In The Company of Strangers

I'm trying hard with my French - on some levels. OK I don't attend Conversation Classes and I don' t have a teacher, but I really do try to embark on some form of conversation when I am in a position to do so. As I have mentioned before, my physio team have been wonderful and make every effort to follow my convoluted explanations regarding gardening, children in Australia, holiday plans and pains in my shoulders, and my husband is endlessly patient, forever rescuing me from bits of chatter that threaten to disappear up dark alleyways with no apparent way out.

But today I was absolutely spoiled rotten and didn' t have to spend a moment battling with my tenses, deciding whether something was masculine or feminine or trying to keep some sort of conversational order. Having recently become a member of the American Women's Group of the Languedoc Roussillon (AWGLR) I joined them for a very pleasant couple of hours this afternoon, during which time there was a report on the recent visit to the annual conference of the umbrella organisation of the Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas FAWCO. Recently returned from Vilnius, the representatives who had attended the conference filled us in on all sorts of interesting developments.

Something that really stuck with me was the story about a club member in Italy who had major problems visiting her sick child in hospital. Without someone being with the child, it would be left to its own devices to eat, and since the child was too ill to make any effort to feed itself, the situation could have deteriorated quickly. It was the support system of the local branch of FAWCO that ensured that there was always someone with the child and this safety net must have been a godsend to the worried parent.

I quickly realised that this pattern of support and caring was being replicated in many countries where women found themselves in strange lands, struggling with a new shops and schools, coping with new customs and longing to hear their own language.

There is something remarkably strong about a gathering of women. Growing up with two brothers and spending most of my adult years in Africa in a largely male orientated society, I have often shunned the company of large groups of women, but listening to these intelligent, warm, hardworking women who have travelled widely and managed families in foreign countries while husbands accepted postings in strange corners of the globe, it made me realise what a force we are to be reckoned with.

As I write this, the English Women's cricket team are on TV celebrating their recent win of the World Series. It just shows that there are no boundaries, no limitations, and no end to the strength, warmth and support that can be found amongst a group of women, given the chance to get the kids off to school, the menfolk out to work and the menus for the next week decided upon.

Walking Up An Appetite

Setting off from the Chapel of Notre Dame


Leila the dog did about three times the distance that we did



The massive blocks awaiting the cutting saws

Our reward at the end of an excellent walk

We did it. We walked our 12 kilometres in company with some friendly cheerful people who had gathered from the surrounding villages, and by the end of the day, (and after a good snooze this afternoon) we can now stand up without clutching at our hips and hanging onto the furniture.

To be honest, it was a lot less arduous than we had anticipated, and in many respects, it was a bit like being part of a very pleasant moving cocktail party. As the winding paths through the garrigue narrowed, I would find that a conversation about the research science behind vetinary medicine had suddenly turned into a horticultural discussion about the surrounding vegetation. Although most of the party was French speaking, those that did speak English were generous and included me, and after a while, I found that the combination of laughter, exercise and sunshine combined to create a sort of lingua franca.

The route wound around the collosal quarries that encircle Beaulieu, and it was frustrating to see the most perfect chunks of rock just lying about, apparently for the taking. But despite Jean carrying a fairly capacious backpack, I just couldn't get him to load a couple of neatly cut cubes with which we could build a stone bench next to the water garden.

We were led by an energetic gentleman who carried a GPS system and despite one or two small detours and a few mild rumbles from the rear of the party, he sheperded his flock safely back to our starting point. The sheer bliss of sinking into the comfort of a car seat can never be underestimated, but the best was still to come.

"Bring along something for a picnic lunch" had been the directive and I had produced some barbequed chicken pieces and a rather tasty seafood taboule but this was boring by comparison with the variety of dishes that appeared on the table at the home of one of the walkers. The gentleman with the GPS changed roles and became barman, and within moments, everyone was provided with drinks ranging from sweet Muscat, Pastis, Martini and wine. We had all walked up an appetite and we feasted on such remarkable treats as pear and goat cheese flan, boulot cheese from the north of France, home made pizza and a positive smorgasboard of delicacies.

No bendy sandwiches and warm fizzy drinks while sheltering from the inclement weather that accompanies English rambling clubs. Sunshine, laughter, delicious food and excellent wine was the order of the day.

Was it worth having knees that feel like an elderly racehorse and hips that are going to give me grief tomorrow - absolutely. Will we go again - you bet, but it might not be the four star, twenty kilometer hike up the Cevennes Mountains - I think we'll leave that to the gentleman with the GPS.

Till Burnham Wood Shall Come to Dunsinane

Jean taking a well earned rest from plumbing after his idiot wife put a pickaxe through a waterline - apologies to our British neighbours who must have heard a bit of unexpected Anglo Saxon coming over the hedge!

Two days ago, I spent ages sieving heaps of topsoil and mixing it with heaps of sieved compost into which had been lovingly mixed the correct amount of grass seed. Looking like something biblical, I marched up and down the back garden broadcasting the mixture and then spent another half an hour dutifully watering it in. Now all I had to do was to stand back and watch the grass grow.

Forget it! Today I happened to take a close look at the row of nasturtium seeds that I had planted a week or two back along the front edge of the new lawn, and low and behold, all I could see were tidy mounds of grass seed where my new nasturtiums should have been starting to show. Not only were there tidy mounds of seed, but they were being added to by a positive army of ants, each one carting yet another seed on his tiny back. Piece by tiny piece, this well trained battalion were moving my carefully spread seed clear across the expanse of freshly smoothed ground and delivering it to a hole, into which it was fast disappearing.

'Bring the packet" I yelled to my trusty compatriot, and Jean dropped his power drill, put down his coil of wire, stuffed his pliers into his back pocket and raced for the poison shelf in the garage. This was no time for worrying about the environment and caring for little creatures. Sorry - "you pincha my seed, I blowa your head off". We didn't spend five years in Miami without getting street wise!

