So here goes another break in the norm. I am writing this over coffee this morning instead of my usual after lunch ‘a la pizza’ musings. Firstly, I am going over to Denis’ Mum’s place for midday munchings in an hour or so and secondly, we ate the pizza last night. Another brave move from the routine. As we’d spent Friday night with friends down the rue emptying the contents of their fridge and wine rack, D and I decided to stay in and eat with Mumo - and inhale her delicious Italian offering. She makes the best.
It’s hard to believe it’s the end of January already, where the hell did the month go? Mind you, the current temperatures are more reminiscent of May – we are still in double digits and the thermometer hit 21 on Thursday. Of course, that would be the day I spent clearing out the largest of Abraham’s poly tunnels so that he could begin the new season’s planting. I still haven’t managed to remove all the minute hay needles from my jeans -even tweezers and a magnifying glass can’t eject the pesky pins. And boy, it’s hot in those tunnels. Sitting down over a beer later, I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the windows. Let’s just say, a scarecrow would have been terrified at the reflection. And Abraham’s wasn’t the only ‘sauna’ being taken care of. Denis managed to get my little one up and installed at the back of the garden; in his words, Ikea instructions were easier to follow but he did it. I moved all my little seedlings in and bought a few others so they wouldn’t be lonely in their sweaty surroundings. At least if Mother Nature decided to throw us a curveball and send snow our way, I know where to keep warm.
On the plus side, ambient degrees make for gorgeous morning runs over the hills. And with the mornings becoming lighter earlier, I can start the pace under the moonlight and ascend into the sunrise – quite spectacular. Work has started back up on the vines too so the sound of Arry and co’s collar bells is now inter-mingled with the hum of tractors – strangely comforting in a way as we head out of winter.
And with that, I must depart for what will be, no doubt, a stomach stretching afternoon if I know D’s family. Oh, and the podcast is now up and running on Spotify every Sunday evening. I think I’m getting to grips with it now and my Ipad is still intact. I have no idea what tonight’s will be like but I shall keep the wine to a minimum. At least I have a voice now, last weekend I was reduced to rasping Dot Cotton style…
“Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.” (Paul Theroux)
it’s not Spring yetBut it’s time for plantingand appreciating
Talking to my bestie, Rene, last week, our conversation meandering between who was doing what and plans for the year ahead when the subject of routine came up. Or changing routines to be more exact. Both being widows, we know what it’s like in those early days – having a steady hold on your daily life becomes habitual, a coping mechanism if you like. But it also becomes an unhealthy rut. It wasn’t until our phone call was finished that I realised that whilst Rene was already making changes to hers, varying the time of day she does her yoga sessions or walks her bundle of energy that is Pepper, I’m still sticking to more or less the same routine. Not the one I had in place when Tony first passed away, my life is somewhat different now but how I start my day definitely has an order to it. I may not make plans for the future other than what needs to be done in the garden or making deadlines for the Second Book but my ‘get up, let dogs out, change Mo and Coco’s nappies, workout, shower, smoothie then coffee’ is pretty much the same. And if something comes up that means changing the above, my mind gets befuddled. I’m not even sure I can blame my obsessive tendencies towards this little bit of regularity in my world on Tony, I think a lot of it comes from those London working days – my pea-size brain can’t forget the stress of Tuesdays and Thursdays as they were always my busiest ones. I still seem to rush around on those ones for no apparent reason whatsoever. But Rene is right, a change is good for the mental me so I’m making tiny steps – yesterday I made coffee before my shower.
And it didn’t stop there. The other evening and with book head stalled, I was watching a programme about celebs homes and thoughts of changing my living area around began exciting the synapses – there’s an inner interior designer in me although what it thinks it can do and what it actually does are two different things. I have to admit I’m very happy with the result although the woofers less so, it took Simi several days to find the water bowl I’d moved an inch away from its original spot although a sofa is a dog sofa no matter where it lands up. I found my old painting table in the garage so now I have a place to put all my pins and fabrics for upholstering which is just as well as I discovered on moving my renovated theatre sièges that I hadn’t finished the backs of them and my almost-finished purple velvet armchair looks perfect in place so I’m not going to sell it. I also moved the telescope out onto the terrace now that my nephew, Louis figured out the lens configuration although the nights are too flipping cold to stand out there peering at the stars above. Rene’s right, making little changes keeps the mind moving and now the writing muse is back in force and chapters flying off the keyboard.
