a day for all the senses

This must have been a particularly good year for pyracantha berries. Wherever we go we've been coming across spectacular plants, laden with thick ropes of berries. In places, a number of different varieties have been planted as hedges, with berries in colours ranging from cream to pillar box red, with yellows, oranges and pinks in between. Come to think of it, we've had berries on our pyracanthas in England this year for the first time, so it looks like it's not peculiar to the Languedoc. Yesterday was a spectacularly fine autumn day, with long views through the clear air, and fabulous autumn colours in the forests and vineyards. There is a lot of snow on the Pyrenees already, yet it was warm enough to sit in the square at Limoux for lunch (though my pizza was the first wrong 'un I've had from that café). After lunch we strolled round to take a look at the menu at the intriguingly named Grand Hotel Moderne et Pigeon. Their top offering is a nine-course endurance test at €112 per head, including wines chosen to accompany each. Our lunch cost less than €30 for the two of us, including wine, and was every bit as indigestible...

While we were sitting in the square, an unfamiliar swept-wing shape lumbered across the sky, making turboprop noises - an A400M military transport, now officially marketed as the Grizzly. It's another of those awful aircraft development stories of numerous governments wanting subtly different things, and constantly changing their minds - most recently as to numbers, of course. A totally new engine was developed for it (unnecessarily, since there are US and Russian designs that would have needed only slight modification and a suitable licensing deal). Of course, the whole programme is years behind schedule and way over budget. Three prototypes are currently flying, and we probably saw the one currently based in Toulouse for icing tests. It will no doubt prove an excellent tool for delivering young lives to be cut short in Afghanistan, Iraq and the like.

Talking of planes, our cubic metre of chopped-up plane wood has gone down pretty fast, so we've had to resort to liberating grubbed up carignan vines from some of the many disused vineyards in the neighbourhood. The vignerons tend to pile them up in the fields until they have dried enough to burn easily - we've seen a lot of them smouldering away as we've driven round. So we justify our liberating tendencies with the argument that when we burn them, we at least send less heat into the atmosphere, and avoid using other sources of energy - give or take the odd litre of diesel to schlepp it back here! And I have to say that carignan is probably better, with notable exceptions, at heating rooms than making good wine.

Strange pattern...

It's really odd how often we arrive here on a bright still day and sit out on the roof terrace enjoying fresh air, views and vin rosé, only for the weather to change next day. For the last couple of days we've had a vicious north-west wind (known here as the Cers, the local name for the Tramontane). Our wood pile is diminishing fast, since we spend a lot of time huddled round the stove.

But the air is clear (apart from our wood smoke), and the vines are turning, making the landscape a beautiful patchwork of reds and yellows. We took a ride along to Narbonne yesterday in search of a power cable for my laptop (I'd wrongly thought there was one down here). We came home with a not inexpensive 'universal' transformer, the universality of which, unfortunately doesn't extend to such niche and obscure computer suppliers as Hewlett Packard... So back to Narbonne today, I fear. Why does the world need more than one flavour of power supply for mobile phones and laptop PCs? Come to that, why does the world need more than one pattern of inkjet printer cartridge? And don't start me on the minor controls on motor cars. (At least horn buttons seem to be migrating back to where they belong, in the middle of the steering wheel.)

[Later] Well, we swapped the non-universal transformer and a handful of notes for jeans and shirts today in Narbonne, then ambled down the coast and back over the hills. Some fabulous long views of snowy Pyrenees, and terrific autumn colours in the vineyards. I don't think I've ever seen as many pied wagtails as we did today on the way home across the Corbières. At one point we must have put up at least three dozen of them.

I still don't like the car, which, thanks to sloppy seats and excessive roll, makes the winding roads in the Corbières feel like a fairground ride. The car is small, yet I find it very difficult to place accurately on the road. Maybe it's too long since I used left-hand drive, though that oughtn't to make me so uncomfortable with this one. The engine is willing enough, but the brakes are on/off, and if you can feel anything through the steering wheel, you're hallucinating.

Village life

As usual, within a few hours of getting here, we'd bumped into and chatted with several people we know, including Nathalie, who used to live in the village and keep an eye on the house for me. She and her family moved to the Cévennes a few years ago, but come back to visit quite often. Her daughter, recently dumped by her philandering boyfriend after 13 years, was also in the party: it seems he had finally proposed marriage - two weeks before he finally walked.

We have already made major inroads into the firewood supply. The plane wood Didier brought us burns well, but I think we'll have to keep the stove stopped down a bit if a cubic metre is to last us the eight days we are here. It was actually mild enough for us to have apéritifs up on the terrace last night. The swallows, swifts and house martins appear to have left us, and I think it was starling we saw taking their place, darting around and catching flies. From up there, the view is a bit grim at the moment. The garden we look down into has been slowly pushing the retaining wall into the street, so our neighbour has the builders in to shore it up or rebuild it. Consequently, the garden is a disaster area: shame, since it used to be very pretty (see picture). The red-leaved prunus (presumably the cause of the problem) has been sawn off, and the planting scheme currently comprises cement mixers, concrete blocks and wheelbarrows. André and Huguette who live across the street from the building site will be enjoying the unaccustomed light.

