Annual ramblings

2013…

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he year I met a cousin I didn’t know I had: more of that anon.  Otherwise, a mercifully uneventful year, with the usual pattern of trips south, though with some subtle variations.

The house here has needed the usual attention, expected and unexpected.  The rubbishy doors between the dining room and the conservatory broke again early in the year, so we gritted our teeth and replaced them with a three-leaved set that we think comply with building regulations, unlike the original set.  More to the point, they are double-glazed and securely lockable, so they should save us a bit of gas this winter - and spare us quibbles from the insurers should the worst come to the worst.  The central heating and the burglar alarm have cost us quite a bit during the year.  We don’t mind shelling out to keep warm, but when certain bits don’t last three years, we feel entitled to be hacked off.  And we didn’t want a bloody burglar alarm anyway.

We were happier to spend a bit on decorating: Jonathan did a fantastic job repainting the hall, stairs, landing and the nine doors leading from them.  We had a lot of fun sourcing carpets – it seemed that every time we found one we liked, it turned out to be discontinued.  At one point we found a compromise candidate, and might have gone ahead with it had I not suddenly thought, on checking the colour, ‘dog food’.  Radical reappraisal ensued:  the walls having turned out a little bluer than expected, we settled on an air force grey-blue, and we love the overall effect. 

I’m not allowed to express political views in a publicly accessible blog, so will keep my counsel on the cost of Police & Crime Commissioner elections, aircraft carriers, the results of budget constraints on the CPS, the outsourcing of probation services, etc, etc. 

After some 45 years, we have sacked the Royal Bank of Scotland: the Bank’s appalling record of mismanagement, incompetence and uncontrolled remuneration of the undeserving finally moved us to move on.  Impressed with the ethical stance of the Co-op, we moved accounts thither.  Poor sad fools, it transpires, that we are.  Now toying with where to go next.  I’m coming to the conclusion that there are no right answers.  But foreign-based hedge funds are definitely the wrong ones.

Looking forward to 2014, though it promises more property maintenance costs: some of the repairs are finished in Lagrasse, but others await.  The fence between us and the street to our right here in the UK is starting to look very tired, and in any case we want rid of some of the shrubs that are leaning on it.  At least the threatening ash tree to our south has now gone, though not without our putting our hands in our pockets.

But the strongest theme of the year, as so often, has been the joy of being together (over twelve years now, and seven since we did the legal stuff), and the chance to have time and fun with family and our lovely friends, old, new and renewed.

Martyn & David

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he pots and sinks on the terrace cropped well: Martyn treated us to a solar powered irrigation system which largely kept stuff going during our summer absence.  The charlotte spuds were good again, and tomatoes similarly did well.  The herbs we planted in the spring are a mix of success and failure, and a fresh bag or two of compost worked wonders for the old ones.  For some reason rudbeckias were a dismal failure.  The roses have done quite well, and at last the cornus seem to be getting their roots down, one of them helped by my taking a sudden scunner one morning to a golden lonicera (aka ‘that thing in the middle that needs a trim') that had been overshadowing it and taking any remaining goodness out of the already dreadful soil.  The Bramley apple tree did better this year than ever, and we’ve had ample makings of bruschette.  The magnolia goes from strength to strength, after years of being overshadowed by leylandii.  We’re hoping the garden will benefit from the extra light now that the huge ash tree has gone from the garden next door.

Wheels

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o unpleasant surprises from the cars this year, though Manuel, the little man under the bonnet of the Egg who changes gears for us, did get a bit sleepy at one point.  The Tiguan has needed three new tyres, the last two costing £40 each less after shopping around than we’d paid when we got a puncture on the way to Brighton in December.  Martyn bought us a GPS navigator last Christmas.  We’ve named it Dotty (a) after someone bossy I once knew, and (b) because she gets a bit confused from time to time.  Dotty she may be, but she found us a new tyre shop when we needed one.

