Drawing peacefully to a close

Tuesday:

Since we are due to leave in a couple of days’ time, it’s mopping up and shutting down time here in Another Place.  Yesterday’s laundry was blighted by poor weather, so I have been reduced to ironing (OK: this betrays the fact that I do actually know what the word means, however little I indulge in the practice). 

Earlier in the day the time had come to tackle the tiny patch of terrible soil beneath the dining room window, and I filled two bags with leggy valerian and a nasty little sticky weed that takes over at the slightest opportunity.  Glad to report that the mint and sage have asserted themselves sufficiently despite the nasties.  As usual, there were not only weeds but also beer bottles and fruit juice cartons to haul out.  The oleanders are now well established, almost to the point of anti-social.  I’ll leave them for the moment, since the flowers are pretty.  And we can still get in the front door, if only just. 

In between gardening and ironing, we have been down to the seaside.  The little art gallery at the Salins de I’Île Saint-Martin was closed as usual, but we did pause in the museum/tourist trap next door to buy a few bits and pieces.  It was too soon for lunch at that point, but we did go and say hello to ‘my’ boat near the oyster bar.  It is looking in serious need of a coat of paint.  It’s three years since I took the photograph on which I based a couple of acrylic sketches, and it is now looking rather shabby.  The atmosphere next to the salt pans can’t help, I suppose.

We ambled from there along to Saint-Pierre-La-Mer for a spot of lunch (adequate, but we have no recommendation to report: our home-made pizzas are far better).   The place is a bit more attractive than its neighbour, Narbonne-Plage, and far better maintained, with smooth road surfaces and attractive floral displays.  It is part of the inland commune of Fleury d’Aude, which maybe has a bit more cash at its disposal.  Thence across the Clape and up to the Canal du Midi for our usual route home, avoiding the N113 (or whatever they now call it hereabouts).

We’re now just waiting for the storms, and have battened down the hatches.  Last night was pretty muggy, so we hope the storms will clear the air a little. 

Wednesday:

Tuesday's storm was a bit like the Queen's speech: very wet, but disappointingly brief.  This morning dawned fine, and remained so until the second lot of laundry was ready to go out, whereupon a dismal drizzle set in for a few hours.  So the washing line was up and down like a whore's drawers.  Well, by l'heure du pastis, (blanc-cassis with the local monks' white, actually, a gift from Yshani) it was all dry and unter Dach, so we won't be leaving the place looking like a Chinese laundry for once.

We have cleaned the house from top to bottom, laundered like mad, hacked back the thuggish periwinkle, planted out the basil (with more hope than confidence), and eaten our way through most of the leftovers.  Tomorrow we shall hack along to Avignon to get the train home, hoping to find that the car is still where we parked it, and with wheels.  

The internet service here has been bloody awful for the last few days, so it may be that we'll be back at Forges-l'Evêque before this gets uploaded.  But then, I often used not to post the postcards till I was back home...

Friday:

Having done most of the closing down rituals on Wednesday, Thursday was a shade more relaxed, and we were away by a little after 10:00.  The drive to Avignon yesterday was about as horrid as usual.  We had toyed with finding a scenic route, but with the prospect of over six hours in the train and then the drive from Ashford, we opted for the motorway.  Since we had time to spare, we thought we'd go and visit the Pont du Gard.  Finding that the charges are now exorbitant, we did an about-turn in the car park and headed for the station, filling the tank nearby, and pausing for lunch at the Buffalo Grill, faute de mieux.  Service was slow, which suited us, and the steaks were OK, both ordered à point, but with one delivered distinctly bien cuit, which fortunately suited Martyn.  

Thence to the station, with about an hour to wait for the train.  Not bad people-watching: a child was doing a pretty fair rendering of The Entertainer on the public piano, and others were pedalling away like hell at the public phone charging stations.  But there is a lot of conflicting noise: muzak, incomprehensible announcements, breaming scrats etc, so the experience was made restful thanks only to a quarter litre of rosé.

