May 2013 – Page 2 – derrickjknight

‘Er Indoors

Last night and this morning I read ‘Roman Britain’, Peter Salway’s contribution to the 1984 Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, another of Ann’s books.

Thierry and Geoffrey arrived early to continue the work. It won’t be finished before I leave, but, no matter, much was done. They had been awaiting instruction from Saufiene who was in Tunisia.

When, in August last year, I had walked with Judith (posted 10th August), a broad circular route on the perimeter of which lies Mescoules, the conditions had been so different. Then it had been a blazing hot day. Today was cold, damp, and overcast. Cattle seemingly lying in a field amidst tall grass stirred themselves into an ungainly gallop as I approached, and stood expectantly by a water-trough in a far corner they knew I must pass. The adults soon lost interest in empty-handed me and, whilst they were there, visited the trough, now surrounded by a quagmire. I retained the calves’ interest a bit longer.

Tractor tracks through a barleyfield left an interesting pattern, such as might be considered a crop circle message.

At least the snails were enjoying the weather.

This seemed a longer stretch than I remember it. Perhaps it does on a dull day without company. Had I held my nerve for a few yards longer, I would have passed a smallholding I recognised and not felt the need to reassure myself by asking for directions of the only person I met en route.

A gentleman was standing, legs astride, with his back to me, beside his van parked alongside a house. He emitted a stream, shook his right elbow, hoisted his shoulders in a shrug, and lifted the arm about a zip’s length. The French are more relaxed about these things. Perhaps it was his own house and he had forgotten to take a leak before he left it. Having politely waited for him to finish I asked him the way to Sigoules. To my relief, he confirmed my intentions and told me I had an hour to go. Fortunately it only took 45 minutes, as the rain soon came down again.

Lunch at Le Code Bar consisted of noodle soup; chitterling salad; tender beef served with penne pasta; and apple tart. I could have had salmon salad, but chose the chitterling because the only other time I had attempted to eat one it had been raw. I swear the butcher had told me this was an option. It hadn’t been palatable. When I told David this he curled his lip in distaste.

Back at the house the trapdoor remained a problem. Thierry is to make another, much lighter model, in his own workshop. Even with a new system this very heavy, subject to moisture, and knackered current door will be cumbersome and just as difficult to dislodge. I told him to stop struggling with it.

I shared great fun with the builders as I tried to explain the epithets ‘er indoors’ and ‘she who must be obeyed’ from the long-running television series ‘Minder’ and ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’. They had asked me for the English version of femme, as in wife or Mrs. I felt obliged to give them options.

Boxers

As it circles the sky the sun’s rays move around rue St Jacques. The valerian corner focussed on yesterday is the first recipient; by mid-afternoon the back wall benefits; the front of the house is lit in the evening. Although still very cold and subject to ferocious winds, the clouds dissipated somewhat yesterday and I was treated to light shows, first of the shadows of next door’s oriental grasses, bowing, bending, and snapping back on the garden wall; then the fragile flickering of leaves of the trees opposite in the kitchen.

Early this morning I finished reading Susan Hill’s excellent novel ‘The Service of Clouds’. The writing is beautiful, with spare descriptions of nature and the use of various other devices to reflect the theme. She manages to avoid creating an air of melancholy in what is essentially a tale of sad, emotionally unfulfilled lives. It is about disappointment, isolation, and loss. Moments of happiness are brief. This latter is symbolised by children flying kites which soar aloft, only to plummet when the wind drops. She brilliantly evokes the experience of the ending of life in old age, and captures the effects of childhood on later years.

It was a bright morning when I set off towards Monbos. Not far out of Sigoules is a sign pointing to Le Roby. This time I obeyed the stop sign and followed the arrow. The road is very short, leading to a few houses behind which is a grass track bordering fields with a view across the valley.

The juxtaposition of pale irises and red hot pokers at the corner I turned, had me thinking of Fire and Ice. These were the boxing nicknames given to two policemen, partners, friends, and rivals, played by Aaron Ekhart and Josh Hartnett in Brian De Palma’s film ‘The Black Dahlia’. Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank also star. As it is worth watching, I will say no more.

A garden in the little hamlet offers a different iris colour scheme.

