August 2010
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 21 attached, just in time for the end of the month, campsite technology permitting!?! We are currently having a few days away in the newly registered caravan, using up some camping cheques we had when we first came to France, so I’m relying on the campsite Wee Fee (or Wi Fi to the rest of you), again the wonders of modern technology!
We are staying on a site very close to the beach just south of Royan, at the mouth of the Gironde estuary. We are going home on Saturday, then have about 10 days before we return to England on the 15th September for about a month. Hopefully we will catch up with lots of you then, although we are as always flying “here, there and everywhere” around the country visiting family and friends. As things stand we are around Stroud the weekend of 18th September and maybe a couple of days later in the visit so may see some of you then.
It’s the jam / chutney making in earnest season at the moment, and we are rapidly running out of jars again. If we are likely to see you during our visit – ALL JAM JARS GRATEFULLY RECEIVED!!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
More of “The Chronicle” ~ Missive 21
“There is a terrible English word, ‘sensible. I cannot bear this ‘sensible,’ it has nothing to do with the senses.”
Said by a Spanish Lover in Joanna Trollop’s book of the same name.
“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” Henry James.
To pick up briefly on the theme of “Finding the Higgs” (Missive 19), I have since we moved here sent our many visitors simplified routes of how to find us in the back of beyond. On all of these I tend to go by the names of the next destination and where I use road numbers issue a “public service announcement” suggesting that the road number may have a different letter prefixing it or be totally different to what appears on the map or the number I suggest!!. Indeed, the French road numbering system remains to me, and many others, another of France’s mysteries (see below). But read on – finding us couldn’t be easier!!
It was therefore no surprise to find the following line in an article in The French Paper, a relatively new and rather interesting English language newspaper: “French road numbering is unsystematic and can be very confusing (!)” But the same article goes on to explain “E” numbers, not those in processed food that have in some cases the reputation of sending children totally doolally!!, but rather the United Nations international E – road network.
Basically, if you are trying to get to us from the SW:
• Pick up the E 05 at Oxford and turn right at Poitier, or
• If coming from the N / NE pick up the E 15 somewhere between Newcastle and London, take the E 402 at Calais to Rouen and pick up the E 05 and follow the instructions above.
With either, should you arrive at Algeciras, on the South coast of Spain, you missed the turning at Poitier!!
Or if you’re feeling very adventurous – mind you you’ll have to be very quick to find a Higgs, she’s back at the weekend in the UK!!, you can take an “E” road to China, which reminds me of that well-known Yorkshire saying – Ee by gum!! But enough frivolity, before her indoors starts to tell me I’m rambling – as if!!!
We’re back this missive looking at The Chronicle and picking up on some of the themes mentioned last time and here again to remind you:
Writings / Poems / House / Garden / Menus / Postcards – Letters / Projects / New Words / Flowers and Trees / Animals and Birds / Sketches / Descriptions / Planting advice / People / Food / Miscellaneous ~ not forgetting a section on St Laurent, that was added later.
New Words
The plan here was to really learn French, and despite certainly only being a little nearer to being able to hold a conversation, we did this evening talk to Mickaël the local farmer about his recent holiday and discovered that he had visited Limonsin, where it was very hilly, very beautiful, thickly wooded and green, and he had had a good time fishing amongst other things! We were also able to tell him that we are about to go away for five nights in the caravan a little way down the coast at Royan, then coming back for ten days or so, before returning to England for about a month. This is slightly longer than intended, but we need to fit in seeing Victoria on her return from China, my Mum and Dad, Linda’s family in York, a trip to Stroud (Daniel and Lisa and anyone else), a family gathering one weekend, a conference another and one or two people and places in between! So it’s a bit of a case of “ici, la et partout!” Perhaps some of the words are rubbing off and we are getting a little better!! Then, earlier today we met a very chatty French couple who moved into St Laurent at about the same time as we did and who always pass the time of day if we bump into each other. They speak no English but we managed to say that Linda was going home to make jam in the jars we had just bought and I joked that I was going to sit down with a coffee and watch. I went on to say that I was going to be in the garden in the hot sunshine and realising that they might think I was going to sunbathe, managed to make sure they realised it was to work in the garden – something that they can relate to as they have a fantastic show of flowers in their garden.
So, although perhaps we are not dreaming in French, apparently a sure sign that you’ve finally got it, we are at least beginning to get there!!
Then, there have been the “Clever Words” series in the last few missives, featuring some of my collection of quotes and sayings that I am constantly adding to, as I have discovered does Monsieur (M.) from the chateau, who when he discovered this said to me “But, you and I are like twins!!” (it was the second or third coincidence of our conversation!), but I pointed out that he in fact lives in the big house and I live in the small one at the end of the drive, not now, but previously the servant’s quarters! Talking about M. brings me neatly to another somewhat strange learning of new words!
M. popped around the other day firstly to invite us out to lunch, and knowing about my photographic exploits, to ask if I would be able to take some photographs of some of his family portraits that hang in the chateau, in order for him to email them to a cousin who is compiling a family history. Some hours later, and a couple of cups of coffee, as seems to be the case when we chat, I returned home downloaded the photographs from my camera, where necessary “fixed” them by cropping or manipulating the exposure / colour and sent them to M. by email. I thought I should explain what I had done and why there were two of some of the pictures and not others, but was a little concerned that although his spoken English is excellent, his reading of English might not be, so decided to use a translation site to translate my message into Spanish, M’s chosen language despite him being a Frenchman!! There followed a number of exchanges in English and Spanish about these and some subsequent photographs, and suddenly it dawned on me, that having come to France to learn French, I was now conversing with a Frenchman in Spanish!!! Now whenever he sees me, apart from flinging his arms in the air and shouting “Olé Olé Olé” he spouts forth whole streams of Spanish as though miraculously I have become fluent overnight!! But, and it’s a large but, I can now visit a Spanish disco and confidently ask the DJ for one of my favourite songs by Chris de Burgh ~ la señora en rojo! Aarrh, sounds so much more seductive and evocative than simply: Lady in Red!!!
Almost as bizarrely one of our recent guests added considerably to my knowledge of the Australian language. Some years ago my children’s Secondary Headteacher (I shall name no names!) who had worked for some time in Australia, told me that whilst there, she had spent much of her time wearing rubber thongs!! I was mightily relieved that she didn’t say “only wearing” and even more relieved to find that the “garment” was not what I had immediately thought, but rather the very practical and obvious Australian name for flip – flops, interestingly often called thongs now in France!! Then, a recent visitor, who will also remain nameless, but interestingly another Headteacher, Primary this time and due to retire at Christmas (you and no doubt many others know who you are!!) asked me if I knew what the Australians call Speedos swimming trunks. Having to admit that I didn’t, and slightly alerted by my previous knowledge of the language, I wasn’t surprised when he informed me that they call them “budgie smugglers!!” Several times during his visit he was heard to mutter with a giggle “budgie smugglers!!,” (perhaps it’s for the best that he’s retiring!!) until his wife, obviously getting tired of hearing the term, said she didn’t know why he kept saying this as he didn’t have much of a budgie for his Speedos!! - what a put down, but he didn’t say it again!!
Our patch “St Laurent” and not so far away!
Our patch! : Games afternoon / Presentation ~ We have basically said that wherever possible we will attend village functions and show our faces and try to talk to some of the longer standing St Laurentians. So it was that we attended this social afternoon on a recent Bank Holiday and also our new English friends who live just around the corner had entered and won the best garden prize for an old house and we felt we should support them.
So it was that we arrived at the designated time, shook hands with a lot of people as is customary in France, watched M. le Maire and his friends playing a local game called Palette, where you throw small metal discs at a target lain out on the ground, trying to work out the rules which weren’t as simple as we first thought! When it became obvious that we were not going to be invited to join in, we joined the women and children inside playing board games (at one point I was the sole man!!) and played a game of Triominoes (three sided dominoes) with a group of older women, one of whom we had met before and who obviously felt that she knew us well, as she took great delight in correcting one of her cronies about where we lived!!
Then it was into the hall for a “verre amité” – a glass of friendship – and huge slices of one of the local specialities, brioche, a rich soft buttery bread! Then the prize winners were presented with lovely pot plants together with much merriment. A good time was had by all, and with seemingly little regard for the drive home!!
Ploughing match ~ This took place on the same day as one of the events below, but as it was local as I said above, we put in an appearance. The event was an all day affair, with novices in the morning, lunch and drinks for the competitors and the main event scheduled for 14.30, at which time we dutifully arrived. Having been here in France as long as we have, we should have known better, as lunch was still well and truly underway, and other than a fairly impressive line of about 15 enormous tractors, varying in age but all supporting a mammoth seven furrow reversible plough shaft, we were the only spectators who had arrived and stood around trying to look both knowledgeable, nonchalant and inconspicuous! Well, over half an hour later there was a flurry of excitement, as the competitors (average age about 16 who hopefully hadn’t been partaking!), leapt into the waiting tractors, started them with a roar and with a total disregard for health and safety zoomed off to predetermined stations dotted around the field, their large shiny and heavy ploughs waving precariously behind them and at times rather close to the now thronging masses who had either now finished lunch or had read 15.30, for the publicised 14.30, due to previous experience!!
That was as exciting as it got, as when in position, very much in their own time, the competitors spent some time measuring, marking up and psyching up, excruciatingly slowly did a marker strip up and down, before doing more measuring and waiting for the judges to mark the first bits!! Despite a small beer, the lack of excitement was just too much and we decided to call it a day and visit pastures new, in the hope of some exhilaration! To this day we don’t know who won, but as we left we noticed that there were so many trophies that everyone would appear able to win something, even if as a spectator sport is was akin to watching paint dry!! I also mused about how the enormous tractors would get home that night as the competitors were too young to drive them on the road and their “co-drivers” seemingly in most cases parents, there to advice, help with the measuring, cast knowing looks and unsuccessfully hide disappointment due to their body language, had spent lunchtime and the periods of time between each round of judging propping up the bar!
Not so far away! : Fête de le Blé et la Terre ~ Having left the paint drying, we went off in search of excitement and it might seem incredible, but we found it amongst the sheaves and ears of the Wheat and Soil Fete! This took place in the next village to ours and as we had passed through the village over the previous few weeks the activity had been promising as signs appeared first, then a collection of old farm implements, then staging, fencing and all the trappings of excitement!!
And indeed as I said, when we arrived there was excitement aplenty, with the throngs of people being entertained by a large band of “enthusiasts” dressed as old (as in times gone by!) farmers, although in the case of the man who appeared to be the “main man,” obviously an old retired farmer. He appeared to own much of the vintage equipment both on static display and at work, as he spent the whole time walking proudly around, big smile on his weather beaten face, or overseeing the various demonstrations of the old farming equipment, at least on one occasion with a glass of wine in his hand. The displays and demonstrations were impressive, not least as they traced the journey of wheat from the ploughing and sowing to harvesting and threshing using a variety of old-fashioned machines, with a total disregard for health and safety – large unguarded fly wheels flying, belts spinning at alarming speed, large prongs forking up the straw in close proximity to people’s heads and fingers close to the hoppers feeding in the stalks of grain. You’ve got the idea – unadulterated fun and not a safety garment in sight.
We were having so much fun and it was a lovely warm evening, that we stayed quite simply till the party was over, the evening entertainment being a concert of Vendée based up and coming or semi-professional acts, who by and large were very entertaining and usually reached the high notes. Two performers however, stood out from the rest a lady singer with her own fan club (her teenage son shouting the loudest!) and a quite simply breath-taking piano accordion player, not a dry eye in the house, who can’t have been older than fourteen!!! He had the place in uproar and almost silenced the compere, who certainly liked the sound of his own voice!!
But, the entertainment also continued on the field away from the stage, as it seemed that the only way out for all the exhibits, including a couple of very large cows, was between all the stalls and finally, with a sharp turn between the bar and the arena around the stage, so as “electric” accordion playing and Edith Piaf songs warbled from the stage large tractors and trailers, steam engines and more did battle with the crowds and the low slung electricity cables on their way home after a highly successful and thoroughly entertaining day!! More than made up for the après home decorating experience of earlier in the day!!
Music dans la Rue de la Loge & Luçon night will have to come next time as time and space are running out rapidly!
People
As I said before obviously one person, a certain Monsieur, has featured a lot in previous missives and I can’t let a recent encounter go unrecorded! A couple of days previously he had told us that the egrets had returned and were “hanging like grapes” from the trees at the far side of the largest of his three lakes, and he thought they would make a great photograph. He even said he had thought about phoning to tell us, but didn’t like to disturb us!
So the next morning I suggested to Linda we went to see if they were there, as the sun was in the best position for a good photograph. As we set off out of our yard, we met Monsieur who had ventured out to check his post box, which is on the post on the other side of the road, underneath ours and both underneath a large old oak tree. He was wearing a garment that I had noticed him wearing recently, particularly as on one or two mornings there has been a definite autumnal chill to the air – a black hoodie!! After chatting for a few minutes, we told him where we were going and he asked if we would mind if he walked with us, so we set off down the road to enter the park by the back gate as we usually do when M. is in residence. By now the sun was creeping up in the sky and warming up, so M. put up the hood to keep the sun off his head, as he has even less hair than I do!!
As many of our conversations revolve around scoundrels and rogues, I thought it opportune to tell him that dressed as he was he would be refused entry into many shops in the UK as hoodies are associated with young “ner do wells!” Appreciating the joke he was still a little puzzled as to the implications, but I suppose that France has just banned the burka, so the French are not adverse to a bit of “clothing control!” We continued around the corner and despite entering the shadow of the trees, M. continued to walk with his hood up! As we crossed the end of the area that he calls his flower meadow, we spotted an empty beer bottle, where no beer bottle had been a few days previously and some way inside M. private property.
M. was concerned that it meant someone who shouldn’t have been, had been into the park and conversation turned once more to how he would like live CCTV whilst living in Spain to keep an eye on the place. Then, he decided to pick up the bottle to take it home for recycled and proceeded to carry it in a fashion that looked as though he was about to take a swig!! I told him that this made him look even more like a scoundrel or a rogue, and quick as a flash he retorted that didn’t we realise he led a double life (the irony being that on several fronts this is actually true!!), sometimes the respectable Count living graciously in the Chateau, but at other times he led an altogether darker more sinister life of drink and debauchery, and this from someone who had told us they didn’t drink!! (But here we were to discover there really was another side, involving drink if not the debauchery!! But that’s another story!!) He then carried the bottle like that all the way on our walk back up passed the Chateau, where he put the bottle down by the inner gates, the hood now down, the charming immaculately mannered Count had returned and as such must escort his such amiable charming English companions out through the main gates after so delightful a walk!!
Food
Or I suppose this should be Food Map, an “offshoot project” (see I can still put out the jargon!!) based on food but feeding into the kitchen initially at least!! In my many wanderings, be it a stroll around the park after supper or a more serious twelve miler, I am forever coming across food growing wild in the hedgerow, in the woods or wherever. So it seemed logical to make a note of where the best finds could be had, particularly as on one occasion we collected some very second rate sweet chestnuts before I stumbled across a sunken lane that seemed to be sinking even more under the thick carpet of nuts that covered the track – so much so that poor Max had real problems negotiating a pain-free path! But, these gleanings were fantastic and I improvised a bulk chestnut roaster as we had so many. So in the next month or two, when this year’s chestnuts are ready, this lane will be our first port of call hoping that “lighting strikes twice!!”
Now the list of ditch food, as we have started to call it, has grown to epic proportions. My mother phoned one night in the middle of our tea and wondered what we were having, when I said ditch apple pie, she said what’s that and a new term was hatched! Indeed, now each of the sites is being added to a map so we know where to go as each item comes into season, hoping this year they are as good as last!!. Now often the “treasures” that I bring home are of an edible variety!!
“Ici devant nous!”
Jumping frogs “ain’t got nothing” when it comes to the jumping stakes, a mere 25 times their body length just paled into insignificance!! Walking over to the garden a few days ago, a small something leapt into the air and travelled an amazing distance before coming down to earth. Closer inspection revealed it to be a light green / brown coloured cricket / grasshopper like creature about 3 cm long. And then a quick measure of the jump came out at 2 ½ metres or 250 cm, which a quick calculation will tell you is 83 times the creatures own body length, or to go back to the analogy of the last missive and the now less than springy frog, like a 1.8 m person jumping about 150 metres – now that would be impressive and rewrite the Olympic record books, and make the drug test team twitchy!!!
But keeping on the jumping theme, how do you get a large black dog (Tottoon) to jump vertically three feet into the air!?! The answer is quite simply sent her off down the path in front, so that it is her that stands on the four foot plus black and vivid yellow snake that just happens to be basking in the late summer sunshine. Having jumped high into the air, a quick glance and a tentative sniff persuaded her that it was best left alone. Alerted, we crept forward and were surprised that the offending creative had stuck its ground and was in no hurry to go anywhere. Some quick and rather cautious photographs; how very useful telephoto lenses can be!!, and we made a large detour as the snake hurriedly slithered off into the undergrowth and we hurried off to look up this close encounter, partly out of interest, but also to be sure that we didn’t have to rush Tottoon off to the local vet, as we were looking after her that day!
