Going through the recipes, I started with a basic omelette. JC highlights the technique (the ingredients are same old, same old - eggs plus butter, salt and pepper) which her French chef teacher taught her - the "shake-and-jerk" method. You beat the eggs, season them with salt & pepper, put butter into the frying pan and when it's hot, add the eggs. Allow the eggs a few seconds to solidify and then pull the handle vigorously towards you. Somehow Newton's Laws of Motion apply and the egg curls up upon itself in the frying pan till it is a beautiful, neat oval. Then you sort of unmould it into a plate. My unmoulding technique needs work but nonetheless I was very happy with my efforts. Next, scrambled eggs. Beautiful.
Then our dear Casey cat felll ill. She was not eating and was a little feverish. She was taken to the vet but there her true nature emerged as she gave the vet and assistants a hell of a time. She resented the subcutaneous drip, and the antibiotic jab. She ran around the vet's clinic and hid behind his computer. We brought her home after that but she still wasn't eating or drinking so back to the vet she went. This time she stayed for two nights. She came home with a collar around her neck, her long sharp claws clipped and a bandage over her paw when the intravenous saline drip had been inserted. The vet was labelling her a "psychotic, semi-feral cat". That's our Casey for you. Oh, and apparently she jumped and hissed everytime any one passed her cage. What to do? Our sweetie is used to a peaceful, quiet environment where she is an absolute Princess. Not a place where people grab her and poke sharp needles into her, full of antiseptic smells and worst of all, Other Animals. Anyway, she recovered and is fine now but those were a stressful few days (especially for the vet)..jpg)
The next incident (and this is the good news, the only good news) was the advent of Smudge. Smudge was found on the roadside, by my father. We brought him home and cleaned him up. It is such a pleasure having a kitten around - playful, mischievous little things that they are! Smudge got on well with his big "uncles". They loved playing with him, and he for his part loved wrestling with them, a small little David to these surprisingly gentle Goliaths. I put him up for adoption (via facebook) and was so fortunate that a nice lady fell in love with his adorable little photo. She came by and within the hour had made her decision. She brought Smudge home, took him to the vet and made a monumentous discovery - Smudge was a she! Well, well, well. But Smudge has made a happy home with her.Lourdes used to be an obscure little village. Then came the apparitions and nothing was the same. Lourdes today is probably the most visited pilgrimage centre in the world (followed, apparently, by Our Lady of Guadalupe – so now I've visited the two most popular Marian shrines in the world - see this post).
Evidence of the tourism industry is apparent throughout – hotels everywhere, lots of Paris-style cafes along the roads and most of all, lots and lots of gift shops. Attractions-wise, they are pretty much all religious. Aside from the Sanctuary, we visited the birthplace of Bernadette and Le Cachot, the little hovel Bernadette's family was staying in when she first saw the apparitions.
Many people come here also to walk in the footsteps of St Bernadette. 2008 was the 150th Anniversary of the Apparitions and a route is marked on the roads in blue for those who want to visit the sites associated with Bernadette.
The shops sell mainly religious artefacts, including the candles for the candlelight procession and the ubiquitous bottles for Lourdes water. My mother brought with her 4 Listerine bottles, courtesy of a relative. My mother explained herself: “they are flat and easy to pack”, but the Lourdes water bottles were themselves also reasonably packable. Well, we had bought a few larger 500ml ones and several small little bottles to fill and give away. The shops also open pretty late, particularly those near the entrance of the Sanctuary, to catch the late night shoppers after the candle procession.
Our last hour in Lourdes was spent (I am sorry to say) not in prayer and contemplation but in doing some last minute shopping. I did not buy myself any rosaries but did get a few rosary bracelets. It would have been nice and convenient for saying the rosary on the tour itself coz it was certainly a little more difficult getting the rosary ring out of my bag quickly, when Father decided it was time to say a few decades.
My mother, on the other hand, spent some time looking for the perfect statue of our Lady of Lourdes. She ended up buying three, one for my grandmother, one for her god daughter and one for ourselves. Of course, they were neatly packed in her hand luggage as the check-in luggage had all been packed. So when we subsequently went through the metal detector she was stopped and her statues scrutinised for potential explosives.
But despite the hotels, shops and cafes, nothing can take away from the peace of Lourdes. It is a place of prayer and healing. So on our last day here, we did do a tour of the Sanctuary for one last time, washed our faces in Lourdes water, and checked on the candle we lit the previous night. The rain of the previous day was replaced by sunny skies and so we sat across the river from the grotto and said a quiet prayer that the peace of Lourdes would stay with us.
See more of my photos here.
