Gardening and suchlike

We've taken advantage of some decent weather recently to get some order back into the garden, here and there.  The local nursery is doing a roaring trade at the moment: we've spent a week's pension so far on soil, grit, compost, bark and a few new perennials.  Martyn has laboured mightily on clearing beds of weeds, laying a plastic membrane to discourage regrowth and spreading bark on top.  I've cut grass a couple of times, attended to the potato crop, which has needed a lot of earthing up, made a start at tackling unruly shrubs and taken cuttings.  Once the bulbs have died down, we shall do a bit more bark spreading.  The neighbours are convinced, if convincing were necessary, that we're barking.

One ceanothus shrub has died, owing, I think, to competition from woodland geraniums and spiraea nearby.  At the opposite side of the garden, another ceanothus is flowering fit to bust and obliterating its neighbours.  Curious.  I shall give it some attention when it finishes flowering.  One of the white potentillas was looking rather sick and leggy, and I've taken huge amounts of dead wood out of it.  In that instance, the problem is pencil grass which has got in amongst the potentilla's roots.  So I think it's a case of bringing on some cuttings, and digging the bed out next year.

Cistus purpureus, and Mr Gardener Bishop

If the ceanothus is being exuberant this year, the cistus purpureus is going crazy.  We've never seen it looking so good before, so maybe it's as well we didn't get round to trimming it last year.  It will need it this year, but in the meantime we're enjoying a fantastic display.  Unlike its cousin, the pulverulens, the flowers last more than a single day, and  they are larger.

Surprises today from a couple of Boeing products.  Just before lunch time I could hear radial engines, and in due course two old 1930s or 40s Stearman biplanes lumbered across.  Both were in Breitling livery, and had wing walker frames on the top deck.  They're probably the same aircraft we saw a few years ago at Shoreham, then painted up to advertise a certain margarine product...  Not long after that, I noticed on Flightradar24.com that something known as a Dreamlifter was about  to fly over us.  It's a conversion of the 747 with a swollen fuselage, used for carrying bits of 787 to the asssembly lines from wherever said bits are built.  This one was coming from Taranto.  Fuselage sections from Alenia, presumably heading for Charleston, given the routing.

Talking of questionable journeys, we've just wasted an  aller-retour to the wheel fettlers in the next town.  It was agreed yesterday that, unless I'd heard from them, I'd go and collect the car today at 16:30.  We arrived at 16:25 to find the VW still up on axle stands.  The giant (he must be a good 2m tall) at the reception desk went to check and returned to say that there were another couple of hours' work to be done.  He is to call tomorrow when the car is ready for collection.  Snarl.  None of this would have happened had I been able to trade the brute in last September as I'd intended, since the corrosion on the wheels has only become really noticeable since then.  But with still no word from VW as to when they expect to sort the emission test 'defeat device', I'm sitting on my hands, and the car is heading for its sixth birthday and 60'000 miles.  Martyn's Altea, meanwhile, is approaching eight years old, but as it has very low mileage, we'll probably run it for a bit longer.  We toyed with trading it in for something smaller a while back, but the attractions of heated leather-upholstered seats, ample space and an excellent gearbox prevailed.  Not things you find on a Volkskodeat Upmigo.

Good customer experiences

1.  Timpson's, Sainsbury's, Disgustedville.  We needed a couple of spare keys cut, so stopped at the Timpson desk under the awning at the front of the shop.  Friendly, polite young man.  Said two keys would cost us £9, but that £10 would get us three.  He may well be an ex-offender, since Timpson's policy is to employ the same.  A cynic would check that he hadn't cut four keys, but I didn't, and trust him...

2.  Multiyork, Disgustedville.  We were expecting our new dining furniture to arrive this afternoon, but we agreed when they called and offered to deliver it this morning, following a cancellation.  They blanketed the dining room floor, having apologised in advance for any fluff that their cotton-waste blankets might leave on the carpet, assembled the clever table, delivered the  rest of the stuff and went happily on their way.  After they'd left, I spotted an imperfection on the little chest of drawers, but we'd more or less decided we could live with it.  The shop called to check that the delivery had happened as planned, and whether everything was OK.  I mentioned the imperfection, and at their request sent them a photograph.  Little later, they called to say they'd arranged with customer service for a polisher to come out and see if it could be fixed: es sei denn, 'we'll take it from there'.  So, a provisional thumbs-up to Multiyork as well.  I mentioned to one of the delivery chaps that the material used in their blankets used to be issued in clumps to steam engine drivers for the wiping of the faces thereof.  If he needed confirmation of my old fossil status, that ought to have done the trick.

