You have beaten the French direction signs, you have survived the priorite a droite and you have arrived at your holiday home in rural France, whether it be a rented gite or the house of family or friends. While you may actually be looking forward to two weeks of doing as near to nothing as possible, your street cred ranking on return will make it advisable to plan some little outings which which to combat the tales of those returning from their Tuscan idyll or their encounter with mice in Orlando. Forget the major attractions… everyone can visit them, if only virtually, and everyone has heard of them. Touring France…the local way…will bring you fresh fodder for the BBQ circuit, and you will actually enjoy it! You need only use your eyes to find a world of tourism undiscovered by the travel columns of the national press. Avoiding national holidays (such as Bastille Day – July 14th) as France can close down!

As you drive to the supermarket, you will see notices along the roadside advertising truly local events.

The mussels and chips fair.

The giant cassoulet fair.

The ham and wine fair.

The snail fair.

The tripe fair.

The black pudding fair.

The melon fair.

If none of these tempt you, don’t worry…there is always an alternative menu available in the huge tents dedicated to eating and drinking in good company at a reasonable price while you contemplate the attractions which await you.

There is usually a ‘vide grenier’, the French version of a car boot sale, but, being France, it is rather tidier….people always say they are not what they were, but they are still a great place to find new games for the children to play while on holiday, to wonder what on earth the thing you have unearthed from a pile of ancient tools could ever have been used for, or to pick up a stylish earthenware cooking pot which is disdained by the modern French housewife who is still lured by the lust of the new. You might even perform a public service by buying the lurid glass vase which has graced the village vide grenier for the last ten years as purchaser after purchaser finds that  they cannot live with its’ malevolent presence on the sideboard and so puts it up for sale…

There are often dodgems….forget your dignity and whirl round with the local talent…

There may be a ‘rodeo’ display…dare-devil driving of stock cars or motorbikes…

Local producers will be selling everything from honey to goat cheese via wine and speciality breads…

There will be music…increasingly a local band of indeterminate style, but sometimes a hunting horn group whose music will raise the hairs on the back of your neck…

You may have folk dancing…mostly men trying not to split their  trousers while jumping over sticks held for them by women with a tendency to raise the bar without warning when spotting a friend in the audience, an event greeted with cheers by all. Morris dancing it is not…

None of this is designed for tourists…it is how local people set out to enjoy themselves, organised by dedicated bands of men and women who spend hours setting things up and clearing things down and you’ll get a picture of the real France…the one hiding behind the brochures. Just keep a weather eye open for the obvious Brits in straw hat and garden party dress who are gracing the event with their presence…but you won’t find them on the dodgems…or jumping over sticks!

If you are visiting out of season, you will find farm visits advertised…in an attempt to keep a link between the countryside and the consumer. These are super if you have a bit of French – one up from ‘Bonjewer Monsewer’ should see you through – as you can visit typical farms in your area and learn about breeds of cattle, sheep, goats – ostriches even – and what is produced from them…the latter usually sampled over a glass or six of wine at the end of the tour. These are always chatty, family friendly affairs and again, miles away from the self conscious stuff produced for tourists.

The more daring might take heed of the posters inside the supermarket advertising the local discotheque and its’ offerings. These are not the local hop, but usually large establishments situated miles from anywhere out in the sticks to avoid

a) complaints

and

b) the gendarmerie.

They generally manage a) but as for b) the gendarmerie have found that their statistics look impressive if they lurk just down the road at chucking-out time, breathalysing all comers, so if you do go, just be careful or have a designated driver. The nature of the attractions varies…but a wet tee shirt event is at the low end of the excitement scale from the posters I have seen.

Village open days used to be all the rage, but the sheer work involved in organisation has made them rare so if you see one, don’t miss it. You’ll get guided tours of the church – which can have some surprising monuments and features – private houses never normally open to the public and whatever the village has by way of industry, from a wood fired brickworks via mushroom cultivation to a factory turning out prefabricated concrete rabbit hutches. There will be a congenial lunch or asupper organised by the local ladies and you will, once again, get a glimpse of what makes rural France tick.

