We learn, slowly

The last few days in Lagrasse are always pretty busy: this time, because it had been so cold, we'd twice the normal amount of laundry to do, and the day we left, the washing machine was running from 06:00 till close to midday.  Not a hope of getting stuff dry outside, of course: when it wasn't raining, it was blowing a gale.  Consequently, the house will remain festooned with washing till we get back.

Kate and John came for supper on Friday night, having arrived late the previous evening from London via Girona.  We had a nice evening together, catching up on the news, and doing some damage to a fair bit of regional produce.

Before we left, we had at least got most of the plumbing issues resolved, though the shower room still smells of drains.  On checking, I find that there are two possible sources apart from the shower itself: the hot water tank drain-down arrangements and the plumbing for a washing maching (which would have to be a pretty slim volume to fit in!)  As for the outdoor work, we saw the builder while we were there, and he'll be doing the first half of the work between now and our next visit, which should keep the neighbour reasonably happy.  We'll have to wait until autumn for the second half, since we aren't allowed scaffolding out on the street in the summer months. 

The drive home was long: maybe it seemed unusually so because we took three days over it, hence slept badly two nights in succession in unfamiliar beds.  It was delightful to see Jan and Mark, who kindly put us up for the night in Puylaroque.  Since we last visited, Mark has created a new downstairs sitting room, so what was a two-bedroomed house over a cellar has become a five-bedroomed house, the dowstairs comprising three bedrooms, a sitting room, a bathroom and a hall/kitchenette/breakfast room.  Mark has also put in a swimming pool, and is in the process of creating a rabbit-proof raised bed potager.  We gather that he has also pegged out the land for the next project: the garage.  While we were there we ate at an unpretentious and welcoming country restaurant - salad and charcuterie, soup, meat or fish, cheese, pudding, wine - €15/couvert.  These places are still to be found, if increasingly rarely, and have a loyal following.

Late spring 2013, Auvergne style

For the second day, we headed across country to Vichy through the beautiful Quercy and Auvergne countryside, enjoying some fine views to the west as we climbed, and snow-capped volcanic plugs to the east.  Our route took us up to the ski resort at Lioran, where there had obviously been overnight snow.  Slushy stuff by this point, but not what one expects on 26 May!  The views from the east side were less spectacular, but the clouds parted for the last part of the drive to Vichy.  I managed to get us spectacularly lost in the outskirts of Clermont Ferrand, having baulked at Dotty's suggestion that we drive two sides of a triangle to get out on the road to Vichy.  I suspect we drove marginally further than had we done as she told us.

It's a few years since we've been in Vichy, and that time we stayed in a Campanile in the outskirts.  This time we put up in a hotel next door to the spa, so we could explore a little more.  A flea market was just packing up on the banks of the Allier as we walked, and I have to say that it had a lot in common with the brocantes in Lagrasse and round about, and correspondingly little to offer us.  The park near the Célestins spring boasts many fine specimen trees, and the back streets nearby have a curious mixture of Neuilly and

Etablissement thermale from Vichy hotel room balcony

Montmartre about them.  Like Montmartre, Vichy boasts a modern church of dubious architectural merit.  Unlike Montmartre and Neuilly, however, the bits of Vichy we found lacked attractive bistros.  The fish restaurant Kate and John had recommended unfortunately doesn't open on Sunday evenings, so we finished up eating at the hotel - acceptable meal helped along by an undistinguished Saint-Pourçain.

Dotty led us along some peculiar but largely quiet country roads out of Vichy and up to the N7.  Thence to the tree-themed A77 and to the drain (aka the very heavily used A6).  The A6 ground to a halt some way south of Corbeil-Essonne, and when we left the motorway at that point, Dotty started to get seriously confused.  Navigating using maps and the proximity of the river for reference, we found our way on to the east-about N/A104 which traces a drunken and circuitous route round from the A6 round to the A1 at the airport.  There is a sort of Aire part-way round the A104, but I wouldn't recommend it other than in extremis.  We ate our shop-bought, hence already unappetising sandwiches standing by the car between trucks, the drivers of which had plainly lacked the energy to walk as far as the lavatories.

There is an obvious short cut to avoid a big loop back to Le Bourget, and it takes you in an almost straight line to the north, touching the eastern perimeter of the airport, and emerging at a point just short of the Péage on the A1.  From there, it was just a long, dull grind up to the autoroute des Anglais, and another up that to Calais.  Memo to self: check when booking that it isn't a bank holiday in the UK.  The tunnel was very busy, and we spent a long time hanging around in car parks.