A mixed batch of rental cars.  We opted to fly and rent in September.  The Focus we were given at Toulouse was dynamically excellent, and it didn’t take long to work out how to switch off the gizmo that shoogled the steering wheel whenever we moved out of lane.  I couldn’t suppress the annoying prompts to change up a gear, and at one point I found myself shouting at it, ‘If you’re so clever, why don’t you do it yourself?’.  More serious was the fact that, after over 36000 km, the front tyres were very worn.  Enterprise were rude and grudging about replacing the car, and we finished up with a most unpleasant little Peugeot 207SW, but at least it had tread on its tyres.  Alamo did us a nice little Mégane out of Montpellier in November.  The handling was a touch vague, but at least it had a good twin-clutch gearbox that did its own shifting.  But it was good to get home to our familiar tall vehicles, which make one feel more in control.

Arrivals

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or a couple of months in the summer we were having nightly visits from as many as three badgers at a time.  They can hoover up a tray of peanuts before you can say ‘knife’.  Quite often there’d be a couple of foxes lurking in the distance, but the badgers would see them off if they got too close.  The mallards were much in evidence in the spring, but one day the female stopped appearing, so I imagine she was caught napping by a fox at some point.

More conventional visitors were Annie around New Year, and we again had the pleasure of Celia and Andy’s company in Lagrasse in the summer.

I

 splashed out on a new bread machine earlier in the year.  The Kenwood machines we’ve had in the past just haven’t lasted.  I’m hoping that the Panasonic will keep going a bit longer.  I think it makes better dough.  As I write, we’ve just had ham sandwiches made with chouriço knot rolls for lunch. 

We haven’t done huge amounts of entertaining this year, but are trying to extend our repertoire a little.  Delia Smith’s recipe for barbecued belly pork strips is excellent, as is a recipe for cauliflower shaken with oil, breadcrumbs and parmesan, and baked.  I might have a go some time at Jamie Oliver’s version, which uses cumin, coriander and almonds.  We’re a bit short of interesting vegetable recipes, but do some pretty hearty soups, and the occasional tray of roast veggies. 

We’ve turned to a career in poaching – of fish caught lawfully by other people, I hasten to add.  The first couple of exercises were rather successful, we thought, and they offer a good way to use up those left-over veggies in the bottom of the fridge.  We have an excellent fishmonger in town – but get your mortgage arranged before you enter the shop.

Eating out has been a mixed pleasure this year.  Our regular pizza joint in Limoux has been disappointing, and even the place by the canal at Le Somail was not quite up to snuff last time we visited.  

 Clan

Chris, Martyn, David, John, Margaret, Philippa, Gill

An exciting year.  Cousin Philippa discovered the birth certificate of a son born to our grandmother some years before the grand- parents were married, and ten years before Charles, who we’d thought was their first-born.  When we saw photographs of Frank, it became amply clear that he was our grandfather’s son: the resemblance to Charles was breathtaking.  Alas, he died suddenly in his mid-70s.  I’d love to have met him and heard the stories of  his career in aeronautical engineering.  Well, we’ve at last met his only child, our cousin Gill, and the family got together here for lunch one day in June.

Arts  I have to admit that I didn’t finish the Booker shortlist this year.  Goes without saying that the one that stumped me won the prize.  My dodgy sleep pattern tends to mean that I read a lot between 4 and 8 in the morning, and a glance at the archive on my kindle would suggest a very twisted mind.  Ed McBain, Lee Child, David Hume, Proust, and pretty much anything in between.  I’m currently on my friend and former colleague Linda Porter’s excellent history of the Tudor-Stewart interaction in the late middle ages and into Elizabeth and Mary’s times.  Recommended.

Our local theatre/concert hall does a good programme.  Our first visit of the year tends to be the Mayor’s charity quiz in late January.  We and six friends form a team that tends to finish around the middle of the field, but it’s good fun.  In the same hall this year we’ve been to an orchestral concert of Britten (excellent) and Berlioz (under-rehearsed and ragged); Fascinating Aïda (you need a broad mind if you go to see them...) and a good touring performance of Cabaret. 

