The Social Calendar

No sooner were we back from the north than we were off again.  We had a delightful Sunday lunch at Lavenham with cousin Gill, her husband Chris and two of their daughters, and Chris's brother Philip dropped in later for a chat.  Gill and the girls had cooked a splendid lunch, and we had a chance to admire their pretty garden: their approach is quite similar to ours - cottage garden style, and natural feeling.  They are about to have their terrace re-laid, which will formalise things a bit, but it's a sensible move, and one that we took last year in view of the advancing years.  Travelling was curate's egg.  Hither was very slow, and Dotty seemed convinced that we had to divert via dozens of roundabouts at Basildon to avoid some event (of which we found no trace).  Thence was easier - a dogleg to Colchester, then a smooth ride in via the A13 (route avoiding M25) and over the bridge at Dartford. 

Incidentally, given that Dotty had no idea about the road layout in parts of modern day Essex, I went looking for a means of updating her.  Messrs Garmin suggesting that we pay £74.99 for the privilege, we have pretty much decided to get an up-to-date paper altlas and, in due course to replace Dotty with a more recent model that doesn't demand payment every time we want to try something new.

We'd a few days to draw breath, launder, clean, garden and cook, then on Thursday Joan and Michael arrived to share a bit of their six-week European tour with us.  They have spent some time in France and in London, and we had fun showing them a bit of Kent.  This included a view of Penshurst Place from the functions entrance, where we were treated to a filthy look from the noble gentleman as we turned round to leave.  We've met, but he'd quite understandably forgotten me: given the glare, I elected not to remind him.

Next day, we took Joan and Michael for a trip on the Kent and East Sussex railway, just for fun, after lunch in the good old Café Rouge in Tenterden (Thank you, Joan!).  The railway was running a couple of steam engines yesterday, and the ride from Tenterden to Bodiam through the Weald and across the Rother Levels was pleasant and varied.  We travelled in a Victorian three-axle third-class coach which was, I ought to say, less than comfortable, however authentic behind an 1874-vintage Terrier locomotive.

We reckoned that we had just enough time to walk from the station to the castle and back to catch the last train of the day, so ambled up past banks of blackberries to the castle grounds.  I went into the ticket office and flashed my much-used Life Membership card, asking for advice on how to get a replacement, since it is now quite badly split.  The young man on duty said there was probably a membership services phone number on the card.  He was quite right: 01-464 xxxx.  A number which has changed twice since my card was issued.  This means that I've been using my 'admit two' card for over 25 years.  I suspect I may have had my life membership sub back several times over.  I called the twice-revised number a moment ago, where a polite young woman told me that it had been the NT membership services number many years ago, but no longer was.  Je m'en doutais.

Still, the young man in the office at Bodiam, confronted with an elderly geezer with a venerable membership card, and maybe slightly embarrassed at his inability to provide the current membership services number, declined to take payment for our two guests, and issued me with four entry tokens!  We strolled on up the path towards the castle, and in due course paused to let an eight-seater golf buggy pass.  He stopped to offer us a lift, which was welcome, since Michael has pain in his knees.  The driver then suggested we get someone to whistle him up when we left, so he could take us back to the station!  In the castle there was a costumed presentation of the techniques involved in building the castle back in the 14th century, and of life there.  

Joan and Michael, Bodiam

Fascinating, though the male actor's loose cough was a shade worrying!  Joan and Michael scrambled up the spiral staircase to the top of the central south tower while we did a bit of people-watching - and fretting about whether the intrepid pair would make it down in time for the last train back to Tenterden!  Well, the boy on the main castle gate soon sent for our transport, and we had a minute or two to watch the mallards fighting the giant carp in the moat for the odd scraps that visitors were throwing to them.  It was enough to tell our buggy jockey that Michael was a leading engineer in the development of electric vehicles for animated conversation to ensue all the way back to the station.  We were there in good, if not generous, time for the train, and returned to Tenterden behind a wartime import tank engine of the USA class.  It packed a few more horses than the old Terrier, but lacked the charm. 

Joan having been somewhat astonished at the presence of a pudding called Eton Mess at one of our lunchtime venues, Martyn produced a fine essay in the medium last night, following a main of Speldhurst sausages and mash with roast veggies.  J&M have left today, a pound or two heavier, but not before visiting the 27th Canton of Switzerland up in the loft.  Martyn had got a lot of trains and the cable cars working, so I got on with a spot of housework while they oohed and aahed at the model railway. 

Travelling at the weekend is always worrying, so it's probably as well that Michael opted to go for the earlier of the available trains.  Just as well, since it was routed via the old London-Dover line via Redhill and Croydon.  We find no signs of problems on the next stages of their journey, but cross fingers.

