The wisteria

I had decided that a wisteria on a trellis would improve the view from the bedroom.  At least, I thought, it would hide the gas tank.  I had taken a wisteria and all the necessary bits and pieces for the trellis over to France and all that was needed was for the job to be done.

Banging the metal post-holders for the trellis into the ground did not prove to be difficult, but inserting the posts themselves into the holders was a different matter. The holders were supposed to have been made to accept three-inch square timber, and the timber was supposed to be three inches square, but each of those posts was a fraction of an inch too large to fit into the holders. I had two toolboxes with me, each containing a large selection of tools, but neither of them contained a plane because that was one tool I didn't own.

I retrieved the work bench from under its covering of cobwebs, mouse droppings and other assorted gunk and started trimming down the posts for about six inches from the end. By the time I had finished, the posts slipped easily into the holders – too easily. I had taken off just a bit too much. I nearly left things as they were, but remembered that if a job is worth doing...

Mr Bricolage had just what I needed – little plastic shims, or spacers. I hammered these into the post holders alongside the posts until there was not a trace of movement.

Then, of course, the trellis had to be fixed to the posts. It sounds easy; indeed, I thought it would be easy. But I had overlooked the fact that in order to fix one end of the trellis correctly, the whole thing had to be extended to the required length. This really was a job for two people, but I was on my own and had not then met Claude.

I resorted to my usual remedy when faced with a tricky job – a cup of coffee and a cigarette. The coffee was only half drunk when it dawned on me that I had been going about things the wrong way. So, I drilled four holes in the trellis, one at each corner, and a pilot hole near the top of one of the posts. A screw inserted part way held the trellis in place while I extended it to reach the further pole. It was now easy to fix that end of the trellis, and the rest followed simply enough.

There had been just enough rain to make the clay soil workable and digging a hole for the roots of the wisteria took no time at all. I trained the seven or eight branches in and out of the trellis and congratulated myself on a job well done.

What I had not allowed for was the future growth of the plant and the fact that it would very quickly become stronger than the flimsy staples holding together the equally flimsy wooden struts that made up the trellis. Only a year after the wisteria had been planted, the trellis was collapsing – and with it, the wisteria. If I was to stop the wisteria stretching out along the ground, I would have to take corrective measures. Although when I had finished it did sag rather badly, the fencing wire I fastened to the posts made a better job of supporting the wisteria than did the trellis.

By the second spring, the wisteria had gone berserk. There were branches of it waving three or four feet in the air above the lilac tree, through which they had spread. Other branches had arched across to the house and were trailing down six inches from the bedroom window. Drastic pruning was needed, but this only encouraged more growth. I might not have any grass to cut, but each time we visit ‘Les Lavandes' I have to trim the wisteria.

This was how it looked when we arrived in July.

How about a wisteria?

There was still the problem of the view, or lack of one, from the bedroom window. After much deliberation, I hit on what I thought would be the answer. I would erect three wooden posts, each three inches square and eight feet high, using metal post-holders, and to those posts I would fix a trellis. If I trained a wisteria over the trellis, that would hide the gas tank from view very nicely, and would look attractive into the bargain.

Why I didn't buy all the bits and pieces – including the wisteria – in France is something I shall never understand. But I didn't. Mrs S and I visited an English garden centre and selected a magnificent wisteria plant, one that was already eight feet high. Just getting it back to our English home was something of a challenge, and I still had to transport it to France – along with three eight foot posts, the trellis and all the appropriate tools for a week's work. It took me quite a while to pack the car that Sunday afternoon.

After passing through check-in and before going through to the dockside at the ferry port, cars were selected, apparently at random, for a security check. So far I had been lucky and managed to avoid this hassle – but not this time. I can't have been more than a yard or so from the gate to the quay when somebody in a fluorescent yellow waistcoat jumped in front of the car, causing me to practice an emergency stop. He waved at me imperiously, directing me into the security check area.

