Category: France

We’re working on spring, here.

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It’s March. March is always up and down, in terms of weather. Warm, cold, rain, wind, sun, something else, as long as it’s different. But this year we have had a warm winter, so it looks like genuine spring could pop out at any time.

This time of year I usually post a photo of daffodils. They’re doing fine, as are the crocuses and snowdrops. but the new interesting things are the magnolia stellata trees that I planted last spring. See above. They are out there flowering like crazy. No leaves have popped out, there or anywhere I planted something deciduous. The ground cover hasn’t yet filled in. So they are out there doing their best to give me hope for the future of my otherwise drab garden. For this I am most grateful.

I found them in a Dorling Kindersley book, “What Plant Where.” So I put them on a list and headed off to Ripaud, my favorite garden center, where the guy in charge totally knows his stuff. He loves them and they were in stock so, why not. And they are great, so far much more rewarding than anything other new thing.

Apart from being pleased that something actually works, I’m planning a couple of next phases. I’ve been feeding birds. I like the birds, though I’m not yet sure how to square that with their insatiable appetite for my cherries. When it starts to pull together I’ll show you what I have in mind for a little bird sanctuary, a sheltered area not now used at all. It will have nests and a shallow fountain, insect hotels, whatever I can think of that will feed the little guys and generally make them happy.

Also my owl buffet, the wild area you may have seen behind my kitchen garden, is getting an upgrade. It will still be pretty wild, but I’m continuing my war with the more noxious weeds and adding easy/no care perennials that should attract butterflies and all. With any luck the birds will pig out on bugs and leave my fruit alone.

The two fountains I have planned will, I hope, save the owls. Last year, during the heat waves, I think a lot of them died. I’m only now starting to hear them again, and only once in a while.

Last year my chimneys were rebuilt, partly because crows had knocked out a few bricks and had this multi-layered nesting system going, like a crow apartment building. This year the crows came back. No apartments yet, but I do think there is a nest in at least one of the chimney pots. This means bird shit on the skylight just above my bed but on balance, I like having them there. And at night when the stars are out, I can look around the poo. The stars are still there.

Last year my cherries were invaded by worms. It was nasty. This year I’ll spray. I got a few organic things — bacillus thuringensis, neem oil, that kind of thing — that I hope will kill the little buggers. I have a promise of fruit out there — apples, pears, almonds, maybe a couple of other things. This year I’d like to share less, keep more for myself.

The same is true of the kitchen garden, where I plan to plant peas with everything, to fix nitrogen in the soil. After a few years of layers of cardboard, compost, imported soil and all, we have possibly buried the rocks that are everywhere out there. The rocks will still find their way to the surface, but I hope they won’t give us too much trouble. Plus, don’t hate me, I’m going to go off the organic piste a bit, just in the kitchen garden. I got some Miracle Gro. With that and the seaweed fertilizer that should be delivered tomorrow, I’m hoping for a bumper crop. Last year’s San Marzanos are simmering on my stove right now. They smell terrific. I want more as do, I’m sure, Julien and his family.

That’s my story. I’ll update you and even include a photo or two of Jacques when things leaf out.

No Resolutions

Posted in France, Garden12 Comments

2022 has been quite a year. There are a few things and demagogues that I wish would die along with it — one look at the headlines will tell you what and who I mean — but that’s not likely to happen and it’s out of my control anyway. So let’s look at something I can control, sort of, maybe: my garden. Gaze upon it, in all its muddy glory.

During the past year I have been making friends with people who are actually knowledgeable about gardens. The last time John Hoyland came over the trees were not in and the roses, pruned for years by an annoyed Julien armed with a hedge trimmer, were held up by huge boards. I promised myself I wouldn’t let John, who I could swear was working hard to Not Say Anything, see the place like that again.

