donkey – Page 4 – derrickjknight

A Rant

Today was what David calls ‘the big tidy up day’, so there was no walkabout.

This morning I finished Dennis Wheatley’s ‘Vendetta in Spain’. With a good grasp of history and a fine attention to detail, Wheatley tells a rollicking good story. Set in the first decade of the twentieth century, this novel was, even when published in 1961, described as historical. This got me reflecting on what is history? For a child of the last century, born in 1942, it was initially strange to think of this book as such. When Louisa, born in 1982, once asked me who Winston Churchill was, I was quite surprised. Then I considered my own ignorance about the First World War; my lack of knowledge of the ministers and personalities involved. I was even vague about Douglas Haig. and I had been born far closer to that event than she had to the second conflagration. Then, I remember Churchill’s funeral. How we experience time changes as we age. When I write of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, it seems like yesterday, yet must be remote history to my grandchildren. As the days go by, I feel I have all the time in the world, yet the reality is that mine are numbered. Six months in a child’s life seems an age. To a septuagenarian it is nothing.

My house in Sigoules was built in the eighteenth century, from solid stone. Exposed beams are from barges which struggled down the Dordogne loaded with produce. Since they could not be taken back up the raging torrents, the vessels were broken up and used for building. I understand the crews then walked back to their starting points and began again with newly built craft. Now enormous refrigerated vehicles bring regular fresh produce to Carrefour and Le Code Bar. I can fly to Bergerac from Southampton in the same length of time as it took me to commute from Newark to Kings Cross.

I received a call later from James Bennet of Azzurri. Azzurri is a company to which O2 allocated my mobile phone management about three years ago now. They apparently ‘manage’ mobile phone accounts. The first I heard of this was a letter from Azzurri, sporting the O2 logo, telling me I would be hearing from one of their representatives. As long as I have been a mobile phone user I have had an O2 business account. I only ever had one previous problem. Oh, yes, the Azzurri intervention was a problem. The earlier one was my discovery from my bank statements that the cost of my mobile phone had rocketed during the last two months. On closer inspection, and after telephoning O2, it transpired that for nine months I had been paying for two mobile phones. One wasn’t mine. Because the first seven amounts had been virtually identical to mine, I had not noticed that there were two entries each month. Obviously the lucky person who hadn’t been being billed got greedy. In fairness, O2 immediately put that right and gave me a refund.

Back to James Bennet and Azzurri. As I needed to be able to send e-mails from France I actually welcomed the initial approach. I was informed that I needed a Blackberry with which I would be able to do this. I have no problem with that. I can. Now. The phone was quickly supplied and the contract signed. Mr. Bennet then seemed to be less communicative. Which was a pity, since I could not access my e-mail account. Neither could I get anything from Azzurri but voicemail messages. I inundated my personal account ‘manager’ with texts, voice- and e-mails. He almost never responded. I made several visits to O2 outlets in London, each taking upwards of an hour of time. Every single, initially confident, O2 consultant failed either to contact Azzurri or to access the account. Not one of them had heard of Azzurri. I always had to provide the contact number. Eventually we were told that Mr. Bennet had not passed the relevant information to the necessary department. At last I gained a promise from him that it would be done within two days. It wasn’t. And his voicemail message had changed. He had gone on holiday and would not be back until I was in France. I managed to reach someone else. He made, and failed to keep, the same promise. Finally, I spoke myself with technicians who were able to solve the problem over the telephone. I can’t remember whether they were in O2 or Azzurri departments. But does it matter? All the information is at home in England.

There followed extensive letters, mostly unanswered, and phone calls to O2 Customer Relations department. When I finally spoke to the manager she informed me that I was bound to Azzurri for two years. You can imagine my response to that. Eventually she agreed to release me from Azzurri. Coincidentally, I received a box of chocolates from O2. One had been sent to each ‘valued customer’ of ten years or more. When I politely suggested that didn’t really fit the bill, she proudly told me it had been her idea. I think she realised I wasn’t impressed. Furthermore, to compensate me for my trouble, I would receive a list of events at the O2 Arena. I could choose any performance for which I would be given two tickets. The list never arrived.

