Bad news, good news

Shocked to learn just now of the death, in an accident in Thailand, of an old colleague, Etienne.  He and I worked together in the early 1990s, and had only recently got back in touch via facebook.  A great big gangling man, he was one of the gentlest souls I've ever met.  Not an ounce of self-publicising, not a milligram of malice: he just got on with the work quietly and capably, and I often got together with him and one or two others for a Leffe Blonde or three after work. We'd planned en principe to get together in old Parisian haunts, but knew, when planning our latest trip through France, that he was off on one of his jaunts to the Asia-Pacific region.  Too late now: carpe diem.

Better news on the house-fettling front: Pierre the builder is coming round the week after next to strip off the areas of rendering that pose the greatest threat to next door's roofs.  Meanwhile, with a view to the definitive work, he has given me a works schedule that ought to keep the administration happy, and an estimate that singularly fails to do the same for me.  I shall start jumping through various other administrative hoops in the coming days.

We were happy to see a big improvement in Barbara when we visited on Monday.  She is still in hospital and highly dependent, but is much more like her old self, and starting to have a good grouse about things.  Good sign.

Readers will be used to my grizzling about the driving we meet on the way south.  Started early this time.  We were driving into the sun between Goudhurst and Biddenden when I saw the shadow of a large truck approaching and slowed down.  Just as well: the trailer had oversteered well into our side of the road, and we missed it and the hedge by a couple of millimetres.  Soon afterwards we encountered a car that had been going in our direction ahead of us, well embedded in someone’s front wall.  Bet it was the same truck, and we wonder how far it got.

The rest of it was by and large less exciting.  We tried a new route round Paris, and think it saved us getting on for half an hour, not to mention a lot of stop-start through the traffic lights between Asnières and the Pont de Sèvres.  This time we picked up the A86 (grotty old urban 4-lane soi-disant autoroute) and followed it round to Villacoublay.  The newer part is largely in a curious tunnel, tolled at €6.50, and 2m high, hence closed to trucks.  It’s a bit like driving round a multi-storey car park for half an hour.  It spares us the hack down from Gennevilliers to the quai at Asnières, then along through Courbevoie, Neuilly and Boulogne, plus that ghastly steep, winding race track from the Pont de Sèvres to Meudon-la-Forêt, of blessed memory.  But getting it right at Vélizy to rejoin the N118 requires quick reactions and light traffic. 

From there on it was a familiar route down the A10 and A20.  There’s a lot of Iberian heavy goods traffic on that route from Paris to Toulouse, because much of it is toll-free.  Some lovely country along the way, though.  We spent the evening and stayed overnight with Jan and Mark, who also have Jan’s daughter-in-law and granddaughters with them at the moment.  Gentle evening at the table on the verandah, then a somewhat fitful sleep: we had a pretty lively storm around midnight, and that dropped the temperature a bit.  I was out on the verandah before the rest of the house was awake, sorting out the emails and watching an orange sun rise over the hill to our left, and listening to the day coming to life – donkeys, wood pigeons, cockerels and green woodpeckers.

Nothing much to report of the drive here.  The Toulouse ring road was full of the usual mad drivers, but by driving at the speed limit down the middle lane all the way, leaving 2-second gaps whenever possible, we avoided the worst threats.  Home is much as we left it, save that kind visitors had brought in the washing we’d left hanging in the stairwell, and left a couple of nice bottles in the wine rack.  We’re taking it easy this afternoon: I’ve taken down the shower room heater that has worried me since I bought the place almost fourteen years ago, and run the wiring into a junction box.  Tomorrow’s task is to rebate it back to the wall and attach the new fan heater.  Stand by for tears.

Hot day yesterday, when we didn’t feel like doing a whole lot.  I got the grass cut, at least, but regretted it: it was a sweaty job, even late in the afternoon and using a self-propelled mower.  I wanted to get it pretty short, but find that the mower doesn’t pick up the clippings very well on its lowest setting, but it looks tidy, anyway.

