The Plague Ship Strikes Again

By the day after our return it was clear that I was in for a White Star quality Cunard cold.  As usual.  (Martyn came back last year with a gut bug, but - fingers firmly crossed - there’s no sign of that so far.). We had to do some shopping on Christmas Eve, so I fear I may have shared my Cunard experience with characteristic generosity.

Just as well, then, that we had a Darby & Darby Christmas Day at home.  (Once I’d been down to the farm to pay for the eggs I’d bought the day before, forgetting in my snottitude to put the money in the box!). Simple roast chicken with lots of vegetables, and a long interval before Fortnums’ Christmas pud.  It was a beautiful day, so we spent a lot of it in the sitooterie enjoying the sunshine.

Meanwhile, Daisy the Cow, our mooing fridge, has been showing signs of increasing age.  We should have thrown her back earlier, given how she moaned about responding to the thermostat even from her earliest days.  Ten or so years on, we shouldn’t be too ashamed.  Anyway, Heironymous Frost arrives some time on Monday.  A very brief bit of research identified what we needed, and the fact that a local big shed was offering a discount.  In and out within five minutes.  Our kind of shopping.

La Mer...

More Funchal sights and lights

Holiday postcards: Funchal and the Christmas lights

Home again

Annual ramblings below: see last entry for November

Home again.  The last couple of days on board were pleasant and largely uneventful: we did a few more quizzes, went to another excellent piano recital by young Matthew McCombie and took in the performance of the guest choir.  (We’ve muttered about joining, but haven’t plucked up the courage yet!).  As for the seas, we lost a lot of sleep on our first night out of Lisbon when the sea was probably the roughest we’ve experienced.   Stabilisers notwithstanding, the QV rolls a fair bit!  It settled down a bit once we were round Cape Finisterre (the Spanish one) and into the relative calm of the Bay of Biscay.

The guest population of the ship was even more like that of a care home this time: we were forever tripping up over sticks, elbow crutches, walkers, wheelchairs and the Hell’s Grannies’ electric scooters.  And an alarming number of couples seemed to spend a lot of time bickering and sniping at each other.  I do hope this isn’t the shape of things to come.  Oh well: we met lots of nice, cheerful people too, and have expanded the Christmas card list a little.

Before we left the cabin this morning I’d logged in from my phone to the clever contraption in the hall here at Forges-l’Evêque and cranked up the temperature.  The house was therefore nice and warm to return to, although you could tell from the feel of stuff in cupboards that the house hadn’t been heated to normal temperatures for best part of a fortnight.

The drive home was pretty rotten: it started badly with road works closing the exit road from the terminal, hence a long crawl round the port before we could emerge to dice with the Southampton traffic.  Road works on the M27 slowed the pace, as did breakdowns on the Guildford by-pass and the M25.  It took us two and a half hours to get to Fortnums in Sevenoaks for the shopping, and then we had a number of detours to get home: there seems to have been quite a downpour, and one of our usual roads was closed.  There was much flooding in the fields, and we’d to crawl through patches of flooding on the roads as well.  Anyway, we’re home and dry, and have opened a huge stack of Christmas cards in one go!

Much as we love our travels, we’re happy to be back in our own comfortable space.

Last port of call before Southampton

A pretty rough ride all the way from Lanzarote to Lisbon in a heavy swell stirred up by storms much farther north.  Still, we got some sleep, even if not as much as we should have liked: I was awake well before 06:00.  It was a bit cooler when we arrived in Lisbon this morning, so I didn’t hang around on the balcony for too long.  Long enough to be reminded of the growl of the traffic as we passed under the Salazar/25 April bridge.

After a slightly less extravagant breakfast than usual, we were out and about before 09:00, and soon equipped with our day tickets for the buses and trams.  After a bit of trial and error, we found our way up to the castle.  The modern 737 bus follows the same route as the ancient 26 I first met thirty-some years ago, but I suspect it’s a whisker easier to drive.  From the castle we hacked back down again to Figueiras and caught a (modern) tram to Belém, where we soon found the celebrated Pastéis de Belém shop.  Behind the shopfront there is an extensive network of dining space, and we settled in briefly for a toasted sandwich and a pastel per man.  Extra sugar and cinnamon are provided for the latter: I eschewed both, and have to say I’ve never tasted a better one.

After lunch we did a spot of shopping in the Ale-Hop shop next door.  There’s an awful lot of tat in there, but the place brings a smile to one’s face.  We bought some mugs from them on our first trip to Madeira (the crockery at the flat was not nice), and now use them all the time at home.  Thence to the Cais de Sodre for a quick look at the Mercado da Ribeira.  Although the food market had closed by the time we got there, the cafés in the next hall were doing a roaring trade.  I’m told it’s very popular pretty well through the night.  Next, a glass of wine and some people watching in the sun at the kiosk opposite the station before catching a bus back to the cruise terminal.  The day tickets cost us €11 each, which is about the quarter of the price of the hop-on, hop-off buses, and they offer much more people-watching opportunities.  Granted, you need a little bit of local knowledge to make the best of it, and you can still get lost up blind alleys, as we did this morning, thinking that the Lavro funicular would give us a leg-up on the way to the castle.  It didn’t, but walking downhill into the sun could only bring us back towards the river, and we saw some interesting and gritty bits of Lisbon in the process.

Much of Lisbon has been prettified and sanitised since my first visits in pre-EU days, and the place is lousy with Macdonalds, Starbucks and the rest.  But a lot of the third-world feeling remains, and does much to explain our love for the place.

Heading north, and rough again

Our last two island ports of call were Tenerife and Lanzarote.  Having had a fine tour of Tenerife by car last time we were there, we decided instead to explore the town a little on foot.  We legged it along to the auditorium, which is a pretty striking piece of work, set, like its antipodean inspiration, on a little promontory on the seafront.  Curiously, the rocks to the side of the terrace are decorated with portraits of artists and composers, including Beethoven and - who else? - Elton John.  From there we ambled up the hill to the huge local branch of El Corte Inglés.  I forgot to bring a coat with me, and having bought a parka in the ECI in Madrid in 1979, thought I’d give it a try.  (The parka was fine on the 1979 frame, but has failed to adapt with the times.  It still fits Martyn, though!).  If the parka has not moved with the times, prices sure have!  I remain coatless.