Back here, Darby and Darby, it has all gone quiet again.  Leftover Speldhursts toasted in leftover bread for lunch.  A propos, I had baked what was meant to be a long thin loaf to slice up for bruschette.  It turned out more like a gros pain than a ficelle.  Memo to baker: a standard 600g load of duff makes one pan loaf and two ficelles.  Baker:  Noted.

Hypertension

A frustrating day yesterday at the hobby, but at least I had good company in the retiring room while we waited for something - anything! - to happen.  The travelling at least was easy: it's remarkable how the traffic volume drops during the school holidays.

Today ought to have been a simple matter of an hour or so's wait while the Panzer got a clean pan of oil and a fresh filter.  I declined a change of brake fluid (which ought to have been done last year), but agreed, at about 10:00 to a change of transmission fluid and the corresponding filter.  Cutting a long and tedious story short, I didn't get away until gone 13:00, by which time steam was coming out of my ears, and I was conscious of a few unwelcome symptoms.  Out of self-defence no doubt, the garage plied me with tea and biscuits, and did the brake fluid change à mon insu free of charge, so there's some consolation.  The bill was nevertheless way over double what I'd expected.  If they'd raised the suggestion (already floated by post) of changing the timing belt, 90'000 miles ahead of the manufacturer's service schedule, there might have been blood on the walls - quite possibly mine.

Anyway, back home, Martyn, having cleared the space in the garage that the washing machine will go into, had fixed a tasty lunch: how spoilt I am!  I've since worked off the fury by cutting the grass.  Just hope the dentist has no nasty surprises for me tomorrow.

Lots of miles, but worth it

Chester Cathedral nave

I hadn't been to Chester before, so was glad Martyn suggested it as a way to make use of the time before the wedding on Saturday.  The black and white timbered buildings are well-known, but the red sandstone cathedral, with elements of surviving Romanesque stonework, is perhaps less so. I'm aware of a number of recordings of organ music from the days when Roger Fisher was the incumbent, and it was interesting to see that the organ is scattered around the transept, with the pedal department hidden away to the north.  Probably just as well, given the socking great reeds on show.

Back at the hotel, we'd booked a taxi for 12:30 to take us to the wedding venue, but since it had only taken 12 minutes to get there as we drove to Chester, I called in to ask if it could be changed to 13:15.  No record of our booking.  Well, I stood over the same receptionist as she rang up a couple of taxi firms, eventually booking for 13:10.  The car was there in good time, manned by a friendly chap: 'I like the tie!' as I got in.  We booked and paid for a return job for a pretty reasonable rate, and he was again there in good time later.

Mr & Mrs Sell

The wedding was a good experience.  Martyn's cousin Kelly was looking wonderful, as were the bridesmaids, and the groom's supporting team had scrubbed up pretty well in their matching blue suits.  I'm not sure what I feel about the vast amounts of cash that are thrown at weddings, really, but this one was well orchestrated.  We'd had to choose our meals in advance, and our chosen dishes arrived at their marked places without the need for 'Woz you 'avin' the chicken?'.  And very good they were.

As a fully paid-up Old Fart, I struggle to follow conversations when there are forty of them going on in a confined space, still more when the band starts belting it out later in the evening.  Consequently, the ensuing six hours were torment, relieved by some lengthy walks round the beautiful gardens.  We stuck in there until about 22:30 (assisted by Chilean Merlot anaesthetic) by which time our taxi, booked for 22:45, was already waiting for us.

With John and Susie

Off to Stockport next morning for tea and delicious drop scones with Susie and John Platt.  Sue and I
worked together in 1974 as translators at the centenary congress of the Universal Postal Union in Lausanne, and hadn't seen each other since.  We spent a most enjoyable hour or so comparing 1974 photographs - and taking updates.  We parted with 'let's not leave it 41 years till next time!'.  Meanwhile, Susie continues to thrash me at internet word games.

From there we headed out to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to meet Annie, with whom my friendship dates only from 1978.  Of traffic and Escheresque road layouts in the outskirts of Manchester, the less said, the better.  Dotty routed us over the beautiful Woodhead, so we were rather late meeting Annie.  We lunched modestly in the open air at the visitor centre, then went to see the Henry Moore collection and works of many other painters and sculptors.  It's an outstanding collection, beautifully situated near Wakefield and I'll look forward to visiting again when I'm a bit less diesel-lagged.  There's a vast collection of sculpture on display, and I enjoyed seeing familiar Henry Moore pieces.  Annie, Vic and I went to an exhibition thereof in the Bagatelle gardens back in the early 90s when I was based in Paris.  The exhibition was superb: as one walked round the lovely green park, one turned a corner to find another piece, beautifully displayed in its setting.  I took them to see a piece that was on display in Brussels when they visited shortly after I moved there in 1994.