I wondered whether the door marked W. C. on a rather ramshackle outbuilding was still in use. It seemed a long way to go from the house in the middle of the night.

The grasses on the track were like those that grew on the railway path behind 29a Stanton Road in which I grew up. Today the stems are soft and a fresh lime green. Later in the summer they will be dried out and yellow as corn. Just as they were when we, as children, used to slide our fingers up their stiffness, making their seeds fly off. It was fun to aim them at each other.

Soon the track was taped off and I could go no further. A donkey beneath a lichen-covered pussy willow tree in a field of buttercups, seemed, at first, to be my old friend on the Pomport road. This one, however, was younger and better kempt.

Two intruders out of their normal time were scaling a drainpipe. Perhaps the weather has confused them. I found myself wondering whether they were early or late.

It was just as well I’d gone out earlier because Clement arrived to check the work soon after I had returned. Saufiene having been in Tunisia, as I knew, his partner had been unable to phone me because he didn’t have my number. I gave it him. He had visited on Saturday when I was out. I expressed my disappointment at the lack of completion, and gave him my French snagging list on which he complimented me. He agreed with all my observations and, indeed, found a few more. He said he would give Thierry a slap and bring him here tomorrow to finish off. When I responded that he might ‘get one back’ he said ‘You don’t know me. I’m a great boxer’.

This being a bank holiday, even the bar was closed. Showers had begun at mid-day, so I have dashed up and down to my perch outside Le Code Bar in between precipitations in order to post this, after I had lunched on a Carrefour pizza. That means I ate it, not that I used it as a plate.

Gathering Supplies For The Queen

I do not close my bedroom shutters in Sigoules, and am usually awake at daybreak. Six telephone cables, stretched loosely along the street, pass the now double-glazed tall window. There is a lamp fixed to the outside wall on my right. As I stirred very early this morning, a fluorescent flash, lit by this illumination, streaked diagonally upwards across the panes, to perch momentarily on the topmost wire, then, emblazoned against the deep indigo of the pre-dawn sky visible above the trees opposite, to dart away. An early bird indeed.

The local people think I am joking when I tell them it is far warmer in Minstead than it is here. Yesterday’s high was eight degrees and Carrefour had welcoming industrial fan heaters mounted high above the shelves exhaling steadily. One beneficiary of the unseasonal wet weather has been my tiled garden. Everything is blooming. I am particularly pleased with the Valerian which I bought as a single stem and planted in the stone wall. The pale pink geraniums growing in a couple of inches of soil beneath it were brought here by Maggie and Mike from Dover Street, Southwell a good ten years ago.

It was a bright enough morning for bees to venture out busily labouring to load their limbs with pollen.

Tarpaulin protecting scaffolding next door flapped frantically, battered by the threatening gusts of wind, reminding me of our neighbour opposite in Gracedale Road during the great storm of 1987 (see post of 2nd June 2012).

Dusting, polishing, and hoovering continued on the first floor after I had figured out how to change the bag for the machine. In switching attachments I learned how I had managed to cut my thumb yesterday. I had only spotted that when one of the picture frames displayed a smear of the wrong colour on its top left hand corner.

After this a late lunch consisted of a scrumptious baguette and sausage.

Able Assignments To The Rescue

18th May 2013

A heavy deluge and a distant thunderstorm beset us yesterday afternoon and throughout the night. Intermittent rain and strong, cold, winds persisted today, so it is just as well that I continued cleaning, tidying, and hanging pictures.

After this I amused myself writing out a bilingual snagging list. I suppose the need for one was inevitable. Thierry is yet to return to finish off and the unlit back corridor, completed after 9 p.m., is less than brilliant.

What needs to be done here is nothing compared to that required by Beauchamp Lodge Settlement in the early 1990s. As Chairman I had a real problem on my hands. The charity had been forced to sell the beautiful early nineteenth century building in Little Venice it had occupied until then because we did not have, and could not raise the £500,000 required to bring it back to a safe standard.

The Greater London Council had owned the building and let it to us for a peppercorn rent. Through the intervention of Councillor Anne Mallinson, later to become mayor, we had been able to buy the building at less than market rate; sell it for a greater sum; and buy a far less salubrious terraced building on the north side of Regents Canal further west along Harrow Road.

