At lunchtime I took the back route down into Boé, once just a small village, now a huge retail park on the far side of Agen.
We are having a kitchen panic! Yesterday we trailed round five kitchen shops looking for ideas for the cottage. Monday we spent nearly all day in Ikea in Bordeaux and today I went back to one of the shops we visited yesterday to get a proper quote. The sudden rush is that I'm back in the UK from tomorrow for a week and there are deals to be had before the end of March.
The back route winds and twists its way over the hills that shape the Garonne and the Lot valleys. Sharp bends through woodland open up to vistas of rolling farmland and distant villages. The hedgerows are crisp pale green and the plum trees are in bloom. Miles of orchards clinging to the hillsides are flushed with white or pink, the trunks stark black against the new green grass and buttercups at their feet.
For much of the way, I have the road to myself. It is, after all, lunchtime. For a few miles I get caught behind a huge farm vehicle, like a giant bright yellow child's toy. Great fat wheels straddle both sides of the road and the back of the truck looms over my car. The camper van that I'd passed miles back (first of the season) catches up with me and we crawl along in convoy until the truck pulls over. I wave as I pass and I'm back to a clear road. It beats shopping for kitchens round the M25 and the South Circular.
The plum blossom will be over by the time I'm back. But by then the tulips, pushing their way up through the pansies, should be in bloom.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Barcelona
We went to Barcelona for a long, sunny weekend and came home early.
We strolled the wide boulevards with their grandiose, balconied residences. We found the port and crossed the road to find a busy, sunny café and a great meal - three courses including paella, squids in their ink, plus wine - all for less than the price of one dish at the posh seafood restaurants on the quay. We lazed on the beach and people-watched. I put my bare feet in the icy water of the Med.
And we found the glory of Gaudi.
The batmobile, with the hood down, brought us home via the windy (and windy) coast road of the Costa Brava. Between the ghettos of apartment blocks, there are still sanctuaries of wild countryside, elegant beaches, deserted coves and deep canyons filled with blue-green sea.
Click on the arrow below to see a short slideshow of photos from Barcelona.
By Spanish standards, it was still winter, so the hotel air-conditioning was firmly off. Our specially-chosen-to-be-quiet small box of a room was stuffy and too hot. So we opened the window, which faced into the well of the building. After two nights of listening (through ear plugs) to very late-night revellers in their rooms, we came home to the silence of our countryside and slept.
While we were there, we savoured the joys of the city (and the metro). We wandered the "old town" with its narrow alleys, filled with tourists peering at maps; round every corner another museum, old church, quaint shop or tapas bar to try.
We strolled the wide boulevards with their grandiose, balconied residences. We found the port and crossed the road to find a busy, sunny café and a great meal - three courses including paella, squids in their ink, plus wine - all for less than the price of one dish at the posh seafood restaurants on the quay. We lazed on the beach and people-watched. I put my bare feet in the icy water of the Med.
And we found the glory of Gaudi.
The little I knew of him from pictures of his mosaics, I expected gaudy. Nothing had prepared me for the soaring spectacle of the Sagrada Família Basilica (more than a century on, still being created) or the warm, sensual curves of the wood and the play of light on tiles and glass in the Casa Batlló.
We went up one of the basilica spires and gazed down on a hazy Barcelona, then slowly descended the spiral staircase - coiled like the inside of a snail shell - every turning offering new vistas to be photographed.
The batmobile, with the hood down, brought us home via the windy (and windy) coast road of the Costa Brava. Between the ghettos of apartment blocks, there are still sanctuaries of wild countryside, elegant beaches, deserted coves and deep canyons filled with blue-green sea.
Click on the arrow below to see a short slideshow of photos from Barcelona.
Links:
Monday, 2 March 2009
Gardening Days
My wellington boots have walked wet clumps of green grass across the kitchen tiles.