From there we took a tram into town and walked a little.  Like its neighbour, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Sta Cruz de Tenerife is an unprepossessing town.  It has some grandiose architecture here and there, but is otherwise pretty boring in that respect, and the industrial docks add little to the attractiveness of the waterfront, but the snaggly mountain backdrop is impressive.  Don’t write Tenerife off, though: if you scroll back to this time last year, you’ll see how enthusiastic we were about the Teide National park and the views from high up, looking towards the shore and the neighbouring islands.

Lanzarote was equally impressive.  Eventually.  We had booked a car, and were a shade alarmed when the ship moored on the other side of the docks from where we’d expected to find the car hire joint.  On looking out from our mooring, hoewever, I could see a few dozen late-model cars, all in the car rental livery of black, white or metallic grey, or combinations thereof.  Of car rental staff, however, not a sniff.  Telephone calls got unobtainable or busy signals.  One of the excursion drivers thought they’d send a mobile office.  09:00 came and went, unlike any mobile office, so we sat and waited, assuming that a Sunday in Lanzarote entailed relaxed opening schedules.  When 09:30 had bin and went, we asked someone else, who advised us to enquire at the tourist office at the Marina.  A longish walk later, we found the tourist office, complete with a car rental desk, albeit unattended.  ‘Oh, I expect he’s gone for a coffee’.  

Well, soon we’d got our slightly beat-up car, and about an hour a half late, we were on our way.  We drove pretty much the length of the island, and found the interior every bit as lunar as they say.  Though arid and largely black, the volcanic landscape is a vast palette of browns, ranging from sandy to almost crimson.  Lanzarote gets little rain, so agriculture relies on planting in thousands of little craters that concentrate any moisture that occurs.  Many of them are surrounded or edged by little dry stone walls, and we read that the island produces wine, tomatoes and quite a range of other fruit and veg.  Agaves grow quite abundantly in places, and there is a significant aloe vera industry, though much of the island supports little or no vegetation.

We had a sandwich per man at the Mirador del Rio, which offers fantastic views of La Graciosa and the islets beyond.  The viewpoint is on a slight overhang at the top of a vertical cliff, so one doesn’t linger too long on the edge.  Fortunately, there wasn’t a breath of wind.  

[Memo for petrol heads: the car was an Opel Mokka with a gutsy little turbo petrol engine and a six-speed automatic box.  The tall build allowed it to roll a bit (not quite to 2CV levels), and the short wheelbase gave it a choppy ride.  Reversing, given the lousy rearward visibility, called for luck, divine guidance or a man with a red flag.  We were lucky.]

On Monday we were awakened by the sound of Martyn’s water glass sliding off the bedside table: we are sailing into a hefty swell again, and the increasing wind is whipping up some white caps.  Attendance at breakfast seemed healthy enough, though!

Land!

Annual ramblings below: see last entry for November

We did the usual bunch of quizzes on Wednesday, and won one of them.  After lunch went to Matthew McCombie’s piano recital.  Nice bag of lollipops from Chopin, Mozart, Grieg, and Scott Joplin.  The Grieg selection ended with the fiendishly difficult Wedding Day at  Troldhaugen, which Matthew executed brilliantly.  

When we went up for breakfast on Thursday, we were steaming past Porto Santo, which I hadn’t seen before: on previous cruises we’ve arrived around daybreak, and sailed off later in the other direction.  Some beautiful lighting effects from the early morning sunlight through breaks in the cloud.  By that point the sea was pretty calm, with only a few white caps on the surface.

The approach to Funchal was impressive: the last couple of times we arrived by sea it was in darkness, so the approach on a warm, sunny day was a treat.  After lunch we took a ride into town for some shopping, a stroll and some people watching.  The place is pretty well dolled up for Christmas with the usual fine displays of poinsettias, but it’s after dark that it comes into its own: we took another shuttle bus after supper.  The old joints are protesting a bit at all the walking, but it has been worth it.

The street lights on the hillsides are already beautiful enough, but the coloured lights in the streets and along the front are spectacular.  The two roads either side of the valleys that converge on the harbour are festooned with suspended lights, one red and one blue, and the side streets seem to compete with each other with their illuminations.  We found ourselves speculating as to the city’s sources of electric power.

Afloat, and moving rather a lot....

Annual ramblings below: see last entry for November

Well, though we did awaken to the familiar view of the Western Docks, we were moving by 06:15, and were treated to fine views of the Isle of Wight that we wouldn’t have had if we’d left on schedule after dark.  Once we were out of the lee of the island, the sea was quite rough, and given also a strong wind, we’ve had a pretty lively ride for the initial 36 hours at sea: the barf bags are discreetly deployed in the lift landings.  But in a big tub like this, you scarcely feel the movement, and we were in no danger of parting with our meals.  Apart from the swell and the wind, the weather has been fine.  Not balcony weather, though, since the ship was at times putting up a lot of spray.

I have to say that the catering seems a little less expert than in the past.  Up in the Lido, of course, the self-service format means that stuff lies around for a while, and that can’t help.  This does not mean, alas, that we have stinted ourselves.  

The ship’s programme offers lots of entertainment on days at sea.  On Monday we went to three quizzes (and won two), I went to a lecture about the origins of GCHQ and we heard a pretty good piano recital.  Meanwhile, I finished reading a Peter James thriller, and Martyn is well into a biography of Julie Andrews.  

Tuesday was pretty dull and damp, though the swell was slightly less.  But it was still a day for sitting reading rather than striding out round the promenade deck.  Martyn snoozed for a while in the afternoon, and I popped upstairs for a sandwich.  Matthew McCombie, whose piano recital we’d enjoyed on Monday, was sitting on his own, so I barged in and we had a good chat for 10 minutes or so.  Nice fellow: good to know he’s on board for the rest of the cruise.