As always the wonder of modern technology, in this case the internet, came up trumps and identified the snake as a Western Whip snake, not venomous but capable of giving a nasty bite and prone to be aggressive!! Even more thanks for telephoto lenses!! We also discovered that you tell if a snake is venomous by the shape of its eye; a round pupil means non-venomous and a slitty eye you have to watch out for! Well something to get someone else to check out for you, or again put the telephoto to good use!! When we discovered this piece of information Linda said well I could clearly see the eye was round – me? I wasn’t taking any chances and certainly wasn’t going to make a habit of staring a snake in the eyes to check, particularly as someone recently told me that being bitten by a grass snake, rather plentiful in these ‘ere parts, is about as painful as two wasp stings – ouch!!!
My original “thought!”
The French Mysteries I posed in Missive 16 have been solved!! Well, at least one and two halves of the seven I presented you with!! I make that 28.6% or nearly a third success rate, (plus temps sur mon mains and it’s good to keep the brain active!!) and not bad to start with!!
French Wood piles: Perhaps the most boring explanation and only part of the answer, is that in some cases the piles are owned by people who sell it on to the many people who are installing wood burners to beat the high price of oil, as is the case with the local farmer!! I have also decided that there is something of a status symbol in having a large neatly stacked pile of firewood – neatness as well as size does seem to be important!! Also, perhaps with the above section in mind, I’m tempted to wonder if the owners of the piles are a little worried about what might be lurking in the lower layers, and consequently keep adding to the pile so as not to get to the bottom and disturb wildlife that might have moved in!!
Céteaux meniere: Here my French Mistress sowed the seeds of an explanation, suggesting that my scribbled note perhaps related to something I had read on a menu or seen outside a restaurant as it bears a resemblance to the dish “sole or truite (trout) meunière.” Research in my fish book discovered that a fish a little like a baby Dover sole is called séteaux or cétaux in French, but my large French dictionary translates meunière as “Mistress of the Mill, Miller’s Wife or longtailed titmouse!” So what then are the possibilities: simply a sole / trout dish, this dish as devised by the miller’s mistress or wife, or a fish fillet stuffed with a titmouse – take your pick!!
BUT, French Sticks or Baguettes: still largely a mystery, although again my Mistress tried to help! Maybe, she thought, the people are catering on mass for a canteen such as for school dinners, but if this was the case I think the camionette de boulangerie (baker’s van) would deliver them! Then she thought maybe the leftovers could be used for a popular French dish – pain perdu or perhaps you might know it better as eggy bread!! But as she says, there’s a limit to how much of this you could eat, and none of the people are carrying large quantities of eggs, as well as the bread!!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
And maybe to come next time? Who knows as we will have been away in the caravan for a few days, taken luncheon with Monsieur and spent half of the month back in “dear old blighty!!”
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Chronicle ~ Missive 20
July 2010
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 20 attached, apologies if you also receive Victoria’s updates – she beat me to it this time, hopefully you won’t feel too Higgsed out – two communications in one day!!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
The Chronicle ~ Missive 20
“Sharing our house with friends is one of the real joys of Bel – Air, and finding that it is a special place for them too, is a bonus.” N.B: in our case for Bel – Air read La Loge, although there are about 8 Bel – Air’s within spitting distance!!
Particularly of flora and fauna: “There is the time and quiet here in which to wind down and observe this other world.”
Both of these very apt quotes come from “A Harvest of Sunflowers”
(also very apt as they are just coming up to their magnificently stunning best, all around us!) which is Book 2 of Ruth Silvestre’s partial escape to France, “Sunflower” trilogy.
Shortly before we packed up and moved here, I had read a lovely book by someone who had beaten us to it and done it already. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of the book and as it is at present languishing somewhere in a cardboard box in Stroud, I can’t go and have a look and discover it for you!!
However, the book was written about the first year of the author’s “escape to France” in much the same way as my missives and suggested the keeping of a chronicle with a number or sections, so prior to departure I edited my own chronicle framework to include the following sections or chapters and this missive and the next will pick up on some of the sections, as in many ways - more by luck than judgement - much of what I have recorded and projects I have undertaken during the last eighteen months fit haphazardly into the planned framework:
Writings Poems House
Garden Menus Postcards /Letters
Projects New Words Flowers and Trees
Animals and Birds Sketches Descriptions
Planting advice People Food
Miscellaneous
to which I subsequently, once we had “arrived” added a section on St Laurent, “our patch,” which contains any events in the village and the surroundings to which we have been.
Obviously there has been a good degree of overlap between some of the sections, as it is hard to separate out detailed pieces about people or the house, for example, from the missives (Writings) that hopefully you look forward to receiving! Also, some sections have remained barren, particularly the poems and sketches sections, although the artistic intentions have perhaps been, at least for the time being, superseded by my photographic endeavours and associated slide shows.
In short, much of what has been chronicled since our departure has come together for now as “My Blog” which contains the missives and much more, which in due course may well become the next “escape to France” book!!!
Garden
From last year the garden, at least the cultivated part has almost doubled, with three new borders, giving us lots of room for potatoes but also space for some newcomers.
And courgettes ........? Well, we made the perhaps unlikely decision to have as many plants as last year, despite the angst that it caused us the previous year, with sleepless nights caused by nightmares featuring giant courgettes chasing us around the garden!! But, having discovered so many great courgette recipes, including ones for chutney and pickled courgette, which over the course of the winter we had all but run out of, it seemed sensible to make more of the same for this winter. Sensible that is until the jars ran out and the great green giants once again started chasing us around the garden! I have just frozen the latest batch, which some books will tell you isn’t possible! But we have discovered that the best way to cook them afterwards, if you are not just adding them to a sauce, is to defrost them and roast them on an oven tray, spread with a little oil, it dries them up and gives them back some of their crunch.
The rest of the garden continues to produce plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit, the fruit just coming into ripeness, but much less of it this year. We will have a few black plums; very few cherry plums (last year there were so many that they were breaking the branches) and a hopefully a good crop of peaches as we are watering them well this year – now we know what they are!! I think they’ll be less fruit than last year, but each one bigger thanks to the extra watering.
From the top then we have growing or being picked, or have had; potatoes (probably three crops this year), a few parsnips from last year, purple sprouting, French beans (2 crops), onions (2 crops), sugar snap peas (possibly 2 crops), tomatoes, peppers, celery, celeriac, leeks, carrots (if the rabbit or hare that has set up home in the garden doesn’t get them first!), cabbage, beetroot, runner beans and not forgetting the courgettes!! Or should I say: pomme de terre, panais, violet germination (or broccoli violet peut-être!), haricot vert, oignon, pois mangetout, tomate, poivre vert, celery, celeriac, poireaux, carrotte, chou, betterave, haricot d’Espagne et courgette, in that order!!! And, that’s not to mention various herbs, salad leaves, radish and hedgerow or wild foods.
Mentioning the wild food, this grows in abundance and one of the food projects I am undertaking is a “Wild food map” locating on a map, the source of various ingredients for dishes such as my “Ditch Apple Pie!!” But more on the wild food of the region in a future missive.
People
Obviously, one person has featured a lot in previous missives and will again in the future, but for now it’s his dog Tottoon who is taking centre stage, well they are part of the family, and we see more of the dog than the master! Also, someone asked the other day if having a surrogate dog around helps, to which I’m sure the answer is yes, but not sure how we’ll feel once dog and master return to Spain at the end of the summer.
At the moment, following a couple of times when we have looked after Tottoon, she seems to have moved in! Previously, except for one occasion when she was caught around at ours, in a very heavy shower of rain, when we allowed her to sit on the mat just inside the door waiting for the rain to stop (which in itself is a little silly, as she likes nothing better than to plunge into the various ponds around and come out and roll around the grass drying off!!), she had always been very good and not tried to venture into the house, just sitting forlornly just outside the door gazing longingly with her big dark eyes, which she puts to good use, accentuating them by looking slightly askance and so framing one side with the brilliant white of the rest of her eyeball!! Monsieur says she has very astute eyes!!
Her first visit was just for the day, but we felt if she was being left with us for the first time, the second time longer and already planned but more of that later, then she should be allowed in, in part to prepare for the couple of nights that would follow a week or so later. Anyway, the first visit was whilst M. went off for Sunday lunch with some relations in a restaurant near Nantes, but with no shade in the car park, so he asked if she could stay with us. On the appointed day he came around with her, told her in Spanish (although like her master she seems to be fluent in at least Spanish, French and English!!) that she was staying with us and that he would be back and with that I held onto her collar as much to her puzzlement, he walked off around the corner, got in his car and drove off! Normally, he never goes anywhere without “his princess!”
Well, I held on to her until I felt he was clear of the avenue and Tottoon decided to roll on her back and have her tummy tickled, which as it turned out was a clever “I’m not bothered he’s gone ploy!” to get me to let go of her collar. Continuing the deception, she let me tickle her tummy for a few seconds, before in one quick motion turning over, jumping up and running off around the corner!! A little worried she would try to follow the car, I followed her and was surprised to see no sign of her on the road, instead she had headed home to the chateau jumped the moat (her normal entry point) as the inner gates were locked and finding the normally open front door tightly shut had taken up position on the step awaiting her master’s return. Unfortunately, the locked gate and the moat make it nigh on impossible for us to enter the inner part of the chateau grounds and she was there sitting in the bright sunshine at nearing the hottest part of the day!
We had already decided to take her for a walk in the shade of the woods and to let her cool down with a swim in the lake, but it looked a little as though I might be doing the swimming first, across the moat to get the dog who hopefully would recognise me and not carry out her guard duties too dutifully!! Thankfully, a couple of whistles and a call of her name and she came back, jumped back over the moat accepted the proffered chew and dutifully set off in front of us towards the woods. After a walk in the woods, a swim in the lake at least for Tottoon (M. says the lake can be swum in but has leeches in it!!!) and it was the acid test as we walked back passed the inner gates and turned towards our house and the outer gates. Totally, unconcerned Tottoon, without so much as a backwards glance, followed us home, although returning to guard duty later in the afternoon. This time she happily came when whistled and as I strolled back along the drive, totally “to the manor born” I thought M. was returning as a car similar to his pulled up at the chateau gates. Imagine then my surprise when the window came down and a voice said “Hello Roger” and I was confronted with a couple of friends from Stroud, who happened to be passing, (as you do!) and stopped off for a cup of tea!! But that’s another story, although unfortunately I wasn’t able to come out of the gates, they were locked and I had to duck around the side of the hedge and admit that the chateau wasn’t our abode, rather the servants quarters around the corner!!
But back to Tottoon, she welcomed our visitors and joined us for tea, waved them off afterwards, but was quite pleased when M. returned a short while later and she was able to go home with him!! But, she was back again for a walk with us later on after our dinner, so an afternoon slumming it in the servant’s quarters hadn’t put her off!!
This was just as well, as just a few days later the departure scenario was repeated this time with M. bringing Tottoon’s food and bed, together with an old sweaty tee shirt to keep her company as she slept, and having a longer conversation about how she was his princess, constant companion, partner, his all, and how he would miss her whilst he went into hospital for a minor op and a stay of a couple of nights. This time Tottoon was less concerned, although M. was convinced that she wouldn’t eat any of her dinner that he tipped out into her bowl, as she would be pining! Another walk and once she had been shown where her bed was, she settled very well, didn’t head back for the chateau, ate all her dinner and went happily to bed, and had even pushed out the tee shirt in the morning!!!
She was however, delighted to see her master back, made a big fuss of him and went home with him, although as he was tired and took to bed she was back within half an hour, feeling even better as we had now our next lot of visitors, who included a couple of girls, aged 10 and 12, who were more than happy to respond to astute eyes and proffered tummy!! That night we had a real job persuading her to go home, posting her over the moat several times before she got the message that her bed had moved back. Funnily enough, now she rarely waits to be invited in, finding our tiled floors nice and cooling in the very hot weather, but has not once ventured down to passage to the bedroom where her bed was, when she became our lodger. She is still spending a lot of time with us, but now after the evening walk, all I have to say is “Bon Nuit” by the outer gates and off she goes!!
Also, we have begun to be able to place some of the other St Laurentians, as the inhabitants are known, in addition to the three other English couples we have met who live in the commune, two permanently having sold up back home in the UK and moved lock, stock and barrel, the others spending summer here, but retreating back to the UK for the winter, less silly than it might seem at first as the winters can be quite harsh in these ‘ere parts! It seems increasingly likely that this is what we may end up doing – a small place in the Vendée and The Parrot House back in Stroud, fitting life round the two.
After a few false starts, I think we have finally sorted out the family of the farmer who keeps an eye on and tends the chateau in Monsieur’s absence. He and his wife live in the farmhouse over the field from the end of the avenue, with the youngest son, Mickael, who lives we think in a self contained part of the house. The older brother lives in a bungalow next door with his wife and three daughters and the farmer’s daughter is married to the fauchage (village grass cutting etc) man, and live in a modern bungalow across a couple of fields with their two daughters. The daughter in law’s best friend lives at St Laurent’s other chateau “Le Plessis” in the converted stable block and her and her husband look after the big house and several other people in and around the village, including possibly the Mayor, M. le Maire, all seem to have connections with the farmer and his family. We even seem now to have got most of their names, so as time goes by the “family tree” might be expanded!!
Food
To some extent following on from the section in the last missive; “Chilli Pasta,” food has understandably featured large during our time in France, not only for ourselves now having the time should we so wish to “stuff mushrooms!!” But also, for the many visitors that we have received and needed to send on their way well “fed and watered,” with some typical French style meals to look fondly back on, as part of their holiday memories.
After the last missive, where I talked about recipe searching, I found the following Nigel Slater quote on his website, it completely sums up what I feel about recipes and how I often modify accordingly! “I have always felt that a recipe be something to inspire, remind and lightly influence rather that a set of instructions to be followed, pedantically, to the letter.” How very right! We have at the moment visitors who we hadn’t seen previously for well over ten years. They used to live a few doors down when we lived in Huntingdonshire, and nearly every weekend we would get together to eat at each other’s houses or to go out for a meal or a drink. The other night after dinner, Mary paid me the compliment of saying that I was still a good “chef!” My response took her a little by surprise, as I thanked her and said that I thought I was actually better!! It wasn’t meant to brag or show off, I just think that between then and now I have gone from the learning and following the recipe book stage, to knowing instinctively what goes with what and being able to cook “off the cuff” as it were, with the odd bit of research into my various cookery books, particularly when looking for something new, regional or for flavours that go together that I hadn’t thought about before – for example courgette makes a mean cake and the recipe for courgette and ground pepper muffins is on the comment at the end of the July 2009 Blog entry. Try it, it goes together deliciously, like chilli and chocolate which is particularly good with a venison steak!!!
Just a flavour for those yet to sample La Loge fayre and a reminder for those who already have, here are some of this year’s recipes (in no particular order!): Mogette (Vendée beans which to achieve their creamy best, must be boiled for a minimum of 3 hours!) or Puy lentil casserole, warm potato and sausage salad with a grainy mustard dressing, fruit pizza, sorrel or courgette pancakes, pan-fried green beans, pan-fried duck breasts, pan-fried fish with creamy herb sauce, rice with garlic and crème fraiche, mushroom risotto and boudin noir (French black pudding which is softer than its French counterpart) with fried apple and mushrooms ...... the list goes on and on and others may feature in future missive. And, if we take Nigel Slater’s quote above to heart, you don’t need the recipes, just the seeds, a little imagination and some experimentation, for example the boudin noir is great moulded into a tall thin cylinder (an empty tomato purée tin works well) served on top of a slice of lightly grilled French bread that has been rubbed with raw garlic! Try it, or a variation that you come up with and see for yourself!!
For those of you concerned that since Max is no longer with us, we will have to eat his share of the bread, don’t despair!! As the nub ends collected and I didn’t have the heart to throw them away, a little research came up with a number of recipes that involve breadcrumbs or stale bread, which have since been added to the repertoire, including quite the silkiest fresh fruit bread pudding I have ever tasted! As I say, another for that list above!
St Laurent
I have discussed previously the village, or commune, in which we are currently living, with particular reference to “village finance” and indeed once again we have received a full colour 32 page “Bulletin Municipal” giving us all the gen on the previous twelve months. Indeed, we are featured on the Page 6 État Civil ~ “naissances – marriages – décès – nouveaux arrivants 2009” “births, marriages, deaths, and newcomers 2009” where we are welcomed to the village. But it didn’t stop at that, as shortly after receiving the bulletin, we received a flier late in December, from M. le Maire, informing the residents about the forthcoming annual meeting and “Ceremonie des Voeux” “Welcoming Ceremony” to take place on 22nd January 2010. But to be sure, in the next post, we received a personal invite from Sébastien ROY, Maire de Saint-Laurent de la Salle inviting us “plus particulièrement” “more particularly” to the ceremony, in order to be officially welcomed into the commune, to meet the Municipal Council, other inhabitants and to find out about the different associations (clubs and organisations) that take place within the commune.
