Sticky situation

Early summer means JAM: lots of it.
Added to the hoards of cherries this year, we have discovered a new (to us) fruit: the Locquat.
I have been passing these dark-leafed trees up our road for years now, and wondering if the small oval yellow-orange fruit they bear at this time of year are edible, and why, if they are, does no one pick them.

Trawling the net, I discovered what they are, and that they are indeed edible. A favourite fruit crop in Japan, they can be eaten raw in fruit salad, jammed, chutnied, and probably made into lethal liquors too.

This was our first batch yesterday, following closely on from cherry jams including the traditional red, the piebald yellow-red 'pigeon breast' variety, and the small 'bird cherries' or possibly Acerola, which seem to be totally ignored here, and make wonderful sweet and sour jam.

The attic of the mind

The brain, as many people have observed, many times, is an incredible thing.
Amongst all the usual day to day remembering of stuff: where did I put my glasses, don't put unleaded in the car, must buy more milk, etc ,etc, there are all the stored away, useful memories that surface every now and then, such as recalling how wide/tall a transit van is when you hire one (although, this can fail) how to play badminton after twenty years, and how to say 'can I have the bill' in Greek/Bulgarian/Russian-whatever.
Another whole category of recollections, distant and recent are also stored: peoples faces and names; types of plants, the best route into the centre of Birmingham, how to unblock a sink, remove a tic from a dog, get strawberry jam to set; useless info about who won the Eurovision song contest in 1983, how many haircuts David Beckham has had, exactly what Bill Clinton did with cigars, and so on, for many decades.
Then there all the surprise memories; ones that suddenly surface and you had no idea they were there, occupying some filing cabinet in the back of your head.
On a walk at Badbury Rings in Dorset recently, one of those very memories appeared in my mind as clear as the day I had been standing on that grassy hill fort forty or so years ago.
It had been a day similar to the one in my photo, but the field full of movement as horses pounded up the incline, then to spring over one of the brush jumps in a continual curving motion, clods flying and the air thick with thudding sounds and warm horse skin smells.
Odd . . . for all those years that memory had never surfaced. There it was, as clean and brightly  polished as it had been stored away at that particular point in time.

Reality check

After a fairly tiring day a couple of nights back, I hastened to the sofa in my dressing gown to collapse in front of the T.V. I had surely earned that time of pleasant semi-vegative state having worked solidly since six o'clock in the morning . . .
'Where the hell is the remote' I cursed, throwing cushions and dogs to the side in my frantic search for the black plastic thing. Mark joined in: nothing. We stood about uselessly after a while wondering whether to resort to a BOOK. In desperation I had one more look and found it hidden down the back of the sofa.
I slumped, channel hopping, until I came across a program about dangerous routes of the world.
Good. Armchair travel.
We need, (we of places in the world where being able to slump on a sofa and have time off is taken for granted) the odd kick up the arse from time to time; to think about someone's else's life where a lost T.V remote wouldn't even figure in the smallest, microscopic bit.
The documentary featured a truck driver in Papua New Guinea, who's daily life consisted of driving, on average, ten hours across terrifying, mountainous terrain to deliver goods to small villages.
He was pictured before his day's mission closely inspecting his tyres for any possible damage; as to stop would most certainly end in attack from road bandits. He then said goodbye to his wife and two small children, and set off.
About eight hours solid driving along deeply pot-holed roads later, he stopped to refuel at a village - not the truck, himself - with Betel Nuts, a stimulant that all the drivers take in order to keep awake through the impossibly long hours.
He arrived, eyes red-rimmed, and started to unload. Job finished, he then prepared to drive back, after no sleep.
About two hours later the truck, along with other vehicles, was stopped by a road block. A tree had fallen. Local villagers were clearing it away and charging the drivers. Our lorry hero smiled sleepily and said it had probably been felled on purpose and that he would have to pay, perhaps five euros, may be two if he was lucky. From the gravity of his words I imagine five euros would form a lot, or all, of the money from his hours of work.
Three hours later he was driving away facing the rest of his eight hours having managed to barter a fine of two euros. He smiled again, teeth stained red from the Betel Nuts, and said 'I can return now. My wife and children will look after me.'

Day trip to Castres

Following on from previous post.
On a Day Out by myself, I would generally be pulled in the direction of the sea but I left it to Ezra to choose. 'Either Mazamet or Castres', he suggested.
My only recollection of the former was being lost, hungry and that no shops were open. The latter . . . an extremely run-down, and therefore interesting to us, hotel with purple-flowered wallpaper and a mysterious bidet on wheels.
The drive was supposed to encompass a viewing of the now-disused gold mine at Salsigne to the North of Carcassonne. We couldn't find it due to an absence of notices saying Gold mine this way, but I suppose the local population wouldn't want people wandering about in the hope of finding an overlooked nugget. Also, we were too hungry.
I pulled in Starsky and Hutch style on spotting this restaurant on the D118. I love places like this - suspended in a 1960s/70s time warp; the original bar/restaurant sign, the owners disinterest in tarting the place up and an emphasis on good, down to earth grub.
It was better than I expected: friendly waitress, a menu at 13 euros - including rabbit in mustard sauce - and an authentic non-designer interior.