Much work was required to make this address fit for our purposes and ready for occupation. A firm was engaged to carry out the work, and a deadline set. Nothing was done for weeks. Promises were made and excuses given. Progress was minimal. Six weeks before we were due to move in I sacked the building company.

What to do next? No-one wants to complete major works which have been fiddled about with by a predecessor. Least of all Michael, whose policy is never to touch another builder’s snagging, and who didn’t relish the two hour drive to North London, before and after each day’s work. Nevertheless he, Matthew, and the rest of the Able Assignments team came to the rescue and did me proud. We were able to move in on time and they continued the refurbishment with little inconvenience to the activities of the charity.

We must have had a removal firm to transport our furniture, files, and other equipment, but for some reason I only remember the moving of one desk. The Settlement’s original and subsequent homes were about a mile apart. In drizzling rain, Roderick Graham, a debt counsellor, and I carried this piece from one to the other. The next day I had a cataract operation in Nottingham.

This afternoon I began reading Susan Hill’s ‘The Service of Clouds’ before Maggie and Mike collected me and drove me to their home in Eymet where we tried a new Indian takeaway restaurant. Poppy’s produced quite the best curry I have tasted in France. The proprietors are an English couple, the woman of which cooks the food before your very eyes. A limited menu is rapidly and superbly produced. The phal was very much to my liking. With it I drank an excellent Chateau Laville Bertou reserve minervois 2010. I chose it because it bore the tag Reflets de France, and I have found that whatever the product this is always a very reliable label. Not only that. I couldn’t find any Kingfisher.

Dana, Sandrine’s husband who has joined the family concern drove me back to Sigoules where I was entertained for an hour or so by Jamie and the Crazy Hearts; the drummer barely discernible in a corner behind three guitarists, one being the energetic lead singer who announced the numbers in French and sang in his native English; performing a Country Rock concert in Le Code Bar. Having eaten with the Kindreds, I declined the barbecue that was on offer.

Tending Livestock And Crops

Writing three-quarters of a millennium ago, Geoffrey Chaucer, our earliest great poet, in his classic ‘Canterbury Tales’ displayed a talent for capturing characterisation with simple descriptions of clothing and habits. Whether or not she was inspired by this writer, the modern P.D. James has this facility in abundance, as demonstrated by ‘A Certain Justice’ which I finished reading this morning. Her descriptions of place are equally poetic and add enormously to our understanding of the natures of her subjects. Within this elegant writing she weaves an intriguing and credible murder mystery.

In a not wholly successful attempt to dislodge yesterday’s stubborn mud, I grated my shoes along the gravel footpaths leading out of Sigoules as I set off on this much brighter but still chilly morning to walk the La Briaude loop. Apart from the rather raucus distant cawing of rooks, the birdsong was glorious, and the day fresh.

Unlike the New Forest ponies, who refuse to be distracted from their grazing, the more inquisitive Dordogne cattle would often lift their heads and stare.

Tempted by a stony uphill track, I took a diversion, and was rewarded by a sight of burgeoning barley. Through trees, this led to a road on which I turned left. Miraculously enough, this led me to La Briaude. I had discovered a wider loop that I will use in future.

Walking on towards Sigoules, I heard a tender male voice. Peering through the trees I saw the gentleman was addressing sweet nothings to his obviously well groomed donkey. We exchanged greetings. The man and I, not the ass. Further on, another man was tending his garden. Beyond a crop of bright yellow tulips, stretched rows of vegetables, at the end of which he tilled the stony soil.

The sometimes low and relaxed, sometimes more shrill and desperate cries of the as yet unmated woodpigeons drowned the cheerful chirruping of smaller birds as I set about sorting the sitting room.

Jackie will be pleased to learn that today’s Code Bar soup was yesterday’s veg one amplified by noodles. There followed shredded pot-au-feu beef with a tangy tomato based sauce including little tomatoes and accompanied by half a hard-boiled egg on lettuce. Not necessarily my favourite food, the main course of lasagne could have me converted. Profiteroles completed the Italian theme. Fred paid me the compliment of asking me the English word (strawberries) for the French fraises. A group of English diners were having them, but I had them yesterday.