Fortunately, at this time our winter travels for a family wedding, Christmas and the New Year had finished and we were back at La Loge, trying to keep warm and find things to talk to each other about, as “surprisingly” the visitors dried up a little once the sun had gone!! I therefore felt that as we had received our own invitation, despite the lack of an RSVP, a well used English acronym which actually as I’m sure you know stands for a French phrase one of several in common usage in England, I felt that we should at least acknowledge and accept the invitation, and say how we were looking forward to meeting M. le Maire, so duly sent a notelet to this effect, in of course my best, or should that be google translate’s best!, French!
I was pleased I had done this, as when we arrived at the event, M. le Maire, looking quite uncomfortable in a suit a tie, he’s a young agricultural contractor and mostly around in jeans and tee shirt, came straight over welcomed us and thanked us for the note, all in French as he doesn’t speak any English!! There followed a very pleasant evening, with the “parish report” and then presentations to the newcomers of a goody bag with a poster of the mairies of the Vendée, some leaflets about environmental concerns and a lovely full colour book about a variety of gardens in all parts of the area. Then drinks were served and we felt well and truly welcomed into the community.
“Ici devant nous!”
This is the “Flowers and Trees” and “Animals and Birds” sections rolled into one, and as I said last time will catalogue some of nature’s splendours that surround us and continue to surprise us. Indeed, having just gone out onto the avenue to look for Tottoon, the Chateau dog, who was lodging with us for a couple of days, I saw my second red squirrel but the first close to home, nonchalantly hopping and bobbing along the grass verge, noticeably smaller than the grey squirrels I am used to at home. These larger gray species, have it is claimed driven the reds out, although recently I did see some evidence that in the right situation the two can co-exist relatively peacefully together, something politicians have been trying to achieve, in places like the middle east, for many years!!
But the main theme this time is frogs, and I hasten to remind you that this section is about wildlife!! You may have read previously about the large toad that waited patiently, and continues to do so, on the front doorstep, just waiting for someone to bite the bullet and pick it up give it a kiss and wait for the consequences!! Also, I’ve told you about the noisy frogs, initially mistaken for “invisible” ducks that croaked at great volume on the nearby small lake and indeed any suitable body of water, at times when the sap was rising and this year they have totally surpassed themselves, which I suppose accounts for the near plague like numbers of tiny miniature frogs that are everywhere, including last night under one of our young visitors beds. At first she and her cousin who is also staying, thought it was a large piece of fluff, until it jumped!! And, it’s the jumping to which I want to turn in this section.
These frogs are, as I said, everywhere and it is quite hard not to stand on one as you walk outside, in the garden, along the road, in the park – as I said everywhere!! They are perfectly formed replicas of the adults, dark olive green / brown in colour and by can they jump!! Most at the moment seem to be up to 2 cm in length and either aren’t growing or as they grow they become better at keeping out of our way with more youngsters growing up to replace them. At first when you come across them they scatter as you walk, and you might well mistake them for the many grasshoppers that frequent the area, but closer inspection reveals these tiny amphibians, with an impressive jumping ability. It is not uncommon for one of these frogs to jump 50 cm, or 25 times the length of their body.
Equate this to a human being of 1.8 m in height who would have to jump about 45 m in a single stride to compete, so pretty impressive and as they can put several of these jumps together in quick succession, catching those that have decided to come indoors during the balmy evenings we have been having, when the door doesn’t get shut until late, is not only a case of out flanking them and then catching them in the cut off two litre lemonade bottle with a cardboard piece cut to slide under the opening, but also somewhat amusing to watch!!
My original “thought!”
The thought that crosses my mind this month is, that not many of you will believe that I could stick to the theme of “What we have been doing, have seen or plan to do!!” as promised! Not least “her indoors” otherwise known as my greatest critic!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
And maybe to come next time? Even more of the same: “What we have been doing, have seen or plan to do!!,”
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 20 attached, apologies if you also receive Victoria’s updates – she beat me to it this time, hopefully you won’t feel too Higgsed out – two communications in one day!!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
The Chronicle ~ Missive 20
“Sharing our house with friends is one of the real joys of Bel – Air, and finding that it is a special place for them too, is a bonus.” N.B: in our case for Bel – Air read La Loge, although there are about 8 Bel – Air’s within spitting distance!!
Particularly of flora and fauna: “There is the time and quiet here in which to wind down and observe this other world.”
Both of these very apt quotes come from “A Harvest of Sunflowers”
(also very apt as they are just coming up to their magnificently stunning best, all around us!) which is Book 2 of Ruth Silvestre’s partial escape to France, “Sunflower” trilogy.
Shortly before we packed up and moved here, I had read a lovely book by someone who had beaten us to it and done it already. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of the book and as it is at present languishing somewhere in a cardboard box in Stroud, I can’t go and have a look and discover it for you!!
However, the book was written about the first year of the author’s “escape to France” in much the same way as my missives and suggested the keeping of a chronicle with a number or sections, so prior to departure I edited my own chronicle framework to include the following sections or chapters and this missive and the next will pick up on some of the sections, as in many ways - more by luck than judgement - much of what I have recorded and projects I have undertaken during the last eighteen months fit haphazardly into the planned framework:
Writings Poems House
Garden Menus Postcards /Letters
Projects New Words Flowers and Trees
Animals and Birds Sketches Descriptions
Planting advice People Food
Miscellaneous
to which I subsequently, once we had “arrived” added a section on St Laurent, “our patch,” which contains any events in the village and the surroundings to which we have been.
Obviously there has been a good degree of overlap between some of the sections, as it is hard to separate out detailed pieces about people or the house, for example, from the missives (Writings) that hopefully you look forward to receiving! Also, some sections have remained barren, particularly the poems and sketches sections, although the artistic intentions have perhaps been, at least for the time being, superseded by my photographic endeavours and associated slide shows.
In short, much of what has been chronicled since our departure has come together for now as “My Blog” which contains the missives and much more, which in due course may well become the next “escape to France” book!!!
Garden
From last year the garden, at least the cultivated part has almost doubled, with three new borders, giving us lots of room for potatoes but also space for some newcomers.
And courgettes ........? Well, we made the perhaps unlikely decision to have as many plants as last year, despite the angst that it caused us the previous year, with sleepless nights caused by nightmares featuring giant courgettes chasing us around the garden!! But, having discovered so many great courgette recipes, including ones for chutney and pickled courgette, which over the course of the winter we had all but run out of, it seemed sensible to make more of the same for this winter. Sensible that is until the jars ran out and the great green giants once again started chasing us around the garden! I have just frozen the latest batch, which some books will tell you isn’t possible! But we have discovered that the best way to cook them afterwards, if you are not just adding them to a sauce, is to defrost them and roast them on an oven tray, spread with a little oil, it dries them up and gives them back some of their crunch.
The rest of the garden continues to produce plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit, the fruit just coming into ripeness, but much less of it this year. We will have a few black plums; very few cherry plums (last year there were so many that they were breaking the branches) and a hopefully a good crop of peaches as we are watering them well this year – now we know what they are!! I think they’ll be less fruit than last year, but each one bigger thanks to the extra watering.
From the top then we have growing or being picked, or have had; potatoes (probably three crops this year), a few parsnips from last year, purple sprouting, French beans (2 crops), onions (2 crops), sugar snap peas (possibly 2 crops), tomatoes, peppers, celery, celeriac, leeks, carrots (if the rabbit or hare that has set up home in the garden doesn’t get them first!), cabbage, beetroot, runner beans and not forgetting the courgettes!! Or should I say: pomme de terre, panais, violet germination (or broccoli violet peut-être!), haricot vert, oignon, pois mangetout, tomate, poivre vert, celery, celeriac, poireaux, carrotte, chou, betterave, haricot d’Espagne et courgette, in that order!!! And, that’s not to mention various herbs, salad leaves, radish and hedgerow or wild foods.
Mentioning the wild food, this grows in abundance and one of the food projects I am undertaking is a “Wild food map” locating on a map, the source of various ingredients for dishes such as my “Ditch Apple Pie!!” But more on the wild food of the region in a future missive.
People
Obviously, one person has featured a lot in previous missives and will again in the future, but for now it’s his dog Tottoon who is taking centre stage, well they are part of the family, and we see more of the dog than the master! Also, someone asked the other day if having a surrogate dog around helps, to which I’m sure the answer is yes, but not sure how we’ll feel once dog and master return to Spain at the end of the summer.
At the moment, following a couple of times when we have looked after Tottoon, she seems to have moved in! Previously, except for one occasion when she was caught around at ours, in a very heavy shower of rain, when we allowed her to sit on the mat just inside the door waiting for the rain to stop (which in itself is a little silly, as she likes nothing better than to plunge into the various ponds around and come out and roll around the grass drying off!!), she had always been very good and not tried to venture into the house, just sitting forlornly just outside the door gazing longingly with her big dark eyes, which she puts to good use, accentuating them by looking slightly askance and so framing one side with the brilliant white of the rest of her eyeball!! Monsieur says she has very astute eyes!!
Her first visit was just for the day, but we felt if she was being left with us for the first time, the second time longer and already planned but more of that later, then she should be allowed in, in part to prepare for the couple of nights that would follow a week or so later. Anyway, the first visit was whilst M. went off for Sunday lunch with some relations in a restaurant near Nantes, but with no shade in the car park, so he asked if she could stay with us. On the appointed day he came around with her, told her in Spanish (although like her master she seems to be fluent in at least Spanish, French and English!!) that she was staying with us and that he would be back and with that I held onto her collar as much to her puzzlement, he walked off around the corner, got in his car and drove off! Normally, he never goes anywhere without “his princess!”
Well, I held on to her until I felt he was clear of the avenue and Tottoon decided to roll on her back and have her tummy tickled, which as it turned out was a clever “I’m not bothered he’s gone ploy!” to get me to let go of her collar. Continuing the deception, she let me tickle her tummy for a few seconds, before in one quick motion turning over, jumping up and running off around the corner!! A little worried she would try to follow the car, I followed her and was surprised to see no sign of her on the road, instead she had headed home to the chateau jumped the moat (her normal entry point) as the inner gates were locked and finding the normally open front door tightly shut had taken up position on the step awaiting her master’s return. Unfortunately, the locked gate and the moat make it nigh on impossible for us to enter the inner part of the chateau grounds and she was there sitting in the bright sunshine at nearing the hottest part of the day!
We had already decided to take her for a walk in the shade of the woods and to let her cool down with a swim in the lake, but it looked a little as though I might be doing the swimming first, across the moat to get the dog who hopefully would recognise me and not carry out her guard duties too dutifully!! Thankfully, a couple of whistles and a call of her name and she came back, jumped back over the moat accepted the proffered chew and dutifully set off in front of us towards the woods. After a walk in the woods, a swim in the lake at least for Tottoon (M. says the lake can be swum in but has leeches in it!!!) and it was the acid test as we walked back passed the inner gates and turned towards our house and the outer gates. Totally, unconcerned Tottoon, without so much as a backwards glance, followed us home, although returning to guard duty later in the afternoon. This time she happily came when whistled and as I strolled back along the drive, totally “to the manor born” I thought M. was returning as a car similar to his pulled up at the chateau gates. Imagine then my surprise when the window came down and a voice said “Hello Roger” and I was confronted with a couple of friends from Stroud, who happened to be passing, (as you do!) and stopped off for a cup of tea!! But that’s another story, although unfortunately I wasn’t able to come out of the gates, they were locked and I had to duck around the side of the hedge and admit that the chateau wasn’t our abode, rather the servants quarters around the corner!!
But back to Tottoon, she welcomed our visitors and joined us for tea, waved them off afterwards, but was quite pleased when M. returned a short while later and she was able to go home with him!! But, she was back again for a walk with us later on after our dinner, so an afternoon slumming it in the servant’s quarters hadn’t put her off!!
This was just as well, as just a few days later the departure scenario was repeated this time with M. bringing Tottoon’s food and bed, together with an old sweaty tee shirt to keep her company as she slept, and having a longer conversation about how she was his princess, constant companion, partner, his all, and how he would miss her whilst he went into hospital for a minor op and a stay of a couple of nights. This time Tottoon was less concerned, although M. was convinced that she wouldn’t eat any of her dinner that he tipped out into her bowl, as she would be pining! Another walk and once she had been shown where her bed was, she settled very well, didn’t head back for the chateau, ate all her dinner and went happily to bed, and had even pushed out the tee shirt in the morning!!!
She was however, delighted to see her master back, made a big fuss of him and went home with him, although as he was tired and took to bed she was back within half an hour, feeling even better as we had now our next lot of visitors, who included a couple of girls, aged 10 and 12, who were more than happy to respond to astute eyes and proffered tummy!! That night we had a real job persuading her to go home, posting her over the moat several times before she got the message that her bed had moved back. Funnily enough, now she rarely waits to be invited in, finding our tiled floors nice and cooling in the very hot weather, but has not once ventured down to passage to the bedroom where her bed was, when she became our lodger. She is still spending a lot of time with us, but now after the evening walk, all I have to say is “Bon Nuit” by the outer gates and off she goes!!
Also, we have begun to be able to place some of the other St Laurentians, as the inhabitants are known, in addition to the three other English couples we have met who live in the commune, two permanently having sold up back home in the UK and moved lock, stock and barrel, the others spending summer here, but retreating back to the UK for the winter, less silly than it might seem at first as the winters can be quite harsh in these ‘ere parts! It seems increasingly likely that this is what we may end up doing – a small place in the Vendée and The Parrot House back in Stroud, fitting life round the two.
After a few false starts, I think we have finally sorted out the family of the farmer who keeps an eye on and tends the chateau in Monsieur’s absence. He and his wife live in the farmhouse over the field from the end of the avenue, with the youngest son, Mickael, who lives we think in a self contained part of the house. The older brother lives in a bungalow next door with his wife and three daughters and the farmer’s daughter is married to the fauchage (village grass cutting etc) man, and live in a modern bungalow across a couple of fields with their two daughters. The daughter in law’s best friend lives at St Laurent’s other chateau “Le Plessis” in the converted stable block and her and her husband look after the big house and several other people in and around the village, including possibly the Mayor, M. le Maire, all seem to have connections with the farmer and his family. We even seem now to have got most of their names, so as time goes by the “family tree” might be expanded!!
Food
To some extent following on from the section in the last missive; “Chilli Pasta,” food has understandably featured large during our time in France, not only for ourselves now having the time should we so wish to “stuff mushrooms!!” But also, for the many visitors that we have received and needed to send on their way well “fed and watered,” with some typical French style meals to look fondly back on, as part of their holiday memories.
After the last missive, where I talked about recipe searching, I found the following Nigel Slater quote on his website, it completely sums up what I feel about recipes and how I often modify accordingly! “I have always felt that a recipe be something to inspire, remind and lightly influence rather that a set of instructions to be followed, pedantically, to the letter.” How very right! We have at the moment visitors who we hadn’t seen previously for well over ten years. They used to live a few doors down when we lived in Huntingdonshire, and nearly every weekend we would get together to eat at each other’s houses or to go out for a meal or a drink. The other night after dinner, Mary paid me the compliment of saying that I was still a good “chef!” My response took her a little by surprise, as I thanked her and said that I thought I was actually better!! It wasn’t meant to brag or show off, I just think that between then and now I have gone from the learning and following the recipe book stage, to knowing instinctively what goes with what and being able to cook “off the cuff” as it were, with the odd bit of research into my various cookery books, particularly when looking for something new, regional or for flavours that go together that I hadn’t thought about before – for example courgette makes a mean cake and the recipe for courgette and ground pepper muffins is on the comment at the end of the July 2009 Blog entry. Try it, it goes together deliciously, like chilli and chocolate which is particularly good with a venison steak!!!
Just a flavour for those yet to sample La Loge fayre and a reminder for those who already have, here are some of this year’s recipes (in no particular order!): Mogette (Vendée beans which to achieve their creamy best, must be boiled for a minimum of 3 hours!) or Puy lentil casserole, warm potato and sausage salad with a grainy mustard dressing, fruit pizza, sorrel or courgette pancakes, pan-fried green beans, pan-fried duck breasts, pan-fried fish with creamy herb sauce, rice with garlic and crème fraiche, mushroom risotto and boudin noir (French black pudding which is softer than its French counterpart) with fried apple and mushrooms ...... the list goes on and on and others may feature in future missive. And, if we take Nigel Slater’s quote above to heart, you don’t need the recipes, just the seeds, a little imagination and some experimentation, for example the boudin noir is great moulded into a tall thin cylinder (an empty tomato purée tin works well) served on top of a slice of lightly grilled French bread that has been rubbed with raw garlic! Try it, or a variation that you come up with and see for yourself!!
For those of you concerned that since Max is no longer with us, we will have to eat his share of the bread, don’t despair!! As the nub ends collected and I didn’t have the heart to throw them away, a little research came up with a number of recipes that involve breadcrumbs or stale bread, which have since been added to the repertoire, including quite the silkiest fresh fruit bread pudding I have ever tasted! As I say, another for that list above!
