Deaf sentence - Orpierre, France

I am reading a book called Deaf Sentence at the moment. It is an autobiography by an English man I am gradually coming to despise. He whinges about having to look after his father who is developing dementia; he whinges about his diminishing sex life with his wife and having to socialise at her work parties; he whinges about being a retired professor and being on his own all day; and he whinges about an unhinged smitten postgraduate student who he stupidly gets involved with. Most of all though, he whinges about becoming deaf, the grief it causes him and the lack of dignity the disability has compared to other disabilities, like blindness. Blindness, he says is tragedy, deafness is comedy. With blindness people will go out of their way to help you, they will help you cross the road, or help you off the train or help you onto a seat and pat your guide dog. With deafness he says, people just laugh at you; ´”What did you get for christmas Lena” he asked his grandaughter “Oh, an icicle, that’s nice...” he says, rather confused.... everyone laughs.... “ She said a tricycle darling”.

But the English man would have had nothing to whinge about last night. No one would have been laughing at him, and if anything we would have been jealous of his deafness. Being hard of hearing could have its advantages...

Last night was not unusual. We finished off our meal with pieces of dark chocolate and a lovely glass of Cote du Vivarais before packing up the camp kitchen and getting ready for bed. Nic had already prepared all the climbing gear for a multipitch the next day; 8 pitches of stunning climbing at the Quiquillion in Orpierre. We planned to get up at 7 am to ensure we arrived at the crag before anyone else, it is far more enjoyable to climb a multipitch at your own pace, rather than at someone else’s. If there is a group climbing ahead of you then they will set the pace for the day and you have no choice but to follow. Its like spending all day on a one lane road with no overtaking lane behind a truck that cant go over 80... So, with slightly wine induced contentment and sleepiness we crawled into our tent and onto our mattresses, excited about our big climb the following day.

The tent has been coping very well on our trip so far, and has created a happy home for us each night. Although blessed with good weather there has been the occasional thunderstorm where its 4 season capacity has been tested, but it has stood proudly throughout and has kept us warm and dry in the wind and rain. The mattresses however, are a different story. For 2 months they worked perfectly well. They were comfy and warm to sleep on even in the snow and at altitude because they are inflatable and filled with down. But now, after pumping them up in the evening they are flat by midnight. And it wasn’t until recently that we have found out why. All our efforts at locating the punctures ended in frustration and failure, until we really managed to submerge them in some perfectly still water and found that there wasn’t just one or two punctures to be fixed, but 15 or 20 scattered micro holes to deal with... so new mats are on order, and Exped has some explaining to do. But despite their deflatedness, we usually manage to get a good nights sleep.

7 am is an early start for us at the moment, so we were in bed around 10. But our bedtime is when the parties start. Most discoteques in France are out of town; away from the villages so residents cant be disturbed, and where they have no neighbours. Most campsites are also out of town, near the discoteques.....or near houses where people throw big parties with the assumption they have no neighbours. The party that night was really something. At first I imagined a group of totally messed up French teenagers; not sure whether they were into death metal or rave music or both. But then random old pop classics started playing, interspersed with some reggae and then rmb!? It was a party for every musical taste. We might as well been trying to sleep at the party next to the speakers; the music was ontop of us, all around us and all invading. There is a song on the French radio at the moment that is attractive in its simplicity, and goes something like “ Shut up , just shut up shut up; Shut up, just shut up shut up. “ I almost wished I was the English man from the book. So although we were all prepared with our climbing gear to get up at 7 and get to the crag before anyone else, it wasn’t until 3 in the morning that we really got to sleep and it wasn’t until 9 in the morning that we got out of bed.

So that’s my whinge.