Culture ancient and modern

Pleasant evening in London yesterday.  My alma mater was doing one of its periodical exercises in keeping potential legacies warm.  (One wonders if they might improve cash flow by adding a spot of strychnine to the wine, but I seem to have made it through the night.)  The main theme was music and the arts in the town and the university, and the new Director of Music told us individually and later collectively about his hopes and plans to build a new music centre with soundproofed practice rooms.  It wasn't quite 'would you hurry the #*%$ up and croak!', though such behaviour would doubtless oblige.  It was nice to know that the university will be lighting up the Byre theatre in the town again for music and drama productions, and making it available also to local companies and bands. 

We were treated to a recital by two recent alumni: piano works by Bach played by Maeve Martin, who went on to accompany Laurie Slavin in a couple of tenor operatic arias by Handel and Donizetti.  Laurie finished with two well-known and loved Burns songs a capella.  His is a name to watch, I'd say.  He hits the high notes smack in the middle, but has a pretty remarkable range too.  Now studying postgrad at Guildhall.

And we had a nice chat with the Chancellor as were were leaving.  What a likeable fellow he is: one of the legion of newly ex-Lib Dem MPs, though he did not stand in the recent rout.  All in the pleasant setting of the Caledonian Club in Belgravia.

Oh, the way, we got to London in plenty of time, so spent a pleasant half hour in the National Gallery before hopping on a Boris bus to Hyde Park Corner.  Neither of us having been there for many years, it was a surprise to enter via the Sainsbury wing and to leave by the black marble clad Annenberg/Getty staircase.  Both complement the ancient fabric very well.  I don't think I was aware of 16th century Northern Italian portraitist Giovanni Battista Moroni before yesterday: his portraits are remarkable, capturing expressions of surprise or haughty superiority among others.

But of course my main target was Seurat's Grande Jatte and Asnières paintings and sketches, and the extensive collection of Monet.  Having lived for a privileged couple of years in the Allée Claude Monet on the Ile de la Grande Jatte, one feels a certain affinity, after all.  Favourite, though, was Coastal Scene, about 1892, Théo van Rysselberghe.

I admit to stationing myself whenever possible between the paintings and the innumerable mobile phone cameras.  And on the train on the way home there were no fewer that seven mobiles in use at the eight seats in our bay of the carriage, though the kid next to me appeared to be reading a book on his.  Neither of us was using one.  Reminds me of our Venice experience last year, when we encountered a fellow chatting on one telefonino while texting on another.  I guess I ought to master the smartphone, but am not rushing to get it out of its drawer. 

Blast. BLAST!!

There I was, suited and booted and heading for a meeting at the Old Bailey when the announcement came across at our tinpot country station telling us of a delay.  Some minutes later we learned that a fault on the train was being seen to two stations down the line.  After ten silent minutes I went to the information point and called the information desk.  No reply.  Second try: 'Oh, there's been a cancellation: it should have been announced'.  It had not, of course, and I needn't trouble you with the remainder of the conversation.  Martyn who had only just got home, had thus to turn round and come and get me again.  Meanwhile, I stood on the unmown, tree-lined platform, overlooking the river and listening to the birdsong.  And inhaling seventeen million varieties of pollen.  Eyes stiggig, dose ruddig, oenotherapy in progress.

All part of the joys of an English spring, I suppose, though we had thundery showers yesterday, and at one point the sitooterie roof was carpeted with pea-sized hail stones.  Still, although the garden also makes me sneeze, it is quite good to look at just now, and the oriental poppies are showing colour at last.   The rose-pink penstemon cuttings I thought I'd killed and was about to sling out are shooting modestly from their bases, fuchsia cuttings taken a few days ago are sitting up and taking notice, and the cistus purpureus cuttings have decent little root systems.  The spuds have all produced luxuriant top hamper and are now earthed up, and we're hoping for a decent crop.  We've grown them in containers before with a good degree of success: the variety we had good results from in the past (Charlotte) was the slowest to get started, but seems to be catching up.  The beans look pretty feeble: we'll see.

I am starting to get tradesman overload.  In the last few days we've had visits from the plumber (twice) the plasterer, the sparky and the carpenter, all coming to size up the kitchen refit.  The plumber made the interesting suggestion that we could move the washing machine out to the garage and thus at the same time simplify the layout and significantly increase storage space.  Sound good to us, so we'll now have to have the kitchen designer back to  rehash the layout once again.  The chances of a July start are thus a touch doubtful, but we'll see. 