Maybe I had been freed from Azzurri. But if anyone told them, they ignored it. A year ago I received a phone call from a poor chap who had been given the task by Azzurri of contacting all customers to see how satisfied they were with the service. I told him. I finished by saying it wasn’t his fault. Just his bad luck. Now James Bennet calls me. As I can only get a signal on the loo seat upstairs, I did not reach the phone in time and had to listen to a voicemail message from him. ‘It is a little while since we spoke’ and there are possibitilities of a new tariff and a new handset. I calmly walked up to the village square where I can be reasonably sure of an uninterrupted signal. Of course I got his answerphone. I left a fairly firm message. Well, it was firm, and fair. He responded with an e-mail to which, as I had said, I will not reply. I had asked him not to contact me again.

The Code Bar pizza, a quarter carafe of red wine, and chocolate surprise pudding finished the day nicely.

A Welsh Interlude

Fearing the heat, I set off even earlier than yesterday for a walk to Pomport and back. As I began my return journey I could see rainclouds over Sigoules, and very soon the lapis lazuli canopy under which I’d begun my outing had turned into a slate roof. The sweat I’d engendered on the way up had become decidedly cool. Now I feared for the washing I’d left out in the garden. No rain came, and the sun soon re-emerged.

I met the donkey with its goat family mentioned on 8th. June. In order to be more precise in the preceeding sentence, on my return I attempted to ascertain the sex of this creature. Although I swear all I’d done was stand and stare s/he seemed to take exception and started up an horrendous honking until I moved on. Quite fearsome really.

Further up the hill, still lies the memorial described on that same day, although the floral tribute is missing.

As Charles bears witness, vines are strung out all around Pomport, which is a most attractive village. Walking through it, I was surprised to see an antique Austin car standing in a covered alley beside a house. Wandering inside, I encountered a group of four having their breakfast. They were English. Unfazed by my intrusion, one of the men proudly informed me that he had renovated the vehicle, ‘every nut and bolt’, himself. I should have asked him what model it was, but I expect some of my readers will know. He then opened a garage door and proudly displayed a vintage Vauxhall that he planned to drive back to England next week. I think he was rather pleased someone had taken an interest.

People were playing tennis in the now half-completed Leisure Centre in the valley between Sigoules and Pomport.

Last night and this afternoon I was deeply engrossed in ‘A Welsh Childhood’ by Alice Thomas Ellis. This is a very well produced Mermaid publication enhanced by Patrick Sutherland’s evocative black and white photographs. I imagine my friend Alex Schneideman, himself a first-rate professional, would find these illustrations inspiring. The writer’s descriptions of her childhood, and diversions into Welsh myth and legend, are enthralling.

Given Ann and Don’s nineteen years in N. Wales; the family in whose company I spent last evening; and the many holidays I have enjoyed, and occasionally endured, there, the book, donated by Don, is rather pertinent. It will stay on the coffee table in the sitting room of No. 6.

What I was quite unprepared for was the similarity in style of a well-known writer to that I have been cultivating in my blog. Many of her memories sparked more of mine, for which I may find future space. Today I choose to recount some with which I believe Ms. Ellis may be out of sympathy. Although she loved the thrill and freedom of playing in the hills, she doesn’t seem to have appreciated sport. In this she is not alone, but I make no apologies.

I enjoyed numerous training runs in the hills around Gaeddren, Ann and Don’s Welsh home. (If necessary, correct my spelling, my old friend). Perched on a hill above Cerrigidrudion, this house was an ideal point from which to engage in fell running. Since I used the roads, this wasn’t actually fell running, as I had done in the Lake District, but it felt like it. Watching the changing light as I ran up and down roads cut from this rocky terrain, passing streams and rugged trees sometimes indistinguishable from the granite they clung to, was a truly exhilarating experience. It was on one of these two hour marathons that I felt my only ‘runner’s high’. No pun intended. Please don’t think I could, even on the flat, run a marathon in two hours. Here, I use the word figuratively. A ‘runner’s high’ is a feeling of intoxicated elation, said to come at one’s peak. No further pun intended. Well, I never tried LSD. I did, however, find it useful pre-decimalisation. Pun intended.

When I did seek an even route I ran the complete circuit of Llyn Tegid, known to the English as Lake Bala. Having three times, once in 88 degrees fahrenheit, managed the Bolton marathon, which ends with a six-mile stretch up the aptly named ‘Plodder Lane’, with a vicious climb at the end, I thought I might attempt the North Wales marathon. Imagine my surprise to find it boringly, unrelentingly, flat. Here I will divert, as I once did in the Bolton race. My grandmother, then in her nineties, was seated on a folding chair in order to watch me come past. I left the field, nipped across, kissed her on the head, and quickly rejoined the throng. She seemed somewhat nonplussed, as did a number of other competitors. After all, why would anyone willingly supplement, even by a few feet, a distance of 26 miles 385 yards?