I was invited to step out of the car and to open the boot. The security officer glanced inside and groaned. I'm sure that he was sorely tempted to tell me to close the boot and drive on, but his conscience won the day – either that, or he thought his boss might be watching. Anyway, everything had to come out – suitcase, toolboxes, wooden posts, wisteria plant, even the spare wheel. As I stood there holding up the wisteria, a sniffer dog was brought across. I was not best pleased when he cocked his leg against the plant, but relieved that at least he missed my leg!

The contents of my suitcase got a cursory examination, but not so the toolboxes. Everything was pulled out and scattered on the ground – screwdrivers, chisels, saws, a positive cornucopia of potentially lethal weapons. I was escorted into an office where I was asked to hand over my passport before being thoroughly searched. A second, more senior, security officer arrived and proceeded to question me.

I considered phoning my Member of Parliament to complain about this harassment. But even if I had decided to do so, I couldn't have done because I didn't even know who my Member of Parliament was let alone his telephone number. I decided against ringing Mrs S as she wouldn't have known either, and in any case she would have been in bed and asleep by then and wouldn't have heard the phone ringing. I couldn't anyway, because my mobile phone had been taken along with my passport – a passport which stated that ‘Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer (me!) to pass freely without let or hindrance'. And here were British people hindering my passage!

I eventually managed to persuade the security officers that I was not a terrorist intent on hijacking the ferry, nor was I a hacksaw murderer on the run, and nor was I intending to wage a solo war against the French in order to regain Anjou for the British crown. By the time they let me go the ferry was nearly due to depart and I had no time to pack the car properly before driving over the ramp just as it started to lift. As a result, I had wisteria leaves tickling the back of my neck for the rest of the journey.

A year or so down the line, this is how that wisteria looked.

The view from the bedroom

The view from the downstairs bedroom window was, to put it mildly, not exactly exhilarating. Glancing to the left, one could see an old stone wall about four feet high which had been extended to a height of about ten feet with breezeblocks. Fortunately, this wall was by now largely covered with moss and lichen so it looked a little less prison-like and the mature lilac tree and large hydrangea were doing their best to screen it. To the right, one looked across the courtyard towards the well. But the real problem was the view straight ahead.

The back wall of the largest shed (the garage for a ‘very small car', as Monsieur Detroit had jested) stood some twelve or thirteen feet away. That in itself would have been bad enough but rectifiable without too much difficulty. What made matters worse was the large gas tank that had been positioned just behind the shed. In all fairness, there really was nowhere better that it could have been placed, but improve the view it did not. It stood there like a small petrol tanker, drawing the eye every time I looked out of the window. This really was not what we wanted for our hoped-for paying guests.

Between the gas tank and the window was a flowerbed. Well, we assumed when we bought the house that it was a flowerbed as it didn't seem to be covered in chippings or concrete. When we dug through the dead leaves we found we were right: there was earth under there. But there was a strange post rising from the middle of this flowerbed.

It stood just over three feet high, but its height had been reduced by fifteen inches or so when somebody had sawed down it from the top and bent the resulting four arms out like spokes. Presumably these had once supported a tabletop, but who would want a picnic table in the middle of a flowerbed? Or maybe it had been a bird table, but if so, it must have been a table strong enough for an eagle or a vulture.

Obviously, it had to go. I gave it a shake; or rather I tried to give it a shake to see if it was likely to come up fairly easily. It didn't move, so I fetched a spade and prodded around at the base. The spade struck something solid. The post had been sunk into concrete, which I discovered extended almost two feet in every direction from the post. If the diameter of the top was four feet, how far down did this concrete block extend? I wondered.

I dug around it and eventually managed to rock the post gently from side to side, but it took the combined efforts of Chris, Alan and me to prise it from the ground – in between scraping the hall floor, checking the septic tank and installing the new light fitting. Two days later, I had recovered enough strength to start attacking the concrete with a sledgehammer, but it was to be more than a year before I had reduced it to small enough lumps to blend in with the chippings covering the courtyard. 

Lavender Cottage

From the very start we had decided to call our French hideaway Les Lavandes, this being (we thought) the French equivalent of Lavender Cottage.  The fact that there was not a single lavender plant in the courtyard did not deter us as we planned o plant our own anyway.

