After utterly depressing myself with the world news this morning - small-handed, pathetic, orange wanna-be king watching his birthday-commanded tanks roll past him while most of the country (or the rational beings anyway) were out in the streets showing their ardent disgust; everything going on in the giant dust cloud of the Middle East; the thousands of dollars wasted; the thousands of people killed, the thousands of weapons used and re-ordered; our animal, bird, fish and plant brethren maimed, polluted and wiped away - I went out for the morning dog walk.
We paced into the vineyards; Bali smelt and tried eat unspeakable things, and I attempted to block out the visions of world 'leaders' and drying up lakes etc by musing on cloud structures, fattening walnuts and plums, bees droning amongst weeds that had been left alone, and generally admiring nature in all its glory - not that vineyards are necessarily the best example of unadulterated nature, but their reassuring green stripyness stretching off into the undulating hills was calming to the mind.
Half an hour into the walk I was still haunted by various visions of human political and environmental stupidity - unusual as by now a sighting of a vine lizard, or appreciating lark song would have shifted the angst, but it was heavily ingrained this morning.
We topped a hill and two horses stood, tails wafting at flies, their gazes turned upon us. Horses are always intrigued by Bali who could I suppose look like a very small, spidery horse. They followed us and then stopped, possibly anticipating food other than grass? or they were just curious. I never know if horses like being stroked, but I generally like to 'have a go' as I like the contact with such majestic beasts. I caressed the larger one's neck and as ever stared into a deep brown pool of an eye; an eye that seemed to hold all the knowledge and humility that we as a species don't have, may have once had, and should hastily re-learn.
When looking around our new house, we had observed the small dusty room next to the bathroom and had thought - storage. But with a much needed new velux, and a better amount of light coming in it started to say - studio, or rather, small garret studio, which is what I like to create stuff in - a cocoon of a place full of collected, inspirational stones/postcards/books etc.
Projects: I'm just finishing a commissioned painting, as ever laid on top of a recycling emporium picture, using recycled paints - I found a fantastic box full of acrylics at our local Emmaus; perfect timing as my last lot were fast reducing down to various non-inspiring browns and greens.
That's us. Just as we accept people's old plants, furniture in need of a new logement is welcome here - depending on which space needs what as we move along with this latest house 'nesting'.
Featured below, a weird, hand built . . . cupboard, thing, bought at one of our local recycling emporiums for 15 euros. Judging by the layers of paint I think it must have had several homes before, and was waiting forlornly in the hanger of junk for someone to see its potential. Now, re-painted in white and green-grey it has a nice calm home in our vintage 60s/70s bathroom.
The car load of wood is a collapsed 1970s 'tiger-veneered' wardrobe that we got in the other emporium for 5 euros. Seeing the possibility of creating a gas bottle cupboard to join the other 1970s kitchen cabinets we hauled it home and Mark is currently inventing said cupboard. The rest of the wood will be used around the house for shelves, and whatever can be constructed from 70s super dense chipboard.
Ezra and I were down on the French south coast in our favourite place of that time - Cerbère. Having to drive back home, we'd decided to take the long rather vertiginous route up above Banyuls sur Mer and picnic somewhere. Food bought in a Carrefour on the way up there, I realised we hadn't brought a knife with us, so bought a pack of four cheap, wood handled knives - the sort a hunter might use to carve up a saucisson while perched on a rock under a cork tree, dog panting in the shade, cicadas rasping . . .
No hunting dog, possibly the old Italian greyhound - can't recall which dog stage we were at at that point in time - but we had sought out the shade of a cork tree and armed with our new knives had proceeded to carve up fruit and cheese rather than charcuterie. It was probably the most perfect picnic, nothing exotic, no wild salmon or champagne - basic fare but heightened in taste because of everything experienced in that moment: a glittering distant sea, before which lay the orange and white hues of Banyuls; warm herby hillside breezes, stripes of vines, and silence apart from swallows and grasshoppers.