The daubing has been pretty poor this year: I have a growing number of works in progress, but just don’t seem to get it right.  The longer I spend on a piece, the worse it gets.  This one was a quickie.

Departures 

Familiar and unfamiliar surroundings this year.  We spent a fair bit of time in Lagrasse, achieving rather less on the building work front than we had hoped.  The most difficult of the repairs to the rendering are over, but the biggest part is yet to come.  Builders have been dithering about whether to point the stones, strip the wall and re-render or just patch where necessary and lime wash it.  I’ve opted for the last-mentioned on cost grounds, but the weather is now too cold and wet.  They can in the meantime get on and replace the leaky window on the roof terrace. 

In the summer, Martyn suggested that we return by ferry from northern Spain for a change.  So when we dropped Celia and Andy at Toulouse airport in July, we carried on westwards, spending a few nights in Bilbao, where we rented a little flat.  The road to Bilbao from the border is pretty spectacular: almost Switzerland-like.  The motorway is just a bit too sportif  for my liking, but we got there safely, thanks more to a bit of pre-travel research on Google Earth than to anything Dotty had to offer.  Quite an attractive city now, Bilbao was the cradle of the civil war, and was until recently a model of post-industrial depression.  It has more recently pulled itself up by the bootstraps (odd  expression, if you’re literally-minded...) and is home now to one of the world’s most striking pieces of architecture, the Guggenheim.  The gallery itself is well enough known for me not to need to include a photograph, but a little less famous is the Jeff Koons puppy outside, seen here with yr. obed. servt.  We bopped around on trams and buses for a couple of days, and felt that that was about long enough to get a basic feel for the place.  The pintxus (Basque tapas) didn’t really appeal to us – they seemed to involve a lot of bread – and we aren’t keen on noisy bars.  Fortunately, the flat had a big communal roof terrace where we could spend a couple of quiet evenings watching the sun go down.

The day we left, our sailing was in the evening, so we headed south from Bilbao into the mountains before looping back north to Santander to catch the boat.  Beautiful country: we shall be back.  I hadn’t done much research into the area: the coastal mountain range is essentially a continuation of the Pyrenees, rising to giddying heights in places.  The air was not too clear the day we were there, but we still got some pretty impressive views.

Santander looks to be worth a bit of exploring some time.  The grid-pattern commercial centre near the port is rather functional and stark, but as you head towards the mouth of the estuary you find yourself passing the huge wedding-cake that is headquarters to the Banco de Santander, then on to the posh resort quarter which has a sort of Nice-meets-Torquay feel.

As for the ferry itself, our cabin was quiet and comfortable enough, but the loading process was utter chaos and took ages.  We found ourselves being guided down into the bilges, beneath a huge trapdoor.  We were on the smaller of the two vessels that ply the route, and  in the calm conditions we had, it was very comfortable.  The catering was somewhere between fair and  middling.  Definitely worth taking a cabin, though – it was nice to be able to go and read, snooze and drink tea when we felt like it.

Closer to home, we took a day trip in March by steam train to Worcester, enjoying the Cotswold scenery on the way.  We had time for a prowl through the city and a good look round the cathedral before returning, and enjoyed the cheerful welcome of all the West Midlanders we met as we went round.  It’s a long day, however, and the 1960s rolling stock is not a comfortable place to be for so long, so if we do it again we’ll go for the more expensive seats we had on the Bath trip last year. 

One day in September, we took a ride over the mountains toward Perpignan, planning to have lunch in the airport restaurant.  It was closed.  We went up to the memorial to the soldiers of the First Republic who fought the Kingdom of Spain at Peyrestortes in 1793, where we had an indifferent sandwich each.   Nearby is the perimeter fence of the airport, whence we watched a flight coming in from Orly on the taxi way about 50 yards from where we stood.  As he taxied in, the first officer gave us a cheerful wave.  Suddenly I was 5 again, delighted at getting a wave from the engine driver!  Funny how things make an impression.