All seems well hereabouts.  The garden has been growing well - notably the grass, which, given the forecast, we won't get cut for a few days yet.  Aquilegias and potentillas are now in flower, as are our late-planted tulips.  The grass seed I sowed at the front this year seems not to have done much, but last autumn's sowing is enough almost to fill the post-leylandii bald patch until I can sow again this autumn.

The tiredness begins to show.  Making meatballs this morning, I went looking for an egg and found none.  Motored down to the farm and bought a dozen.  Went to the fridge, and found a dozen eggs already in there.  And I quite forgot while out to buy bird seed.  Supreme irony: the meatball mixture held together perfectly well without benefit of egg.  Oh well.

Modest progress

We expect the plumber here on Wednesday, and the builder seems able to meet our neighbour's availability next month.  Unfortunately - well, it's maybe just as well - I have a two day event at the unmentionable hobby while the chipping and pointing is due to be done, so won't be able to supervise.  Still, I've seen our Pierre at work, and am confident.  The said Pierre has also salvaged a bit of stainless steel deck plating which he's going to cut down and fit in place of the broken heavy slab that covers the water meter trap.  Each year it has been getting more difficult to lift, and less good at keeping the weather out of the 'ole.  As for the plumbing, we took a ride down to Rivesaltes on Friday, returning with a brace of matching chiottes (see above) to replace the rusty, cracked, badly installed ditto that I bought with the house - getting on for 15 years ago, when I regarded their replacement as a priority.  A glance at the photo perhaps confirms that we were wise not to go for the sporty little convertible.

Another purchase in Rivesaltes was a robust weeding fork.  I have hoiked out a sackful of weeds from the tiny bed under the dining room window, and could barely carry it along to the poubelles afterwards.  The mint has failed to assert itself over the weeds, but I've planted a few bits out the length of the bed, and we'll see what happens.  The beds were full of mint back in 1998, but periwinkle (vinca major) seems to have the upper hand in the bed to the right of the door.  The weeds will be back within a month, but with unlearning optimism, we've planted some sage, dill and a bit more mint, and sown eschscholtzia seeds.  We gather from the chap we bought the herbs from yesterday in the brocante up on the Prom that this is being a particularly weedy year because of the wet spring.  I'd mentioned the wild flowers.  We've never seen them better. 

The dull weather programme

Normally I get the paints out when it's like this, but I struggle to summon the inspiration.  Still, we had a lovely visit from Patricia, Martin and Chota yesterday afternoon as they passed on their way home from the Costa Brava, and had time for a good catching-up.  We're hoping to meet again next Tuesday for lunch.  Doesn't help that the restaurant we had in mind no longer answers any of the telephone numbers we have for it.  We'll sort something.  Chota, readers may recall, is a Jack Russell bitch of great charm, who seemed pleased to see us, and to have an unfamiliar house to sniff around. 

It's dry today, but cold.  The laundry basket is overflowing, so the washing will have to dry at the top of the stairwell.  At the moment, we only have one working tap in the utility room, so I've been having to switch the hoses over between the washing machine and the dishwasher.  It had to happen sooner or later: I didn't do up the washing machine hose tightly enough this morning, so the floor has had an unexpected wash.  That was enough to prompt me to send for a plumber: neighbours had given me a contact name, so I'm expecting a knock on the door as I write.  There are a few oddities to sort out.  Whoever did the plumbing here had some curious ideas: both cisterns have been fitted back to front, and the WCs are badly stained where the cisterns have leaked the very hard water that afflicts these parts.  Another charming curiosity is that there is no u-bend under the shower drain, which means that the shower room always smells of drains.  Not for much longer, we hope.

As to the building work, I have yet to hear whether my man can fit round the availability of my part-time neighbour, to whose workshop he'll need access.  Another job for the summer is waterproofing the roof terrace, which I think is definitely a GSI job.  My DIY efforts have not stood the test of time and hard winters.  Ah, the joys of owning a decrepit second home!

