Brrrr

I have just bought another bag of mealworms while I was out. The robins and blackbirds hoover them up, leaving more of the other food for the other birds. By ‘eck, petal, it’s cold. But the, it is winter, isn,t it? And local farmers are hugely relieved that fungus and crop diseases are being killed off. Who are the people shutting schools, cancelling trains, saying “ah well, it’s not worth investing in winter machinery any more.
What machinery did we have in the 50s and 60s when winter was a normal phenomenon? Gritters were two blokes on the back of a council flatbed truck with shovels. More council workers cleared crossroads and zebra crossings while car owners put onwinter tyres and got on with it. Householders did their bit by clearing paths and spreading cinders; everyone had coke stoves and open fires then. (And upstairs, no heating, frost patterns on windows and extra eiderdowns.)
Schools never closed unless the toilets, outside of course, froze up. If the boilers broke down you wore your coat in class. Although most PE Games sessions went ahead, the class in knickers and aertex shirts shivering in ice playgrounds which we had polished with slides during breaktime, sometimes it was just too snowy. Then you did wonderful Music and Movement inside, or country dancing, us Sarf Lunnon kids barefoot on bits of squished cabbage. The big coke stove in the corner of my primary school never broke down. Its heat barely reached us, it warmed our wet gloves draped on its guard, adding the smell of steaming wet wool to that of the gently souring milk. A crate of frozen bottles, with strange white laminated worms with tinfoil hats poking out of them, was placed by the stove to thaw; the unfrozen coke- warmed milk was drunk by all of us, with screwed up faces.
No school buses, everyone walked anyway, I let the red bus go to play snowplough while I save my 4d fare and waded throgh snow which filled my wellies. I do remember my dad being late to and from work sometimes as the trains from Waterloo suffered something called ‘iced up points’.
The winter of 63 turned the whole of Shirley into a playground. Perhaps we did get some time of school then? Parents got to work somehow and Granny turned us out of the house into a white world of wonderful freedom, romping over Shirley Golf Course (usually policed and forbidden to us kids, ) and the gardens of the big houses that backed on to it, their hedgerows, fences, gates totally covered by feet of snow. We did no damage, just explored these usually hidden inaccessible properties, leaving footprints and space snowmen to show we’d trespassed.

Now snow comes down and some people seem to just wait for someone else to deal with it, shovel, lay a cloak, whatever, after all, we all pay our taxes, don’t we? Although the despised public servants who helped everyone smooth their lives have long been made redundant and where does our local council charge, whatever it’s called, go? < shrug > and clean off my shovel.

Gratitude

On the last day of my sixties, I am thinking about how I feel at reaching 70, (assuming I get through the night...) and it is gratitude. Seventy is more than either parent was granted, and I still feel deeply disturbed anger about that. My father, packed off to war aged 19, away from home and girlfriend for six years,(his r’n’r spent in Alexandria; he was unable to eat figs for the rest of his life!), returned to become a lively committed member of his community, a principled and dedicated parent, and did not deserve that bloody cancer and death in his fifties. My mother, also a firm supporter of society, volunteer, community worker, recoiled from a lifetime of small c Conservatism after she saw how the people she worked with were devastated by Thatcherism, also should have had longer to enjoy the travels she looked forward to in her retirement.

What a privileged generation we post war baby boomers still are. Benefitting as we have from the hugely brave political decisions taken in the late 40s, free NHS, education, foreign policies, many of us are appalled by the sacrifice of all the progress we have enjoyed, by a couple of carelessly casual elections and a referendum. But I am grateful to have survived long enough to feel such despair at the state of our country, its betrayal by those who, wrongly, consider themselves fit to govern us.

Perhaps the angst is a symptom of my age, anyway.  Great-Grandchildren who my parents would be thrilled by, (Dad never saw his grandchildren,) are excited and enthused by the world, they will cope with it having known nothing different. Although what are we handing them, a degraded environment? Species collapse? Ecological imbalances that are a threat to every natural living thing, especially the human species? P more than despairs, it is flippant to say he is more like Victor Meldrew every day, unkind to smile at his “Dad Rants” as son calls them surruptitiously filming them on occasions. He thinks, worries, analyses all the degredations of our current political scene, appalled by the sheer inward-looking selfishness of the referendum vote, the incompetence of those determined to go ahead with it rather than bravely challenge the attitudes that caused it, the cruel judgemental opinions of some of the louder mps.

Grateful is what I am, though, I can ignore those ignorant self serving politicians and go for a walk. We live in a beautiful county, the river our town sits by is beautiful at all times of the year, with otters and fish visible in its clear waters from local paths. The sea, coastal nature reserves, rolling cliff-tops, wonderful beach cafés are a short drive away, as are dramatic hillforts with wide inspiring views from their tops.

And breathe.
Next time I talk to you, I will have to acknowledge that I am, officially old.

