Il faut cultiver son jardin

One of the early steps on assuming the stewardship of Forges-L’Evêque was a critical view of the previous administration’s planting out of the pocket handkerchief of land that came with the masonry.  At the top of the agenda stood the huge numbers of leylandii all round the frontiers of the territory.  We may perhaps be excused for guessing that an earlier proprietor was a justifiably diffident naturist.  We Got Someone In early on to take down the line of trees down the east side of the garden, to trim and take a metre or so from the hedges to the south and west, and to hoik out a few more leylandii that stood where we planned to build the sitootery.  That was much welcomed by our neighbours to the east, who suddenly had sunlight in their garden.  It helped, of course, in their view that we then had to replace the fence (our responsibility), which had remained standing thanks only to the leylandii.  We got the same firm in the following couple of years to keep the hedges in order, but gave them the push when their prices escalated.  We’ve since been using a chap from down the road (who also keeps us supplied with eggs).  He charges us less than half the first lot's charges for hedge-fettling.  He came round on Friday, sorted the hedges and took out a further leylandii from the front of the house.  He has also had a hack at the overgrown cherry tree, so we’re starting to look a bit less worse, five years on.  I sowed some grass seed the other night on the bald patch under what had been the canopy of the mercifully departed tree.  Needless to say, we then had a hailstorm and several heavy showers.  I guess it was a bit late to sow grass seed anyway, but let’s see what happens.

Meanwhile, a little mail-order parcel of plants (primroses and pansies) has arrived, and they are now planted up in 3" pots to grow on for winter colour.  Our tubs are looking pretty miserable, so it’ll be good to get them emptied out and re-planted with new plants in fresh compost.  I hauled out one of the bigger clumps of iris sibirica the other day, and have been distributing and promising bits of it to friends.  If you want a bit, shout: there are four other clumps of it that would benefit from division.

 

An observer in the public gallery of a neighbouring Magistrates’ Court might tell you that an unfortunate and impoverished defendant left the other day with TV licence fines remitted.  A court may, of course, see him or her in due course for Council Tax debt.  Oh, and if you feel like dodging a £2.30 rail fare any time soon, bear in mind that this carries a £400 fine, plus costs and surcharge (fines tax) of £125, or so it appears from the public gallery.  And if the bailiffs have to turn out to enforce it, that adds a further £300, whether or not they take your flat-screen telly, or so someone in the gallery might have heard it said the other day.

At two-thirds of the way through this year's Booker short list, I'm wondering why so many writers, if not all these days, feel the need to hurtle backwards and forwards in  time in the course of the narrative.  I could cope years ago with the Rahmennovelle, but the current bunch of hopefuls seem to be vying with each other to confuse readers.  The likes of Mr Self sometimes shift 50 years and change narrators half way through a sentence.  Do they write the various epochs in separate windows, then press some sort of random-mix button?  I'm conscious that my MA Hons (failed) status doesn't exactly qualify me as a literary critic, but I think I recognise affectation when I see it.  So far, my vote would go to Mr Tan's The Garden of Evening Mists: at least he has the decency to use 'tell me what happened back then' once in a while to signpost a chronological gearchange.  Ms Mantel's latest is better than Wolf Hall from the point of view of accessibility (This time, she uses 'He, Cromwell, ...' rather than leaving you to work it out for yourself.)  I rattled through Alison Moore's The Lighthouse this morning in about three insomniac hours, and might read it again to see what, if anything, I ought to have got out of it.  I wonder if my MA (Ordinary) would qualify me for a place on next year's shortlisting panel.  I agreed with their conclusion last year, but am not impressed with this or last year's shortlists.

Modern Times

Disaster struck on Tuesday: my kindle suddenly refused to co-operate.  It had been getting a little slow on the uptake of late, and on Tuesday, rather than advance a page, displayed a lot of horizontal lines, then wouldn’t budge.  (I blame its having had to deal with Will Self’s affectedly incoherent Umbrella, which for some unaccountable reason is in the Booker short list this year.)  Management persuaded a brief flicker of life out of it, but brief it was.  We did all the troubleshooting stuff, but to no avail, so then it was on to the helpful young men in India via an appalling VOIP link, which probably accounts for their asking all questions three times.  Cutting a long story short, I ordered a new machine with a 20% discount, and it arrived today, 3-5 days sooner than forecast.  I am now slowly learning to drive the thing, and shall post the old one back tomorrow for recycling or whatever.  Today also brought, by courier, a couple of printer cartridges ordered yesterday.  My new laptop bag should arrive in a day or two.  Martyn’s birthday present arrived by the same route.  I wonder what percentage of manufacturing job losses is made up by courier van driver positions?