This morning I mooted a little walk before the mercury started climbing again.  One of the good things about the housing development up the road is that it has opened out a couple of footpaths to the Common, so we can go walking without seeing a lot of buildings.  Our walk took us past the local pond, where we were delighted beyond words to see not only Doris and Arthur, but also at least two surviving ducklings.  The adults are looking thin and scruffy, now that they have started moulting, but the ducklings are fattening up nicely. Oh, and Martyn spotted a badger in the garden a few nights back.  I think I saw a green woodpecker from the back window this morning: we certainly heard and saw them on our walk.  We're so glad we moved here.

Our walk took us through much lovely woodland and past a lot of ponds that date, we guess, from Regency days when the spa was becoming fashionable.  One of the farms has done a bit of somewhat questionable padlocking of gates, which made for a few detours, plus scrambling through nettles.  But the experience was otherwise a delight.  There is so much natural beauty so close to home: we were surprised how many streams we encountered on the slope down to the river.   

Well, the only bad thing about such walks is the climb back home, which had us panting and sweating a bit.  Still, the last bit was pretty flat, with a woodland path bringing us back out on to the new road a few hundred yards from the front door.  Home again amid increasing cloud cover, rumbles of  thunder and a sprinkling of rain.  How smug one feels on those rare occasions when one gets the best of the day!

The fox that came within three paces of me today was a handsome fellow - good coat, fine white end to his tail.  He was at the erstwhile duck feeder on top of the steps from the terrace to the grass.  Of the human wildlife it was my doubtful pleasure to meet on Tuesday, of course, there's nothing I'm at liberty to say.

So, back to the garden.  I've re-planted the basket by the front door with a couple of fuchsias that have been hanging around rather too long on the staging bay the back door, adding a few pansies that I hope will flower for us into the winter.  The tomatoes are cropping like mad things, so we were able to do bruschette for the lunch guests today.  They left with rooted cuttings of cistus pulverulentus and the rose pink penstemon.  Out at the front, the cosmos seedlings are flowering well, as are the dwarf nicotianas.  This morning I finally got round to splitting the clivia that has been outgrowing its pot for some time.  I had to nibble away at the pot with secateurs to get the plants free.  Unfortunately, two of the plantlets came away without roots, and another with next to none. We'll see. 

Today's lunch menu pressed on with mushroom and red pepper quiche ('I'll take the Quickie.'  'That's Quiche, Mr President.') with a tossed salad and new potatoes.  Pudding, by resident pastry cook Martyn, was a superb concoction of meringue nests, whipped cream, strawberries, raspberries and a coulis of blackberries and rasps.  Our second lunch here this week: Andy and Celia were here on Monday for a salad of fresh and smoked salmon with prawns, followed by Celia's superb tarte tatin.  All effective only, of course, as part of a calorie controlled diet. Adding to this the fact that tomorrow evening I'm meeting for dinner some fellow practitioners of the hobby that dare not speak its name, I'll be ready for a crash diet.

First paragraph deleted

The car went in for a new pan of oil on Wednesday, and returned washed and hoovered in the evening.  Our next door neighbour is working as one of the garage’s courtesy drivers, so collected and returned the car without the need for either of us to hack through town to the industrial estate.  It was nice to use the Egg for the drive to … the place where I practise my unmentionable hobby.  In about every respect I prefer the VW, but the SEAT is more of a driver’s car, with sharper handling and a bit more pep.  The VW came back with no comment on the matters I’d mentioned when I booked it in, nor information in the boxes on tread depth.  Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.  I bought three years’ worth of servicing with the car.  You may bet your last farthing that it’ll go somewhere else in year 4.