We did a couple of quizzes as usual, but didn’t win anything.  It was a dinner jacket night, and it was a comfort to find that we can still get into them comfortably.  It may be a different story ten days hence...  We went to the show in the evening: Jacqui Scott doing numbers from West End musicals: not really my thing, particularly when so over-amplified.  The bass guitar practically drowned out everything else.  

We notched up another couple of stickers at the Wednesday morning quiz.  The hostess is a cheerful young Welsh woman, and she has pretty well given up on the arcane Welsh topics, thank goodness.  Wednesday is our last full day at sea for a while.  Quite happy about that: although there’s a lot to do on board, I do start to get cabin fever after 48 hours or so.  Can’t imagine what it must have felt like to travel to India or Australia by sea!

Afloat, but not moving

Annual ramblings below: see last entry for November

Just as well we allowed some extra time to get to Southampton: the M25 was down to one lane for a key part of our itinerary.  Fortunately, not only is Martyn a brilliant navigator, but he has a fair bit of local knowledge, having lived in W Sussex for a few years, so we headed across country.  The A27 round Chichester was about as slow as usual, and Southampton was a mess of roadworks.  Still, the luggage was on its way to the ship and the car to the car park a little before our due check in time.  Half an hour later we were in our cabin, and the bags had been delivered.  This really is a slick operation.

It transpires that, because of the storms, we shall be leaving later than planned, and expect to arrive in Funchal a good half day late.  Unfortunately, this means cancelling our visit to La Palma, our favourite of the Canary Islands.  The good news is that we shall have an overnight stop in Funchal rather than just sail in and out on the day.

Dinner was good, once I’d sent back a crab and shrimp starter that was laced with chopped raw onion.  Our table is alongside only one other, and our companions, Caroline and Ray, are sociable and likeable.  Phew.  

Our 20:00 departure slot came and went, and as I write at 21:30, the gangway and lines are still firmly attached.  We hope not to awake to a view of the Western Docks...

Some hope.  Monday, 06:15: moving at last.  Well, if it avoids our being thrown about in the storm, it’s something to be grateful for.  Stand by for expressions of gratitude from Madeira.

December already

Annual ramblings below: see last entry for November

Martyn replenished the bird feeders the other day, and we've been rewarded with visits from robins, nuthatches and sundry tits: great, blue, coal and long-tailed.  As the weather gets colder, I dare say we'll see plenty more.

There have been a few days when it has been pleasant enough for a spot of gardening. The big sedum is cut down to the base, and I've made a modest start on the iris sibirica. Various tubs are re-stocked with flowering winter bedding, and I've grubbed up the boring geraniums by the front door and replaced them with polyanthus. I've done some of the planting on tops of tulip bulbs lifted in the spring: they say it's not worth bothering trying to get repeat flowering from tulips, but we'll give them a try at least. Talking of polyanthus, the ones we brought on from plugs last year went into the new bed for the summer, and are starting to flower nicely. There's a lot to be said for improving the soil - and more still for getting some big strong boys in to do it for us. Some of the antirrhinums we had in pots on the steps were showing signs of life when I heaved them out, so they have gone out behind the bench at the top of the garden along with said boring geraniums.

The art group met on Thursday for its last session of the year, and eight of us repaired to the Carpenters' Arms for lunch afterwards. Not a bad meal, nicely served in pleasant surroundings. Martyn has been painting like a mad thing lately: he has really got the hang of watercolours, a medium that continues to thwart me. Still, I'll take a small kit with me when we put ourselves into floating residential care next weekend, and maybe knock out the odd vignette or two during the twelve days we're on the high seas.

 

Annual Ramblings, 2019

Compliments of the season! 

We've been to rather too many funerals this year.  The first was that of our 'new' cousin Gill, who succumbed to a metastatic ovarian cancer.  At her request, the funeral was as happy as such things can be, with cheerful tributes from family members, and a pretty good congregation.  Next was another Gill, a neighbour, who died suddenly at home, aged only 63.  More recently we have said farewell to our seemingly indestructible friend Dorothy Parr, who died in October of complications from an accidental injury, aged 97.

Our health has not been exactly A1.  Martyn suffered a slight stroke in April, and although he has no residual paralysis, it has taken quite a while to get his medication rightish.  My ancient joints are sporadically troublesome, though as a rule I'm walking a lot more comfortably than before my right knee was tidied up.  If anything, the left one is now the more tiresome, but I'm walking painlessly most days.  Our sister-in-law Margaret is being treated for a brain tumour, and seems to be tolerating the treatment pretty well.

With an eye to the above , we've been spending the nephews' and nieces' inheritance on some overdue home jobs, so now have functioning outside lights and a vent fan in the now refitted cloakroom, and a stout wooden gate in place of the manky old wrought iron one.  The decorators came in while we were away in the summer, so the sitooterie, the cloakroom and Martyn's study are all now looking rather smart.  We also finally got a brickie in to tidy up some of the messes left on the back wall of the house by previous tradesmen, and I replaced the extractor fan vent shutters, so it's looking as it should for the first time since we moved in twelve years ago.

I continue with my hobby, meting and doling unequal laws unto a savage race.  I'm in the home straight, however, since I have to retire when I reach my threescore years and ten.  I'll be good and ready to hang up my black cap at that stage.

I continue with the U3A German conversation group, but battle to remember new vocabulary these days.  It's not a bad little group, and there were six of us last time I hosted it here.  More often, though it's down to our minimum of four, and a few meetings have had to be cancelled when we haven't reached that number.  The bird watching group goes out four times a year, but we're definitely fair-weather watchers, and have only done one this year.  We went a few times to another group on iPhones and iPads, and picked up a few helpful hints.  Unfortunately, that group has now folded.  We might take a look at a watercolours group.  Another volunteer group we frequent is a nearby allotment association, which keeps us supplied with most of what we need for the garden: compost, grit, fertilisers, seed potatoes, gloves, twine and a whole lot more.  We'll need some new canes for the beans next year, and know where to look for them!