Back at the Fat Wifie

It’s good to be back, but the process of getting here is a pain. Since we’re in the south for just over a week, we came by Easyjet to Toulouse, and have rented a car. The only respectable prices were for the 06:25 flight, which meant alarm clock at 03:00, depart around 04:10 for the wet, windy and winding drive to the airport, where breakfast was served by graduates of the N°93 Soviet Satellite State School of Surly Service. I suppose they were on the overnight shift, and had had a basinful of bolshy boozy Brits. The flight was then delayed by half an hour while the aeroplane was ‘deep-cleaned’ to neutralise the nasty niff that greeted the dispatcher when he opened the door. Toulouse, thank goodness, was sunny and mild, the airport lavatories were clean and un-smelly (in stark contrast with those at Gatwick), and the car rental desk clerk was friendly and helpful. But the hidden extra excess waivers are always rather annoying. Sure, you can have the published rental price. But note that if you biff the car or it’s stolen, you’re responsible for the first €1000 bzw. €1200, and if you burst a tyre or break the windscreen you aren’t covered at all. The car – a C3 Picasso in regulation hire-car metallic grey – does the job willingly enough, but handles like a sack of potatoes, not helped by a total lack of lateral support in the seats, and the interior is distinctly grubby. I imagine that, with 11’000km on the clock, it’s probably on its last rental.

That aside, quite a busy week, with a last day of wannabeak interviews on Wednesday. We’ve got 11 suitables, against a target of 10, out of 40-odd applicants. With our ‘trade union’ hats on, a couple of us went to meet our new local top cop, and found him welcoming and approachable. But as for true magisterial work, I’ve practically forgotten how to do it, so few are my sittings lately.

At Thursday’s art class I did some final fiddling with the two canvases that have been tormenting me for too long, and slapped on each a signature and a coat of varnish. I have brought my tiny water colour kit with me, and might take a ride up to Carcassonne for some water colour paper and brushes. On the other hand, I might get some tubes of acrylic primaries, since I have a few canvases here… But I might more probably just sit and read a book.

I tried out the motor mower yesterday for the first time. It cuts grass. The electric one it replaces was OK for the tiny patches of grass at Smith Towers, but the greensward of Forges-l’Evêque is far bigger, and was taking an hour and a half to cut, particularly if I’d left it more than a week. The new contraption cuts a far wider swathe through the grass, and drives itself, sort of, accompanied by that old-tech Briggs & Stratton chunter familiar to gardeners the world over. It starts easily, but is rather heavy to manoeuvre: I imagine there’s a knack that I may eventually acquire. Fortunately, it fits into a corner of the big garage.

Here at Château Smith, all seems to be in order, and the place is spotlessly clean, no thanks to me. John and Margaret left here after us in the summer, and left the place clean and polished – not to mention equipped with a fresh 10-litre box of Camplong red! Didier’s truck is outside, with a stère of firewood on it, as ordered over the phone before we came away. I’ll catch up with him later to get it unloaded and paid for, then we can try to coax the fire into life. Another neighbour has some vines and kindling for us to burn, since her chimney is lethal, and her landlord indifferent. And having put all these measures in place, we arrive to find that the temperature is mild. Mustn’t grumble.

Panic over

The early hours of Monday were a bit of a sphincter tester. With friends in the village posting facebook comments like 'anyone got Noah's phone number?', I logged in to the real time water height graphic as reported by the gizmo on the rive droite by the pont nouveau. The river started rising on Sunday afternoon, and by Monday morning it had risen by almost 4 metres. Parts of the Languedoc-Roussillon region had two months' rain in one day.

Eleven years ago, I was sitting in my flat in Munich with the telly droning away on a French channel in the background. When I heard the key word 'inondation' closely followed by 'Aude', I started to worry. None of my village contacts' phones were working, and it wasn't until the Monday that I could reach the gendarmes in Carcassonne to establish that there had indeed been flooding in the village. Well, after a fretful day or so, I booked a couple of flights and headed south. By the time I got there on the Wednesday, the neighbours, pompiers and army had swept out the worst of the mud, pumped out the cellar, and got someone in a neighbouring town to call me to tell me to contact my insurers. (For some reason, it had occurred to me a few days earlier to check when my insurance expired, and, on learning that the date was in the past, to call the agents to renew it.) That time it went over 7 metres.

Well, eleven years on, we still discover little pockets of mud here and there. Those of you who have ever been flooded will know that it isn't nice clean water that soaks your carpets and sofas, and sinks into the grout in the floor tiles. But we've got away with it this time, and if it hasn't recurred meanwhile, we might move the electronics upstairs next time we leave.

Sonst, not a bad week, so the grass is cut and patched, and I've scrounged even more from the garden of a friend who's about to move house. I'm going to try and over-winter her New Guinea busy lizzies, so that, if I succeed with cuttings, we should have young plants to put out next summer.

The washing machine arrived on Monday as promised. I was astonished that they'd sent one man on his own to deliver it, since it took us to our limits to hoist the old one in and out of the car when we took it to be recycled. But I suppose I have to recognise that he was less than half my age, fit and trained. Back in the mid-fifties, Dad asked for advice on what make of washing machine to go for. Reply from his contact in the trade was 'David: they a' wash claes.' This yin washes claes as weel.

Court Tuesday, interviewing yesterday followed by training on curfews, art this morning. I've had a final fiddle, I hope, with my two current canvases, so might slap on some varnish this afternoon so as to dissuade myself from further fiddling. And so to siesta.

Retired? Moi?

And the good news is that I had a delightful lunch with art class colleagues, and picked apples from our hosts' groaning trees. And the new washing machine is arriving on Monday. Must remember to hang out the bunting.