So far...

...not a bad ride down as far as the Auvergne, where we are in our usual digs for the night.  A few spots of rain in the north; otherwise it has been a fine day with a lot of sun.  Glad we were travelling south, though: it's the day of the grand retour of Parisians who have spent their holidays in the southern sun, and the roads were busy: an accident south of Orléans had provoked several miles of tail-back.  I remember all too clearly the appalling driving in Paris on the first working day of each September when everyone seemed to be pissed off to the point of homicidal at being back at work.   They weren't a lot better today on that dreadful eight-lane viaduct over the Seine at Gennevilliers, where the high-speed weaving is terrifying. 

Some interesting vehicles on the road and on the shuttle.  Someone had parked a Renault 17 (anyone remember them?) in a layby near Ashford and pitched his tent next to it, sensibly hanging a reflective triangle on it to dissuade other drivers from flattening him as he slept.  On our shuttle there was a couple in an elderly Morgan, complete with a leather trunk strapped to the back, and on the A16 we passed an open two-seat Allard, the driver attired in leather flying helmet and jacket.  Otherwise, it was the usual mixture of awful driving: speeding Swiss, dithery Belgians, fishtailing Dutch caravans and a lot of French registered cars in which rear view mirrors were obviously declined optional extras. 

Most of the crops have now been harvested, though a few fields of sunflowers and maize remain at higher altitudes.  This isn't really the time of year for wild flowers by the roadside, though there's a lot of some pale yellow subject that I don't recognise.  The day was clear, so we had some good long views in the centre of the country.  Here in the Auvergne it is a little hazy, but we got a good, if blued-out, view of the chain of volcanic plugs north of Clermont Ferrand.  Looking forward to good views as we scramble up into the hills tomorrow.

...and they're off!

We seem to have been presenting a moving target for much of this year, and we're keeping to the pattern.  We've been entertained away from home twice this week, and shall be starting tomorrow on what will probably be our last drive south of the year.  Usual pattern: early Sunday departure, overnight in the Auvergne, shopping in Lézignan (and possibly Camplong...) on Monday, then various trips out from the village by car, on foot or perhaps on bikes if the wind, for once, isn't too strong. We'll be back for a whisker over three weeks before we jet off somewhere else.

As always, it's a shame to be leaving the garden behind just as it's doing so well.  We have had good crops of runner beans, and the borlottis have finally begun to set.  I'm growing them with a view to shelling and drying them for the winter, so they can wait till we get back.  The roses have to some extent welcomed the rain: OK, it plays havoc with the flowers, but at least it's helping them to get established.  Just hoping it dries enough during the rest of today to get the grass cut.  With the rain and Wednesday's feed, it sure needs it.

We switched off the Scottish independence debate the other night when it degenerated into a slanging match.  No amount of hectoring and point scoring, it seems to me, can hide the utter absence of economic, fiscal, monetary, industrial, defence, foreign etc etc policy on the pro-independence side.  I don't get a vote, since I'm not a registered voter in the land of my birth.  We shall see: as usual the gap is narrowing as polling day approaches.

Bank holiday Monday

With a rare burst of insight, we gardened yesterday and cut the grass.  I finally got round to splitting one the beautiful epimediums that Jane gave us four years ago, bringing a couple of bits closer to where we can see it when it flowers in the spring.

Today being that curious British institution, a Bank Holiday, it has pissed with rain all day.  The water butt I emptied on to droopy roses yesterday is full again.  I suppose a glance at the forecast would have saved me some effort, but the exercise was worth having, I guess.  And yesterday's divisions and cuttings will be very well watered in.

A garden is a lovely thing, God wot...

Rosa HT 'Piccadilly'

It's true that roses are a bit of a pain, given the susceptibility of so many of them to pests and diseases.  But when they do what it says on the label, they are probably the most rewarding of subjects.  Piccadilly here looked like a deep depression over Iceland for its first year, producing few flowers, and feeble ones at that.  A good talking-to, severe pruning and the odd handful of hen has brought it to the point you see here. 

Of the new plantings, some are getting their roots down well, while others (the more expensive ones) are looking rather droopy.  Our second Justice of the Peace is looking promising after a dismal start (in admittedly dreadful, impoverished soil where it was heeled in for the winter).  The first of that variety is coming into a spendid second flush of bloom.  Good old Peace is looking awful, having lost all its foliage to black spot.  Its cousin, Chicago Peace, one of the most recent planting orgy, is coming along quite well.  Birthday girl produced a profusion of exquisite crimson-edged cream buds, which were a little less spectacular when they opened. 