Once on board, the train crew mercifully moved a couple away from the seats alongside ours - one of their seats did not recline properly.  Said couple, having moaned at length about the mediocrity of the Eurostar train, proceeded to bore the balls off their new neighbours with their tabloid-fuelled opinions on France, the French, the EU and everything else that didn't comply with their vulgar estuarine standards, unfortunately within earshot.  I know that that is not what Sartre meant by L'enfer, c'est les autres, but it'll do for me.  We were nicely fed and watered all the way to Ashford, where after a short walk from the station, the Egg fired up at the first time of asking.  A brief pause at the M&S for breakfast makings and we were home by about 23:00.

That makes about 14 hours' travelling all told, but with a fairly relaxing time on the train.  It's a nuisance that one has to get off with the luggage at Lille and shuffle through two border controls and a baggage security check, but it was a bit slicker than last time, and there was more rosé on offer when we got back on the train!

Today has been mostly about relaxation.  But the manic tendencies prevailed at times.  I went out to refit the French toll badge to the Ateca (having taken it with us and stuck it on the Fiat for the duration), and came back in an hour later, having weeded the front bed, chopped down and dug up the thuggish pyracantha, trimmed back the berberis and hauled out lots of grass, wild strawberries and a rampant yellow thing the name of which escapes me.  The pyracantha needed a bit more than I could manage, and it was helpful that next door's gardener could give me a hand.  The roots obviously go all the way to hell, so it was a matter of digging round and chopping through them.  I think they may try to reassert themselves, but I shall be on the lookout.  It really isn't a good subject to have growing where it could lacerate passers-by!  

The garden is looking pretty good, thanks to visits by Celia and Andy.  The courgettes and beans seem OK, as do the onions.  The leeks are coming along slowly, and the various pots and planters are full of blooms.  Post-siesta garden activity was limited to a bit of feeding: a few cans of seaweedy water to spuds, herbs and fuchsias.  The rudbeckias seem to have settled in well enough, but the gazanias are altogether more reticent.  I think they need a bit more indoor TLC around the time we bugger off for a spring trip south.  We'll see.  The nasturtiums that Martyn sowed a while back are in flower now, with a good range of colours.  The eschscholzias, on the other hand, need chopping back next time I can get my knees to bend again.

Wet washing day

We returned to Lagrasse yesterday after a few days with Annie at Le Roc.  She was on fine form, and welcoming as ever.  We decided to take a direct but non-motorway route there, via Montolieu, Revel, Grenade and Lectoure, pausing for lunch beside the canal near Grenade.  Not a bad trip, on generally quiet roads, but it did take about six hours, partly because a lot of the communes en route have adopted 30 kph speed limits, enforced by lethal speed bumps. 

Our time with Annie was a relaxing one - lots of chatting, reading and snoozing: I read the latest Ian Rankin thriller in three sittings.  We did take a trip to Marmande to get a couple of big canvases, one of which she painted, in short order, with a semi-abstract rendering of a vase of brightly coloured flowers.  I wish I had her ease with the brushes.

The best part of Le Roc is the big covered terrace at the front, offering views down the garden and across the valley.  It was a little too hot to sit out there on the first day or so, but once temperatures had dropped to the mid-20s it was very comfortable.  As we sat out there we were entertained by the wildlife (swallows, buzzards and the occasional hoopoe), and by the sounds of the cows and a donkey at the farm up the hill.  We even had a visit from a couple of deer at one point.  A propos wildlife, twice in the past week a hare has leapt across the road in front of us - years since I'd seen one.

For much of the time we were also aware of the distant drone of a 45 year old Shorts Skyvan, doing skydiving flights out of La Réole.  An Austrian company, Pink Aviation, operates a handful of these flying sheds in lurid paint jobs, and I seem to remember reading the chronicle of their flying one back to Vienna from where they had bought it somewhere in the Asia-Pacific region.  It was the forerunner of the Shorts 360 in which I flew between London and Dundee a few times in the early 1980s.  A robust family of aircraft, it seems, and reputedly very quiet from outside.  (Not so within, I have to say.)