I left the kitchen boiler which I'd just lit (although it's almost too warm to need it and the single basket of cut wood will be enough for this morning until we relight it tonight) and went out to inspect the small fruit trees we planted last autumn. The two nectarines have been looking like their buds will burst for what feels like weeks. Small edges of pink are squeezing out between the brown sepals. The cherries and apricots though are still tight shut.
Madame M (wife of Monsieur M who sells us his wood and who dropped round Thursday to talk about mowers and tractors and what we will need now we have the extra land) said that the weather was going to change and so Saturday, before it did so, Tod mowed our already too thick, long, wet grass, which then lay around in small heaps, ready to be picked up by unsuspecting passers-by and brought back into the house.
These are days for gardening: bright, clear and still cool enough to work right through.
On Saturday, I attacked the pampas grass at the back of the house, which needed a tidy. Tod grumbles that it cuts out the late afternoon sun and its tall plumes had been broken and scattered by "La tempête". The grass had a huge skirt of dead grey-brown blades which I tugged and raked out. Cutting back the fallen plumes I uncovered this year's green shoots, ringed in mauve, the colour of spring onions. Much of the centre is dead, but I left some of the rotten stalks as it is home to small creatures. I found two old nests (one still with an abandoned white egg) and disturbed a green tree frog. I think the hedgehog that Clara used to hunt hibernates under a pile of brown vegetation in the middle and our first summer it was sanctuary for a family of quail.
While working, I glanced up to see Tod (after cleaning the swimming pool) in shorts on the lounger under the bare branches of the silk tree, reading in the warmth of the afternoon sun.
This morning the sun is shining through a soft mist and despite Madame M's forecast, there is the promise of another good gardening day.
I left the kitchen boiler which I'd just lit (although it's almost too warm to need it and the single basket of cut wood will be enough for this morning until we relight it tonight) and went out to inspect the small fruit trees we planted last autumn. The two nectarines have been looking like their buds will burst for what feels like weeks. Small edges of pink are squeezing out between the brown sepals. The cherries and apricots though are still tight shut.
Madame M (wife of Monsieur M who sells us his wood and who dropped round Thursday to talk about mowers and tractors and what we will need now we have the extra land) said that the weather was going to change and so Saturday, before it did so, Tod mowed our already too thick, long, wet grass, which then lay around in small heaps, ready to be picked up by unsuspecting passers-by and brought back into the house.
These are days for gardening: bright, clear and still cool enough to work right through.
On Saturday, I attacked the pampas grass at the back of the house, which needed a tidy. Tod grumbles that it cuts out the late afternoon sun and its tall plumes had been broken and scattered by "La tempête". The grass had a huge skirt of dead grey-brown blades which I tugged and raked out. Cutting back the fallen plumes I uncovered this year's green shoots, ringed in mauve, the colour of spring onions. Much of the centre is dead, but I left some of the rotten stalks as it is home to small creatures. I found two old nests (one still with an abandoned white egg) and disturbed a green tree frog. I think the hedgehog that Clara used to hunt hibernates under a pile of brown vegetation in the middle and our first summer it was sanctuary for a family of quail.
While working, I glanced up to see Tod (after cleaning the swimming pool) in shorts on the lounger under the bare branches of the silk tree, reading in the warmth of the afternoon sun.
This morning the sun is shining through a soft mist and despite Madame M's forecast, there is the promise of another good gardening day.
Sunday, 22 February 2009
We've Bought More Land
Friday we became the proud owners of another hectare of land.
Google tells me that a hectare is 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres. And this is where I'm supposed to say: "The size of a football pitch" - or something. So you can visualise what I am talking about. Anyway, it's big and at the moment is planted with rape.
The land (carefully measured out by the géomètre and marked with red plastic borne markers at the far corners) swoops in a curved dip the other side of the track that goes down to our derelict cottage. The cottage - which becomes less derelict by the day - is the reason we've bought it.
We've been restoring the cottage (when I say "we" I mean the builders have) and we needed drainage access from our fosse septique to the ditch on the far side of Serge's field.