Mrs S thought it would rather a nice touch if we had tubs each side of the two doors, the main front door and the one from the living room, and planted these up with lavender. We duly purchased four large, wooden tubs, not too dissimilar from half barrels but considerably cheaper, which I transported to France with everything else. I drew the line at buying compost in England as it was readily available not too far from the house, but the lavender plants did come from England.

We had very high hopes for those plants as we had discovered, when staying with Gary and Wendy, that plants in the area grew very quickly and to a much larger size than they did in England. I was, of course, to find this with our neighbour's vegetables. Although neither of us is blessed with green fingers or much horticultural savvy, we could see no reason why the spring would not be a good time for planting lavender, and proceeded to put four or five plants in each tub. I even photographed our efforts after the planted tubs had been placed in position.

It was as well that I did take those photographs, as they very soon became the only evidence that we had ever had lavender beside the doors. When we returned some six weeks after planting up the tubs, all the plants looked decidedly sick. They looked so sick, in fact, that I would have consigned them all to the tip without a second thought. But not my better half. Despite her record of killing off every parsley plant on our kitchen windowsill within three days of purchase, she decided to attempt a rescue and nurse those poorly lavender plants back to health.

The plan was to replant the lavender in the borders, some plants along the front of the borders on either side of the gates, and the remainder at the edge of the third border so people would pass them on their way to the front door. First, the ground had to be prepared. This involved clearing the appropriate areas of dead leaves, weeds, and any plants which might have had the temerity to spend the winter months resting peacefully where the lavender was due to go. It took three bin liners to hold all the leaves, weeds, plants and assorted litter that were cleared – and that was just from the edges of the borders.

Next, the sickly lavender plants had to be removed from the tubs. So careful was Mrs S not to damage the roots, it must have taken her the better part of a morning to extract them. Suitable holes were prepared to receive them, and I swear that no new mother ever laid her precious baby down more gently than those lavender plants were put into their beds! A mixture of compost and soil was used to fill the holes, this being put in almost as gently as the plants themselves had been. The final part of the proceedings was to spray the plants with a fine mist. I was quite happy to tip a couple of buckets of water over the plants, but no, we had to use an empty perfume spray so that the plants would not be flooded out.

I have to say that I remained sceptical, extremely sceptical. But, as happens so often with Mrs S, she proved me wrong. Well, partly wrong. About a third of the plants never did recover, but the remainder flourished so well that we considered inviting a perfume manufacturer round to harvest the flowers.  And even now, several years later, those plants are going strong.

You can just see some of the healthy plants in this picture of one of the borders.

Meet the (English) neighbours

Whilst we appreciated Jacques thoughtfulness in inviting another English couple for tea, we did live to regret his action. At least twice a week when we are in the village, Stella finds an excuse to drop in, usually but not always accompanied by Richard, and takes charge of our living room for at least an hour. This always seems to happen just when Mrs S and I are planning to nip into Châteaubriant before the shops close for their obligatory two-hour lunch break, effectively putting us back three hours in whatever job we have on hand. There was even one occasion when we were on the point of leaving to catch the ferry and I had to run the gauntlet of every speed camera en route in my effort to make up the lost time. The time we tried saying, "Sorry, but we are just going out," and pulling the door shut behind us didn't work: Stella just pushed the door open and walked in anyway. We have now resorted to letting Stella sit in the living room while we just get on with whatever we were doing. Even if we are going shopping, we just leave, asking her to shut the door behind her.

Fortunately, we can leave the door unlocked in relative safety, the crime rate in the village being virtually zero. Since we have owned a house there, there has been just one crime. Another Englishman bought a house on the crossroads and left his trailer on the pavement outside. One morning he went out and discovered the trailer had been stolen overnight. The theft had, of course, been committed by somebody passing through and not a villager. As far as we could make out, the village spoke of nothing else for at least three weeks.

We never did meet that Englishman, or even learn his name. Jean-Paul did tell us that he bought the house in order to live near his daughter, who had married a Frenchman from a small town some thirty minutes away. Whatever his name, he eventually sold up, telling all and sundry that he was fed up with living in a village where nothing happened and he couldn’t even get a full pint of beer. Mrs S and I were not sorry that we never met him.