Fuchsia (?) Magellanica Alba

One of the less endearing tools of us enthusiastic gardeners is the sharpened thumbnail.  When the art group spent a morning in colleague Tony's fabulous garden in the spring, I thumbnailed a couple of cuttings from his fuchsia (I think) magellanica alba, brought them home in some wet tissue paper, and slapped them in a pot of compost in the cold frame.  We hooked them up to the irrigation system in the herb bed before we went away in July, and potted them up on our return.  They have put on a good little root system apiece, so one is now planted out in the new bed.  I've hooked the other back up to the drip for attention later in the week, when we hope some of the weeds in its eventual destination ought to have succumbed to treatment.

Culture, and clashes thereof

Superb Prom last night at the Royal Albert Hall.  The main draw was Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade, since it's one of Martyn's Desert Island Discs.  It opened with Ravel's Mother Goose suite, continued with a curious and humorous modern Finnish piece (the conductor and soprano soloist were both Finns) and included also Szymanowski's Fairy Princess songs.  The house was pretty well-filled, so the atmosphere was really good.  We sat in the stalls just behind the cellos, so couldn't hear them very well (because the cellists were between us and them) but we heard the rest of the orchestra very well.  The chap on the timpani was having a splendid time, and another percussionist played, incongruously enough, the triangle and the gong.  I don't suppose the two are played at the same time very often ....

The N°9 bus helpfully plies between Charing T and the Albert Hall, and is served by the new Boris buses: first time we've used them.  They are electrically powered from a battery pack, with a diesel genny that kicks in when the batteries need charging, so they are quite a restful way to travel for much of the time.

We had an early supper at the Café Rouge behind Horrid's so, as we were there early, we first took a prowl round Mr Fayed's bazaar.  The French have a useful word for it: dépaysé, which combines literal and figurative meanings of the concept of being distant from one's native heath.  Well, we sure felt dépaysés in there and in the immediate environs.  The shop was rather short of indigenous custom, and I got rather fed up of being expected to dodge out of the way of people shoving pushchairs, texting, and not feeling the need to look where they were going.  As I looked out the window of the café, the passing vehicles were 80% Benz, and the rest split between Royce, BMW and Range Rovers.  The peace was shattered by two or three matching Lamborghinis, the driver of one taking a long time making a pig's ear of parking it.  Gulf state number plates.  At the corner door of said Emporium stood two Kuwait-registered Royce Phantoms. I make no further observation.

I have to report that our fellow anglo-saxon Kent residents failed to distinguish themselves on the train home.  There was one party of young oiks and oikettes, who mercifully got off at Orpington, having sat with their feet up on the seats - another good reason not to travel first class, since that's where they sat.  Worse was another group, quite well-dressed and old enough to know better, roaring, staggering drunk and objectionable.  They, alas did not get off at Orpington.  We love public transport in principle, specially when one of us gets it free or discounted, but the train from London is not a lovely place to be late in the evening at the weekend.

One-trick pony?

My vegetarian friends probably dread coming to lunch here, since they can be pretty confident of getting the usual Madhur Jaffrey chick peas and/or black-eyed beans with mushrooms and tomatoes.  Fortunately, Martyn came up with a delicious recipe for couscous and mozzarella stuffed tomatoes, so there was something new on the menu.  The good old chick pea recipe improves if left for a day or two in the fridge, so having been made on Monday, it was not bad at all, though I sez it meself as shouldn't.  So all carefully planned well in advance?  Of course not!  An hour before the guests arrived we realised we had plenty of shop-bought poppadums, but no dips.  Panic stations.  A can of chick peas, garlic, some oil and a splash of yoghourt - instant hummous.  A handful of chopped mint and some more yoghourt: mint relish.  Jar of chutney someone gave us once plus some cumin etc: hot dip.  Mayonnaise and tomato ketchup plus a bit of spice: thousand islands with an Indian accent.  All seemed to pass muster.

A day at the hobby on Tuesday: the first day for a recent joiner, whom in fact I'd seen at second interview, and whom I'm to keep a fatherly eye on for his first year.  He hit the ground running, coping well with a mixed day's business - despite jet lag.  It ought to have been a half-day, but we didn't leave until 4:00 pm.  I've been really impressed with my protégés so far, and this one shows all the signs of being just as good.