Ah ha! At last! Finalement! Hooray

2,000? and!? Mr G plants over 2,000 spring bulbs every year in his delightful, interesting but not large Leicestershire garden. Well, not him personally, not all of them, although I bet he pokes most of the holes with his stick. Kate will point to the site, he will dib the stick and ‘Garden Boy’ will do the planting, that’s how I see it.
And there I was standing in Homebase while P selected gate latches wondering if a bag of 20 would do plus some crocii, (although would not dream of buying them from Homebase but would go up the lane to Langton Nurseries),  I felt obliged to add a nought to that number, but with no time to buy that day as we were off to Frome with fruity mince and apfelküchen to do school runs and feed team T, O being in St Louis at the time.
It was days before we made it to the Nurseries, a messy disorganised heap of a place full of treasures. That day’s haul included local honey for 4 quid, suede garden gloves for 3, mealworms for the robin, loads of cyclamen that have brightened the house for weeks, that I have just planted outside in a freezing wind, and as well as nowhere near 200 bulbs, some paperwhites to plant up for Vik.

Last night we saw Alice Roberts at the Tivoli Theatre talking about her latest book, Tamed, 10 species that changed the world. Despite abysmal lighting and just a few slides on a big screen she interested and intrigued us all with digressions on wolves and wheat, horses and apples, and of course, the human species, mentioning also cats, bees and Michael Gove. (And has there ever been a species quite as weird and destructive as Gove?) She paced about in her usual plumage of Desiguel, silver rings and boots and we were quite star-struck.

This is nothing to do with the title above. This is not what those faithful Round Robin followers shouted as they heard I was about to post after months. No, it was me, punching the air in triumph after tearing my hair out for three days trying to work out the system Google+ is using to confound the users of blogspot since they took it over.
Bloomin’ non-tax paying geeks put on earth to frustrate us.

Incoming.. chukachukachuka..

That's me, I'm the sausage....

Feel a bit of a sausage, having almost abandoned the Round Robin now it is no longer in France. Many episodes have been written in my head since the culture shock of the return, some made it into my diary, but even that outlet suffered during the coping months in the rented house, the struggling months of the house purchase and travails with a British builder, the adjustments to almost-town dwelling. And since last June my mind races through themes, topics, opinions, wails, but my hand never wrote them out.
 I gave up facebook in despair after so many discussions/arguments with people who didn't use reason or logic, just invective. I look away from the shouty headlines that crow at me from the newspapers racked by the supermarket entrance, peddling myth and ignorance so shamelessly. I have to look elsewhere to recognise the country we left and missed; I'll get there.

Migrants

Our swallows left the other day, after days of air displays above the garden, where swarms of flying things spiralled in the warm sunshine. Then more arrived, possibly down from Britain, having a few days R'n'R before their onward flight. Further arrivals since, blackcaps, replacing the redstarts. and the robin and red squirrels are rulers of the garden once more, now the foreigners have cleared off.
 Some we are glad to see the back of, hornets both Asian and European, Oriels which squawk at dawn, and a hundred varieties of fly and things that bite. Some we won't see, the wonderful skeins of cranes will be heading South in a month, but we will have gone, flying North.

I wonder who might be glad to see the back of us? People have been very lovely, we have been hugged and patted at night markets, restaurants and caffs across the terroir, offered and given meals and gifts, and we have a collection of cards with addresses with exhortations to stay when we return as travellers. A corner of my heart will always be French now, but it is my British soul pushing us home.

Home will be, for 6 months, while our house purchase and renovation proceeds,
Damory Court Street,  Blandford Forum Dorset, full address in yr email,
after which we move down the road to Lower Bryanston, only a handful of houses there so postie should find us.

I type this in an echoing house which is taking us forever to clean, sooo boring, cleaning, no wonder I haven't been very good at it, clearly. Packing took forever, decisions about discarding, giving away, selling, throwing and I still had sleepless nights thinking it would never fit on the van with all of Paul's precious workshop, but it did, thanks to Flash Gordon's. Those of you who came and stayed, still left us with bottles of strange spirits one third full, tequila, white port, americano, armagnac, Old Nicks. Those of you who never came, You Know Who You Are, have left us with weird cocktails odd compots sweet and savoury and packets of dried peas and beans that might plant a field. Think what feasts you have missed, by never visiting, passing through. I kept telling you how near we were to the Pyrenees and Spain, so you could call in; there, you've missed your chance, we did it often, it was great!

I have fixed up an @gmail.com  but how I pick that up with no internet after Thursday 8th October I don't know. If you lose this information don't worry. In the words of the ever-intense po-faced D Day-Lewis, "Stay alive, I will find you".

Ingenuity

Several people wondered what it was about the toaster that was 'terrible'.  Do you mean to say that you all have good toasters? Toasting quickly, efficiently and evenly? On both sides?
Unless you paid over a hundred quid for it, please let me know make and stockist. And what setting you favour, for on any toaster I have ever had, 3 is barely warmed and 4 equals burnt. Often, in the mornings, from René and Denise's over the lane in Petit Jarletou, wafts the arôme of burnt toast as the Moulinex or whatever strikes again. Have we even got the technology to produce a decent toaster.