We were already in the process of buying a small scrubby triangle of land from Serge, which would make us the owners of a large walnut tree and a scruffy corrugated iron roofed shed attached to the remnants of an old barn wall. Because we needed access to the ditch, Serge thought it would be a good idea if we bought his football pitch sized piece of field as well. (For full details of the story see Problems with the Drains on La Petite Maison)
At the same time we've bought a small piece of the field up behind the house from Monsieur F. This means that he can no longer plough close to the edge of our boundary and hopefully that will help stabilise the bank and stop the mud sliding across our drive when it rains.
We sat in the notary's office for an hour and a half as she read through every paragraph of the two sale documents and we all initialled or signed every page. Having been through this when we purchased the house, we knew what to expect, but it still is painful to discover how little French we understand.
Serge has the right to harvest his rape up to August 1st. After that date, he would have to pay us a fine of €100 per day. He tells us he will be harvesting on July 14th - Bastille Day. In the meantime, he tells us we can get access to the ditch on the far side, ideally via an underground pipe so he can harvest above. Good, we have friends staying in the cottage in June. We need the plumbing to be working!
Google tells me that a hectare is 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres. And this is where I'm supposed to say: "The size of a football pitch" - or something. So you can visualise what I am talking about. Anyway, it's big and at the moment is planted with rape.
The land (carefully measured out by the géomètre and marked with red plastic borne markers at the far corners) swoops in a curved dip the other side of the track that goes down to our derelict cottage. The cottage - which becomes less derelict by the day - is the reason we've bought it.
We've been restoring the cottage (when I say "we" I mean the builders have) and we needed drainage access from our fosse septique to the ditch on the far side of Serge's field.
We were already in the process of buying a small scrubby triangle of land from Serge, which would make us the owners of a large walnut tree and a scruffy corrugated iron roofed shed attached to the remnants of an old barn wall. Because we needed access to the ditch, Serge thought it would be a good idea if we bought his football pitch sized piece of field as well. (For full details of the story see Problems with the Drains on La Petite Maison)
At the same time we've bought a small piece of the field up behind the house from Monsieur F. This means that he can no longer plough close to the edge of our boundary and hopefully that will help stabilise the bank and stop the mud sliding across our drive when it rains.
We sat in the notary's office for an hour and a half as she read through every paragraph of the two sale documents and we all initialled or signed every page. Having been through this when we purchased the house, we knew what to expect, but it still is painful to discover how little French we understand.
Serge has the right to harvest his rape up to August 1st. After that date, he would have to pay us a fine of €100 per day. He tells us he will be harvesting on July 14th - Bastille Day. In the meantime, he tells us we can get access to the ditch on the far side, ideally via an underground pipe so he can harvest above. Good, we have friends staying in the cottage in June. We need the plumbing to be working!
Sunday, 15 February 2009
To Smudge, with Love
It was time to let him go.
So often he rallied, only to gradually weaken again. He no longer sat in the back of the car, watching the world go by. Instead, he lay, gently grumbling with pain and just looked at me when I tried to entice him out for a walk. I could feel every bone of his ribcage and spine as I lifted him.
Smudge, beloved dog, these words are for you:
"He knelt down beside him and took his head on his lap. He stroked Beaumont's head and said, 'Hark to Beaumont. Softly, Beaumont, mon ami. Oyez a Beaumont the valiant. Swef, le douce Beaumont, swef, swef.' Beaumont licked his hand but could not wag his tail. The huntsman nodded to Robin, who was standing behind, and held the hound's eyes with his own. He said, 'Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now, old friend Beaumont, good old dog.' Then Robin's falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and to roll among the stars."
from The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White (posted on Total France by Tygerbright in memory of Dandy)
RIP: 3rd February 2009
So often he rallied, only to gradually weaken again. He no longer sat in the back of the car, watching the world go by. Instead, he lay, gently grumbling with pain and just looked at me when I tried to entice him out for a walk. I could feel every bone of his ribcage and spine as I lifted him.