But most welcome arrival of the week was my computer specs, sent on by Kate and John after I’d carelessly left them in Lagrasse.  Phew.  It’s a tiresome fact of advancing years that I need at least three pairs of specs: the jack-of-all-trades varifocals (which are master of none, notably when it comes to turning out of oblique junctions), the reading glasses and the computer specs, with their minimal reading correction.  I suppose contact lenses or surgery would make life easier, but I’m not ready to take either step.

This year’s diluvian rainfall has found out one of our gutters: we’ve been treated for some time to a free water feature in front of the sitting room window.  Having agonised briefly about girding up our loins and doing it ourselves, we opted instead for GSI.  We rang George the gutter-fettler yesterday, and he sorted it out today.  I suspect the brackets were broken by the window cleaner we hired in preference to George, hence a degree of poetic justice.

Last blog for September

Since yesterday seemed to be the only reasonable day in the forecast, the grass is cut and the laundry is done.  Shame they don't stay in that condition for long, eh?   I've finally chopped down the tomato plants, which have done really well - as indeed they damn' well should, at almost a quid a seed!  Two of them threw side shoots from low down while we were away, and one of them is heavy with ripening fruit, so I've chopped down the long stem and will leave them to get on with it for a little longer.  The roses are soldiering on: the Justice of the Peace, planted this year, is doing extremely well, as are Queen Elizabeth and Geoff Hamilton (aka Edna hereabouts, because we planted it the day after Ma-in-law died).  Of the others, Peace and Fragrant Cloud have done quite well, as have a couple of prolifically flowering patio roses at the front door.  Less good marks for Sunblest and Red Devil at the front, and Piccadilly, which we planted this year at the back.  We really must stop dithering and get some goodness into the soil.  It's not as though we have an excuse, given that we have a bin full of compost and a friend down the road with livery stables.

We went to see Barbara on Monday: she has made excellent progress since last time we saw her.  She had to go for an x-ray while we were there, and was able to get out of bed and into a chair largely unassisted.  While we were there she got the good news that she can move back on to a solid diet, and was to have the feeding tube removed next day if all went well.  

Lunch with Peter and Elizabeth on Wednesday was very pleasant.  Of the cooking, curate's egg.  In deference to Elizabeth's currently limited diet, we poached some fresh haddock - and will do it again.  onions, carrots and celery in the poaching water, together with a good glug of extra dry vermouth, lemon juice and a bit of seasoning.  Served with carroty mash and a mushroom sauce.  But I've definitely lost my touch with crème brûlée - hideously sweet and runny.  Far better fare at Celia and Andy's on Friday - a delicious fish pie with Rösti topping followed by an apple and blackberry crumble.  Glad to say we have the recipe for the crumble topping!

Not sure whether the daub I started at Thursday's art class will go a lot further.  We shall see.

Rush hour

As I write, the garden is teeming with birds - nuthatches, siskins, greenfinches, dunnocks, a robin, blues and greats, blackbirds and, of course, wood pigeons.  Pleasing, because we've seen so few of the smaller birds through the summer.  Plenty of house martins and swifts in Lagrasse, plus redstarts and starlings, which put on a little flying display for us one day up by the Canal du Midi.  [Later: a heron also just dropped in, having forgotten, it seems, that he's already had all the goldfish.]

Perhaps yesterday's heavy rain discouraged them hereabouts, and they're making up for lost meals.  The nuthatches are zooming in and zooming out again with their beaks full, almost as though they're feeding young.  But it's far too late in the year for that.  Or is it?

The rain certainly put us off: we set off for Brighton after lunch, but turned round at Groombridge and came home again.  I dare say the flooding at the bottom of Groombridge Hill was the worst we were likely to meet, but it seemed to us that it was a risk we didn't need to take.  With a miles-thick overcast, it was very dark, and a frighteningly large number of dark-coloured cars were being driven without lights.  I despair of the stupidity. 

Back to base

We had a lovely time with Annie and her other guests at Le Roc.  Of the six meals we had there, we only had one indoors, and this in mid-September.  The travelling is pretty familiar these days, though we did knit ourselves a bespoke route from south of Toulouse over to Annie's.  Views of the Pyrenees were limited in the hazy sunshine, but all the more tantalising for that.  We had lunch at Le Café du Palais in Ribérac in the Dordogne, where the service, snack lunch and ambience were just fine, give or take a missing lavatory seat.

It's the wall - honest...

