Things I read

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Sagas all round

By [email protected] (Jon North)

Sagas have been on my mind in several ways since Easter.  But first, exciting times in the tortoise world.  We were given a new (to us) young one a few weeks ago, and he had been living in a cage inside until the weather warmed.  It has now done so and today the larger tortoise emerged from its hibernation in the enclosure in the garden.  I thought its was a lump of mud at first bat, as you can see, it has scrubbed up nicely and the younger one has joined it in the paddock! The first saga has been of the literary kind, the Forsytes which have occupied our dvd viewing and my re-reading for the first part of the year.  My name, Jon, was chosen by my dad (who was emotionally attached to the books) because of the young man Jon, the youngest Jolyon of the family.  I think my father was rather muddled because he also professed an admiration for the 'man of property' epitomised by Soames who was on the 'other side' of the family.  Never mind, the story was worth reading again, and the two tv productions  are both good in theier different ways.   But the third part of the 9 volumes, going up almost to Galsworthy's death in the early 1930s, were never dramatised as far as I know and I like them even better than the Victorian and Edwardian ones - a much more nuanced examination of love and marriage, with a dramatic view of mental illness thrown in. Two less welcome 'sagas' lately have been to do with roof and health, both happily resolved.  You'll recall perhaps that the roof was repaired last year by a firm which promised excellence and, as we thought, delivered it.  It turned out that what they did not do was the issue - first neglecting to tell us of very old insulation which we've now had replaced, and secondly failing to fix any but the end tile in a whole ridge.  Of course we could have no idea that there were problems - in the second case the rattling of tiles in the wind (after a long period of fairly calm weather) told us sometehing was amiss; and luckily our regular house and garden person Monsieur Beaumann was able to sort both.  It turns out that he has long been a roof specialist - if only we had known...

Our conversation groups still active, with new arrivals from Chicago

The health saga is not, for once, my various aches and pains but the long-running one of Mary's heart and blood (since a minor stroke in 2010), very well surveyed but needing careful supervision.  Not for the first time we have been glad of the very local A&E hospital, all built since we came here.  In the past week the care has involved feeet up and suppport stockings which are too hot for comfort when the weather warms up. The warm srping is a lovely time for flowers, so here are a few more from our garden. And finally a word of praise for one of the few bits of the British administration that actually seems to work.  With luck and a following wind my new passport should arrive soon, and like Mary's it was efficiently and quickly dealt with despite Brexit horror stories elsewhere.

 

08:34:17 AM, Sunday 14 April 2024 from Jon + Mary

Springtime with rain

By [email protected] (Jon North)

I have written before about the dry conditions here.  But when it rains it really does.  Last week we had 60 mm in a few hours, and another 40 at the weekend, but this morning we are back to bright sunshine and blue skies.  The photo above was taken a few days ago, a pink evening sky which we see quite often.

We have been a bit concerned about Edmond, 14 years old and with dodgy kidneys.  But we've just returned from the vet, and all seems to be fairly well after a blood test and with a bit more diuretic - desmite occasional wheezes, he is lively and has put on a bit of weight.  We hope he will be with us for a little whhile yet.

After our trips to the UK we have mostly stayed home and slotted back into our regular activities.  These photos of our regular Tuesday French conversation group were taken by someone elsse for once, so I'm in one or two!

After a good excursion on DVD into the works of Mrs Gaskell we have passed onto John Galsworthy, not just through 2 tv series of the Forsyte Saga but, for me, rereading the books.  I started on the paper versions but have passed over to the Kindle (lighter to hold in bed).  The Forsytes have a particular association for me because I was called after Jon, son of young Jolyon F.  My father pretended to admire the 'Man of Propeerty' characterised by Soames but much about Dad seems to me to have been nearer the softer, more emotional other side of the family, the Jolyons and their ilk.  Rereading for the 4th or 5th time I find much in the detail of the written version which can only be hinted at in a tv adaptation, and in the end it is the characters of Soames and his daughter Fleur which dominate the first 6 of the 9 books in the saga.  Of the final 3, which are far less well-known, I may write more anon.

Since we returned from the UK for the second time this year, we had one very enjoyable outing to see our friend Barry who lives in these rural surroundings in the area called the Laurargais south-east of Toulouse.  Barry is South African in origin but had long re-acclimatised to England where I met him in the Canonbury Chamber Choir in the 1970s.  He and his partner Peter (now sadly no longer alive) moved to France with their interest in antiques, and the house is a living reminder of those interests.  

A few garden pittures to end with.  Spring is with us, and the clocks go forward this weekend.