Carry On Regardless

David has sent me an e-mail giving the information that Jamie and the Crazy Hearts will be performing a barbecue concert at Le Code Bar this coming Saturday evening. So, come on, all my French readers, turn up. I am assured by Fred that Johnny Cash will be there in person. Possibly in spirit, anyway.

I missed my assinine friend as I set off on this chilly, cloudy, morning granted the occasional shaft of sunlight, to walk the Pomport loop. The field he shares with goats was empty of fauna but full of flora, including long grass and nettles.

Wild flowers proliferated. Buttercups had more chance to brighten the landscape than those of last week in Minstead. Large daisies had formed their own, natural, chain, and dog roses mingled with others I cannot name.

The road was lined with cow parsley, and April’s knobbly-kneed vine stems were sprouting lime-green shoots.

As I neared Pomport the throb of the engine of a tractor working a field below, and the racket of ducks on the pond beneath the slope disturbed the general silence.

The sweet aroma of freshly mown grass led me to an elderly gentleman, his glistening face bespattered with cuttings. We had a satisfyingly lengthy conversation during which we discussed my route. He asked me if I was going via Cuneges. I wasn’t. He then suggested Saint Andre, a sign for which I knew appeared just before the usual road I take. I said I would.

Someone had placed a bouquet at the foot of the war memorial.

I had never taken the Saint Andre route before because it bears a no through road sign. But, relying on my local informant, I took a chance. The tarmac did in fact peter out at this hamlet containing a few smallholdings, that offered a different perspective to my downward journey.

A marmalade cat loped off at my arrival, but a chicken, apparently mottled with terra cotta shards, remained to fix me with its beady eye.

Following the colour scheme, a spray can on a rubbish heap appeared to have released its contents. I was able to pick my way through a very muddy track between vineyards that led to the road.

Approaching me as I reached the houses was a post van I had seen in Pomport. This somewhat disconcerted me because I did not want to end up back there. However, as the delightful song from Sam’s favourite album of the early 1990s from the aptly named The Beautiful South, came to me, I decided to ‘carry on regardless’. My son played this record over and over again and I never tired of it.

Reaching the D17 and not recognising it for what it was, I dutifully turned left. It was then that my experiences in The New Forest came in handy. I spotted a fallen fruit tree I had noticed on my way up, promptly turned round, and walked back down to Sigoules, feeling that I had learned some woodcraft after all.

Today’s lunch in the bar began with a tasty vegetable soup followed by a crisp slice of piquant pizza. The main course was a skewer of tiny tender hearts served with a spicy sausage and green and haricot beans. Sweet strawberries was the finale.

Would You Please Go Away?

Well as the builders had cleaned up after themselves, I can see that most of this week will be spent doing more of it and tidying the ground floor. This morning I made a start on the kitchen.

Jacqueline phoned me to ask me to participate in a charity walk in Lincoln. Unfortunately this is to take place on the next bank holiday when I will not be available. While we were talking, with my head sticking out of the attic window where I receive the most reliable signal, a small bird, with bright yellow heraldic markings on a brown ground, settled on the lichen covered tiles over the bathroom roof. I said I wished I had my camera in my hand rather than my mobile phone.

My sister mentioned that she has an appointment for neurological testing because of back pain. This reminded me of my own experience in search of a diagnosis for my problems with my left shoulder and hip. In order to check the functioning of my neural paths, I was attached to a machine fitted with electrodes that relayed current to my body, and intermittently, no doubt for sake of variation, subjected to sharp needle pricks. While this was going on, a woman devoid of any identifying hospital clothing, entered the room and began speaking to the technician about another, named, patient. I do not wish to indicate that the woman was not fully clad, which was more than I was as I lay on the bed in my underpants. She wore civvies.

Continuing to administer acute pain, which he had assured me was a good sign, the man responded to his visitor. This, to me, seemed a bit out of order.

Looking up at my uninvited guest who, had, until then,not given me as much as a glance, I said: ‘Excuse me. It may have escaped your notice, but I am lying here receiving electric shocks and having pins stuck in me. Would you please go away?’. She did. Without a word.

