It’s a bit of reflection on the pace of our travels that Maggie and Jacques were able to join us for lunch today. Seventy-five kilometres we’ve travelled, that’s an hour and a half by car along the scenic route, or as it happens, three weeks by boat.
The weather robbed us of a perfect end to a very pleasant day by intervening just as we were about to set out on the customary Sunday post-luncheon walk. Our little explorations yesterday had confirmed that Wittring is a pleasant little village that like so many places in this region offer small clues that its place in France is an accident of politics rather than of culture.
For instance, it exhibits a different sort of “tidy”, which is not particularly obvious until one notices that everything is painted to within an inch of its life. Shutters have ancient hardware that is still functional. Gardens are carefully tended with graphic effects in contrasting gravel. There’s an order that seems to be underlying. Could it be that what we had taken for security fencing surrounding the boat club is actually the opposite? Perhaps it is we who are carefully screened from view so that our scruffiness will not offend.
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