10:52:57 AM, Thursday 21 March 2024 from Jon + Mary

Home and more or less in good shape

By [email protected] (Jon North)

 

The light greeting our return

It is lovely to be back in the bright, light Languedoc.  Don't get me wrong, we had a very good trip (apart from the first few hours when the motorways here were closed by prefectoral decree, because of farmers' protests - 5 hours to get near Lyon then a speeding fine for going 8 km/hr too fast in our relief at escaping the jams).  We spent excellent days with our family, saw interesting things and ate and drank well.  Our return trip, despite threats of farmers' blockages) was calm and trouble-free.  We have established a simple, untiring driving routine, turn and turn about at the wheel with short breaks for fuel and snacks, and the hotels we used were convenient and reasonably comfortable.  

But on return our  wifi was (literally) on the blink, and we waited 3 days for the engineer to arrive.  The new world of telephones, internet, tv and radio has changed everyting.  Like most people, a few years ago we had a fixed telephone line through which an adequate internet connection could be made.  Then fibre arrived, and everything became much faster.  Above all, the internet require more and more capacity to keeep up with graphics and so on.  Now, everything comes in theory through the fibre-optic cable, much faster - if it works.  If not, there is no longer a fixed phone line, no internet and only the old tv signals via the aerial (if they work at all - I have not checked).  The tv satellite dish no longer works for British tv.  I am a sad old geezer who has not taken on board the brave new world of mobile phones which our children and theirs swear by.  For one thing the screens are too small - I love my iPad and computer whhich my old eyes can read.  And of course, we pay for the service we are not getting.

Goodbye to Jeff and Fi at the end of a marvellous week together

Since I started to write this a very helpful man arrived, fixed up our internet and left before we had a chance to make sure our phone line was working.  It was not and is not.  So now we decide whether to abandon our 'landline' phones and tell everyone to call on our mobiles, or try to get things straight  for the time being it's the mobiles or nowt.  Watch this space, as they say.  Above all,  do not phone 04 67 85 52 12 - you may leave a message which is never heard.

Until we arrived home, the only shock of our return trip was seeing the appalling mess strewn across the roundabout as we left the A9 here  for the main N113 road.  At the risk of being a serial moaner, I was shocked by the piles of rubbish left behind by the protestors.  I think we have always been in favour of fair prices for farmers - we enjoy good food and have the privilege to be able to pay for it.  So I support the agriculteurs in their demands for better conditions, and for proper rewards for local produce rather than cheap imports.  we love our local greengrocer who knows his local growers personally and guarantees freshness.  I just cannot understand why protestors should not clear up their mess.  We saw the final traces being bulldozed and shovelled away as we drove around yeterday, presumably a week or more since the first demos.  A lot of work for people not at all involved in the original  protests.

Anyway, this blog was among other things a way of sharing the odd notes I post on Facebook most days with you who do not use that dodgy medium.  Here are a few recent ones.   Letter to the Guardian: “I am grateful to His Maj for his encouragement to men to have the check (King Charles ‘doing well’ after prostate treatment, 26 January). I visited my GP and was examined, blood-tested and referred to my local NHS hospital in March 2022. I have now waited 22 months for an appointment. And waited etc. Of what exactly is he an example? (John Dinning, Cardiff)”

Another letter to the Guardian: ”Your article on a reproduction of the Bayeux tapestry (29 January) should have mentioned the copy in Reading Museum, sewn by 35 women from Leek in the 19th century. It’s beautifully exhibited in the lovely town hall, with free entry. (Plus older Londoners can travel there on their Freedom Pass on the Elizabeth line.) A great day out. (Rosie Boughton, London)”

And part of yet another letter to the Guardian, which rings strong bells: “…the huge issue for me, and many other drivers according to recent RAC research, is the dangerous dazzling effect of higher, brighter LED lights. I am an older driver, and acknowledge this is likely to impact on my night driving, but my optician has assured me that it’s not me, it’s the cars. I find night-time driving, if there is a lot of oncoming traffic, utterly terrifying, and feel trapped at home on winter evenings. It’s time for a close analysis of accidents attributed to dazzle, and legislation to ensure the safest possible headlight design and position. (Sheila Hutchins,Tregony, Cornwall)”

This on my mind very often: the face of local decline and fall. “Many councils are barely able to carry out their statutory and growing responsibilities in adult and child social care, let alone engage in the kind of “discretionary” spending that enhances the life of their communities. Last week, facing a rebellion by Conservative MPs fearful of further cuts in an election year, Mr Gove made an extra £600m available to local authorities. Useful but nowhere near enough.” The sign of timid, scared central government is to keep ever tighter central control over local spending.

Then, Jurgen Klopp is retiring as Liverpool manager - what a loss, but we all get older - he certainly deserves the rest of his life.  And Nottingham is among many local councils nearing bankruptcy - how can this be alowed to happen?

