D’accord
This
is a bit of a long one as it has been a while I know. Je suis desole.
Another
ski trip…to the resort of Pierre St Martin which you are told is open but you
get within 10 kilometres and there is still not a smidgin of the white stuff.
Then if coming from Arret you begin to climb at about 60 degrees and 4 foot of
snow appears like the immediacy of Harry Potter’s Whomping Willow shedding its
leaves. This time the snow started at 15
kilometres away and it was falling horizontally. The snow trucks had not kept
up and passed us going down to start their day, so in the resort itself you
could have been forgiven for not knowing there were roundabouts and lanes. We
drove into a parking spot without seeing the 12 inch wide sink hole which our
left back wheel must have gone over. By the time we came back after a powder
day which kept being a powder day all day the hole had been covered up by snow
and a cone put at the back of the car so thanks for the hazard warning attached
to the stable door of the bolting horse. Gingerly we feel around the area we
think it is so we can reverse strategically but P suddenly drops 3 feet in
height on his left side – he’d found what was a sink hole. Any clues what we
can fill the hole with hmmm, how about the 4 foot of snow drift that has built
up against the car. Job done and having
followed the locals and lifted the windscreen wipers up so they don’t freeze to
the screen we remember to put them back down but they won’t go down due to an
accumulation of ice, I resort to using the ski goggle wipers on my ski gloves. Gulping deeply we manage to reverse over the
hole and set off down the mountain side..which has become so icy that as we
start to slide rather than drive the windscreen wipers appear to speed up and
screech panicking the ABS into action. I have to get out twice to get more ice
off the wiper blades, we wait behind two
snow trucks which clearly operate like buses and have to overtake a Frenchman driving so uncharacteristically slow
we are really freaked.
Aah
home, fresh bread, sloe gin, hot bath, fire, pizza. I’ll just get the tot
glasses from the dining room….. you know there’s nothing like coming home to a
bottle of the Yorkshire man’s home brew bramble wine having exploded across the
width of the dining room with a spatter pattern worthy of any US crime drama.
The dining table has a puddle underneath and the wall to the side of the
explosion which is a Farrow and Ball heritage maroon colour, now has a bramble wine maroon Dulux
non-Matchpot 3 foot patch. The trajectory finishes at the distressed glass
cabinet which by now is positively inconsolable. The wine is maturing in the
barn.
To
gentler pastimes - shorting and backing
70 leylandii trees has won us the lumberjack chequered shirt award in
recognition of battling on against all odds commonly known as briar. Now it
makes sense why it took a 100 years for a dumb enough prince to turn up to
rescue Sleeping Beauty or it must be that through mists of oral story telling
by grandma the first case of dementia may have occurred and it slipped her
memory to mention that the prince started on the edge of the forest as a
rhinoceros, then at some point the good fairy that in another incarnation converted
the frog into a prince, interfered and Prince Rhino was, by the centre of the
briar vortex, a handsome prince without a single scratch. Anyway we’ve gone
from 12 feet tall to 8 feet (shorting) and lopped the fronts and backs off to
try to encourage the branches to thicken on the sides to make a more dense
hedge to fight the wind back; we get some interesting breezes that signal
change is in the air without Mary Poppins or Dick van Dyke shouting “cor blimey
mate!”
Having
written the last bit about lumberjacking, a quick update, with the fact that we have experienced 100 km winds and hailstone. I couldn’t get out to take
pictures but 8 foot bamboo was blowing horizontal and a heavy duty double
garden seat tucked in near the house has been blown over. There was that much
wind that it was blowing in through vents to make gurgling noises in every sink,
tub and shower in the house, which is a blessing as we thought it was a repeat
of the bedroom ceiling episode.
And
persisting with lumber jacking my hot date on the eve of Valentine’s day was M.
Herve who delivers bois de chauffage, he promised to ring in the afternoon to
arrange to deliver 3 stere of the stuff, this translates as I will ring you at
7 pm and turn up at 9 pm. So there I was with P shifting a quarter of a ton of
fire wood into the barn at 9 p.m. Summer I can understand, light nights and all
that.
Likewise
the nocturnal TV man promised to ring in the afternoon which was 6.30 pm with a
rendez-vous at 7.45 pm when it is so much easier to investigate the aerial
position on top of the toilet to see if the dum English has done it wrong. Satisfied
that was ok there were then lots of breathy whistles followed by a “C’est une
grande probleme” at the state of the aerial connection in the lounge (not our
own work) but possibly that of a Yorkshireman worried about the cost of coaxial
cable. And by the way the French
equivalent of a careful Yorkshireman is a resident of the Auvergne, an
Auvergnat. Anyway the upshot is a new freeview box. The TV in the kitchen also now
works and we can watch the French equivalent of Loose Women which is just what
P needs NOT, having inadvertently become a member of the studio audience of the
English version while wandering aimlessly down the Thames just before we came
out here.