The hotel in Le Mans turned out to be rather quirky: our room had four windows - horizontal slits arranged randomly on the wall.  We were at  the end of the corridor, having arrived early, so one of the walls sloped out to follow the external wall of the building.  Dinner was competent and reasonably priced, but probably a bit much after a day on the road - we slept badly.  The bathroom was something of a triumph of style over function: the shower door doubled as the bathroom door, leaving a gap at the bottom the height of the shower pan.  It neither kept the water inside the shower cubicle, nor gave any privacy in the bathroom.  Breakfast, at €9, was exorbitant, and the hot drinks supplies in the bedroom were the usual sh1te - Lipton's Yellow Label tea, the banishment of which from the face of the earth, as you know, will be my first legislative act after graciously assenting to assume absolute power.  Good job we'd packed the tea kit, which includes Twining's Everyday tea bags, a teaspoon and two IKEA mugs.  And a heeltap of fresh milk that we'd brought from Lagrasse, via Annie's fridge and a cool bag, maintained thus by a frozen 2-litre Schweppes tonic bottle full of water. 

The hotel's location was interesting, though: right at the southern end of the Mulsanne straight of the motor racing circuit.  As we left, we'd to drive up it, hoping not to meet any Porsches coming the other way at 230 mph.  I suggested to Martyn, who was driving the first leg, that he should keep it down to 150 mph until the engine was properly warmed up.

Frustrating day so far today.  Martyn went to collect a parcel from the sorting office, only to find that it had been sent back to Germany.  I went off to the county town for a meeting with a policeman, who had double-booked, so had to turn round and drive the 20 fruitless miles back again.  Cross-making since (1) Martyn's parcel ought to have arrived well before we left for France, and (2) I'd planned our travelling around the supposed date with the policeman.  Needless to say, I am not free to disclose the capacity in which I was involved in the latter. 

Last day again

Back to checklists and chores.  We're moving on tomorrow, but put a fair bit of fun stuff into the day as well as vast amounts of laundry and housework.

Once the last of the laundry was out, we headed for Sallèles d'Aude, where we've occasionally had Sunday lunch in the past.  The place was jumping, since there was a flea market arranged along the side of the canal.  Our usual restaurant didn't greet us when we arrived, still less offer to show us to a table, so we found an empty one and sat down.  Twenty minutes later, when we still hadn't had a menu, we got up and left.  Sure, they were busy with extra trade from the brocante.  But if they set a number of couverts, they ought to resource themselves to serve them.  So, it was back to Le Somail for a familiar lunch menu in the shade of the plane trees. 

The organ recital was well atended by local people and the remaining visitors.  The only piece I knew was a rather clumsy Liszt transcription of the Agnus Dei from Verdi's Requiem, and the rest of the programme was made up of pieces the obscurity of which seemed to me to be thoroughly deserved.  Worse, the full organ registration for the opening Lefébure-Wély and closing Rheinberger was so loud that our ears were ringing, and we couldn't hear individual notes.  Come to think of it, I seem to remember the same problem last time I heard a big romantic piece played there.  I'm not convinced that the organist had listened to his planned programme from the nave of the church - if he had, he'd surely have adjusted the registration. Pity: though in all other respects, the performance was more than competent, the overall experience was disappointing.

I spent a while trying to work out the route from the motorway to the hotel I'd booked for Wednesday night in Tours.  It was very complicated, the location was central (risk of traffic noise) and the parking cost extra, so I found an alternative and cancelled.  We'll now be staying in Mulsanne, near Le Mans - and will resist the temptation to hurtle round the circuit.  Still a fair trek from the motorway, but a rather more straightforward route.

A bit of cultcha

Went along to the kirk just now for the 'visite de l'orgue'.  Fascinating, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening's grind.  It's a powerful instrument, with 16, 8 and 4 in the pedal reeds, a reasonable diapason chorus (though with only one mixture stop) and a scattering of funnies, like the off-tune pairing of a Gambe and a Voix Céleste, much loved of César Franck in his more ethereal moments.  It plays from only two manuals and a flat pedal board, but has a collossal dynamic range.  Mechanical action throughout, with no slack in it, as far as I could see.  And a nice set of enclosed reeds.  Of the thunder pedal ... enfin, bon.  The Chairman of the Association des Amis des Orgues lives just up the road from us, so I've signed up, and paid my €15.  Such associations are required to declare themselves under a law of 1901, aimed at proscribing secret societies.  Our walking club had to do so, and as I recall, had to pay a somewhat hefty registration fee for the privilege.  I fear that, since I joined as a founder member in 1999, it has gone the way of all flesh, probably because guru-Chairman Patrick has been transferred to Foix.

We took to the hills yesterday, since the air was quite clear.  We had fine views of the mountains from Quéribus.  We dropped down to the valley of the Maury, turned right and came back up through the Gorges de Galamus, which I don't think I'd driven in the current (rather tall) vehicle.  Or maybe I'm just getting twitchy in my declining years.  Amazing road, though, chamfered into the cliff face. Unfortunately, the trip involved a lot of winding roads, so the ancient mitts were quite sore by the time we got back.  Them's the hazards of ageing I suppose.