05:32:15 PM, Wednesday 07 February 2024 from Jon + Mary

Photos from our travels

By [email protected] (Jon North)

More from our UK trip this week, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Parrk and in Uttoxeter

10:42:13 AM, Wednesday 31 January 2024 from Jon + Mary

Travellers' tales

By [email protected] (Jon North)

We are in the UK for the second time since Christmas, this time visiting Jeff and Fi in their new home in Uttoxeter. Like the first trip to Sam and Sas in Wirksworth, over new year, we are driving which has all sorts of advantages. However, this time things are complicated by the French farmers' protests. We set out from Lunel at 7.30 a.m. last Wednesday, but what should have been a quick 2-3 hours' journey to Lyon turned into 9 hours, and we eventually arived at our hotel in Cambrai around 9.30 in the evening (original plan, before 5 and in daylight - we are frequently caught driving after dark however much we try to plan to avoid it). 

Most of the motorway closures were officially organised by the Préfectures, so we drove most of the way south of Lyon on routes nationales, interesting but much slower. After that we just trundled on fairly empty motorways, but continuing on Thursday we were held up again by closures even on the short stretch to Calais and the tunnel. But there was no major holdup and we arrived at our friends Elizabeth & Nigel in good time, well tucked away in rural Surrey. 

 Despite the tedium of the Wednesday morning journey we were glad to get a different perspective and view of the northern Rhône vineyards around Crozes Hermitage whhich we have known for many years on occasional visits. Later on the town of Cambrai seemed interesting, with a splendid redbrick railway station just opposite our hotel - we resolved to exlor in the future when less pressed by travel unknowns. And the hotel itself was, as we found out on our earlier visit, very comfortable and friendly, with an excellent and welcome range of bar snacks to make up for the lack of a full meal. 

We have gravitated towards the Logis de France chain over many years because it always welcomes pets, and although we left our current dog Edmond in kennels on these trips the familiar ambience still attracts us. The farmers' protests look likely to continue, and we don't know if we'll be delayed on the way home next weekend. But luckily we have plenty of time. 

Our first day was delayed by official motorway closures, but more often the hold-ups are caused by long slow queues of tractors, one of which we saw heading south as we set out for Calais on Thursday. Shortly after that the authorities closed the A26 motorway for a short stretch, but we had a short journey and good alternative routes to the Tunnel. So after out overnight with friends on Thursday we drove at a leisurely pace to our home for the week in Uttoxeter, where we are very comfortably housed by Jeff and Fi who find a bit of time for us despite their busy working lives. We saw Sam, Sas and Ben for lunch on Sunday and shall see other friends and visit Wirksworth again before we leave for home at the end of the week.

 

05:26:52 PM, Tuesday 30 January 2024 from Jon + Mary

Travellers' tales

By Jon North ([email protected])

We are in the UK for the second time since Christmas, this time visiting Jeff and Fi in their new home in Uttoxeter. Like the first trip to Sam and Sas in Wirksworth, over new year, we are driving which has all sorts of advantages. However, this time things are complicated by the French farmers' protests. We set out from Lunel at 7.30 a.m. last Wednesday, but what should have been a quick 2-3 hours' journey to Lyon turned into 9 hours, and we eventually arived at our hotel in Cambrai around 9.30 in the evening (original plan, before 5 and in daylight - we are frequently caught driving after dark however much we try to plan to avoid it). 

Most of the motorway closures were officially organised by the Préfectures, so we drove most of the way south of Lyon on routes nationales, interesting but much slower. After that we just trundled on fairly empty motorways, but continuing on Thursday we were held up again by closures even on the short stretch to Calais and the tunnel. But there was no major holdup and we arrived at our friends Elizabeth & Nigel in good time, well tucked away in rural Surrey. 

 Despite the tedium of the Wednesday morning journey we were glad to get a different perspective and view of the northern Rhône vineyards around Crozes Hermitage whhich we have known for many years on occasional visits. Later on the town of Cambrai seemed interesting, with a splendid redbrick railway station just opposite our hotel - we resolved to exlor in the future when less pressed by travel unknowns. And the hotel itself was, as we found out on our earlier visit, very comfortable and friendly, with an excellent and welcome range of bar snacks to make up for the lack of a full meal. 

We have gravitated towards the Logis de France chain over many years because it always welcomes pets, and although we left our current dog Edmond in kennels on these trips the familiar ambience still attracts us. The farmers' protests look likely to continue, and we don't know if we'll be delayed on the way home next weekend. But luckily we have plenty of time. 

Our first day was delayed by official motorway closures, but more often the hold-ups are caused by long slow queues of tractors, one of which we saw heading south as we set out for Calais on Thursday. Shortly after that the authorities closed the A26 motorway for a short stretch, but we had a short journey and good alternative routes to the Tunnel. So after out overnight with friends on Thursday we drove at a leisurely pace to our home for the week in Uttoxeter, where we are very comfortably housed by Jeff and Fi who find a bit of time for us despite their busy working lives. We saw Sam, Sas and Ben for lunch on Sunday and shall see other friends and visit Wirksworth again before we leave for home at the end of the week.