Homeward and home

Homeward bound again.  A wet, busy A9 full of the usual complement of kamikazes and people who've never heard of turn signals and rear-view mirrors.  Still we made it unscathed to Avignon, where we parted company with Jeepy McJeepface.  Curious little car, terribly overstyled with very little rear or back three quarter view.  The novel thing for us was the keyless entry and starting set-up.  Provided you have the key fob in your pocket, it senses you coming, and unlocks with a tug of the door handle.  Once in and belted up, you press and let go the starter button, and the car thinks about it for a while, eventually deigning to spin the engine.  I suppose it avoids the problem of churning the engine uselessly before the glow plugs are hot.  The six manual gears were a pain, but at least the gear change was pleasant and the clutch viceless.  At 1.6 litres, the engine was pretty gutless, at least until the blower started puffing, but it was exceptionally quiet.  But one is glad to be back to a car with a proper gearbox that doesn't need to be rowed along.

The village is a terrible mess at the moment.  The water distribution network is being simplified and replaced, and the trenches temporarily filled with aggregate.  The word is that surfacing will be done before the tourist season.  The word also is that the whole bloody issue will be dug up again in a couple of years when they renew the drains.   There was an unannounced cut in the water supply one morning before we'd showered (during would have been worse, of course), and for some reason the electricity supply has been up and down like a whore's drawers.  The Internet service too has been pretty hit and miss.  We'll hope for better next time we go south.

We had our South African neighbours round for a somewhat ill-advised amount of rosé on Saturday night.  They have bought the near-derelict garage diagonally opposite us, and have gutted it and replaced the roof.  They are thinking of putting in upper floors to make a two-bed apartment, which the building is crying out for.  But as they also own a four-storey pile in the heart of the village AND the old bakery, they can't be short of projects.  Nice fellows: they spend some time in their flat in Johannesburg each year, and also own a boutique hotel in Cape Town.  Enterprising types!

We were in Avignon around 1:00 pm, so had time to take the shuttle train down to the main station.  We had lunch in a café in the administrative district, but didn't really have time to see the sights this time, particularly as we were dragging baggage around with us.  There is no left luggage facility at either station, though there is a private storage shop near where we had lunch.  The café being just over the way and not busy, we saved our 5€.  Startling sight at the TGV station: a young man with a spiky cockscomb hairdo, and otherwise shaved dome.  His face, neck and scalp were liberally tattooed.  Altogether more startling was the legend writ large on the back of his head: an uncompromising FUCK OFF.  A comfort to find that he wasn't sitting opposite us in the train.

The rest of the journey was, frankly, tedious.  The weather was dull or wet pretty much all the way.  On the way out, we zipped down from Ashford to Avignon in about five hours.  Coming home, it took over six and a half, including a stop at Lille, where we’d to get off with all our luggage and process through passport and security checks, then wait in a stiflingly hot departure room until they were ready to load us all back on.  The service on board was pleasant and generous as before.  We then had the stopping train from Ashford, and a taxi ride home.  At least the latter was less ruinous than we’d feared.  By mid-afternoon, I was starting to regret the gooey chocolate pudding I’d recklessly chosen in Avignon, and an uncomfortable night followed.  Having finally got to sleep, I was awakened in the small hours by the sound of badgers fighting in the garden.  They cleared off when I turned the light on, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find blood and fur on the terrace when I go out.  