St Laurent
I have discussed previously the village, or commune, in which we are currently living, with particular reference to “village finance” and indeed once again we have received a full colour 32 page “Bulletin Municipal” giving us all the gen on the previous twelve months. Indeed, we are featured on the Page 6 État Civil ~ “naissances – marriages – décès – nouveaux arrivants 2009” “births, marriages, deaths, and newcomers 2009” where we are welcomed to the village. But it didn’t stop at that, as shortly after receiving the bulletin, we received a flier late in December, from M. le Maire, informing the residents about the forthcoming annual meeting and “Ceremonie des Voeux” “Welcoming Ceremony” to take place on 22nd January 2010. But to be sure, in the next post, we received a personal invite from Sébastien ROY, Maire de Saint-Laurent de la Salle inviting us “plus particulièrement” “more particularly” to the ceremony, in order to be officially welcomed into the commune, to meet the Municipal Council, other inhabitants and to find out about the different associations (clubs and organisations) that take place within the commune.
Fortunately, at this time our winter travels for a family wedding, Christmas and the New Year had finished and we were back at La Loge, trying to keep warm and find things to talk to each other about, as “surprisingly” the visitors dried up a little once the sun had gone!! I therefore felt that as we had received our own invitation, despite the lack of an RSVP, a well used English acronym which actually as I’m sure you know stands for a French phrase one of several in common usage in England, I felt that we should at least acknowledge and accept the invitation, and say how we were looking forward to meeting M. le Maire, so duly sent a notelet to this effect, in of course my best, or should that be google translate’s best!, French!
I was pleased I had done this, as when we arrived at the event, M. le Maire, looking quite uncomfortable in a suit a tie, he’s a young agricultural contractor and mostly around in jeans and tee shirt, came straight over welcomed us and thanked us for the note, all in French as he doesn’t speak any English!! There followed a very pleasant evening, with the “parish report” and then presentations to the newcomers of a goody bag with a poster of the mairies of the Vendée, some leaflets about environmental concerns and a lovely full colour book about a variety of gardens in all parts of the area. Then drinks were served and we felt well and truly welcomed into the community.
“Ici devant nous!”
This is the “Flowers and Trees” and “Animals and Birds” sections rolled into one, and as I said last time will catalogue some of nature’s splendours that surround us and continue to surprise us. Indeed, having just gone out onto the avenue to look for Tottoon, the Chateau dog, who was lodging with us for a couple of days, I saw my second red squirrel but the first close to home, nonchalantly hopping and bobbing along the grass verge, noticeably smaller than the grey squirrels I am used to at home. These larger gray species, have it is claimed driven the reds out, although recently I did see some evidence that in the right situation the two can co-exist relatively peacefully together, something politicians have been trying to achieve, in places like the middle east, for many years!!
But the main theme this time is frogs, and I hasten to remind you that this section is about wildlife!! You may have read previously about the large toad that waited patiently, and continues to do so, on the front doorstep, just waiting for someone to bite the bullet and pick it up give it a kiss and wait for the consequences!! Also, I’ve told you about the noisy frogs, initially mistaken for “invisible” ducks that croaked at great volume on the nearby small lake and indeed any suitable body of water, at times when the sap was rising and this year they have totally surpassed themselves, which I suppose accounts for the near plague like numbers of tiny miniature frogs that are everywhere, including last night under one of our young visitors beds. At first she and her cousin who is also staying, thought it was a large piece of fluff, until it jumped!! And, it’s the jumping to which I want to turn in this section.
These frogs are, as I said, everywhere and it is quite hard not to stand on one as you walk outside, in the garden, along the road, in the park – as I said everywhere!! They are perfectly formed replicas of the adults, dark olive green / brown in colour and by can they jump!! Most at the moment seem to be up to 2 cm in length and either aren’t growing or as they grow they become better at keeping out of our way with more youngsters growing up to replace them. At first when you come across them they scatter as you walk, and you might well mistake them for the many grasshoppers that frequent the area, but closer inspection reveals these tiny amphibians, with an impressive jumping ability. It is not uncommon for one of these frogs to jump 50 cm, or 25 times the length of their body.
Equate this to a human being of 1.8 m in height who would have to jump about 45 m in a single stride to compete, so pretty impressive and as they can put several of these jumps together in quick succession, catching those that have decided to come indoors during the balmy evenings we have been having, when the door doesn’t get shut until late, is not only a case of out flanking them and then catching them in the cut off two litre lemonade bottle with a cardboard piece cut to slide under the opening, but also somewhat amusing to watch!!
My original “thought!”
The thought that crosses my mind this month is, that not many of you will believe that I could stick to the theme of “What we have been doing, have seen or plan to do!!” as promised! Not least “her indoors” otherwise known as my greatest critic!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
And maybe to come next time? Even more of the same: “What we have been doing, have seen or plan to do!!,”
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Research ~ Missive 19
27 June 2010
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 19 attached, and yes the Barbie dolls feature – briefly!!
Quite a long offering this time, so as we’re busy getting ready to go away in the caravan, I’ll say no more!! Except, yes I’m sending this during the England vs Germany match, but it’s on iPlayer LIVE! and I’m multitasking!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Research ~ Missive 19
“Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.”
Edward de Bono
"By seeking and blundering we learn."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The theme idea is continuing, and again the title reflects the loose theme, but the more alert amongst you, or indeed those who have bothered to read previous missives, will notice a subtle change in the layout – clever words becoming just a couple or so quotes at the beginning and a completely new section, entitled “Ici devant nous,” the translation of which and indeed the explanation can be found below!! A section which, at least for the time being, is here to stay.
Whilst on the research theme, not sure if anyone else has seen it and I’m not sure I fully understand it, but it appears from an article on the BBC website earlier in June, and I quote verbatim: “Finding the Higgs is the primary aim of the £6bn ($10bn) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment near Geneva.” !! Strange, I know we’ve fled the country but we’re not that hard to find and certainly a ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre and petrol, tolls etc., would come in considerably cheaper! What maybe is even more surprising, is that a later article in the Guardian it says that the Higgs are “nicknamed the “God particle”, but before I get too egotistical and perhaps nearer to the truth we sound “a little bit like a bunch of coins spinning in a wine glass!” Confused? I certainly was and still am, however if you want to know more then follow this link to the “boson” of the Higgs family, mind you then you may be even more confused!!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson or indeed listen to us at: www.lhcsound.moonfruit.com/#/sounds-library/4540255106 or if still confused try a simplified cartoon form: www.pparc.ac.uk/ps/bbs/bbs_mass_hn.asp !!!!
Barbie Dolls and I should have said My Little Pony
This one is an old chestnut, to which I am only too pleased to vehemently return to, without apologies to anyone who has previously heard me vent my spleen over this, over the dinner table, having coffee at Mill’s Café, late at night at a Gastrell’s Ramblers Weekend or when simply passing the time of day!!
It all stems from an article I once read in the magazine of a Saturday paper about the obscene amounts of money that the producers of the “My Little Pony” toy spent researching what little girls like!! Amazingly, I’m sure any self respecting primary school teacher could have come up with the same list – ponies, combing hair and pastel colours, at considerably reduced cost. But, what made it all the more worrying to me, was that the vast R & D budget paled into insignificance when you viewed the profit projections that they were going to make over the first five years of production and that was without the new must have accessories – stable, four wheel drive and horse trailer, show jumping ring etc. – that were to conveniently come out just before Christmas each year!!! And, it got worst still as much of the profit was coming from the truly enormous mark up on the actually production cost, the items made with cheap eastern labour who probably didn’t even understand the concept of what they were making. Hence my ongoing aversion to all things in the toy department that are plastic, “silky” haired and overpriced!!!
I can’t help but feel that children would get equally as much play value and certainly considerably more in the way of life skills if they were playing outside, whatever the weather, and doing practical things like cooking. Better still combine the two and grow their own food and experience camping / camp cooking where possible, even if only in the back garden and I could even, at a pinch, go along with pastel coloured tents with nylon tassels!!
How gratifying then to be told by Dermot, our daughter Victoria’s partner, when expressing concern about what Tyler, his five year old son, would find to do when visiting us in France, that as long as he had a football and a stick he would be happy! We’ve a wood full of sticks, but just need to be careful about the football at the moment, and need to make sure it is not a replica of the current World Cup ball, something of a sore point in France at the moment!! Tempted as I was I resisted running an English flag up the flagpole the day England got through to the last 16 and the knockout stages of said tournament, shortly after France had been unceremoniously been dumped out of the World Cup, finishing a resounding last place in their group, with just a solitary point. Not to put too fine a point on it – un point!!!
And returning briefly to the Nature theme of the last missive, research has clearly shown that: Children and indeed many young adults up to the age of 35, are suffering from what has been called Nature Deficit Disorder NDD and subsequent physical and mental health problems such as obesity and depression, The key to this problem, at least in part, could be to send young children out into the world, be it back garden, park or on a wider scale National Park, to get their hands dirty and “begin to experience nature – from birdsong to the feel of the wind in their face.” They need close encounters often on a smaller scale than adults, and will derive pleasure from “looking into the eye of a primrose, lifting a stone to see what is underneath, or simply collecting objects – shells, stones, nuts and seeds.” All with real people and real animals, without a nylon hairstyle in sight! To find out more go to www.rewildingchildhood.com . With older children and teenagers it may be harder to engage them, but they will often rise to a challenge and enjoy discovering things for themselves and pushing themselves to their limits. It may also be with them, as Stephen Moss, broadcaster, writer and naturalist, points out, a case of restoring a balance between outside and TV and computer games.
Chilli Pasta ~ Somehow it just worked!
Those of you who know me well know my passion for food and not just the eating, but also the preparing for other people and the pleasure derived from seeing one’s friends enjoying your creations! I also like to experiment with new foods (sometimes trying them out before serving them to guests!), try recipes from other countries and produce food that “fits!” By this I mean; recipes utilising local in season produce, recipes around a particular request for someone’s favourite or simply, as often at present French country dishes to be served in the French countryside – so much the better if served outside in a shady spot surrounded by warm sunshine and a good supply of good friends!
Better still if it works when entertaining friends! I’m reminded of a quote from the forward of Depardieu’s book “Ma Cuisine:” “The art of cooking and preparing a meal to share with those you care about is also, for me, a means of communicating that love and friendship without necessarily having to utter a single word.”
So it is then that often at a quiet moment, the few selected cookery books that we have with us in France, will come off the shelf and I’ll look for something different, something I’ve not tried before, and so it was for this particular meal. We weren’t entertaining, just researching for a tasty meal for us, but also to add to the repertoire of earthy, tasty, country food fitting for rural France. At the end of the evening I had jotted down some notes that read: Pasta with chilli and coriander (from Rick Stein’s “Mediterranean Escapes and from Puglia in southern Italy) or as it’s called in the book “Orecchiette with cavalo nero” made with those shell like pasta that resemble little ears – well that is what orecchiette means in Italian! (This recipe caught my eye because of the unusual combination of chilli and pasta, although when we were in the Rishikesh district of India huge quantities of pasta, in lots of different colours, as well as a variety of shapes was on sale!) I had also noted some interesting pages with recipes for Bruscette from the same book and the same part of Italy, as well as continuing the Italian theme with some Crostini recipes noted from “Jamie’s Italy” by Jamie Oliver, and if you think bruschette and crostini are virtually the same, technically they’re not, the former being made with sourdough and the latter white bread!! You see research does pay off even if I’m prone to do my own thing loosely based on the recipes and what we have in the larder and fridge.
The next day, bearing this last point in mind, feeling creative and kept in by the weather, the evening “feast” started to take shape, “using” the recipes found the previous evening as well as some things we had in already. At this point I should make it clear that the creative juices meant we ended up with a far more elaborate meal than normal, but served the purpose of providing my “Tried, Tested and Approved” recipe list with several new recipes to try out on family and friends. So, should you happen to be visiting over the coming months, you might just have an inkling of what to expect!
The final meal consisted of: Toasted crostini rubbed with raw garlic (Careful if following the recipe – a little goes a long way!!), heaped with finely chopped and seasoned tomatoes, peppers and shallots. This was followed by pan fried lamb cutlets with marjoram on a bed of leaves (cabbage and leek tops) and penne pasta with chillies and coriander, served with grilled courgettes, grilled to dry them up as they had been in the freezer and tend to come out a little soggy – baking them in the oven works just as well. To finish we had some of our alcohol-soaked cherry plums, topped with whipped cream and a small quite fiery ginger biscuit that we had left over from Christmas. As we pushed back our chairs at the end of the meal, replete but not stuffed we both had to agree: “somehow it just worked!”
Carte Grise
We opened a bottle of bubbly this week and sent my Mum and Dad a text that simply said “Salut AV * 887 * NH” but I’m afraid it was too subtle for them and their friend, with whom they are currently caravanning with in France, and I got a reply that said “Have message appears 2 b from u. What does it mean. Dad.” (Yes, he might be 85 but he not only texts he also does it in the lingo! lol!!) I should add that they had just been with us and we were hoping to meet up with them in a week or so, caravan registration permitting, and that’s another clue!!
Yes, we have done it – the caravan is now registered in France!! Hallelujah! We have finally beaten the French bureaucracy and stuck up the proverbial Agincourt salute once more!! But it wasn’t without further incident, after my last report in Missive 14, back in January. Well, the New Year had come and gone and it took me some time to finally sit down and wade through just what it was that the DRIRE (Vehicle licensing) Office (which in the time that the whole process was taking had become the DREAL Office), had seemingly on a whim asked for now, bearing in mind as I told you before, we had a Certificate of EEC Conformity in French that stated that the caravan meets all EEC regulations!! But although a member state of the EEC, France seems to make up its own rules and what is worse, as we found out during our research – somewhat more intense that a Master’s Module!! – was that each region interprets the rules differently, as they see fit! We had decided it was a case of anti-British and simply rampant jingoism to make people buy French, and just one word of warning, don’t think buying in another mainland European country will make it any easier, we have friends who whilst living in the UK before permanently moving to France bought a left-hand drive German made campervan in Belgium and have quite simply given up trying to register it in France having been told it is “not possible!!” So much for a common market!
It became apparent that the list of “evidence” missing from my increasingly weighty dossier, all centred on the German built and EEC conforming AL-KO Kober chassis, which is incidentally fitted to over 80% of caravans, and the suitability of the coupling and braking system. So having tried to find the required information on the internet and dismally failed, in desperation I phoned up AL-KO and explained my predicament, naively thinking that they might be as efficient and generous as Bailey had been all those months ago, and provide me with the necessary piece of paper free of charge and by return of post. But, how wrong I was, although they were extremely helpful and understanding, having experienced this problem many times before and even saying “rather you than me!!!” when we discussed registering a caravan in France, the catch was that said certificate could be supplied for the princely sum of £85-00 plus VAT!!! Furthermore, in their experience there was absolutely no way around it, you had to have the certificate or you couldn’t register the caravan!! So, the order was placed the money paid and indeed very efficiently the certificate was quickly delivered, in a very large and weighty padded envelope!! The one page document I had been expecting was actually 150 pages long, containing everything that you could possibly require to know about the chassis in English, German and thankfully French, so with copying costs and postage and packaging it wasn’t such a bad deal after all, and in the end I decided this was a case of the Germans making a proverbial finger gesture all of their own!! But, we had it, the covering letter was ready, the remainder of the dossier sorted once more (The neat folder of punched pockets had been returned to me in total disarray, as they obviously shuffled it up to make it look as though they had searched through it in order to tick the relevant boxes!!) and ready in an envelope to post to the DREAL Office in nearby La Roche sur Yon.
Firstly, it wouldn’t fit in the envelope and secondly it was becoming so heavy it was in danger of needing a La Poste van all to itself to avoid serious damage to the suspension, so we decided to have a day out in Nantes and drop off the “dossier to put most dossiers in the shade” in person on the way, being careful not to put our backs out and therefore spoiling the day!! So at ten o’clock on a Wednesday 26th May, I returned to the car breathing a sigh of relieve, largely as it was quite a weight off my shoulders – quite literally, and wondered how long it would be before we got a reply and what new form of evidence we would be required to locate and submit!! Imagine then our surprise when at ten o’clock on Thursday 27th May, yes as the alert amongst you will have noticed that’s 24 hrs, we received a letter with an appointment, for a week’s time, to take the caravan for its technical test (yes, the one to ensure that the caravan conforms to European Standards and that the dossier matches the serial number on the chassis!!) and please remember to take a cheque for 85 euros!! Now, don’t get me wrong Le Technicien Supérieur, who sent us the appointment may be a superior reader, but as the letter had been delegated to a mere Technicien, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a “tick in the box” job!
