9 June, central heating on...

We've had a beautiful few days, granted, but it's still disappointing to have to reach for the fleece jacket before hanging out the washing.  And having to wait for the drizzle to stop.  Of course, wet weather + sun = weeds.  I took three buckets thereof out of the tiny bed at the boundary between us and The Boundary yesterday afternoon, and can once again see the rather unhappy-looking box hedge I planted two months ago.  I think I've lost one plant: the soil is very poor and dry, impoverished by the large leylandii that we got taken down last back end.  Some watering and poultry muck pellets may help.  Quite a few plants have started flowering this week: the iris sibirica (two varieties), the cistus, the helianthemums and the climbing rose Danse du Feu (best pronounced in a Percy Thrower accent).  Andy and Celia came round on Monday bearing courgette and tomato plants, so in places we're looking pretty verdant.  Martyn has done a bit more work on the rockery, and has planted out the donor fuchsia plants.  I've potted up the first lot of cuttings therefrom, and they look good.  The cosmos and dimorphotheca are now mostly planted out, and a few of the rudbeckias are coming up to the point at which they too can go out.  When I sold some for charity a few years ago, I labelled them with a testimonial: 'Delicious!  Joe Slug, Tonbridge'.  I'm a shameless user of metaldehyde pellets, I'm afraid. 

I was just thinking about heading upstairs the other night when Martyn called me: there was a badger at the top of the terrace steps, helping itself to peanuts we'd put out for the birds.  I think it may have been a young 'un: it was quite small compared with some we've met on our travels.  Of the ducks, not much news.  Arthur was evidently on the pond for a little while this morning, but had cleared off by the time I emerged from the shower room.  We hadn't seen him in the couple of weeks we've been back, so it's nice to know he's still around.  We were looking for him at the big pond one day earlier in the week when someone working on one of the houses nearby told us that a duck regularly came to the door asking to be fed.  Sounds like 'im.

Art crowd, 6 June, Forges-l'Evêque

Arthur did not, however, deign to appear while the art group was here on Thursday morning.  We meet here a couple of times a year when there's a project to debrief, since the conservatory has a rather better acoustic than the echoing scout hut where we meet to do our painting.  I really enjoy having the crowd round, and tend to bake something for the occasion.  This time it was garlic and pesto rolls, served with the injunction that, if they had interesting plans for the evening, it might be an idea to feed something garlicky to whomever the plans might also interest...  Someone quipped that it looked more like a WI meeting than an art group gathering, but although we did have tea and cake, we also progressed to glasses of Blanquette.

The project theme this time was Rustlings of Spring.  Joan (second from right, above) turned out a range of experimental pictures of catkins.  She is the most accomplished experimenter among us,  and an inspiration to us all.  Mary (to Joan's right) had done a lovely painting of a hedgehog.  Yr obed servt did a piece from a photo he took 13 years ago up on the Cagalière, when the helianthemums were newly in flower and attracting the bees.  Acrylics on canvas.  I notice from the file title that the photograph was taken on 24 April.  Note that the helianthemums at Forges-L'Evêque have only started into flower today.  To be fair, though, there is a difference of 8° of latitude between the two, and in any case everything here is 2-3 weeks late.  It looks like the next art class project is antiques.  Lots of self-portraits in prospect.

Plans abound for our next trip south in a couple of weeks' time.  (Given that building work on the Lagrasse house starts tomorrow, I may have to dash down before then - but I hope not.)  We've sold the great-nephews and nieces into white slavery and on the proceeds booked a sail home from Santander, with a few nights in Bilbao on the way.  The ghastly rock festival known as something like Abracadaconnasses begins in Lagrasse on 19 July.  Our guests will be with us until the 17th, so we've decided to close the place up that day and deposit them at Blagnac, then head on to the Basque country for a few days.  So I'm having lots of fun researching things to see and how to get there.  Martyn, having survived the Bay of Biscay/Golfe de Gascogne in an unfrocked troop ship, assures me that our ferry will boast roughly twice its displacement.