And he won’t. The boards are down and, with the best training Youtube videos can provide, I have been pruning and thinning like crazy. The trees planted last spring survived, with only a mildly scary spike in the water bill, and look set to leaf out in spring. The maples are in, four to each section nearer the house. I think they will provide shade starting this, their first, year. The ground cover, candytuft, is almost completely in. It looks pretty happy so far. Still no decomposed granite for the walkways, but Kieron is looking into it.

This is what I started with. Later, during construction, the green disappeared.

So now I’m worried about the birds, not that there are many of them right now. Maybe the feeder and fat dispensers are well placed. Probably not. Suggestions?

Now prepare to dive into your favorite tipple, with friends or a trashy novel, and get ready for what promises to be another strange year.

Home for Christmas

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Well. The plan was to spend Christmas with Jean-Yves’ brother and his family, as has become a most pleasant habit. But no. After everyone has asked about my Christmas plans and been assured that they were in place and happily anticipated, SNCF canceled my train. Was every other train long since fully booked? Yes, of course. Are we all supposed to suck it up, claim solidarity with the poor, embattled workers who might soon have to retire at the same age as everyone else? Of course, though I wish they would ask how much solidarity the retire-at-50 crowd feel for the rest of us.

That said, there are worse places to pass Christmas or any day. Jacques doesn’t believe in Santa, so we’ll sleep late and catch up on a few things. I hope your day will pass as calmly as I expect mine will.

And I hope you like the music. I have heard a lot of Charpentier this year and hope to hear a lot more in the future. I hope you like the video above, which I hope will be shown without ads. It’s pretty long, so save it for when you have some time.

All the best for the new year.

Mme. Noel

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This is what happens on rainy days. You go through the archives.

I’m at the point in my settling-in process that the easy decisions regarding what might go where have been made. I’m down to the boxes of unsorted stuff, the ones I just have to go through.

It’s a cold rainy day, the first in a long time, so I opened one of those boxes. it’s not the Staffordshire Hoard, not close, but still, what a find. These photos, letters, menus and announcements are Mme. Noel’s memory palace.

I need to tell you about Mme. Noel. She was presented to me — in stories, as she died decades before I met Jean-Yves — as a rather sad figure. That may be her in the photo above, though I have not seen another of her that is so flattering. But the consensus is that her husband is the guy in the other photo, so we’ll go with that. And indeed, Jean-Yves’ assessment, of a life gone awry, seems to be about right.

The early photos are of huge family gatherings: grandparents, parents, cousins, children, dogs and cats. They are gathered at the family chateau, which I have seen. It is perched atop a hill, still with its property surrounded by high walls. Mme. Noel saved studio portraits of relatives, one of which was dated 1885, so I guess a print made from a glass plate. She saved photos of christenings, communions, weddings — many weddings. She saved menu cards from those events, meals with five courses and five dishes — did you get them all? — at each course.

There were so many family celebrations. Mme. Noel’s first communion is in there. It was a big deal back then, something like a bat mitzvah, with entertainment and all. Her parents hired a magician; along with the lunch menu is a list of the tricks he performs. Notice the date: the end of May, 1914. They had to have seen that war was coming. I wonder whether her father held this extraordinary event because he knew it would be the last one for a while.

WWI is represented by photos of many, many men in uniform. One unit is shown with its tank. Then there is a shot of a few men in a hospital ward. The family photos from this time are of much smaller groups of people.

WWII has fewer photos, but many love letters between her and M. Noel. France didn’t fight, of course, so I have no idea where he was stationed or why. I suppose I could read the letters to find out.

The unfortunate business of war aside, she lived her life surrounded by a large, loving family — if the letters are to be believed — with money, a beautiful house and beautiful clothes. Then she got married.

I think she regretted it almost immediately. Jean-Yves told me her father was furious. I think he ran a bank and M. Noel was one of his clerks. but the deed was done. She was cut off from her family. She never had children of her own. The photos and letters stop. She lived on a bank clerk’s income until her father died. Then, I don’t know. Did men still control their wives’ money back in the 1950s? One way or another, over her and her mother’s objections, the chateau was sold. The money was used to buy a rather sad apartment building down the street from Pere Lachaise cemetery. Mme. Noel moved into a one-bedroom, third-floor walkup. She stayed there for the rest of her life.

