Just a few steps made with wooden planks. If that's what you're thinking, you are right. But they mean rather a lot more to me.
I can think of a brother, a brother-in-law and several friends, from an English judge to a certain Toronto scribe, who might also realise why this simple piece of workmanship - the steps are new - should matter.
When I was last in Le Lavandou, they were not there. Try to imagine from my inadequate photo how steep the path, not really a path at all but a sharp descent, must have been. And what it would have been like when muddy.
Yet it was a challenge I often set myself, for the simple reason that the path cuts off a vast sweeping bend in the road and makes going up and down the hill for a baguette and the Var-Matin seem a whole lot easier.
I stopped using the short cut when I realised that the old ankles probably disapproved and that I was at risk of doing myself a serious, badminton-threatening injury. The friend shall remain nameless who performed an alarming pirouette inches from the very top, narrowly avoiding a tumble and roll to heaven's knows what fate.
But now there are steps. I christened them today and found them entirely to my satisfaction.
Of course, coming back up the hill still presents another test. You may cut off the bend but that leaves 130 more steps, 131 if you include a kerb that feels more like one, to climb before the summit is even close. And the summit is where the house stands.
So, while offering sincere thanks to the Maire du Lavandou for sparing a worker or two in my absence, may I now suggest that he gets them to install an elaborate stair lift to make the next stage, on upwards journeys at least, even more comfortable?
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