We had a quiet Monday: I helped Annie water the greenhouses at Thwaite gardens while Martyn beavered away on the examination of the Friends of Thwaite Gardens accounts, and on developing an Excel template that will make the job easier in years to come.  I admit to having succumbed to a lengthy siesta: I don't do long journeys and parties with the resilience of youth.

Off again yesterday in archetypal Smith Travelling Weather to Cambridge.  It rained every inch of the way, and the A1 experience was about as grim as I recall it from the times the parents and I drove south to visit the London relatives.  We were driving in air-conditioned luxury, with lots of horsepower and an automatic box.  How we coped in a Hillman Imp with a roof rack I can hardly imagine.  Interesting that the VW uses less fuel than the Imp.  There is progress in some areas.

The Cambridge trip was to visit a superb collection of watercolours at the Fitzwilliam, which also provided a tolerable snack lunch. Interesting to see that Turner et al used 'body colour', which was a new term to me.  A quick search yields the following:

Body colour is the use of opaque colours for highlights or dense flat areas and is a technique which has been used in water colour for centuries. Designers Gouache was introduced in 1937 and prior to this the only method of achieving opacity was to use white, on its own or to make tints of the water colours.

Now, there was I, thinking it was a sin to use gouache to reintroduce light to watercolours when one ought to be planning round areas of unpainted white paper.  I shall be less precious in future.  Another interesting fact was that Turner did a lot of his watercolours on blue paper - hence, of course, the need for 'body colour'.  Having treated myself to the catalogue, I look forward to taking a look back through the exhibition.  We waved fond farewells to Annie from the top deck of the Park & Ride bus out to Trumpington where we had parked and whence we had ridden, and had a remarkably painless ride down the M11, round the M25 and off down the A21.  In view of warnings of congestion close to home, we left the A21 early and took my route home from the hobby, much to Dotty's consternation.  She did catch on remarkably quickly, I have to say.  Not that we needed her help on such a familiar route.

Today is a quiet one of catching up with laundry and baking.  The grass needs a cut, but may wait a day or two.  Martyn, as I write, is hauling weeds out of the sides of the pond where the waterfall joins it.  We still haven't got to the bottom of why it leaks, but think it may be a case of GSI again.  

Oh, and to finish the blog as ever with a bleat, it took us a good half-hour yesterday to register for the Dartford Crossing, where they have removed the toll barriers and now rely on ANPR and on-line subscription.  The web site is miserably unhelpful, and we failed completely to register for direct debit to the housekeeping bank account, getting the insulting message 'failed identity check' time after time.  Eventually, we managed to register using the housekeeping Gaga card, but I dare say we can expect a penalty notice in a week or so.  Though the drive south was easy, cars driving north appeared to be queuing from somewhere around Amiens.  Hope it's eased by Sunday...

Even-handedness

I grizzle enough about road conditions and driving in other countries, so perhaps it's time to redress the balance a little.  We spent over seven dreadful hours yesterday on the slow, congested Ms 25, 40, 42, 5, and 6, plus the gridlock known as Dudley (an attempt to circumnavigate the stationary M6) and the countryside and genteel suburbs from Alsager to Northwich, for the same reason.  Driving was every bit as hair-raising [irony: Ed] as that lately reported from France.  Middle-lane hogging, road-dirt coloured cars creeping through the murk and spray without lights, asses in Cayennes hurtling along the hard shoulder, to cite but a few.  Had train fares not been so exorbitant, we should have used public transport.  We stopped for lunch at the Oxford service station on the M40, which was a premonition of hell: airless, noisy and full of Other People.  That said, we were well enough fed by a Harry Ramsden counter.

A journey calculated at less than four hours took getting on for double that.  Still, we're installed in a comfortable, if pricey room in a Premier Inn for a couple of nights, and have a wedding to look forward to - more anon.  The rooms are tacked on behind a pub, so dinner, it being Friday night, was not a relaxing experience (though the food was good).  Near our table were two tables filled with raucous tattooed slappers out on a hen night.  In the adjacent pub was the usual Friday night gathering of uncouth tattooed oafs.  O tempora, o mores.

I should know better than launch into a mixed gristle at 20:00, having had more than the usual frugal lunch.  I had trouble getting to sleep, and when I did, had lurid dreams. Fortunately, we have the luxury of a late start this morning, so can take time drinking tea, enjoying a leisurely breakfast and planning routes.