Seasonal ritual

Christmas cards: we think we've broken the back of the job.  This is a rare instance of productivity, since I usually find that I'm still at it in mid-December, usually running out of ink in the printer at a critically late stage.  I think I only have a few more to print, and although the printer has started grizzling about ink levels, the quality hasn't started to drop just yet.  I thought I'd ring the changes by getting a variety of coloured envelopes, and ordered accordingly - or so I thought.  We'll, everyone's card will arrive this year in a startling lemon yellow envelope.  Memo to self: re-read before confirming order.

I love my word games.  On my last day at primary school (and our much-loved Miss Archer's), we had no lessons before we left for the Regal cinema for the prizegiving.  I spent a couple of hours happily playing Scrabble with friends, one of whom had brought in a Travel Scrabble set.  My twelfth birthday fell few weeks later, and we were staying at the time with relatives in East London.  Mum took me up to Gamages to find a present, and bridled a bit at paying 19/11d for a Travel Scrabble set.  She and our distant relative Phyllis wore that set out in short order - the little pegs on the corners of the tiles break off easily, and we had to send off for a new set of tiles.  When in due course I moved away, I bought another set, which has travelled round the world with me.  At the Rio UPU Congress, translation work was very slow to arrive during the early weeks, so with my set and Claire Smith's, we had something of a Scrabble tournament: it came to the point at which we resented the arrival of work, since it disrupted the important stuff.  (I think Barbara and I were playing Scrabble on the plane from Rio to Dakar when an Air France Concorde overtook us, its sonic booms scaring the wits out of us.)

Well, I still love word games, and have a couple of dozen on the go on-line with friends at any given moment.  These days I tend to prefer a variant, Words with Friends, and play it via Facebook.  It is rather trickier than Scrabble, since it is so arranged that you can't easily take advantage of a triple letter or word score without offering another to your opponent.  It is not without its irritations, though: it is financed by advertising, and the content, to be charitable, is uninspiring.  The current lot advertises laxatives and electric contraptions for planing calloused skin off feet.  Others try to attract you to one or other of the UK's cynical and incompetent banks.  There are also come-on competition sites including one that rather disgustingly suggests you click on a sandal-shod foot to squash a scuttling cockroach.  I've seen plenty of those in real life without their appearing on my computer screen, thanks v. much, so am quick to minimise the window to the exact size of the board.  The company attracts fewer advertisers in Francophone countries, so when I'm playing there, games are interrupted by blank black windows for the length of time an advertisement would be playing if they'd managed to sell the slot.  The game is, of course, American, so the built-in dictionary offers a few interesting orthographic variations - and blind spots, but it also allows a surprising number of Scots dialect words  Not to mention some two-letter words the value of which lies only in allowing you to get rid of those pesky Qs, Xs, Us and Ks that you invariably draw in your last hand.

With the Christmas cards ready to go, I'm looking forward to another seasonal ritual in a month or so: the marmalade.  I'm on to my last but one jar now, so may be reduced to Fortnum's best by the time the Seville oranges arrive.

...and no sooner home than away again

By Monday, Martyn's cold had really got into its swing: I've never known him get such a bad one, and hope he caught it from the sniffles I've had.  He spent a lot of Monday in bed.  Fortunately he was in better shape on Tuesday for our booze cruise - Eurotunnel was doing a day return for £23, so we treated ourselves and friends to a trip.  The friends in turn treated us to a copious lunch at Cap Gris Nez, whence we had fine views of the Dover cliffs in the changing light of a blustery day.

Bit of a cheap shot, sniggering at perfectly respectable place names, but I'll allow myself this one.  Oh, what the hell: Bern boasts a suburb called Wankdorf, Bavaria rejoices in Aching and Attaching, and I'll refrain from citing the celebrated -ing across the border in Austria.  We pass the road end for Poncy on our way south through the Auvergne.