This time last year, I didn't think the world of politics could get much worse.  How wrong I was.

Garden

Last year's landscaping has not proved a complete success.  The slate chips do not keep the weeds down, and most of the plants supplied have been pretty disappointing.  Everything else has done unusually well.  A lot of the rudbeckias survived thanks to a mild winter, and have given us a terrific show of flowers.  As usual, I grew more from seed.  Seeds saved from our plants last year flourished; Suttons' sulked.

Most of the roses did pretty well too (except for the ones supplied by the landscapers).  We've had a bumper crop of runner beans, and were cropping them well into October.  The dwarf French beans gave a mixed performance.  The new seed from Suttons did next to nothing, whereas the old ones that had been lying around for years in a packet we got from Lidl germinated well and cropped copiously.  We again grew charlotte spuds in bags out on the terrace, and they too fed us well.  I dare say we spent more on compost than we'd pay for a comparable volume of potatoes from the shops, but the used compost is improving the awful texture of our soil.

We got young Ben, an amiable Fifer who gardens for a few of the neighbours, to come in and take out the turf from part of the back yard that was particularly difficult to mow.  He and his mate had it sorted inside two hours, including digging in copious amounts of muck and grit.  We have used the new bed for some new penstemons (a good batch of Suttons' seeds, this one!), which have done well, giving us a broader range of colours.  I sowed more antirrhinum seed than we could ever hope to use, and they gave us some colour for a while.  Most succumbed to some sort of disease (or perhaps drought and neglect).

Arrivals

We had an enjoyable visit from Annie in August, but unfortunately the weather didn't co-operate with our planned trips out.  We did make it to Standen, where there was a small exhibition about William Morris's company and philosophy, and the gardens were lovely as usual.  Other than that, our hospitality has been quite limited.  A former colleague Paul and his wife Ann came to lunch one day, so we had a good catch-up.  Later in the year we’d a flying visit from two of the musicians we met in Lagrasse, James and Janneke, whose son Otto we got to meet for the first time.  They paused with us for home-made soup and focaccia on their way to the fireworks in Robertsbridge.  Nice to catch up.

Departures

We did another Christmas cruise last year: Madeira, Tenerife and Gran Canaria as before, but visiting Fuerteventura this time, and Lisbon on the way home.  The ship was just back after a refit in Brest, and the terrible weather on the way south across the Bay of Biscay found a loose deck plate under the bed.  Each time the hull twisted, it popped up a couple of centimetres.  The noise and jolt were enough to keep me awake most of our first night at sea, so when it recurred the following night I made a fuss, and got us moved, to a cabin that was booked for someone else from the next port of call.  So our first three nights were spent in three different cabins.  Fortunately, cabin N°3 was available for the rest of the cruise. Though the ship was again under the command of the admirable Captain Inger, we enjoyed the cruise less than a previous one.  The entertainment programme was less impressive than the previous summer's on the sister ship, and our table, being right next to a service post, was not the best.  Our neighbours at dinner were pleasant enough, but it was our companions at the pub quizzes who were the really congenial companions.  Martyn played a few ends of bowls one afternoon with one of them.

Leaving Lisbon

We were luckier with the weather in Tenerife this time, so were able to get up into the spectacular Teide national park.  I found I coped perfectly well with the altitude this time, which may have something to do with the blood pressure pills.  Our visit to Lisbon was a bonus, and as usual we bopped around on trams, buses and metros, taking in a chicken and chips lunch in one of those spartan restaurants that Lisbon does so well.  On Fuerteventura, the weather was unhelpful, with the strong winds for which it is known, and a miasma of Sahara sand, which made me sneeze uncontrollably.

Our impressions were not helped by my returning home with a heavy cold and Martyn with a stubborn gut bug.  (We nevertheless have three more cruises lined up, starting with the Madeira and Canaries trip just before Christmas.  The ship calls at Lanzarote this time, so I've again booked a car for the day.  Lisbon is our last port of call, so are looking forward to that as ever.)

In the summer, we took a trip to France, again taking the train from Ashford to Avignon and renting a car.  We stayed a few nights in Lagrasse and caught up with a lot of friends, then motored up to Annie's for a few nights.  She followed us over to Jan and Mark's place in the Quercy, whence we visited Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val.  We spent a night in the outskirts of Millau, with a distant view of the Viaduc (when the thunderstorm had passed) and another near the station in Avignon.  Although our train wasn't until mid-afternoon, we didn't leave the hotel until after lunch - 40° temperatures are not great for exploring.  We'd paused in Uzès on the way to Avignon and found it just too hot for anything more than a brief stroll and a shandy in the shade.  The Eurostar was fine on the way south, but returning north it was late leaving - no announcements or explanations - and the wifi was out of action for the entire journey.  We then had (as usual) to get off at Lille with all our stuff to do border and security checks before reboarding after half an hour or so from the stuffy waiting room.  If we do it again, I think we’ll change in Paris on the way north - good excuse for a day or two in the City of Light.

Wheels

Our familiar SEATs soldier on.  The Altea passed its ninth MoT as usual without problem, as did the Ateca its first.  Three rentals in the year: I'd specified a small automatic in Tenerife, and was pleasantly surprised to get a 4wd Volvo XC40.  Good handler, but the engine was a bit agricultural.  The Citroën C5 Aircross we had in France was more refined, but it handled less well, and the styling is utterly crazy!  And I hated the way it tugged at the steering wheel whenever I got close to the lane markings!  The performance of the 1.5 litre diesel in the Citroën, not a small car, was perfectly satisfactory: the 8-speed gearbox may have helped, of course. Just glad it did its own shifting!  I again had the loan of a nice little automatic Skoda Fabia while my car was in for service.  The thing that impressed me about the latter two was the amount of performance they get out of smaller engines these days.  In particular, the three-pot 1 litre Fabia pulled easily and quietly, with a lot of low-end torque for a petrol engine. 