We opted for the motorway route on the way back: it is more bearable on a Sunday when there are very few HGVs on the road, and it took almost exactly half the time of the country roads route.  But why, when the bladder is making its presence felt, is the next aire always closed?  Still, we were home (and dry...) in time for lunch.

Afternoon naps, then an hour or so with our former neighbour Sheila.  There is now a little tapas bar down by the Porte d'Eau, so we sat comfortably in the shade there and put the world to rights with the help of a couple of glasses of pink.

I made a start on the mountain of laundry overnight, and the third batch is chuntering away this morning as I type.  Needless to say, as soon as the first lot out on the line, the sky clouded over, and the rain forecast for late afternoon began.  I'd felt quite virtuous in having the first dozen shirts out on the line before 07:00, and was suitably chastised for my hubris by having to transfer them, before 08:00, to hangers in the top of the stairwell.

Flora, fauna and automobilia, with a reluctant nod to politics

Yesterday being fine, still and clear, we took off on our usual ride up into the Hautes-Corbières while our neighbours - well, some of them - were casting their votes in the second round of the législatives.  All three circonscriptions in the Aude elected one of Macron's hastily assembled party, with a Socialist runner up in our area, and FN in the other two.  Lagrasse, as always, voted for the Socialist.  I hope that Macron, thus strengthened, will be in a better position to moderate the UK's hopeless position in the negotiations that were supposed to begin today.  I commend to your attention a recent article in Der Bund.  There's an English translation knocking about somewhere if you need it.  Strong stuff, and unusually frank for a restrained Bern newspaper.

As we climbed yesterday, the air was full of sulphur yellow butterflies: we'd never seen so many.  The poppies are largely over, as are the aphyllantes de Montpellier, but there are still patches of orchids here and there, the occasional yellow spike of verbascum and rather more broom than is compatible with comfort for one of the hay fever persuasion.  We'd hoped to make a circuit south to the chateaux, since the views from our usual stopping point between Montjoi and Arques were fabulous.  Our having for once remembered to take a bag of carrots with us, there was - needless to say - no sign of our friends the donkeys.   By the time we were down at Arques, however, the eyes were watering and the throat itching, so we elected a more direct route home, with Martyn at the wheel. 

Today we've done a shorter route, up to Carcassonne via the Alsou gorge and back via Capendu and the Congoust gorge.  The air is altogether murkier, but the route full of spectacle in the limestone gorges, so not without visual reward.

Our very winding routes have rather emphasised the car's shortcomings: very thick A- and C-posts, hence much ducking and diving to see what lunatic is hurtling round the next left-hand bend at us, and some tricky exits from oblique junctions.  The rounded front end makes it difficult to place it accurately in the lane without frequent reference to the door mirrors - and the left one doesn't adjust far enough out for a tall driver.  There's a flat spot the size of the Netherlands in the throttle response in third gear, which makes for rather jerky progress.  I'm not sure whether this is related to the gearbox or the turbo-charger.  One nice gimmick, though, is that, at the press of a button, the speedo display toggles between mph and kph, not that we need it here.  And with fuel consumption running at 60 mpg, one must acknowledge its good points.

Returning briefly to fauna, we have been hearing a hoopoe calling, usually early in the morning.  I keep meaning to get out there for a sighting, but so far inertia has prevailed.

Summer

It tends to get very warm in the late afternoons at the moment - typically around 32°C - but night time temperatures are largely bearable, with a little help from the trusty fan we bought in Colmar back in 2002 (and which probably saved our lives when we went down with food poisoning in Riquewihr).  We had a pleasant, if somewhat over-bibulous, apéro on Wednesday with Peter and Christoff.  They have bought and done up one of the maisons de maître in the middle of the village.  Their living room-kitchen is on the top floor, and one of the two roof terraces (we moved from one to t'other when the temperature dropped enough) offers practically 270° views to the Hautes-Corbières, the Abbey and the Cagalière.  They have now left for South Africa again, so we won't get a chance to retaliate until we're all back in September.

