I know I promised my family that I wouldn’t add any more pets to my pack but it appears I have adopted another. Gabriel or Gabrielle, as I have no idea how to sex a gecko nor would I want to, has taken up residence in the living area. My Moorish or Common Wall Gecko doesn’t seem to do much except plaster itself upside down on the ceiling rather than snoozing on a wall but since he/she/it is great at keeping flies and mozzies at bay I’m told, our new house guest is welcome to stay. As long as it doesn’t suddenly do a death drop. Thankfully the woofers haven’t noticed a change in resident numbers, I dread to think what a lizard would do to Arry’s digestive system. I wonder if he’s allergic to them? He’s allergic to practically everything else.
Sadly, as one moves in, another leaves. After 2 years of toil, changing the entire heating system and disposing of the old one, my beloved Max chauffagiste extraordinaire has finished what he came to do. With the final flourish being the installation of whopping great solar panels (many jokes made about E.T landings) and an equally whopping bill deposited, Max pootled off in his battered camion – it hasn’t escaped the mischievous front gate either and headed off into the sunset. Or Limoux I expect. Of course he’ll be back from time to time, if only to check the oil reservoir but I will miss his practical jokes (“Sophi, don’t touch the solar panels because they are very hot!” I did, they weren’t, he cracked up) and his early morning bellows of “Bonjour Stupido!”. He adores Arry and the feeling is mutual. Denis will miss him too, the two of them have become great bosom buddies and have the rest of us in stitches when they start winding each other up. As I hugged my Monsieur le Max goodbye yesterday evening, he smiled and said he would see me soon – I was bound to break something within a day or two.
We may have gone all ‘eco’ with the impressive solar sheets tilted against my terrace wall but as yet, we haven’t had much sun to make the most of them. It’s been a windy, wet week with the exception of Monday (perhaps Thursday as well but I can’t think when everything is covered in grey cloud) but the garden is happy. The trees are green once more and the wisteria is popping buds all over my apartment frontage. Bunches of wild garlic have added a sprinkling of white to the otherwise mostly pink blossomed Spring display. The lettuce are growing bigger every day, I think my morning motivational chats are encouraging them to reach for the sky and Denis has managed to cut most of the over-grown herbes in between the downpours. As rain has most definitely stopped me playing outside, I have discovered a new passion – restoring furniture. It all started with my theatre chairs, now gracefully sitting in the lounge with just the arm rests to re-cover. There is something about seeing old, dirty bits of wood transformed with a bit of elbow grease, a lot of washing up liquid and various oils. The garden bench is now a gleaming piece of teak technology as is Mumo’s rather funky 1960’s chair. Both survived the floods at L’Horte although, judging by the amount of gunge I removed from all their nooks and crannies, I highly doubt they’ve seen a sponge since. Yesterday, the lovely Lionel popped in with a ‘seen better days’ mirror that he thought I might like. Frankly it’s so ugly, it’s beautiful. Someone painted a ‘trompe l’oeil‘ on the glass, adding olive branches and a village landscape below, strangely eye-catching if you excuse the pun. At the moment the whole piece has decades, if not centuries, of grime embedded in both the frame and the mirror itself but I’m looking forward to finding its inner beauty.
As I mentioned, it didn’t rain on Monday. Monday was a gloriously sunny warm day so Denis and I took advantage of the blue skies above and drove over to Abraham’s place to buy some more pork. Naturally, it goes without saying in this village, one never just visits to buy something. We found Abraham and his partner, Rosa, out in one of their many polytunnels clearing weeds between lines of carrot tops. Unfortunately our little potager doesn’t have room for such delicacies but Abraham did offer to give us some tomato plantlings next week – apparently the best time to get them in the ground. Then, of course, we all went and sat in the sun on a few logs in a field, along with a very nice bottle of Rosé. As you do. Eventually, D and I made it back home with our purchases and a whole lot of bones for the woofers – a gift from our hosts but lying out there under the Spring sunshine, I couldn’t help a little inner giggle at how quickly I have become used to my new life down here. I may have jumped in at the deep end, driving 9 dogs and a lily plant (she’s doing very well in case you are wondering) in a motorhome to a country whose language I barely understood but rarely a day goes by when I’m not grateful to this little spot in South-West France. Even if Gabriel/Gabrielle is suspiciously close to the top of my head at the moment…
“Bloom where you are planted’ (1 Corinthians 7:20-24)
Widow plus woofs 