Corinne CrawfordThe time with Bart and Alice was relaxing and comfortable. Just what I needed. I worked a bit each day and we went for walks and had nice dinners sometimes with just Bart and Alice at the house and one night her mother cooked for all of us.
Duck was the popular food and each time I had it, it was prepared a little differently but each time utterly delicious. Alice’s mother was another person I was so pleased to meet. She was a great conversationalist and quite funny. She spoke good English but sometimes when she was trying to get a point across and I finally got it, she would say Voila. I knew we were having a great conversation when the Voila’s were flowing.
Another day we went mushroom hunting. It was a beautiful sunny day and Alice drove us out to their secret spot. They told me everyone had their own secret spot to find mushrooms and nobody told each other where their spot was. As a matter of fact, sometimes they would give you false directions to a location so that you wouldn’t know their spot. I thought to myself that because no one tells each other where their spot is, it is entirely possible that they all have the same spot. This was reinforced by the fact that we only found 1 mushroom during our mushroom hunt so quite possibly someone got there before us.
Alice is the one that found the mushroom but she was nice enough to call me over and let me spot it for myself. After finally locating one, my resolve was renewed and I thought for sure I would find one now that I saw the look of one and the type of moss it was growing on . But we never found another one and all I could think of was I wonder how many I simply walked past without noticing them.
When it was time for me to make my way to Montpellier as that was where I was flying out of to meet Jodi and Debbie for our holiday together in Greece, Alice and her mother actually drove me to Carcassonne instead of Mazamet cutting 2 hours and one train transfer from my trip. They even treated me to lunch in Carcassonne before dropping me off at the train station. I will be forever grateful for the hospitality and warmth they showed me and for the type of visit that just refills your soul and faith in the goodness of people. I hope I can repay the favor to them someday.