Where once there were leylandii at the front, we now have quite a pretty flower bed, filled with various annuals and perennials, and some nice lavender bushes on the neighbours’ side.  Penstemons, of course – it’s so easy to take cuttings from them.  Cosmos grown from bought seed, antirrhinums from saved seed, a hebe, a berberis from Andy and Celia, and whatever happened to be knocking about on the staging.  Elsewhere on the estate, tomatoes are cropping like mad – we had bruschette for lunch.  I groused a bit at the price of the seed, but they have paid us back generously.  The skins are on the thick side, thanks to a cold wet July, but they are delicious cooked or raw. 

Oh, and while we’re talking of filling the belly (despite the manifest lack of need thereof) I decided yesterday to have a crack at doing some bagels.  Normal dough constituents and programme, turn it out and chop into eight or nine dollops, round each one into a ball and stick a thumb through the middle of it, wave it about a bit, dunk it in a pan of boiling water (with a spoonful of black treacle melted into it) for half a minute each side, bake for 20 minutes-ish.  Solly’s yer uncle, Ruth’s yer aunt.

Ducks ctd.

I guess it was a bit sanguine to assume the ducks had got their ducklings' survival worked out.  It looks rather as if our visit of mother +3 the other day bore witness to the fact that another four or so had gone the way of so many flightless chicks in a cat-infested neighbourhood.  Yesterday Doris was accompanied by two chicks only; this morning she was on her own when she arrived, shouting for her breakfast.  Evidence inconclusive, but.....

Modest good news is that the car is fixed.  The tailgate latch is still a bit reluctant to operate, but I'll deal with that when I have to.  The work is quite good: the paint is a good, if not perfect match, but the car looks a whole lot better not only for having the dents bashed out but also from the absence of badges, save for the VW roundel.  This last mentioned is chrome on a textured black plastic disc, and they'd left rather a lot of polish in the crevices.  Look out for reports reading 'Local Man Cleans Car with Nailbrush'.  Well, I am after all just back from the Helvetic Confederation, where, one day at the car wash some years ago, I watched a fellow remove his number plates and wash and polish behind them.

From other points south, less good news.  The Mairie seems intent to put as many obstacles as it can in the way of my stopping my house crumbling on to my neighbours'.  I had a letter yesterday in more or less impenetrable bureaucratese telling me my application for permission to do repairs lacked at least six essential elements, including photographs of the surroundings.  I shall try to restrain myself from sending back a rhetorical portfolio of photographs of properties that have beem mutilated beyond belief or left to fall down.  All this despite an assurance from the town clerk that, if anything was missing from my application, Valérie would call me in the morning.  Three weeks ago.  Not sure yet, but I think my relationship with the village may be coming to a close.  Maybe the capital gains tax on a sale is its motivation.

Ducks

No fools, our ducks.  They have fashioned a nest in amongst the bullrushes at the pond up the road, and produced a large family.

Good, eh?

...and back to normal.

The grass is cut - I just managed to persuade the clippings into the recycling and compost bins!  We have had some torrential rain since our return, so it won't be long before it needs another visit.  The rain also showed up a weak spot in our guttering: a bracket has broken just above the sitting room window, and the gutter has bellied as a result.  I've cleaned it out, so that ought to allow it to handle all but the heaviest of downpours.  But I'm already getting a slight flavour of bullet.

Martyn is re-working a section of the model railway, so is up and down stairs and ladders.  More alps on the way, I think.  Was it a good idea to spend so long on the real Swiss railways last week?

The car is in the body shop for the dented tailgate to be fixed.  I rang on Monday morning at 08:30, enquiring when was a good time to come and get an estimate.  'How about now?'.  Estimate given, brief dither, phoned acceptance.  'When can you do it?'  'Well, we have a cancellation: how about now?'.  I hope they're as competent as they're responsive.  I took a stroll down to the Post Office later in the morning for the now familiar process of getting Judy to frank some stamps for Phil's collection, and on the way back paused to see whether 'our' ducks were at the pond round the corner from us.  There indeed they were, safely nested in the middle, together with large numbers of ducklings.  Maybe if the rain stops and the sun comes out, I'll take a stroll round with the camera.