Normality

Rather than the ruinous autoroute, we opted, for our return to Toulouse, for the murderous N113 as was.  It's actually not an unpleasant road, though with numerous small towns to pass through, the journey takes about twice as long.  The countryside at this time of year is quite pretty in places, and there are some quite long views to be had here and there.  We persuaded the vehicle up to a viewpoint just south of Toulouse to find that the scrub has been allowed to grow up far enough to obscure the views...

We'd made sandwiches, so stationed ourselves at the end of the runway for lunch.  Lots of traffic in and out: notable among them a re-engined A320 doing taxi runs, a military A400 transport and some Brazilian business jets.  We trekked clockwise round the airport on a tour of inspection of the ATR and Airbus works, pronouncing them satisfactory, then tanked up and gratefully turned in the horrid vehicle.  With a couple of hours to spare and a view over the field from the excellent café-restaurant, we settled down comfortably with free wifie and a half-litre of Bergerac blanc, which helped us to face with relative equanimity the joys of boarding our Easyjet bus.  Said apparatus got us back to Gatwick with some delay, added to by the absence of ground crew when we landed.  Easyjet is too tight to pay for a jetway, so we'd a quarter of an hour's delay while they wheeled out some rickety stairs and eventually stabilised them, then had a couple of flights of stairs to climb in the South terminal satellite, followed by a lengthy trek to the high-tech automatic (ergo slower) passport checks. 

What a pleasure it was to drive home in a competent vehicle.  Egg2 is not exactly in the first flush of youth, but goes, steers and stops as a decent vehicle should.  Suitable feedback served on the car hire consolidator.

Thanks to Celia's and Andy's ministrations, the garden was in pretty good shape when we got home.  The beans are looking a bit sad, but I guess that's what you get when you start them too early.  The spuds, on the other hand, are growing like mad, and we'd to go and buy more compost to earth them up in their containers.  It goes without saying that, having gone out for a tenner's worth of compost, we returned with said compost, plants, seeds and a bill for £36.  Oh well.

The day after we returned was polling day, so the art class couldn't meet at its usual venue, which serves as a polling station.  We met here at Forges-l'Evêque instead, as is our wont when thwarted by the democratic process.  My lovely colleagues brought oodles of goodies, and we're still working our way through them.

We've done a fair bit of weeding.  It's one of those processes where one thing leads to another: I cut the grass.  Martyn did the edges.  We then broke our backs hauling out the weeds from the edges of the borders.  The composting bin is once again only just within the power of the hydraulic gear on the dustcart, so we shall once again be keeping our heads down when they collect on Thursday week.

The oriental poppies are budding like mad, so we're looking forward to their exuberant display within a week or so.  A lot of half-hardy fuchsias have over-wintered successfully in the ground, and those we over-wintered in the cold frame are sprouting like mad.  Cuttings tomorrow, I think.  The epimediums I divided last summer are doing well in their new locations, and one of the recent cistus cuttings has begun to flower (unlike its parents, which I hacked back hard a few weeks ago). 

I can of course make no comment on the outcome of the election; still less on the latest appointments to the MoJ.  No.  None at all.

Closing down rituals

We're always glad of a good washing day the day before we leave, and today (contrary to the Météo France forecast: éclaircies, rares averses) has come up trumps with an ideal repertoire of sunshine and a brisk, warm breeze.  Quite a treat after a dull, damp Monday, though the conditions were perhaps propitious for Pierre to slap on another layer of lime mortar on the end wall.

Gone 16h00 on the eve of our departure, however, it seems we won't see the work complete before we leave.  The final rendering remains to be done, and it'll then need white and coloured washes, with drying time between the three, and possibly multiple coats of the colour.  What the hell?  It's only been two and a half years.  And the now inflated bill looks as if it may wait until July.  (Of which year remains to be seen.)

So, in summary: mixed weather, though the scalp is registering a bit of sun.  Hay fever, but gorgeous wild flowers [NB: two words: Ed].  Meetings with lots of lovely friends.  Far too much to eat.  Some fabulous coastal and mountain views.  A bit of painting that came right-ish in the end.  Oh, and had I mentioned the dreadful rental car?

