kate hardy -hothouse

January 17th 2012 Rennes le Chateau. Day of the blue apples.

2012-01-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

We have a Canadian guest staying at the Hothouse. He is fascinated by certain aspects of the Rennes legend. It was a stunningly clear blue day today, so we went up to the famous site to see the blue apples appearing in the church. They did so, most obligingly, sneeking alomg the wall as the sun moved round casting its light through the stained glass panes. Not sure what the fuss was about, and why apples? could as well have been gentically perfect tomatoes, or tennis balls. Very lovely colour however. See photo.
There was a big crowd, all French except us I think, mostly soberly attired in grey and black except one guy dressed in camouflage, and a cape, smoking a cigar. Cathar, without a doubt.
We duly inspected the grotto with its offerings of an old conker, three screws and a sweet wrapper, then the tour of the house and museum. I last went to Rennes about six years ago, money has obviously been spent, the museum is much improved and there has been good renovation of the tower and garden area. Father Sauniere obviously had a wonderful time throwing his money about, not surprising that people got a little suspicious. Formal garden, booklined cosy 'occasional' tower folly, stunning wrought iron orangery (my favourite bit), etc. Here is a picture of Father S, preserved in wax in his parlour. Presumably when the court orders had started coming in, judging by his expression. Actually he looks like one of the trumpet players in the main carnaval band. . .must check out the family history there.
The most interesting feature of the church is definately the wooden 'don't do any of this sign.' This church has toilets, no 1960's rock bands, no dogs if they are interbred with rabbits, no fast food outlets.And no cameras if you are using flash. Very sensible.
We avoided the shop (even though it was lovely and warm)and its display of nick nacks, such as silver nativity scenes in small padded boxes in the shape of ladybirds?? and headed off down the hill, in search of further mystery.

Its January, we're in Limoux, it must be . . Carnaval!!

2012-01-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

I remember now, sitting in the last carnaval meeting of our group saying 'yes, no problem I would paint the masks again'. When I got everything out to do it, I had a recollection of how long this actually takes. But like giving birth, (well not THAT bad) one forgets the details, time softens the memory, or maybe I'm just menopausal and can't remember things generally.
Anyway, I've done half of them. I'm taking the sample 'men's one' I did to the meeting on Saturday for it's approval, or not, and then I'll do that lot. Do come and see us sporting them on February 11th 5.00p.m in 'La Place de La Republique'.
That was a day of repetitive tasks generally. I spent about an hour and a half deleting emails that had built up. Mostly crap such as,'rate my photo' from some pillock in Bavaria holding a giant fish, or similar messages.l don't actually know how I got onto some of these world wide waste of time communication sites. I must have pressed a yes key when a distant aquaintance had said would you like to see a picture of me and my cat, and I was feeling aimless. Mark managed to extract me from one. It kept sending me photos of large hairy men from places about as far as it is possible to get from here with messages such as, "Hi, Vladimir is hot to meet you."
Face book is quite fun,a tad voyaristic perhaps. I'm not sure if I really need to look at someone's holiday pics when I haven't seen them for twenty five years,but . . .its good to know one has so many friends. Mmm.
The other twenty thousand messages were from Amazon suggesting I would like to buy one of around sixty types of food blender. Odd as we did actually buy one from them recently. So why would we want to buy another. Plan for the future perhaps?one can never be too sure about the life span of a blender. Or get one in yellow in case you wake up one day and find that red makes you feel nauseous. They also started suggesting I might like to buy other things in similar colours, and things that maybe have a similar function or a vague relation to it. A nice red wood chipper perhaps, a DVD of the Texas chainsaw massacre? Some Doom metal music to put through your new Amazon speakers while you're re-creating that scene in Fargo. (If you haven't seen the film, you must, Brilliant; and I didn't get from Amazon.)
Anyway, back to Carnaval. Have just returned from excellent charity shop in Carcassonne,'terre de esperance,'armed with old clothes and bits to make into Carnaval outfit for practice run-through tommorow. Also bought two snuggly wool jumpers for one euro, which would be difficult to purchase from Amazon, but they may be working on it.
Amazon suggests you might like these old tights.

Post for no reason.

2012-01-04T04:51:00.000-08:00

I was trying to find some images to send to my mum, us looking adorable etc. Difficult as this time of year as we retreat ever further into old woollen layers that should have been disposed of last year. Mark has his second skin firmly established; this year a black zippy cardigan. I was able to remove it yesterday, and it hangs in a never ending final rinse in the rain as I write. He is no doubt shivering in something unspeakable that he found in the back of the cupboard, as he teaches in Esperaza.
Anyway . . . I saw this fish image that I took in, I think, Gruissan aquarium, and was struck with the realisation that this is a good argument for the non-existance of God, or the exsistance, providing he or she has an excellent sense of humour.
Why would anyone bother to craft such a ludicrous beast unless it was going to feature in a Dickens novel as Mr Crudworth-pipenostril. Perhaps I am being unfair, I can't remember reading the panel of information on the fish species, I'm sure it has a very good reason for having this magnificent protruberance, other than to cause me to smile on this gloomy grey day.

The Czars The Hymn

2012-01-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

Sample of afore mentioned Czars, should you be driving through rain sodden tracts of anyware

Hello 2012

2012-01-01T04:30:00.000-08:00

The year walked in quietly in looking clean and soft; warm winds blowing from the West, and clouds shoving off to reveal long-awaited blue.
I had no hangover, but a strong sense of purpose, or possibly panic, mainly due to the huge washing pile that was engulfing the bathroom.
New years resolutions: No; except one maybe. Smile more. I did this last year, and noticed that less people said, 'cheer up it might never happen.' Well English people anyway. Soyez heureux, peut-être cela n'arrivera jamais? There is probably a saying along the lines of:'it could be worse, your fois gras might have gone off'.
Mark's NYR is to fall less into the trap of procrastination. Good one, and he has been indeed filling any available nano second with composition. Less cake though. This is probably good, I have put back on three kilos in nine days. Our lovely cousins spoilt us with huge boxes of Milk Tray, mince pies, Christmas cake, treacle pies . . Help. It was lovely however. Now back to severe austerity, cabbage, brown bread, and bizarrely a small crop of tiny new potatoes in the veg patch. I must digress from what ever I am rambling about at this point to express my amazement about this.
These plants sprang up from rogue potatoes left in the ground in the spring, survived a frost, and then went on to produce a crop, in Jan/Dec. Odd.
Anyway, back to the main subject which was? Flab. A strange thing, not quite sure where mine has gone back on. Perhaps a general spreading over the whole body? maybe I needed thickening up again, I was feeling extra cold in the UK.
The main purpose of the trip back to the drizzly rock was to see my mum in the home. We spent Christmas day there, enjoyed a three course lunch and Mark played piano for the residents. They loved it. It was moving to see and hear one old lady singing along to everything, she knew every word.
This time I didn't have food poisening on the ferry back, but did lie down in my alloted bunk the whole time as the slightest trip to the loo made my internal balance system turn into a fairground ride called stagger'n'puke.
Road trip back was tiresome as most of the scenery was shrouded in slanting rain. We listened to the Czars, which is the most perfect accompaniment for driving through sodden melancholic tracts of landscape.
Here is a small film of New Years Day with breakfast OUTSIDE, banjo playing, Christmas stuff waiting to be housed, and washing needing to be hung out.

YYEEEEHHHAAA

2011-12-12T22:32:00.000-08:00

Check shirt, chickens, porch, rocking chair, searing heat,banjo,boy. We have three of these items, well on the way to the deep south. Oh, we're already in it.
Ezra after three weeks of owning the instrument, Keen!! and the voisinage are having a rest from full on drum practice.

Edge of water

2011-12-12T01:45:00.000-08:00

I was going to post a blog about Satie's leg, or rather his lack of leg. The runty one now has three legs following two operations to try and salvage the front drivers side leg. Yes, amputation. the vet and I looked at each other sadly, and both said the word. There was no other solution. We often, me and the hothouse residents, wonder what happened to the leg in question. Well, not often, that could be said to be. . .odd. It's sad to think of it alone in a bin somewhere in Carcassone, maybe I should have brought it back and made a sculpture.
Enough. Instead of photo of Satie, tripodular runt, here is a nice picture of a crazed fountain in Bordeaux that Mark snapped. I was especially impressed by the water spray issuing from the horses nostrils, and the webbed/lions feet/hoof arrangements. Fab. As for those cavorting three and a fish in the foreground . . .imagine the meeting when the sculptor had proposed this edifice. . ."You want to what? with how many horses? oh, alright then, no money scrimped there, presumably they weren't teetering on world financial collapse at the time.
Hoorah for ostentaious wonderments.

LALO GUERRERO - LOS CHUCOS SUAVES/CENTRAL HEATING

2011-11-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

I hate this time of year. After a while my body accepts that if I sit down longer than about five minutes it gets very cold. The urge to get back into bed with hot water bottles and two duvets is ever present. After a few weeks it becomes easier-ish, but the memories of being permanently warm and even very hot, die hard. One method I have found over the years is to dance around like a total pillock. Various songs do it, Blackbox, ride on time, yes, I don't know why either, but I think Suzie mentioned it once too. Bob Marley, funkstars remix of Sun is shining, Sex bomb by Tom Jones and ? Badder Badder Schwing by Freddy Fresh, and anything 'Latiny' hence this wonderful track above.

2011-11-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

November 15th

2011-11-15T00:37:00.000-08:00

Or is it May?
Weird, and wonderful. The plants are full of spring colour, boosted by the rain and warmed by the gentle sun...aaaahh. Hope we don't all suddenly get a very abrupt shock.
This purple thingy is a wonderful specimen which only flowers very late on in the season. Therefore it sometimes it only gets a couple of weeks before frost zaps it. This year it has been nodding its multiple violet heads happily for about six weeks.
None of our elderly voisins are saying anything like; ooo, it's going to be really cold this winter, the chickens have been roosting with their feet facing the South, or rats have been seen making duvets. I spoke to someone just down the road yesterday. He can't remember a mild Novemeber like this in his last eighty odd years...

****!

2011-11-12T02:12:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of the horrid mess of wires next to the computer desk.
It is also a portrait of the inside of my brain when I try to use internet banking.This morning, being rather tired, and attempting to log on while playing air guitar to Radiohead . . .I locked myself out AGAIN.
There must be a whole department devoted to idiotic folk like me, in each internet bank.
O God, it's her again.
I must have wasted a large tree's worth of paper by now in the endless letters which arrive with the new secret code.I faithfully mark the important data down in it's super crack proof code. The name of a fish we had when I was five, the date my friend sprained her foot in 1982, etc etc.And then . . .promptly forget it. Which pretend name in the address book, which address book. Maybe I marked it down in that tiny hand made paper book from Paperchase. Or did I try to memorise it all? Try meditation, perhaps that will draw it out.
Ommm . . .Arnold the rabbit, 1433, Mr Ayton the pervert janitor from junior school. Crap, all wrong.Hit the button 're-register' and do the whole thing. Again.
I remember whan the bank only used to open from 3.00p.m until 5p.m.
Ooh, those were the days. Well probably not. Must try harder.

Damm, that's a hot instrument y'all

2011-11-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

Just the thing foe a dark depressing rain-soaked day, (not that I am really complaining...much.) Little film of Stan playing Ezra's handmade, plank guitar.
Nothing more to be said really.