Now I have her photos and I have no idea what to do with them.

Autumn Here

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I’m recovering from a nasty cold I picked up in Paris. I am so over city living. I know my happy life here depends in large part on the efforts of city dwellers and to them I am grateful but still, it is no longer for me.

Anyway, as I say, I am feeling better. Jacques, noticing stirrings of life from me, just the faintest signs, decided it was time to try a doggie kiss of life. His preferred method is to walk on my tummy and chest, so there’s a bit of shiatsu thrown in, then stand there for a while, staring intently, maybe to check if I’m still breathing. Then he plops, as hard as a little dog can, and starts licking my face. The nose and eye lick will get me moving every time. Maybe that’s why he does it.

The weather has changed since I last paid attention. I spent much of my summer saving my newly planted Japanese maples from full sun during a heat wave. Trees are planted that will, one day, give them dappled shade, but not yet. Now we have 100% humidity but no rain. It sounds like I’m living in an aquarium but no. It is seriously overcast and seriously damp. They love it, as do I and, I think, most everything out there. The photo above is of the sumac I’ve been trying to eradicate. Days like this make me rethink the plan.

My expectations are still set by coastal California weather. All this dampness is welcome, but not at all what I’m used to. I’m finding every kind of thing going on out there. The tomatoes are putting out the last of their summer produce. They look a bit desperate, as if they know it’s just about their last chance. The squashes are coming into their own, even as their vines are shrinking snd their leaves are rotting. so, ripening, rotting and recovering from a brutal summer, all at once. it’s a fascinating time of year.

Birthday Countdown

Posted in France, Garden, VendeeTagged , , , 8 Comments

I’ll be turning 70 very, very soon. It’s the weirdest thing. I feel okay, no particular aches or health troubles. At 60 I thought yeah, just wait. I’m grateful to be able to tell you I’m still waiting. May it long continue.

So, long time no blog. Summer was a scorcher, lots of sneaking around with watering cans to help my newly planted trees survive the blistering heat. We had water restrictions, but the farmers watered so I did too, but carefully. Most things survived and now it’s raining, so I think they’ll be okay.

I think my owls died. After the heat waves, I didn’t hear them any more. I think a lot of animals died in this heat. When I watered, bees and lizards came out of nowhere. I let the birds have my grapes; they were likely among their few sources of liquid. I need to think about how to provide a constant water source for the birds. Next summer will likely be just as harsh. I should plan for it.

This summer, for the first time, I housed volunteers for the local music festival. Les Arts Florissants, baroque music in a beautiful garden, all quite elegant. But this year the foundation opened a new building, a glorified employee break area. My house guests, bless their partying souls, hung out there until well into the early morning. Obviously this new building was much needed. So I saw them at arrival, when I handed them a house key, and waved goodbye when they handed it back. My kind of house guests.

There was one exception, a late arrival, Montse Faura. She is the artistic director of a festival in Catalonia, so a bit older than my party boys and besides, she partied with William Christie. Unlike the guys, she got some sleep. Montse is adorable, my new best friend, probably everybody’s new best friend, a valuable skill if you spend a lot of time fundraising. She turned me on to the summer festivals down her way, in Catalonia. They are numerous and look amazing. Jordi Savall does one; I want to go. Here is a video about Montse’s company.

I bet you’re wondering what is in the jar. Well. A different friend, let’s call her Danica, that being her name, gets through her exhausting days on CBD. My days are not exhausting but so what, I’ve become a fan, too, thanks to her. The trouble is, that stuff is expensive. It shouldn’t be. Hemp is a weed, after all. But, supply and demand…. I decided there has to be a cheaper way.

So I got some CBD bud online and this guy, which cooks it all up, then infuses it. What you see is my first batch. Given the price of those tiny bottles of CBD oil, I figure my initial batch is worth about half what I paid for my new toy plus the basic ingredient. I think I’ll add some to my next vinaigrette.