Just in case my sweet peas felt like poking their heads above the rather chilly surface of the soil, I have installed a row of gleaming wiggly poles for them to twine up. We have installed some more for our newly planted jasmine to twine along, and the birthday strawberry plants have been put into the wildflower bank (which at this financially worrying time, seemed like the safest place to put them).

Tonight we are resting up. A friend suggested that I spend the evening soaking my feet in a salt solution. Why? You might well ask. Tomorrow we are embarking on a 12 km walk with the hiking club from Saussines. Up until now, our experience of distance walking has been a regular 3 mile march around the Country Club Drive walking track in Florida. I have the feeling that tomorrow we are going to see significantly fewer designer shorts, poodles on luminous pink leashes and blondes on roller blades. If you hear nothing further from me, I am somewhere in a quarry in the Beaulieu district learning how to be a troglodyte.

Meantime, for any of my readers who are British and who qualify, a Very Happy Mothering Sunday. For the rest of my readers, you probably have to work out if, like me, you qualify or need to remember Australian, South African, American or French Mothers Day.

For any Irish readers, I hope you have plenty of aspirin handy. After that amazingly exciting Six Nations rugby win today, you deserve a rip-roaring party. Congratulations!

Natasha Richardson's Death

Kate on her horse Kismet in Lesotho 1974


I am feeling so sad over the death of Natasha Richardson as her early demise makes me stop and think how every day of our lives needs to be lived to the full. It also brings me face to face with my own mortality, and how fortunate I am to be able to do so much.


Many many years ago, I was galloping my stallion at full tilt while practising tent pegging on the gravel airstrip in Mohales Hoek in southern Lesotho. The next thing I knew, the security bar had unclipped and my stirrup leather shot out and I came crashing down like a fireman coming down a greased pole. My head snapped round, I bounced off my shoulder and landed up spread-eagled with all of my dignity gone. My horse, to give him his due, came to an immediate standstill and nuzzled me gently as if to reprimand me for my sudden disembarkation.


Willing hands flung down their assorted golf clubs (our little nine hole course ran around the perimeter of the airstrip which was also the cricket ground, the race course and the public grazing area) and I was taken home and laid tenderly on my bed. Apart from the appearance of a little Korean doctor who issued me with an envelope full of valium with instructions to take one whenever I felt like it, I was pretty much left to my own devices. A month later I was back in the saddle and thought that was the end of it.


However, to date I have undergone two laminectomies, one anterior fusion involving a chip from the end of my hip bone being put through the front of my neck to fuse the spine, two shoulder operations and endless dental work from shards of broken jaw pushing out perfectly good teeth.


But I am still digging water gardens, loading wheelbarrows, hauling rocks and seeding the lawn and I am able to swim, cycle, walk and dance. For this I am eternally grateful to the wonderful Professor Repko who was the finest neurosurgeon in South Africa, and to the fact that it clearly wasn't my time to die. It is for this reason that I am so moved by the death of Natasha. 45 years old and so much going for her, and her life has been snuffed out by such an innocuous accident. It makes me even more determined to make the most of every day that I have been given.

Our Farm Truck

You can take the farmer out of South Africa, but you can't stop us using the car like a farm truck!

We went back to L'Arc en Fleurs today - I think the owner is starting to get a glint in his eye when he sees us drive in. We left after a very happy half an hour, bearing a tray of new plants plus a lovely star jasmine which will wind its way up the washing line supports. We can't dig the poles out because they are set in the sort of quality concrete that would hold up a bunker, so instead, we are setting about disguising it. I also bought three little aromatic plants and I've put them in a pot next to the seating area so that we can touch, squeeze and smell them.



Two more loads of gravel have gone into the pool edges and there is hardly an inch of plastic left in sight. I now need to find some marginal plants but the nursery people say that we must wait for the deep water plants as apparently it is still a bit chilly for them. Taking a well earned rest in the hammock after lunch in the partial shade, you could have fooled me that the word chilly could even be used in a sentence, but we still close up the wooden shutters by 7pm and keep our jerseys handy.



Tomorrow I am embarking on a new project. The area of the garden that was once used for vegetables is being turned into partial lawn. I have to seive a load of soil and compost, mix in the grass seed and then set about scattering it about and watering it in. At least this shouldn't call for the use of either spade, pickaxe or hoe which means I can report for physio on Friday morning with a clear conscience. In fact I went along this morning, and the nice lady said that she didn't know which was impressing her more - the state of my shoulder or the state of my French!



I saw a pigeon taking a sneaky bath this morning, and if the weather continues to warm up, I can see him having some company!

From a hole in the ground to this

Not bad for five days work! Now I want to spend the national budget on plants, but instead I settled for lying in the hammock for half an hour, watching butterflies playing in the hyacinths, listening to some gorgeous music while the sun dappled through the laurel trees and soaking up the atmosphere of my own French garden. Just how much of this can I take!!

Going Back to the Nursery

I think I have discovered Plant Nirvana. Thanks to the American Women's Group, I made my first trip to L'Arc en Fleurs at St Christol, and despite a desperately windy day, I could see the amazing potential of this place.

We have returned twice since the first visit and have advanced to asking aquatic types of questions thanks to the progress of the water garden. Jerome Botell and Carole Pinay are helpful and generous with their extensive knowledge of planting in the local conditions, and the drive via St Genies de Morgues is like trundling through a little bit of English countryside.

If you are interested in planting up a large container or want to turn your large garden into a Mediterranean paradise, then this is the place for you.

But don't take my word for it - go on line and have a look for yourself.

http://www.pepiniere-arc-en-fleurs.com/default.htm