Does it get cold here?

Immortal words spoken by many people visiting us on a rampantly-hot August day in the Aude region. Yes it does, and it seems impossible that the thermometer was hovering around 37 or so for weeks this year.
This morning I took the dogs up to a favourite hill and watched them canter about, breath steaming while I shivered in the minus 4 degree, blueish half-light.

                           

Beautiful insignificancies

if that last word is a word, and if it isn't, it should be.

Most of my dog-walks around this part of France incorporate vine fields (vignoble) as we are surrounded by them, and quite often the tiny 'houselets' or cabanon, (or casots, if its a walk in the coastal wine-growing areas). They were built as places to hide away from the sun in the grape-picking season, or places to shelter from wind, rain and frost at the vine-clipping times.
Sadly, most of these characterful little buildings have been abandoned over the years, even the ones that had obviously been more than just shelters, the remnants of gardens, benches and climbing roses often still visible.
One of my regular walks features a particularly intriguing cabanon on the top of a hill, usually inaccessible, a rusted wire fence, gate and padlock keeping inquisitive people like me, out. Today the gate was open, so it was my duty as an amateur investigator, 'flaneur' and story-concoctor to look a little closer.
The overgrown garden had obviously once been loved, the clumps of lavender and rosemary still stragglingly visible. A slatted bench still faces the mountain view, although now partially obscured by rampaging poplar and fig.



Inside the cabanon was the usual collection of junk: bottles, broken chairs, collapsed shelves and the blackened trace of a fireplace, but the walls, unusually, held more interesting history - drawings and memos from the 1940s, particularly this quietly arresting pencil sketch that I felt could have been done by Chagall if he had happened to be in the locality and doing a spot of grape-picking.

                       

Reinventing things

Odd how some things just come about: the way one walks, sense of humour, likes and dislikes, and writing style . . .
I can't actually remember deciding on a style as such. I do recall a brief flirtation with italic nibs at school and taking ages over forming a few words but then that changed over time and somehow I've ended up with a fairly illegible scrawl. Maybe it's just that we are lazier now with keyboards and texting; writing, something a little alien and tedious. However! all that has changed for me from working on a script style for the character, Smithi, in my book of the same name.

After escaping from The Domes of Manchestershire (year 2073), Smithi travels the length of Britain, scribbling furiously in notebooks until the pens he has with him cease to function. He (and I) start to use a dip pen and ink. What joy! Writing becomes slower, a little more formed and sometimes a little haphazard - which I like.
Is it odd to reinvent one's handwriting? I don't think so; maybe it is but maybe I don't care. However, I wish I had thought a little more about my spidery, terrible signature - bit late for that perhaps, unless I become incredible famous and decide to change my name to include the middle A as something more than a letter - Alfred, I feel might be interesting . . .
Of course with this new way of writing, one has to have the right equipment . . . cue a bit of internet junk browsing and obsessional ebay tracking for a few hours. The inkwell I decided I would buy zoomed up to over four hundred quid! well, it was Georgian and apparently, and understandably, a rarity, so back to some cheaper options.
Le Bon Coin, in France is a great site for occasionally happening upon things that no one else seems to be looking for, and ancient inkwells obviously were not 'things of the moment' so I managed to pick up someone's bizarre collection for little money, including this rather intriguing 1920s ceramic bird - the inkwell part hidden under the snail shell - and it came with an excellent scratchy pen.



So onward with Smithi's next illustrations and letters.

  

                                              

Stretching yourself

I've been saying 'I'll go to a yoga class' for about twenty-three years, give or take a few months, but for the last two Fridays I have - gone to a yoga class.

When you look up yoga images on the net - such as the above, (thank you, Huffington Post) 99% of the images are of lithe young beautiful people with slim limbs, poised in ligament-wrenching poses in front of impossible sunsets, aqua seas and white-sanded beaches.