David told me that 250 people turned up to Le Code Bar’s first anniversary party just after I had left on my last visit. It has been well earned. As an example, today’s lunch consisted of plentiful tasty tomato and noodle soup; a succulent quiche with a well-dressed salad; tender steak and chips; and a mousse coated with maple sauce and floating in creme anglais, or custard to you, Jackie, that blended well with the paper table mat. A group of English people behind me were celebrating the birthday of another David. In his honour, David played a recording of the excruciatingly embarrassing Marilyn Monroe’s version of Happy Birthday sung at an event in honour of President John F. Kennedy. It was not embarrassing for the bar’s diners, who enjoyed the gesture.

Ping-Pong

Today I travelled by my usual method to Sigoules to inspect the completion of the ground floor improvements to the house. I was very pleased with the result. This was the first job of Saufiene and Clements’s new company, Renov Conseil 24, and they really wanted me to be happy. A bottle of champagne was produced, and we all had a glass.

The walls have been strengthened and levelled. The flooring is in fact laminate, but it is the best quality I have ever seen, imported from Germany. It is not squeaky, and remains firm underfoot, unlike that installed at Sutherland place when I was there. An insulating lining has been inserted between the existing tiles and the new surface. Redecoration is most tasteful and gives a light and airy feeling throughout. New skirting boards have been fitted and plaster damaged by the flood has been renovated. Pneumatic levers are to be attached to the repaired trapdoor.

Thierry, Geoffrey and a new man, Dylan, continued working throughout the afternoon and well into the evening. Apart from Saufiene’s acknowledged optimism, one reason why they have not yet finished seemed most bizarre. Four times yesterday the electricity supply was cut off. I was told the men asked Garry and Brigitte what had happened, and Brigitte said that the chateau owner had disconnected it. When the builders had tackled him he had simply laughed, as he had indeed done a couple of years ago when smoke from our log fire had somehow penetrated their house, throwing his wife into a panic.

I have mentioned before how this man is always smiling and friendly, but I don’t understand what he says. So I was somewhat perplexed. As if to demonstrate the problem, while the men were working in the hall, the lighting throughout the house failed. Whilst we were puzzling over this, someone decided ‘let there be light’. And there was. And it was good.

I came to the conclusion that if this story were true it must be because there was still some link with the chateau to which No 6 had been attached in the past. I telephoned Maggie to ask if she thought that were possible. She said she didn’t see how it could be, but volunteered to come and help me talk to my neighbour whom she had always found most convivial. We spoke to him and his wife. They too had had the problem, as had the bar and Carrefour. It had been a general power cut, as is sometimes the case in Sigoules. The couple were very friendly, and I had the longest, unaided, conversation I have ever had with the woman. We swapped hip replacement stories and compared scar lengths. With good humour she reminded me of the smoking fire. All was very amicable.

When we explained the general failure to Thierry, he immediately understood the situation, especially as we know our French neighbours on either side do not get on with each other. Our builder realised he had been the ball in a game of ping-pong.

Geoffrey showed me a number of before and after pictures on his mobile phone. Saufiene is to provide me with copies on a memory stick. Thierry insists he is not photogeneic. I disagree.

A bug with which I was not familiar crawled up the kitchen wall. Thierry identified it as a water stick insect, and warned me that it could give a nasty bite. It has gone, hopefully not up to my bedroom.

On the plane I began reading ‘A Certain Justice’ by P.D. James.

I’ll ‘Ave The Fish

Fields of buttercups on the way through Minstead were rather less than successful in brightening up a very dull morning as I walked the Shave Wood loop.

For a few brief moments the woodland was provided with dappled sunlight which managed to penetrate both the clouds and the trees. Perky violas, and unfurling cowslips and ferns penetrated the leaf layer of the forest floor.

Was this apple blossom I saw? If so, how did it come to be in the woods? Had someone merely discarded a core?

The bottom of a large fallen tree was almost obscured by the flora covering it, in a clear example of the dead trees’ contributions to the ecosystem.

This evening Jackie drove us to Sopley where we dined at The Woolpack. The lay-byes on this now clear evening on the stretch of the A31 between Castle Malwood and Ringwood were largely occupied by huge container lorries, their drivers no doubt snug in their hotel rooms which are their cabs. They would have been preparing their evening meals, watching TV, reading, sleeping, or whatever took their fancy.