Next day we took a ride over the hills to Leucate, where we stopped for lunch at our usual café on the beach, returning via Bages and Narbonne.  At one point some joker on the ex-N9 practically climbed on to our back bumper when I was overtaking at just a little over the speed limit, and proceeded to swerve in and try to put us off the road.  The roadside had its usual sprinkling of scantily-clad ladies of the afternoon.  So we were more than grateful to get off the main road.  Not a flamingo to be seen on the étangs, just egrets (we saw a few...).  The real fun began between Montredon and Villedaigne.  All traffic was being directed off the ex-N113, where there seemed to have been a shunt.  This meant negotiating Névian with its tree-lined streets and traffic-calming chicanes.  This took fully half an hour of stop-start, since trucks have to take to the middle of the road to avoid overhanging branches, and many of the roads have long single lane stretches to slow the traffic down.  Well, they achieved their aim, and then some.

Oleanders and the hire car

The air is clearer today (probably because it's moving pretty fast).  We have been up to Lézigzag for supplies this morning, and were rewarded with good views of the mountains on the way home via Conilhac.  The Canigou was clearly visible, and still has streaks of snow on it.  The fine displays of wild flowers are largely over now, though there are occasional patches of scabious and pyramid orchids, and the broom's long flowering season continues.  The vines seem to have recovered from the freeze that did so much damage in the spring, and of course the wild oats are everywhere.  Our little weed patch is weedier than ever, so I suppose we'll have to tackle that before we leave.  The oleanders are resplendent (not to say thuggish!), and we have already used some of our own sage and mint in the kitchen.  The valerian which moved itself in a year or so ago is in serious need of chopping back, as is the periwinkle, which I nicked some years ago from alongside the irrigation ditch up the valley.

The Rt Hon the Prime Minister seems to be deservedly beleaguered at the moment.  Her vacillating and consequently disastrous campaign, her being forced to seek an unconstitutional alliance in order to cling to power and now her catastrophic failure to show any kind of empathy with the victims of the dreadful fire in N Ken (cf. HM's prompt and compassionate visit) must together surely bring her down.  I don't think she's a bad person.  Indeed, I was quite taken with her humanity when, a while back, she did Desert Island Discs.  No such humanity is showing now: rather, she is showing one grave error of judgement after another, and now looks a bit like a rabbit in the headlights.  The Leader of HM Opposition is making an altogether better fist of things.  If you haven't yet read Toynbee's and Freedland's latest articles in the Grauniad, you should.

Bulletin

It turns out that neighbour André is in hospital in Carcassonne, and will spend some time in a Maison de Repos while they fit his house out with a downstairs wc etc. 

The evening was a little cooler yesterday, so we sat up on the roof terrace for a while, watching the swifts and house martins swooping noisily overhead, and retired once we were satisfied that the bats are still around in good numbers.

Last night France2 held an on-line vote for France's favourite village, and the programme included a nice little clip about Lagrasse, the nominee for our region.  Our neighbour Carlos, who does local walking tours, went round with the programme's presenter, and our rather yellow end wall was visible in the sequence taken on the bridge.  As it turns out, Kaysersberg in Alsace took the accolade, but it was nice to see our bled getting a plug.

We trekked up to the market town this morning, but couldn't find anywhere to park in the town, even in Fortnums' car park.  Tricky, that, since you need the code on your receipt to get out of the car park, and if you can't park, you're unlikely to have a receipt, eh?  Fortunately, the barrier on the entrance side was up, so we left by the wrong side, as it were, amid somewhat bünzlig remonstrations, to which I refrained from reacting, from a local person.  Having bought at the Carrefour what we'd gone to the market for, we headed for home via a brief scenic detour.  Where the road peels off to Ferrals, a Xantia Picasso of some age was stuck precariously in the left-turn lane with its hazard flashers going.  We pulled over where we could do so safely to go and see if help was needed.  It was not, as it turned out, since the driver had already summoned assistance, but a good couple of dozen cars must have whipped past while we were there without their drivers bothering to stop and enquire.  What is the matter with people?