Our yoga group was mainly OLDER people: grey haired, a little thicker around the middle than perhaps they (certainly me) would like, but nevertheless, relatively fit-ish. The class was held in a 'bien-être' center (being good to yourself, place) which was a sterile as a dentist's waiting room with a view of a lot of dead grass and a soundtrack of grunting from the adjacent weights room.

BUT! the class was a revelation, both times. 

I do exercise each morning; a sort of home made routine of physio, Alexandre Technique and yoga that I have vague memories of from decades ago, but this is so all-consuming, even with the grunting from next door invading one's inner beautiful space. 

Even though I've only done two classes, already I feel more supple; legs more energised, less (slightly) stressed about trying to get everything done - and I'm working on this. Maybe I'll add in the other thing I've been meaning to do for the same twenty-odd years - meditation.

I did attend one class back in London on the Hornsey Road where we spend about half an hour examining the complex taste sensations of a raisin and then did breathing techniques of counting to ten slowly and not letting ideas, worries and lists of the following day intrude. I was supremely bad at this but was attracted to the IDEA of it - the idea of being able to really empty the mind of all useless angst and to concentrate only on The MOMENT, etc.

I did wonder if after these two sessions I might think . . . nah, not enough time, another thing to find money for, whatever, but I feel drawn to continue and find out what my not-so-young bod can put up with and, hopefully, embrace.

being connected

Do we sometimes forget the importance of being connected to reality, The Earth and just to ourselves?

I often 'forget' my phone when walking so that I can concentrate wholly on being 'in the elements' and being in THE moment without the umbilical cord of digital information. Yes, there can be inconveniences - like when I got stuck on a mountain a couple of years back and had 'forgotten' my phone. But actually it was fine and I met some friendly mountain inhabitants who kindly gave us (me, boy and dogs) pizza and towed us back down, which was probably far more interesting and possibly safer than waiting three hours or so for the insurance company to send out a rescue truck.
I was listening to a talk recently about the over use of phones/tablets, etc. The speaker suggested that we may be in danger of losing the capability and knowledge of how to be on our own - uncomfortable, restless; fingers twitching ready to scroll, jab, text, delete, like, and send visual information to anyone out there ready to receive our description of what we are doing, rather than just actually doing whatever it is and forming memories about it.
A most poignant example of this was a program I heard on Radio 4 where a professional balloonist was talking about the trips he organises and the behaviour of the people sharing the basket with him on each voyage. He said in nearly all cases people are so busy recording, photographing and sharing on social media, The Experience that they are not actually experiencing The Experience. Yes, they will be able to recall that moment on Facebook or Instagram but they won't have the actual, visceral memory in their heads.
It all has a place - social media, phones, computers, and it's all amazingly useful but perhaps not to the extent of forgetting our real connections.

small steps

Although my adopted country has, and practices, certain things that I feel disturbed/disgusted by: fois gras, Marine Le Pen, ultra-bureaucracy (well, it was invented here) bof, etc, there are many wonderful things: cheese, bonjour Madame, empty countryside and a certain bloody-minded - 'right let's do this attitude' which occurs sometimes, for example when our local small train route is threatened each year - "Quoi? Mais NON! You weel not take our tiny train away from us - eet is our right to ave zis!"
I was a bit mystified when the smoking ban in bars/cafés came into force. I'd imagined mass rioting: "Mais NON! c'est pas possible - we 'av zer right to fill our lungs wiz ow you say tarmacadam."
But no, the ban seems to have stuck and with no apparent fuss. Perhaps most people realised it was actually a more pleasant experience to enjoy one's fois gras with an accompaniment of fresh air, not a fuggy cloud . . .
Anyway - small steps: hurrah for La France! It has been decreed - no more plastic plates, cutlery and cups! Moving slowly towards reducing some of the terrifying amount of discarded apres-nosh garbage, although apparently this won't come into effect until 2020 by which time a landfill area of about the size of Bordeaux will no doubt be occupied by the stuff - still it is a start.
Here's a pic I took of a few bits of packaging gracing our home, two of which are usual to the eye, and depressing, and two of which I was impressed and intrigued by.