Or maybe I did. Chris and I were browsing the shelves in Mr Bricolage one day - our trips to France are never complete without at least two visits to the emporium, usually on the same day because we forgot something the first time. We were gazing in bewilderment and awe at the vast array of drawer knobs or something similar, when we were approached by a red-faced man who had obviously heard us speaking in English. From what he said, we gathered that he lived in France, but he obviously missed England and launched into a tirade about the things that the French did wrong, ranging from the overuse of olive oil to driving on the right. We tried to get away, but he found us again as we were hiding behind a ride-on lawnmower. In the end we left the shop without buying what we had gone in there for, and sat in the car waiting for him to leave. He must have latched on to somebody else as it was a full twenty-five minutes before he came out.

The next day we were in the supermarket in search of lunch when he caught us again. Chris "accidentally" ran the trolley into his shin and we managed to escape while he was hopping on his undamaged leg and shouting profanities in what sounded like Swahili.

I have never been able to understand why some Englishmen like that gentleman choose to live in France when they want it to be an English France, with thick-cut marmalade, Marmite and Heinz baked beans. Mrs S and I met more of them one evening in the village restaurant. We were, as usual, the only diners when Jean-Paul informed us that a party of six was due to arrive. He announced proudly that they were English, just as if they had travelled from Bolton or Bournemouth especially to eat at his restaurant. Contrary to Jean-Paul's assertion about the punctuality of the English, they arrived forty minutes after the time they had booked and sat at their table braying loudly about how they had managed to reduce the gardener's wages and so on.

Jean-Paul introduced us, explaining that we owned a house in the village, whereupon the woman with the most jewellery (and the loudest voice) immediately switched to her version of French to talk to us. One of the men pointed out to her that we were English.

"Well," she exclaimed, "I know that!" and continued to harangue us in execrable French.

It is not often that I wish the floor would open up and swallow me, but I did that night. One of the party complained about the starter he had chosen – an unusual but excellent salad that is a house speciality – and sent it back to the kitchen. Another complained that his lamb was pink – which is, of course, the way the French eat their lamb – and sent it back. Then there was something wrong with the wine. We pointedly ignored them when we left and commiserated with Jean-Paul, who offered me a glass of the rejected wine. As I suspected, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

I was telling Jacques about this the next day and saying that I felt I should apologise to Jean-Paul for the behaviour of my fellow countrymen.

"I shouldn't bother," said Jacques, in his usual phlegmatic way. "There are plenty of Frenchmen who are just as bad."

~~~~~

Our village restaurant, then decorated for Christmas.

Meet the (French) neighbours

Part of our thinking when the Old  Bat and I chose the western Loire as the area in which we wanted to buy a holiday home was that there were relatively few English people living there - or so we thought. Our reasoning was that we preferred to escape from English attitudes and experience the French way of life on our visits. We were rather surprised to find that there were two English families in the village, one with children and the other a more elderly couple. In fact, they impinge on us very little as we have never met the family with children and couldn't even say where they live. It was Jacques' fault that we met the other couple.

We have from time to time been invited into neighbour our Jacques' house for the French version of afternoon tea. This all started during one of the times I was there alone. Jacques had popped in for a scotch, after which I went to his house for a glass of wine. While I was there, it was suggested that when Mrs S and I were next there together, we should both go over for a drink. Mrs S and I discussed what sort of small gift we could take with us as Jacques and Brigitte, his wife, had both been very friendly and helpful, as well as generous with their garden produce. We decided that Mrs S should bake a cake, her chocolate yoghurt cake being particularly good. The cake was duly baked well in advance, and frozen for safekeeping.

As both Jacques and Brigitte work, the invitations are always for a Saturday and are generally given on an evening during the preceding week. We calculated that there would be plenty of time to thaw the cake once the invitation had been given. As luck would have it, Jacques fooled us on this occasion by coming over at about four o'clock on Saturday and suggesting that we call round at five.

Panic stations! There was no time to thaw the cake! I dashed to the local supermarket to buy flowers instead.

Being English, we rang the bell at just on five o'clock. Jacques younger daughter answered the door, and looked at us blankly. Fortunately, Jacques had remembered to tell Brigitte (he doesn't always) and she soon appeared to invite us in, although it was obvious that we had arrived far too early. We had forgotten what Jean-Paul had told us: if an Englishman books a table for eight o'clock, he will arrive somewhere between five to eight and ten past, whereas if a Frenchman books a table for eight, he might arrive by nine.

We were offered chairs at the dining table, and cups and saucers, plates, wine glasses and beer glasses appeared as if by magic. Along with chocolate cup cakes baked by Jacques and Brigitte's elder daughter. Mrs S and I looked at each other and breathed a joint sigh of relief that there had been no time to thaw the cake.