05:10:14 PM, Tuesday 30 January 2024 from Jon (Wine)

A new year with wine - a post for everyone, not just wine buffs!

By Jon North ([email protected])

Solutré, near Macon

Some of my friends are not really interested in wine and tend to skip these blog posts.  So before you  do that this time I will just add a note about the fascination for me apart from the stuff in the bottle or glass.  As you  can see from the photos, scenery is one of the many attractions.

 

Châtillon-en-Diois

 

 Wine exploration has shaped our visits to France ever since we started regular trips here 30 years ago.  If you look at the map of France, relatively small physical areas are taken up by vineyards, and you are much more likely to find yourself in logging forests or endless of cereals and grass, like the open horizons and rolling slopes of the northern plain we drove through on our way to England at the end of last year.

Beaujolais

 

But we hunt out the vineyards not just for nice wine but for the interesting people and scenery we discover, get to know and love.  I think of the beautiful villages just near us in Lunel or north of Montpellier around the Pic Saint Loup; or of the vineyards of the Entre Deux Mers area south of Bordeaux - the two 'seas' here are the rivers Garonne and Dordogne as the flow northwards to join together as the Gironde at Bordeaux; or of the cossetted iconic hilly  country of Beaujolais and the Côte d'Or in Burgundy and the breathtaking rocky beauty of the Rhône valley, whether near the great river at Condrieu and Crozes Hermitage just south of Lyon or, one of our favourite places, Beaumes de Venise tucked under the Dentelles de Montmirail, once best known for its fortified sweet muscat wines but now among the best red wine labels.

 

While I always liked wine, it was meeting people who were and are involved in making it that has captured our  attention.  Jean-Michel and Christine Jacob have just retired from their Hauts Côtes de Beaune vineyard and J-M will doubtless now have more time for his beautiful  art/sculpture, two pieces of which adorn our hallway.  Jean-Philippe Servières, our best local winemaker near Lunel, would probably like to retire, having had precious little chance of a holiday over the past 20 years; and Benoit Viot of the wonderfully-named Chemin des Rêves north of Montpellier has gone from small beginnings - we bought our first wines sitting in the kitchen in Grabels - to becoming president of the prestigious appellation Pic Saint Loup.  

 

We have got to know many other landscapes in the Languedoc, Rhône valley, the Diois (where twinning opened our interest in the Rhône Valley and beyond), or the wide variety of landscapes we have explored across the south - the wild hillls of the Corbières, coastal étangs around the Mediterranean where Picpoul de Pinet is produced, or tiny appellations with unusual grapes like Fronton north of Toulouse.  We discovered Seyssel in the far north of the Rhone valley towards Geneva thanks to musician friend and mentor Stéphane Fauth (and his wife Chantal whose cooking helped to 'oil' the many music courses we  shared).  And we have started to discover the Loire Valley, one of the longest river courses in France which always confused me because the river flows north a long way, just a short distance from the south-flowing Saone and Rhône, before turning left and west at Orleans towards the Atlantic; we got to know various bits of the river - Sancerre, the Touraine, a stretch towards Angers, on various drives south from different channel ports and thanks to good friends Sue and Ian who have a house south of Tours.

Fronton

09:59:34 AM, Thursday 18 January 2024 from Jon (Wine)

New year's blog

By [email protected] (Jon North)

 

Our all-too-brief stay with Sam and family is over halfway through as I write - lovely and we shall miss them but the weather began - let's say - sub-optimal (grey and wet, though not cold).  But new year's day dawned with blue sky and sunshine.

Before we left home we indulged in Dickens DVDs, 2 sets of Little Dorritt, one excellent, the older dismal  (I once liked this version...), and then a surprisingly good Martin Chuzzlewit (Tom Wilkinson who played an excellent Pecksniff has just died).  The casts of all three are mostly outstanding, but the earlier Little Dorritt despite iconic actors like Alec Guinness and Derek Jacobi seemed wooden and stilted.  Not helped by a weird 2-part presentation which separated Amy's view from Arthur Clennam's.  Claire Foy's heroine is heaps better than Sarah Pickering, who seems to have done nothing else in film - Dickens writes a low-key character but not that low key.