                              

Tomatos in a plastic . . . thing. Why? Why not in cardboard with a cellophane covering? Cost I suppose, and tomato protection to a certain extent. But if there was a ban on plastic packaging there would have to be an alternative. Why did we buy them then? Hm, good question - think it was because all the 'en vrac' (loose) ones from Holland looked scarily genetically engineered. Will try harder!

Organic chilies (or they were until we ate them) in a poly tray with cling film . . . organic! Surely they really could be in a small waxed cardboard tray? cheese-box balsa wood stuff? a cellophane packet?

Then, these two:

Very unusually, a pot of cream cheese in a waxed cardboard pot - not even a plastic lid!! Amazing!

And, a TIN of body/face cream- I love this stuff; mainly composed of almonds and probably a load of water, it costs about two euros, does the job, and the pot will rot down, or you can keep screws or something in it afterwards - well you could in the plastic version, but there's something very satisfying about small metal pots with screw lids . . . don't you think? No? (Yes, I need to eat something -writing this dangerously beyond lunchtime).

The company - Le petit Marseillais probably have a factory the size of Luxembourg, and unfortunately all of their other products seem to be encased in plastic - how did this one escape into tin/aluminium or whatever it is? Why can't they produce more stuff, or perhaps less stuff (we all have FAR too much choice!) in the tin-type material. Actually . . . I'll ask them, when I've had lunch - Oh, it's Sunday. Tomorrow then.

Information, and fathoming stress

To a certain extent anyway.
The information part of this post refers to Ted Talks.

                                              
I'd forgotten about these marvels until friend Kim reminded me via a Facebook link to one such mini-lecture on the cheering subject of Hitler.
So, the last few days during any fairly mindless activity: washing up, going through bills, etc, I've loaded up a Ted Talk and have learned and/or certainly deepened any previous knowledge I had acquired on a variety of subjects: why sugar is so bad for us, sleep behaviour, how the brain synthesises happiness, neurosurgical implants to combat depression, environment issues . . . so many talks, so many subjects.
The one I was listening to this morning while clearing up the kitchen was about Stress - not avoiding it as such, more how to look at it. Rather than assuming stress is totally a bad thing, the speaker (who was an eminent psychologist in this field) was describing what happens in our bodies if we learn to accept stress and know that we are in fact equipped to deal with it.
So, rather than panicking and feeling we are about to do damage to ourselves during a stressful situation, we should understand that our heart is beating harder for a reason; breathing faster, important, as we are sending more oxygen to the brain in order to rise to whatever the challenge is. Err . . . probably not so well explained (but then I'm not an eminent scientist, more of a muddled muser). Anyway, I thought I'd try out these theories this morning on a dog walk - often fairly stressful as at the sight of even a pathetically small squirrel will send the hounds into a frenzy with me desperately hanging on to their leads.
We went 'up the hill' and as usual one of the local cats was sitting in the middle of the lane, smirking at our approach. The dogs shriek-barked, gyrated, pulled and did all the usual stuff they do and the cat continued sitting and smirking.
Normally at this point I will swear a lot, get very cross and become anxious about what might happen to my back, arms, etc, and what might happen if the dogs slipped their collars. This time I thought about dog-stress. These dogs have been bred to chase and probably maul furry creatures; their bodies were reacting as they should, I was reacting to their stress and that was okay. I could deal with it and I wouldn't die (hopefully).
I let them shout a lot, and studied the morning's spectacular clouds rather than swearing and when the cat finally went off to find something to be stressed about itself, we peacefully continued the walk.
I'm sure I'll forget these rather Zen thoughts when a particularly appalling bank statement arrives or whatever but . . . maybe not.
Right; in-tray and a lecture on Space, I think.