Life is full of surprises! Last night we had no idea what was to come. The stalwarts of the village met up at the cross at Varanges just as darkness fell and we set off up the hill and into the forest. I had heard there were to be surprises but I imagined it would be more along the lines of someone making wolf noises behind the trees (wolves did live here until the 1950s and ate a luckless fellow at Cortambert).
The eclipse of the moon last night
I thought it was just a walk to take advantage of the full moon. The night was balmy and the moon was full but as there was a total eclipse it wasn’t a great deal of help. In the darkness the flashing procession of LED torches looked just like a multitude of fireflies.
Finding clues
It turned out to be a treasure hunt cunningly devised by Pascale and Marie Antoinette. At clearings in the forest there were little cairns with fairies and goblins guarding runes and manuscripts.
A goblin guarding the secret
There were clues telling the way to proceed or there was simply a riddle and we had to guess the answer. The runes had to be collected. They meant nothing until the last cairn where we were shown how they had to be arranged and how to read them. They spelled out ‘Dans la gueule du four à chaux’ which means ‘Into the mouth of the lime kiln’.
Working out the puzzle
At last we reached our destination and found the treasure. The maire was waiting at the old lime kiln ready to serve us with wine and gaufrettes (wafer biscuits). It was well past midnight by now and we descended back into the village and bade our neighbours goodnight.