Smudge, beloved dog, these words are for you:
"He knelt down beside him and took his head on his lap. He stroked Beaumont's head and said, 'Hark to Beaumont. Softly, Beaumont, mon ami. Oyez a Beaumont the valiant. Swef, le douce Beaumont, swef, swef.' Beaumont licked his hand but could not wag his tail. The huntsman nodded to Robin, who was standing behind, and held the hound's eyes with his own. He said, 'Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now, old friend Beaumont, good old dog.' Then Robin's falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and to roll among the stars."
from The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White (posted on Total France by Tygerbright in memory of Dandy)
RIP: 3rd February 2009
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Joy of Joys ....
.... we're back on line!
Three weeks ago, Friday night, south west France was hit by a "tempête" and we lost our electricity, 'phone and internet, a few tiles and an elderly plum tree. The electricity was back after three days, but the 'phone has taken a bit longer.
The storm came on top of days of rain and everywhere was waterlogged. The previous morning, I'd walked across the kitchen floor in bare feet to find I was standing in a small pond. The rainwater had found a new way to ooze out of our clay foundations - up between the kitchen tiles at the join with the concrete floor of the cupboard where the old hot water tank sits.
With no 'phone, over those first days, we dropped in on friends to find out how they were, drank tea and shared war stories. Some friends lost power for only a few hours; others were off for days and some had no water. We drove into town in the evening from the pitch darkness of the countryside, looking for light and warmth.
Over that first weekend, small groups gathered on the belvedere in town to look down on the raging torrent of the Garonne and the flood waters that stretched to the horizon. The main roads to Agen and Villeneuve were under water and we watched rescue boats travelling between the lines of trees that had marked the roadsides, bringing people in from outlying farms. A tractor surged down one flooded road and gently deposited two people at the water's edge. They calmly stepped out of the lowered bucket scoop on the front and made their way up hill to the shops.
We wondered at the effects of a wind that chose to tear down that tree and not the one alongside. Some plantations were ravaged, others hardly touched. A cedar in a park on the edge of town has been ripped and torn from its trunk, yet the two on either side still stand.
Later on, we learnt that over a million homes had been without power and that the Gironde to the west of us took the brunt of the storm, with winds over 170 kilometers per hour. People debated whether this was worse than the storm of 1999 and discussed buying generators "for the next time".
We now have a box full of camping gaz lamps, candles and fat torch batteries - just in case.
Three weeks ago, Friday night, south west France was hit by a "tempête" and we lost our electricity, 'phone and internet, a few tiles and an elderly plum tree. The electricity was back after three days, but the 'phone has taken a bit longer.
The storm came on top of days of rain and everywhere was waterlogged. The previous morning, I'd walked across the kitchen floor in bare feet to find I was standing in a small pond. The rainwater had found a new way to ooze out of our clay foundations - up between the kitchen tiles at the join with the concrete floor of the cupboard where the old hot water tank sits.
With no 'phone, over those first days, we dropped in on friends to find out how they were, drank tea and shared war stories. Some friends lost power for only a few hours; others were off for days and some had no water. We drove into town in the evening from the pitch darkness of the countryside, looking for light and warmth.
Over that first weekend, small groups gathered on the belvedere in town to look down on the raging torrent of the Garonne and the flood waters that stretched to the horizon. The main roads to Agen and Villeneuve were under water and we watched rescue boats travelling between the lines of trees that had marked the roadsides, bringing people in from outlying farms. A tractor surged down one flooded road and gently deposited two people at the water's edge. They calmly stepped out of the lowered bucket scoop on the front and made their way up hill to the shops.
We wondered at the effects of a wind that chose to tear down that tree and not the one alongside. Some plantations were ravaged, others hardly touched. A cedar in a park on the edge of town has been ripped and torn from its trunk, yet the two on either side still stand.