Instrument airing

2011-10-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

These instruments form just ONE of the 'gamelans' that the hothouse compound owns. This the 'Salunding' given to Mark by his teacher in Bali. Most wonderful carved red, gold and green metallophones which give an extraordinary cross section of bell tones. Another gamelan is in the garage...sadly,,and sadder still, the really huge gamelan, which fills about the size of say.. the floor space of the café de Commerce in Limoux, is still housed in someone's grenier waiting for the moment that one of the French communes wake up and realise what an incredible teaching tool it is. Mark can get a group of twenty children, adults, aged folks, anyone, to be able to play a gamelan piece together within two hours. The music school of Carcassonne have expressed interest...on verra...
This film is of the medium sized gamelan being rehearsed in the Théâtre Municipal of Carcassonne for part of a piece of music called...er, Contentless, or was it Endless, oh yes I remember,'Timeless' I cannot say too much about this other than during the performance I was very cold, wanted to watch a re-run of Life on Mars. and eat some custard.
The interlude bits by my husband were of course brilliant...if you want to see more look at Youtube 'hothouse'. If anyone has loads of money and fancies building their own gamelan pavillion with resident teacher, in their garden let me know.

2011-10-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

Papa's got a brand new bag.

2011-10-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

What a great song Mr Brown, I especially like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's version, Mama's got a brand new bag by 'Bo Duddley'. I might try and load it on to here.
This photo is of my bag, one of them, I have quite a few. Something that Mark cannot understand. Women and bags...? men and gadgets? However all my bags come from vide greniers so I feel I am allowed to have a selection, small inexpensive pleasures. This one is from Alet-les-Bains VG, thank you Caroline if you read this. My long term favourite is a small tardis-like object from Oxfam in Ormskirk. Now about five years old it is still going strong despite the once cream suede now being dingy grey-brown. I also have a lot of old shoes, silly shoes with very high heels that I will probably never wear, but again...there is something about shoes, fetish objects. Bags and shoes obviously occupy a large percentage of many female's brain space. One only has to look in Vogue to see about thirty adverts with Kate moss draped over a large crocodile skin bag wearing very little other than...well nothing really, except a lot of mascara. This is serious accessory madness however, bags anonymous. Bags to show that you have more money than sense, shoes to be able to walk the tarmac from the taxi to the makeup hall in Harrods.
I looked up the ten most expensive bags in the world. The top one is...please sit down, if you are not already, or find a sick bag.
The Hermes Birking bag created by Japanese designer Ginza Tanaka at $1.9 million.
WHAT?
Well it is made of platinum, and has over 2,000 diamonds on it.
Why, what possible use could it be, one would be mugged within twenty seconds of leaving the house, but I suppose you would have your matching diamond incrusted body guard with you. The world is a sick place indeed. By the way the number 10 bag was a snip at £38,000, or a tad more if you wanted it made of chinchilla skin. Urrg, think I need to go and lie down for a bit and analyze why I need a bag at all, or at least why more than one.

Home

2011-10-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

Back after very odd two weeks in UK. Basically clearing out mum's house, taking as much stuff as is allowed into the home and the rest to friends, Oxfam and the dump. Horrible.
Good highlights though, seeing firnds and family, swimming once in the sea and seeing films in large building called a cinema...must remember to do this from time to time.
Actually one film I saw was so boring I'm not sure if I just fell asleep and imagined I had been in afore-mentioned edifice. It was called 'I don't know how she does it' hopefully to be renamed, I don't know how the script writer got away with it. Had good actors in it too, like the father in Little Miss sunshine, whoever he is. Must have been desperate for money? I asked some people after the film what they had thought. They said..."er nothing happened" Good comment, spot on I thought.
I also got a tatoo done. Its been a bit of a year for me, and I wanted to finish the last day of it with something a bit unsusual...
Cleaned up the house, went to see mum, last time for about six weeks, and set off back to base. Seven hour coach journey follwed by sleep in Stansted airport overnight. Awful. Had just got to sleep, then at 3.00 am the staff came and moved everyone doing online check-in through departures as we were rather cluttering up their nice shiny hall. Had breakfast at 5.00 am and watched in amazement, people queing to buy duty free perfume as soon as shops had opened their doors. What recession...
Then sat for another five hours, but did get a lot of writing done.
Back home. Wonderful, despite mess from two men folk on their own for two weeks. Love them.

Please don't go...

2011-09-25T00:52:00.000-07:00

Summer, we love you.
What a beautiful patch of time this last few weeks has been. The manic re-greeningness of all plantage and the time of salad on the table prolouged.
Sadly I have to leave the mother ship and travel back in Ryan air space pod to the grey rock tomorrow. What to take...? aqualung, moon boots? Actually the weather looks alright for the next few days, but I don't want to go all the same.
Going back to earlier blog re aging parents and the lack of a manual in this situation means an unknown and taxing two weeks, hopefully with highlights such as a bit of London nostalgia wanderings and buying a bra in John Lewis. Somehow the down to earth 'fittings people' in the underwear section don't trouble me as much as the stick thin doll like assistants in lingerie shops over here. I don't think in fact one can say 'John Lewis' and lingerie in the same sentence...big white pants come to mind rather than lace encrusted nylon cheese wire.
Anyway. What was I saying?
No, it will be good to see mum, family, and to get a lot of things sorted out, but I hope there still might be a few sun soaked days left, quand meme.

Happy new year..

2011-09-17T01:43:00.002-07:00

Ughhh, not that again...
yes.. that time will be on us all very soon, and remember folks, it could be the last one, unless you have a seat reserved on the green lizard escape ship when it slips out of Bugarach around december the ?
So...what better way to celebrate the ultimate one, than to have Les Malfonctionnaires play for you, solidly booked up until December 28th....mmm? we are looking for a home for New year's eve, les Malfoncs are all house trained, very friendly, and will play until you shake your asses off...so to speak. Check our face book page or site: http:/www.lesmalfonctionnaires.com

Next gig: La tournebelle, Gruissan 29th October: 04 58 75 40 84

Men...not in black.

2011-09-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

Blog post for no other reason than I love seeing men in flowery shirts. Here is husband (looking a bit 'aprés repas...)) in lovely daisy print and Chris in super pink number, more flowers please...

Onwards and forwards...

2011-09-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

The boy person has grown up a lot over the summer, (As is to be expected...) I am no longer alowed to say "it's time for snuggly bed"...well only to Mark anyway, and if I walk with him to college, the gap widens between him and me as we approach the establishment, all good normal stuff. He has been through many many phases, reptiles, roller blading, mice, electronics, chemistry, Japanese cooking, knitting, art generally and drumming. The last two are the ones that are sticking the most, and in particular the art of animation at the moment. Here he is with parrot helper (providing hideous squawking and ample amounts of poo) with his program 'Flash' for animators. I think this one might stick as an obsession/thing to do in life, its a good melange of imagination, drawing skills and techno stuff, well time will tell,I think I may have only just figured out what I want to do many decades on from him, if he's anything like us he may take a very wandery path through life's forest, going off at tangents to look at a new butterfly here, falling into a muddy pond there, but generally having an interesting time. Or maybe he will be one of those people who say 'I just always new I wanted to be a.....probably simpler, but in the world as it is now perhaps it will be easier to turn ones hand to cooking, gardening, writing,taxi driving, whatever, seems like the days of sticking it out for the gold clock are a long way off.

The turning year

2011-09-07T22:56:00.000-07:00

In Autumn a young man's fancy turns to the thought of...how to keep warm.
The impending time of Soup, fires, healthy striding walks in frosted landscape. Shit.
No, its not that bad really...I just hate to feel that time of freedom, carefree dressing etc ebbing away. Those dark mornings, cringing in the bathroom, fumbling for a pair of socks in the semi darkness. Anyway, hopefully a good few weeks to go.
This the new wood pile, handsome is it not. Not very well formed when one looks closely, but then I always say, or rather I said yesterday, a person whos woodpile is immaculate has too quiet a life.
The wood delivery people are called 'Belamie' delightful name, and delightful family. The mum and dad watch with pride whilst the 'boy' huge seventeen year old or thereabouts wields the chainsaw on the truck. This time we all watched sadly as one of the tyres on the lorry deflated with a pathetic hissing. I paid them extra as the culprit nail looked suspiciously like something from our compound. They assured me this could not be so. As I said, Belamie.
An enlightening thought has just come to me, well something that is of enlightement to me. When I lived in a filthy, post student, crumbling house in West Norwood we had a landlord calleds Mr Bellamy. One pronounced the word with the accent heavily on the bel rather than the amy. It never occured to me to think of the origins of the word. But then this is several decades ago and my French was limited to 'der beers si vous plate'.
Mr Bellamy was about as far as one could get from a good friend. A miserable bastard dressed in biege acrylic, he ignored the fact that the loo froze in the winter and that there were mushrooms growing out of the skirting boards, just kept taking the rent. I wasn't even alowed a cat, which I did get. "Hide Wandswoth, Mr Bellamy is coming"....
Anyway back to the wood pile.
The trees growing or rather rampaging behind it are some sort of weed tree that came over from Japan. I rather like them, Amazionan in character and lushness, they hold the soil down, and (hopefully) stop the bank collapsing. They do need a bit of a cull however. We have had the annual Autumnal discussion, 'to have a chain saw or not to have a chain saw, that is... etc. As usual we have decided its too scary so it will have to be the previous house owners dressed in shorts and sunglasses ploughing through the undergrowth as effortlessly as if they were cutting flowers.

Going with the flow.

2011-09-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

We actually all got a day out, everyone even runty dog with re-broken leg.
The sea was calling again. Opted for a place called 'La Palme' near Port la Nouvelle as it had some interesting features such as an eerie looking pumping station.
Took the N road and then a yellow road through some pretty villages. Stopped for a pee and then noticed.... we had a flat tyre. Holiday spirit prevailled, no-one went "awww its not fair, ******* typical" or anything else, Swerved our way to Sigean, pumped up the tyre and just got to Renault garage before it shut for lunch.
I love this bit....Mark said..."Nous avons un plat" unlike him to say something idiotic in French, hoorah. Being so close to lunch the man obviously thought we were very excited about going to eat our main course or something. How we all laughed...sorry Mark.
There was to be the usual two hour lunch gap so we walked into the town very slowly with hobbling old dog and hopping runty dog. Had a look around for food, not too much on offer. I quite liked the look of a dark mysterious tapas bar with scary looking men smoking on the doorstep, but considering Mark was wearing a pink flowery shirt and holding a tiny dog we might have not been too welcome, or possibly beaten up.
Were about to give up when I saw a sign down the road saying 'Le Potager'on an old balck wooden door. Further investigation revealed the wonderful bistro pictured above. My sort of retaurant. Great decor, not at all pompous, plants, old chairs, interesting crocks
even...checked table cloths.
We were greated by the Chef. I was amazed to recognise him as the man who used to have the restaurant 'Marmite du pecher'(which was brilliant) when we were first in Limoux. We ordered. Very reasonable priced menu at 15 euros. The chef came to talk to us, and asked how we would like our fish cooked. The gaspacio was superb, grilled dorade with chunky chips 'copuios' and fresh, my red fruit pudding light and acid sweet, mmmm.
Wish we had this in Limoux! However did eat recently at the bistro on the Tivoli called I think 'Cafe de La France'. Friendly, great food, much cheaper than the square.
Car was done. Got in it. Drove to La Palme, not grabbed overly, too impatient to actually get in the sea so went to La Franqui.
Last time I went there, the sand was blowing horizontally and a menacing sky painted everything a monotone grey. This time there was enough wind to make the waves a bit exciting to play in, but sun and warmth to make strolling a pleasure. Nice...will return. Tired and still very full up from lunch, drove home to seething parrot who was mightly pissed off at being left all day.