I was encouraged by an Eng Lit friend to read most of Dickens on train journeys commuting to London, and still love the books - Mary came to them after she met me, and I remember buying a job-lot on £1 paperback classics to  round out our library.  Thinking over the whole series, the theme of financial insecurity and ruin, together with the vital importance of inheritance, is a strong common thread.  Dickens' father was in debt and spent months in the Marshalsea, so  CD knew of what he wrote.  Few punches pulled either - the suicide of Merdle with a penknife in Little Dorritt is memorable in book and on film.  But other books like Great Expectations - the title gives the game away -  Bleak House with its fog of law-courts, A Christmas Carol of course (we have just seen a DVD with the splendid Michael Hordern hamming it up), Our mutual friend with its heaps of valuable dust, all have money and greed at their centres.

In between whiles I have caught up with Ken Follett's latest Kingsbridge novel, this one skipping centuries forward to the  Napoleonic era, and yet another fictional rerunning of the battle of Waterloo.  The moments where a character tells another rather artificially the name of such and such a farmhouse or Quatrre Bras crossroads does jar slightly, but Follett like Bernard Cornwell has done his research, and Follett is respected enough to write about cathedral construction in the rebuilding of Notre Dame Paris just as Cornwell has written a decent factual account of Waterloo alongside the romantic version.  In my more idiotic moments I wonder how Sharpe, and a Follett hero, acting as adcs to Wellington might have bumped into one another!

We are having a great, relaxed family time here, and trying to live day by day before we drive back.  Having heard some of the awful horrors and knife-edge adventures of Sam & Sas's family holiday (they did ultimately have a good time with close friends) across the world we feel glad to have chosen more local, staid journeys, and in our own car.  It does of course strike us that the distances and complexities of air travel are inevitable when people fall in love with others from New Zealand or have great friends in the USA.  These things tend to conflict with environmental considerations.  But good plans tend to involve meeting family and friends in France, in spacious well-equipped gîtes as we did with Judi last summer.  Sam and I have been discussing areas of France to meet in, and in any case we plan to visit friends in Normandy in the summer.

This is to wish all our friends and family a hapy and healthy 2024.

05:26:09 PM, Monday 01 January 2024 from Jon + Mary

Old year blog

By [email protected] (Jon North)

I'm writing this in Wirksworth where we're staying with family over the new year.  We spent a quiet Christmas at home before we left Edmond in our reliable kennels and drove to England.  We arrived on Thursday evening.

Musicians in Lunel last week

We'd decided to drive, and sharing turn and turn about that woekd well through the 1,000 km of France,  on Eurotunnel and up the M20, but the M25 was a crawling nightmare.  Once on the M40 we were fine again apart from rain squalls - the storms had passed or were further west and north - the M25 delay meant that we drove the familiar last miles in the dark, not as hoped or planned.  But we arrived safely at Sam's by 1800 and found Ed, Isla and Karen already installed in their nearby Airbnb.  On reflection the journey was a success - I think we shall be happy to drive that way again.

The Lunel sky we left behind

When Jeff and Fi arrived a little later we were delighted -  our family was together; we all met up again yesterday for brunch and a mountain of presents.  Sadly Sas and Ben had bad colds and could not join us - fingers crossed that they will be better soon.

Mary with Ed and dog Maisie, Jeff, Fi, Isla, Heather and Karen

07:39:18 AM, Saturday 30 December 2023 from Jon + Mary

The roof, teeth and other less technical things

By [email protected] (Jon North)

 

Earlier this year I wrote about roof repairs.  Tiles replaced, tiles made secure, woodwork treated, well done if at some expense.  That led to two things.  One was the firm which did the work coming back for the first 'guarantee inspection' and of course recommending more work.  Of course, they had 'forgotten' to tell us things.  So the other, luckily, was that we discovered that our splendid factotum (gardener and general Mr Fix-it) Monsieur Beaumann is, perhaps first and foremost, someone who mends roofs.  If we'd realised thhis sooner we might have saved some money, but never mind, and better late than never.  He checked things over and found things the others missed.  He has now taken over all our roof needs, and has installed new insulation as well as removing mountains of pine needles which were apparently built as nests by rats.   Warmer and less rodent-ridden now!

Then there are my teeth, or what remain of them.  When I was about 10 some girls caused me to fall off a swing and break two front teeth.  After a few years of unsuccessful crowns and some pain, I had a dental plate that lasted over 30 years, then another fitted in France in an emergency over Christmas (when we discovered the efficiency of French health services), and now a new one is due.  The old method was to take an impression from the mouth with a kind of plasticene, but I discovered last week that this is old hat - everything is now scanned with a kind of glowing pen, and I should receive the result tomorrow.  The wonders of modern technology!

Our dog Edmond is in surprisingly good spirits at the age of 14 plus, and keeps us active getting up to give him breakfast and taking him for walks.  He does not seem to miss his twin sister Elvire, who died at Easter, and despite failing eyesight he's always at hand when his meal times arrive, and he still enjoys his evening walk with Mary.