We'd another trip up to London last Friday, this time to a private view of Martyn's niece's paintings. She recently took a first from Camberwell, and is talking about going on to take a Master's somewhere else.  Her work is highly thought of, but we didn't find ourselves rushing for our cheque books.  Entertaining ride home in a very busy train.  We were at the station quite early, fortunately, so got seats at the window with a table.  A couple of lads took the other pair of seats and after depatching their sandwiches and a couple of packets of smelly vinegary crisps (a substantial proportion of the above on the table, seats and floor) fell asleep on our shoulders.  We were thinking/hoping 'surely they'll get off at Norwood Junction?'.  No?  Well, East Croydon at least?  They were with us until three stations before ours, generously perfuming the air with beer and garlic.  One needed some manhandling to wake him at his station: we had visions of Martyn having to climb over him to get out.  Pleasant and polite lads, though: just a little over-tired after a hard day's work.  And the rest.

The deluge dumped on us by Bertha seems not to have hurt the garden: the weeds in particular look thoroughly grateful.  Good timing, actually.  On the way to Fortnum's the other day I spotted a poster outside the nursery advertising a rose sale.  We chose half a dozen roses (vastly discounted) to go in the recently cleared bed, and had them planted by evening: the ensuing downpours can only have helped them to get their roots down.  The soil is basically very heavy clay (which is why we Got Someone In to dig it over and add some muck).  Roses are reputed to like such conditions, so that, the watering and a handful of hen in the bottom of each hole should give them a reasonable start to the rest of their lives.

A few gentle days of gardening, admin, laundry, cooking and minimal housework after our return from France.  Glad to report that we've had the first of the flat yellow beans from the seeds Annie sent us, augmented by some nice fresh runner beans from the farm where we get our eggs.  Home-made burgers tonight from  the excellent minced beef we got in France, beans from down the road, carrots and spuds from Fortnum's...

Back in March I reported that the conservatory suppliers had sent their salesman to catalogue the various niggles, on some of which we have been seeking after-sales service since 2009, a year after the job was completed.  Various non-returned phone calls later, I sent by registered letter (or the modern-day equivalent) a schedule of phone calls, letters, faxes etc and the response (usually none) to each, with a veiled threat of litigation or referral to Trading Standards.  On the date of the first appointment (for 15:00), we waited.  And waited.  And at 18:10 fired off a snotty email.  Response was that we should expect the fitter to call around 15:00 today.  Well, he turned up around 16:20, measured the blown window unit (again), slapped some clear mastic into the outside wall and pushed off, unable to give any indication when he'll be back to do the work.  Is it any wonder I drink?

Meanwhile, in another place, the joiner reports that he has made the necessary mods to the bathroom skylight window.  Of Pierre the builder (who is skilled and professional, but who needs a fierce secretary) no reported signs of activity. 

A spot of culture yesterday, however.  We took a trip up to the smoke to the Royal Academy summer show, and wondered why we'd bothered.  We were not wild about the piece we'd gone specially to see, and found little that enthused us, save for some neo-Impressionist pieces by a couple of RAs and, of course the architecture room, which, for me, is always the best part of the show.  From there we went on to Baron's Court to the latest play what Kate wrote, and enjoyed it very much.  We really liked her approach to filling in the historical background: a sporadic dialogue between Jonathan Swift and a ghostly (because dead) Electress Sophia of Hanover*.

The pub also supplied us with a decent early supper.  What it did not provide was a comfortable theatre.  It's in the cellar of the pub, which was dreadfully hot and airless.  It was a good job the play's as good as it is, since otherwise I mightn't have stayed even until the interval.

Apart from skirmishes with builders, we have today been sorting out timepieces.  The strap on Martyn's Mondaine Swiss railway watch packed up soon after he got it, so we took ourselves along to the Mall.  There's a nice chap there who runs a watches stall ('How's business?'  'Oh, ticking along...').  He brought out a bag of watch straps for Martyn to choose from, and fitted the chosen article, together with the buckle from the original strap.  A week or so ago, the bracelet on my 1999-vintage Swatch started disintegrating, so on Saturday, having had a couple of generous Amazon vouchers for my birthday, I took a look at what they had to offer.  I found one I liked the look of, secured Management approval, and ordered it.  Less than 48 hours later - free delivery and altogether - it arrived, and I like it.  Titanium case, nice clear hands on a dark blue face.  What's even better is that the manufacturer's web site prices it at about 40% more than I paid - and that was not the earth.: about the equivalent of a few bottles of Hendricks, for example.

* I can never think of said Electress without recalling a howler from the school where my Ma taught for a couple of terms before doing her PGCE: 'the electric Sophie of Hangover'.   But I'm ashamed of how little I recall from a delightful term of modern Scottish history when I was desperately trying to cobble together a kit-of-parts Ordinary.