Three of the knives disappeared during various moves or over enthusiastic washing up sessions, but one remains in our new houses's cutlery drawer. I'll make sure it stays there, being used to cut up the occasional apple or pear; a little woody reminder of a favourite time and place.
Our new (old, 50s? 60s?/70s?) house is a maze of discoveries - some wonderful, some less so. From climbing about in the attic it seems as if the original building must have been a small barn or dwelling made of the local stone - Tuffeau', which was added onto at various times during aforementioned epochs. The electricians, on showing me a blunted huge drill, said it's extrêmement custo meaning blooming ek, it's solid, and not going anywhere - which is great news for us, less for them and their equipment.
During the signing for the place the notaire did mention something about a dispute between the owners before us and their previous owners do do with a pig and chicken outbuilding; no sign of it now but there is a large garage that dates back a long time, no doubt without planning. Talking of such a thing . . . these days to put so much as a new down pipe in you have to get permission, but this whole road including our house looks as if things just developed rather than being planned.
There were apparently 32 windmills along this road, the area presumably covered with wheat fields not vines as is the case now. The vestiges of about five mills are visible, and we have some very ancient garden walls which maybe housed one of the mills. When I've slowed down from painting walls and trying to arrange building works I'll go down to the archive office and enjoy poking about - love old maps!
An excellent DIY person and myself have been tackling the weird shower room/kitchen on the ground floor and its associated bedroom as I can see we'll probably need financially to start doing B and B again. Of course, in my mind I assumed this would take a day or two but during the house archaeology we have discovered prehistoric glue that refuses to come off under the vile plastic flooring, and hideous polystyrene ceiling tiles that I'd thought . . . yeah, they'll do with a good coat of paint, but they won't, and I remember my mother's daily occupation when we lived in a London flat years ago of re-gluing the various tiles that had gently spiralled down during the night. It's got to be wood which requires a frame, and so on . . .
Anyway, it'll all get done and one day the salon/hunting lodge will look great with everything back where it should be when I've finished the walls and the electricians have figured out how to rewire it . . .
Of eating in . . . KFC.
It was something I said I would never do again - the previous time was in about 1982 when I lived in Brixton. I'd just got mugged (very gently - someone carefully righting my little brown portfolio suitcase that had fallen over while I'd nodded off momentarily; he'd also managed to lift my wallet out of it during said righting) on a tube train. Anyway, I went into KFC as nothing else was open and discovered my wallet had gone, so bought chips and a greasy chicken portion with the cash I had in a pocket. Maybe it was my state of numbness but the 'food' was vile - mega salty and greasy, and led to me stating to myself, never again.
So, fast forward to yesterday. We'd dashed about buying essential DIY stuff before the giant shed of Bricodepot shut, and then I had a choir concert in a wine/beer bar (odd) just down the road, and I hadn't eaten anything since a bit of cake several hours ago. No time to go home, so what was open? 'Nope, I said - not going in there,' as Mark suggested the eating experiment of going into Mr Kentucky's dive. 'Come on, it'll be . . . interesting, and maybe not as bad as the Golden Arches' - another fairly recent and regretted experiment.
'Okay', I said, 'but no chicken - you've seen the films.'
A bit daft as that's what they sell, but there was a 'veggie' option. We did the screen thing and waited at a grey plastic table in front of a frenzied wallpaper featuring the grinning founder at various life stages.
The stuff arrived. Not very fizzy Pepsi, and my veggie burger which actually tasted of nothing at all, apart from the salt I added and a pathetic lettuce leaf drenched in . . . something. Mark's was worse - a nan bread burger which actually didn't taste, really - no taste at all. I mean, chewing a very old cardboard box might have been more interesting. I suppose the word nan had conjured up a few vague nods to Indian spices. Nope. Nothing. And the fries . . . tiny, no salt and dry, like something you might have found while hoovering the car out.
And the atmosphere . . . hospital waiting room, with added people looking like they were waiting for test results not enjoying eating out. Weird.
Not happening again. Ever.
