Travaux-ci, travaux-là

Poppies, Martyn and Norman Foster's masterpiece

Not a bad drive home: fine weather all the way, and generally moderate traffic.  We had ample time for each leg, so stopped for air and exercise at the Viaduc de Millau, and again at the Viaduc de Garabit, Mr Eiffel's slender construction over the Truyère not far from his successor company's later tour de force (left).   We stayed a night in a familiar flophouse in the outskirts of Bourges, but the room was stuffy, the hotel having not yet programmed the air conditioning to be available.  We were thus forced to open the window, which overlooked the main road from town to motorway, with consequent damage to sleep quality.  Memo to self: if we use the place again (for it is not bad value and pretty well fitted out) we'll specify a room overlooking the pool or the car park.

Rather than circumnavigate Paris, we opted to go into the centre on the right bank from the Pont de Sèvres, turning in at the Place de la Concorde and heading up the Champs Elysées, round the Etoile and off down to the Marché des Sablons in Neuilly, a Sunday morning haunt from my early days in Paris.  It was largely unchanged: bantering stallholders, fabulous meat, cheese, fish, fruit and vegetables - and even the same hoover bag man as back in 1991.  And the car park was as full of expensive cars as ever.  I think there are more Rolls-Royces in Neuilly than in the whole of the United Kingdom.

Re-laid terrace and rebuilt steps

Just as we'd arrived at Château Smith to find the works almost finished and well carried out, similarly we got back to Forges-l'Evêque to find the landscaping almost done, with only half a day's work remaining following consultation.  I'd asked for a new step to be put in for getting from the terrace to the grass beside the clothes line, and on excavating, the chaps found a manhole cover buried under the turf!  Presuming that it had been buried since the house was built in 1980, we opted to leave it exposed, and to plonk one of the herb sinks on top of it.  (Shame really, since it was just where I wanted a hard surface from which to hang the washing.  I suppose we could get it built up at a later stage, but it is scarcely a thing of beauty.)  On lifting the cover, we found a stoppered white plastic pipe rising eighteen inches from a concrete surface: any ideas what it might be?  Overall, we are very happy with the work.  The terrace is now well anchored down and ought to be weed-resistant.  We now have a raised bed for herbs and a few veggies just opposite the kitchen door, and a new quadrant of paving at the top of the garden where we like to sit with a glass of chilled rosé in dappled shade on warm days. 

Top terrace

Less good news is that the lawn mower fired up yesterday and promptly died: I have been unable to start it since, so it'll have to go back to the fettlers for a severe talking-to.  Given that the grass hadn't been cut for over two wettish weeks, I had to resort to the old electric mower, which, given the length of the grass, took four times as long as usual - not welcome news on a hot sunny day.  I have to admit that it looks better than the usual result with the motor mower, but that may be because the grass is growing vigorously.  With the flattening out of some of the sharper curves in the lawn edges, it looks better and cuts more easily.

So, memo to nephews and charities: we are getting the good of the savings while we can enjoy them!

Postscript on travaux

Chris reviews his work

By dint of only gentle pressure, we now have a finished façade (v. infra) and a beautifully lit and, we hope, watertight bathroom.  The terrace is pleasingly devoid of rotten concrete, cracked glazing bricks and hideous vent pipes.  Between them, Pierre and Chris have done what looks like a thoroughly good job.  Granted, I'm a shade euphoric at getting the work done before we leave, and we'll have to wait to see how watertight it is.  The design, however, seems as good as the execution, which is superb.  As for the state of my dwindling Euro balance, the less said the better.

Closing down routines

As ever, it seems no time since we got here, but the bedding's in the washing machine, and we have written our going-home shopping list ready for a trip to town later - bottles, BiBs* and some cheese and charcuterie.

Pierre was here yesterday to put the finishing touches to the hole in the bathroom ceiling, filling and plastering the sides and slapping a coat of lime wash on the outside surfaces.  It looks like a good piece of work.  He took his ropes and yet another cheque with him yesterday, but will have to return to recover a piece of coconut matting from the roof, laid on it to protect the tiles from said ropes.  I had a message yesterday from the joiner to say that he will fit the window today: we expect him around 09:00.

Felucca, Salins Saint-Martin, Gruissan

We like our trips to the seaside, so Tuesday saw us heading for Gruissan.  One of the reasons was to go to an exhibition of water colours by one Marie-Claude Canet that had been mentioned in the local rag.  As you'll see from her web site, her paintings are very competent, and of course I like the local scenes.  Her prices didn't send me reaching for my recently rather battered chequebook, however.