But it was a step in the right direction, and we got the caravan ready, sorted out insurance (only just – another case of chicken and egg French bureaucracy!!) using the car registration number initially and set off with the proof of rendez-vous (appointment), should we be unlucky enough to be stopped by an eagle-eyed gendarme, who wanted to know why the car and caravan had the same registration number! After an uneventful journey, although on one of the roundabouts there was a police check-point pulling in drivers to check their documents, but fortunately it was for drivers going the other way!, we arrived in good time in the street where Goggle Earth had told us the testing station was. Although, after driving up and down it a couple of times there was no sign of the address we were looking for. With the time of the rendez-vous looming, in desperation I went into an unmarked unit to ask the whereabouts of the test station, to be told to go to the roundabout, turn left and it was the “vert” (green) building on the left. Well, the left turn off the roundabout headed down a narrow country land with only a sign to the local tip and seemingly nowhere to turn if it was wrong and the only building on the left was a bronze glass building! So, I went back the way I had come and was flagged down by the mechanic who had seen us pass by and was waiting for us. It was then that I realised that the instructions I had been given at the office around the corner were actually “on the left before the roundabout and the “verre” (glass) building!!
But, I had little time to chide myself on such a silly mistake, as the mechanic opened the workshop door and as the vehicle already inside left through the far side, he beckoned me to drive in over the chasm of an inspection pit that gaped in front of me! It was made for buses and lorries and was simple a deep hole in the concrete with sheer sides and no kerb to stop a stray wheel for plunging in. Having faith in the mechanic who continued to beckon me in and whose hand signals didn’t quicken or change direction indicating a degree of panic, I somewhat gingerly edged forward until the car and the front of the caravan were over the pit, then got out and realised just how little leeway there was either side of the hole and greeted the somewhat uncommunicative mechanic, who threw his copy of my dossier onto a nearby bench, retrieved his page of tick boxes and proceeded to look for the serial number. After a number of abortive searches, he indicated that I needed to move the car and caravan forward for closer inspection, and whilst he ticked off the other items Linda and I looked up, in the book, where the serial number should be! Erroneously, I had assumed it was clearly on the side of the chassis where serial numbers are always found, but in this case seemingly not!! The inspection finished save the checking of the serial number, and it becoming increasingly likely that we would have to go away, identify the serial number, return, with another drive over the abyss, having to pay another inspection fee ......... But with one last ditch attempt, I told the mechanic where the book had said it was and on closer inspection he found it, albeit a little faint, but certainly clear enough to read. We were then summoned to his office where he spent some time sorting through the muddled up dossier, asked for a couple of other origin documents that I had in my copy of the dossier and said he was finished, it appearing that everything had passed muster and even the niggly feeling that I had, that they might question that the reflectors on the side of the caravan were not lights proved not to be a problem!! After just remembering in time to ask for the cheque, seeing me carefully and slowly from over the inspection pit, the more frantic gestures this time indicating the closeness of one of the front wheels to the abyss below, and even responding with a wry smile to my rather theatrical sigh and mopping of my brow, informed us that the Sous Prefecture’s Office in Fontenay le Comte would telephone when the Carte Grise was ready to collect. This, our research had told us, would be between five to fourteen days, depending how busy the offices were and in this case how quickly the mechanic was able to get the dossier into some semblance of order.
So we waited, not wanting to get too excited until the new number plate was firmly in place on the back of the caravan, and waited and waited, worrying that there was actually a problem that would need sorting before the registration could go ahead! Eventually, just over two weeks later we got John, a friend of my parents who was staying with us and conveniently speaks the lingo like a native, to phone up the DREAL Office and enquire. He was told that all the necessary paperwork had been sent to the Sous Prefecture in Fontenay shortly after the test, and we needed to phone them to enquire, as they never phoned out to tell people their documents are ready! John’s phone call confirmed that the documents had all been received at the office and on production of my passport and a utility bill the Carte Grise (Registration Document) would be mine!! This was Tuesday, and we were going to wait until Friday to get the Carte Grise, but thankfully decided to go the following day, which was in the end just as well as on the Friday our hot water system had packed up and we had to stay in all morning, the only time the Sous Prefecture was open for Carte Grise issuing!
Arriving at the Sous Prefecture we found it very busy and had to take a ticket from a machine similar to those found on the deli counter of certain supermarkets, the number on which indicated that there were rather a lot of other people ahead of us in the queue! But by watching the comings and goings of French bureaucracy the time went quite quickly and we were soon explaining, in French, that we had come to pick up the Carte Grise for our caravan, which was initially met with a blank stare as though we were talking double Dutch and it wasn’t anything to do with our limited French!! The lights however, quickly came on and the receptionist went to a filling cabinet the other side of the room, removed a file and returned to the counter, asked us a few questions, ticked a few boxes and gave us another form to fill in, on which she indicated only a few sections that we needed to fill in, indicated a desk to the side of the counter and told us to come back once we were ready and not queue again! Duly completed we were handed some of our dossier back, but not the 150 pages about the chassis, that I had hoped would provide me with bedtime reading for several weeks, as I tried to fathom out all the technical bits – well I was hoping to get my monies worth from the documents!!, and a piece of paper to pay the next bit – the bill – at the cash desk next door.
Paper and money handed over and in what, after all this time was something of an anticlimax, we received our temporary Carte Grise, were able to get the number plate made up at the local supermarket, before going home, fitting the number plate and toasting the success. Then three days later we received the official Carte Grise and are now ready to roll to Saumur, on the banks of Le Loire, next week to meet up with my mum and dad for the next part of their holiday. Mission accomplished or Mission accomplie as they say in this neck of the woods!
“Ici devant nous!”
This is going to become a regular section, at least for the time being, largely due to Linda, my biggest critic’s comments that the missive should be about what we have been doing, have seen or plan to do! So you see, largely ignoring this advice so far in this missive, I have decided to put in a regular section that could just as easily have been entitled: “Nature Notes ~ Note la nature” (done by someone else before me!!), Nature at La Loge ~ Nature à La Loge” (too obvious!!) or La Loge Looking ~ La Loge la recherché” (subtle and nearly there!!). So why “Ici devant nous?” This goes back to a meal outside our house one sunny evening when my brother and family were visiting. Our “friendly” neighbourhood hornet, quite five centimetres long and fearsome looking, put it its nightly appearance, buzzed the dinner table and after a few seconds panic, from the diners not the hornet you understand, left us and went about its business from its home somewhere in the wall above the door to our Cave de Chauffage (Boiler Room). Our visitors were all for swatting it, but restraining them I uttered the title ~ “Ici devant nous!” ~ “Here before us!” and it sort of rang very true. I was reminded of the Dinner Ladies (sorry Midday Supervisory Assistants, or should that now be Pupil Supervisors!) at one of the schools I taught at. When the large field was dry the children had a wide open space to play on, but the gange mower was not able to get to the very edges along the fence and healthy banks of nettles started to spring up. It was suggested that as the children might sting themselves and so the nettles should be removed, my response – They’ll only get stung once and then be more careful!!
Well you’ve had nature sections before, but this one hopes to go a little further than simply a description of what we saw, when and where. It is more in the line of great explorers and naturalists from past eras, who seemed to have to recorded measurements, sightings, locations and meticulously catalogued everything they encountered. So it is in this vain that I reply to Linda, when having to know the answer: “How many seeds are there in a Cupressus cone, as found on a fine couple of specimens in the chateau garden, and how many seeds are produced annually by a cowslip plant?” Both these questions formulated when out and about observing the countryside, the first when having collected some of these fascinating cones, put them in my pocket and found my pocket filling up with small brown seeds, so I just had to know! The second, when collecting some of the cowslips seeds for my emerging “seed bank” and being amazed by the sheer quantity I was getting from one flower head.
Now to details and figures: Clustering in the cracks and crevices of the globe like Cupressus cone, which itself was only about 3 centimetres in diameter were 95 seeds in all, each an slightly flattened irregular shape about 2 - 3 millimetre long. The cowslip however, not to be outdone, from each flowerlet produces a small pea like seed container with a small opening surrounded attractively with the dried up petals and containing at least 35 tiny black seeds, clustered around a central core. So with each flower head containing something like 15 flowerlets, so that’s an impressive 525 plus seeds for each. Therefore if the plant had say only 4 flower heads, it annually produces in excess of 2000 seeds, which as the seed pod dries out and splits, fall out and take their chance. As the last missive talked about, nature is a wonderful thing, but it’s also a tough old world out there and only the strongest survive!
Linda does tend to ask why, in the sense of why bother and does it matter what it’s called, and rather than give the stock answer to the question asked of mountaineers –Why climb it?, and say “Because it’s there!”, I think the following quote from Richard Mabey’s “Nature Cure” is much nearer the mark: “It seems to me that naming a plant and for that matter any living thing, is a gesture of respect towards its individuality, its distinction from the generalised green blur. ......... The kind of name – scientific, fantastical, pet – scarcely matters provided someone can communicate it.” The only thing missing from the name list is, as I see it, French!!
My original “thought!”
Many of the corners of our house are home to large and seemingly inactive harvester spiders, not I hasten to add through lack of cleaning, they just seem to see the feather duster coming towards them, move slowly out of the way and lethargically return once the danger has passed!! In fact, really their presence has more to do with living in the deepest countryside in a three hundred year old stone built house.
Well, the corners of the loo are particular favourites, for the spiders you understand!, and as I have already mentioned these particular specimens seem to do very little just hang around on their webs waiting for an unsuspecting prey to happen by. However, should you disturb them; they have an amazing defence mechanism which comes as rather a surprise considering their normal inactivity. They drop slightly but very quickly and twist frantically round and round on their web at dizzying speed, until such time as they think the imminent danger has passed them by.
But having tormented one one day, to see once more the feverish display, I got to thinking; eight legs, two joints on each not counting the “hips,” that makes sixteen knees – and I got to thinking “Do spiders suffer from knee problems!!” Temps sur mon mains! ~ I’ll leave you to translate this one!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,
Roger and Linda
And maybe to come next time? “What we have been doing, have seen or plan to do!!” or something like that!
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 19 attached, and yes the Barbie dolls feature – briefly!!
Quite a long offering this time, so as we’re busy getting ready to go away in the caravan, I’ll say no more!! Except, yes I’m sending this during the England vs Germany match, but it’s on iPlayer LIVE! and I’m multitasking!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Research ~ Missive 19
“Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.”
Edward de Bono
"By seeking and blundering we learn."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The theme idea is continuing, and again the title reflects the loose theme, but the more alert amongst you, or indeed those who have bothered to read previous missives, will notice a subtle change in the layout – clever words becoming just a couple or so quotes at the beginning and a completely new section, entitled “Ici devant nous,” the translation of which and indeed the explanation can be found below!! A section which, at least for the time being, is here to stay.
Whilst on the research theme, not sure if anyone else has seen it and I’m not sure I fully understand it, but it appears from an article on the BBC website earlier in June, and I quote verbatim: “Finding the Higgs is the primary aim of the £6bn ($10bn) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment near Geneva.” !! Strange, I know we’ve fled the country but we’re not that hard to find and certainly a ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre and petrol, tolls etc., would come in considerably cheaper! What maybe is even more surprising, is that a later article in the Guardian it says that the Higgs are “nicknamed the “God particle”, but before I get too egotistical and perhaps nearer to the truth we sound “a little bit like a bunch of coins spinning in a wine glass!” Confused? I certainly was and still am, however if you want to know more then follow this link to the “boson” of the Higgs family, mind you then you may be even more confused!!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson or indeed listen to us at: www.lhcsound.moonfruit.com/#/sounds-library/4540255106 or if still confused try a simplified cartoon form: www.pparc.ac.uk/ps/bbs/bbs_mass_hn.asp !!!!
Barbie Dolls and I should have said My Little Pony
This one is an old chestnut, to which I am only too pleased to vehemently return to, without apologies to anyone who has previously heard me vent my spleen over this, over the dinner table, having coffee at Mill’s Café, late at night at a Gastrell’s Ramblers Weekend or when simply passing the time of day!!
It all stems from an article I once read in the magazine of a Saturday paper about the obscene amounts of money that the producers of the “My Little Pony” toy spent researching what little girls like!! Amazingly, I’m sure any self respecting primary school teacher could have come up with the same list – ponies, combing hair and pastel colours, at considerably reduced cost. But, what made it all the more worrying to me, was that the vast R & D budget paled into insignificance when you viewed the profit projections that they were going to make over the first five years of production and that was without the new must have accessories – stable, four wheel drive and horse trailer, show jumping ring etc. – that were to conveniently come out just before Christmas each year!!! And, it got worst still as much of the profit was coming from the truly enormous mark up on the actually production cost, the items made with cheap eastern labour who probably didn’t even understand the concept of what they were making. Hence my ongoing aversion to all things in the toy department that are plastic, “silky” haired and overpriced!!!
I can’t help but feel that children would get equally as much play value and certainly considerably more in the way of life skills if they were playing outside, whatever the weather, and doing practical things like cooking. Better still combine the two and grow their own food and experience camping / camp cooking where possible, even if only in the back garden and I could even, at a pinch, go along with pastel coloured tents with nylon tassels!!
How gratifying then to be told by Dermot, our daughter Victoria’s partner, when expressing concern about what Tyler, his five year old son, would find to do when visiting us in France, that as long as he had a football and a stick he would be happy! We’ve a wood full of sticks, but just need to be careful about the football at the moment, and need to make sure it is not a replica of the current World Cup ball, something of a sore point in France at the moment!! Tempted as I was I resisted running an English flag up the flagpole the day England got through to the last 16 and the knockout stages of said tournament, shortly after France had been unceremoniously been dumped out of the World Cup, finishing a resounding last place in their group, with just a solitary point. Not to put too fine a point on it – un point!!!
And returning briefly to the Nature theme of the last missive, research has clearly shown that: Children and indeed many young adults up to the age of 35, are suffering from what has been called Nature Deficit Disorder NDD and subsequent physical and mental health problems such as obesity and depression, The key to this problem, at least in part, could be to send young children out into the world, be it back garden, park or on a wider scale National Park, to get their hands dirty and “begin to experience nature – from birdsong to the feel of the wind in their face.” They need close encounters often on a smaller scale than adults, and will derive pleasure from “looking into the eye of a primrose, lifting a stone to see what is underneath, or simply collecting objects – shells, stones, nuts and seeds.” All with real people and real animals, without a nylon hairstyle in sight! To find out more go to www.rewildingchildhood.com . With older children and teenagers it may be harder to engage them, but they will often rise to a challenge and enjoy discovering things for themselves and pushing themselves to their limits. It may also be with them, as Stephen Moss, broadcaster, writer and naturalist, points out, a case of restoring a balance between outside and TV and computer games.
Chilli Pasta ~ Somehow it just worked!
Those of you who know me well know my passion for food and not just the eating, but also the preparing for other people and the pleasure derived from seeing one’s friends enjoying your creations! I also like to experiment with new foods (sometimes trying them out before serving them to guests!), try recipes from other countries and produce food that “fits!” By this I mean; recipes utilising local in season produce, recipes around a particular request for someone’s favourite or simply, as often at present French country dishes to be served in the French countryside – so much the better if served outside in a shady spot surrounded by warm sunshine and a good supply of good friends!
Better still if it works when entertaining friends! I’m reminded of a quote from the forward of Depardieu’s book “Ma Cuisine:” “The art of cooking and preparing a meal to share with those you care about is also, for me, a means of communicating that love and friendship without necessarily having to utter a single word.”
So it is then that often at a quiet moment, the few selected cookery books that we have with us in France, will come off the shelf and I’ll look for something different, something I’ve not tried before, and so it was for this particular meal. We weren’t entertaining, just researching for a tasty meal for us, but also to add to the repertoire of earthy, tasty, country food fitting for rural France. At the end of the evening I had jotted down some notes that read: Pasta with chilli and coriander (from Rick Stein’s “Mediterranean Escapes and from Puglia in southern Italy) or as it’s called in the book “Orecchiette with cavalo nero” made with those shell like pasta that resemble little ears – well that is what orecchiette means in Italian! (This recipe caught my eye because of the unusual combination of chilli and pasta, although when we were in the Rishikesh district of India huge quantities of pasta, in lots of different colours, as well as a variety of shapes was on sale!) I had also noted some interesting pages with recipes for Bruscette from the same book and the same part of Italy, as well as continuing the Italian theme with some Crostini recipes noted from “Jamie’s Italy” by Jamie Oliver, and if you think bruschette and crostini are virtually the same, technically they’re not, the former being made with sourdough and the latter white bread!! You see research does pay off even if I’m prone to do my own thing loosely based on the recipes and what we have in the larder and fridge.
The next day, bearing this last point in mind, feeling creative and kept in by the weather, the evening “feast” started to take shape, “using” the recipes found the previous evening as well as some things we had in already. At this point I should make it clear that the creative juices meant we ended up with a far more elaborate meal than normal, but served the purpose of providing my “Tried, Tested and Approved” recipe list with several new recipes to try out on family and friends. So, should you happen to be visiting over the coming months, you might just have an inkling of what to expect!
