Annual Ramblings

Christmas Greetings

Having been down to the Post Office this morning to spend a day's pension on stamps for the Christmas cards, I'd better get the ramblings up on line in case anyone feels like following the link in the card.  We remain above ground, and have been out and about probably more than ever during the year.  The garden has suffered a bit, but we've taken the opportunity to get some overdue heavy work done.  Martyn has spent a lot of time helping with the administration of his cousin's care home, and my hobbies have kept me pretty busy too.  The generations come and go, and we enjoy the company of dear friends in UK and in France, as well as those scattered round the world.  Useful device, Facebook!

There are days when my main hobby gets almost unbearably frustrating: the government agencies we depend on are so strapped for resources that processes frequently stumble and fall over.  As a consequence, far too much of our volunteer time is wasted, and morale is shaky.

I'm glad I'm old.  The news brings shock after shock from round the world. Here at home, the ducking and weaving of our politicians would be comical if it weren't tragic.  I probably oughtn't to express a view on the outcome of the Scottish referendum: I hope sense prevails when and if there's a vote on EU membership.


The Clan

We learned last Christmas that Jean Routley, one of the last of my mother's generation, had died earlier in 2013.  A good soul, Jean: she married against her parents' wishes, so we knew little about her until she and her first husband, Jack, came to the UK and stayed with my parents.  Mum and I subsequently returned their visits, and enjoyed meeting their family.

We had a good family Boxing Day last year with my brother's family: the first time I can remember that we were all together with our great-nephew Tom.  By then g-n 2, Toby, was on the way, and arrived hale and hearty in the spring. 

Neilson, Margaret, John, Anna, Tom, Richard, Sera and yr. obed. servts.

Rob, Fran and some guests

In May we had the great pleasure of meeting our 'new' family again at cousin Fran's wedding: it was a cold day, but a joyful one nevertheless.  They had decided to make it a black-tie do, so after a couple of hopeless attempts to get into my 1968 and 1993 dinner jackets, I was marched down to M&S to get a new one.  (We hope Hospice in the Weald will earn a little from my old DJs and all the other stuff we took along a couple of weeks ago!)  The two of us, being hefty and shaven-headed, looked rather like the bouncers.  Mr Engineer Smith stole the show in his Smith tartan kilt, need one add?

On Martyn's side, niece Fiona has graduated from Camberwell with first-class honours, and is exhibiting frequently.  Her husband is also doing well, with a major prize and his own exhibitions.  Their delightful kids are doing well at school in east London.   They are growing up in a rich cultural environment with a strong, stable home upbringing, so we have great hopes for them.

Garden

It has been an expensive but rewarding year in the back yard.  Last winter's storms finished off the rickety fence between us and the adjacent street, so we called in the people who'd done the fence on the opposite side.  They did a fine job for a fair price.  They also grubbed up the ugly, overgrown shrubs next to the fence.

We'd been worried about the terrace at the back and side of the house: it wasn't very well laid in the first place, and the roots of the previous administration's wretched leylandii had left a lot of cracked and wobbly slabs: we almost had to cordon sections off when we had guests. 

Relaid terrace, new steps, raised bed - worth the investment

We spotted a firm of landscapers working round the corner and liked the look of their work, so got them to come in and do the work, adding better steps, a raised herb and veg bed opposite the kitchen door and a quadrant of proper paving at the top of the garden.  We've reused the old slabs, because we liked the weathering and lichen.  They also reshaped and dug over the bed where the shrubs had been, adding a fair amount of horse in the process.  Apart from signing the cheque, the process was entirely painless for us: we pushed off to Lagrasse for the duration.  We've since had the fun of planting it out, though the process has been somewhat haphazard.  We got half a dozen new bush roses and a couple of climbers when our local nursery had a sale, and they're starting to get their roots down.  As usual, the date for our late summer trip south sneaked up on us, leaving me with a cold frame full of rooted cuttings and the irrigation system employed elsewhere.  Well, the new bed finished up full of fuchsias, antirrhinums and penstemons, and they gave us some colour, however chaotic.  The soil the landscapers used to fill the raised bed is better than anything we've ever had in the garden: we got a good crop of delicious yellow runner beans despite late sowing and the depredations of snails, and the herbs have taken off like rockets.

Arrivals

We had the pleasure of Phil's company for a couple of days in December.  I just don't know how he can get off an aeroplane from the other side of the pond, get into an unfamiliar car and drive round the M25, then remain fresh as a daisy for the rest of the day.  A lifetime of long-haul flights may have helped.  While here, he got to meet the ladies of our local post office, who hand-stamp each new issue of Royal Mail stamps for the 'used' department of his collection.  He has since sent one of his Christmas cakes for them: it was greeted with squeals of glee when I delivered it.

On New Year's day, Annie flew in from Seville, where she and her brother had spent a few days. and stayed with us for a couple of nights.  Otherwise, we've had the pleasure of a few lunch and supper guests in one place or another. 