Funny thing life, part 2,675

2011-08-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Or not. Not funny if relatively near the end of it one finds oneself in a home a million miles, mentally, from the one you know.
Hot on the heels of the distressing time with Mark's mother...my mum had a stroke and went into hospital. Then followed weeks of me voyaging back and forth to the old grey rock to try and work out how to comfort, how to proceed in the next chapter of life, the aging parent part of the manual, the one we don't open much until we have to.
Having said that, we did try very hard to get her to come down here. Planned the small 'granny house' a cute mini house next to ours where she could have listened 'ad infinitum' to Ezra playing the drums and Mark tinkling the ivories. May be thats why she couldn't quite make the move. Actually, it was the pull of the mother earth of Dorset for her, the rounded comfortable hills, familiarity, knowing where one is. May be we all become thus, even us wanderers... we have been here now for nearly ten years and this landscape seems to be where I feel at home...possibly a bit nearer the sea..not sure, but I would like to be able to grow a bougainvillea in the ground.
I found mum a very nice 'home' with the help of my cousin. An old early C20th manor, a bit creaky and warmly comfortable, not sterile and brisk like others I saw and have visited in the past. Huge forest grounds, with perhaps a glimpse of the distant hills near the sea when winter has removed the leafage.
Mums room is like a little cozy sitting room with quite a bit of her own furniture and personal items, pictures etc. Its a little eyrie, up in the tree tops, peaceful. However it is not, or ever will be true 'home' and mum will probably never really accept the move, despite lack of alternatives, meaning her house, but I hope it will become easier for her.
So, we should all probably plan for this stage. Several friends are already on the lookout for a domain where they can be surround by likeminded folk with live in staff etc...sounds good, but I suspect we'll just muddle along hoping that not a lot changes until we just fall off the earth one day with no complications.
Recent events have meant I have changed my direction (again) am now writing a book, not a kids one this time, and am loving it. At the moment concentrating on being in the studio is not possible, being on the move and writing is the silver lining for the present time.

Family break in Nice

2011-08-08T01:31:00.000-07:00

what sort?

2011-08-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

We never did find out as we left Salon de Provence to go to Nice for three day family break. Nice was Californiaesque as we expected but ace place with excellent art galleries and miles of fantastic promenade for people watching. Worth doing too! More leathery brown old women covered in gold than one could shake a poodle at, posing men in tight white jeans, and beautiful young things in Prada.
We were mangy by comparison, but I did paint my toenails.
More photos to follow.

Potato saving scheme

2011-07-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

In the early spring I dutifully put in the seed potatoes and looked forward to our rich bountiful harvest....
Due to very dry late spring, they came up and stayed rather...runty to say the least, one or two flowers bloomed and withered. As the ground was becoming akin to death valley, I dug them all up in one go. They made one fantastic curry and one 'poor man's potatoes'. Hummm..roughly two potato for the price of one, plus the faff of putting them in, compost etc. Usually totally effortless vegetable, maybe better next year...

POOR MAN;'s POTATOES

this always varies according to whether one gets distracted by the cat scratching the sofa, phone call or whatever, thus differing (is this a word?) the texture of the spud.

Boil water, put washed but not peeled spuds in, roughly chopped to big bite sizes. When possible to poke with a fork, drain. Heat olive oil to dangerous hot, throw in potatoes and lashings of chopped garlic plus some fresh red chilli if you like things a bit 'piquant'. Leave to stick to the bottom until someone says "is something burning", turn them over (spuds, not person) well you can do that too if you like...and cook until well browned. Turn into fancy rustic dish and serve with sour cream and chives, home made tomato sauce, or HP is pretty good.

Yes we love our car.

2011-07-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

We love it so much. We clean it every Sunday, Mark spends hours with the T cut getting that deep long lasting shine...Not.
I just had to post this, it could be art, or it could just be an indication of how much the cleanliness of our poor car does bother us...
Its a CD of Mark's film music, with a very black banana skin stuck to it with a plastic sweet box adhered to the banana with some interesting species of mould. He found it, not when cleaning the car out, but trying find his phone.

Le bore de France

2011-07-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

Well it would have been churlish not to go and see them set off, hardly taxing since it was about 100 metres down the road. It was raining in a sort of Irish mist way and quite chilly. We stood near the fire station and watched herds of adorned trucks and cars with happy (or possibly not) waving people hurling stuff out of windows. Key rings, hats, crisps, useless plastic clacky noise makers, and much more assorted twaddle. No sample gas bottles were thrown into the crowd when Butagaz or whoever they were appeared, but we did all get sprayed with water by Vittel which was crap as everyone was already wet and cold.
Someone told me that 39 tons of plastic rubbish is produced in the Tour de France publicity caravan and that most of it is thrown away after about an hour...don't know how anybody has calculated this but it sounds plausible. I mean what is the world coming to.....
A gendarme told me that after the silly wagons it would be about an hour to wait in the drizzle, so we went back and had lunch and returned. Another half an hour and it started. Thousand press cars and bikes, police, medics etc and then huge pack of sinewy shiny, lycra clad men appeared (I liked this bit) It was impressive, not just their buttocks either, the thought of them all cycling to Montpellier, the huge serpent snaking its way across the département, would be good to see it all from a plane.
So me and Ezra enjoyed the 20 seconds, and then it was all over. We walked back eating small greasy cakes and sporting Skoda hats to the sound of a few melancholic air horns.

no dog is an island

2011-07-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

Just got in from mad driving day, Montauban, as the boy person wished to explore it (good choice, most elegant place) and searching for a certain bath in the hideous planet of Castorama in Toulouse. Returned without bath as it was worryingly long and I was to tired to go and find bungy ropes etc. At least I know where the bloody place is now. Was I just tired or are French road signs really... bad. Wasted about an hour trying to find the direction for Montauban from Toulouse, there is a sign, then it just melts away the next time and says Paris or something, and one has to go back to where one started and drive slowly avoiding collisions with peeved 31 plate drivers, all the time looking for the elusive blue or green directive, until you see it half a kilometer away under a shadowy flyover.
Anyway I waffel. The house seems to smell odd these days. I think it might be Una pictured above. She is about 130 in human years so entitled to be a little whiffy. They wagged so fondly at our return I thought I would just put them on my blog instead of the impressive photo of the bridge in Montauban which I can't download as the USB cable seems to be tired too.
This is an example photo of the extent these dogs need to snuggle. Here they are in about 28 degrees on the sheepskin island instead of that awful hard concrete.
Small dog's leg has been passed by the vet as being fine. He is still hopping though with one dandy leg proffered as if waiting to be passed his fallen silk cravat.
Wimp.

HELLO LIMOUX!!!!

2011-06-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

We played Limoux for the Fete de la musique last Tuesday...le fracas that is. Fantastic. Played between 12.00 and 2.00 in Rue de Augustins for the benefit of two shop owners and a dog. Somebody was jiggling about in an upstairs window, but they might have just been telling us to bugger off as it was siesta time.
Limoux never seems to quite get it together for this countrywide festival, the shop owners were trying their best to get things moving with people dotted around strumming guitars, but I got the feeling there would have been more interest if it had been some sort of eating festival. I could be wrong as we had to leave soon after, maybe it was pretty damned hot later, I think not however as a near tropical rain torrent announced its presence in the early evening.
Better luck next year.

Helas...pas de vache...

2011-06-21T01:57:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to load up a little film of the visa's last dreamy perambulation to the casse auto,or rather, sweat inducing nightmare crawl with line of 'faché' drivers as car was only driving at about 10 KM per Hr...but blogger told me it was a bad film?? o.k was not a masterpiece worthy of Cannes, neither did it contain violence, swearing or dodgy blokes in leatherette.
Shame as I wanted to broadcast all the little squeaks and grinding noises which had become so familiar to me, oh well, here is a picture of the vache rump instead. Anyway, sob, she is no longer with us, and I will be looking out, in a relaxed fashion as we will try and make do with one car.... for another old character motor to take us to parchemin etc.
So if anyone has an old renault 4/5 citroen ami/ ford capri/anything else interesting, let me know.

On a serious note...I went and bought a bike helmet this morning as I intend to get out more on my wonderful shell suit coloured vide.G bike. This was prompted by of horrid piece of news from my godmother. One of her friends died from a head wound after falling off her bike while just 'nipping to the shops' makes one think....

Don't panic.

2011-06-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

Good old Douglas Adams wherever he is, somewhere exciting I hope... fellow H.H.G.T.T universe fans will remember the famous words on the cover of 'the book' (not the bible) mind you if it had 'don't panic' printed on the front it might get a bigger readership these days....I often think of that phrase and many others from his writings, and I think I might finally know 'where my towel is' so to speak.
Had a bit of a revelation the other day re stress. We were in a fairly think and muddy patch of it. Art trail and all associated music events etc, dog with broken leg, mother staying, all normal work to juggle etc. There was added stress to do with who had put what where, and why was this lost etc etc. I started to get a niggly jaw sensation which was the build up to a lot of horrid neuralgic pain I had before. My body was saying 'bloody well calm down' basically...so I did.
Have done a lot of cogitating over the last few days about what we call stress, what use is it etc, then I read an article which really did put all our stupid ideas about how much pressure we are under into context.
We all can give examples of how cruel life can be but I think this is the one that will remain in my head as a reminder of what we have, and why we should not ever moan. There are people living in the jewelry quarter of Calcutta who spend all their waking hours (including kids) sorting through buckets of other peoples excrement in the sewers to find (if they are lucky) some tiny fragments of gold they can sell back to the manufacturers in order to keep themselves and their families alive.
Makes worrying about whether bricolage are still stocking the tiles you have run out of somewhat in perspective.
A lot of our so called stress is self imposed, especially for self employed bods like us. We take on too much, it seems like a good idea at the time, or sounds interesting or crucial often in order to keep the bills being paid.
The point is, must stop rambling, if one tackles the same amount without adding stress into the mix it works better. A bit of adrenalin is good, keeps the mind focused, angst and worry just muddles everything.
So I have been for a week now, not stressed. I am less cross with the boy, I let more stuff wash over me and don't soak up other peoples stress and turn it into guilt. I feel better, people are saying I look loads better, I seem to have lost several frown lines. Nothing else in my life has changed, I'm just trying it without adding my own self imposed stress baggage.
Well we'll see....

Artists a suivre 2011

2011-06-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

WELL DONE Victoria, Caty and the team for the brilliant event, as ever....I ran a similar art trail for several years in the U.K, I know how much work it takes, how much free time one gives and how much you want to thump the odd moaner who has to have their say.....
Stress levels were at a high point in the hothouse (see next post) as we worked our way through art expo with sound installation, (with lovely Sue doing salon du thé) samba gig (in the rain in a barn), improvised music, rock gig, Baroque music, jazz....
I loved my venue, the 'vestiere' at Couiza, high ceilings, no yellow walls, and the sound worked really well in there. I had to stay each night as the security was pretty basic, enjoyed waking up in the loft like space before hastily shoving the duvet and futon away as people arrived.
Here be photos, in no great order.
Samba gig: Gawd, and blimmin ek nevr ad to play in a dirty great barn before...
Expo space and salon du thé
Les Malfonctionnaires gig, Saturday night at les pres en bulles.
Today...clearing up and sleeping.

Seasonal fruit stress

2011-05-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

Mark suffers badly from this. I have a milder form, but never the less it kicks in around early to middle may depending on the weather/how the trees are feeling.
The first attack is cherry time. We watch the blossom come and go, salivate as the tiny green fruit swell and then...arggg they are ripe, everywhere, people kindly bring them, ask you to take as many as you wish from their trees, they call you from the wild, "eat us" before we fall and are wasted.
Added to Marks heavy work load, a hernia op chez moi, and certain areas of the house destruction, cherrys must be stoned. The special plastic box comes out, its yearly airing, everyone is sticky with purple and red and then its o.k. Pots of rich dark jam in the shed, a happy feeling that winter will be all the better for increasing the jam stocks.
We failed this year with strawberry. SAD. Next stop apricot.

Welcome!

2011-05-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

Superb entrance to abode in 'point courte' another favourite seaside haunt at Sete.
Translates roughly to s***heads keep out.