Food and Drink

We had a pretty good gate of friends, neighbours and colleagues for a coffee morning in September in

aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.  Though we sez it ussen as shouldn't, we laid on quite a good spread of home-made goodies: a salmon and prawn pizza and a ham and sausage one, sausage rolls, smoked salmon and herb cheese palmiers, Martyn's scones (Mary Berry's recipe), Victoria sponge, blueberry muffins and some biscuits: Delia’s ginger nuts and Portuguese olive oil lemon biscuits.  We raised £435, well over double last year's takings, thus setting the bar rather high for next year.

Otherwise, we bumble along with our familiar repertoire.  The barbecue gets quite a lot of use in the summer, and we get through a lot of home-made soup in the autumn and winter.

Arts

Watercolour by Martyn: Pian, N Italy

Martyn's painting has really taken off of late.  He finds that he prefers watercolours to acrylics, and has a very delicate touch plus a whole lot of patience.  I'm still working mainly in acrylics, and am trying hard to interpret rather than just reproduce.  Our inventive art club friend Joan gave us some brusho crystal paints to thank us for giving her a lift to meetings, and we've had lots of fun with the rather random results they give.  As usual, our group gave an exhibition at Bridges in Edenbridge this September.  Pat sold a print, and a few of Joan's little vignettes went as well.  Pat bought one of mine privately afterwards, so that was another £20 in the Macmillan pot.

Keep well, warm and nourished through the winter and throughout the new year!

Best wishes from us both

Martyn and David

Rites of autumn

The garden is looking rather bare now: the runner and French bean plants went away in the garden waste collection last time, and most of the rudbeckias have followed, together with some rose prunings.  When the sun shines, as it has lately (between downpours), there are some fine autumn colours in the countryside near us.  Our little beech tree is turning as well, so we’re doing our modest part in decorating the roadsides.

Sad occasion on Friday: the funeral of our friend Dorothy, who died in October, age 97.  It was pretty well attended - I guess around 50 - and I’m glad to report that the newly extended crem chapel was a much less dismal experience than heretofore.  Dorothy had been in failing health for some years, but need not have died as she did, of complications from an injury she got when she took a tumble while out shopping.  (Inquiry follows, I gather.).  It escaped me on the day that it was the 36th anniversary of my father’s death.

Talking of tumbles, I’m glad to report that my Technicolor bruise is fading at last, though I’m still conscious of having twisted my back when I landed.  A fall does rather shake the confidence of us old geezers, and I’m aware of being extra careful as I slither up to the compost bin with the spud peelings!

We were lucky with the weather for yesterday’s remembrance service: sunshine and only a little breeze, though I was glad I’d opted for insulated trousers, a lined thick pullover and an overcoat.  (A scarf concealed the fact that I’d opted out of collar and tie this time.)  Quite a good public turnout, but there were fewer of my co-hobbyists than ever in the civic procession this time.  The Orpheus choir sang much better this year than in the past: they have a new musical director, and he’s at last knocking them into shape.  Of course, I can never forget on Remembrance Day that we carelessly accepted the funeral slot offered for Dad: 11:00 on 11 November.

We have both seen our lovely new doctor recently, and are full of praise for her.  We called in on Thursday to see if we could bring forward Martyn’s appointments, and although there were none available in the next day or so, she saw us there and then without fuss, took blood samples and did a thorough examination.  My visit today was routine and as pleasant as ever.  How lucky we are!  I notice that it’s taking longer to get appointments, however: almost certainly a measure of her popularity.

Scottish literature

Nothing too highbrow: I’ve just devoured an Ian Rankin thriller, Doors Open, about a rather clever Edinburgh art theft.  Excellent characterisation and a few nice twists in the plot.  Recommended.  I must admit to rather galloping through it, since I was keen to start on the next one.  My schoolmate Jackie introduced me a couple of years ago to her old boss Bill Graham’s debut thriller, Vermin, which I got through in one sitting.  The hero and first-person narrator is a retired crime reporter turned private investigator based in Dundee, and indeed living in a flat in Broughty Ferry.  Jackie alerted me the other day to his new thriller, Blood on the Law, which shows all the signs of being just as good.  The résumé of the first book in the early chapters of the second one made me frown a little, but I’m not sure how I’d achieve the result more subtly.  The Chandler-esque use of the first-person narrator can also be a shade irritating and self-conscious, but it certainly reinforces the characterisation. That said, the characterisation of the third parties is also very strong by other means, so maybe the narration would benefit from a touch more transparency.

I’m reading it with Google Earth open on the iPad beside me, and loving all the local references.  I suspect I may not sleep before finishing the book!  More thoughts later, maybe.

Meanwhile, I sit like a care home resident in the comfy armchair at the window, watching the driving rain and flying leaves.  I ought to be outside transferring the runner bean plants to the now charged-for garden refuse bin, which is due to be emptied on Monday.  (Last time it didn’t go until the Tuesday afternoon, which is part of the reason why our streets are decorated with miscellaneous garbage receptacles all the time.  I hate it.  My unassuming little street of terraced and small semi-detached houses in the neighbouring town just looks dreadful now.  I wouldn’t now be able to accommodate the four bins and a recycling box out of sight without quite a bit of rehashing of the back garden.)

I managed to get the grass cut a few days ago, wet though the ground is, and in the process scooped up a lot of the leaves.  Even better, with a strong wind from the south-west, most of next door’s oak leaves are landing in their garden for once.

Old enough to know better

The old wrought-iron gate attracted a lot of interest on Freegle, and went off on Wednesday, miraculously, in the back of a VW Polo.  At which point things began to go tits-up.  I managed to lock myself into the back garden, where all three doors were locked, my mobile phone was locked inside the house, and Martyn was out of earshot.  I rashly decided to climb over the wall and fell heavily, twisting my back and bruising my best feature.  I’m OK when I’m moving about, but getting up and sitting down elicit coarse words.

Thursday’s daub went reasonably well, though I wouldn’t class it as more than a sketch.  That completes my acrylic assault on the Canal Latéral à la Garonne, I think, so I may need to apply myself to the Cool Britannia theme that Miss has suggested.

