January stuff

Seville orange marmalade, Forges-L'Evêque 2014

Well, that's that job done for another year.  The thick cut batch is a shade underdone, but who wants mush?  It all set nicely at the first time of asking, and is safely stashed away under the stairs.  In the process of drumming up enough jars for the three batches, I actually found a jar of last year's lurking in a corner.  Annoying, since I'd resorted to a couple of jars of Fortnum's on the assumption that we'd run out.

We did about as well or badly as usual in the Mayor's Quiz on Saturday, scoring 69% cf. the winning saddos' 95%!  My ambitions are modest: I'd love us to beat the MP's team, but doubt whether we golden oldies stand much chance against a bunch of House of Commons researchers.  Politely went and said hello to Rt Hon Gent, taking care to count my fingers afterwards.  (Actually, not a bad bloke for a Tory...)  All good fun, which is what it's about, after all. 

Art class last week was quite useful: while others toiled away at the current topic of 'celebration', I did some work on colour mixing.  I'm determined that the third attempt at the piece I've been struggling with will not founder again solely because I have gone for the wrong colour mixes.  So a few more thumbnails, and a few more pages of mixes tomorrow, I think.  Then big canvas and big brushes.

The iPad continues to baffle.

New technology baffles pissed old hack, Chapter 97

I'm sure I'll learn to love my iPad.  But right now it's a comfort to return to the trusty tea-impaired laptop, which still does most of what's asked of it.  I suppose it's a bit like trying to move to contact lenses after a lifetime of specs.  (Having seen the new without-specs passport photo, I doubt I'll be succumbing to that temptation any time soon: camouflage for the marginally cabin-suitable bags under the eyes is not unwelcome.)  The iPad has the virtue of light weight and speed, but never having used an Apple product before, I'm finding it quite a struggle, as those within earshot during the last day or two will have observed.  To its credit, the iPad adapted quickly to a qwertz keypad, though I haven't asked it for accents yet. 

Splendid lunch yesterday chez Celia and Andy: a Jamie Oliver sausage and tomato dish followed by a wonderful lemon meringue pie.  Plus a few tips on how to live in peace with an iPad, and sightings of goldfinches and lots of other birds that we see little of hereabouts.

I worry a little about the garden: it has been so mild for much of the winter that stuff is coming into growth prematurely, at the risk of being cut down when the cold weather arrives.  Still, four varieties of fuchsia are now dormant in the conservatory, so we probably have a chance of cuttings come the spring.  The solitary geranium rescued from the basket at the front door, also now in the sitooterie, is blooming fit to bust: I should feed it up as cutting stock for the spring and summer, and perhaps even remove some buds to encourage growth.  Clivias too are coming into bud, and the phalaenopsis persists... 

The other winter task is, of course, marmalade.  Watch this space.

Oh, and the gas man has fined himself £20 for failing to turn up as arranged.  Let's see what happens next.

...so 'twas on the Tuesday evening that the gas man failed to call

Electronic yelling-at administered this morning to the German energy supplier, which is failing to live up to the national stereotype of Gründlichkeit.  We hung around from midday until 8:00 pm as advised, and still have a gas meter with a flat battery.  To be fair, I think the maintenance of meters and other infrastructure falls to another company, but the retail suppliers have the customer interface, so ought to have the others tied down to suitable standards of service.

On the subject of batteries, I barely heard the door bell when the burglar alarm man came.  The unit is inherited from the Previous Administration, and gets through batteries at a rate of knots.  Anyway, he pronounced the installation in good order - and happened to have a couple of AA batteries in his van.  Good-oh.

Meanwhile, I'd taken advantage of the fine, bright morning to hack down a leggy escallonia (conveniently growing by the hole in the fence), filling the bin with boughs and clippings.  I have to tell you that the wood is surprisingly hard, and required copious elbow grease and a pruning saw to get through the live bits.  It is not an unpleasant shrub when it's in flower, but pretty undistinguished.  Well, that one is now down to about 2 feet, and if it survives the attentions of the now-briefed fence fettlers, we'll perhaps see some better growth on it.  There's another closer to the house, and that, together with some ugly laurels, any number of bird-sown cotoneasters and a very invasive eleagnus, is coming out.  The way my hands feel after the escallonia job, I'm glad we've woven the slash and burn job in with the fence replacement job.  I had a good look round the accessible bits of the garden while I was out: the sprouting bulbs are no surprise, but the budding oriental poppy certainly is!  They usually flower in May, so I dare say any frost will cut them down again.  We'll see.