More blog soon, too much going on.....

OOps

2011-04-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

aww,
blogger won't upload the film, too big? too Hogarthian? anyway, here's two photos of the event including one of Dr Mark Wyatt Lockett conducting band of urchins.

Fracas de Limoux

2011-04-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Fracas....load chaotic sound, something like that, I thought the name sat nicely between 'Fecos de Limoux' (carnaval) and Fricassée de Limoux, the local dish of pork and beans.
Here we are performing for "Toques et Clochers" on a beautiful saturday in Limoux before the surging hoards of pissheads appeared. As we are, none of us, svelte 23 year old Brazilians, the Dickensian look seemed a good option. A unique (I think) melange of pulsing street sounds and 'my old man said follow the van'
We played five sets of an hour, and Stan, mad quaker personage in this film, played five sets of jazz in between, thus didn't really get up on Sunday apart from a brief foray to the market.
Perfect day for the grand drinking binge, seemed to be good humour all around and some excellent street acts, notably the wonderful 'Compagnie Stromboli' theatre of the absurd, of whom I sadly have no pics. Only heard one ambulance in the night, and pretty much the sole reminders the day after were a few abandoned socks littered around the streets...?

The boy done good

2011-04-17T12:09:00.001-07:00

Ezra with CHEQUE for his first prize in children's section Toc & Cloch painting competition. So proud I nearly dropped the camera...
Thought they might have given the parents a well done for making him prize in the form of a magnum of blanquette, most generous prize quand meme, thanks S.D'Arques.

Grand design

2011-04-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

Just in case we forget how totally amazing nature is.
Makes me feel somehow hopeful, despite us unloading toxins into the air/soil/sea, that the natural world will prevail. Talking of dumping stuff in the sea, I read with amazement that the hole in the crippled nuclear power staion in Japan has been blocked with a mixture of.....sawdust newspaper and a form of liquid glass. I remember doing exactly that to my cousin's red spitfire in about 1976, surely things must have have moved on a bit...?
Anyway back to the vegetable featured above.
Well not much really, except that when I see these green kings of legume world I just have to spend quite a bit of time in wonder. Ezra says he saw an 'expose' about them in the Paris science museum. Even under super magnification the spirals keep on going seemingly into infinity. Well it makes a change from thinking what is outside our universe, where does it end? etc...but similarly brain taxing on a slightly different scale.
Enough, back to the washing up and cat hair removal. Safe small activities of no wonder.

Funny thing life...

2011-03-29T01:25:00.000-07:00

Mark and I say this to each other at least once a week. The moving forward through the various stages of our exsistances, the seasonal comings and goings, the familiar, the uncharted...
Had a good chat with above pictured boy person of family this morning on the usual walk to college. He has suddenly made a leap forward in the life thing. The realisation that what you get out of life genreally depends on what you put into it. This is a wonderful moment, if it will last, less nagging re homework etc. Ezra has an interesting mix of genes from us, as far as learning goes, with French for example I muddle through, unashamed of errors, picking up mostly from what I hear/see in conversation, lazy? possibly, to busy to really make time...Mark is very different. He constructs perfectly all grammer, works hard at it, enjoys the learning proccess, takes time even though busy. I think Ezra is in the middle somewhere, but I hope he leans in Mark's direction for the school work now. On the other hand he is becoming a fine drummer, impossible to teach, he has picked it all up from listening, years of table tapping, something to be said for finding the way yourself too.
Part of this mornings chat included the recounting of a dream in which he was living in a small basement of a factory making buttons, while his friends were outside being well known rugby players/writers etc...
He asked me if he didn't do well at school would he not be successful in life, big question for 7.30 the morning, and very important to reply properly even if one is still mentally in bed. I seemed to say the right things, he went off determined to do well in his evaluation in French, having STUDIED for it, a possible first.
I watched him turn the corner, and walked home head full of the memories of his stages so far in life...

A lasting impression.

2011-03-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

I liked this lady, somebody else did too. She has been reposing on a sunny step overlooking the sea in Cerbere since 1940.

Recipe for instant HAPPY.

2011-03-06T12:10:00.000-08:00

Time lost.

2011-03-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

The brain, as I and many thousand others have observed is...complex, to say the least.
I once heard a memorable program on the devine radio 4 by a very eminent prof of the brain lady who described the emotional part of the brain as a series of tiny see-saws.
I always remember this when experiencing a day of 'ups and downs', such as yesterday.
The morning was dullish but satisfactory in acheiving 'stuff'. Washing, shopping, trip to insurance broker to ask why we had an unfathomably weird letter from them, which they in turn had no idea about either, etc etc. Home, lunch, went to make several boring but important phone calls....no sign of phone book, slim orange thing pictured above. I bought this because it is bright orange and thus CANNOT be lost. Spent about an hour looking all over the house. First in casual hopeful way, of course it would just be under a pile of papers. Not. Then in more intense way, possible sensible places, in-tray, drawers that contain important items etc. Then in deranged, irritable way, fridge, sock drawer, dog beds etc. Nowhere.
Cloud of thick grey descended, made sure that everyone else joined in, as I wanted to share my fury. Dogs sulked, cat went out into the rain, and Ezra became strangely helpful. Tried the 'count one's blessing thing. No good. I knew what I was cross about on a world scale was so pathetic that it could not register, but the day continued thus, briefly up-lifted during a gardening forage.
Tried different looking techniques from time to time, quick furtive scramble through piles I had already looked at, a nonchalant glance under the sofa..nothing. Accepted I would have to find all the numbers another way, then I found it. In Ezra's room, under a massive pile of electronic bits I was moving so he would be able to find the bed.
Mood lifted, the lights came on, the dogs smiled, Everything for just a moment was completly perfect...in fact has continued to be so, despite sullen grey drizzel outside, and the fact that all the boring phone calls still have to be made.

The morning before....

2011-02-20T10:19:00.002-08:00

For a couple of months now I have been very VERY sensible about eating and consuming DRINK...all blown in one day of festivities.
Carnaval started with lavish meat fest as film reveals. 8.00 in the morning. Chorizo, slabs of bacon, sausages oozing in yummy grease, white bread, bits of preserved duck fat, and as much hearty red wine that you could shake a 'carabène' at.
Mark went slightly pale and headed off home to eat some hippy food, I waded in and tested the fare.
After a few blanquettes and chardonnays on the tour of the cafés it was time for a very late lunch. I did avoid the fois gras, not for any particular reasons of animal ethics...(which were by that time rather shredded) but because I remember last year feeling somewhat...close to death by the time we had to hit the square again. Gambas, followed by magret de canard, which was delicious. Not a vegetable in sight except for a wilting leaf next to the gambas. Tiramasu. Hot chocolate as I have given up coffee..ugh.
Oh let me sleep, but no, we all created massive group indigestion by dancing around to carnival tunes, and then it was time to go out again.
More chardonnay, pastis, etc, although I did pad it all out with evil WATER. It rusts you people said, but I really didn't want to visit memories of lying in bed, groaning and watching the Waltons as I was unable to change channels (days before remotes you understand, would never get quite so horribly rat-arsed these days).....usually.

After tour, back in café, lots more jiggling, getting quite entertaining now with people standing on chairs singing about having no trousers on and then adding visuals.
Fancied a small fruit salad, or a perhaps even a whole sun dried tomato canapé (not a sofa), but instead there was a vast array of fois gras on toast, duck bits, white bread rolls, sausage rolls, brie, chorizo and jambon du pays. Decided to start blanquette diet on the spot, and joined in with more carnival jiggling, YMCA and even Plastic Bertrand?!
Only one member of our group pushed the satin covered boat out a little too far. Although quite slight in frame, and having drunk several months worth of Ricard over the day He still did manage to perform, with the odd lurch into the crowd, then back at the cafe he became strangely fixated with asking me what the translation of "oo, aa, will you be my girl" was in French.
Off out again for the 10.00 p.m tour, pushing our stomachs before us, more wine, pastis, etc etc,
then back to burn the carnival effigy. Was rather relieved to find we were not going to eat onion soup at 1.30 in the morning, which I have done with another band before.
Home.
Today, have gained seemingly 2 kilos.
Back to the pumkin seeds, veg etc, but will enjoy that culinary departure again next year.

Le sorti...

2011-02-20T01:03:00.000-08:00

Great time had by all despite later rain.
Me with newly 'primped' colorette, and faluche (hat) rather squashed by the precipitation.
Way too much wine and food, aching body parts, quiet day today....

19th Feb 2011...Carnaval.

2011-02-18T02:55:00.000-08:00

Yes folks the year has spun round again to this foolish time.
be in Limoux 11.00 ish in the square, to see Me and Mark dressed in...?
Or 5.00, 10.00 to see the traditional swishy satin stuff.

End of the world. 12? 21? Dec 2012 Bugarach

2011-02-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

Well which is it?
Seems there is a choice of dates regarding the fin du monde. Or maybe we are in for two...the first one not quite end enough, lets leave it 9 days and have another go?
Either way its going to be interesting up there, probably not for the inhabitants, unless one were to sell/rent ones abode out for a huge sum and bugger off to another safe zone...I think there are others? but then presumably they will be about to suffer the same onslaught of hype, and everything that goes along with it.
Think I might start a secondary thread to the story.
There is without doubt another space ship under our shed. I've heard odd clankings in there, someone has been at the jam stocks, and I'm sure once or twice I have seen rats carrying large pieces of sheet steel towards the noble structure after dark. It would explain why Mark can never find any tools, nothing to do with me...
rats are far more likely to inherit the world, or at least its smoking remains, than lizards, or is it that giant lizards are going to arrive from space? Will have to question the small brown ones in the garden. I looked at some yesterday basking in the early spring sun (them, not me) they didn't seem to be any different, no sitting in deck chairs with smug expressions or looking at immobilier magazines from galaxies beyond...
Just looked up some Mayan info, there is another date..the 23rd Dec 2012 which is heralded as IT, so er generally December is going to be less heavy on the Christmas madness, a bit more on the DIY side perhaps. Bunkers and the like, Bricolage should do well.
Perhaps its all true.
Where does God fit into all of this?
Why are we so obsessed with this seasons fashion colour in bed linen in our society?
What happened to folk music?
Something is seriously wrong with the world, that is obvious. But trying to fix it, rather than running away in a lizard suit is probably more useful. So...off the computer, head for the potager, if the rats haven't taken my spade.

I did see a film at the cinema, when I was about eleven, which incidentally was supporting 'cage aux folles' odd choice...about the The Nazca lines in Peru. The immense patterns drawn on the earth that can really only be appreciated as forms of animals etc from the air. If I was really going to wait for a passing space vessel, somewhere there would be my choice of bus stop, not rural France...we shall see...

yellow wool, sun's rays, happy dog.

2011-02-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

And happy us. What a great few days, very aware of the lack of water around however. Could do with a wet spring.
I did look in my diary for this time last year and we did have a similar episode of sun filled days...before a massive dump of snow squashed the over-optimistic almond blossom and nest builders. Maybe not this year, hope not, the woodpile is rapidly reaching the sawdust and beetles level.
Today preparation of CARNAVAL, check out the Limoux square next Saturday at 10.30 to see Mark dressed in a way he might have been about 30 years ago.....

Its Tuesday, it must be Esperaza...