You can take the girl out of California…..

Fasten your seats belts…..

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Well, guys, there is work to be done. I’m afraid none of us will be enjoying it and it will certainly take longer than a bumpy night.

Any of you who have your own blog know that WordPress has gotten weird. Prices are up, service is down. I could stop blogging, but that would be no fun.

So I’m going to move everything from my current WordPress hosting to Go Daddy. The price is about the same, and all the services will be under one roof. Plus I can reach Go Daddy on the phone. At WordPress you send an email, then wait a day or so for an answer. I have been trying to resolve the issue that had my site offline until now. Waiting for the WordPress response, along with the price and service changes, convinced me that it was time to go.

That’s the news. Please be patient. Once it’s done, I’ll let you know how it went.

It makes me miss books.

Vacation While You Can

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So many things to say. If you use a period-tracking app and you live in the wrong state, you might want to delete it. It could be used in evidence against you. And if you are in that demographic, maybe get a VPN. Plan C is fine, if no one can trace it to you. When my grandmother went for her abortion — it would be a full century ago, or near enough — she was raped by her doctor and of course didn’t dare report him. We’re headed right back there again, folks, and doesn’t a story like that make pills sound good. If you have kids with birth certificates and you think they too have a right to life, maybe get them them a kevlar vest — in school colors, why not. If you live in a state with coal-fired power plants, you might want to move; it’s about to get pretty smoky in your neighborhood. And if you can vote in the States, do so. It really is a big deal.

Let’s talk about something else. Jacques loves his new toy. It is less fun to watch him, now that he has figured out how to grasp his shark by the tail but it still squeaks and bounces in a satisfactorily erratic manner.

My new trees are doing well. We have had a long period of slow, soaking rain, for which they and I are grateful. I am already harvesting produce from my garden. And unlike Mitch McConnell, the olla is your friend. An olla is this terra cotta pot that you bury in the ground near the roots of, say, your tomato plants. From time to time you fill it up. The water oozes out into your plant roots. And hey presto, your olla-watered plants will be half again as big and bushy as your drip-watered plants. I think it uses no more water, as I refill it only when I am running the drip system. I’m a convert. I’m hoping for a big sale at the end of the season.

The season itself promises to be busy. I’m headed to a knitting retreat, of all things. The news being what it is, I can use the calming effects of a week of knitting. It will save me from overindulging in the CBD gummies. I’m looking forward to a parade of visiting friends and am making friends with people who actually live here. Kieron says he might just maybe finish my summer kitchen. I have been invited to give a presentation at an exhibition opening in August; more about that later. Maybe life isn’t so good right now but for the next few months, it’s going to seem just fine.

Resurrection of the Wild Wood

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Block details:

Over in that far left corner, the faithful will recall that there was a tangle of bay laurels, brambles, diseased boxwood and who knows what all. The birds loved it. i did not. I was also fully fed up with muddy shoes and with picking brambles from Jacques’ hair. So I had the guys get rid of everything but the hazelnut trees — big bushes, really, given the way they had been pruned — and we started over.

The place is loaded with rocks, so they used some to build the walls you see. All the stonework was done with material found on site. We ripped out much of the awful weedy, rocky topsoil and replaced it with better stuff. We graveled the drive snd parking areas. Decomposed granite for the paths is almost unheard of here; I’m hoping that a guy who will be here in a couple of days can score some for me. He’s William Christie’s source. That’s how you know we’re getting old. We get excited about dirt. Our doctors make us take drugs.

It’s summer and construction ran late, too late to plant in the green-plastic-sheeted areas. I kept the hazelnuts. i have a few new trees, mostly Japanese maples, in the original Wild Wood area. I’ll put a few more in the far right quadrant. Then I’ll have to water everything like mad, as we’re headed into a heat wave.