We wouldn't have seen the little boat in the photograph had the art gallery been open when it said it would be.  We therefore went for a look round to see if we could find someone with a key, and found a bustling bar by the side of the salt pans, with the colourful vessel beached nearby for decoration.  I say 'beached': it must have come in on a trailer, since there's no water deeper than a few inches of brine for half a mile.

We have gone bird watching here a few times.  There's a group that organises spotting excursions in the evenings.  (Wear long sleeves and trousers, and plenty of mosquito repellent.)

Things change a bit on the quai du Ponant in Gruissan Port.  OK, the place is packed as ever with floating gin palaces, but there are a few empty shop fronts, and the proprietrix of the restaurant where we paused for fish and chips (sans blague!) was sounding rather gloomy in view of low numbers.  Still, it's only mid-May: 'Yes, but it was a lot busier this time last year!'.  We wish them well: the welcome was charming, the fish and chips OK and not too copious, and the local chardonnay was very good.  We liked the restaurant when it was Le Mouton de Panurge and wish the new owners much success as Le Ponant. 

*Bag-in-box.  The 'fontaine à vin' gallicisation has failed miserably to catch on, and has given way to one of the many acronyms that plague the language of late.

The kind of day we look forward to

Martyn and Chota

We went along to Mèze yesterday to see our friends Patricia and Martin.  Why the village festival centres round a paedophagic ox is perhaps a subject for another time, but the whole parade was huge fun, with kids spraying shaving foam and fluorescent spaghetti all over the town.  There were a few dancing troupes.  Of the gin's tonic and the boys in bottle-green corduroy britches: enfin, bon.  The Portuguese dancers, on the other hand, were impressive, as was the club of the troisième âge.  It goes without saying that we had luscious apéritifs at P&M's, and went on to a fine lunch at the Saveurs de Thau.  Would you have thought of sauerkraut with mussels, salmon and swordfish?  I wouldn't.  It was excellent.  But having started with a croustillant of fresh and smoked salmon served with a nice little salad, the cheese platter defeated me.  Though only just.

Port de Mèze, Acrylic on canvas, collection of Patricia and Martin Cooper

Part of the reason for the visit (apart from an opportunity to see our lifetime favourite small dog, Chota) was to deliver my first commission.  I can see dozens of mistakes in it, but had struggled with it for weeks, and eventually recited Miss's mantra to myself: 'stop fiddling!', and slapped on a coat of varnish.  I just hope they find it easy to live with, particularly in view of the very generous case of wine we clanked home with!  I'm toying mentally with my next piece, using a dark sky to accentuate a subtle subject.  And there's a show on down at Gruissan where I might find some inspiration.

Back here among the wreckage, we had a visit from the carpenter who's making our new skylight window.  Seems a thoroughly nice fellow.  There's a slight chance he'll be able to finish it before we leave next Saturday: es sei denn, he won't get paid until July.

Meanwhile, in Another Place, work at Forges l'Evêque has revealed a need for a layer of concrete to underpin the to-be-relaid terrace.  The bill ascends.  Well, it needs to be done, and we'll be dead a long time.

Progress

Progress at last, 20 months after Pierre chopped out the most fragile parts of the façades.  The bit round the back was really bad, since there was insufficient overhang of tiles to stop the water getting in under the render.  Pierre saw to that last year with the co-operation of the neighbours, whose workshop roof had to come off to get the scaffolding in.  This year's projects are patching up the rendering on the end wall, and replacing the rotten glazed brick window that lights the bathroom from the terrace.  Pierre and colleague, who are used to working from ropes when maintaining Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, applied the last coat of a rather startling lime wash today, and we await the comments from the powers that be.  We'd originally planned to have the render stripped off and the stone wall re-pointed, but that would have been deadly expensive, and the experience of the back wall suggested that the wall was unlikely to be a thing of beauty.  The rendering was in generally good condition, give or take a bit of patching and filling, so it was a case of leave well alone.

 

Nice little walk along the valley after lunch.  The birds are in good voice, and the vegetation is glorious.  We picked some bits of thyme and rosemary, and admired all sorts of flowers: broom, cistus, mallows, wild rose and much more.  

Off to Mèze tomorrow for lunch with friends and then the corso fleuri, which seems to afflict the town about as badly as our July rock thing.  (We have booked digs in Barcelona for the duration of the Abracadaconnasses, returning in time for the piano festival, which we're supporting.)  