2011-02-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Just back from uk where weather was like here today, perhaps slightly more vile, only just...
Cannot find USB cable to load up recently taken snaps so here is one of Mark's favourite places..hahaha...
On a Tuesday and Wednesday he loads up his ancient tan leather greek bag with music and heads to the MJC batiment in afore-mentioned town.
I like this building. It should really be on the outskirts of some mouldering Russian industrial town, an occasional venue for a vodka laced dance event... echoing concrete and David Lynch film set corridors. The 'caretaker' (odd word to use when describing the gentleman in question) has asked Mark many times not to stick posters on the wall of the 'music room', small dingy room with Dickension desks and matching dust, presumably as this could leave small grease marks on the ancient, grimy, cracked paintwork. He has also requested that the windows always remain closed so the piano cannot be heard especially between 12.00 and 2.00 p.m when he has his siesta.....!**?!**

One small step for dogkind

2011-01-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

Yes its that time again. Small dog in pee stained silly jumper braving the snow. Only a few 'flocons' today. At the risk of being a grumpy old bugger....I hope that's it. Not being folks compelled to fix chains to car's wheels or encase ourselves in happy coloured padded outfits in order to get really in the white stuff, its just a big nuisance. Rain would be good though please or next summer is going to be very drought like.
Me off to old home rock for a week, bit of London nostalgia, then to Dorset. Back soon.

Ménage manège

2011-01-19T01:14:00.000-08:00

Up until a few weeks ago, I thought the word ménage, house work, was in fact manège, merry go round. There I was happily thinking what a wonderfully poetic race the French are, to have such a delightfully descriptive word for this endless chore....I couldn't post a picture of our house in chaos to illustrate as I have just cleared up AGAIN. So therefore, here be a lovely fish dish which I and Ezra enjoyed in Agde in the summer. It was all calm on the terrace overlooking the sea, but I could imagine the piles of washing up, floors to be cleaned etc at the end of the lunch session.
The start of this particularly thorough clean yesterday was because I had lost the key to my studio. I was just about to go in there and START WORK as the period of earlier procrastination clearing up had just passed....thus prevented, I then cleaned out the car in case the hapless key had fallen to the floor amongst nut shells, dog blankets, discarded bits of instruments and other detritus that we normally convey along the roadways with us.
Nothing.
Gave up and concentrated on boy's birthday. Today started looking again, pockets, bags, car again, under trees I had pruned, dog beds. Then Mark found the spare key in the drawer that has spare keys in it. Forgot that...
"Here don't loose this one", he said, with the smirk of a very tall and perfect camel, who never looses anything. Except that time of the wallet, the car keys, several very expensive pen knives....etc.
The lure of the filthy shed is calling. It hasn't been cleaned out in months, its difficult to shut the door let alone find a hammer, the garage, impossible to find anything in it at all unless it is within a few cms of the entrance. However all this will have to wait, having found the key, must see if it can turn on my brain to do some other sort of work.

Body of Christ.

2011-01-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

I went to a French Funeral this morning.
It was interesting to note the differences. Several U.K ones I can remember seemed to be rather 'in and out' bit like life really on one scale. This was elegant, touching, lengthy and.... freezing. The priest was all majesty in his polar white robes, and gentle voice which echoed around the ancient stones. Unlike me, dressed in black complete with VAT inspector leather coat, most folks were dressed casually, no weeping weeds, veils, or crisp once year used suits. The coffin was placed in the entrance of the church at the beginning while the priest began the service, we all gathered round and thought about the body inside, the workmanship of the coffin etc. This is the bit, when one sees the actual 'box' that I usually start sobbing. The finality of the human frame incased in wood...then to go into the ground or a fire, but as I had never actually met him, and was there to support our lovely voisine, it did not really seem appropriate.
So the service came to its end, incense was waved, psalms sung and many prayers said.
The bit which will become one of those imbedded memories was when the disc of bread was broken in the total stillness...
a tiny resonant' criiickkk'

Species of sound.

2011-01-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

There are two members of the household who really appreciate 'free jazz' I want to like it very much, but it makes my brain retreat to a small recess at the back of my skull and I cannot really function. Mark love's it, especially when cooking.
This is a film of the other one who loves it. The usually silent feathered being launches into a wonderful repertoire that Messian would have found inspirational.
The other two sounds today issued from the IRM machine surrounding me at the Clinique Montreal. They warned me that it would be loud and clamped clinical white padded headphones to my head so I could enjoy some carpet adverts in French.
Its an odd thing to be confined in a white tube with huge pulsating noise firing from various directions. A cross between a secret rave in a small operating theatre and some sort of very squeaky clean torture. Tried not to imagine they had all left the room and the machine was in fact out of control. The squeezy rubber 'bulb' I had been given to hold in case of distress became an object of increasing fascination...just one little scrunch, would anyone come...
In between the crossfire of sounds there was the possibly worse sounds of French 'popular' music, breathy women singers and voice modulators. I think wagner would have suited the occasion, or perhaps Dolly Parton so one could take ones mind off the present and consider how extraordinary it is that she can keep from falling over with her weight distribution.
Back at base now. Current noises are Debs recording a song called "on the edge of madness" and Ezra eating with his mouth open, while watching Carry on Doctor featuring Kenneth Williams making that wonderful 'neeeiieer' sound.

Summer memory

2011-01-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

Was just going through some old photos and saw this one.
Sitting in furry leopard slipper boots and nasty old jumper, it is difficult to remember the intense heat of that day. We had taken Ezra for an ultra special treat to 'le clos de St Hilare' beautiful eatery in afore mentioned village where Mark sometimes plays the piano.
We sat in their garden and sweated, the shade of the trees made no difference, the air was all full up with some kind of syrup, no breeze. We acted out the meal, a small bowl of cherry tomatoes with a side dish of ice would have been very ample.
To the log pile now, rapidly disappearing log pile, early winter, allowing ourselves a little more heat in the day, tighten belts o.k but being cold has to stop. Have taken to having four hot water bottles in bed with us now, glurping rubbery packets of heat, I'm rather fond of them, preferable to waking at 3.00a.m after a dream of being in a sauna and finding the leccy blanket on.
Anyway...first catkins out this week, and strident blackbird song.....moving in the right direction.

In with the new.

2011-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Bought new diary yesterday, wrote list of resolutions on front page. Useless activity as I never follow them, but this years is just...Smile a lot. Not so much in a count your blessings sort of a way, more that I look less manky if I do, even in moth eaten winter garb.
So out with the old. Christmas is once more in a box in the loft, two glass baubles bit the dust, new piece of tinsel joined the crew for the next outing. Tree is usefully engaged in fire lighting, and parrot is installed in its place.
All the lurking bills and unpleasant phone calls are being slowly paid and made, trees will be pruned, work will be restarted, carnaval masks will be painted, and a gradual move towards springyness is anticipated.
Happy new year.

New year at Le Cafe de la gare...HELLO QUILLAN

2011-01-01T01:49:00.000-08:00

Excellent food, far to much fois gras, did resolve never to eat this terrible, evil substance again....just one more time....
Packed house, and general happy atmosphere.
Stan singing 'Lucille' and me, although I look as if I'm about to attempt 'Ave Maria', preparing for 'should I stay...."
And....Ezra's debut in public, summertime blues.

Runs in the family...

2010-12-30T23:51:00.000-08:00

Add two table tappers, throw in a huge dollop of musical training, a spoon full of misspent years at college listing to dance music, and vast array of weird objects that go clank....and you have boy who is NEVER quiet.
Here be the 'sofa session'.

We are mad

2010-12-26T06:52:00.000-08:00

New Christmas arrival. Not the baby Jesus, but small parrot creature to add to the rest of the animal collection and all the detritus that goes along with them...
Actually it is charming and sweet and its favourite perch is Mark's head.

HO HO HO

2010-12-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

Lunar happening....or not

2010-12-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of the moon yesterday morning.
I had ventured outside expecting to see a apocalyptic red sky. The Guardian had said there was going to be a lunar eclipse over the U.K and I even though not scientific in the least had assumed some of this spectacle would have spilt over into the skies of Southern France. Not so. But, quand meme, rather an atmospheric sight that I thought I would share with other blogsters.

As the needle slips into the runout groove...

2010-12-20T01:58:00.000-08:00

Line from one of Keane's monumental tracks........... thought provoking as we have just come back from the funeral of Mark's mother.
We must all do as much as possible before we all slip into our own runout grooves.
Important things, family, friends, cooking, writing, art, music, stuff as much nature into our gardens as possible, hill walking, sea swimming. Less, t.v, less moaning, less buying non-useful objects. Talking of such, Liverpool shops were crammed with enough happy yuletide socks, chocs, digital photo frames etc to create a shift in the Earths orbit, but as all other major cities around the festive world are probably equally overloaded its probably o.k.
Enough soap box griping, I'm going to retire to my fireside chair and take up my KNITTING.
Have recently re-discovered this ancient art of making shapes with hairy thread. Strangely theraputic, time slides by in some other cosy, wooly dimension, all those lost moments when one is waiting for everyone else to get ready or the kettle to boil are magically transformed into the construction of...well in this case a grey wool Dickensian scarf for Mark, no doubt complete with atmospheric moth hole scatterings.
My first venture into knitting was about 1974 when Tom Baker was Dr Who with his mile long striped scarf. I was in love (?) with Douglas..something in our class. To show my ardent love, I made him a replica of the famous scarf, which he really liked, but obviously not me as he dropped me for scary Angela and her two...assets.
Gap followed of many years until college where as well as working sometimes, I made a mad hairy jumper with one arm about ten inches longer than the other. I loved this garment, wore it often, until graduation day when I ate a bunch of fresias on top of a huge cocktail of drinks, and decorated the front of it.
Next knitting milestone. More of an observation, than a physical interaction with wool and needles. One of the things that impressed me about Mark when I first met him, apart from his pre-hensile toes, and ability to play the accordian (not with toes)
was the fact that he was wearing a jumper he had knitted himself. the fact it had 'A Ha' in big letters interwoven on the front didn't put me off, odd this.
And so to the present day. Not a great knitting history so far, but I hope to continue with it, beyond this scarf into...dog coats? car seat covers? knitting therapy in the South of France?

HELLO

2010-12-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

Am at the moment alergic to computing. Will hope not to be in not too distant future.
Here be image of my favourite 3 trees in our lane.
For no great reason except they should be on our Christmas card if I ever get round to sending them out.

November 14th

2010-11-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

Mad weather, potatoes all coming up, flowers everywhere, hope we are not in for horrible shock....
Strange and wonderful clouds at the moment, a continual invasion of other planetary space vessels. We saw some really important looking ones on the way to Beziers yesterday gun turrets and all, along with a cloud scape like the sand appearing under ebbing waves. Wish I could find the cloud spotter book Penny gave us, would like to read up about these rare cloud forms

'tis the season...

2010-11-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

In the same creeping fashion as a sore throat announces the invasion of a cold....that time is almost upon us.
Not that I'm a miserable nightshirt wearing old git, well not most of the time, but REALLY.
I used to revel in the warm comfort of the thought that Chrimbo did not start in this part of the world until December. Festive ads have started edging their way in amongst the yogurt, cheese and insurance, Jardifort have joined the madness of non planty glittery twaddle, and the very worst.....Parchemin, have tables laden with bizarre collections of objects done up in cellophane and ribbon.
I was trapped in leclerc earlier, while trying to buy some dog food, in the massive queues (panic buying to last out the bank holiday?) was interested to note that someone next to me was indeed buying chocolate santa figurines. Is it me, or does it seem odd to be doing this when we are not even half way through November?
Anyway must be off to look up some xmas pud recipes that we were discussing this morning.....

....to be merry, tra la la la la la la

beat route

2010-11-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Short blog for two reasons.
1/ to join me in admiring this wonderful work of nature's and Max's art.
2/ to announce a new band on the rockin' music scene of the Aude. Featuring great dance melodies of the fab four, Bowie, blues greats and more..more...

Call us if you are needing party music...info in full soon.

links, past to present.