We're invited to apéros later, so had our main meal at lunchtime.  Saltinbocca of pork fillet and local jambon cru, with home-grown sage.  Ratatouille and roasties by Martyn.  Carluccio's: you may come and take master classes.

Another Place again

Our London trip was altogether very enjoyable, though the day was warm and humid.  But I nearly blew a gasket trying to book our car park space in Tonbridge by mobile phone.  Martyn, recognising the symptoms, heroically went off to get change enough to satisfy the machine's appetite.  We had a pretty mediocre Saltinbocca at Carluccio's in Campden Hill Road, then headed for the Albert Hall, getting off the bus short enough to allow a pleasant walk through Kensington Gardens.  The visit was good, and the guide's commentary was excellent.  The building is extraordinary, and the tour took us gradually up from foyer level to the gallery (whence the photograph).  It would have been nice to see backstage, but I guess they can't offer that to tour groups of 20-plus.  The afternoon tea that followed was appetising and copious: we weren't equal to the top tier of half a dozen cakes!

We had a couple of hours to fill between the tour and our next engagement, so took a look round the Science Museum.  One of my childhood memories is of being taken there by Mum and Grandpa, keenly looking forward to the aeronautical section, and of weeping bitterly on finding it closed.  The ensuing visit to the (to me, then) terminally boring Natural History Museum did not improve matters.  Well, the whole place was open this time, and fascinating.  Shame it came close on sixty years too late.  Somewhat footsore and sweaty, we sat and had cups of tea in the café, then hacked on down to the Brompton Road to catch a bus along to Hyde Park Corner.  The traffic was thick enough to ensure that we didn't arrive at the Caledonian Club indecently early.  On the way there, we walked past a building site on Belgrave Crescent just as the workers were leaving.  Blimey!  I wouldn't want to bump into that lot once they'd had a bellyful of vodka.

We still had time to spare, so went to take a look at the House in Upper Belgrave Street where Martyn's great-uncle was in service well into his seventies.  A bit smart, eh?  Thence to the Club for an apéro offered by the keepers-warm of potential posthumous benefactors of my alma mater.  A glass of white wine and sundry canapés before the star turn by Nicholas Parsons, now well into his nineties, whose recall of Edward Lear verse was remarkable!  And all hosted by the charming Mr Campbell, Advocate - Ming to his friends, I imagine - the Chancellor of the university, and now the Lord Campbell of Pittenweem.

Well, I don't know whether it was Carluccio's, the Albert Hall, the Science Museum, the Caledonian Club or various bus handrails that got me, but I spent the night dashing across the landing and next morning up and down the stairs.  Whichever it was caused me to miss a Trustees' meeting in London next day.  Snarl.

As usual, by the day before departure, I'd failed to act on dozens of garden tasks, notably planting out bedding subjects.  Well, the gazanias and rudbeckias are now planted, for better or for worse, and the courgettes are in the raised bed.  I'd been wondering how to provide for said courgettes, they being a climbing variety.  Martyn remembered that he had some tough netting in the garage loft, so a few square metres thereof are now stapled to the fence with a view to training them.

A couple of days saw me just about on form for the journey south, though in the circumstances I was quite glad we weren't driving all the way.  We'd booked a taxi to Tonbridge station, there to get the one and only train that will get you to Ashford in time to catch the Eurostar to Avignon and Marseille.  On Sunday, Martyn was having a good fret in the insomniac small hours as he worked through all the what-ifs.  Suppose the taxi is late?  Suppose the train is late or cancelled (we are talking Monday morning on a line notorious for over-running engineering work).  Well, a spot of research revealed that, taxi and train fares taken into account, we'd be as well to drive ourselves to Ashford and lay the Egg in the long-term car park, the which we duly did, having cancelled the taxi.  We'll find out in a couple of weeks' time whether the Egg still starts and has wheels.