Left queue, right queue; left hand, right hand

Much to my surprise, having put in my passport application a week past Saturday, the cancelled one came back in Friday morning's post, and the replacement that evening by courier.  Good service, if hardly cheap these days.  I think it may have helped that the application form was one I'd filled in on line and had posted to me by the passport office.  The first time I travelled abroad, back in 1966, I did so on a group passport.  The trip was a schools exchange, supervised by a few teachers, so I only needed a little green identity card.  The following year, I got the first of a number of those rather elegant old blue passports.  In due course, that design was replaced by the uniform burgundy-coloured EU passport which, I have to admit, is rather handier, being more compact.  That in turn has evolved into a version the photo on which can be compared with the face that presents itself at a camera at the port of entry.  When we came through Gatwick a couple of months back, I was through the traditional queue-at-the-desk process rather faster than Martyn, who used the whizzo new scheme.

Another phenomenon of modern times is energy liberalisation.  Forgive me if I assess the overall results as confusion, inefficiency and vastly increased consumer prices.  It has also abolished a state-owned system that actually worked with a foreign-owned distribution operation that is at the mercy of an Arab cartel and Russian oligarchs.  Our gas meter stopped providing readings other than intermittently a year or so ago.  I reported the fact, and of course nothing happened.  Our supplier asked us for readings a few weeks ago so I reported the elec reading and a string of zeroes for gas, receiving an automated thank-you as though all was in order.  It was tempting to leave the ball in the court of our German supplier, but I called again to report the fault, and arranged for someone to come later today to replace the battery.  So what happens this morning?  Bing-bong: 'I've come to read your gas and electric meters'.  [Anyone else noticed how 'electricity' has become an archaism?] 

With all the rain of recent weeks, travelling has been somewhat entertaining.  (A nod, of course, to the flooded residents of these parts, who I'm sure found the experience no more entertaining than I did in another place in 1999.)  A lot of the country lanes on my usual route to the 'clubhouse' tend to flood in the winter, so I didn't even attempt it last week, using the fast and furious main road instead.  Having become a rather timid driver in my declining years, I'm happier on quieter roads, and was glad to be able to use the lanes again yesterday morning, only having to slow once or twice to ford standing water.  It was a pretty long day at the hobby, however, so it was dark when I left, and the lanes were full of Mummies driving their vast vehicles in the middle of the road.  No right answer, obviously.

The day dawns fine, so I plan to do some hacking down of shrubs.  Our fence man has put in a tolerable estimate, and will grub out such shrubs as we designate (hideous laurels and viburnums, bird-sown cotoneasters and the like), but some we'll cut back hard and aim to keep in check with annual pruning.  It won't be long before we have bulbs in flower, and there are a few timid sparks of colour on the primroses.  It's still far too soggy to do any gardening except for subjects that can be reached from the paths, but that still leaves a fair bit of work.  Onward and upward.

'ere we go again

So what awaits us?  Nothing too dramatic, we hope.  Our fence man has been to have a look at the job, and we await a doubtless eye-watering estimate.  It'll be good to present a less shabby look to the posh people as they drive up the hill, but the main concern is to see to our crumbling infrastructure before it injures someone.  Similar concerns remain in Another Place, and I should rattle gallic cages ere long.

The passport expires on 4 Feb, so I've been having fun organising a renewal.  The photo I took of Martyn when he renewed his a few years ago went through without difficulty.  Since time is short, I took my application to the Post Office, which turned up its newly-privatised nose at the homespun photos.  Another £8 later, the application is in, and we'll see what happens.  One just hopes that the gravely accurate photo of a fat, bald, slightly overhung bloke in his sixties doesn't bring the system to its knees.

Meanwhile, I'm doing a bit of research on things to see and do in Madeira.  The photographs at the 580m Cabo Girão cause me some discomfort in sensitive areas, and I look forward to it with some trepidation.