That the British and French have command of wonderful technologies is in no doubt. The Millau Bridge. Those airliners they produce jointly in Toulouse. The Caverne Chauvet.
Ou?
Who said Ou?

We saw in the paper that the Caverne, discovered above the Ardèche in 1994, by two potholers, M. Chauvet was one, was about to be opened to the public. Well, not the Chauvet cave, but the Caverne du Pont d'Arc. After the Chauvet discovery, the archeologists, anthropologists, scientists, trod, both literally and metaphorically, much more carefully than they had with Lascaux, not wanting to invest the 36,000 year old marvel with the  same environmental disaster.
For once, committees and meetings, and government intervention, produced a brilliant solution. Walkways were installed, security systems, some sort of environmental control method, and for a short time, British and French experts recorded every inch of the cave digitally, then the one entrance was sealed. Cameras and police survey it permanently. Scientific visits are allowed for only two hours, five times a year.

Then, after huge investment from the French government, the work began. Sculptors, artists, designers, model makers, began recreating the most significant areas of the cave. Every stalactite and gmite, each quartz pebble, fluted rock towers, rippled wet walls, tilted arches tiny niches, smooth rock pavements and soft sandy floors were recreated in exact detail. (On two different surfaces, an ancient artist had smeared clay to make the relief he needed. We know it was the same artist because his fingerprint on one, matches his print on the other.) a rock formation like an organ. Another like a folded pink curtain.
The amazing paintings of bears, cave lions, rhinoceros were reproduced here, near Bergerac. Many paintings show hunting scenes, and as the animals flee past you, round the rock shoulder and into the cavern, getting smaller the further they are, you realise that these hunter painters had a perfect understanding of perspective. And there are depictions of an owl. A panther, unique in prehistoric art. Handprints of children, teenagers and adults. And in the sandy resin of the floor,  beside the bones and teeth of huge animals, a human footprint, deeply moving even though it is a reproduction.
Because you realise that, not far away, the real one exists in the real cave.
All this was built inside a beautiful architectural structure that can be seen from Vallon Pont d'Arc below. So you feel like you are walking around a cave, but you are not below ground, not cold, not stumbling on an uncertain surface.

It is an amazing international cooperative achievement. For this reason, as much as the intrinsic wonder of the original cave, the whole project has been granted World Heritage status by UNESCO. It moves and inspires and makes one wonder why man cannot cooperate like this more often.

Maybe then we could have a better toaster.

E.G.B.D.F.

The French do love their acronyms. Quangos, public bodies, utilities, they all have them.

We got a letter from a four lettered acronym, to say that, on the 6th May there would be work going on and we would experience fluctuations in supply and occasional cuts in supply during the day.

I wrote 'Kettle, Pans' across the top in red and pinned the letter up where it could be seen on the 6th.

One early acronym we became familiar with was RIB. That is a piece of paper with one's bank details that everyone seemed to want when we first came here. to connect an electricity supply, EDF; to get water SAUR, to connect the phone, SRF and to join the health service CPAM, to receive payments from our savings, PSIs, 'please attach a RIB'. Then there is ERDF which controls the electricity infrastructure.
And they change, confusingly. CPAM has suddenly turned into AMELI, thus clouding a favourite film.
On the bottom of bills, look out for HT, Hors Taxe, as when the tax is added the bill is much bigger. People used to British customer service will often comment wryly or rudely on HS, hors service, signs. Just means out of order, but lack of service can apply in many situations.
SAMU is important, its emergency number is 15 and is the ambulance service. The ambulance services one sees advertised being nothing like what we mean by ambulance. You can book them for hospital appointments but cannot get one late at night when someone must go to hospital. For that, SAMU are the boys.

 Twice I have had to call 15, and a doctor answers, calming, comforting. the doctor triages over the phone and on those two occasions dispatched the emergency team, who were superbly trained and equipped. Totally different from the white coated, heavily smoking taxi driver who once brought Pa in Law and me back from Agen hospital after a check up for Des, and who banged on his blue light and siren at every threatened hold up that kept him from his friday night tipple. And kept chatting on his cb. Radio that is, CB is Carte Bleu or Carte Bancaire.

Then there is FNAC, a wonderful site, books, and every concert ticket you could want, SNCF and its super TGVs, but terrible website so we go to the local station to book tickets. Where the service is very helpful I have to admit.

So on the 6th I was blearily making the Assam and caught sight of the piece of paper that had become part of the wallpaper in the intervening days and saw the 'kettle, pans' in red. So I filled a couple of jugs and the 4litre casserole and just for good measure put a filled bucket in the bathroom.
"SAUR may switch off the water later," I reminded Paul.
Then, just as the toast was nicely toasting and the eggs were nicely poaching, (those of you who have stayed here will know that means it was wednesday), just as I was wondering to switch over from JH and politics to 6Music, off went the lights, the cooker, the grill, the radio and the clock.
Not SAUR. ERDF
"Oh well," I thought, "I can always finish the toast off in the terrible toaster."
DER.
The acronym for the terminally bewildered.