We are looking forward to family visits over the winter, the first to Wirksworth for new year.  Apart from Sam and family we have several good friends there, and are kept in touch by regular mailings of Community Fayre, the amazingly longstanding community newppaper (which has just arrived by post).  Fewer and fewer things arrive in the letterbox - so much now is electronic - but another paper mailing just now has been the latest news from Médecins Sans Frontières, an absolutely admirable organisation engaged in relief work round the world.  There are so many good causes appealing for our support, and this seems to us as good as any recipient of our contributions.  A lovely watercolour shared on Faceboook reminds us of what we have to look forward to in Derbyshire.

Our reading in French continues twice a week with the splendid help of Danielle who corrects our pronunciation and explains French culture!  Mary reads a lot in French anyway, currently rereading the diaries of Edmond de Goncourt, while my serious reading is of British history in the long and detailed accounts of the British Emipre, One fine day by Matthew Parker.  This has fascinated me, starting as it does in the Pacific Islands and Arthur Grimble (whose stories, popular in the 1950s, were shared with us at school) and going on with the harrowing accounts of Amritsar.  The subequent topics, Malaya and Aftrica, are less familiar to me, but the sheer brazen brutality of the British in Kenya makes sobering reading.  "The Rev. Ryle Shaw, in a letter to the settler-supporting East Africa Standard, asked whether the British settlers should really be classed with ‘Asiatics imported for pick and shovel work’ who were ‘alien in mind, colour, religion, morality and practically all the qualities Europeans regard as necessary for constitutional citizenship’" is a mild example.  We have new book arrivals  in Christmas parcels (delights for the Day itself) just received from our friend Ruth in London whose failing sight and other difficulties never seem to deter her from thinking of us so generously.

The chaos of governments over immigration is not confined to the UK it seems: a report in the Guardian this week describes French indecision at its more rational but no less confused best:  "The French government has said it will push on with a planned immigration law in the face of a political crisis after opposition parties from the left to the far right refused to even debate it in parliament.  The president, Emmanuel Macron, and the centrist government were surprised... on Monday – the first time in 25 years that a government bill was rejected before even being debated by parliament.  The immigration bill is intended to show Macron can take tough measures on migration while keeping France's doors open to foreign workers who can help the economy.  But its contents have been rewritten several times, first toughened by the right-dominated senate, then partially unpicked by a parliamentary commission, resulting in ... fierce opposition.".

 

 There are no easy answers to world environmental problems either.  For example (from a recent article)

 

To finish, a sad song from Syria by a refugee

Take me to any country, leave me there, and forget all about me

Throw me in the middle of the sea, don’t look back, I have no other option

I am not leaving for fun, neither for a change of scenery

My house was bombed and destroyed; and the dust of rubbleblinded me

Let me try, no matter what, I am a human being

 Call it displacement or immigration … just forget about me

Christmas greetings and our best wishes for the new year to all our friends

 

 

 

 

01:44:01 PM, Wednesday 13 December 2023 from Jon + Mary

End of November

By [email protected] (Jon North)

 

Well, we have seen Napoleon (the film..)  We do like our local 3-screen cinema, and the film did not seem too long.  But a bit boring partly because of drear dialogue.  It did have interest for us after a long period reading about that confusing period between the Revolution (other revolutions are available) and the mid-19th century - timeline of important events was well mapped out - and the battles were well-staged, but in the end they are battles and by definition confusing and noisy.  Josephine was well-acted despite the words she was given.  The music was bad to awful, and the credits at the end were simply endless - we gave up witing to see who played what music in case the cinema management locked us in!  Back home for a supper of M's delicious apple crumble.

 In my catalogue of aches and pains last time I did not mention the psychological effects.  Really it's all to do with not wanting to fall - I'm a bit too heavy and despite regular exercise I find getting up from the floor hard even when I am unshocked.  The result it shtat I love slowly and sometimes eem to shuffle just toe make sure I stay upright.  It is ironic - I used to stride out quite confidently, now Mary quite easily outpaces me, and I hold onto handrails a lot.   I am reminded of my father who always used to say going downhill was more difficult than climbing, and more recently I think of my brother Tom who also strode out before his final illness left him nearly immobile before his sad death.  Thankfully I am still realtively mobile and Mary is remarkably patient as we make our way round.

 

 It is a quiet autumn for us all round, our tv watching has move on from the zany comedy with emotional asides, the American series Soap to the equally crazy but darker Twin Peaks.  Our DVD collection is being well used these darker evenings.  And we read a lot - one excellent discovery (thanks to Juliet who sent it to us) has been Lea Ypi's Free about her growing up in Albania - she is now a professor at LSE - which shed light on that very hidden country and society, emerging even more reluctantly than other communist states from the shadow of authoritarian rule.  It must seem as if the old evils might be preferable to some of the modern populist manifestations, but nobody really has any choice and where they do,  in place of rigged elections we now have mass voting for oppressive politicians, or control by gangsters as sems to have happened in Albania.  We met some really nice Albanians who have emigrated to France and are hav been takn under her wing by a marvellous French friend, older than us, who came on her annual visit to collect kakis (persimmons) from our tree.