Come autumn, I’ll go nuts with the ground cover. I’ll lift the plastic sheeting and plant more trees, probably regular maples. I’m looking at a variety called Autumn Blaze. They will grow high enough to shade my south-facing house, while the Japanese maples will stay somewhat shorter.

Notice something different with the barn on the right? I was so happy with the results of my chipping away at the worn-out crepi that I had the guys use the scaffolding they put up anyway, to fix the rain gutters, to finish the job. Then they slathered everything with new crepi, which they then knocked back a bit, to expose the stone. One day the money will appear to do the barn on the left, too, if I don’t just cover the walls with Boston Ivy.

This has been brutal for the birds. All the chipping and sandblasting drove the owls away. They are just now starting to come back and I think they are using at least a couple of the nesting boxes. I left a little sliver of the old Wild Wood, so the other birds are not entirely gone. It looks like they might be auditioning the new planting., now that things are settling down again. In autumn, when we pull up the plastic and put in the trees — it used to be just scruffy, gravelly dirt and weeds — the Wild Wood will be pretty tame, but it will be much bigger. The ground cover will be varied and, I hope, weed-free. They’ll be better off, but it’s going to take a while.

Jacques will miss the plastic. That looks like carpet to him. He can hang out there, nice and comfy, and watch the street traffic. And the burrs are already on their way out.

I’ll post about this again in October, when the new trees are in. The changes have completely changed the way the house looks. At first I thought it was a bit much, but once things have grown in, I think it will be fine.

They never stop talking

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I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a bad day. A dear friend is ill. His daughter — let’s call her qvnr, for Queen Victoria Meets Nurse Ratched — has declared that if he sees me — any woman, but in practice that basically means me — without chaperone, he will never see his grandchildren again. The man is dying. He is frightened and alone. Teenagers have lives, so he doesn’t see them much anyway. And the rest of the time? SOL, Pops. You can sit there in solitary and think about your impending doom.

Well. As part of his farewell tour, he organized a day of presentations and asked me to talk. As I listened and waited for my turn, I couldn’t help but wonder whether French people, at least the ones I seem to have fallen in with, ever stop talking. A key presenter arrived late and spent a good ten minutes explaining why. Then he explained again. Then we all started again, with Mr. Late frequently interrupting. And this seemed to be expected. Absolutely no-one seemed surprised or annoyed. Finally, my turn, but my introduction was so complete that it may have taken longer than my presentation, especially as it included about half of what I planned to say.

Of all things, at lunch a woman leaned toward me and said, “That was fascinating. Could you speak at an event in July?” Of course I said yes. Why not? When in rural France….

I couldn’t help but think of Christmas dinner, when they went around the table and asked, basically, what have you accomplished recently and what is coming up for the next year? And we were expected to have major life events to recount. One guy received a national award for his work in physics. Another was graduating from one of the more prestigious French universities. It went on like that. If I had declared that I had just winter-pruned my roses, it would have brought down the tone of the whole event. So I told them about a paper I had agreed to write. By next Christmas I’d better have made substantial progress on the thing, too.

It looks like people are expected to make public presentations and that they are expected to be involved in public life. I’m amazed at the number of people I meet who are adjunct mayors, or real mayors. The painter that invited me to speak also has gallery showings at her house. At the last one, the mayor came, not for social reasons; it was part of his job. It was a public event and a medium-sized deal. Jean-Yves was head of a Europe-wide professional association. In the States that’s a somewhat unusual thing. Here, no, folks just do it. And when the presentations are done, everyone goes for lunch/drinks/dinner and they talk some more.

So here I am, several years into my blog, writing at length about people who never stop talking. Maybe I’m going native. Really, all I want to do is shut out the noise and wrap my arms around my wonderful friend. I want him to know that although he is going where we can’t reach him, until then, he won’t be alone.

Do What You Can

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If you are a right-thinking blog follower, you may have tried to access my refugee support page. It’s there, but the link is broken. No idea why.