The final meal consisted of: Toasted crostini rubbed with raw garlic (Careful if following the recipe – a little goes a long way!!), heaped with finely chopped and seasoned tomatoes, peppers and shallots. This was followed by pan fried lamb cutlets with marjoram on a bed of leaves (cabbage and leek tops) and penne pasta with chillies and coriander, served with grilled courgettes, grilled to dry them up as they had been in the freezer and tend to come out a little soggy – baking them in the oven works just as well. To finish we had some of our alcohol-soaked cherry plums, topped with whipped cream and a small quite fiery ginger biscuit that we had left over from Christmas. As we pushed back our chairs at the end of the meal, replete but not stuffed we both had to agree: “somehow it just worked!”
Carte Grise
We opened a bottle of bubbly this week and sent my Mum and Dad a text that simply said “Salut AV * 887 * NH” but I’m afraid it was too subtle for them and their friend, with whom they are currently caravanning with in France, and I got a reply that said “Have message appears 2 b from u. What does it mean. Dad.” (Yes, he might be 85 but he not only texts he also does it in the lingo! lol!!) I should add that they had just been with us and we were hoping to meet up with them in a week or so, caravan registration permitting, and that’s another clue!!
Yes, we have done it – the caravan is now registered in France!! Hallelujah! We have finally beaten the French bureaucracy and stuck up the proverbial Agincourt salute once more!! But it wasn’t without further incident, after my last report in Missive 14, back in January. Well, the New Year had come and gone and it took me some time to finally sit down and wade through just what it was that the DRIRE (Vehicle licensing) Office (which in the time that the whole process was taking had become the DREAL Office), had seemingly on a whim asked for now, bearing in mind as I told you before, we had a Certificate of EEC Conformity in French that stated that the caravan meets all EEC regulations!! But although a member state of the EEC, France seems to make up its own rules and what is worse, as we found out during our research – somewhat more intense that a Master’s Module!! – was that each region interprets the rules differently, as they see fit! We had decided it was a case of anti-British and simply rampant jingoism to make people buy French, and just one word of warning, don’t think buying in another mainland European country will make it any easier, we have friends who whilst living in the UK before permanently moving to France bought a left-hand drive German made campervan in Belgium and have quite simply given up trying to register it in France having been told it is “not possible!!” So much for a common market!
It became apparent that the list of “evidence” missing from my increasingly weighty dossier, all centred on the German built and EEC conforming AL-KO Kober chassis, which is incidentally fitted to over 80% of caravans, and the suitability of the coupling and braking system. So having tried to find the required information on the internet and dismally failed, in desperation I phoned up AL-KO and explained my predicament, naively thinking that they might be as efficient and generous as Bailey had been all those months ago, and provide me with the necessary piece of paper free of charge and by return of post. But, how wrong I was, although they were extremely helpful and understanding, having experienced this problem many times before and even saying “rather you than me!!!” when we discussed registering a caravan in France, the catch was that said certificate could be supplied for the princely sum of £85-00 plus VAT!!! Furthermore, in their experience there was absolutely no way around it, you had to have the certificate or you couldn’t register the caravan!! So, the order was placed the money paid and indeed very efficiently the certificate was quickly delivered, in a very large and weighty padded envelope!! The one page document I had been expecting was actually 150 pages long, containing everything that you could possibly require to know about the chassis in English, German and thankfully French, so with copying costs and postage and packaging it wasn’t such a bad deal after all, and in the end I decided this was a case of the Germans making a proverbial finger gesture all of their own!! But, we had it, the covering letter was ready, the remainder of the dossier sorted once more (The neat folder of punched pockets had been returned to me in total disarray, as they obviously shuffled it up to make it look as though they had searched through it in order to tick the relevant boxes!!) and ready in an envelope to post to the DREAL Office in nearby La Roche sur Yon.
Firstly, it wouldn’t fit in the envelope and secondly it was becoming so heavy it was in danger of needing a La Poste van all to itself to avoid serious damage to the suspension, so we decided to have a day out in Nantes and drop off the “dossier to put most dossiers in the shade” in person on the way, being careful not to put our backs out and therefore spoiling the day!! So at ten o’clock on a Wednesday 26th May, I returned to the car breathing a sigh of relieve, largely as it was quite a weight off my shoulders – quite literally, and wondered how long it would be before we got a reply and what new form of evidence we would be required to locate and submit!! Imagine then our surprise when at ten o’clock on Thursday 27th May, yes as the alert amongst you will have noticed that’s 24 hrs, we received a letter with an appointment, for a week’s time, to take the caravan for its technical test (yes, the one to ensure that the caravan conforms to European Standards and that the dossier matches the serial number on the chassis!!) and please remember to take a cheque for 85 euros!! Now, don’t get me wrong Le Technicien Supérieur, who sent us the appointment may be a superior reader, but as the letter had been delegated to a mere Technicien, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a “tick in the box” job!
But it was a step in the right direction, and we got the caravan ready, sorted out insurance (only just – another case of chicken and egg French bureaucracy!!) using the car registration number initially and set off with the proof of rendez-vous (appointment), should we be unlucky enough to be stopped by an eagle-eyed gendarme, who wanted to know why the car and caravan had the same registration number! After an uneventful journey, although on one of the roundabouts there was a police check-point pulling in drivers to check their documents, but fortunately it was for drivers going the other way!, we arrived in good time in the street where Goggle Earth had told us the testing station was. Although, after driving up and down it a couple of times there was no sign of the address we were looking for. With the time of the rendez-vous looming, in desperation I went into an unmarked unit to ask the whereabouts of the test station, to be told to go to the roundabout, turn left and it was the “vert” (green) building on the left. Well, the left turn off the roundabout headed down a narrow country land with only a sign to the local tip and seemingly nowhere to turn if it was wrong and the only building on the left was a bronze glass building! So, I went back the way I had come and was flagged down by the mechanic who had seen us pass by and was waiting for us. It was then that I realised that the instructions I had been given at the office around the corner were actually “on the left before the roundabout and the “verre” (glass) building!!
But, I had little time to chide myself on such a silly mistake, as the mechanic opened the workshop door and as the vehicle already inside left through the far side, he beckoned me to drive in over the chasm of an inspection pit that gaped in front of me! It was made for buses and lorries and was simple a deep hole in the concrete with sheer sides and no kerb to stop a stray wheel for plunging in. Having faith in the mechanic who continued to beckon me in and whose hand signals didn’t quicken or change direction indicating a degree of panic, I somewhat gingerly edged forward until the car and the front of the caravan were over the pit, then got out and realised just how little leeway there was either side of the hole and greeted the somewhat uncommunicative mechanic, who threw his copy of my dossier onto a nearby bench, retrieved his page of tick boxes and proceeded to look for the serial number. After a number of abortive searches, he indicated that I needed to move the car and caravan forward for closer inspection, and whilst he ticked off the other items Linda and I looked up, in the book, where the serial number should be! Erroneously, I had assumed it was clearly on the side of the chassis where serial numbers are always found, but in this case seemingly not!! The inspection finished save the checking of the serial number, and it becoming increasingly likely that we would have to go away, identify the serial number, return, with another drive over the abyss, having to pay another inspection fee ......... But with one last ditch attempt, I told the mechanic where the book had said it was and on closer inspection he found it, albeit a little faint, but certainly clear enough to read. We were then summoned to his office where he spent some time sorting through the muddled up dossier, asked for a couple of other origin documents that I had in my copy of the dossier and said he was finished, it appearing that everything had passed muster and even the niggly feeling that I had, that they might question that the reflectors on the side of the caravan were not lights proved not to be a problem!! After just remembering in time to ask for the cheque, seeing me carefully and slowly from over the inspection pit, the more frantic gestures this time indicating the closeness of one of the front wheels to the abyss below, and even responding with a wry smile to my rather theatrical sigh and mopping of my brow, informed us that the Sous Prefecture’s Office in Fontenay le Comte would telephone when the Carte Grise was ready to collect. This, our research had told us, would be between five to fourteen days, depending how busy the offices were and in this case how quickly the mechanic was able to get the dossier into some semblance of order.
So we waited, not wanting to get too excited until the new number plate was firmly in place on the back of the caravan, and waited and waited, worrying that there was actually a problem that would need sorting before the registration could go ahead! Eventually, just over two weeks later we got John, a friend of my parents who was staying with us and conveniently speaks the lingo like a native, to phone up the DREAL Office and enquire. He was told that all the necessary paperwork had been sent to the Sous Prefecture in Fontenay shortly after the test, and we needed to phone them to enquire, as they never phoned out to tell people their documents are ready! John’s phone call confirmed that the documents had all been received at the office and on production of my passport and a utility bill the Carte Grise (Registration Document) would be mine!! This was Tuesday, and we were going to wait until Friday to get the Carte Grise, but thankfully decided to go the following day, which was in the end just as well as on the Friday our hot water system had packed up and we had to stay in all morning, the only time the Sous Prefecture was open for Carte Grise issuing!
Arriving at the Sous Prefecture we found it very busy and had to take a ticket from a machine similar to those found on the deli counter of certain supermarkets, the number on which indicated that there were rather a lot of other people ahead of us in the queue! But by watching the comings and goings of French bureaucracy the time went quite quickly and we were soon explaining, in French, that we had come to pick up the Carte Grise for our caravan, which was initially met with a blank stare as though we were talking double Dutch and it wasn’t anything to do with our limited French!! The lights however, quickly came on and the receptionist went to a filling cabinet the other side of the room, removed a file and returned to the counter, asked us a few questions, ticked a few boxes and gave us another form to fill in, on which she indicated only a few sections that we needed to fill in, indicated a desk to the side of the counter and told us to come back once we were ready and not queue again! Duly completed we were handed some of our dossier back, but not the 150 pages about the chassis, that I had hoped would provide me with bedtime reading for several weeks, as I tried to fathom out all the technical bits – well I was hoping to get my monies worth from the documents!!, and a piece of paper to pay the next bit – the bill – at the cash desk next door.
Paper and money handed over and in what, after all this time was something of an anticlimax, we received our temporary Carte Grise, were able to get the number plate made up at the local supermarket, before going home, fitting the number plate and toasting the success. Then three days later we received the official Carte Grise and are now ready to roll to Saumur, on the banks of Le Loire, next week to meet up with my mum and dad for the next part of their holiday. Mission accomplished or Mission accomplie as they say in this neck of the woods!
“Ici devant nous!”
This is going to become a regular section, at least for the time being, largely due to Linda, my biggest critic’s comments that the missive should be about what we have been doing, have seen or plan to do! So you see, largely ignoring this advice so far in this missive, I have decided to put in a regular section that could just as easily have been entitled: “Nature Notes ~ Note la nature” (done by someone else before me!!), Nature at La Loge ~ Nature à La Loge” (too obvious!!) or La Loge Looking ~ La Loge la recherché” (subtle and nearly there!!). So why “Ici devant nous?” This goes back to a meal outside our house one sunny evening when my brother and family were visiting. Our “friendly” neighbourhood hornet, quite five centimetres long and fearsome looking, put it its nightly appearance, buzzed the dinner table and after a few seconds panic, from the diners not the hornet you understand, left us and went about its business from its home somewhere in the wall above the door to our Cave de Chauffage (Boiler Room). Our visitors were all for swatting it, but restraining them I uttered the title ~ “Ici devant nous!” ~ “Here before us!” and it sort of rang very true. I was reminded of the Dinner Ladies (sorry Midday Supervisory Assistants, or should that now be Pupil Supervisors!) at one of the schools I taught at. When the large field was dry the children had a wide open space to play on, but the gange mower was not able to get to the very edges along the fence and healthy banks of nettles started to spring up. It was suggested that as the children might sting themselves and so the nettles should be removed, my response – They’ll only get stung once and then be more careful!!
Well you’ve had nature sections before, but this one hopes to go a little further than simply a description of what we saw, when and where. It is more in the line of great explorers and naturalists from past eras, who seemed to have to recorded measurements, sightings, locations and meticulously catalogued everything they encountered. So it is in this vain that I reply to Linda, when having to know the answer: “How many seeds are there in a Cupressus cone, as found on a fine couple of specimens in the chateau garden, and how many seeds are produced annually by a cowslip plant?” Both these questions formulated when out and about observing the countryside, the first when having collected some of these fascinating cones, put them in my pocket and found my pocket filling up with small brown seeds, so I just had to know! The second, when collecting some of the cowslips seeds for my emerging “seed bank” and being amazed by the sheer quantity I was getting from one flower head.
Now to details and figures: Clustering in the cracks and crevices of the globe like Cupressus cone, which itself was only about 3 centimetres in diameter were 95 seeds in all, each an slightly flattened irregular shape about 2 - 3 millimetre long. The cowslip however, not to be outdone, from each flowerlet produces a small pea like seed container with a small opening surrounded attractively with the dried up petals and containing at least 35 tiny black seeds, clustered around a central core. So with each flower head containing something like 15 flowerlets, so that’s an impressive 525 plus seeds for each. Therefore if the plant had say only 4 flower heads, it annually produces in excess of 2000 seeds, which as the seed pod dries out and splits, fall out and take their chance. As the last missive talked about, nature is a wonderful thing, but it’s also a tough old world out there and only the strongest survive!
Linda does tend to ask why, in the sense of why bother and does it matter what it’s called, and rather than give the stock answer to the question asked of mountaineers –Why climb it?, and say “Because it’s there!”, I think the following quote from Richard Mabey’s “Nature Cure” is much nearer the mark: “It seems to me that naming a plant and for that matter any living thing, is a gesture of respect towards its individuality, its distinction from the generalised green blur. ......... The kind of name – scientific, fantastical, pet – scarcely matters provided someone can communicate it.” The only thing missing from the name list is, as I see it, French!!
My original “thought!”
Many of the corners of our house are home to large and seemingly inactive harvester spiders, not I hasten to add through lack of cleaning, they just seem to see the feather duster coming towards them, move slowly out of the way and lethargically return once the danger has passed!! In fact, really their presence has more to do with living in the deepest countryside in a three hundred year old stone built house.
Well, the corners of the loo are particular favourites, for the spiders you understand!, and as I have already mentioned these particular specimens seem to do very little just hang around on their webs waiting for an unsuspecting prey to happen by. However, should you disturb them; they have an amazing defence mechanism which comes as rather a surprise considering their normal inactivity. They drop slightly but very quickly and twist frantically round and round on their web at dizzying speed, until such time as they think the imminent danger has passed them by.
But having tormented one one day, to see once more the feverish display, I got to thinking; eight legs, two joints on each not counting the “hips,” that makes sixteen knees – and I got to thinking “Do spiders suffer from knee problems!!” Temps sur mon mains! ~ I’ll leave you to translate this one!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,
Roger and Linda
And maybe to come next time? “What we have been doing, have seen or plan to do!!” or something like that!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Down our street ~ Missive 18
29 May 2010
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 18 attached, again with a theme!!
Tidying up and getting ready for our next visitors – Chris, Chris and Sara, who as I write this should just be disembarking at Le Havre, ready to hit the road and be here for supper.
So, no time for any more, other than to apologise as 18 is a bit heavy in places, so my greatest critic tells me!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Down our Street ~ Missive 18
To Max ~ 10th November 1994 – 5th May 2010 ~ with love.
The theme idea is continuing, but hopefully dedicating the missives to a loved one who is no longer with us won’t be a regular occurrence! The theme this time returns to a couple of things, amongst others, that have appeared previously – nature and Max, and I make no apologies for either and as you will see they become inextricably linked! Initially, the worst thing about Max’s death was that we didn’t have anything to do – no job to go to!, to take our minds off it and to start with, it was very hard and “our street” was very quiet. So we set to and started to fill in the French tax forms – complicated or what, in technical French with no English translations available and hefty fines for not declaring things and returning them late, and then we argued!! I even questioned whether I would ever start the next missive as the gap he has left seemed so large, and we continued to listen for him as; he came in from the garden over the gravel sitting area dragging his weak right leg, barking at passing aircraft and wondering why, like tractors and La Poste, they didn’t pass the end of the drive and need chasing down the road, the clicking of his nails as we went to make a coffee and he had to check out the kitchen – ever hopeful for a crumb or a crust!, or simply snoring loudly with the odd wouf when the dream required it, in the corner behind Linda’s chair!! (Whilst thinking about nails and kitchens, the Barbie Dolls and Chilli Pasta mentioned as possibilities for this missive will have to wait!!)
Isn’t it strange how so often in such situations things conspire to remind you of what has happened! The day Max died we sat down for our evening meal and as we pushed the food around the plate, not really feeling much like eating, and as we toasted Max the digital picture frame loaded with numerous family pictures and on random play, selected the three main pictures of Max that are on it, one after the other: Him lying down looking out to sea at the Turk’s Head on St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly, asleep in the hot sunshine outside La Loge last summer and curled up in the corner of my Mum and Dad’s caravan when we were visiting Victoria in Plymouth. Then, everywhere we went over the next few days, there were Max look-a-likes or distant “sound-a-like” barks, and large glaring adverts for pet food or unrelated items like yoghurts which featured cuddly dogs.