Home, briefly

Not the greatest night's sleep, as we so often find in hotels.  No complaint about the Relays du Château itself: it was clean, comfortable and quiet, the bed was comfortable and the linen was generous and of good quality.  The problem was rather the pizzas we'd eaten: they lay like lumps of lead in the innards.  So the bistro will not appear on our list of bonnes adresses.  The baker's shop next to the hotel provided good pains aux raisins, though. We had brought tea and leftovers of milk and OJ, so we had unofficial room service breakfast as usual (I'd read poor reviews of the hotel's limited and expensive breakfasts).

We'd worked out a reasonably direct route to Rouen from Rambouillet, but as usual were foiled by roadworks, and got pretty spectacularly lost.  Dotty was no help: she's obviously on the payroll of the oil and motorway companies, and seemed constantly to want to route us out of our way to the A13 at Mantes-la-Jolie (which, of course, is anything but).  We eventually found our way to Pacy-sur-Eure, and thence to a shorter stretch of the A13.  Very pleasant, rolling countryside, though, and at its best in the morning sunshine.

Unlike Tuesday's refuelling experience in the Orléans suburbs, refuelling in Dieppe was painless: the Auchan was on our route.  (Orléans had involved a bit of a detour, and further complication when I tried to fill at an HGV pump, where the nozzle was too big for the 'ole.  I suppose the HGV pumps have to deliver far faster to handle the huge volumes involved.)

We were rather early arriving in Dieppe, so loaded in the first batches.  We now learn that the MV Seven Sisters works like many a redundancy scheme: last in, first out; and the converse, alas.  At Newhaven, what's more, they disembark foot passengers first, and the approach to the task is disorganised, so the hanging around felt interminable.  Interesting to watch the various ramps being lowered, though.  Just near where we were parked, the windscreen of a big truck had been edged up to the railings at the end of our deck.  We wondered whether the driver was going to have to back out, or whether our deck, once emptied, would be hauled up.  Neither: the answer emerged as the lorry started slowly to sink out of view, not unlike the coffin at certain crematoria.  Once the ramp was clear of lorries, about six 1920s racing cars growled into life and started down the ramp, the driver of one of them looking rather scared as he yanked vigorously on the outside brake lever. 

Newhaven beach and Beachy Head

Once we were off, through passport checks and on the road, the return home wasn't bad, since we were going against the evening flow.  We had fine weather for the drive, which was welcome.  It has since degraded to heavy rain and some thunder, and this is forecast to continue so for 48 hours.  Augurs ill for further travels. 

Heading north

We must be getting a bit slicker at the closing down rituals: much laundry and bed changing later, we were on the road soon after 10:00, not before a brief skirmish with the local traffic warden, who seems, unaccountably, not to have been suspended following his assault on a villager.  No ticket at least, and he had been round placing tickets on the cars of visitors who defy the no-entry sauf riverains signs, and use up the limited spaces to which we riverains are banished.

We opted this time for the Toulouse-Limoges route rather than Béziers-Clermont Ferrand, and think we may revert next time.  Though the road through Quercy is very attractive, the traffic around Limoges and Brive is not.  At one point, near Limoges where the road merges from three lanes to two, someone in a 76-plate Corsa (ie probably a rental) overtook us on the hatching at great speed, chased by someone else in an old Chrysler Crossfire.  It looked rather like a pursuit to me.  (Must check the local press for reports of drug wars in Limoges.)  Other than that, there was the usual compliment of kamikazes, ditherers and middle-lane Mary types to contend with, and a general scorn for the idea of signalling before changing lane, and the road was pretty busy for much of the way.   

We are safely installed in a pleasant hotel, the Relays du Château in Rambouillet, as I write, having been for a little walk round the gardens of the adjacent château.  The gardens have reinforced my plan to have another crack at rudbeckias next year!  The room is clean, spacious and quiet, and faces a back courtyard - just as well, since it's market day tomorrow in the car park opposite the front of the hotel.  We had a most peculiar meal at the Bistro du Marché.  Our waiter insisted on speaking a form of English to us, addressing us as 'you guys' every time he opened his trap: drunk, stoned, bewildered or some combination thereof: hard to tell.  The pizzas seem to have been satisfactory, though the uniformity of the bases suggested bulk deliveries of congelés. 

Though the hotel is fine and the château and garden impressive, the clientèle at the pub and bistrot where we ate was a bit on the low-rent side.  We didn't feel inclined to hang around, and hope to find the car with a full complement of wheels tomorrow.  If so, it's a little less than three hours' drive to Dieppe tomorrow for the lunchtime ferry, lunch and a snooze on board, then an hour's drive home from Newhaven.  We've had a fantastic time in Another Place, but are ready for a while at home now.

