It is hot. A banal comment that fails to describe the relentless, noisy summer heat of the south of France. Noisy because of the cicadas that hum incessantly from every tree during the day and the frogs that take over at dusk to croak and hiccup throughout the night. It’s 36°C in the shade and sometimes humid with it.
Chateau Coldspot is full to over-flowing with Happy Holidaymakers most of whom have driven down from the Low Countries and are conversing in some mutant variety of Dutch. But tant mieux, they seem to like it here. It does not matter that le Comte and I feel as if we are running a small Belgian colony – a minor outpost of the Belgian Empire. In fact, we are quite enjoying it. Judging from our bookings calendar we shall be hosting most of the population of Flanders during the months of July and August. And why not?
We are not, however, exclusively a Belgian holiday venue. So far we have welcomed English, Dutch, Americans, Canadians and of course, the Swedes that turned out not to be Wallender. We have Germans and Polish planned for next month. It’s all very pan-European and everyone meets up at the table d’hôte that we put on once a week to enjoy le Comte’s Boeuf Bourginnoine, my gooseberry crumble and large quantities of the local cepage. While the guests eat, drink and make merry they ask about the history of Coldspot and the whys and wherefores of le Comte, les princesses et moi.
The agricultural basin is a huge hit, of course, and the ozone blaster has definitely improved its appearance. The temperature is up to about 30°C and when the guests fall in they seem reluctant to climb out. The lack of chlorine means lesser wildlife doesn’t instantly die on impact and I have spent some time rescuing bees and baby ladybirds who were practising an ineffectual breaststroke.
Occasionally our friends turn up disguised as Happy Holidaymakers. Last week it was a family from the Suffolk Coastal waters, more used to tidal marshlands, oyster catchers, samphire and storm-wrecked sailing boats than blistering sunshine, parched hills and cool rivers. We took them to the Tarn where they kayaked bravely through the Gorge in the baking sun and retired to the shade of a bush at each picnic stop. They have now moved on to Limousin to take care of some strimming.
Back at le Lycée in la Grande Ville, the Baccalaureat results were out only days after the exams and Princess 1 was there to witness the list being posted on the pin board. She did well. Not brilliantly, but well: 65% overall with the only actual fail in philosophy which her Anglo-Saxon soul never quite saw the point of (why not motor-cycle mechanics or woodwork, for goodness sake?).
Philo is a four hour essay paper with a choice of two questions. La Princesse chose ‘Is the role of the historian to judge?’ Aristotle, she said, vaguely, but couldn’t remember any of the quotes. So 9/20 wasn’t bad, and dropping a mark in philo doesn’t prevent her obtaining her Bac.
Incredibly, philosophy is an obigatory part of any Baccalaureat exam – even the technical courses. Mathieu, for example, studying Power Systems, still had to take a philo paper. And very well he did in it too.
All this clearly illustrates that in la belle France, the art of waffle is apparently deemed an essential part of education. How can you be taken seriously if you are unable to pontificate? This emphasis on philosophy seems to epitomise the French approach to life – intellectual, analytical with little time for pragmatics or realism. Why concern yourself with what actually works when you can spend hours debating possibilities?
And for those who narrowly failed their Bac, there is always the oral. Held two days after the results come out this gives students who have missed by a couple of marks the chance to gain their Bac. The system is known rather wonderfully as either the retrappage (to re-catch those who fell through the net) or the repechage (to re-fish them up). The examiners look at the candidate’s dossier which contains their marks and behaviour throughout the year and ask searching questions on two subjects of their choice. This is their chance to show that they know their stuff but simply get nervous during exams. Amazingly it works. Of the five students in Princess 1’s class who failed, four obtained their Bac via the oral. C’est comme ça, la France.
End note: Princess 2 will wish it to be known that she passed her Brevet, mention bien. Well done, cherie. And in the Paradise that is Lufbra examiners have awarded Prince Arsenal enough marks to return next year and actually given him a first on his British Government paper (though considerably less on one or two of the others).
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