The other day, in Le Code Bar I had met an Eglishman with a Birmigham accent. He had bought a house in Fonroque because he had a French girlfriend. Feeling sure Judith would know him I mentioned him to her. She did. When he turned up for a meal this evening, I saw what had attracted him to France. As they were glancing in my direction I got up from my usual table and approached the couple. I told the gentleman I had a friend who knew him. He didn’t know what I was talking about. He was French. Whoops. Undeterred I told him he had a doppelganger. Since Flaubert’s use of the word is the same as the English one, confirmed by my dictionary, I thought I was on safe ground here. I wasn’t. Fortunately the beautiful woman he was with translated and told me it wasn’t a problem. I slunk back to my duck fillet and chips followed by creme brulee, and found the two glasses of red wine quite comforting.

A Freudian Slip

6.6.12

I travelled this morning by cab to Southampton Airport for my flight to Bergerac where I was met by Sandrine who drove me to Sigoules. Sandrine, who speaks very good English, is the daughter of Lydie Semprez who is Taxi Eymetois. For three years now I have been driven to and fro by one or the other of these delightful women. I never know which of them will meet me, but they are always on time, and when it is not possible for either of them, Lydie’s husband occasionally obliges. When I pulled out my wallet to pay, Sandrine reminded me that I had paid in advance on my May trip because Lydie had had no change.

After opening up the house I walked to Pomport and back. This is a four mile round trip through hilly countryside comprising woods, fields, and vineyards. The roadside is full of wild flowers and at this time of the year is most verdant. On this overcast, yet warm and humid, afternoon the only creature I met with whom to hold a conversation was a donkey who shares his his long hillside habitation with a family of goats. Although he fell into step beside me and treated me to assinine utterances we didn’t get very far because I don’t understand his language and he didn’t understand mine.

There is a leisure centre at the bottom of the hill leading from Sigoules which has been derelict since I took possession in December 2008. There had been plans for renovation to take place the following summer, but I expect they fell foul of the credit crunch. However, there are signs of work in progress at last. Watch this space.

Further on, up the hill towards Pomport, by the roadside on the edge of a wood, is a memorial embossed: IN MEMORY OF SIRON AND LAMY SHOT BY GERMANS 23.4.1944. In front of the stone is a pot containing geraniums and sweet peas. I reflected that almost 70 years later I have a good life and their’s was cut short.

On my return journey Lydie drew up alongside me in her taxi. The first time she had driven past me had been rather different. In my mobile phone memory I have the numbers of three taxi firms; Bergerac, Sigoules, and Eymet. Early in 2009, not realising that Lydie is perfectly happy to start a journey from Sigoules, it seemed sensible to use the Sigoules firm. I duly made a booking by telephone. This was for Chris, Frances, and Elizabeth to be driven to Eymet. Setting off earlier, I was to walk and meet them all there. Just before the time due for the pick-up I received a phone call from a woman checking whether I wanted the trip from Eymet to Sigoules, or the other way round. A little puzzled, because the Sigoules company was run by a man, I said the journey was from Sigoules. Continuing on my way I soon noticed the Eymet taxi speeding in the direction of Sigoules.

I then had an alarming thought. Which company had I booked? Checking the calls in my mobile phone memory I discovered it was the Eymet firm. Panic then set in. I couldn’t phone Chris because there was no signal at the house. I imagined Lydie turning up at the empty property and my siblings walking up to the Sigoules taxi firm to ask where their transport was. To compound the problem, my family members did not speak French and Lydie had no English.

Consequently I had a very uncomfortable continuation of my walk. I needn’t have worried. They managed to communicate well enough and were soon beside me on the main road from Bergerac. We have not looked back since. Now, of course, Lydie and I know each other’s voices.

Today I began reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Whose Body?’

This evening the clouds had dissipated and I dined alfresco at Le Code Cafe, two doors away. At a table prepared for me by David, the proprietor, I enjoyed vermicelli soup, roast duck and frites, followed by a delicate pear flan, with half a carafe of red wine.

Afterwards I watched ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ on my laptop. This slow-paced under-stated film, directed by Tomas Alfredson, which nevertheless demanded, and held, undivided attention, was excellent. Gary Oldman as George Smiley, gained the plaudits, but no film featuring Kathy Burke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Ciaran Hinds, John Hurt, Roger Lloyd-Pack, and Mark Strong, could possibly go wrong.