Impressions on arrival

Back in Australia - in Brisbane at 8-00 am we emerge from customs and the airport, blinking like moles into the bright sunlight and I am struck by the smell of the tropics and the verdant growth of trees, shrubs and grass around the airport. The green is vivid, all encompassing and incredibly striking after winter in France. It is sunny and humid, you can smell and feel the growth happening. There has been very good rain and after a long time without, everything is a riot of growth - luxuriant, humid, tropical growth, it feels as though everything is a part of this growth, even the air which is heavy and growing itself.

The casualness and the space are immediately apparent, it is rush hour at 8-00 am and waiting in the sun for a train is a very relaxed process, the train arrives and there is plenty of time to stroll on and find a place. A little further on the train stops while a couple buy tickets from the stationmaster and after the purchase is complete and they board the train, the stationmaster emerges from the ticket office, glances up and down the track, blows his whistle and we move on - a far cry from taking the metro in Paris. The clothes people are wearing are casual in the extreme, sloppy at times - summer in Brisbane !!! and the pace of everything is relaxed. After a while it occurs to me that if someone from Paris arrived like this at this time they would think - " How does anything ever get done around here !!" Things do get done and the train and the bus run on time with a minimum of fuss and stress.

Overweight people - the number of overweight people is an immediate impression, very rare in France but disturbingly common here. One can see fast food being consumed and sold in the streets and the cafes - a big part of the problem ??

No smoking, very few people smoking and absolutely no smoking in public places.

After Paris and the north of France the space is overwhelming, space between people, between cars, between houses and as we leave Brisbane - between towns. The roads seem empty by comparison and the pace is slower, pressure is less - life slows and flows.

Mango trees with mangoes ripening, huge luxurious figs, tropical grasses bursting out of the ground and hiding fences, Bos Indicus cattle with humps and long ears, rivers with big beds and river banks and small flows, signs of recent flooding, eucalyptus trees and space.

At home, the peace and quiet, the type of peace that comes with hearing only bird sounds and the wind in the trees - a deep, deep peace !

There is however, within me a feeling of dislocation and a strong feeling of sadness after leaving Laruns and the Vallee d'Ossau. I feel we have travelled far and fast and not all of me has moved, there is a significant part of me still in the valley and the mountains. I find myself later looking up the Meteo site for a bulletin on the weather in Laruns and the condition of the snow in the surrounding mountains. I look for a boulangarie as we pass through the towns or a sign saying - Vente Fromage de Brebis.