Day 81 – at Mandailles

The heavy morning rain meant even Roja was happy to doze a bit longer and let me concentrate on reading. I’ve just started James Crawford’s The Edge of the Plain, subtitled ‘how borders make and break our world’. I have read books that approach this theme before, and generally been disappointed, but if the first chapter is anything to go by, this is good.

The first chapter concerns Sápmi, the Sámi homeland, ‘a land with no borders, an ancient land, yet still living, still subsisting, but within the confines of four modern nation states. ‘ Crawford considers whether a nation can survive without land or territory.  For a good part of the chapter he interviews Hans Ragnar Mathisen, who in 1975, took a year to create a map of Sápmi, a simplified result is in the picture below. It’s clearer in an image in the previous post, which I needed to link to from my review.

Coincidentally, there was another interesting map I came across last night when watching the end credits of the last episode of Reservation Dogs, called Indian County. Both maps in images below.

I watched a film last night that is worth mentioning also.

The Queen of Spades (1949) is an adaptation of Pushkin’s ghost story, that Tchaikovsky turned into an opera. The director is Torold Dickinson (also of Gaslight) and it is evident from the casting and the cinematography that their craft has been learnt in the silent era, the lighting, costumes, set design. Dame Edith Evans plays the Countess beautifully. The scene in which Suvorin desperately tries to get her to reveal the secret of the cards is magnificent.

What results is a gothic thriller of the highest order, yet strangely overlooked..

Anyway… Roja’s patience eventually ended and I donned the waterproofs and headed out, on the trail up the Jordanne valley towards the pass, Col de Cabre. But first, I called into the épicerie here in the village for some bread. It’s a good little shop, with lots of artisanal produce, which are expensive, but look very good; cheeses, jams, beers and wines. A bit like Askham Stores, but with a bigger alcohol choice..

There is a group of athletes at the Gite just behind the campervan aire. I was trying to guess what sport they represented, as were young men and women, with France tracksuits, not particularly grand, but decent enough. I guessed track athletes, but was somewhat inaccurate, they are trail runners. I got talking to a guy in the store, and he said they were semi-professional and did several training camps like this each year. It did seems strange they had postponed their morning on the hill due to the weather, though there was lightning around. In the afternoon, just before they departed, a few of them did go out.

Roja and I were out for three hours in the end, and avoided the heaviest of the rain, which set in again when we got back. So it was a laidback lunch, Lancashire cricket on the radio, rugby sevens stream from Toulouse, and a catch-up with some book reviews that I was behind on.