2010-10-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

There is a stuffed crocodile on our bedroom chest of drawers. It is a treasured family item.
When I was about ten my main obsession, apart from sherbert dip-dabs was the pet shop in Highgate, or Finchley I can't remember now. A dark cavern of mystery and wonder, they sold (probably very unlawfully) pythons, birds of prey, immense hairy spiders and ....crocodiles. Most of my quota of childhood nag time must have been spent trying to get my poor mother to agree to housing such a reptile. Me, the child, free of such worries as gas bills, car repairs etc could of course not see why having a three foot long tooth laden creature would be any sort of a problem, and continued ad infinitum to put forward all the advantages..
On my birthday, instead of a tank, bulbs, small rodents, and reptile, I found a large newspaper bundle at the bottom of the bed. It was a small adult crocodile with horse hairs insides, marble eyes, and mouth open in a time preserved bite at some unfortunate small creature.
It was love at first site, the decoy worked, and he went everywhere with me. On the bus, on holiday, into Foyles bookshop, no-one ever asked why I was carrying a stuffed reptile, and I no longer hankered after a life one. 10 out of 10 mum for ingenuity .
There then followed a series of acceptable childhood pets, budgies, various poo producing furry creatures, and even a cat, although we we not really supposed to keep them in the flats.
We moved to Dorset when I was thirteen, and fairly soon after Pink Floyd, Rush and David Bowie took over on the list of obsessions, not to mention Peter whatever his name was.
Fast forward to the present.
Our boy seems to be firmly in my footprints. We've done the nibbling things, including ratty rat, a violent animal who ate his way through our kitchen wall, and was 'given his freedom', Timothy, a very endearing mouse who lived for three years, whom I suspect was a reincarnation of Dickens, Guiness and Rocky, two other mice, a whole troop of budgies, lead by Betty, a big mama blues singer bird, who had quite a lot of offspring, sad swallows with broken wings, snails, butterflies, and fish.
Tropical fish for Christmas last year, I thought it would all be horribly complicated and boredom would set in, but he has been really diligent, feeding cleaning, etc etc......and now he wants a reptile.
His childhood is very different to mine, no trip down to the library to look in plastic covered old books about 'how to enjoy your reptile' 'fairly' unlimited access to youtube and obsessive's websites concerning every aspect of lizard ownership
We seem to be considering the prospect. Well he's pretty cheap to run, Ezra, happy to wear hand-me-downs, no longer a fussy eater, has no expensive sport habit.
Due to the fact that the above featured creature, an iguana, is vegetarian, we thought that one might fit in to our lives. Have listened to the arguments, visited a reptile park, have a lovely voisin who is happy to work on a cage making project with Ezra.
Fate has stepped in.
We were about to buy an iguana from a man in Carcassonne, who is moving countries, he rang on the day of igunana inspection to say it had died....Ezra became strangely silent on the subject.
Boy and husband are in Paris for a few days. Mark rang last night to say they had been to reptile specialist shop, and the man had pointed to a two and a half meter iguana and said, 'you don't want one of those' Can grow to three meters, can become aggressive, can live up to fifty years, (oooek) and eventually need a whole room rather than a cage. There goes the B&B room.......
So back to the drawing board with...a bearded dragon apparently, unless he suddenly finds Lucy in class more alluring...

Food for thought

2010-10-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

Was in the kitchen with Mark yesterday eve preparing confiture de grenade. He surprised me by asking if I thought we spent too much time cooking...!
Odd, I thought..... I suppose we do spend a fair part of each day making food in various forms, but it just seems a normal way to exist. Then I had a really good think during the day about the extremes of food preparation in the world. Food as fuel to food as a luxury art form.
A good example of each I can think of comes from horrible reality TV programmes, which I did watch, IN FRENCH, purely for improving my language skills of course. One, which I think was called 'welcome to our tribe' Appalling, but also fascinating. French family removed from consumerism and plonked in Amazonian jungle with strangely accepting family of that region...? Anyway, suddenly removed from the choice between Super U and Leclerc, they were caught up in the daily preoccupation of finding the next meal. The staple base of the diet was a yam like vegetable, which was chewed (by the womenfolk) and spat out creating a ready liquidized pulp....good viewing as the Parisians were invited to try it.
On that particular day it was decided that the men would go on a notoriously dangerous mission to trap a type of monkey for the village to prepare and eat in the evening. Four hours jungle hike, success, four hours back, monkey prepared, eaten.
Cue next day.
Actually the most interesting thing was that the men in the French party on all the programs that I saw became more and more keen to adopt this new life of building, hunting, survival generally, far removed from snug car interiors and flat screen t.v
At the other end of the scale, a vile program called 'lets bitch about somebody else's cooking'
Four happy folks from across France, each stage a themed dinner chez eux. Each time the three not cooking, are invited to dine at the fourth's place of residence. There then follows a hideous evening of critical comment on the food, the decor, and not the meaning of life etc.
Food as leisure activity, or food as a means of life support.
I would hope to be somewhere in the middle.
Pleasure in choosing good basic ingredients, liberal enough to think, what can we make with one egg, half a cabbage and a tin of chickpeas, and occasional forays into risqué areas of buying food to follow a recipe....

Sculpture.

2010-10-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

New forms. If I am destined to be a constant gardener, that's not a bad thing. Gardening is really just playing and art rolled into one big possibility. Here is a new tree, birthday present, caught and hauled back to the compound in the back of the kangoo.
New sculptural form and colour, it will become a shady seat area for when we start the hothouse tea-gardens, project 5,467, fraught no doubt with legislation nightmares and new toilet arrangements, but I think it could be a good one....
For the ultimate in land transformation, take a look at 'le jardin bouichere' in Limoux near Mr Brico. They purchased a rubbly field about 15 years ago and after extreme toil it is now a paradise of plants, trees and parrots.
Another favourite inspiration of mine is/was Derek Jarmen's garden. Situated almost in the shadow of the concrete bulk of dungeoness power station, its stones, sculptural objects, and salt brave plants were a wonder.
Am now going to google it, might add a link...

evolution

2010-10-18T00:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry ms Ayres for bastardising your beautiful painting (Ceret), but I wanted an image of the pain I was experiencing in my teeth and face a couple of days ago.
Have had toothache, or what appeared to be for a couple of months, dentist took x-rays, nowt.
When pain became like someone drilling for oil in my cheek, became alarmed...well one does...what do we do in our present period of world history? Look up scary stuff on the internet, nes pas. Scary indeed. Will not bore with facts, histoires etc. Could be one of 200 or more things of course, some much nastier than others.
Went to the doctor, mentioned a few possibilities, Bof, you are stressed, is your life full of stress at the moment. Gave me magnesium and nice calm feeling. Next couple of days, big pain and smaller pains, but gradually figured out the stuff that works.
Sleep, good, vegetables good, gardening excellent, walking excellent, housework good. Stress not good, well I think we know this, sitting about, not good, art, not good at the moment, hoping to sort this one!, and computing.....very BAD.
Brings me back to title of blog post....
We are not perhaps meant to be hunchy over a keyboard, more to be running over rocks in pursuit of some dinner, rather extreme I know, but in my case certainly putting some onions in rather than looking something up on safari is better for me.
Anyway, must stop as am having to write this is strange John wayne/Alexandre tecnique posture, hence worse spelling than usual...,
Have a good stress free day y'ouall.

If only....

2010-10-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

We had left this mechant beast on guard...possibly we would not have got broken into. Or at least they might have died of laughter before getting very far,
But we took both the hounds with us.
Nice afternoon out, me and the boy to look at lizards in Narbonne, as one does. Just driving towards the car port, noticed the side door smashed in. It is a horrible feeling, I remember it well from the times we got home in Birmingham to find smashed glass, things turned over, etc. Not in the sleepy S.O.F surely. Anyway, good kick up the bum for us, and for all the rest of you out there who have got lazy about shutters etc.
Oddly enough, my strongest feeling was horror that anyone had seen the state of our bedroom.
I once had a break in to my flat in Edgeware Rd, London. The only things I found missing were, a pint of milk, and a Micheal Jackson cassette.
Performance art?

Half a century, makes a girl think....

2010-10-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

One of Miss Munroe's classic phrases from some like it hot. Except she said quarter of a century, and she was dressed in black satin with wonderful pointy breasts, not slouching in some deeply unattractive old pyjamas, with body parts somewhat gravity challenged....
I digress. The half way mark, so to speak is...interesting, its all downhill as far as cells go, in fact I think I read somewhere that you've had in that department from about 21. O dear. What is the point of it all, why are we here, other assorted questions regarding time, space, Ikea etc.
Putting deeper questions to one side, small dusty box for the moment, I must celebrate the fact that I was fifty, still am, and we had a very good fete to pin time to.
In fact I actually became 50 years of age (on the 2nd) around the time Ezra put the event firmly into our minds for ever by cannoning into metal bench outside, and cutting his knee open.
Quite a bit of flapping, (mainly by me), emergency services quizzing, crowd of kids saying things like blimey in French, and poor white faced Ezra....Mark drove him to Carca hopital, and I swam 170 lenghts in feezing swimming pool water to clarify my mind.
Not really, went round like crazed teenager drinking dregs of other peoples wine in attempt to get back into party spirit which Mark had said must be done.
he was right, stiff upper lip, hokey cokey etc, actually we didn't do afore mentioned ancient English country dance, but my spirit was re-ignited and rest of eve was fab.
Would have put photos up but blogger would not perform, so small film of rendition of Muddy Waters favourite, probably not how he would have done it.
And my mojo had well and truly buggered off to do a bit of shopping this morning, slight hangover, erhem, one thinks one could find the off switch when one reaches this age.
Thanks fpr all beautiul presents and cards folks. Flower arrangements, Roses, plants, artworks, Jack Daniels, fancy wine, composition, tree, chocs, beads, super bath stuff, vachement excellent carnaval of Limoux bag, and complicated and wonderful present from Debs.
Stan ruined the presentation of it slightly by striding into the kitchen with 2 massive bags of fertilizer, throwing them to the floor and saying something like 'madame, I bring you, with instruction from my lovely wife, two bags of finest horse defecation" use the Stan Adler tranlation button on your ordi to reveal the true parole.
That was the part of the present concerning the fifty onwards years, fertilizing the future...
The other parts concerned olive oil, body lotion, chocolate and soap. Think we should make it into an opera, to be be performed at the next big B.

bloody tax payers money

2010-09-22T06:27:00.000-07:00

While in London, managed to nip to the Tate for a few minutes before boarding a train to Dorset. Actually I must digress here for a moment...I don't know if I have become an old git and a peasant, but I did find Victoria station scary. Not because of its size, noise, or train holding capacity, it was the level of consumerism. I went into Smiths to buy a paper but got sidetracked into looking at crisp packets the size of a dog, buy two get one free anything you like and more magazines on 'famous people than you could shake David Beckham at.. Everywhere, sweets, new chocolate products, right on organic snacks, jewelry for ones phone (how useful is that), bestsellers, ones that didn't make it, cookies, cake, doughnuts, coffee masquerading as puddings, beer, wine, ties, socks etc.
My point is, when you go to Toulouse station you can buy a newspaper, choose between about eight types of snack, or a real coffee, thats it. Long may it rest thus.
The Tate. Wonderful display of huge fighter aircraft with people muttering about the cost of it, and why....don't ask me, but they were astoundingly beautiful things, especially the one they had sandblasted down to a shining silver, upside down as if it had missed its target and slithered to a halt just before crashing into the Vermeer section.
Also drawings by Rachel Whiteread, her of the inside out house. The video of her talking about her work making process was fascinating except there were two men talking about their respective house extensions so it was difficult to really concentrate. Or perhaps they were considering making inside out house extensions having been inspired. I should have asked.

Funny thing life...