Rustling up one’s routine however, might be the right thing for us mere mortals but not so much for Mother Nature. The weather is frankly bonkers at the moment and our poor terrain doesn’t know which season it’s in anymore. We’ve gone from sub-zero temperature to the high teens and back down again in one week. Hard as it is not to want to relish the warm sunshine on your face mid-winter but we need the frosty mornings. Or rather the trees do. Our apple and pear ones are starting their Spring buds when they really should be hibernating – Denis says we will have to cover the lot if we get a freeze now. Mind you on the plus side, we have had time to prepare the ground behind the pool house for my serre which arrived a couple of days ago and once we battle with the inevitably impossible to understand instructions, it’ll be up and ready for little seedlings. Abraham also finally arrived with his tractor to heave out the giant fig tree root in the tractor shed, which popped out with ease thanks to Denis’ constant watering around it and probably Sherman’s digging because he’s a dog, help. Next week, I’ll be over at Le Jardin (Abraham’s place) to learn all about market gardening as for him, the planting starts now – albeit on a much grander scale than my little 4×2 metre plot.
And planting, I have learnt, needs planning and organisation – right up my neural pathway. With the old compost construction (the one I built out of the interior remnants of the old chicken house) dismantled and its contents spread over the potager out of reach of woofers’ tummies, a new one and a water reservoir are on the list although the latter might be scratched if the weather stays dry for another week. It’s not as odd as it sounds. Rashid knows a diviner in Preixan who has promised to come by as long as it doesn’t rain – searching for a possible water source I’m told gets a bit confusing if its pouring down. Such rod-waving experts are hard to find but much in demand as their success rate is well-known and as quite a few of our neighbours have managed to bore down for the River Aude’s precious hydration, there is a high chance we have something running under our bit of Rouffiac. Naturally we will have to inform the Mayor if and when we find the precious liquid but since I’m drawing the village map for the panneau by our corner wall, I should be in his good books. And if the dear diviner does find the source, I might ask him to wander round the bloody pool as well – plugging leaky liners is one routine I could do without…
““The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”(William Arthur Ward)
I started the weekend in a somewhat filthy mood. It would have been easy to surmise that the blame for my dour demeanour should be placed solely on Callum’s departure on Thursday but he wasn’t the only guilty one. All my friends seem to be down with either a cold, the flu or a mixture of both since the New Year started so life has suddenly gone a bit blah. It doesn’t help that the main house is now empty of its family save Mumo now that all have returned to their own nests and everything seems strangely silent right now. It’s as though the party has been boxed up and put away until the warmer seasons creep in – all a bit depressing really. Mind you, a few months of semi-solitude will be good for me – there’s a book that won’t write itself and several pieces of furniture needing my attention let alone the garden. Denis and I are excitedly awaiting my Christmas present from Mumo, a serre (a sort of mix between a greenhouse and a poly tunnel) so we can start growing little seedlings before letting them out into the big wide potager.
Yes, my own not-so-little seedling has flown back across the vast seas to South Oz. I’m already missing him like crazy and I’m not the only one. The bedside lamp socket in Mumo’s bedroom decided to go on the blink as soon as the only electrically-capable family member left the country and neither Mumo or I can figure out how to get the filter out of her fridge to replace it. The night before he left, Cal and sat up in the apartment talking about our lives and Tony. I know I say it a thousand times a second but I am so proud of our boy. Considering how much he has gone through, he has turned into a confident, knowledgeable and sensitive young man. Driving to the airport on Thursday afternoon, I noticed him fiddling with my phone – it wasn’t until I got back to the car after dropping him off at the departure gate that I realised he’d synced his music playlist with mine. He has excellent taste in tunes. And as much as it tore at my heart waving good-bye to my gorgeous grown up son, there was also the worry about how he’d cope with the flight this time i.e. would he spend the entire time throwing up again or would my theory prove correct and the drugs would do their thing. It seems my research paid off and he landed with stomach intact – it wasn’t air sickness he was suffering from, it was altitude sickness. I’ll speak to him during the week when the jet lag dissipates.
With the weather reminding us what winter is all about last week, save the snow that was promised but never arrived, I kept myself busy hammering little gold nails into one of my current renovations, lop-sidedly I might add, whilst Denis planted a whole slew of giant cacti on the verge outside. One of the village residents had one too many growing in his garden so Denis went over and did a bit of uprooting and self-harm. With arms looking like he’d been hooked on heroin, scratched and pot-holed – my brave man repositioned the horned demons into their new habitat which I hope will stop the dog from round the corner attacking my lot through the front fence. I’m actually rather fond of such spiky sculptures and our new frontage has gotten many a thumbs-up from the locals. Apart from said dog that is.
Oh and by the way, I did eventually succeed in making a podcast on Spotify. A day late. I had set everything up and lines ready, hit record, did my spiel and pressed the publish button. Except said button refused to comply and my Ipad almost ended up in next-door’s garden. Temper flaring, I took the bloody thing over to Cal who promptly fiddled with it for two seconds and bingo, my podcast flew off into the ether that is media. I’ll have another go this evening as Callum is 9 hours ahead and I don’t want to wake him up when I can’t press the button again. Did I tell you what an amazingly gifted child I have?…
“Behind every great kid is a mom who’s pretty sure she’s screwing it up.”(Anon)
Widow plus woofs 