Some of our regular activities have been going on week in week out since 2007, an amazing length of more or less continuous activity.  Our Tuesday French groups (some French people join us in separate sessions to improve their English as well as helping us with our French) has now extended to a second session for some of us French learners on Fridays, and the general pattern has settled into reading a text and then trying to translate bit by bit, a challenge for us all.  A good shared lunch always helps to round off the session.

 

10:31:06 AM, Monday 27 November 2023 from Jon + Mary

Darker days

By [email protected] (Jon North)

seasonal table decoration at a friend's house

Neither Mary nor I really like driving after dark.  Sometimes we have no choice - people prefer to meet in the evenings and so on.  So yesterday when choir finished at 6 I had to drive home with headlights in my eyes, and various evening meetings will oblige both of us to do this.  Apparently most people don't mind - but brighter headlights and faster speeds make the thing more worrisome - so we do our best.  Planning our Christmas visits to family though, we plan to drive.  We can take our time, visit nice places, stay in comfortable hotels and eat good meals.  Mary particularly likes the egg sandwiches on the Eurostar tunnel crossing in the priority lounge!

The last health update needs a coda, partly for things I forgot, partly for things that are cropping up for the first time.  My dentist has had holidays over this half-term period, but eventually he will measure me for a new denture and take out a troublesome tooth.  Meanwhile, apart from sicatica and various stiffness round the legs, I am beginning to have moments of  pain in the hips.  Since I have had arthritis elsewhere it would not be surprising if hips started to play up.  I do know that hop replacements are simpler than knees, and usually successful, but I think I'll avoid further surgery as long as I can!

After the thrills of the rugby we are back to watching videos in the late evening.  We have more Montalbano to come when the newest DVDs arrive, but since Juliet's visit in the summer we have been catching up on the Camilleri books too.  The stories, in English translation or subtitles Italian videos, really repay a second (or maybe third) viewing.  Several of the tv episodes are taken from short stories I'm now reading.  In the end we understand at least some of the complex plots!  Now we have also returned to lighter viewing with the American series Soap which is often a spoof of itself, but with moments of intense emotion mixed with increasingly improbable plots.

Virginia creeper on our garage door

02:16:18 PM, Monday 06 November 2023 from Jon + Mary

45 and counting

By [email protected] (Jon North)

 

at Wood Green Registry Office, 1978

Yesterday was our 45th wedding anniversary, another Saturday.  We celebrated today with a marvellous meal at the Ecailler des Beaux Arts in Montpellier.  It is a fish and seafood restaurant, not too far from the Med to make the oysters and other shellfish seem out of place - sadly none of thsoe for me since I don't want to tempt the violent reactions I've had a couple of times.  But many other kinds of fish and they certainly know how to cook it - Mary had sole and I rare-cooked tuna.  A lovely, sunny meal on the terrace.

45 marvellous years, attested by the ages and lives of our sons and their families, seems an impossibly long time, and details  blur, but so do even the details of the  last 17 which we've spent in France.  Before that we had spent a quarter of a century in Derbyshire, 3 different houses in Wirksworth, but I think this is the longest we've spent in one house.  Ideally houses would grow and shrink around your changing needs, but they are stubbornly inflexible, though bits wear out and need replacing or redecorating, while the gardens just grow and have to be cut back unless bits just die.  

our jasmine arch, sadly gone these past 2 years

The 17 years here have been accompanied by finding new friends (both French and fellow expats), much around the regular conversation groups we attend in various private houses twice a week through a network which has kept going in various forms since the mid 2000s.   We have a modest but active musical life for both of us, my work in and for the Montpellier English-language Library (now counting over 2,000 volumes) and a gentle getting-to-know this area and others in France with wine connections.  We were not dramatically affected by Covid and its restrictions because we continued to have a fairly quiet life (lots of reading and tv filling the gaps)

Our Friday conversation group  last week

This blog has returned from time to time to the subject of pain.  I remember writing a lot about it when my arthritic left knee was replaced in 2015.  Actually these days the multiple pains I have are not too bad - more arthritis, sciatica, a touch of gout (from uric acid, an occupational hazard of a wine drinker - my doctor keeps telling me water is better for me), and a weird hangover of the old knee replacement which is a cross between numbness and a diffuse kind of pain - repeated x-rays show the metal joint is still in place and working OK.  Oh, and intense itching which erupts at random on one leg or the other.  This is interesting - dermatologists keep wanting you to rub cream and so on into the skin, but having read a bit I know that this arises from neurological disturbance inside the body, not from the skin.  Ice packs help at night.  I keep gently exercising on my static bike and Mary enjoys her weekly Qi-gong sessions, and we are very well monitored by a variety of generalist and specialist medical services.