The Ukrainiens have not yet reached Paris, so those links, which are to Paris-based groups, are not all that useful anyway. But the two million and counting, including over a hundred thousand unaccompanied minors, are going to go somewhere. The way things are shaping up, many will stay. During the months — years, if we’re talking about the kids — that they will need to sort out their lives, they’re going to need some help. As will the Afghans, etc. It’s a scary time, a dangerous world right now.

Everybody is saying give money and be sure to research your charity. Good advice, nothing I can add to that. But if you knit, consider the “Knitters for Ukraine” fund, which gives its money to the Red Cross. It was started by the Finnish magazine Laine, so it’s squeaky clean. Or even if you don’t knit, if you just like the anarchic weirdness of a bunch of folks banding together to knit Putin back to the Stone Age, go for it.

In fact in general, let’s face it, for the rest of our lives we will be dealing with refugees or worse, be refugees. To avoid compassion fatigue, we’re going to have to get creative about how we help. My thought is to choose one thing you already do or identify with — one action, one charity — and make doing it or donating to it a part of your life, now. Just normalize it.

It’s Getting Expensive, Here

Posted in France, rant, VendeeTagged , 23 Comments

Look what landed in my mailbox, yesterday. A guy in a fancy car personally dropped off this thick volume of real estate listings. A look at the enclosed card told me he drove from Nantes, a good hour away, to make the drop.

Your first thought is likely, what was the stylist thinking with that possibly naugahyde, definitely way-too-diamond-tuck sofa? Neither nauga nor Chesterfield should ever be put through that, then slammed against those tasteful gray-green walls and actual trees, just to emphasize the point that sickly chartreuse does not make it.

But the real question is, why did a high-end realtor drive so far? the answer, of course, is that if he sells one house down here, the drive will be worth it.

I bought here because the location and weather were decent and the price was rock-bottom. At the time, even after I had signed all the papers, the realtor mentioned that prices here were low, even compared to adjacent areas, and were sure to go up. Yeah right, I thought, I signed the papers. You can stop now.

But yeah, he was right. Prices were stable, then rose slowly. Then Paris became unaffordable with Bordeaux and Lyon not far behind. Ordinary mortals moved to close-in suburbs. That pushed up prices farther out. Then covid hit and finally, finally, the French caved in and allowed telecommuting. Prices are now going up all over the place. All these little villages with communal land are chopping it up and selling it in tiny parcels as fast as they can — and these days it’s pretty fast.

Mr. Realtor is hoping for my house because I fixed it up. Even at today’s prices I’d probably just break even. So no, it’s not for sale. And honestly, I think being able to sell without taking a loss is good for me, but on the whole, not so good.

I bought into an agricultural area. In the several years that I have been here I have seen the housing subdivisions grow along with the junky roadside businesses. The gravel easement outside my wall just became a sidewalk, a fancy one, with exposed aggregate, and it is well-traveled. I now live in a suburb.

The villages will soon run out of communal land to subdivide. That will put pressure on politicians to change zoning laws, to allow farmers to subdivide and sell their farms. All that talk about buying locally-grown produce, fields being good for the environment? That talk will go away. Folks will rail against Bolsonaro burning down the Amazon rain forest and never link his actions to their own habit of building over rich agricultural land. And the economic hazards of depending on outsiders to grow our food, the way we now depend on Russia for gas and China for nearly everything else? They will not come up for discussion.

The terrain is flat here, thus easy to develop. Easy money. Climate change projections show the sea level rising to almost across the street from me, but that’s a couple decades down the road. No developer plans to stay here that long.

Wind turbines are our only hope. At least I think so, as they need open land to work. Buildings screw up the wind patterns. Say what you like about the turbines being too heavily subsidized; I’ll probably agree with you. But the wind developers will fight against the land developers and they have the money to do so effectively.

This is a bit of an anxiety rant, I know, but I think there is good reason to be anxious.

That’s enough. No photo of Jacques this time, but he left me this, which I will now share with you.

And here are my Valentine’s Day roses, a few of them, which I am spreading all over the house, definitely not sharing. Thank you to the lovely man who sent them.