Cadillac Days And Go Pluck Those Nectarines

What had once seemed an endless spool of daunting motorway had slowly unfurled beneath us as we made our way down our tattered map of France.

And finally, the astral week of kilometres to Cadillac had  shrank to earthly double digits, and our sagging optimism was revived.

Driver Richie, Toby, Martin, and I, blearily elated at the thoughts of an imminent end to our mega-trek, turned the old wine-red R16 off the slick arid motorway after Bordeaux. To Cadillac … and beyond!

Like the settlers of old America, free of the orderly squeeze of expanding cities, dwindling countryside and endless highways that was the Netherlands we had left behind, we steered our giddy wagon down tree-lined byways and into the wide undulating heartland of these vine-rich pastures of green and plenty, and on towards Cadillac village, 30km or so beyond the city.

The sun was high in a blue, blue sky, as I remember it, as we trundled across the great old iron bridge spanning the impressively wide, brown-tinged Garonne river, and on into the old village itself.

Cadillac (pronounced kad-e-yak) was just another French village to us, this first time, as we took in the general feel of age and unhurried ease, the old and the renewed nestling side by side in this medieval place, typical already to us of a region full of such quaintly elegant enclaves.

Richie carefully negotiated the narrow lanes as we passed beneath well appointed arches and an old clock tower.

We inhaled the tummy-rubbing bread of heavenly aroma from the boulangerie and the heady coffee odours from off the side-tabled cafes as they wafted in through the opened windows of our chariot.

We passed fat-cigar-shaped bar tabac signs, and the ubiquitous green neon crosses signalling a pharmacy.

The people we passed, or allowed to cross the road … actually, it was us who had to accommodate them, as they were crossing anyway … seemed on first impression simultaneously modern and ancient, the moving parts in this tableau vivant.

They were going about their business as they had been doing for centuries, even eons, gabbling in a strangely familiar tongue as we passed, baguettes under an arm, or sticking out of the linen carrier bags carrying home the makings of another routine cuisine delicacy to be savoured and no doubt raptured over later.

I couldn’t help but feel simultaneously young and ancient myself, insignificant  yet significant … surrounded everywhere by the cold-stone certainties of the buildings, and the monuments to endurance and the people here meeting change on their own merits.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep and the relief of arrival, but already this place seemed inviting and familiar, and would only become more familiar. I sensed adventure was afoot.

Hopelessly romanticised, of course, but far from home, and still young and searching for meaning and an identity, it’s easy to find significance and perceive authenticity in a foreign place, free of the binding, jaded symbols of home. And those wbo would soon put you in your place.

Sure why wouldn’t you be thinking these thoughts here in the country where existentialism became fashionable through Sartre and Co?

The women here could just as easily have been flouncing along in fine voluminous skirts, or the bustling mémés wrapped in black lace shawls carrying the same baguettes and legumes in their shopping bags, and the men in hard collars rattling along the cobbles on bone-shaker bicycles, wonderfully smelly Gauloises dangling from their grumbling lips as they just avoided the clopping horses and their steaming dung.

Old French towns are like that for me still, so much stone and echoes and well seasoned walls and pathways, alive with old smells and living noises, still carrying somewhere in their walled memories the vivid steps and the reverberating voices of all who have passed through, the wars and the deprivations endured, and the feasts and the carnivals danced to.

The good, the bad, the beautiful, the foul, the sacred and the profane, the pained and the profound, all part of this ancient and timeless place.

Cadillac was like so many towns and villages we had lately driven through, in this characterful sweet-white wine region. Squat yet elegant houses in old gleaming sandstone, well used to the sun, the usual grandiose mairie in the square and always some great chateau or other, either lording it over the town, or out the road at the epicentre of the great rolling vineyards and the production operations bottling and sending Bordeaux wines out into the world.

The bigger chateaus were usually well maintained, but some of the less important ones looked a little battered but still beautiful, like old dowager duchesses. 

Toby and I had looked up Cadillac and the general South-West France region one afternoon in Breda’s lovely airy library — not a place I visited too often, but I did like to peruse the Observer sports and arts sections there the odd Monday afternoon. 

Cadillac, we already knew, had its early 17th century chateau in the town itself, looking very well maintained, and built originally for the Duke of Epernon, a favourite of Henry III, apparently, as his main residence.

In Ireland, we would have made a real big deal of Cadillac, with its stately chateau and the ancient defensive walls still standing. Even if if we are anything but ambivalent about our old British occupying landlords, they really did get around and Cadillac was yet another testament to that 

They spent a good while in France, our British, em, chums, and founded hundreds of fortified, walled communities like Cadillac. They started the town in 1280 AD and they stayed in the area for about 300 years. The town as we know it was built around the old duke’s castle.

You could just imagine these dukes and conquerors, couldn’t you, heading off on another voyage of plunder and discovery.

‘Off for a spot of pillage and exploration, dear heart. Back in a few years, don’t wait up. Oh, and don’t forget to feed the servants …’

But now, there were more pressing matters at hand now, liking tracking down Scots Billy and Scouser Dave.

Billy’s directions held good and we hit camp Billy and Dave.  They had  erected a great tarpaulin covered den in the dusty courtyard of their old patron’s old farmhouse.

We could kip down for a couple of nights until we got ourselves sorted in the abandoned old two-story farmhouse on the huge estate of Monsieur Boyer, outside nearby Cerons. There was work for us all picking nectarines, first, and then apples later on in the season. 

We had arrived on a Friday and we would start picking on the Monday.

TO BE CONTINUED …

Please pass it on … share on your social media platforms, or maybe tell people about this piece or endastories.com … and thanks!