Retirement, eh?

I have driven the best part of 200 miles in the past week or so, purely in the pursuit of the hobby and related stuff.  It's the interviewing season, and I have the last of six days to do tomorrow.  Some mightily good candidates, and quite a lot going forward for second grillings.

In the meantime, the slash and burn continues in the garden as and when the weather allows.  We've planted onion sets and sown lettuce, leeks and various kinds of beans, and of course await results.  Martyn has shifted herbs to containers to make space for veggies in the raised bed, but it's all the more obvious now that it's far too small for more than a spot of tinkering.  If one had the courage of one's convictions, one would Get Someone In to rotovate great swathes of grass, and plant lots of spuds.  Absent the above, we have started fifteen seed potatoes of three varieties in containers out on the terrace, and we'll see what they do.  We've had terrific results from Charlottes in the past, and will see how the Maris Peers and Rockets perform. 

We saved seed from borlottis and flat yellow runner beans (delicious!) last year, so they are installed in disused PQ tubes of compost in the sitooterie, alongside some french bean and leek seed from good old Fortnums.  A few cuttings have over-wintered successfully in the cold frames, notably potentillas and cistus.  A three year old pelargonium shows signs of life, as do a couple of long-serving fuchsias.  Might haul them indoors to boost them into producing shoots long enough to take as cuttings before we head south in a month's time.  If we get a good day this week, I'll get out with shears and tidy up some hebes, box and pieris.  The primroses are blooming fit to bust: we got them from Gladys, my art class friend some years ago.  Sad to say, she seems to have gone into residential care: her vast pile of a house has 'sold' signs on it.  But at least, as Miss perceptively put it, we know she's safe.

Rattled the cage of Jokers"Я"Us today, it being more than five weeks since the latest of their blown double-glazing units was measured for replacement.  I hope, for the sake of their future customers, that we have fewer cock-ups, hence failure costs, than last time.  While in cage-rattling mode, I have enquired of dear Pierre whether he intends ever to finish the work in Another Place.  Our spies report precisely no progress since last back end.  Replies awaited from both.  Deep sigh.

Colour at last

There's a patch just outside the sitooterie that is a blaze of colour: yellow and purple crocuses, and the first daffodils.  There have been some spells of fine weather long enough for me to get out and garden a little, so the roses - most of them, anyway - are pruned, and I've made a start on giving the penstemons their annual short back and sides.  Much of the grass is still too soggy to cut, but I did manage to cut the bit that shows at the front, where the ground is a little drier.

Someone points out on Facebook today that the petition to reinstate Cl4rk5on has attracted far more signatures than one calling for an end to female genital mutilation.  As I tersely observed there yesterday, I used to enjoy Top Gear when it was about cars rather than its presenter.  I haven't watched it for some years, having tired of the juvenile laddishness, let alone what I've heard described as the hubristic bigotry that has become its trademark.

Oh well, wholesome entertainment last night: a fund raising quiz by the Friends of the local CAB.  The format, unlike the subject-specific rounds at the Mayor's quiz, was eight rounds of mixed general knowledge, which we preferred.  I have to say that the questions were on the whole rather easier, though that didn't stop us coming in with fewer than 5/10 in a couple of rounds.  Nevertheless, our table (largely thanks to Martyn) came fourth out of eighteen, and we might have crept up a place had they accepted my answer that Switzerland's is one of the few flags of the world that are square rather than rectangular.  But it's only a game, and at £15 per head including fish and chips, it's good value.

More gardening today, since Miss is struck down with a bad cold.  I'm busy elsewhere next Thursday, so that puts off still further the evil hour of pencil portraiture sessions!  Shame too in a way: I have a box of nice French drawing pencils in the boot of the car.  You can't buy Criterium pencils here, so I keep an eye out for them in the French supermarkets, and buy them up when there are good deals on offer.  It means that I can resell them at 50p and just break even: the weakness of the Euro helps, of course.  I should add that I don't attempt to factor in transport costs...

March madness

Interesting to read today that, assuming an SNP landslide on 7 May, the Tories and Labour will be pretty much level pegging [identifier of origin of cliché earns honorable mention].  How about a Lab-Green-SNP  coalition?  Given that the Lib-Dem vote is likely to collapse, the wild card is UKIP, from comment upon which I gladly refrain.  Wonder how the Tory voter base would feel about a Tory-UKIP alliance?  Wonder also how many would consequently feel tempted to emigrate.  Nice in a way that politics are getting a shade less boring than heretofore.  We are decamping to Another Place for the last fortnight of the campaign.

Tired today after a couple of days this week interviewing postulant hobbyists.  And after all the scribbling of notes, the hands hurt like hell, despite my using the laptop for report writing.  Hardly surprising that I couldn't find any inspiration at art class today, and settled for a couple of little thumbnail sketches.  I did gesso a sheet of acrylic paper, ready for when next the muse pauses hereabouts.

Here at Forges-l'Evêque, we're interviewing kitchen suppliers.  My only regret about selling up at Smith Towers was that I'd only just had the kitchen refitted.  We're looking for kit that will approximate to what we had there, including a well-dimensioned top oven that integrates oven, grill and microwave, and think we've found one.  One result, if the refit goes ahead, is that we might finish up with no fewer than four microwaves in Another Place.  Whither, one adds, we would repair for the duration of the works, as is our wont.

First colour today on daffodils and purple crocuses.  Primroses are blooming fit to bust, but I see a 'sold' sign on the vast house of the kind friend who gave them to us.  Hope she's well, and comfortable in more appropriate digs.