There’s one rural event which you will see advertised everywhere, but at which you will not have the equipment to participate….the clay pigeon shoot….though just imagine the effect around the BBQ on your return when you announce that you managed to avoid….

the ‘Ball Trap’.

As July is now upon us, I am girding the loins for the spate of summer visitors, intent on the family holiday in France. Dust has been swept from the less frequented rooms in the house, that wretched towel rail has at last been fixed and the plastic jerrycans have been unearthed, washed and sterilised ready for their visits to the vignerons, where they will be filled with whatever wines have caught the visitors’ fancy.

It will be life, but not as we know it especially on the markets.

For one thing, nomatter how long they have been coming over, visitors do not seem able to grasp that France is a game of two halves….before lunch and after lunch. If you want to go anywhere…shopping, markets, chateaux, you have to get up with the lark if you don’t want to arrive just as the doors are about to be shut in your face at midday.

Visitors do not get up with the lark. Given that they have been sitting on the terrace until one in the morning drinking epine and trying to attract the owls by hooting back at them, that might not be surprising. A good night’s sleep cannot be guaranteed even after that as someone is bound to have left their bedrooom window open to the balmy night air to allow the bats free ingress. Not so bad, except they will inevitably have left their door open as well to let the bats get into the stairwell so that everyone has a chance of spotting something swooping by in the dark as they try to get to the bathroom while not remembering where the light switch is situated. Eldritch screeches will rend the air at this point….and it’s not owls.

I am not a great fan of croissants, but knowing that no visit to France is complete without their presence at the breakfast table, I have laid in a vast store of edible ones from the big town supermarket, where they are made with butter and reheat well from the freezer. They even look good, as long as no one has forgotten where they are and thrown a leg of lamb on the top of their plastic boxes. People come down at irregular hours, so breakfast lasts from when I get going to when the last guest emerges from the shower, and at some point between, the croissants will have run out. It is always the croissant fanatic who arrives to find the plate empty and he will not be pacified with bread, while it is too early in the day to stay him with flagons. He wants to go out to buy more. His car is inevitably the one parked behind all the others who have to start hunting for their keys in order to let him out. The dodgems has nothing on it. He will return in due course, beaming, with the offerings from the local baker – a specialist in disguising cement mix as bread – and the kitchen will soon be reeking of the industrial fat used in their manufacture. But never mind, the guest is happy.

Given the number of bathrooms we have, you would think that everyone would be ready to go out after breakfast, but at the mention of setting out, all the women will take flight up the stairs like a flock of birds and will occupy the facilities for at least another half an hour while the men decide to have a coffee while they’re waiting and then all disappear into the garden. Getting them all together to go out makes me realise what a sheep dog must go through when dealing with a strange flock.

A visit to the market is a must. By this time, the morning is wearing on and parking is scarce. I have long abandoned the idea of letting them park wherever they can as looking for all the cars afterwards is a nightmare.

‘I know just where I parked…it was behind a red Renault…’

is a phrase to turn the blood to ice when you have been buying fish for lunch, so, even though it means a longer walk, we park in a distant car park, lagered up together like Boer wagon train, and head for the market on foot. En route, the croissant fanatic will spot a cafe and the whole gaggle, as one, will turn in there to enjoy the delights of Robusta coffee and, of course, croissants.

The family dictator will now form an ops groups and decide what we are buying on the market. He will install himself at a cafe whose terrace overlooks the scene – with Robusta and croissants – and his reconnaissance platoons will be sent off. By the time they have reported back and partaken in their turn of Robusta and croissants, the market is starting to close up, so it’s back to the fish stall to beat the owner of the local chinese restaurant to what is left on the slab. Thank goodness for the early training at the Scouts’ jumble sale in the church hall…no better training in the use of the elbow exists.

Once back at the house, I am  in the kitchen, scaling and gutting,while  the horde are on the terrace, slurping and gulping. One of them comes in with a jug of wine and two glasses.

‘Here you are, dear…I think you deserve this, and I’ll keep you company.’

He pours the wine, and I forget my frustrations….after all, it’s their holiday and I really love to see them….croissants and all.