Meanwhile, the seed potatoes are ordered for next spring, and I’ve harvested runner bean seeds.  The garden needs rather a lot of attention, but won’t get it until my back and backside are hurting a bit less.

Local trades

I mentioned the other day that we’d found a tame brickie nearby, and that he’d done a decent job for a sensible price.  By similar means (google ‘joiner’ and location) we found a chap five minutes’ walk away who has provided us with a seemingly solid wooden side gate to replace the rather manky old wrought iron job we inherited, and which a would-be burglar had little trouble lifting off its hinges, padlock notwithstanding.  (Fortunately, Martyn heard what was going on, and scared him off.). The new gate has a substantial latch and two bolts, and the price was not exorbitant.  In times when the talk of cowboys and rogue traders is all too common, it’s nice to know there are some good ‘uns close at hand.  Meanwhile we wait to see if anyone on Freegle wants a tired old wrought iron gate.

Of the motor trade, I am as usual less than complimentary.  OK, they lent me a nice little automatic Škoda for the day (though that turned out to cost me a £12 ‘admin fee’), but they tried as usual to get me to buy extras not listed in the service schedule, and tried a second time after I’d already declined.  The good news was that the Ateca passed its first MoT, and that the work was finished earlier than I’d expected.  The day before, I heard a talk about modern slavery and people trafficking, and have resolved to do my own car washing henceforth, except when it goes in for service, and gets a wash and sweep out as part of the price.

Out in the garden we have had the last of the tomatoes, but the beans continue to crop like mad.  Roast hen tonight with some home-grown veggies and some bought ones.  I shall put in our order for next year’s charlottes in the coming days. I did a bit more dead-heading between showers the other day, and the rudbeckias haven’t quite finished yet.  The grass wants a cut, but with all the rain we’ve had, it can want for a bit longer.  The leaves have begun to fall, but the majority has yet to land on our immaculate greensward (irony).  The other autumn ritual is the trimming of the poxy leylandii.  Our man is on notice, but has yet to call and fix a date.  We’d ideally like rid of them all, but until next door replace their rotten fence, the green boundary is preferable.

As for the ever depressing world of politics, I must keep my own counsel for a few more months.  Suffice it to say that I’d give my pension to be a fly on the wall at the weekly audience.

Elderly pursuits

We met on Tuesday morning in Wadhurst - eventually - for a German chat session, as we do twice a month.  It took longer than usual to get there, since traffic was held up following what we now call a road traffic collision at the junction I needed to take.  Another member of the group, who was about ten cars ahead of me in the queue, got there about 10 minutes after me: someone coming the other way had told me what was happening, and advised a detour, so that I was only about a quarter of an hour late.  I’m hoping that the motorcyclist involved has recovered: he didn’t look too good when my fellow converser drove past.

There were only four of us at the conversation session, but we had a pretty good chat in the time available.  I’m hoping a co-hobbyist may join the group.  She has recently joined the U3A, and is looking at both French and German conversation.  Unfortunately, the French group clashes with my art group meetings: a shame, since my French is going to need more maintenance now.

After the German Klatsch, I had then to get home to collect Martyn, and then Celia and Andy, for our lunch date at the Bull at Three Leg Cross near Ticehurst.  Nice, friendly pub, where the others each had two courses of very good fried fish.  The burger I chose was good, but could have done with less exposure to the flame.  Decent house Merlot.

Wednesday’s entertainment was getting the car MoT’d and serviced.  It passed, but has come back with a software update that changes the characteristics of the stop-start thingy.  For the past three years, the car has shut down at the lights and applied the parking brake, kicking in again when you tapped the throttle.  Now, it starts up again as soon as you take your foot off the brake.  I wasn’t told to expect this, and £250 pounds and a fat estimate for other jobs later, am now less enamoured than ever of the motor trade.

Thursday’s art club session was good: we even had a visit from Miss, who provided Martyn with some free but not entirely welcome tuition....oh well.  I finished off a fast and loose piece based on a view I enjoyed  of the Canal Latéral à la Garonne near Meilhan-sur-Garonne when Annie and I went for a walk there one early morning last summer.  The days were getting very hot around then, so we made the most of the dewy mornings.

I might have mentioned that we have each done a snowy painting for this year’s Christmas card, and it is formatted ready for printing.  The printer cartridges have arrived, we have enough card in stock, and the envelopes are ordered.  I just need now to organise a mortgage for the stamps which, each year, cost about a week’s state pension.  Worth every penny, though, since we love sending greetings to family and friends, and receiving theirs in return.

Frustratingly enough, I was stuck in a hobby-related meeting all afternoon yesterday when I’d rather have been in the garden.  Today has been unremittingly wet.  I cropped a handful of beans before the rain came on too heavily this morning, but the dead-heading and grass cutting remain outstanding.  We’ve changed the beds and done five lots of washing, at least, so the day has not been wholly wasted.  The knees are registering the damp climate, however.  It’s a bugger, gettin’ auld, however preferable it may be to the alternative.

Reassuring

When the news is so unremittingly depressing, a Macmillan coffee morning is a good reminder that there are good and generous people all around us.  We had good fun preparing it too.  On the savoury side, there were sausage rolls, a couple of pizzas and smoked salmon palmiers.  The sweet stuff (which went less well) included a Victoria sponge, blueberry muffins, apple and sultana filo parcels (apples from our tree), a couple of lots of biscuits and Martyn’s famous scones.  We bought the pastry and some of the jam, but by and large it was all from Pâtisserie Forges-l’Evêque.  We had over twenty guests: friends, neighbours and colleagues, so the atmosphere was quite festive. We were very lucky with the weather, so we had the doors open, and the party spilled out into the garden.  We sold quite a few packets of seeds, saved from flowers in the garden, at a pound a pinch.  We think some people who couldn’t come will have donated from their mobile phones, and I have a couple of promises of cash.  I banked £375 yesterday, so we may finish up with over £400.  Not bad, since our target was to beat last year’s £195.