 The ride home was pretty good.  We decided we'd try to get away a bit early since we'd done our shopping and it was eye-wateringly cold, hence not going-for-a-stroll weather.  Having bought a supposedly no-amendments cheapo trip, it was nice to find that the computer said 'yes' to a departure an hour ahead of the one we'd booked.  Well, we'd have caught it if we hadn't been in the UK Border Agency queue that was manned by cussed little pipsqueak who was determined to keep everyone waiting.  The other queues were zipping through.  Usually, the Border Agency people are really nice and move things briskly along.  Our man was plainly having a bad day, but we did get a crossing half an hour earlier than we'd expected. 

Since then, a day at the hobby, an art class which I left a touch happier than I entered, laundry, cooking, baking, chasing the double payment for Gatwick parking - usual stuff.

Home...

Thursday 14 November

We do have our little adventures.  The usual route to Gatwick out of East Grinstead was totally snarled up, so we’d to do a 3-point turn and knit ourselves an alternative route.  Good job Martyn knows his way around.  The airport was altogether bearable, though it’s always a long walk to the aeroplane from the tea shop.  (The excellent Café Rouge has opened an airside bar restaurant with a good view over the field.)  Question:  Why do the Easyjet gate gorillas insist on women packing their handbags inside their carry-ons on pain of a £45 surcharge, yet let blokes can carry on separate bags of airside-purchased booze with impunity?

The plane was pretty full, but mercifully free of screaming children this time.  For the first time we saw a couple of the newish Boeing 787s taxiing out, and very smart they look too.  Plastic aeroplanes for grown-ups, one’s tempted to call them.  We were less happy when we left the ground, however: we got a good throwing about, probably by the wake turbulence of either a 787 or an Emirates 777.  My last experience thereof, also in an A319, knocked the aeroplane completely out of control, and it seemed to take a lifetime to get it re-stabilised.  And a few days to get my suit cleaned after next door’s supper had landed on it.  So for a few minutes into the flight one felt scared and sick.  The rest of the journey was fine, with good views of the Mediterranean coast as we swung into Montpellier from the south.

Fair enough lunch in the Villa Plancha in the airport terminal – OK, my grilled veggies didn’t materialise, we’d to remind the waitress to bring the bread, and there was no view, but overall mustn’t grumble.  Well, not much, at least.

On arrival, I found that I’d printed and packed the car rental booking receipt, but not the confirmation, so didn’t have a note of which company we’d rented from.  I was pretty sure it was Alamo; Martyn thought it was Citer.  We couldn’t see Alamo anywhere, so tried Citer.  No trace.  Next plan: back to the airport to check my email via the free wifie.  Before we left the car hire building, however, I checked the other desks, and it turned out that Europcar represents Alamo, and they were expecting us.  What is it about the signposting out of southern French airports?  We went a good 450° round the roundabout before finding the exit for the A9 by elimination, having by this point already narrowly avoided adding to the already huge list of recorded damage to the car.  There was quite a mêlée following a 3-car shunt just before the motorway exit.

Your obedient servant having forgotten to pack the motorway toll gizmo, we had to queue up for a ticket at Saint-Jean de Védas.  Martyn posted it in a convenient slot in the dashboard, and I fear it will remain there till the car goes to the scrap yard.  Conversation ensued at the Lézigzag toll bar with electronically remote but helpful lady who let us through – despite the refusal of the Gaga card (good job I had the Banque Postale one with me as well). 

The car seems OK, but like last time it is quite elderly, with getting on for 37’000 km on the clock, and a great long list of dings and scrapes.  It runs well enough, and mercifully changes its own gears.  The auto box perhaps accounts for the still-acceptable state of the front tyres.  It didn’t take too long to work out how to operate the cruise control. But there was nothing the car could do to help with the huge numbers of  HGVs on the A9.  Not a great experience.  The main route from the rest of Europe to Mediterranean Spain, it carries a huge amount of freight.  We saw Bulgarian, Czech, Latvian and Romanian trucks among others: how do these drivers survive?  I’ve read somewhere that certain of their British counterparts survive on oranges injected with vodka.  Be afraid.

