A Visitor Both Wanted and Unwanted

I have recently been testing and trying pretty much every potion and lotion available in the local pharmacy. Whatever nasty viral bug was doing the rounds, it homed in on me ten days ago, and buried itself in my lower right lung. In doing so, it reduced me to an exhausted deflated coughing chunk of misery - and that was on one of the better days.

But French Doctors don't give up easily and our GP has run through the entire gamut of antibiotics, steroids, pro-biotics, lung inhalers, cough syrup and pain killers, and I think I can honestly say that things are on the mend at last. Not having an appetite is no fun and being unable to even contemplate a glass of wine at 6pm is worrying. This too will pass I am sure and my friends who are also sick and who are muttering "Swine Flu" behind closed doors will understand that I had a viral infection and not a flu bug. I did tell someone the other day in an email that I wondered if I had Seine Flu - a Freudian slip maybe!

One thing about steroids is that you are up with the lark (and in fact I beat him out of bed by about an hour this morning). Sitting here quietly typing, I heard a large splash and saw the black tip of a tail disappearing out through the open side of the back garden. This explains the upturned water lily plants and the loss of water every morning. Some big daft dog is popping in for his morning ablutions which must be scaring the heck out of our soul surviving goldfish. The dog is welcome to a dip but I envision a claw going through the plastic liner any day now, so I guess the net had better go back on.

We purchased five new goldfish at the end of April and for five days they swam about and larked in and around the plants and rocks, and then the temperature dropped and they all vanished. Even one little survivor from last year (called Lazarus as he had once been baled out and chucked into the rockery by mistake) had joined the group and it was all very merry, but we seem to be back to just one lonely goldfish, so maybe that darn dog is an expert fisherman. We even had a couple of crested hoopoes turn up for a dip and they were a nice reminder of our Africa days.

The little blue tits are working their parental socks off this week. We keep the fat balls suspended under the mulberry tree and on occasions, there are no less than three frantic parents chipping away at them while their chicks urge them on from the nests just under the tiles on the roof. Once again this year, I failed to hear a cuckoo. There is a very clever wood dove nearby who I think runs an agency of "wanabe cuckoo callers" and every so often I would stop in my tracks and think I had heard the real deal, but they have obviously been driven out of the immediate surrounds by the increasing size of the village.

There is a possible move afoot but more of this anon. Suffice it to say that it would result in us hearing a good many more cuckoos next year and a lot fewer buzz bikes.

June 2010 - Bonjour - Salut - C'est moi!

You start off with a boring little corner like this



Then you get yourself one of these



And you give him one of these to encourage him



And this is the reward.


By the time "Quatorze Juillet" comes around we will have been in France for two years and so this year, we had advanced warning of the village fete and all that it entails. We have discovered that a great way to enjoy the fete is to leave the village and find somewhere peaceful and beautiful to relax until the madness of scared young bulls, crazy horsemen, hormone laden teenage boys, decibel levels of music that would make a vuvuzela sound like a childs penny whistle and the main road turning into a Le Mans 24 hour race for buzz bikes, finally fades from view and life returns to normal.

This year we had luck on our side when a good friend asked us to house and cat-sit for her over the long weekend, and firmly bolting the shutters and locking the gate, we drove half and hour north into the idyllic region of the Gard near Carnas. Peace and tranquillity were all around us, and for the next four days, I made inroads on a pile of books, caught up with a pile of good DVD's, groomed two cats that would have made a Persian look bald, and revelled in the view from the terrace.

Sadly, due to the onset of a vicious viral bronchial infection that is currently doing the rounds, I was laid low for our entire stay which put paid to all our plans of evening walks in the vineyards and exploration of the beauties that surrounded us. Never mind - the medication is finally winning the battle, and when I catch the fellow who was driving the bus which ran over me, I shall have him publicly horse-whipped.

June has been a strange month. "Cast ne're a clout till May be out" seemed like a very pessimistic view to take in the sunny south of France, but once again we had to dig out a couple of extra blankets for the bed and keep one or two jerseys on hand. But we were rewarded with a few splendid downpours which have done wonders for the garden which was beginning to look distinctly confused with this stop-start summer.

Our erstwhile meadow next door now sports two huge "nouvelle maisons avec piscine" and the birdsong is invariably drowned out by the sounds of the builders hurling abuse and tiles at each other. They are doing a terrific job I am sure, but we start to feel like the filling in a rather large sandwich, and with no boundary fence, the back garden is now open to the world.

In order to counteract this, we have drawn in our sphere of operations and have concentrated much of our gardening efforts in the courtyard where, to my delight, I have found that the plumbago which reminds me of South Africa, and the Sweet Peas which make me think of my mother's English garden, are flourishing out of the wind with their backs against a warm wall.

The lavender is now in full flower and the pomegranate tree in the front garden looks like a fabulous firework display and every time we get into the car, we are put into visual overload at the sight of Mother Nature letting her hair down, lifting her skirts and showing off. For so long, it seemed like a never-ending winter, but of course we had to take into account the fact that we had been in Australia and New Zealand last October, so the tail end of their winter had to be added on to the one that was getting going here on our return. But even the old boys in the village were muttering and saying that January snow that lay around for a week was totally unheard of, and then to have insult added to injury with another dollop in March was the absolute end.

From what I can make out, the garden seems to have quite enjoyed some proper hibernation, and my brave little winter pansies which waited patiently for me to come along each morning and carefully remove their snow hats are still flowering bravely amid the more riotous nasturtiums. The thermometer on the terrace seems set on an upward track and the sky is that deep clear blue that makes one realise why all the great painters headed down here at this time of year. Either that, or like us, they knew it was one of the best places on earth to live.