2010-09-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

And death.
While in Dorset visiting my mum I went to pay a visit to my lovely uncle in his resting place under this young tree.
As a muser, I spend a fair bit of time thinking about the after life, if there is one... whether one might return as a dung beetle, or a table leg..or perhaps some famous game show host of the future.
Anyway uncle Ben is in a rather beautiful place called a burial ground. The first bodies installed so to speak, are now nourishing majestic oaks and rowans as tall as the eves of a house. Compared to an average graveyard I think it would be a nice place to while away a few years watching the blackbirds nesting and listening to next door's trees rustling. I hope Ben, who was an expert wood carver and lover of birds, trees and nature generally is happy there.
My general mood at the time of contented melancholia was slightly pushed off its armchair when I found the following plaque dedicated to a certain Reg someone.....".well, he tried..." Tried what...?morris dancing? taxidermy? or maybe they should have left out the comma. Perhaps it was supposed to read "WELL HE TRIED" in a sort of Victorian stiff shirt and brass fanfare sort of a way. One cannot help reflecting on what ones own plaque might say....she piddled around a lot, she had a lot of ideas, she could really spot a bargain at a vide grenier....
I just looked up the definition of death in the dictionary. 'state of being dead' don't know quite what I expected. Also saw this phrase 'death on'....apparently means to be fond of/ good at. Related to 'dead good I suppose. Sounds like something a 13 year old buttock exposing trouser wearer might say. Think I might start a new verbal trend. "hey,death on"
She was good at procrastination.
Work.
Now.

The first soup.

2010-09-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

Over the balmy months we seem to had forgotten soup, apart from an occasional dabble with a few cold variants.
I decided to 'have a go' at some bouillabaise as we had invited fish-loving types over. Walked into local fishmonger and casually mentioned I would like some ingredients to make the aforementioned dish. The shop owner and assorted elderly fish-buying members of the public started back as if I had asked for items for DIY bomb equipment. This was serious, several days careful thought should have been given ....not to mention days to 'commande' the stuff. "Madame, you are clearly mad, English, and no nothing more of the cuisine of fish than opening a packet of 'doigts de poisson'" he said fixing me with a cold fish eye. Not really, but he obviously thought that.
When it became clear I was not going to go away, he suggested some other fish that would possibly have use in an approximation of the hallowed dish of the South coast.
Moules, red mullet, wolves (loup), salmon, mackerel, white boingy stuff (squid bodies) etc etc. Agreed, fell over with shock of price, paid and went home to recover with tea and reassuring book of basic greek cookery.
Actually, found excellent idea for a fish soup with loads of veg which the Greeks used to make and take for lunch in big cook pots on their boats.
Along these lines...

Chopped up: carrots, leeks, celery, tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, bay leaves, parsley, ouzo (or a bit of white wine and brandy seemed to work), boil up, simmer and add all fish, simmer, eat.
Was really good. Even French folks said so!

Also I made a sort of aoli, but realised at the last moment we didn't have bread for bread crumbs, so used an old croissant.

Egg yolk, ton of garlic, hot chili pepper, rock salt, croissant. Not to be eaten if you are newly dating someone......

More soup later.

Sensible time.

2010-09-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

Summer's end, even though its still hovering around 30 in the shade. Insect bites fading, plants devoid of colour, static, waiting for water. Its been a good one, but now time to think about college, tax fonciere, ordering or scavenging wood.
In tray has stuff lurking in it, should have been looked at, nagging feelings that someone is going to mention family arrangements at Christmas.

Swallows, warm evening air, cypress tree perfume, dogs motionless in shade. water, precious. Peaches, last apricots, the king of fruit, 'till next year...

Catalan dance.

2010-08-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

During small break in our favourite coastal area we had the fortune to see some of this ancient form of dance celebrating leg muscles and shaved armpits.
On first hearing the music we cocked our heads to one side in bemusement like two dogs on hearing a new and possibly dangerous noise. Shrill wind instrumentation, and a tiny drum strapped to the arm of the pipe player combined with double bass and brass. Odd....but strangely charming.
The 'footing' is delicate and rather like horse dressage with occasional forays into jumping movements when the tempo of the music ups slightly.
I wanted to join in except I would have been an elderly shire horse, and my armpits were almost certainly not to the standard required. Next time I will be prepared.

Summertime 2

2010-08-08T04:04:00.000-07:00

Grande Motte building. Me in 1970's bikini. Mark after hunting down and eating an omelette in the Carmargue plains. Wonderful coloured blocks at the photography expo. Me with matching top and paving in G.Motte. Mark in front of super wall and heating vent at G.Motte ( have noticed that most people photo their loved ones in front of such land marks as the Trevi fountain, or le tour Eiffel, not us, more likely to be Wolverhampton bus station, or some old graffiti ridden door...odd this.

Summertime

2010-08-08T03:35:00.001-07:00

and the driving is restricted. Mainly by these huge fridge freezers with names like marauder, rapido, challenger etc rather than turgido, or lard wagon. This was a particularly apt name...driven by some happy folks from the flat lands unaware that they were leaving in their wake a stream of derisive laughter, and wobbling drivers.
We spent our 2 day annual vacation in the Camrargue this year, land of immense skies, roaming horses and flamingos which do look rather like golf clubs when flying. High spots were the wonderful 'Grande Motte' with its star trek set architecture, glitzy women in white and magnificent umbrella pines, and Arles where we saw bits of the huge annual photo exhibition, part of which was housed in a fascinating collection of old industrial buildings.
We stayed in a horrible hotel and ate prisoner food, the problem with booking something in August the day before going. Should have just camped in a bush, the comfort level would have been preferable. I noticed their publicity said something about 'sometimes the best addresses are a secret', well they should bloody keep it as one. Anyway apart from that the time was a delight reminding us how important it is to get away with your partner/husband/ person you have sex with, so you can talk about lots of stuff, not just who should have put the bins out last night.
Following some holiday snaps....

Hello world

2010-07-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

We (Mark has gone a little grey and odd as you can see over this last month) are very pleased to announce that...we are back on cyberspace, or in it, whatever it is.

Ha ha aaaaaaaaa haaahhahhah

2010-07-15T02:16:00.001-07:00

If we had internet, would have ordered 2 straight jackets and attractive padded cell in pink silk.
Maybe we have dropped into parallel universe? time travelled into century where phones are actually no longer used, just need to concentrate the mind a little...should be able to contact the director of the telecom company, possibly inflict some mild torture onto him while I'm at it.

Ha ha aaaaaaaaa

2010-07-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

tra la la la la

2010-07-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

nice day isn't it....hello is there anybody out there.

bsdhgrp983u3rjdc.x;c xkk ;!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

Still imbedded in no-where land...

Kafka's missing novel;

2010-07-02T00:43:00.001-07:00

We found his unpublished manuscripts {in our shed} of "a stream of disorder" which was based on his real life experiences with a french phone company.
A story of a deep, profound, twisted nightmare. The main characters, an ordinary family, just trying to get by who suddenly lose contact with the ouside world, thrown into the middle ages, with no way to be able to find out important information, the weather, what vide-greniers are on, who wrote "I see you shakin' that ass" etc, let alone down-loading it.
S.F.R a secret organisation {seriously.feeble.rodents] have a plan to undermine the giving of enjoyable music instruction to people of the Aude valley, and to re-instate the tedious hours of music theory known as SOLFEDGE, by taking away the means of communication with Dr Lockett. This works, and Dr Lockett is forced to spend many hundreds of hours fighting against the weapons of 'after sales non-service', the customer is a plankton, and most deadly...BOF.
The end of the manuscript is largely un-readable due to rat poo, but we think it should finish in a suddenly happy way with new sparkling internet box, and huge compensation payouts for loss of work, and general stress all round...
Will tell all, if we ever find out.

still no internet

2010-06-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

Out vile storm

2010-06-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

No blogging, no internet, no phone, due to lightning hitting ? in Limoux just as we were watching the final of Nouvelle star...
Mark went to the SFR shop in Carca to buy a new internet box, they don,t have them in the shop. You have to ask for it, and then it gets sent to Limoux in a weeks time. Urmm. What is the point of the shop. Also when he told them their customer help line is an unobtainable Number they said Bof.
Maybe back at the end of the week...
Good therapy, no time being wasted on looking up, what is wind for, the best way to make a mohito, or indeed how to spell it, and all the other trivia accompanying a nice cup of tea....

Tic, tiques, ticks,

2010-06-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Don't know how you spell it, and I don't care. These f******** have been eating the small dog alive for months, there is not much of him left. Being animal of little hair, they choose the ears, especially, way down inside, to quote Led Zeppelin. The bigger dog has also had an unfair share this year. Is it just the hills around Limoux which abound with these aliens, or are their numbers to do with the long coldness.
What is the point of a tic? Well one could say that about many things. Reality T.V, spam fritters, David Cameron...but really, what a life. Wait for about 8 months in a freezing bush, jump onto a passing smelly dog, crawl into a dark warm recess (actually this bit sounds quite nice) and gradually inflate yourself with manky dog blood, until you feel like you really did eat too much Christmas dinner, and then....fall off, only to be squashed by the next passing dog. Great.
I am generally 'live and let live' except perhaps with hornets, but the tic...how many ways can you finish off a tic? My favourite is to hold one with tweezers over a gas flame, pszzzzeettyttt!!! well we have to have some hunter sport in our veggy house from time to time.
One last tic recitation. I was cleaning our bedroom in the old house, and removed a large pile of books from beside the bed. Amongst the fluff etc was a small flat brown dot. As I was about to sweep it away, it inflated, and stood up in manner of scary metal police man in terminator 2. These creatures will inherit the earth, survive any nuclear attack, asteroid collision, or plague we can be sure of that.

Hi Ray...

2010-06-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

from another ferry.
Had an idle, and indulgent hour yesterday while pieces of paper soaked in tea were drying (art process) or not drying due to sudden October dampness, 'googling 'folks from my past.
Difficult to imagine, is it not, what it was like now 'avant l'ordi'....".I wonder what Queribino de Suza (real name) from my secondary school art class is doing now."...imposible to know, unless you made it ones life's work as an art piece or a serious stalker. Now one can just tap in the name and voila, people with the same name inhabiting different corners of the world.
I looked up me yesterday, yes sad, yes I think we all do it, hope so anyway. I share my name with a blond woman who writes shed loads of romantic novels (in fact we have one in the loo, thanks Ruth and Chris). Another lady who paints, (confusing), an actress, and someone in a tight leather outfit, not me, unless I really don't remember last new year' eve do, The blog makes it into the first page sometimes along with 'Alfi Beasti don't eat that'.
Bref...I found Ray, photographer, living in London. .Nice to make the contact, lots of good memories about art college trip to Malta, not sure how much use it was as a college piece of work, but it certainly was one of the most important two weeks of my life, and part of the reason we made the move Southwards. Malta was the first mediterranean place I ever visited, the colour, smells and light made a profound impression on me which has never left...

Territory

2010-06-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

I am going to do it. Soon. Along with the book of French roundabouts. Peoples front gardens. The statement, who we are, how tidy are we, are we just a little bit exciting, eccentric? A short wander through one of my lurking zones of Limoux found this wall. I want to meet the people behind it... might go back and try and sell them some solar panels just so I can find out what they look like. Chances are, knowing that district, she will be about sixty seven in a blue flowered house coat, and his high point of the week will be getting the spotless clio out on a Saturday to do the Leclerc run. Or...
When I was about eleven I used to walk to and from my horrible comprehensive school in London, quite an astonishingly long way really. It was the best part of the day. Gawping at newly painted front doors, reflecting on strange house names 'thiseldome' or 'dunshoppin', listening for a particular wooden wind chime, and smelling the suburban dusty roses of June. Nothing much has changed really, I'm taller and wider, and the houses are shuttered rather than curtained, but its the same fascination with how people decorate, display and fasten down their own small patch of the earth.

One learns something everyday.