Winding down, getting wound up

Not a bad meal last night with Kate and John at the Cocotte Fêlée.   I had a skewer of shrimps served on a Thai-style salad of mango, transparent noodles, peanuts and sundry healthy bits and pieces, then a baked ham and sage stuffed chicken breast with odd bits of veg as a garnish.  Both satisfactory, and in time-honoured style, I can't remember what I had for pudding.  So we seem to have two bonnes adresses on the Prom.

We're starting to plan our brief transhumance northward, and driven out this afternoon by screeching sprogs in the street (one of which, aged barely 2, had to be restrained by yr obed servt from taking a key to a neighbour's car and kicking in the number plate), we took off to get some last bits of shopping.  Pause on the way in Ribaute, where one of the heats of downhill go-kart racing was in progress.  Evidently, eight villages host these timed events, and we got to see a dozen or so hurtle past.  Some quite serious chassis, but most pleasingly frivolous, including a bathtub and a wind surfer on wheels.  One trailed a windsock and a cloud of orange smoke.  As one does.  Evidently this is serious stuff: eight villages are hosting heats, we learned.

Next stop, Camplong, where our lady was in a friendly mood today (you never can tell...).  My carte de fidélité being full after today's visit, she presented us with our 0.00001% loyalty bonus of a bottle of cooking pink.  Thence to Fortnum's in the market town for kitchen and laundry supplies, and on to Saint-Laurent de l'Ecrevisse (OK: de la Cabrerisse) for some whites for Celia and Andy.

The weather has broken with a flash and a bang, so that's our excuse for parking outside the house when we got home.  After my two avertissements last week, I'd been parking legally at a health-giving distance.  We gather that the traffic warden got into a scuffle with a protesting resident the other day, and knocked him to the ground.  Outcome of enquiry awaited, but I saw said warden on his bike yesterday, oddly omitting to ticket the Mairie van, illegally parked across André's garage door, and unaccountably refraining from adding to Bertrand's ticket collection.  The more I get to know this country, the less I understand it.

Modest changes

Ever creatures of habit, we took a favourite road yesterday past the much-painted (by me, anyway) Château de Durfort, Vignevieille and its vegetable patches, then up to the hills above Bouisse.  The terrain gradually changes from craggy garrigue and vineyards to rolling pasture where sheep, cattle and sometimes donkeys graze.  A pair of donkeys, one black and one white, often graze near the viewpoint above.  No sign of them yesterday: they've probably given up on us, since we always forget to take a bag of carrots with us.

Donjon d'Arques, interpretation of.

Up there, one can sometimes get fine views of the Pyrenees, though yesterday's were rather hazy in the still, silent air.  Down the rich red hillsides to Arques and its Donjon, then on up to Limoux for pizzas.  We decided last time that we'd had too many indigestible meals at the Grand Café in the town square, so swung round 90° widdershins to Le Concept.  They classify their pizzas as les blanches and les rouges, which use crème fraîche and tomato base layers respectively.  Crisp bases, extremely copious toppings.  Doubtful arithmetic, though: the change came back 10€ short, quickly remedied.  Service otherwise brisk and friendly.

Lunch was accompanied by a couple of big parties nearby: one extended Spanish family, and a table of boisterous (and somewhat boozy) bikers, who rumbled off in due course across the pedestrian-only square on their Harley-Ds etc.  The one Kawasaki in the gathering looked decidedly limp-wristed by comparison.  More curious vehicles on a side road off the Carcassonne road.  There appeared to have been some sort of autojumble, but there were a couple of fine old cars on display.  One was a Zedel:  I had to read up later, never having heard of such a thing.  The company was founded in

Neuchâtel by one Ernst Zürcher (the Zed bit) and Hermann Lüthi (the L bit).  They eventually moved manufacturing across the border into France to overcome tariff barriers, and to get access to skilled automotive labour.  The Zedel was parked next to a coachbuilt Daimler, and curiously both were right-hand drive.  Also on show was a pretty ancient motorised bicycle, unearthed, by the rusty look of it, from a dilapidated rural barn.

Home for a rest, then off up to Kate and John's for apéritifs with some of their neighbours.  A cheerful gathering: nine of us with, most of the time, about ten conversations going on.  Jacquie, whom I've met a few times on walks, lives much of the year in Aix-en-Provence as, coincidentally, do the other French guests, he originally from Lorraine, she from Lagrasse.  It turns out that the premises on the Promenade where Jacquie has created an art gallery out of a former garage once serviced gentlemen before it changed its target market to motor vehicles.  Well, well: the things you learn!