouched, looked left then right making sure the coast was clear then sprinted and somersaulted over the small wall, plunging into the depths below.

After a bit a French family wandered to a spot beside the bench I'd found to sit on on the other side of the river. The father keeping careful watch over his small son by grasping the boys shirt collar at the nape of his neck. The child sort of half dangled as he picked up a bird's feather then endeavoured to give it back to some ducks that he must have thought it had come from. The mother meanwhile, had been taking photos from various viewpoints as the scene played out. I heard them chatting in French, not understanding a word, when the dad, to encourage the ducks towards his son, started his quack-quack, quack-quack, quack-quack. At last I thought, a language we could all understand, even the ducks.

As this was drawing to a conclusion a figure emerged from the river's still waters. A bald man with swimming trunks on and wearing flippers. He was different from the somersaulting man. Strewn with green reeds straggling all over him, he looked like something from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As he pulled the seaweed-looking reeds from himself he muttered something to me in French and waved his arms in the air. I replied 'Non parlez Francais' to which he muttered something, in what seemed to me exasperation, then submerged once more into his watery kingdom.

At the meal that evening there were 4 Swedes, 2 Fins and myself all speaking English. We had potato and grape salad, eggplant with fried brie covered in breadcrumbs, cucumbers with mincemeat stuffing and bottles of wine at 2 euros a bottle while all the others stood up and sang me songs (it was my birthday the following day) in Swedish then Finnish, after which we toasted each other in our respective languages. I had them all saying they were feeling ticketyboo.

During this day it had been about 30C and in the hotel gardens the swallows and sparrows twittered to the background of the hoo-hoo hooing that seemed ever present.

Later, on crashing out in bed I was shortly woken up by distant thunder and on looking out at the night it was like looking at an end of the world disaster movie. The dark black clouds rolled in enveloping all before them. The sky's backdrop lit up like a stage play where the lightning was being switched on and off, on and off, on and off. The thunder rumbled more ominously then the rain came on. It seemed horizontal as it was encouraged by the wind's howling to cause its own particular havoc which resulted in trees being split, branches falling and general chaos.

In the morning there was one evergreen, like a giant Christmas tree, that had had its top chopped off as if by some massive karate blow.

The sun was peeking through the windows again, the birds were twittering and the familiar hoo-hoo hooing started once more.

Back to Days Like This story index