The train ride was fine.  We had a block of four seats to ourselves, so could stretch out a bit, snooze, read, and work out how to hook up the tablet to the internet via the telephone.  (I think that, in techno terms, I've finally just about made it into the 21st century.)  I was thus able to spar with fellow word-game players and insult fellow facebookers as we hurtled along at 300kph.  The ride south is pleasant, and breakfast and a hot lunch are served, both in modest portions fitting the minuscule amounts of energy expended by the travellers.  There's wine for the non-drivers, plus plenty of mineral water and tea.  Pretty decent way to travel, and if you can find the deals, it's not much more expensive than the long drive.  Having left home at 06:00, we were in the hire car and on our way before 15:00 local, and shopped and home before 18:00.  I'd be happier if there were a service to Montpellier (or better still, Narbonne), but the A9 is a bit better nor wot it was, and we were at our nearest Carrefour within about two hours of leaving Avignon.

Non-petrolheads may skip this paragraph.  I'd booked a Citroën C3 or equivalent.  The chap on the desk was happy to put up with my French, and asked if I wanted an automatic.  I said 'Sure, if it comes at the same price'.  He wasn't sure that was possible, but eventually came back with the keys to a Fiat 500X, automatic, and with more bells and whistles than I can possibly learn during the 17-day lease.  I was unenthusiastic about it on the way home, finding the transmission reluctant to change up and the steering distinctly odd.  These days, rental cars tend to come supplied with a mode d'emploi, so a spot of pre-breakfast swotting this morning revealed how to switch off the young-racer mode and the thingy that shakes the wheel if you drift out of your lane.  This makes for an altogether nicer drive.  The car is pretty lively too, packing roughly the horsepower of a 1960s 3-litre Ford Zodiac, from a turbo-charged 1.4 litre engine - and in a car the size of a 1960s Escort.  The good old days weren't that good when it comes to technology, eh?

The village seems to be waking up for summer, though day-time temperatures are inducing siestas in shuttered rooms.  It was 39° when we got to the car in Avignon, and still 36° in Lagrasse at 18:00.  We did our shopping early this morning, and if we go down to the market tomorrow that'll be early too. 

Our neighbour André's house is shuttered up, and his name plate is no longer on the letter box.  I hope he is being well looked after: after we helped him up after a fall a while back, we wondered how long he'd be able to cope on his own.  Enquiries continue.

Worrying times

Well, we shall be going to London on Thursday as planned: we're not going to let these idiots control our lives.  We have a date at the Royal Albert Hall - a guided tour and afternoon tea: a Christmas present from Mr & Mrs Engineer Smith.  Later, we have a gathering of University of St Andrews benefactors, where we shall be entertained by Dr (Hon D Litt) Nicholas Parsons on the subject of Edward Lear.  Should be fun.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're gradually getting stuff planted out in preparation for our next trip to Another Place.  I've hitched up the solar-powered machine to water the vegetable bed, and planted out the dwarf French beans.  I need to get some wires or trellis up the fence before I put the climbing courgettes out.  The onion sets are looking healthy, but the leek seeds are pretty shy so far.  Perhaps the forecast overnight rain will give them a shove.

Martyn has hauled miles of brambles out of the side bed, and the grass has had a cut, so we're looking pretty respectable, however briefly.  I'd quite forgotten that we have a pink oriental poppy out at the front.  We have plenty of the orange reversion colour plant in the back garden, so must remember to go and nick a root cutting of Imogen's crimson one.  I gather that all colours revert to orange if grown from seed, so I guess the pink one's on its way.  They are beautiful things meanwhile, and the bees love them.  Unfortunately, like so many other early summer subjects, their flowering season is brief.  The cistus flowers for longer, fortunately, though each flower lasts only a day.  Its cousin, the yellow helianthemum in the rockery is blooming fit to bust this year after years of sulking.  We raised it from seed, and it's the sole survivor of the packet. 

The magpies have been very noisy lately: our local pair seems to have three young, all of which were in the rockery or the pond today at lunchtime.  Which fact did not pass unobserved by the local vet's cat, which Martyn managed to chase away before it could get the rather dim runt chick.  We're no great fans of the magpies, which would gladly feed their young on blackbird chicks, but we're still less keen on the vet's cat.  Perhaps the slug pellets on the raised bed - its favourite latrine - will give it a bellyache.