Perfect planning as always

We gave the market a cursory glance this morning, failing to find what we needed, so headed towards the shop.  Part-way there, we thought 'oh, let's just go to the Carrefour in Lézigzag'.  Part-way thither in the despicable Nissan, Martyn said 'we could go for lunch by the sea', so (with a sigh from the driver) we set off towards Gruissan, and started to think about places to eat.  Having discussed the inventory of places we could go, and how disappointing they'd been lately, we decided to change plans yet again, and go to the pizzeria we used last year in Leucate Plage.  Closed.  By all appearances, définitivemang.  (This after we'd got lost in Leucate Village, of course.)   Interesting side trip up to the lighthouse, however: we hadn't been there before, and much enjoyed the 270° views from the top of the cliff.  The restaurant up there looked thoroughly uninviting: doubtless fine views through the green-tinted windows, but on a rare fine spring day, one likes to sit outside, rather than behind glass on moulded plastic chairs.  Glorious views of the Massif du Canigou, rising, snow-streaked, above the mist at lower levels: almost reminiscent of the photographs one sees of Mount Fuji.  (No photos, because we were only going to Lézigzag when we set out, remember?) 

By this point, we'd adjusted plans yet again in favour of the good old Palm Beach at La Franqui, and my pizza ambitions were transformed into médaillons de thon frais, just seared and served with green beans, steamed new spuds and exploding tomatoes.  (Fortunately, it was the tablecloth rather than my decades-old shirt that got the fallout.)  Delicious: just a little too much of it.  We must have been going there for over ten years now, and the boss now comes to greet us when we arrive, and to say his farewells when we leave.  As for the shopping, having discussed the market, the village shop, the Carrefours in Lézigzag and Narbonne, where did we finish up?  Where else?  Fortnum's on the ex-N9 south of Narbonne.

There were fewer of the ladies of the afternoon by the N9 this time, though Martyn spotted one.  Which reminds me of the story of the writer, the English lecturer, the orchestral musician and the baker encountering a number of these age-old professionals, and musing on a suitable collective expression.  'An anthology of prose' said the writer.  'A volume of Trollope's', offered the lecturer.  'A flourish of strumpets' suggested the musician.  All trumped by the baker's 'a jam of tarts'.  Acknowledgements to Claire Smith, who first told me the joke aeons ago.  Easy to joke about it, but I'd love to know there was a solution to the scandalous trafficking of these poor deluded souls.

As for proper wildlife, we went in search of flamingos on the way home, and found none.  We saw one egret on the étang near Bages, and Martyn saw some oyster catchers.  Yesterday, there was a group of unfamiliar birds circling over the house.  Blackbird sized, but with wings tapering to sharp points, slender necks and small heads, tails culminating in a long point, and a fluting call.  Any ideas?  This evening we sat on the terrace watching the swifts, house martins, redstarts and starlings.  Pretty much on the stroke of 9:00 pm, the birds disappeared and the bats came out.  Shortly before that, we were serenaded by the frogs in the river valley, and the local donkey, which was in fine voice.

I now officially hate the vehicle.  I gather they are to replace the New York yellow cabs with the same vehicle which, unlike our sample, can be supplied with 7 seats.  I hope they come with flooring that can be hosed out, given the sick-making ride.  Now that I know the model designation, I shall in future refuse any attempt to rent one to me.

Day out on the canal

Chota and her fan club, Canal du Midi (Photo: Patricia Cooper)

As is our wont, we met our friends Patricia and Martin Cooper for lunch at Le Somail, meeting for the first time Martin's sister Nan, who is down with them for ten days or so.  Our lunch date was a good reason for me to crack on with the last painting, since it was commissioned by a friend of the Coopers who is frequently in Mèze, and we've left it with them until the owner returns next month.  

We had what turned out to be a private cruise down the canal to the first lock on the Canal de Jonction and back again.  Our friendly Dutch captain Ruud wasn't in the least bothered that he had only the five of us: indeed, he told Martin that if nobody buys tickets, he just sails on his own for the fun of it.  The canal banks are now bare of trees for long stretches, though Martin thinks there are experiments in progress using some new fungal treatment, presumably on healthy trees, or those that aren't that aren't too badly affected. 

Lunch at the Auberge du Somail was as good as ever, and not deadly expensive.  We paused to check its sister establishment, La Guinguette, at Argens-Minervois on the way home.  Pleasant enough, but nowhere close in charm to the location at Le Somail.  We might give it a try for lunch one day after shopping in nearby Lézignan.