Departures

We have been out and about rather a lot this year: Madeira (February), mainland Portugal (October), Italy (June) and three trips to France (May, July and September).  During the July trip, we went to Barcelona for a few days to avoid the hideous rock festival that afflicts Lagrasse each year around the time of my birthday.  I bored at length on each subject at the time, so won't repeat myself - you can scroll down the blog for contemporary chunterings.

Madeira, not S Australia!

Madeira again?  Maybe.  It would be good to see the island in better weather (it was February...), and maybe take the ferry ride over to Porto Santo.  The north side of the island is less developed and very dramatic.  The more developed area around Funchal is a bit crowded, and the historic part is  full of restaurant touts, which I hate: one feels one is running the gauntlet.

Italy again?  Oh, for sure!  But Never Again with Gr3at R4il Journ3ys.  We're sure their package has appeal for some market segments, but we hated the regimentation, and the segregation from the general public in hotel restaurants.  The budget they had agreed with the main hotel led to catering of which a four-star hotel ought to have been ashamed.  We had to change rooms to get the lake (Garda) view we had paid for, only to find that the roof leaked in the second one.  The whole thing was a bit of a chapter of accidents, really.  See blog entries for June.

Pic de Bugarach, Aude

France again?  Obviously.  If only to get the bloody building maintenance finished.  I won't start again here: suffice it to say that, so far as we're aware, the missing meter and a half of rendering has still not been replaced.  We visited familiar and less familiar places while there: Martyn found a nice road up from the Fenouillède to the Corbières one day, so we got unfamiliar views of the Pic de Bugarach.

It was refreshing to enjoy some good music in the village.  First was the Wolfson Chamber Chorus's splendid concert in the church, then a four-day extravaganza centred round a grand piano in the Place de la Halle.  Three concerts a day.  I went to them all.

Gaia and Porto from Ponte Dom Luíz

Portugal again?  Oh, yes!  We took a superb flat in a working-class district of Lisbon with views over the local market and rooftops  to the estuary of the Tagus.  As always, we spent a lot of time bopping around on public transport, watching our fellow passengers and wondering at the lack of carnage as the bus hurtled down narrow streets between rows of tightly parked cars.  The train ride to Porto was interesting, if unspectacular.  We liked Porto, though the flat was more expensive, much smaller and of less quality.

Food and drink

Lunch on the Bluebell Railway

We've had a few more disappointments in France: familiar restaurants in La Franqui and Gruissan Port were less than mediocre, but fortunately the Auberge du Somail was on form.  The restaurant Molhe in Foz do Douro, near Porto, was cheap, generous and welcoming: it helped that the waiter allowed me to trot out a bit of Portuguese.  We sat watching the Atlantic waves breaking on the rocks.  Magical.  A pleasant surprise on a local day out: with friends we lunched on the Bluebell Railway one day in November - altogether not bad value. 

Wheels

We keep toying with changes to the Forges-l'Evêque mews, but so long as the cars we've got serve us well, there's little reason to change.  I've had the various dents and scrapes fixed on the VW, so will hang on to it for at least a couple more years. Our only rental this year was an elderly VW Golf in Madeira.  It had a 1.6 turbodiesel engine that was really not up to the job of navigating a mountainous island.  Worse still, the remaining tread on the front tyres was not sufficient to stop us aquaplaning out of our lane as we emerged from a tunnel  into a bend under a downpour.  The short section between tunnels was on a high viaduct.  Fortunately, there was nothing in the lane we drifted into, and we found grip just before we reached the edge. 

Arts

Quite a rich year.  We went to one Prom, and a whole lot of other concerts, quite a few of them in Lagrasse.  We had the great pleasure in November of hearing Kate and John sing in the chorus of Beethoven's 9th at Spitalfields.

The summer show at the Royal Academy failed to inspire us, but we liked a small exhibition of local landscapes near Gruissan by Marie-Claude Canet.  My own efforts have been pretty lacklustre this year: lots of half-baked pieces left unfinished.

Kate's latest play, Queen Anne, ran for four weeks in the summer, spanning the tercentenary of Anne's death.  Audiences were disappointingly small until Kate got a slot on Woman's Hour, whereafter the box office telephone didn't stop ringing.  We saw it on the last night, and liked it very much.  Shame about the stiflingly hot theatre.

And forward, though I canna see, I hope, and fear

Let's hope for the best in 2015.  I can't really see a satisfactory election result, but can rather too readily see an unsatisfactory and worrying one.  Let's hope I'm wrong, and that the main parties come to their senses.  I suppose it's a comfort that French politics seem equally bordélique.  The President's unpopularity is almost without precedent, and the previous one has just been re-elected to head his party with the slimmest of majorities.

Still, next year's cuttings are in the cold frame, and I have saved a lot of seed to start in the spring.  There's nothing quite like gardening to give you something positive to look forward to!

With every good wish for the various December things, and for health, prosperity and happiness in 2015,

Martyn & David