I wasted a 40-mile round trip on the hobby yesterday.   Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we had a jobbing builder in to do some tidying up of brickwork on the back of the house: filling the holes left by the redundant overflow pipe and cooker hood vent.  Money well spent: the place looks far tidier now for it.

Today, the gas man cameth and installed the Hive equipment, which should correct the anomalous thermostat arrangements and allow us to control the heating remotely from our phones.  So we’ll be able to leave the place on frost protect when we’re away, and wind the wick up when we’re a couple of hours from home.  All clever stuff.

Curiouser and curiouser

Just finished watching Lady Hale read the summary of the Supreme Court judgement on the appeals about prorogation.  Parliament must now reconvene, though I suspect that will generate rather more heat than light.  It puts the Prime Minister in an interesting position, of course.  Not only has he acted unlawfully but he has done so in a way that amounted to deliberately misleading the Queen.

Meanwhile in Brighton, the leader of HM opposition and his friends are hell-bent on making their party unelectable by failing to take a clear stand on what is essentially the only issue in current UK politics.

Glad in some ways to be old and childless.

Sneeze, sniffle

I’m wondering whether the hay fever season will ever end.  (And did I remember to take an anti-histamine this morning?  Did I hell.)  A spot of sea air helped a little today: on a whim, we motored down to Eastbourne, and enjoyed balmy temperatures and long views in the clear air.  Mr Ramsden’s fish and chips were as good as ever, but I had to comment that the ‘regular’ portion of haddock was probably a good option for a pensioner’s lunch.  Fish finger, mair like.  But no bad thing, really.

Our new penstemons are quite rewarding, with a nice range of colours.  Most have more pronounced white throats than our old stock, and the colours include a vibrant scarlet and a strong cerise.  Cuttings in due course.  The first flush of rudbeckias is going over, so I’ll need to get out and do some dead-heading to encourage more flowers.  The runner beans are cropping like mad, and our recent sowings of French beans are coming into flower.  The bloody grass is still growing, of course, but at least we have less of it to deal with than heretofore.

As for current political events, I must of course keep my own counsel.  Feel free to read my mind.

Unexpected cultural outing

Yesterday, Martyn spotted in passing a reference to a concert in which the wonderful Nicola Benedetti was to be performing.  On checking further, it turned out to be that very evening, and, after a mighty struggle with the Disgustedville Council's awful website, he managed to get us a couple of tickets.  (I, meanwhile, in a fraction of the time, had booked us a table at a nearby restaurant for an early supper, and then gone back and adjusted the timing to be on the safe side.)

The concert was of Elgar's violin concerto and Brahms's second symphony.  The first I knew not at all, and the latter very well.  Benedetti's performance was stunning.  It seems a demanding virtuoso piece, and she handled it extremely well.  I'm afraid that, after the first movement, I whispered to Martyn 'She's wasted on Elgar!.  I always get the feeling that, with Elgar, it's like eating in a run of the mill Indian restaurant: there are some nice twists here and there, but underlying everything is the same old gravy.  The trouble with the Brahms was me.  I'm used to a couple of familiar interpretations, and yesterday's was rather farther from either of them than was comfortable.  The funereal pace of the first two movements left me wondering whether the conductor was being paid by the hour.  The third - and particularly the fourth - movements made we wonder whether he'd suddenly realised he had a train to catch.  Granted, the fourth movement was taken at exactly the tempo I like.

For all this ungracious carping, I have to say that the overall experience was very positive.  It's always good to hear good live performances, and the little English Symphony Orchestra acquitted itself well.  Sure, it lacked the polish and crispness of some of the big-name orchestras, but it's entitled to be proud of its performance.

I think I've harvested and packed all the seeds I'm going to.  The process has wrought havoc on the hay fever, so I'm currently sneezing and runny-eyed.  Still, all will be well when we're out on the ocean again.  Next May...

Independent MP for Disgustedville??

Our man, described elsewhere as a Conservative with a social conscience, is in favour of remaining in the EU, and got sacked first from his cabinet job, and yesterday from the Tory whip as a consequence of voting in line with his convictions.  Certain alienated old Labour voters of my acquaintance regard him as a likeable, clever and responsible politician, and could happily vote for him as an independent.  I’ve also heard it said that there are fewer of his kind in circulation these days.  Not that I could comment, of course.

We’re sort of gearing up for a Macmillan coffee morning, and, having raised a few quid last year by selling flower seeds from the garden, I’ve been packing little envelopes of seeds today, and designing outer packets for them.  Much manual labour, with corresponding complaint from the elderly manual joints.  

Meanwhile, out in the weedpatch, the runner beans are fruiting away like mad, the new sowing of dwarf French ditto are coming along nicely, and this year’s penstemons grown from seed are giving us some lively new colours.  The rudbeckias are going over (hence the last paragraph), but a good chop back may give us another flush.  Heaving the odd handful of muck on the soil beneath the roses in the spring has kept the black spot at bay up to a point, so we’re starting to get a new flush of blooms.

It’s a comfort to have some modest local successes in these distressing times.

Quiet days in Forges-l’Evêque

Much to be said for semi-creative idleness.  I do a spot of gardening around 06:00 when the weather is fine, and seem to fill the soon-to-be-charged-for garden waste bin once a fortnight.  I’ve been saving seed like a mad thing: if you’d like a county populated with marigolds, you need seek no further.  The little crimson dianthus have also seeded well, and we also have a few little packets of eschscholzia seeds.  Given the propensity of the verbena bonariensis to self-sow, we’ve harvested that as well.  The rudbeckias are looking a bit stressed by the wind and rain, but still give a striking patch of yellows, oranges and reds.  I’ll harvest seeds soon.  Not sure whether I’ve sown seeds or chaff from the chives, but at worst I’ll have wasted a handful of compost

We started some dwarf French beans indoors some weeks ago, and they are doing OK.  When we planted them out, I stuck in some more seed alongside the rooted seedlings, and they too are sprouting, so we’re hoping for successional crops.  The runner beans may give us a few more meals, and we have a few days’ worth of charlottes in the fridge (yes, I know, they should really be in paper bags in a cool dry place...) having emptied the last two bags a day or two ago.

