Pen the past and plant the future

I’ve pulled a fair few late-nighters over the past week and not because I’ve been frolicking into the wee hours. Nope, I glued myself to the laptop and worked my fingers to the bone tap tapping away at The Second Book. Deciding to focus for once on getting the opus finished before the summer is a great idea in principle but this means penning 3 chapters a month and that’s flipping hard work. Bringing up the past takes a toll on one’s emotions even if this time around, it’s about a new life in a country that I adore. I seem to have forgotten how difficult those early years here were, starting again without Tony by my side. But determination is my middle name and frankly, there are so many other projects to get done – ones I’ll actually enjoy doing.

Like pottering around my little serre for example or getting the huge party-dome down at Le Jardin redone so it’ll be ready for its grand opening in April. Abraham and I actually took some time out from our plots and went over to L’Horte to have a gander at what Nicolas and Severine have been up to. For those who aren’t regular blog readers, the two look after the land with their market garden enterprise as well as raise mini-goats and chickens. Anyway, I wanted to introduce Abraham as they are all in pretty much the same business which I did. I left Nicolas and Abraham to chat about all things green and good for you whilst I took my usual path down to the river to say hello to Pop and then poke around what remains of the surviving house. As you know, L’Horte has always been and always will be, one of the few places where I feel totally relaxed even if, like me what she once was and what she is now are strangers to each other. As I looked across the terrain and up towards the hills behind the property, a thought passed through my zoned-out brain. 4 years ago I was living in London, a city that wears stress like a second skin and now my home is surrounded by vines and beautiful views of the countryside. And even though I don’t have Tony to enjoy it with me, I’m lucky to have found Denis – my man who knows his onions when it comes to anything about his little piece of France.

And no he didn’t hand me over a bunch on Valentine’s day. Instead he bought me some heart-shaped goat’s cheese and a single rose – I’m easy to please when it comes to cheese. And he knows me well enough not to flatter me with a dozen red flowers, I prefer my flora to be in the ground not in a vase. Cut blossoms always remind me of chez Knollys being full of them after Tony died. And they die too, far too quickly. As romantic get-aways go, hiking though the forest looking for mushrooms that afternoon might not be too everyone’s taste but foraging for fungi is me to a tee. Except that we didn’t find any, not even the bad ones. The ground was dry and the moss practically non-existent – Denis blamed the local gangs for ripping the place apart but my money’s on the weather. Not nearly enough rain despite a couple of non-stop drip days during the last week and the thermometer is still doing see-saws – that afternoon it was over 20 degrees and blazing sunshine.

Despite the météo still making its mind up as to which month we are currently in, Denis and I made the brave decision to remove the winter wrap from my Mimosa tree. She’s flowering you see and needs to spread her limbs. She’s not the only one, most of the rest of the garden is too – far too early for most but D reckons they’re strong enough to survive a frost or three. I have kept Mimosa’s roots covered though as she isn’t old enough to brave a blizzard. Or anything else the tempestuous temperatures want throw at us before the summer and until that season arrives, I shall keep bouncing the balls of my fingers across the keyboard and try to remember where I am right now…

” It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something” (Charles Dickens)

Planting and planning

Frankly, I’ve felt better. I don’t know if it’s because last week was so busy or the fact that I have rather overdone the social swirling but I am bunged up. I’m hoping a decent night’s sleep will lay the lurgy to rest as I really don’t have time for snotty noses. The ‘to do’ list is getting longer by the day and I’ve yet to put one tick on it. And it’s already February.

Ah yes, February. The last month of winter. Except that we are bathing in warm sunshine still and the barbecues are out. The almond trees have started unveiling their pale pink blossom and the lawn is getting so thick, I can’t find the dog poo until I step on it. I’d cut it except that we haven’t had a proper frost yet or a decent downpour of late so the lush greenery underfoot needs to protect the terre. I went over to Le Jardin (Abraham’s place) mid-week to help him with the veggie planting. One seed at a time. Trays and trays of little cubes of soil into which I had to carefully put a single grain. Weirdly, I enjoyed prodding my finger along each row of squares so each aubergine-to-be could grow up big and strong although the job required total concentration – blink and you’ve forgotten where you popped the previous one. And I did it all almost single-handedly save the last line or so as Denis stopped by at the end of the day and offered to help so we could join the boss for a beer. Not much of a help really as he got a bit random with the numbers – Abraham did say one seed in each so I made Denis take out all his extra additions. I wasn’t going to have my contribution to bio-agriculture messed up.