The piped music at The Woolpack, being session musicians’ performances of old favourites like ‘On the street where you live’, or ‘The last waltz’, accurately determined the client group. That is, our contemporaries and even more senior citizens. An attractive hanging basket outside the window contained splendid pansies falling over themselves to peer in and people watch. They were particularly fascinated by an elderly couple and their daughter and son-in-law.

While Dad went to get the drinks in, a prolonged and oft revisited debate took place about what Mother would have for her dinner. The problem seemed to be that the elderly person’s desire for fish and chips was for some reason doubted, or maybe contrary to some dietary regime. When the drinks arrived, Mother went to consult the specials board in the other bar. ‘I’ll ‘ave the fish’, she repeated, iterated, and reiterated. She had actually been determined on that before inspecting the other offerings. Her daughter was equally determined she should have the steak. Fish and chips it ultimately was. This had the benefit of terminating the discussion. Now, The Woolpack is famous for serving its fish and chips in newspaper. I began to feel rather sorry for the woman who had chosen this delicacy, because, of course, it had to be stripped of its newspaper, and someone of at least my generation must have felt nostalgic for eating the traditional English takeaway in the correct wrapping, even if it was to be consumed in the restaurant. I know I was when I last dined here and said, with no contradiction, ‘I’ll have the fish and chips’.

On this particular occasion I had steak pie followed by pear crumble, and drank Doom Bar. Jackie enjoyed gammon steak with creme brûlée for afters, and drank Carlsberg.

Cheers, Errol

Louisa, Errol, Jessica and Imogen and I made an early start as Errol drove us to Ocknell camping and caravan site near Fritham, so they could investigate the facilities. They have bought a tent and intend to start camping. We went out along Roger Penney Way, where I thought we might see donkeys, cattle, and even pigs, to complement the ponies. We did see a few, but more were to come.

The nearest we got to pigs were the Peppa Pig brochures which the girls studied avidly as their parents sought information at the site’s reception office. They had, of course enjoyed a trip to Peppa Pig World with Jackie and me on 3rd November last year.

On our return, I suggested a drive through Fritham, where we were treated to prolonged close-ups of both donkeys and cattle who were in no hurry as they ambled up the road. There can be no more ungainly gait than that of hoofed animals on tarmac. Even the new calves show signs of their parents’ awkwardness. The donkeys showed us their rear views. The cattle ambled towards us aiming, no doubt, for their sheds at the junction leading to The Royal Oak. When we turned back after coming to the end of the road, they had clearly been in no hurry, so we had to follow their rears as well. On Stoney Cross Plain there were a number of forest pony foals to be seen.

It was not yet 10 a.m. when we returned to the Lodge. We had already had one diversionary trip to stop Jessica and Imogen from waking Eleanor’s household. Eleanor is ten years old and my granddaughters were itching for her to join them in the den. But the curtains were drawn in her flat and it was Sunday morning. I therefore stood in for the young lady until our very early lunch, necessitated by the family’s long journey back to Nottingham.

The den is within the spreading limbs of an enormous rhododendron which provide an excellent climbing frame. Paving of various materials, some of which have been decorated with charcoal from a bonfire; a little fabricated gate; a patch in which carrots are being grown; a set of wind chimes; various plaster ornaments on a bird-feeder; and a wooden seat straddling the almost horizontal branches, are all features of this creation. With immaculate timing Eleanor came in to view just at the point of lunch. As quick as a flash the girls were off to join her. Imogen took her cucumber-filled crusty roll off with her, and returned a few minutes later for earth to be scraped off the filling. Naturally she was given fresh ingredients.

This evening I received a photograph from Errol that he had taken yesterday. Strangely enough, I was walking in the wrong direction (I am indebted to Becky for this interpretation of the picture, which is more apt than my original).

We were also grateful to Errol for providing the drinks that went with our evening meal tonight. Jackie drank a can of Stella he had left in the fridge, and I finished a bottle of a French wine he had bought at the village shop. This beverage trips off the tongue as well as it slid onto it. It is Lazy Lizard Shiraz 2011. We ate oven fish and chips followed by Jackie’s rice pudding and Sainsbury’s profiteroles.