Later on, we learnt that over a million homes had been without power and that the Gironde to the west of us took the brunt of the storm, with winds over 170 kilometers per hour. People debated whether this was worse than the storm of 1999 and discussed buying generators "for the next time".
We now have a box full of camping gaz lamps, candles and fat torch batteries - just in case.
Monday, 19 January 2009
My Small Stones
One of the joys of blogging is finding other people's words and pictures. The blogs I particularly like I save to my "treasure trove" (see in the right hand column). Some I find through Blogger (blogs of note), some through just clicking on other people's collections and seeing where that takes me.
One of my favourites is Fiona Robyn's A Small Stone - daily reflections on her life.
She has extended her idea to invite others to offer their reflections on A Handful of Stones. Fiona has graciously accepted two of my small stones, one is published today. The other will be published on February 6th.
If you have found this blog through A Handful of Stones, welcome.
Fiona - thank you.
One of my favourites is Fiona Robyn's A Small Stone - daily reflections on her life.
She has extended her idea to invite others to offer their reflections on A Handful of Stones. Fiona has graciously accepted two of my small stones, one is published today. The other will be published on February 6th.
If you have found this blog through A Handful of Stones, welcome.
Fiona - thank you.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Mountains and Sea
Thursday, Smudge and I went on an awfully big adventure to the Mediterranean. We live close to the Autoroute des Deux Mers motorway which stretches from the Atlantic to the Med. So I get this restless feeling from time to time - a tug at the heart for sea air.
I've been to Bordeaux in the west. It was time to visit Narbonne in the east.
As Smudge ages, he becomes an easier passenger. He spends most of the time sleeping on the back seat, except when we stop for motorway tolls, when he sits up like his old self and protests.
He slept as we swept over the brow of the hill that looks down over Toulouse and, to my joy, there ranged in the distance in all their hazy blue and white glory - the not-often-seen Pyrenees. For the rest of the journey they played hide-and-seek, as we headed away from the lush pastures of the Garonne valley and into the scrubland of their foothills.
Narbonne is three hours away according to Google. With frequent pit stops it took us four; plus another half an hour getting lost trying to find Narbonne Plage.
We looked at the sea and the almost deserted beach, breathed in the salt air, noted the sign that said "no dogs on the beach" in three languages, said "bonjour" to several people on bicycles and two elderly dogs. Smudge lay down on the pavement by the smart new maisonettes all painted in dark burgundy glowing in the late sun and told me that he'd had enough. So I carried him to the car and walked back alone, across the wet sand. Dog footprints showed me that the locals ignore the sign.
I watched a woman striding out towards the sunset and suddenly realised that there, in the distance, a hint of blue up where the clouds should be, the Pyrenees touch down to the sea.
And then we came home.
I've been to Bordeaux in the west. It was time to visit Narbonne in the east.
As Smudge ages, he becomes an easier passenger. He spends most of the time sleeping on the back seat, except when we stop for motorway tolls, when he sits up like his old self and protests.
He slept as we swept over the brow of the hill that looks down over Toulouse and, to my joy, there ranged in the distance in all their hazy blue and white glory - the not-often-seen Pyrenees. For the rest of the journey they played hide-and-seek, as we headed away from the lush pastures of the Garonne valley and into the scrubland of their foothills.
Narbonne is three hours away according to Google. With frequent pit stops it took us four; plus another half an hour getting lost trying to find Narbonne Plage.
We looked at the sea and the almost deserted beach, breathed in the salt air, noted the sign that said "no dogs on the beach" in three languages, said "bonjour" to several people on bicycles and two elderly dogs. Smudge lay down on the pavement by the smart new maisonettes all painted in dark burgundy glowing in the late sun and told me that he'd had enough. So I carried him to the car and walked back alone, across the wet sand. Dog footprints showed me that the locals ignore the sign.
I watched a woman striding out towards the sunset and suddenly realised that there, in the distance, a hint of blue up where the clouds should be, the Pyrenees touch down to the sea.
And then we came home.
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