After 'mimosa eggs', the afore-mentioned rabbit and chocolate banana tarts, we paid and continued happily along to Mazamet with that wonderful benevolent feeling that occurs after a great value and overly-ample meal.
Mazamet was a rain blur through the window. Apart from a brief scuttle through a downpour to look at a train (Ezra's request) we moved on, driving through the river valley and observing the various factories, used and disused that had once established the town as a textile centre.

My vague memory of Castres being a place with a crappy hotel and wheely bidet were rapidly replaced by realising that it's a smart town, a little like a small-scale Gerona with its riverside houses. Perhaps it has come up in the world since our visit; it certainly seemed so. The buildings looked well-cared for; the Goya museum, fascinating, except we arrived five minutes before closing time; and the formal gardens clipped and obviously loved.

We Took Tea in a very sumptuous shop that had a menu of a million teas or thereabout. My Assam (presented with egg timer to check brewing time) was perfect and Ezra's Matcha tea milkshake thing deemed to be fantastic.
After this we visited a sinister church, which we liked a lot, where some florists were attempting to brighten the interior for a wedding with huge vases of white lilies.

Shopping never being high on the agenda, I did manage to drag my son into an opticians as he really needs sunglasses. My opinion of Castres being a charming place was confirmed by an excellent example in The Art of Shop Assisting. The young woman spent about twenty minutes assisting Ezra with style, information about lenses etc; then adjusting our final, small budget-choice's arms/frames etc to give perfect vision and symmetry.

Altogether, a good Day Out.

Building number 40

Road diversions can be useful things if you are not too pressed and have an open mind about exploration on a non-dramatic scale.
Yesterday, Ezra and I set off for a day of exploration in Mazamet and Castres, about an hour and half East of the Hothouse.
Somewhere, in the deep woods of the Black Mountains (Les Montagnes Noire) we were diverted away from The D118 to a vertiginous route following the river towards Mazamet, (which I have just noticed while doing a bit of research, is home to a B and B that calls itself France's leading Bed and Breakfast . . . quite a label).
This route towards the town is listed on Google maps as being 'the route of factories' and was indeed littered with various breeze-block/corrugated edifices, some in a state of functionement, (if this isn't a word, it is now) others not, like this one with its gravity-defying chimney stack and angry Venetian blind.
I stood around and wondered, as I always do, as to when the door finally closed on the work-force and why nothing ever happened to the building afterwards.

Bucolic car boot sale

Or as we say here: Vide Grenier - emptying one's attic.
Compared to the boot sales I remember from the UK days, most V.Gs are set in small villages, usually on sunny days, where you can wander, perusing the usual glut of hastily bought and subsequently dumped Get Fit equipment, clothes, shoes, fois gras funnels, records, video cassettes that nobody wants, terrible paintings, plants, kittens, jam, fondu sets, etc, etc.
The last V.G I went to before departing back to the UK for a few days (where I didn't go to a car boot sale - not for the want of trying) was in the grounds of a local church edifice: the Basilique Notre Dame de Marceille    
I paused before walking across the grass, stunned at the tranquility of the sight before me; each stall of utter crap transformed momentarily in the morning sun to a lost scene of pastoral beauty as happy peasants traded their goods for a few rustic coins, and the purchasers wandered contentedly back to their donkeys, (large 4x4s).

Controllers of the sun

In our small, runt-dogs mind, yes we are.
Satie barks for many reasons: guarding the house (!) food time, for needing a pee, and, at other dogs while out for a walk.
I realised this year (in the early summer) that he also barks when the sun goes behind a cloud. It's not just general frustration at suddenly being cold; he obviously thinks we can do something about it.
He looks accusingly at me through the glass of the front door as soon as the the brightness fades into ambient light, and barks continuously, until either the sun reappears, or I let him in again to the safety and warmth of the sofa.
I never really thought about dogs and their conception of the elements surrounding them. We know (some more than others) about clouds, sun, wind, and why we feel hot or cold; they presumably don't.
Cold or hungry means, woof, and hopefully an owner will do something to provide warmth and food.
A friend of mine used to have a dachshund that would lie in front of the fire until it was nearly roasted. It would then yelp until someone moved it, seemingly unable to equate, fire = equals I'm too hot - better move.
Luckily Satie is not that daft, but the 'sun/large heating system in the place above me', obviously remains a total mystery.
Here he is, about to emit an exasperated bark as the warmth fails again.