The book I was reading, an autobiography about Julie Walters had a chapter about her pet dogs and their little idiosyncrasies, a pop up on my computer screen advertised dog’s for adoption and the Caravan Club magazine I opened, it being hard to concentrate on one thing for long had both a full page advert for pet insurance and the winning entries of last month’s best pet photographs – mostly dogs – held to celebrate National Pet month! But, that’s where nature comes in, as I’m sure surrounded as we are by the most staggering flora and fauna, with seemingly almost daily surprises, such as the large yellow twin winged damsel fly that decided the other evening to fly somewhat erratically around the yard whilst we were having our tea, occasionally lining up over the road and flying at us full speed, like a strafing raid, quite literally making us duck!! It’s these little glimpses of nature and the whole wonderful world around us that have seemed to have a real healing effect, that I’m not sure would have been the same if we were still working, but more of that below!
Thank you for the day ~ Associations
I can’t hear the song “Thank you for the Day” without associating it with a dear, sadly departed colleague – it was chosen by her husband to play at her funeral.
2010 hasn’t exactly started as we would have liked, with numerous bereavements of family, friends, friend’s families or acquaintances, but it has got me thinking about a phenomenon, which may be exclusive to me – I don’t know! When, I was living in Stroud and regularly walking Max on Rodborough Common, often late into the night or even the wee small hours, we would often stop for a rest and a look at the view, well Max would look at the view once I’d found a biscuit in my pocket and woe betide me if I’d forgotten them, he’d point blank refuse to admire the view!! I found this time of quiet reflection particularly comforting at times of loss, some people turn to the church, others including me turn to the wonders of nature and its healing power. Interestingly I recently read a book (The Apple Tree, a novel by Elvi Rhodes) that talked about the “architecture of trees” particularly in winter when you could clearly see from the supporting trunk to the smallest of twigs, but then said “a beauty hidden in summer,” which reminded me that I have often said that the woods and trees are my “church.” I even went as far as having an imaginary map of the various seats scattered across the common, in many cases put there by families in memory of loved ones, and I used different seats for different people, and thought about that particular person, in between nudges from a wet nose wondering if I had any more biscuits!
But back to my phenomenon! It’s all down to associations and when I’m doing something quite obscure or mundane, or someone says something, I’m reminded of “absent friends.” The list of these associations is lengthy, but here is just a flavour of some of them:
• Chopping vegetables I think about the same colleague mentioned above.
• Sawing wood with a cross cut saw, making sure that my first finger points along the handle, reminds me of my Nans – she taught me to use a saw!
• Someone pinching a tasty morsel of food that falls on the table from someone’s plate reminds me of my Grannie – for one so old she could certainly move very fast when it came to doing this, and it was straight into the mouth with a giggle. The first cuckoo of spring also reminds me of her as I clearly heard one in the churchyard during her funeral – in February!
• Pudding time in our household is often “Spoons up dig in!” courtesy of my Auntie Auds.
• Talk of touching your toes reminds me of my Auntie Biddy, who despite being a rather large lady, could still touch her toes – she proved it when I visited her once!
• Similarly, I shall never hear talk about lap dancing without thinking of Aunt Marg, no she wasn’t a lap dancer, but late one night during one of our camping family weekends, where the wine was flowing freely the tent pole was nearby and she nearly became one!
• Squeaking taps always make me think of Linda’s Dad, as just after I had done it properly and asked him if I could marry Linda, the bathroom tap squeaked and talk of marriage was forgotten as he uttered “That bloody tap!” Fortunately, he had said yes just before!
• Mills and Boon books remind me of Linda’s Mum, I think she had every one ever published; it’s amazing how many stories can be concocted from just eight standard plots!!
The list simply goes on – Rabbit pie and hot coffee, Linda’s Nan, Race walking - her husband (still going strong and winning when ninety and blind, missed the finish line but found the bar afterwards!), Plastic models of the Virgin Mary, Linda’s other Nan who had several in her front room, Dugati motorbikes, one of my governors from Uplands (the first funeral I had been to of someone younger than me) ......
Now, the latest is strangely when I’ve finished in the bathroom at night and I open the door to go to bed. I still expect Max to be waiting outside, being deaf it was the waft of air that made him jump, as best he could at his age and then fussing to go out for a final cock of the leg, knowing that “B & B” was to follow shortly. Indeed, so excited was he about “biscuits and bed” that sometimes he had to be reminded of why he went into the garden last thing at night!!
Nature Cure
I’ve pinched this sub-title from a book by Richard Mabey, written by him as part of the healing process after he fell into a bout of severe depression culminating in a breakdown. I mentioned above that I had thought that this missive might never happen, but three things came together to first give me food for thought, then inspiration as to where this missive was going. In my loo I have a pile of magazines, a folder of cuttings I have saved to read later and I was in the process of reading Nature Cure when it all came together. First there was an article in Natural World Magazine published by The Wildlife Trusts, about “Why children need nature,” then there was a newspaper cutting from the start of the year looking at the concept of “New year Resolutions” and finally the book.
First the article, and it initially struck a chord for a totally different reason and will rear its head again, when finally Barbie Dolls get an airing – but that’s a case of wait and see. For the purposes of now, it was the box at the end of the article containing various figures and a number of snippets – or do we call those “sound bites” now!?! The figures are in a section entitled “Nature vs concrete” headed with the following quote from Dr William Bird, Natural England’s Health Advisor – itself an interesting role within an organisation set up to “conserve and enhance the natural environment, for its intrinsic value, the wellbeing and enjoyment of people and the economic prosperity that it brings.” So not just about nature conservation, but this in a wider context of people and money to put it bluntly: “Increasing evidence suggests that both physical and mental health are improved through contact with nature. Yet people are having less contact with nature than at any other time in the past. This has to change!” The figures then cover a range of issues but four that jump out are: 50% Reduction in vandalism and domestic violence in families in tower blocks which have views of vegetation, compared to identical blocks without, £11.8bn, Cost of mental illness to NHS, local authorities and carers in 2002/3, 20% Improvement in self-discipline in children whose homes have views of trees and vegetation outside, and 90% Increase in people meeting and talking in green space compared to barren space. (All from a report by Dr Bird, called Natural Thinking, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/a6hwx7) Quotes from the same report follow with the title Nature and ..., the most pertinent her being Health “Hospital patients with views of nature need fewer painkillers following operation.” “Elderly people with easy access to nature are much happier with their quality of life than those in treeless, urban environments.” Aggression “Several studies show that nature can reduce aggression, possibly due to a restorative process in the brain.” and Stress “In tests of stressed students shown videos of shopping centres, traffic and nature, the nature videos reduced blood pressure and muscle tension far more quickly, and to a much lower level.”
Then, the newspaper cutting with the lengthy title (Linda’s always complaining about the length of some of my titles so not sure what she would make of this one, particularly as the article underneath it was less than a third of a page, with a picture taking up nearly a third of the article!!): “A simple thought for the New Year: spend more time appreciating nature, and you will find life wonderful.” (Life Class by Lesley Garner, Daily Telegraph 5th Jan 2010). Strangely, little of the article covers what the title would have you believe (Linda might also say that about some of my writings!!), much of it talking about perfection and then the lack of it that makes us undertake an “annual bout of self-flagellation,” or the making of New Year Resolutions! However, it finally gets on to “appreciating nature” bit, with the author making a resolution to take their camera with them wherever they go, to build a visual diary that confirms that “everyday life is beautiful and extraordinary.” They continue by saying “The way to reawaken wonder is to walk the worlds without expectation or prejudice. If you increase the amount of time you spend on appreciating nature and pay attention, I guarantee that you will find life wonderful. With my camera in my hand, I have become alert to the constant changes in light and colour that animate even the least promising city street. When it rains instead of grumbling, I cheer up because I know that magical new reflections are waiting for me.” “If you go dog-walking or bird-watching or gardening, you are carrying a freedom pass to wonder that never runs out. ........ If you’re fed up, go for a walk. That covers most things.” I couldn’t agree more, it certainly works for me!!
And finally, the book – Nature Cure by Richard Mabey (ISBN 1-8441-3096-7). This chronicles very eloquently how it worked for him, although it did involve a move from “down his street,” - the woods of the Chiltern Hills, to pastures new - the flatlands of Norfolk, where “Richard Mabey found exhilaration in discovering a whole new landscape and gained fresh insights into our place in nature.” As I read the book I can relate to why it worked for him, and just how powerful the natural environment can be.
The point? Quite simply that living where we do, surrounded by the most beautiful countryside and amazing and privileged glimpses of nature have made it possible to write this missive, particularly the bits about Max.
Further Past Times and Ricky Nelson
Now where did I get to with my imaginary reminiscences of the return of the Count in times gone by? Oh yes we covered the large staff awaiting the arrival of the Count, the hustle and bustle of the extensive kitchen garden and the farmyard and greniers (attics) for the storage of produce for the big house.
In addition to these there would have been the Home Farm with its Farm Manager, another bustling farm yard and extensive fields, dwindled now to a mere 200 acres but previously considerably more. This land would have throughout the year been a hive of activity, producing more food: wheat, mogettes (local beans), meat and fodder for the cattle and any other livestock, as well as continuing the seasonal activities of hedging, ditching, coppicing, and hunting and I’m sure some I’ve forgotten. There would also have been the Park to look after and provide a suitable area for the family to “walk out” and relax in relative privacy, although I’m sure that the woodland was also managed to provide timber for work around the estate, but also fuel for winter heating and for use in the kitchen – the hub of the house, “below stairs,” ruled over by the cook / housekeeper and butler, who between them would keep order amongst the other staff, and ensure the smooth running of the household – meals ready on time and served correctly, bedrooms aired and ready for use with beds turned down and hot water bottles filled during the winter months, and everywhere generally kept spick and span for the family and any visitors they might have.
The ornamental gardens would need tending for the family to enjoy, as well as providing a supply of fresh flowers to adorn the chateau rooms “above the stairs.” Maybe the gardeners would have lodged in the extensive attics above the stables, with the stable hands, in the two large stables blocks that make up two sides of the extensive stable block, the third side taken up with one of three lakes in the park, for recreation, fish stocks and water for irrigation. The final side has the back entrance to the stable yard, the tradesman’s entrance for the farrier, horse feed and anything else to come in that didn’t warrant the front drive. But in one of the stable blocks a large arch, with doors on one side, gave access to the front drive and allowed the horses or carriages to pass through once the family had been dropped off, in time to get ready, perhaps with the help of a maid for luncheon or dinner depending on the time of day.
And, it’s through the front gates, off the avenue, and the second gates allowing access over the moat and into the inner sanctum, that the Count still enters but without the due ceremony of yesteryear, indeed he drives himself in his Ford Mondeo and has to get out and open the gates himself, with no line of staff, in fact no staff at all to greet his arrival. As we get towards June, we are once more awaiting his arrival, for him to prepare the gîte, taking up about an eighth of the stable block and the only part of the stable now in use, with entry by the tradesman’s entry, and to be here to welcome his guests during the summer months. So we are looking forward to welcoming him and his constant companion – Tootoon his faithful hound back “home” and wonder what conversations and hilarity this visit will bring!!
If his last visit is anything to go by, there’ll me many a sore side as we exchange light hearted banter amongst the serious in depth discussions about religion, politics, crime and English tea! As his previous visit, to inspect the damage caused by the Tempest “Cynthia” in February was close to the General Election in England, (Oh No! I was trying to avoid unnatural disasters, but I guess commiserations are in order – not only to David Drew, do Stroud really know what they have done?, but also the country as a whole and I wonder how many other people will now take our lead and flee the country!! Certainly, from where I’m sitting Cameron and Clegg – strictly alphabetical you understand! – make strange bedfellows, and will hopefully not prove to be the comic Victorian Music Hall act that they sound like. Now that’s got that of my chest!!) conversation obviously turned to politics! He also, explained to us that it was necessary for him to return and ensure that his best interests were looked after when it came to disposing of the large amount of timber from the storm damaged trees, after all as he said once more “Whilst the cat’s away, the mice will dance!” This then led us on to a “thesaurus moment” when Monsieur, with his love and indeed proficiency of languages decided to compile a list of “mice” who would be queuing up to perpetrate the crime of wood rustling – vagabonds, thieves, scoundrels, villains, robbers, rogues, lowlife, pilferer, bandits, outlaws, marauders, to which later in the week, to much merriment and booming raucous laughter, caught up by events, we added politicians!!
We also, for reasons I won’t go into here, whilst being shown his private chapel, discovered that he had excommunicated himself from the Catholic Church, so at times some quite heavy stuff. It was indeed during one such heavy session of deep discussion about corruption in politics and trying to put the world to right, that Monsieur announced “I am going to change the subject now. I love the sixties songs of an artist called Ricky Nelson and recently my nephew has discovered a website of his lyrics including my favourite song, I was then so excited that I danced around the room with a chair!! So now, I know all the words of the song and understand most of what it is about, but there is just one part I cannot grasp – maybe you can help!!” He went on to say that this one line said “Yes Sarray” and did we know what it meant? By a process of elimination, Linda finally got it, the actual phase was Yes Sirree!!, but then we had to explain what it means, without the context of the rest of the lyrics, and try it at home – it’s quite difficult!! Eventually, after explaining it is some sort of exclamation, I decided to put it into context and ended up saying it was the sort of expression that a cowboy would make, when excited by something and accompanied by a firm slap of the thigh!!! More booming raucous laughter ensued at the time and most other times when we met during his visit and with a glint in his eye and a slap of his thigh, he informed me that he was perfecting his “Yes Sirree!” to try out on his friends back home in Spain!! So, should you have occasion to visit western Spain and come across a Frenchman impersonating a Spaniard, impersonating a Cowboy heartily slapping his thigh whilst singing a Ricky Nelson song and dancing with a chair – say hello from us!! You see, returning to the theme it’s still all happening “Down our street!!!”
“Clever Words”
• Laurens van der Post: “The fire had died down to a great coal pinned like a crimson rose to the dark earth.” We had a fire “down our street” in the garden the day Max died and stared into the flames deep in thought.
• William Vanstone: “The church is like a swimming pool – all the noise is at the shallow end.” With apologies to my religion friends, but as I said – my “church” is “down our street” in the woods or the wide open spaces!
• From “Under the Tuscan Sun” by Frances Mayes: “A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.” It also can be very therapeutic from the street I’m in!
• Picking up the nature theme, Brian Redhead, late President of the Council for National Parks: “Not ours, but ours to look after.”
• Hassidic proverb: “What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.”
• Perhaps fitting at the end of this slightly “off on a tangent” missive, Abraham Lincoln: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
My original “thought!”
Thank you for all your kind words after the last “inter-missive!” They made me cry, partly because they made me think of Max and remember he was no longer with us, but also, to know that he had meant a lot to others whose lives he had touched. An obituary for a dog may have seemed strange, but it was part of the healing process largely composed whilst walking in the curative countryside all around us, for a sadly missed member of the family. In the words of an Eric Bogle song, Elizabeth’s Song, regarding a baby daughter that he and his wife lost early in her life:
“So please won’t you talk about her, Don’t be afraid of how we’ll feel.
You won’t make the scars cut deeper, You can only help them heal.”
So, when we see you please DO talk about him, but don’t initially be surprised if we burst into tears or disappear quietly!
Some of you have enquired as to what has happened to him, well he has as I write this returned home, at least his ashes have and he will be returning to Stroud, where he lived most of his life, in due course.
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
(Little did I know that Max’s last comment would indeed be his last, however, Max says good-bye not au revoir and wouf wouf or woof woof to all his furry friends. And, asks you to keep an eye on the folks and look after them for him, they’re a bit fragile at the moment)
And maybe to come next time? We’re back to “Researching” Barbie Dolls and Chilli Pasta!!
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 18 attached, again with a theme!!
Tidying up and getting ready for our next visitors – Chris, Chris and Sara, who as I write this should just be disembarking at Le Havre, ready to hit the road and be here for supper.
So, no time for any more, other than to apologise as 18 is a bit heavy in places, so my greatest critic tells me!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Down our Street ~ Missive 18
To Max ~ 10th November 1994 – 5th May 2010 ~ with love.
The theme idea is continuing, but hopefully dedicating the missives to a loved one who is no longer with us won’t be a regular occurrence! The theme this time returns to a couple of things, amongst others, that have appeared previously – nature and Max, and I make no apologies for either and as you will see they become inextricably linked! Initially, the worst thing about Max’s death was that we didn’t have anything to do – no job to go to!, to take our minds off it and to start with, it was very hard and “our street” was very quiet. So we set to and started to fill in the French tax forms – complicated or what, in technical French with no English translations available and hefty fines for not declaring things and returning them late, and then we argued!! I even questioned whether I would ever start the next missive as the gap he has left seemed so large, and we continued to listen for him as; he came in from the garden over the gravel sitting area dragging his weak right leg, barking at passing aircraft and wondering why, like tractors and La Poste, they didn’t pass the end of the drive and need chasing down the road, the clicking of his nails as we went to make a coffee and he had to check out the kitchen – ever hopeful for a crumb or a crust!, or simply snoring loudly with the odd wouf when the dream required it, in the corner behind Linda’s chair!! (Whilst thinking about nails and kitchens, the Barbie Dolls and Chilli Pasta mentioned as possibilities for this missive will have to wait!!)