The garden has made strides in our absence.  The cherry and ornamental ditto are in blossom, and both varieties of cistus are coming into flower.  The sweet Williams I raised over the winter are starting to flower – white so far.  The grass is a terrible mess, and the heavy rain will probably keep me off it for a while longer.  The spuds and onions are coming along nicely, and we seem finally to have some leek seedlings.  Hardly the Good Life, but it’s good to have a token crop of home produce. 

trains, planes, automobiles - and a spot of shoeleather

Martyn suggested a half hour or so of geriatric trainspotting this morning, so we took ourselves up to the level crossing between Conilhac and Fontcouverte.  We parked at the end of a path beside a vineyard, an arable field and some fallow land running parallel to the railway line, so we strolled and botanised a bit while we waited for the various trains to present themselves: the Marseille-Bordeaux inter city, a stopper from Toulouse to Narbonne and a Toulouse to Lyon TGV double-decker.  The birdsong as we strolled was exquisite: one of the thrushes, a skylark, a chaffinch with an unfamiliar flourish in its song, a distant cuckoo.  In fact, as I report at my place by the open dining room window, I could hear a cuckoo until Henry rumbled up on his motorbike.

As for the flora, the fennel is making its annual comeback from beneath the tall skeletons of last year's growth, and we have a few sprigs in water to complement this evening's salmon.  That and some other subjects are attracting huge numbers of snails that cling to their stems: escargot fanciers to note.  The poppies are resplendent, though starting to go over now, and the little white cistus is going great guns, like its cousin, the cistus pulverulens.  When we pulled on to the verge to take some photographs, the scent of crushed mint and fennel under our wheels was really powerful when we opened the doors.  We found a little path in the garrigue that hadn't seen a lot of traffic lately - the strip between the cart ruts was full of cistus.  On the slope of the old road back into the village, there's a big patch of the beautiful blue aphyllante de Montpellier.  A fine time of year for them who appreciate wild flowers to be hereabouts, if they can put up with the capricious weather.

The good news for me is that I walked for half an hour or so on the level without discomfort from the knees, and again for another quarter of an hour up in the garrigue.  Perhaps the exercises are helping: or is it just the stimulus of fine, warm sunny spring days?  I'm certainly not about to start jumping out of aeroplanes like a couple of dozen nutters we watched this morning.  We watched one lot from our trainspotting/botanising spot, and another nearby at the aerodrome at the market town.  In the second batch, eleven parachutes came down, several of  them with beginners strapped to the bellies of more experienced lunatics.  That's a lot of bodies in a Cessna Caravan!  It always worries me that, at that particular aerodrome, some parachutists are still landing as the aeroplane comes in.  None shredded this time.

Spring at last!

Glorious day, so time for the seaside.  Leaving lines full of washing on the terrace, off we set for Leucate, taking the winding but beautiful Albas road from Villerouge Termenès to Durban.  A bit of a test when driving a car with vague steering, but we made it.  Regulars may recall that, a few years ago, we encountered a VW works rally team there testing a fire-spitting Škoda Fabia.  Nothing so dramatic today: but the views of the Pyrenees were fantastic.

We've hardly been missing at mealtimes lately, so opted for a snack lunch at La Franqui.  Our usual watering place, the Palm Beach, also runs to a snack bar and a takeaway, so we opted for the one in the middle.  I had a panino with Serrano ham, mozzarella and tomatoes.  And garlic.  And a fair few of Management's chips, he having ordered squid, Roman style.

La Franqui is not yet at its busiest which, even in summer, is reasonably calm.  The beach, not having had its summer season daily sweeping, was looking a bit scabby, but the sea and sky were blue, the breeze was light, and a few pallid forms were to be seen out on the beach (not including ours).  As is our wont, we looped back via Bages, so got to admire flamingoes (not in vast numbers, but 50 or so were quietly browsing one of the smaller ponds), egrets, oystercatchers, plovers and avocets.  Back at the ranch, once the washing was in, we sat out up top and were entertained by swifts and house martins, and had a brief overflight by a kestrel or sparrow hawk.  It isn't quite warm enough out there to wait for the fascinating bats just yet. Neither shall I be out there between 03:00 and 04:00 for the forecast meteor showers....

'e don't learn, do 'e?

With the aid of a surplus wire coat hanger and one of the Jeep's head restraints, I secured an empty gas bottle for its trip up to the market town yesterday.  We had to stop en route to modify the design, so any hubris on my part would be worthy of the definition.  My mistake was then to try and manhandle the bottle back to the car single-handed, with the usual consequence of backache today, with all the other attendant aches that surface when the sciatic nerve starts flashing.

