Page 10 - In a different register - Sample

sparse shop and through the glass to infrequent passers-by. After about twenty minutes I wondered what could take a three minute boiled egg so long. Eventually two eggs, loose on a saucer, appeared, no egg cup and toast on a separate plate. What to do. I used the knife to chop off the top. The egg ran out all liquid. It was almost raw. Dismayed I called the man and asked if he could cook the other one a bit more. It duly arrived. But no teaspoon. Please could I have a teaspoon. He sighed and brought one. No salt. Nothing is worse than a boiled egg without salt so I risked his ire. I’m sure that by the time I left he was pleased to see the back of me. But don’t the French eat boiled eggs? I have since discovered that a boiled egg is an ‘oeuf a la coque’ - an egg in the shell - but no wonder some of these cultural differences might become the basis for war.My first port of call was the tourism office in the Rue Van-Gogh. Any places worth visiting? L’eglise. And the connection to Van-Gogh? In Arles, ’e painted nearly tree hundred paintings, some de Saintes- Maries-de-la-Mer. Where can I see them? ‘Eh, dommage, most in museums around world.’ Good excuse to travel then!Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries, 1888Not surprising van Gogh wanted to paint here where the human and natural harmonise with visceral passion. “Mélancolique étendue dans une immensité déchirée, tout naît et tout périt sans cesse dans un son sourd des vagues qui baignent son rivage ensoleillé ......1 The very words are music to the soul.Given the weather I chose to go to the church Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer. I was amazed to find that I was on a pilgrim route, the Via Tolosana which led through Arles and crossed the Pyrenees to join other routes at Puenta-la-Reina. Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer was popular as a stopping point for pilgrims to St Jacques-de-Compostella, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims believed they were going to visit the remains of St James. Had never thought of him in Spain before. They believed he had been miraculously carried to the Atlantic coast of Spain in a floating stone boat without sails or oars. Imagination in top form! The burial place of his mother, Mary Salomé in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer was a stopover for pilgrims.It seems they only bothered to build a Church around the ninth century when coastal towns needed to defend themselves of seaward threats from pirates and invasions. They needed not so much a church as a look-out tower and defensible position. Religion was ever adroit in warfare. Inside, Saint Sara, a rather improbable looking figure, was dressed in pink! Come to think of it, I wonder what colours were worn by women in Jesus’ day. Pink? They even claim to possess relics of Sainte Marie Jacobé and Sainte Mary Salomé, in the crypt. The story became more and more curious for someone like myself who knew little of the history of saints. Although my father was a Catholic he converted to1Melancholy stretches in a torn immensity, all is born and all dies without ceasing in the dull sound of waves that bathe its sun lit shores. A land in constant contrast. ......a limitless horizon that reveals beyond the pleasure of the eye, an intense life.” Mistral