Friday 15 November

Good job it’s a dreich day.  We waited in for the builder until midday, when he emailed me to say he wasn’t coming, but was sending a stooge tomorrow instead.  Snarl. 

So, a day for model-making and reading.  I toyed with starting a new canvas, but the one I have in stock is too big to fit in my back pack.  So let’s have another glass of that nice Côtes du Rhône Villages.

Saturday 16 November

Call from stooge: 'is it OK if I come tomorrow?'  'No, it isn't.'  'OK, j'arrive.'  We've agreed that they'll do a patch-up on the end wall (but not before the spring), and will get in and sort the leaky window on the roof terrace a bit sooner.  Good, since the water was running down the bathroom tiles after all the rain.

Nice evening with Irish neighbours Sheila and Henry. 

Sunday 17 November

We left in rain, wondering whether it was a good idea, given that the river is rising again.  The next ten hours will tell. 

Montpellier airport fails to impress.  There are two men’s lavatories landside.  One is closed for repairs.  The other’s 2^nd class accommodation was cordoned off.  The lavatory for disabled users was out of service.  The men’s at gate 14 had no lighting, forcing one to leave the door open.  (Fortunately it was a minor visit…)  The staff we encountered were just f@%&ing  rude.  You go up an escalator to departure level, then have to walk down a flight of steps without the option.  The catering on offer was expensive, tepid, unimaginative and highly indigestible.  But coming through Gatwick tends to put things in perspective: long walks, stinking lavatories – oh, I give up.  Fortunately the car park shuttle was fairly rapid, and the drive home was dry, if beset with fools how don’t know how to dip their headlights.  We live to tell the tale.

Cabaret: touring performance

See it.  Hull New Theatre next week, Wolverhampton the week after.  We went to the first night here yesterday, and were very impressed.  We'd heard mixed reports of Will Young as Emcee, but once he'd read and recruited the audience pantomime-style, he did very well indeed.  It's a very dynamic show, though with a lot of quiet scenes dripping with pathos.  I think I enjoyed the dance routines most: they could have done with a touch more ensemble, but the gymnastics were nonetheless impressive.  We especially liked Lyn Paul's Fräulein Schneider: she can't half act!  I last saw her in Blood Brothers decades ago, and in the meantime her voice has gained in timbre and maturity - chapeau!  If you do go, prepare for a really chilling ending.

Leaves are falling like mad, but at least we no longer have a trillion ash leaves to rake from the grass.  With the deluges of the last week or so, I can't get to the iris sibirica, which need cutting back.  The roses are looking a bit sad now - rain and rose buds are uncomfortable bedfellows. 

Off south tomorrow, but only because the tickets are irrevocably paid for.  The plan had been to inspect finished work and pay the bill.  Hoping to instruct the builder on Friday, not least as to timescales.  And final inspection and payment will be to our timetable.

...and another thing!

Home ownership, joys of, ctd.  It occurred to me to check the renewal quote for our house insurance and - fancy that! - it was up 27% on last year's.  On calling them, I found no sign of flexibility or haggle room, so have moved the business elsewhere, for a premium a good 10% lower than we paid last year, let alone the inflated renewal quote.  It's clear what's happening: the insurance companies now rely on low, come-on, introductory quotes, and rely on inertia and/or 'Oh, I don't want to make a fuss, dear!' to hammer people in year 2 et seq.  It seems to me that this discriminates against the unassertive members of the elderly community, and against people who lack the wit and energy to kick over the traces.  If you make a claim, you tend to find that, when renewal time comes round, the underwriters decline cover: the time-honoured mutual risk-sharing principle of the insurance industry is a dead letter in these post-Thatcherite times.  Well, being for the time being a time-served and active member of the geriatric delinquent tendency, I'm not having it, OK?  And I expect, if I'm spared, to be telling you the same story next year.