Travels

It’s a shame one so often sleeps badly before a long drive, but at the time of writing we’re installed in a Campanile at Issoire in the Auvergne, and the car is fuelled up for the next leg of the journey tomorrow.  This time we've had no trouble persuading pumps to accept the Gaga card, and it was interesting to note that they read the card and drop into English, though it was a little startling to be instructed to ‘grab the nozzle’.  The fact that it was ‘fueling’ suggests a transatlantic influence at work.  The anglophone tendency are nevertheless expected to understand retirez votre carte.  The fuel, however delivered, is a fair bit cheaper here in France than in the UK.  As I have mentioned before, this is a bit of a conundrum, since the old annual vignette (price varied by département and the curious gallic horse-steam coefficient of the car concerned) was long since abolished as a vehicle excise and factored, as is right and proper, into fuel tax.  Is it just that Gideon and his predecessors have been too rapacious when it comes to both flavours of tax?  We’re being bled from both arms.

The approaches to Paris were packed, as ever, with suicidal lunatics, but we survived them: it’s a matter of learning to expect anything and leave room to deal with it.  More alarming was the behaviour of a Brit-registered left-hand drive Tranny van soon after we joined the A16.  It was wandering all over the motorway, but at least we got the chance to zip past it when it had wandered on to the shoulder.  Yes, you got it: the driver was looking fixedly at the screen of his mobile phone, iPad or some such.  It’s enough to turn one into a vigilante.

The weather has been kind to us.  As we drove across Kent, the mist was still hanging in the valleys, lit by the low morning sun – quite magical.  As we have driven down through France, it has stayed fine and warm, and we could stand out in the sunshine for our sandwich breaks.  We’re used to the heckling of a chaffinch at the aire near the toll gate just north of Paris, and there he was, true to form.  What we hadn’t encountered there before were flowers on a couple of (I think) jacaranda trees.  OK, with the amount one pays in tolls, it’s fair to expect a nice environment at rest stops.  We again used the faintly surreal duplex tunnel under the western outskirts of Paris.  It seems to be free for télépéage users, though whether that’s just on Sundays, I know not. 

The fine weather stands in sharp contrast to the glacial reception at the hotel.  Don’t know what this dame’s problem is, but she should know better than bring it to work with her.  She was at least civil, if uncommunicative, in the restaurant, where we had the best meal we’ve had in a Campanile.  This is not saying much, I know, but it was fit to eat, if a shade on the copious side. I’ve only myself to blame.

Later:  Lovely views of snowy mountains as we drove south: the Auvergne was beautiful as always, and as we battled our way along a manic A9 (I’d left that bit to Martyn…) the views of the Pyrenees were amazing. 

Back here in Another Place, the building work is moving along very well, and with luck, it’ll be done and dusted before we head back north.  With the end wall not quite finished (it has been gratefully swallowing lime wash at a rate greater than anticipated) it’s looking pretty good.  The fresh paint is rather strikingly yellow/orange, but it will mellow fast, and is a vast improvement on the scabby old rendering. 

Family wedding

A dull day for a family wedding, but a joyful one nonetheless.  About 100 people were there to watch Fran and Rob do the legal stuff, and they spoiled us all with a generous reception at Hintlesham Hall, near Ipswich.  A bit of fuss was made of the fact that three of the newly discovered cousins were there (Philippa, John and myself), and it was heart-warming to meet so many members of the family we so recently didn't know we had. 

All in all, the occasion more than justified the risk of

Door security, Burnford-Jones marriage

a venture into bandit country north of the river, and it was fun to get dressed up for a change, even if we did look like the bouncers.  I'd been planning to go in a lounge suit despite the black tie orders, but was persuaded at a late stage to conform, and wear a dinner jacket.  Glad I did, since we'd have been in a small minority otherwise.  One of our number could still get into his dinner jacket trousers: another had to make an emergency journey to M&S at a late stage, the 1968 and 1990 trousers having shrunk radically in the wardrobe.  I don't think the new one has the quality of the 1968 job (17 guineas: thank you, indulgent late parents!), but it did the job.
 

Cousins

Of course, some of us turned out in full effnic regalia: Mr Engineer Smith appeared in the kilt (Smith tartan, no less, with a McPherson pin, in honour of Maisie of that ilk, who carried us both to the font, and died suddenly and young).

The discovery of this new branch of the family has been startling in so many ways, but particularly in the choice of the 'new' family's names.  Frances was no doubt named after her grandfather, my uncle Frank.  But her brother is David, and his daughter is Philippa, like my cousin.  She, Pip, has been digging a little further, and finds that Grandpa named Frank as a dependent child on joining up in the Great War, not that we needed convincing, having seen Frank's photograph on an election flyer.

So there you have it.  As we leave these shores tomorrow before the sparrow's tummy has so much as rumbled on an expedition to chivvy French artisans, we leave Forges-l'Evêque in the hands of local ditto, and hope to return to find a new raised bed, a re-profiled patch of grass, non-lethal paving on the terrace and a new paved quadrant at the top of the garden.  More anon from furrin parts.