Chamberet is often like many French villages around here - as you walk around or drive through there are probably no signs of life - not a soul about. Visitors and other English residents we know here often remark on this. Lots of villages are like English villages and have lost all their services - post office, shops, even the bar or café. So, unlike a busy town or city, there's no reason to be aout and about, other than on a stroll or walkabout. Also, if you happen to pass through after midday, lots of villages still have the holy hour, or rather two hours, when shops close for a long lunch break and the only signs of life might be at the boulangerie (open all day) or the café or restaurant which provides lunches, particularly 'formule' lunches - three courses, usually at a reasonable price and aimed at workers of whatever description.
We live about a three minute walk from the centre of Chamberet, on the official lorry route through the village. When traffic comes in on the back road from Limoges (60 kms away), arriving at the little mini roundabout, heavy vehicles are directed down our street, rather than straight ahead on a shorter route to the village centre where the street narrows considerably. So on most weekdays, we have all manner of cars, lorries with huge quantities of large tree trunks, tankers delivering oil for domestic and farm use, mobile shop vans, and all manner of agricultural machinery of all sorts of weird and wonderful ages, shapes and sizes. Depending on the time of year, there are pedestrians. At the moment, with typical winter January weather with grey, lowering skies and maybe rain, there are occasional pedestrians - a little old lady who goes past every day with her shopping trolley after her visit to the village supermarket, neighbours off to visit other friends and neighbours, residents out for their daily stroll, and kids from the village school on their way to do some activity up at the Salle de Fetes (community centre). And particularly on better weather days cyclists of course - this is the country of the Tour de France after all - usually small groups of men, chattering away in all their helmet and lycra glory.
This afternoon Harry remarked to me that there hadn't been any traffic since the siren and the Angelus bells went at 12 noon. I realised this was right - not one car, not one pedestrian. I ventured out a little while ago to take the rubbish and recycling up to the communal bins and listened to the silence! There were actually maybe five cars passing through and a lone cyclist and me - the only pedestrian.
Such a change from our former life with cars racing up and down a narrow back lane not intended for the purpose in a Durham pit village, then constant traffic ignoring the 30 mph speed limit, with the traffic noise from a busy bypass always in the background. And now, at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night, the occasional car until the occasional Sunday morning traffic from around 9 am.
© Marie Tyler, 2014
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