That's not the only cage I've been rattling today.  I've been round to pester our hedge-trimming man, who has been busy the last week or so sawing up trees that fell across drives, sheds, croquet lawns, orangeries etc during the recent little zephyr.  Hoping to see him next week.

Not immune ourselves to harrassment, I got a snottygram yesterday from the neighbour in Another Place about the lack of progress on repairing the end wall.  Given that we have had the fragile bits of rendering taken off, hence that there is no longer an immediate risk to his roof, I'm getting seriously close to telling him: MYOFB. The essence of his comments is to bad-mouth our builder (of which I'm perfectly capable myself, le cas échéant) because we declined to use his preferred man.

I slapped some paint around yesterday, and am consequently a shade less anxious about the piece I've been asked to do, which involves a complex task of perspective and lighting.  Version 1, on canvas, is somewhat stalled, but what I'm learning in the course of Version 2 might help me to get it flying again.  Version 2, (on paper, since the complex perspective and detail dictated a preliminary pencil drawing) is beginning to take shape.  I might have a crack at a Version 3 while we're closer to the subject next week, though the brevity of the visit may dictate otherwise.  On verra.

The joys of home ownership

The good news is that the central heating is working fine.  The bad news is that the system isn't heating the water, so one's date with the bidet on Friday was something of a shock to the, er..., system.  We do have an electric alternative, fortunately, but it overheats the water, a fact for one's awareness of which the, er..., system is more than grateful.  The eponymous Mr Waterman spent a good few hours here yesterday trying to make sense of it, concluding that the problem lay with the box on the kitchen wall.  We expect him back here later this afternoon with new box and commensurate bill.

It's an ill wind.  Since the boiler cupboard has to be emptied before the excellent and eponymous Mr W can 'attend to me boilers!' [honorable mention to spotters of the quote], I took the opportunity to reinforce the U-shaped shelf on which we keep the cookery books: Delia, Pru, Nigella, Madhur, Slater, Spencer, Tonks, Hollywood et al impose a severe burden.  Said shelf fits in round the boiler, hence makes good use of otherwise wasted space.  It's been a while since I've made busy with a crosscut saw, drills, clamps etc, and it was quite a pleasant way to spend the odd hour on a bright, breezy autumn day.  We couldn't find any suitable batten in our stocks of scrap timber, but Martyn found a bit of melamine coated chipboard that has been knocking around in the attic since it ceased to be part of some sort of self-assembly furniture.  Cutting it to length presented no problem, and I found enough recycled one-inch N°6 screws to fasten the pieces together while the glue hardens.  What I hadn't done, of course, was measure fore and aft.  Needless to say, the reinforcing batten conflicted with the support studs in the side of the cupboard, so I had to make with the chisel to get it to fit.  Well, as our favourite duty solicitor would say, there you are.  It's all in place, and the shelf is somewhat closer to the horizontal than it once was.  We have also lined up a few rarely-used books for the next trip to the Hospice in the Weald shop.

We took advantage of the dry weather the other day to bring the fuchsias and olive indoors for the winter.  We took a lot of cuttings in the spring from last year's fuchsia plants, and scattered them round the garden, where they have done very well, despite the dreadful soil and egregious neglect.  We treated ourselves to a couple of glazed pots in the spring, planting them with still more fuchsias, and they seem to have liked that environment as well.  I've been a big fan of fuchsias for years, going back to my days as a lodger with my aunt and uncle in Orpington and later Sidcup.  We have a few hardy plants round the garden as well as the half-hardy summer bedding varieties, and they are invariably rewarding.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, the builder has decided that the rendering is good except where it has already fallen off, and would we mind if he didn't start work till we're there.  Not 'appy, having bought the flights, parking and car rental for a planned stay of three nights, y compris Friday and Saturday.  I think the assumption is that, as owners of a second hovel, we must be rolling in it.  I suppose the final bill be un peu moins salé but snarl nonetheless.