Our little art club is doing another show at the drop-in Café in Edenbridge next month, so I’ve dug out a half dozen little canvases.  Two of them will go in NFS, but if the others fetch the odd tenner or so, so much the better for us and for the charity.

Give the intimations of mortality that surround us, we’ve booked another cruise, this time to the Fjords next spring.  Plenty time to dig out the thermals and woolly hats.

Too long stumm: discuss

Sorry to have been so long silent.  We’ve had one or two little excitements hereabouts lately, but survive to tell the tale - or better still, to keep it to ourselves.  The garden has been feeding us quite nicely with spuds, runner and French beans and the occasional tomato, and nourishing the senses with lots of flowers.  True, the roses are between flushes for the most part, but the Compassion climber has flowered pretty much continuously.  The rudbeckias have done wonderfully, and continue to do so.  We’ve started more dwarf French beans, and the runners look like they’ll feed us again once or twice.

Annie was here for a little stay last week.  The weather conspired against us, but we managed a visit to Standen, where the William Morris theme is enhanced at the moment by a little exhibition.  We also managed to have lunch outdoors one day at the Crown, which was pleasant, but our planned trip to the Farmers’ Market was thwarted by my lack of research: it wasn’t on at the Pantiles last Saturday, but in the shopping mall.  We discovered this only on returning home: given our visceral loathing of enclosed shopping arcades, we settled for what was in the fridge.  And the poor weather gave us the opportunity to sit and read quietly together and enjoy the great pleasure of companionable silence.

As for matters political, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself, for fear of boring you with views of which many are all too familiar.  I shall be less restrained on social media in a year’s time: be warned!

Garden, and some sad news

The roses are regrouping for the next flush, but will take their time because of my radical dead-heading.  The beans are cropping about as fast as we can eat them: dwarf French and runners are doing well.  We still have half a dozen more bags of spuds to turn out, and are enjoying our little nod at self-sufficiency, particularly since the veg taste so good when they’re freshly cropped.  We’ve sown a dozen more bean seeds today, so hope for a modest autumn crop as well.

The penstemons are well into their stride, so need a lot of dead-heading.  I re-homed three rooted cuttings this morning to a neighbour who has promised me a bit of her acanthus when she splits it in the spring.  The weeds are also thriving, thanks to last week’s mid-30s heat and the torrential rains that followed.  Today being rather milder, we set about some of the weeds in the front garden, and have shifted a couple of large garden buckets of dandelions, willowherb, forget-me-nots and much else.

Lots of blue lights outside yesterday evening: three paramedic vehicles and a fire engine turned up at a house just up the side road to our north.  I went up to enquire whether there was anything we could usefully do, which a paramedic politely declined.  As we were weeding this morning, the neighbour on whose house the blue lights had converged came down with his son to tell us that their wife bzw. mother had died during the evening.  Gill was a good and friendly neighbour, and though her health had not been terrific in recent years, there was no hint that she was imminently on her way out.  She was 63: carpe diem.

As for us, we’ve had a couple of dealings with the medics this week, but the heirs needn’t bother rubbing their hands yet awhile.  We think...

Holiday photos

Martyn, Martin and our favourite small dog, Chota, on Ruud’s boat.

Spiders’ webs in the mares tails, Canal Latéral à la Garonne, Meilhan 

Hollyhock, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie

Place des Herbes, Uzès 

Soixante-neuf and counting

A sad but in a way happy event on Tuesday.  Cousin Gill, of whose existence we’ve only known for a little over six years, succumbed a couple of weeks ago to a metastatic ovarian cancer.  She chose to ease the burden of the family by deciding to spend her last days in a hospice in Bury St Edmunds where, by all accounts, she was very well looked after.  Her funeral was held in the rather lavish late perpendicular church of Sts Peter and Paul in Lavenham, a Suffolk town enriched by the wool trade in the later Middle Ages.  The church was not full, but the congregation would have stretched most ordinary village churches.  Gill’s husband Chris gave two readings, followed by a cheerful tribute full of anecdotes.  Daughters Penny and Fran followed with a nice double act tribute, equally entertaining.  Penny and Amanda joined the choir in a rendering of Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, and their brother David was one of the pallbearers.  So Gill had the happy funeral she’d asked for, involving lots of the family.

I have to say that the rendering at the end of the service of the toccata from Charles-Marie Widor’s fifth organ symphony was the second worst I’ve ever heard.  It’s a pop piece, sure, but it still needs rehearsing.  The organist played it infinitely better than I could, of course, but loud discords held while he tried to work out where the devil he was in the score did nothing for his reputation.  (The worst ever, by the way, was in the Tower ballroom in Brighton, where the organist plainly had a train to catch.  One-way, I hope.)

Back here at Forges-l’Evêque we’ve just about got the house back to normal after the redecorating, and are content with the results, if a little cross at having had to do the finishing touches ourselves.  We’ll brief our man in more detail if we use him again.  The sitooterie looks a lot better (a) for a fresh  lick of pale grey paint and (b) the absence of the corner cupboards.  My parents acquired the cupboards from ‘Auntie’ Phyllis several decades ago, when they were already past their best, and I had them at Smith Towers before we moved them here.  They moved to the sitooterie to make space for Martyn’s piano, and the harsh environment did them no favours.  So off they went, freecycled to someone who’s going to paint them grey and flog them.  The downstairs hüüsli is also looking much tidier, and Martyn’s study too is transformed.  Time for me to bite the bullet and sort out my study.  Mañana.  Talvez.

Last night’s storms (though which I slept) filled the big water butt by the kitchen door overnight.  They also brought down a lot of rudbeckias, so I’ve been out with stakes and string, attempting to restore a bit of order.  The rain played havoc with the roses, so I filled a big bucket with dead-headings this morning.

Birthday supper of Wiener Schnitzel tonight with vegetables from the garden.  So I’d better go and beat nine bells out of the pork fillet.