The Golden Wolf
Tuesday, August 29th, 2017Many years ago I did some work for IGN, the French equivalent of the Ordnance Survey. One of the (very few) perks were rolls of offcut maps. Looking at them, it struck me that they were virtually the same width as wallpaper. A light went on. We’d just bought a big old house in Crouch End which needed a lot of decorating.
Unfortunately the reason they were offcuts is that nothing matched. Hendaye, Douriez, Pontoise (where the veal comes from) Épinal, Martigues; no conjunctions. Finally I found a strip with interesting contours but just a few unknown towns: Gap, Sisteron, Digne, almost nowhere.
So I slapped it on the inside of the loo door, for study and contemplation. Right at eye level was Blayeul Sommet, où les Quatre Termes, a long straight ridge climbing up to a fine peak, clearly with sensational views. I vowed to walk it one day.
A few years later we were driving from Nice to Condrieu when the name of the town we were passing through suddenly rang a bell. Ding! or more precisely Digne! “Hey,” I said to Von, “we’re driving through the loo door!”
She’s not the most talkative woman, and instead of replying she busied herself with the map. Fifteen minutes later, she said “I can’t find it at all.”
“What can’t you find?”
“This Golden Wolf. I can’t find it anywhere on the map.”
“What Golden Wolf?”
“You just said we were driving through the Golden Wolf.”
“No I didn’t!”
“Yes you did!”
“No I didn’t!”
“Well what did you say we were driving through then?”
“I said we were driving through … ah … have you been looking on the map for Le Loup d’Or?”
“Yes of course, the Golden Wolf.”
“I said we were driving through the Loo Door, the map on the loo door at home!”
Collapse of both parties in tears of laughter.
And we haven’t redecorated since. The map is still there.
But we never got to walk the Blayeul Sommet, ou les Quatre Termes.