From
one type of wood to another, we are looking for armoires, we have been to four brocantes
so far, ignoring the first 3 on the grounds of small fortune or pure tat; no 4…
well P was beginning to think of as a figment of his imagination having noticed
it while were out terrifying the locals with the Harley and on a Sunday – sacre
bleu. We went back 3 days later in the
car to find it but it wasn’t until we were on our way back – 5 pm in the
evening that we spotted it – just 20 minutes from home. Well I say 20
minutes - a note for anyone looking for
brocantes, owners tend to put up notices a minimum of 20 kilometres from where
they actually are which is places where
there comes a point where you should abandon all hope as the municipal
authorities have given up with road signs and only handwritten directions back
to civilisation remain. We asked Mr
Brocante if he was open and that started the verbal flood which was clearly an
indication that he had not seen anyone for the last month. Despite him clocking
we were English from the car and flattering though it is for a local to think I
can understand everything they say ..I struggle at 500 words a minute smattered
with Basque informing us of the last 50 years of English occupation in the
bottom corner of the Pyrenees Atlantique whilst wandering around a 20 by 15
foot garage, where in between what the English have been doing, we are also
treated to the provenance, wood, date and interested parties of every piece of
furniture we happen to pass – none of which are armoires. We emerged into the failing
light disappointed but thanking our local historian for his time, when his arms
start to flail to the point where we think that the concealed tank which is
feeding him oxygen to maintain the pause free diatribe dialogue, has run out, but
no, it turns out he does have armoires and we follow him across the road to a
barn. We are so excited, he throws back huge doors, and there we have it a
football sized space with furniture stacked to the ceiling with just the backs,
undersides, tops or legs showing – P’s hands cover his eyes and he starts to
shake his head. Our host commences
making a space, wheeling stuff on little carts to near the door, it is like
building a sandcastle while the tide comes in. We are slowly squeezed behind an
18th century settle and a very nice writing table
-“which
would go in the bedroom…but it’s not an armoire”
“yes
I know but you can write letters on it in your bedroom”
I
don’t think I look like a character from “Room with a View” .
The
verbal assault of provenance etc etc etc of every piece of furniture continues
whilst he moves table after table after table after chair, after table in order
for us to get to see……………………………………… 4 wardrobes. One of which is 2k, another
which has been eaten by woodworm’s answer to Mr Pastry, the third is the size
of a small house even by our standards and the fourth which we can’t see
because it is too far back but is from the time of Louis Napoleon AND will accommodate our hats and
cravats via its side door…it has a side door, another small house then? We take dimensions and promise to go back…it
is 7.30 pm, we peer into the gloomy twilight searching for the hand painted
signpost and as turn the corner we can still hear (translated from the French)
“ And you know the station house in Abitain where you live, there’s an English
man living there as well. But you know there are no trains there anymore!”
Time
has moved on apace and we have warm weather, 22 degrees in fact, which P thinks is almost hot enough to go in the pool until a visit to St Jean de Luz and a
paddle in the sea, albeit the Atlantic is slightly larger body of water.
St
Jean de Luz is a cross between Basque fishing village and Napoleonic (Third
Empire) holiday destination.
Everyone was gathered on the prom when we arrived,
watching les pompiers tackle a fire at the top of one of the posh hotels. We
wished we had brought our cozzies for a spot of sun worship – they were all out
there – the over 60’s and a group who kept emerging in white bath robes from
the health spa. 12 of them wandering up the beach behind the “look at me, I’m
wonderful shooby dooby wah” health instructor whose lofty gesticulations were we presume about seaside ions. We were waiting for the big dip but only two went in in the
end. We had a paddle coupled with a
sharp intake of breath.
And
so we return to wood. We inherited this,
the previous owner ran out of energy. Note the lean, after the tempetes the angles of lean became... imminnet collapse so P set to to finish it off
and we have ended up with this.
The journey has not been easy – heart attack when
I nearly spiked a large toad who refused to move out. I have spiked one before
accidentally and the scream is awful, especially when you carry it round to the
neighbour to see if he will take it off for you, trying to not to wobble the
fork as you go since it elicits the same heart rending agonising sound. We had a sit off, as I weeded around him with
a petite trowel, until P came to remove him in the soil tray. Unfortunately no
pictures and he was not as pretty as the tree frogs who have taken up residence behind
the shutters – they have become Monsieur et Madame Passepartout. Anyway them aside next came the debate about
to roof or not to roof – we have spare slates but the octagonal shape would
make it difficult. When you sit inside it the view up to the sky is interesting so we stay as it is for now.
So now battery is going and McD waitress is looking at me ....I would like to t leave you with an abiding memory of P's favourite job...fixing toilet cisterns..but the upload takes days to get to SW France.
I will try to get a shorter one in next time.
A bientot.
xx
