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.
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.
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.
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