There is a lot more on my mind, not least random comments I make on Facebook which non-FB friends don't automatically see, and of course nobody has to read all this.  But watch this space...

09:48:56 AM, Sunday 29 October 2023 from Jon + Mary

Requiescat in pacem

By [email protected] (Jon North)

Actually I don't really believe in an afterlife, but I do believe in strong memories of people we have known and loved.  Today we are mourning the death of Polly, Shirley Jane Tatum, Polly Carton, my extraordinary colleague in the 1970s and friend from then till now.  We met when I was working in Friends House Library when she became warden of the building; colleagues, then I was her head of department for some years before she moved with Arlo in his new role as warden at the Coram Foundation.  By that time we and our families were firm friends and we benefitted for many years from her generosity in letting us enjoy holidays near the beach in Daymer Bay at her cottage, Angus.  Later she moved near daughter Jan and family to Bodmin.

Polly will be remembered for many things, among them the gardens - plants in the unpromising roof terrace by the flat in Friends House, and for the little garden between Euston Road and  Endsleigh Gardens which was a public thoroughfare as well as the entrance to Friends House itself.  She kept that in great shape partly despite and partly because of the pollution of Euston Road - aphids had a hard time beating the fumes...  Her gardens in Angus and then Bodmin were wonderful.  Then music (a passion she shared with Arlo) and table tennis (perhaps that also).  Until she died I think she was a very talented artist  - painter above all.  She could rattle away in Italian, as I am often reminded when we watch our favourite Montalbano.   She was an exceptional typist, a skill for which I was often thankful.  She was above all a passionate person, in championing right and justice;  and a steadfast friend.  She was a survivor, beating more than one heart crisis before it all caught up with her, and all with spirit, humour and fortitude.  How I will miss her as so many others will too.  Her memory will live on through her family, twins Jane and Sarah whom I have been privileged to know since they were 10, and their offspring.

Many other things on my mind, but they will have to wait.  This is for Pol.

A meal out in Padstow

future generations - 2 grandsons

01:11:01 PM, Friday 20 October 2023 from Jon + Mary

Chewing the fat

By [email protected] (Jon North)

Aigues Mortes, one of our favourite local places, a nice aerial view

 For a long time we had been wary of saturated fats - such as palm oil - in food.  Apart from clogging arteries, planting oil palms ruins tropical forests.  Gradually you see less palm oil on labels, but the visit of our friend Juliet alerted us to another ubiquitous oil passing under the radar - rapeseed, known here in France as colza.  It may not clog arteries but it can have adverse effects on the digestion etc. of people sensitive to it.  And once we started to look at labels, it turns up in a load of places you would not expect.  Our favourite example is in preserved olives!!  Neither of us luckily suffers adverse effects, but we now realise you need to be wary.

We are coming to the end of our welcome procession of visitors - Judi, Alex and their friends depart on their onward travels this weekend having confirmed the good quality of the nearby gîte where they are staying.  Travel is never straightforward - yesterday on a short excursion to Arles they had a tyre blowout in their hire car and had to spend time getting it fixed.

At our age life is always surrounded by absences and memories - neither shadows nor ghosts, but rather warm memories of those who are no longer alive.  Some were close friends or family, but others have touched our lives in various ways, like Jacky Riou whom we first encountered as the proprietor of a hotel long-closed in the town centre, but then until very recently as the chef at La Terrasse where we often ate, especially if we knew he was on duty!

satirising Marine Le Pen but the figure could just as well be Georgia Meloni

a sculpture symbolising the plight of  refugees in the Mediterranean

One excellent book I have begun to read is by Georgina Sturge, a former government statistician.  The book is Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians and the Rest of Us Get Misled by Numbers   and one example she quotes is the Cobra effect: "as the British government in India in the late nineteenth century learnt, offering a literal reward for people to catch and cull poisonous cobras led to a new enterprise of cobra-farming. Farmers would bring them in by the wheelbarrow-load to claim the money – but at the same time cobras now posed a greater threat to the public in their greater numbers. Such an unintended shift in behaviour in response to incentives is called, after this unfortunate episode, the Cobra Effect.". Watch out for snakes, in the grass of otherwise! Another example - "In nineteenth-century China, European palaeontologists would pay the locals for every dinosaur bone or fossil they brought them. As a result, people started smashing bones into smaller pieces to reap greater rewards. No one said they had to be whole or in the same state as found."

10:03:24 AM, Friday 13 October 2023 from Jon + Mary