It was to Spain that Guylaine Tremblay and Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc flew as part of the show Part differently with friends, broadcast on TV5. The first week, the two friends settled in Alájar, in Andalusia, then it was near Barcelona, in Catalonia, that they spent the second portion of their stay. A project which reveals a friendship full of complicity and humor.
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Guylaine and Hélène, how did you decide to go to Spain together?
Guylaine: It’s a miracle! I was approached to participate in the show, but I had little availability. I was only free from July 1st to 14th. I decided to call my friend Hélène, telling myself that she was going to tell me no. After all, she works, she has two children… I still tried. When I mentioned to her that we would be leaving from the 1st to the 14th, she told me that she had just registered the children in a summer camp on those dates…
Helene: I had nothing on the agenda. I was like on vacation, alone at home, without the children. So I left for Spain! I had already been invited to participate in the show Partir differently with family, then Partir differently with friends, but it never suited my schedule. It was like missed appointments. This time it was perfect! Guylaine and I know that we can do lots of things together and that it’s easy between us, even outside of work. It’s an occasion that rarely happens in a lifetime. I think this trip was my best gift of 2023.
Your friendship goes back to Annie and her men, it seems…
G.: Yes. We met on Annie and Her Men. I immediately liked Hélène. We immediately joined in the humor. I found it super funny and so good. Then, over the years, our friendship deepened, it became more intimate. Hélène is truly someone I adore. She is precious to me. I was really happy to go with her. We both have a great capacity to adapt and we don’t complicate each other’s lives. We are also curious girls and we love people. She was the perfect travel partner! We are not from the same generation, but we were like two little girls. We no longer had family or parental responsibilities.
H.: Our ability to adapt has been tested at times, especially because last year it was very, very hot in Europe. It was intense! During the second week, however, we were at a resort in Catalonia with a Michelin-starred chef. It was happiness!
G.: It was great! We lived in two completely different places. In Alájar, a village in Andalusia, we lived in a small house with a swimming pool and garden. We were in the countryside. In Barcelona, it was a luxury resort, but ecological. The place was heated by solar energy. It was extraordinary!
What activities have you done?
H.: We went to meet artists who work in a different way with recycled products. We felt a certain slowness in their way of life. We met people who did things differently, always with ecological concerns or to avoid leaving too large a human footprint. We took walks in the forest and made goat cheese.
G.: It’s true that it plunged us into another temporality. Seeing, for example, people tearing the bark off the cork, called upon another notion of time. Everything was done by hand. The jeweler lived isolated in the mountains. They have another way of life. It calmed us down and allowed us to taste a way of living different from our daily lives which can be frenetic at times.
What was the highlight of the trip for you?
H.: In the small medieval village of Alájar, at midnight sharp, the church bells began to ring. It seemed like time had stopped…
G.: That evening we decided to go for a walk before going to bed. The village was deserted. When the bells rang, it was like an omen that we were going to have a great trip… There was also the flamenco evening. It was so moving that the technician had to cut the sound because Hélène and I were crying so much.
Episodes of Partir differently entre amis with Guylaine Tremblay and Hélène Bourgeois Leclerc will be broadcast on Thursdays, May 2 and 9 at 9 p.m. on TV5 and on TV5Unis. Guylaine is spokesperson for the Active Your Way campaign which invites people aged 60 and over to get active. Find out more at capsana.ca. Hélène hosts Le Restaurant, Tuesdays at 9 p.m., from June 4 on TVA.