2010-06-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Yes indeed, even in advanced years.
Today I learned, in fact I should have observed over the last few weeks from observing our expert local potagists, that canes should be put in at the same time as the tomato plants. Not three weeks later when the ground is rock-like
Our lovely voisin Andre had kindly donated me proper rustic bamboo canes for the job. I sallied, (is this a word, am behind large glass of wine, too late to be doing this) forth into the veg patch and proceeded to push the canes in...about 3 centimeters. Result, much horrible cussing, boy offering glasses of water and foot massage in vein hope that I would calm down, and weird eventual structure like something I once saw in a Paul Nash etching. Thank God I am not an architect. My buildings would have a exciting element of sea-sickness to them, and a readiness to collapse at the first cross word from an aged tea lady.
I know however, that I give extreme pleasure to our local community, most of whom are expert in their veg culitvation. 'What is that'? "what will they make next"? `why do they like weeds so much"? the English are mad, this is proof, evidement...

Summer cordial

2010-06-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Taste of early summer. Rose petals steeped in sugar water with a cinnamon stick over night. A delicate pink colour, perfect with just picked cherries and fromage blanc.

Wisteria and blackbirds

2010-05-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

The hothouse compound seems to be a favourite spot for nightingales. They (I am informed by friend Jonathan, that it is the males who sing, presumably the women are hoovering or something), sing during the night and most of the day. Why are they not named nightanddayinggales, or maybe this only happens in this region of France. Friend aforementioned, glowers when this bird is mentioned. In bird enthusiast circles it seems that the song too strong, thus drowning out fellow bird songsters. It is true that it is loud and long, but intricate and extraordinary when one sees the small stone coloured fowl itself.
What has this to do with blackbirds you rambling fool I hear you say...
This film is of blackbirds (I think) singing in a brief interlude between nightingales.

Venice.....of Languedoc Roussillon.

2010-05-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

Madame Beer was visiting the real one I see on her blog, we went to Sete. The Setonians believe they are in the Venice of L.R, possible exaggeration there, but none the less a charming place. This is a tiny lighthouse on the edge of 'point court', a fishing village outcrop of land rather cut off from the rest of Sete. Three small roads run its length, each with a cluster of flower covered fishing cottages. Ancient fig trees, creeks, timber shacks, manky cats, miles of old nets, we loved it. Ran out of time, but will go back and spend time drawing there.
Did the tourist boat trip, learned about how oysters and mussels are farmed, got very sun tanned, ate yummy fish soup and observed at great length jelly fish and 'tube worms'. Excellent day out, but also glad to see the wooly hills of home.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside....

2010-05-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Well not any old seaside, but just anywhere on the stretch between Cadaques and Banyuls. After Girona airport drop off I took the chance to look at the infinite blue thing. Blue it was, dashed with small angry waves, thrown up by the strong wind we have all been a little tired of recently. Such beauty that coastline. The small snake road follows the cliffs, wild lavender, cactus, umbrella pines. Cove after cove, still quiet before the main influx of summer. I stopped at a tiny inlet where there was a solitary cafe, there was a family all drinking 'mochitos' (not the kids) in their swim attire. I had removed my socks by then but was still rather in moth-eaten winter mode. It slightly reminded me of the time Mark and I went to Brazil in January. We arrived and were ushered to the beach by our hosts. I'm pretty sure I heard a low mass gasp from the miles of beautiful oiled Brazilians as we revealed, reluctantly, our respective red/pink/white spotty sun-starved bodies.
This is a glass, or half, of rosé I was enjoying in Banyuls-sur mer. Gradually my winter coping brain (checking the wood pile, making sure there is enough soup etc) is allowing those memories of summer pleasures to creep back. Swallows wheeling against the ever darkening azure sky, warm soft breeze, just to be able to sit outside and watch the world pass without feeling the need to get back under shelter.

O really...

2010-05-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is a bit much now. We paid our tax fonciere, we ticked the box agreeing to pay for how much sun we required in.2010, its just not honest. Was eyeing up hot water bottle this morning and thinking about returning to bed to slouch in fetid old pyjama warmth. Have overcome this sad idea and am now making toast with lashings of butter while piddling around on the internet looking at pictures of Crete. Equally sad. Cleaning, market, take mother to look at art in dank buildings, make a fire, watch film, eat chocolate.
We did do a bit of the 'Chemin' yesterday. Garth's place, inventive and beautiful as ever, nice tea and cake too, thanks Garth, and Sarah I think. Also liked friend Jamies 'dechet' wood sculptures which I nearly dashed to the floor in scary domino fashion. Must recommend the 'Opus; 09 red wine from Mr Berieu's ,can't remember the spelling, cave just round the corner from Garth's. Biologique, dark and rich as crushed blackberries in a velvet box.
Also saw some excellent land photography in a little chapel at Antugnac. Man trying to govern nature, the effects of weather on landscape etc.The poor girl exhibiting was very frozen however, was glad to remove ourselves back to Garth's tea room.
What has this picture of a glass bowl of water and vegetation got to do with anything I hear you say, or not, if you have moved onto ebay by now.
It is a loverly concoction of elderflowers, orange, lemon and something else which I can't ask Mark about as he has gone to Avignon with Ezra to dance on the bridge in the drizzle. It is one of the very good things about this long spring, possibly the only thing, unless you like cooking snails. Elder flowers as big as dinner plates, with that glorious Victorian parlour smell, big bowl, water, oranges, lemons, sugar, and the other small ingredient? wait a day and bottle it.
Delicious.

River of time.

2010-05-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

This is a photograph of the sideboard that Mark's dad made, brought back with us from the U.K on the recent trip back.
Mark's dad was a truly remarkable man, art lecturer, architect, priest, and early in his years, furniture designer and maker. This is the only piece that has remained in the family, made in the 1930's out of many different woods, rosewood, walnut, oak and more. I wish I had known Bill, I really only met him in the last few years of his life when he had advanced parkinson's, but I could detect the brilliance and humour still within him. The sideboard is a precious thing to have in our home, not only as a wonderful example of design from that period, but as a constant reminder of Bill's artistry.
Odd to think that when we are long gone that the sideboard will still be around, perhaps in Ezra's house, I like to think so, along with all the thousands of bits we have amassed...what will he do with them all?, what to do with all the personal items we seem to have acquired from Mark's mothers house?
I was talking to Debs the other night about the passage of time. Viewed as a river, a road, something we are traveling along, the sideboard has been washed up somewhere near Couiza if the time river for us could be the section of the Aude from Quillan to Limoux, assuming we live for a good age. This is all far to early in the morning for these thoughts, I'll be onto what is outside the universe in a minute.
To be continued.

Into the vide.

2010-05-02T22:25:00.000-07:00

I, if I ever had the patience, and indeed the intelligence, and power to spell correctly, would do a Ph.D thesis on the comparisons of vide grenier and boot sales. Its a fascinating thing to see the detritus of human everyday life, at least in the western world. I don't suppose there would be a great deal of excess at an Inuit equivalent. Damask canoe cover, unused set of Ikea BBQ fish forks, velour husky bed with matching lead....?
At boot sales, depressing acres of drizzle infested mud fields filled with drab persons keening for exercise bikes, one could generally count on seeing these items. Heated rollers, the afore-mentioned stationary bikes, and other 'sport' equipment bought in a panic moment after Christmas excess, yogurt makers, twenty three tons of plastic toy landfill, and at least fourteen copies of top gun.
Observations on the V.G, generally in non soggy fields with sun, a better start. Similarities.... the discarded health equipment, including suspect 'WI' step programs, slightly less toy landfill, A LOT of fondu sets, which we have managed to avoid so far, even though their attractive 70's colours call me....and in recent years a rash of those stupid sets of glasses with stems but no bottoms that have to sit in a stand. There is no hope for mankind.
Away from my serious studies...the simple pleasure of wandering around in a slouchy fashion on a Sunday morning with a pocket of change, joy!
En famile this Sunday we visited a pretty village near Limoux, typique V.G, sun, acid coffee, bad parking. Came away with treasures, the glasses above illustrated. Marvelous 1970's smoked glass, a snip at 2.00 euros, and we were probably the only people in the whole of the Aude valley who would wish to house them....a rusty cow bell, records including an Arminian church service and a production by the Bulgarian tourist association, and ....A bike!! my old parchemin one is now classed as death machine as it has no way of stopping. I am now proud owner of a happy 80's style shell suit coloured two wheeler with GEARS.
La Serpent next Sunday!!

3,000 KM, 30 black bags to Oxfam, 13 stops on the autoroute to throw up.

2010-04-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

Good journey through France, gradual changing foliage, appearance of sheep in place of vines, kept awake by listening to Oliver Twist and Dracula, odd contrast with sun and Springtime but it seemed to work.
Few intense days of clearing a million items from Mark's mothers house. Compared the U.K tips to the French ones, and gave more stuff to Oxfam than they knew what to do with.
Oddly enough they weren't going to let us into the tip as we didn't have a van permit but one man came over and started asking about rugby and then blanquette de limoux. He was from Tours, but had lived near Liverpool for 37 years (I didn't ask why), and obviously thought we deserved a break. Merci mon brave!!!!
Enforced trip to ikea to collect Ezra from his Aunt in law, escaped with only one rather dandy cushion and a washing up brush. Nothing like clearing four van loads of unwanted stuff from a house to make you realize that you really don't need that rather funky unusual table lamp (oops, don't forget 58,000 people have the same one on the planet). See more on POST-MATERIALISM to continue this subject.
Homeward bound. M6 nightmare, closed lanes and near misses with tired lorry drivers. 30 miles from my Godmothers for night stopover, Mark swore, rare event, could only signify text re end of world. At that point it seemed like it. He had booked the return date for a week later. Drove in black silence thinking about volcanic ash cloud mass transport panic, van hire companies reaction, our lovely house sitter etc.
Luck, new ticket, and few hours later were on slow return ferry. Dead calm, great, no lying on anything horizontal for hours, even managed to eat late lunch. Mistake. Four hours later started to feel nasty. Delayed psychological sea sickness? worry about where we were going to put the van load of stuff we seemed to have acquired?....no, roti de agnea farcied with lively bacteria.
Horrible journey, swerving to halt in Starsky and Hutch style to verge to throw up every half an hour. Stopped at Tours and checked into an auto hotel so I could vomit in comfort. Actually amazingly well designed and smart place 'B&B hotel'. A change from weird old rambling places with 1930's plumbing that we would normally opt for.
Arrived in Limoux next day at 6.00, sun, people in shorts, the Place full of people lounging in baggy holiday fashion, and rampant spring garden. Onward and forward with our own house purge. Vide grenier, Pauligne this Sunday!

Picture of me proving that I can stand up on a ferry.

Oup North.

2010-04-12T01:11:00.000-07:00

To Liverpool for a week with a white van.
Chips, curry, brown beer, chedder, beans, thicker jumpers, oxfam, John Lewis pants, cheap paint, cinema, 'lover, chuck".
See y'ous later.

Beach at Formby.

Organic gardening

2010-04-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

As I was saying, before I forgot to say it...organic gardening. In the sense of no chemicals, but also in the sense of, I don't know what I'm doing but I'll add a bit of that and see what happens.
For me gardening is becoming more like painting, and playing like when we was kids, a few stones here, some broken roof tiles, some pine needle mulch in this section, etc. I used to get a sense of panic in spring, trying to do the whole piece of land is impossible, the weeds are much quicker than me, so I'm just doing sections each year. This is a area under construction of mostly mediterranean plants, some of which finally snuffed it after the last snow blanket.
If there are fellow gardeners out there feeling overawed by the green invasion go and look at the Jardin bouichere in Limoux. Run by two lovely folks, it is a paradise of plantage, and was once, when they bought it, a rubbly field with one tree.