An unfamiliar spring

We're rarely here in May, so it has been a pleasure to see the countryside as it now is.  There were lots of cowslips at the roadside as we drove south, but there usually are for our customary Easter trip.  This time we arrived to find the vines in leaf (we normally arrive to find them bare, and leave just as they are starting to sprout tiny shoots of vivid lime green).  It's only when you leave the motorway that you see an unfamiliar landscape.  Although the authorities have started mowing the grass verges, many are resplendent with poppies, euphorbia, a creamy yellow flower a bit like a dandelion, harebells and wild oats and barley.  Here and there, the wild fennel is starting into growth, and up on the hill where we were too late for the dwarf daffodils and iris, the ciste cotonneux (cistus albidus) is blooming fit to bust.  Acacias are in full bloom, and some of the motorways were lined for short stretches with what may have been lilac, but we were not of a mind to hang around to confirm the fact.  Many roses hereabouts are in full bloom, but the wisterias are largely now in full leaf, the flowers having gone over.  The vegetation of the immediate locality is unfortunately also luxuriant, so we have a major weeding task on our hands.  The oleanders are growing like weeds too, and will need a bit of taking in hand.

The air is pretty clear (though we are expecting a lot of rain over the coming week), so views are impressive.  On the road from the market town, one can see a long chain of snow-clad Pyrenees.  We're restraining ourselves, however - although some of our familiar roads in the hills would offer gorgeous views, we're drawing breath for a couple of days before we think of going further than the supermarket. 

We have finally re-assembled a much travelled IKEA Poäng armchair that has been rattling about in the boot since our aborted trip south at Easter.  I bought it in the Spreitenbach IKEA soon after I arrived in Zürich in 1997, and enjoyed its twangy leathery comfort for my couple of years in Dübendorf.  It came south in 1999, and more recently we took it back to England, where it served as a comfortable perch in the sitootery.  Now that we have an armchair that matches the sofas, plus an inside-outside table and chairs, said sitootery is getting a touch crowded, so the good old Poäng has been on its travels again, and is now installed once more by the fireside here in what Dotty describes as Lahgrahsse.

On the road again

Not the greatest start, when our shuttle was cancelled, and we had to wait an extra half hour - when we'd got there in time for both of the preceding departures.  Oh well, the rest of it went well enough, thundery showers notwithstanding.  We were glad we weren't heading north, however - after two weeks with public holidays in them, the leave-saving tendency was heading reluctantly home to the Île de France.  The approaches to SW Paris were clogged for miles, as was the motorway stretch south of Vierzon. 

It's the first time we've made the journey with help from GPS, and it's a good job we knew where we were going, since Dotty, our GPS helper, certainly had different ideas.  I think her plan was to take us right down to the Périph, which we prefer to avoid, either using the Quais from Asnières to Boulogne, or taking the A86 north-about, including the curious duplex tunnel.  That said, having chosen the latter, which involves a tangle to rejoin the N118 that would challenge the most experienced boy scout knot expert, she was actually helpful.  Her French pronunciation Needs Work, however: Bourges, near where we are spending the night comes out as Burgezz, and I couldn't begin to reproduce her pronunciation of Rue Joseph-Aristide Auxenfans.  I dread Millau and Béziers, and will positively grit my teeth when we reach Lézignan-Corbières.

She also helpfully alerted us to dangerous road segments, recommending a maximum speed.  Oddly enough, the Republican authorities seemed to regard said segments similarly, demonstrating the fact by installing radar speed traps.  Quite coincidentally, I understand that it's unlawful in France to alert drivers by GPS to the presence of speed traps.  Isn't that a funny coincidence?

The Workers' Paradise of Langton Green

I voted this morning, and hope it will have brought a grain of comfort to our candidate.  A waste of diesel: I suspect the contest is more likely to have been between the Tories and the egregious UKIP. 

Meanwhile, we've been injecting money into the local economy at an alarming rate.  The clock is back again, and we'll see in a few days' time whether it's reliable.  The 100% solid sh*t* bifold doors from W*ck*s have gone, and we have some Buildings Regs compliant doors in their place.  They seem more robust.  Let us hope.  They might also save us a bit of gas in the winter, since the old doors were thin, manifestly fragile, single-glazed and beset with draughty gaps.  Name of conservatory builder on application: quite apart from the fact that they failed to comply with the contract term to obtain and meet regulatory requirements, it turns out that the lintel they installed was substantially adrift of horizontal.  Shame we were busy with Ma-in-law's funeral at the time.  I've been trying to get them back to rectify faults for some years now, without success.

We had lunch on the terrace today for the third or fourth day in succession.  How good a bit of sunshine is for the Weltanschauung!  I was out at a faintly indecent hour this morning, feeding the duck and checking on the garden, and find that three of the cowslips we moved to the mossy bank at the top of the garden last year are in flower, along with the primroses we moved around the same time.  It's hard to be grumpy at this time of year, but do please be assured that I'm applying myself to the task with assiduity.