MikePadgett.com

Romeyer and Die

— A few thoughts on our first night at Romeyer in the Diois, in the shadow of the Vercors plateau.”

Evening has fallen and I’m sitting on a veranda, breathing in the strawy disinfectant smells of nearby livestock. I can hear cicadas and the constant low, snowy interference sound of a river or trees in the wind. Closer at hand, the muffled voice of an older lady agreeing with another who is or isn’t there.

Nocturnal insects are teeming around an outside light and I’m struggling with an AZERTY keyboard on what might be the only laptop for miles around.

Out there, right in front of me, is an imposing, white mountain ridge. As night turns the colour of a police uniform, I can no longer see that imposing, fearsome giant, but we are both very aware of each other.

We have come to the edge of the Alps where, high above and beyond that ridge, a broad, dry plateau extends as far as the next array of obstacles. So continues this strange march, the uneasy rhythm of rise and fall, ever more irregular until the foggy descent to the Italian lakes.