~~~~~

I have no picture of the neighbours but this is the village square, or Place de l'Eglise as it is called.

Cherchez la femme

Or, to be more accurate, cherchez le corpse.

Had somebody told me beforehand that I would spend part of yesterday morning looking for a corpse, I would never have believed them.  But that is what I did; I drove around town trying to find a dead body.  It was one particular dead body I was looking for, not just any old cadaver.

A near neighbour died a couple of weeks back and her funeral was to be held yesterday.  Or so her husband told me.  In fact, he also gave the details to the Old Bat, details identical to what he had told me.  And he told me twice, on two different days.  Thursday, 4th October, 11.45am at one of the two crematoria in Brighton.  So yesterday morning we swapped our regular casual morning attire for something a little more appropriate to the occasion - a black, roll-neck sweater with black trousers and a very dark green coat for her ladyship, grey trousers and a darkish check jacket for me with a lilac (very pale purple, a funereal colour) shirt and a black tie.  (Had it been a close friend or a relative I would have dug out the dark grey suit and a white shirt, but this was a neighbour so I felt something a little less formal would be in order.)  We set off in time to arrive at the crematorium about ten minutes before the ceremony was due to begin.  I did think it a little odd that the husband and other mourners were still at the house, one with a mug of coffee in his hand, but assumed they knew what they were doing.  My plan worked perfectly and we arrived almost on the dot of 11.35.  I parked right outside the chapels - there are two - in a blue badge space and went to see in which chapel the funeral service would be held.  The first chapel had no name outside and the second had a completely different name.  I double checked.  Nope.  Still the wrong name at one chapel and no name at the other.

I went in search of a member of staff and found a couple just walking away from the office back to their car.  On inquiring, I was informed that the other couple were looking for the same corpse as me and, like them, I was told that there was no 11.45 funeral and the name of the deceased was completely unknown to the crematorium staff.  The man I was talking to had phoned the other crematorium and been told that there was no funeral scheduled there for 11.45 either and they had no knowledge of the corpse I was looking for.  He rang them again just to make sure and was given the same answer. 

By now there were only about two or three minutes before the service was due to start so there was no time to drive back home and ask the neighbour what was going on.  I chatted some more to the helpful gentleman and told him I was a neighbour of the deceased, whereupon he asked where I lived.  That gave him a clue.  Most funerals from my area are handled by one firm and the gentleman rang them.  As I was a neighbour who had been, it was assumed, invited to attend the funeral, the undertakers confirmed that the service was to take place at the other crematorium at 12.15, not 11.45.  For some reason, the husband had asked for secrecy concerning the funeral arrangements.  But why he gave both my wife and me the wrong information I shall never know.

Oh yes, we did get to find the corpse.  In fact, as the two crematoria are next door to each other, we were about 25 minutes early for the service.

~~~~~

Off to France tomorrow morning to top up the wine cellar etc etc.  Even though the medication I will be starting this weekend doesn't like alcohol, the consultant assured me that a glass and a half of wine with my dinner will be of no account.  But I'm afraid the Scotch  I take very, very occasionally as a nightcap will be a thing of the past.  Anyway, I have left a few posts scheduled for while I am away - more stories of Les Lavandes.  Most of the events I describe did actually occur.  Do remember, though, that I have occasionally exaggerated or embroidered the facts - just a little.

~~~~~

Yesterday was the first sunny day since last Sunday and it was very pleasant walking in Withdean Park after breakfast in the early morning sun.  I will confess that I didn't take this picture yesterday but this is very much how it was.