Today, nothing daunted, we went off in search of a lunch spot out of the gusts that are afflicting this part of the country.  Having found a pizzeria in Homps on line, we arrived to find it closed.  Back in the car, then, with the wheel passed to the one without sciatica in the clutch leg, and off to Argens-Minervois, where the Guingette is under the same management as the Auberge du Somail.  It's little more than a gravel yard with some tents and canopies, a kitchen in a hut and a big wood-fired grill, but like its sister establishment, it stands on the bank of the Canal du Midi.  Friendly reception, decent, inexpensive food and perfectly adequate wine.  We took a big clockwise loop route home, entering the village from the south west.  Glad to report that the Boutenac vineyards look to be in fine form.

No great activity back here this afternoon other than to get in the washing and slap a bit of paint on repaired plaster work on the chimney breast.  Lazy days?  I'm in favour.

Familiar haunts

Busy day on Thursday.  Via Facebook, I'd learned that someone was after a simple electronic keyboard, since her eight-year-old daughter was expressing an interest in learning the piano.  For years, one such has been languishing on the landing: I bought it second-hand some 30 years ago when I'd kidded myself that I could learn to play.  Well, we hooked it up to Martyn's computer speakers, and, on finding that it still worked, offered it to the woman who had posted on Facebook in exchange for a couple of bottles of Corbières.  It turned out that they live close to where we were heading on Thursday anyway, so we dropped it in on them on our way.  They presented us with no fewer than six bottles of vintage Corbières, which is generous given that the thing had only cost me £90 all those years ago.  It was a huge bonus to find a photo of a smiling Lucie at the keyboard on Facebook when we got home, her electrician father having hooked it up to some old computer speakers.  There's something hugely attractive about barter, isn't there?

Next stop was at the home of friends of friends, who recently moved south from Germany to take up residence in their holiday home, only for the husband to collapse mere weeks later with a bleed from a cerebral aneurysm.  He is in the best possible hands in the university hospital in Montpellier, but remains comatose.  She is holding it together, but struggling with the tiring journeys to and fro, and with the effort of dialogue with an unresponsive partner.  Time will tell.

From there to good old Le Somail for lunch with Chota, Patricia and Martin, who were on great form, and are now proprietors of a little acrylic sketch I did a while back from a photograph that Martin had taken of the sunrise over Sète.  It being the fifteenth anniversary of Martyn's and my first meeting, they had brought a bottle of Muscat de Frontignan as an anniversary present.  The Auberge du Somail was not, however, on form: cold, tough lamb chops.  Had I had the sense I was born with, I'd have settled for the starter course: an assiette Andalouse, comprising a spot of salad, green and black tapenade, some very garlicky red peppers, a generous dollop of jambon cru, sliced melon and a tomato salsa that we eschewed, fearing raw onion in the mix.  

The weather being fine, clear and still yesterday, we headed for our favourite ride in the mountains over to Limoux (though not before I'd rubbed down and sized the shower room ceiling).  This time we took some carrots with us in case we encountered the donkeys we sometimes see at our favourite viewpoint.  That precaution was of course sufficient to ensure that they didn't appear.  The views, however, were fabulous.  We were serenaded by a skylark as we admired the beautiful chain of snowy Pyrenees, and harangued by lambs and their mothers at a farm nearby.  We hope they make better côtelettes than we got at the Auberge du Somail on Thursday.  

Down in Limoux, we headed for a café that had been well reviewed by Le Petit Futé, took one look at it and its rough clientèle, and moved on.  We finished up at the Grand Café, which we'd pretty well decided not to use again after a couple of poor meals.  Martyn had a steak, which was evidently very good.  I had my usual pizza, enjoyed it, and writhed later.  

It was fine enough to sit out on the terrace when we got back, entertained by house martins, buzzards and redstarts.  It was a bit too chilly to sit and wait for the bats.

This grey, damp morning looked propitious for decorating, so the shower room ceiling is now papered, and Martyn has been round again with a pot of white paint.  That's very nearly all the DIY we need to do this time, save, perhaps, a bit of weeding.  Or perhaps not.