Getting lost in legumes was a welcome break from whizzing around town so Mumo and I could get to our various appointments which for some reason all seemed to be in the same week. The one that had half of Carcassonne backed up because giant tractors were parked up all on one of the main roundabouts along with twice as many police cars. Luckily, I’d got the traffic update from our épicerie so I could plan accordingly and avoid getting stuck in the barricades. Mumo got to go and sit in a dentist’s chair and I in the hairdresser’s. You don’t need to switch on the news when you live in Rouffiac – the most up-to-date information can be found over a croissant counter.

Speaking of village press updates, our resident Scot is getting ready to leave our shores. You’d be right in thinking I’ve written this in a previous blog with his failed escape back in 2022 but sadly I think he’s going to make it out this time. But not without a few farewell parties, one of which Mumo and I attended yesterday lunchtime in nearby Cépie held by his local walking group. Other than family do’s, I don’t think I’ve sat down at a table without a French person at it let alone not know most of the guests. Thankfully, the wine flowed freely as did the conversation. It was nice to be introduced to a different crowd and hear their stories about life in France although I had somehow managed to get seated between Graham and my neighbour Terry both of whom I talk to virtually every day. Mumo and I will host a soirée on Friday for Graham along with the usual crowd, just in case he forgets us. And this little village…

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Perspirating in poly tunnels

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)

Ripping up the rule book

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)

Busying away the blah

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)

An album in mind

For some reason yesterday, as I was stretching purple velour over the base of a chair whilst trying not to get stabbed by a disagreeable pin frantic for freedom, I’d set the living room speakers to play 1990’s Britpop at volume. As I sang along to Oasis, Blur and the rest, snapshots of times spent partying with friends in London and dancing round the kitchen with Tony screened through my mind- it’s funny how music does that. I didn’t upset me or make me hanker for the old days, I rarely reminisce about such things unless I’m writing The Second Book and that, just like the first opus, is like writing about someone else. Perhaps getting the little chest that I kept a few souvenirs of his father’s in down from the attic for Callum to go through had triggered my music choice, who knows but I still know all the words to Wonderwall.

Maybe jumping into a new year had something to do with my brief slip into days gone by although it wasn’t so much as a leap as a crawl. There’s been a bug going round town and most of the remaining family were starting to suffer with it by New Years Eve. With the main house filled with the sound of noses being parped and throats hacking, Denis and I left the sad party to see in 2024 upstairs. I barely made to the Bonne Année bit before dropping off, the exhaustion of the last couple of weeks catching up with me. And with my niece Katie and her brother Louis flying off last Thursday, the L’Horte Four (if you haven’t read the book, I’m not elaborating) are down to 2. Two that will be leaving us next week, one for Chad and the other for Australia. I’m trying not to think about that one. It wasn’t so long ago that each of them would have been going back to school, now they all have jobs requiring their return. Katie’s gone back to her lab, Louis to his square pianos and will be followed by Max off for his wildlife and Callum to his growing number of trades in the building industry. Denis outshone himself with a deliciously decadent tagine last night especially for Max and Callum which I’m sure won’t be forgotten for a while – it has certainly been a holiday for the photo albums.

Speaking of albums, today marks the 5th anniversary of this here blog. Half a decade of Sunday writings to which I have all of you to thank. Of course, I’ll keep up the weekly posts but I’m going to attempt to add a podcast too. Knowing my ineptitude towards anything vaguely technological, I’ve no idea whether it’ll work but I’m willing to have a crack at it. I’ll put a link on the Facebook site when I figure it all out.

So now as the decorations are back in the garage and the fairy lights carefully wrapped so they can tangle themselves all over again, life is slowly getting back to normal. The balmy temperatures of Christmas have been replaced with near-zeros and between the bitterly cold wind whipping across my terrace and the pelting rain, even the hardiest of woofers, Sherman, wants to stay indoors and curl up on my bed. Apparently we might have snow arriving over the next few days. Whoopee. Ah well, it’s only 4 months until Spring…

“The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer.” (Vita Sackville-West)