Isn’t it strange how so often in such situations things conspire to remind you of what has happened! The day Max died we sat down for our evening meal and as we pushed the food around the plate, not really feeling much like eating, and as we toasted Max the digital picture frame loaded with numerous family pictures and on random play, selected the three main pictures of Max that are on it, one after the other: Him lying down looking out to sea at the Turk’s Head on St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly, asleep in the hot sunshine outside La Loge last summer and curled up in the corner of my Mum and Dad’s caravan when we were visiting Victoria in Plymouth. Then, everywhere we went over the next few days, there were Max look-a-likes or distant “sound-a-like” barks, and large glaring adverts for pet food or unrelated items like yoghurts which featured cuddly dogs.
The book I was reading, an autobiography about Julie Walters had a chapter about her pet dogs and their little idiosyncrasies, a pop up on my computer screen advertised dog’s for adoption and the Caravan Club magazine I opened, it being hard to concentrate on one thing for long had both a full page advert for pet insurance and the winning entries of last month’s best pet photographs – mostly dogs – held to celebrate National Pet month! But, that’s where nature comes in, as I’m sure surrounded as we are by the most staggering flora and fauna, with seemingly almost daily surprises, such as the large yellow twin winged damsel fly that decided the other evening to fly somewhat erratically around the yard whilst we were having our tea, occasionally lining up over the road and flying at us full speed, like a strafing raid, quite literally making us duck!! It’s these little glimpses of nature and the whole wonderful world around us that have seemed to have a real healing effect, that I’m not sure would have been the same if we were still working, but more of that below!
Thank you for the day ~ Associations
I can’t hear the song “Thank you for the Day” without associating it with a dear, sadly departed colleague – it was chosen by her husband to play at her funeral.
2010 hasn’t exactly started as we would have liked, with numerous bereavements of family, friends, friend’s families or acquaintances, but it has got me thinking about a phenomenon, which may be exclusive to me – I don’t know! When, I was living in Stroud and regularly walking Max on Rodborough Common, often late into the night or even the wee small hours, we would often stop for a rest and a look at the view, well Max would look at the view once I’d found a biscuit in my pocket and woe betide me if I’d forgotten them, he’d point blank refuse to admire the view!! I found this time of quiet reflection particularly comforting at times of loss, some people turn to the church, others including me turn to the wonders of nature and its healing power. Interestingly I recently read a book (The Apple Tree, a novel by Elvi Rhodes) that talked about the “architecture of trees” particularly in winter when you could clearly see from the supporting trunk to the smallest of twigs, but then said “a beauty hidden in summer,” which reminded me that I have often said that the woods and trees are my “church.” I even went as far as having an imaginary map of the various seats scattered across the common, in many cases put there by families in memory of loved ones, and I used different seats for different people, and thought about that particular person, in between nudges from a wet nose wondering if I had any more biscuits!
But back to my phenomenon! It’s all down to associations and when I’m doing something quite obscure or mundane, or someone says something, I’m reminded of “absent friends.” The list of these associations is lengthy, but here is just a flavour of some of them:
• Chopping vegetables I think about the same colleague mentioned above.
• Sawing wood with a cross cut saw, making sure that my first finger points along the handle, reminds me of my Nans – she taught me to use a saw!
• Someone pinching a tasty morsel of food that falls on the table from someone’s plate reminds me of my Grannie – for one so old she could certainly move very fast when it came to doing this, and it was straight into the mouth with a giggle. The first cuckoo of spring also reminds me of her as I clearly heard one in the churchyard during her funeral – in February!
• Pudding time in our household is often “Spoons up dig in!” courtesy of my Auntie Auds.
• Talk of touching your toes reminds me of my Auntie Biddy, who despite being a rather large lady, could still touch her toes – she proved it when I visited her once!
• Similarly, I shall never hear talk about lap dancing without thinking of Aunt Marg, no she wasn’t a lap dancer, but late one night during one of our camping family weekends, where the wine was flowing freely the tent pole was nearby and she nearly became one!
• Squeaking taps always make me think of Linda’s Dad, as just after I had done it properly and asked him if I could marry Linda, the bathroom tap squeaked and talk of marriage was forgotten as he uttered “That bloody tap!” Fortunately, he had said yes just before!
• Mills and Boon books remind me of Linda’s Mum, I think she had every one ever published; it’s amazing how many stories can be concocted from just eight standard plots!!
The list simply goes on – Rabbit pie and hot coffee, Linda’s Nan, Race walking - her husband (still going strong and winning when ninety and blind, missed the finish line but found the bar afterwards!), Plastic models of the Virgin Mary, Linda’s other Nan who had several in her front room, Dugati motorbikes, one of my governors from Uplands (the first funeral I had been to of someone younger than me) ......
Now, the latest is strangely when I’ve finished in the bathroom at night and I open the door to go to bed. I still expect Max to be waiting outside, being deaf it was the waft of air that made him jump, as best he could at his age and then fussing to go out for a final cock of the leg, knowing that “B & B” was to follow shortly. Indeed, so excited was he about “biscuits and bed” that sometimes he had to be reminded of why he went into the garden last thing at night!!
Nature Cure
I’ve pinched this sub-title from a book by Richard Mabey, written by him as part of the healing process after he fell into a bout of severe depression culminating in a breakdown. I mentioned above that I had thought that this missive might never happen, but three things came together to first give me food for thought, then inspiration as to where this missive was going. In my loo I have a pile of magazines, a folder of cuttings I have saved to read later and I was in the process of reading Nature Cure when it all came together. First there was an article in Natural World Magazine published by The Wildlife Trusts, about “Why children need nature,” then there was a newspaper cutting from the start of the year looking at the concept of “New year Resolutions” and finally the book.
First the article, and it initially struck a chord for a totally different reason and will rear its head again, when finally Barbie Dolls get an airing – but that’s a case of wait and see. For the purposes of now, it was the box at the end of the article containing various figures and a number of snippets – or do we call those “sound bites” now!?! The figures are in a section entitled “Nature vs concrete” headed with the following quote from Dr William Bird, Natural England’s Health Advisor – itself an interesting role within an organisation set up to “conserve and enhance the natural environment, for its intrinsic value, the wellbeing and enjoyment of people and the economic prosperity that it brings.” So not just about nature conservation, but this in a wider context of people and money to put it bluntly: “Increasing evidence suggests that both physical and mental health are improved through contact with nature. Yet people are having less contact with nature than at any other time in the past. This has to change!” The figures then cover a range of issues but four that jump out are: 50% Reduction in vandalism and domestic violence in families in tower blocks which have views of vegetation, compared to identical blocks without, £11.8bn, Cost of mental illness to NHS, local authorities and carers in 2002/3, 20% Improvement in self-discipline in children whose homes have views of trees and vegetation outside, and 90% Increase in people meeting and talking in green space compared to barren space. (All from a report by Dr Bird, called Natural Thinking, 2006 http://tinyurl.com/a6hwx7) Quotes from the same report follow with the title Nature and ..., the most pertinent her being Health “Hospital patients with views of nature need fewer painkillers following operation.” “Elderly people with easy access to nature are much happier with their quality of life than those in treeless, urban environments.” Aggression “Several studies show that nature can reduce aggression, possibly due to a restorative process in the brain.” and Stress “In tests of stressed students shown videos of shopping centres, traffic and nature, the nature videos reduced blood pressure and muscle tension far more quickly, and to a much lower level.”
Then, the newspaper cutting with the lengthy title (Linda’s always complaining about the length of some of my titles so not sure what she would make of this one, particularly as the article underneath it was less than a third of a page, with a picture taking up nearly a third of the article!!): “A simple thought for the New Year: spend more time appreciating nature, and you will find life wonderful.” (Life Class by Lesley Garner, Daily Telegraph 5th Jan 2010). Strangely, little of the article covers what the title would have you believe (Linda might also say that about some of my writings!!), much of it talking about perfection and then the lack of it that makes us undertake an “annual bout of self-flagellation,” or the making of New Year Resolutions! However, it finally gets on to “appreciating nature” bit, with the author making a resolution to take their camera with them wherever they go, to build a visual diary that confirms that “everyday life is beautiful and extraordinary.” They continue by saying “The way to reawaken wonder is to walk the worlds without expectation or prejudice. If you increase the amount of time you spend on appreciating nature and pay attention, I guarantee that you will find life wonderful. With my camera in my hand, I have become alert to the constant changes in light and colour that animate even the least promising city street. When it rains instead of grumbling, I cheer up because I know that magical new reflections are waiting for me.” “If you go dog-walking or bird-watching or gardening, you are carrying a freedom pass to wonder that never runs out. ........ If you’re fed up, go for a walk. That covers most things.” I couldn’t agree more, it certainly works for me!!
And finally, the book – Nature Cure by Richard Mabey (ISBN 1-8441-3096-7). This chronicles very eloquently how it worked for him, although it did involve a move from “down his street,” - the woods of the Chiltern Hills, to pastures new - the flatlands of Norfolk, where “Richard Mabey found exhilaration in discovering a whole new landscape and gained fresh insights into our place in nature.” As I read the book I can relate to why it worked for him, and just how powerful the natural environment can be.
The point? Quite simply that living where we do, surrounded by the most beautiful countryside and amazing and privileged glimpses of nature have made it possible to write this missive, particularly the bits about Max.
Further Past Times and Ricky Nelson
Now where did I get to with my imaginary reminiscences of the return of the Count in times gone by? Oh yes we covered the large staff awaiting the arrival of the Count, the hustle and bustle of the extensive kitchen garden and the farmyard and greniers (attics) for the storage of produce for the big house.
In addition to these there would have been the Home Farm with its Farm Manager, another bustling farm yard and extensive fields, dwindled now to a mere 200 acres but previously considerably more. This land would have throughout the year been a hive of activity, producing more food: wheat, mogettes (local beans), meat and fodder for the cattle and any other livestock, as well as continuing the seasonal activities of hedging, ditching, coppicing, and hunting and I’m sure some I’ve forgotten. There would also have been the Park to look after and provide a suitable area for the family to “walk out” and relax in relative privacy, although I’m sure that the woodland was also managed to provide timber for work around the estate, but also fuel for winter heating and for use in the kitchen – the hub of the house, “below stairs,” ruled over by the cook / housekeeper and butler, who between them would keep order amongst the other staff, and ensure the smooth running of the household – meals ready on time and served correctly, bedrooms aired and ready for use with beds turned down and hot water bottles filled during the winter months, and everywhere generally kept spick and span for the family and any visitors they might have.
The ornamental gardens would need tending for the family to enjoy, as well as providing a supply of fresh flowers to adorn the chateau rooms “above the stairs.” Maybe the gardeners would have lodged in the extensive attics above the stables, with the stable hands, in the two large stables blocks that make up two sides of the extensive stable block, the third side taken up with one of three lakes in the park, for recreation, fish stocks and water for irrigation. The final side has the back entrance to the stable yard, the tradesman’s entrance for the farrier, horse feed and anything else to come in that didn’t warrant the front drive. But in one of the stable blocks a large arch, with doors on one side, gave access to the front drive and allowed the horses or carriages to pass through once the family had been dropped off, in time to get ready, perhaps with the help of a maid for luncheon or dinner depending on the time of day.
And, it’s through the front gates, off the avenue, and the second gates allowing access over the moat and into the inner sanctum, that the Count still enters but without the due ceremony of yesteryear, indeed he drives himself in his Ford Mondeo and has to get out and open the gates himself, with no line of staff, in fact no staff at all to greet his arrival. As we get towards June, we are once more awaiting his arrival, for him to prepare the gîte, taking up about an eighth of the stable block and the only part of the stable now in use, with entry by the tradesman’s entry, and to be here to welcome his guests during the summer months. So we are looking forward to welcoming him and his constant companion – Tootoon his faithful hound back “home” and wonder what conversations and hilarity this visit will bring!!
If his last visit is anything to go by, there’ll me many a sore side as we exchange light hearted banter amongst the serious in depth discussions about religion, politics, crime and English tea! As his previous visit, to inspect the damage caused by the Tempest “Cynthia” in February was close to the General Election in England, (Oh No! I was trying to avoid unnatural disasters, but I guess commiserations are in order – not only to David Drew, do Stroud really know what they have done?, but also the country as a whole and I wonder how many other people will now take our lead and flee the country!! Certainly, from where I’m sitting Cameron and Clegg – strictly alphabetical you understand! – make strange bedfellows, and will hopefully not prove to be the comic Victorian Music Hall act that they sound like. Now that’s got that of my chest!!) conversation obviously turned to politics! He also, explained to us that it was necessary for him to return and ensure that his best interests were looked after when it came to disposing of the large amount of timber from the storm damaged trees, after all as he said once more “Whilst the cat’s away, the mice will dance!” This then led us on to a “thesaurus moment” when Monsieur, with his love and indeed proficiency of languages decided to compile a list of “mice” who would be queuing up to perpetrate the crime of wood rustling – vagabonds, thieves, scoundrels, villains, robbers, rogues, lowlife, pilferer, bandits, outlaws, marauders, to which later in the week, to much merriment and booming raucous laughter, caught up by events, we added politicians!!
We also, for reasons I won’t go into here, whilst being shown his private chapel, discovered that he had excommunicated himself from the Catholic Church, so at times some quite heavy stuff. It was indeed during one such heavy session of deep discussion about corruption in politics and trying to put the world to right, that Monsieur announced “I am going to change the subject now. I love the sixties songs of an artist called Ricky Nelson and recently my nephew has discovered a website of his lyrics including my favourite song, I was then so excited that I danced around the room with a chair!! So now, I know all the words of the song and understand most of what it is about, but there is just one part I cannot grasp – maybe you can help!!” He went on to say that this one line said “Yes Sarray” and did we know what it meant? By a process of elimination, Linda finally got it, the actual phase was Yes Sirree!!, but then we had to explain what it means, without the context of the rest of the lyrics, and try it at home – it’s quite difficult!! Eventually, after explaining it is some sort of exclamation, I decided to put it into context and ended up saying it was the sort of expression that a cowboy would make, when excited by something and accompanied by a firm slap of the thigh!!! More booming raucous laughter ensued at the time and most other times when we met during his visit and with a glint in his eye and a slap of his thigh, he informed me that he was perfecting his “Yes Sirree!” to try out on his friends back home in Spain!! So, should you have occasion to visit western Spain and come across a Frenchman impersonating a Spaniard, impersonating a Cowboy heartily slapping his thigh whilst singing a Ricky Nelson song and dancing with a chair – say hello from us!! You see, returning to the theme it’s still all happening “Down our street!!!”
“Clever Words”
• Laurens van der Post: “The fire had died down to a great coal pinned like a crimson rose to the dark earth.” We had a fire “down our street” in the garden the day Max died and stared into the flames deep in thought.
• William Vanstone: “The church is like a swimming pool – all the noise is at the shallow end.” With apologies to my religion friends, but as I said – my “church” is “down our street” in the woods or the wide open spaces!
• From “Under the Tuscan Sun” by Frances Mayes: “A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.” It also can be very therapeutic from the street I’m in!
• Picking up the nature theme, Brian Redhead, late President of the Council for National Parks: “Not ours, but ours to look after.”
• Hassidic proverb: “What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul.”
• Perhaps fitting at the end of this slightly “off on a tangent” missive, Abraham Lincoln: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
My original “thought!”
Thank you for all your kind words after the last “inter-missive!” They made me cry, partly because they made me think of Max and remember he was no longer with us, but also, to know that he had meant a lot to others whose lives he had touched. An obituary for a dog may have seemed strange, but it was part of the healing process largely composed whilst walking in the curative countryside all around us, for a sadly missed member of the family. In the words of an Eric Bogle song, Elizabeth’s Song, regarding a baby daughter that he and his wife lost early in her life:
“So please won’t you talk about her, Don’t be afraid of how we’ll feel.
You won’t make the scars cut deeper, You can only help them heal.”
So, when we see you please DO talk about him, but don’t initially be surprised if we burst into tears or disappear quietly!
Some of you have enquired as to what has happened to him, well he has as I write this returned home, at least his ashes have and he will be returning to Stroud, where he lived most of his life, in due course.
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
(Little did I know that Max’s last comment would indeed be his last, however, Max says good-bye not au revoir and wouf wouf or woof woof to all his furry friends. And, asks you to keep an eye on the folks and look after them for him, they’re a bit fragile at the moment)
And maybe to come next time? We’re back to “Researching” Barbie Dolls and Chilli Pasta!!
Friday, May 7, 2010
Now we are two
Click on the link below and then click to go to the full version of "Now we are two" complete with some pictures of Max:
http://cid-42bedc71a8702824.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/One%20Year%20On%20%5E4The%20Why%5E4.pdf#resId/42BEDC71A8702824!150
Be patient as it takes a little while to download!!
http://cid-42bedc71a8702824.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/One%20Year%20On%20%5E4The%20Why%5E4.pdf#resId/42BEDC71A8702824!150
Be patient as it takes a little while to download!!
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