at home again: digging and peppers

I know it's the weekend because Juan is in the garden, digging. This time it's around the pink rose that has flowered spectacularly over the east wall of the house every May. But in such a floppy, unfragant way, so unprunably high and for such a short period, that push has come to shove - and pull and removal:

The sun emerged for the short time it took Juan to spear the waste-water (?) pipe.
While we worked out what to do next rain and cloud closed in. Cooking now seemed a better option:

- (another) empanada mix plus pesto, oatcakes - all the favourites featured in earlier posts.

Saturday continued cold and wet night so we stayed home and watched Zeffirelli's star-studded Hamlet (1990) on DVD. What a hard time Mel Gibson gave his mum. And how disturbingly mad Helena Bonham-Carter was. The dumbed-down Spanish subtitles didn't do justice to the original (eg Hail! and Farewell became Hola! and Adios). I had a good evening. But afterwards, the relentless emotional intensity and violent ending contributed to a near-sleepless night. That and my busy mind whirling with domestic images (moving plants in the garden, decisions re bulbs, re-arranging the sitting-room furniture, planning the meals for Buff and Phil's visit, filling the dish-washer(!)...) kept me wide awake until 5am.

Sunday was a washout: wonky and dsyfunctional, me jetlagaged and Juan "not well". The cumulative wear and tear of two-country living or the re-emergence of a familiar existential crisis? Cheered by steak, and a plum clafoutis, he has just left for Yverdon, leaving in the dark for the first time.

39 + 14 = 53

Friday was a dream of a day: a yoga class followed by a shiatsu for Olivier, lunch (cooked by him), a bit of music together... and my local market. I chatted ad nauseum to Françoise on her dairy stand, both of us insouciant at holding up the next customer. I am une vraie française!

Juan then arrived home with a gorgeous bouquet:

... in honour of our 14th wedding anniversary. Midweek, on the 19th, it had passed with us almost forgeting, to our shame. My birthday followed 5 days later. So the whole weekend was a kind of late/early double celebration.

After our epic exertion last weekend we chose to stay home this time. On the Saturday morning we footled around, posing for a joint photo in sombre light:

As usual, summer has been a no-go time for gardening (impossible to contemplate planting in the heatwave). Now, with the garden refreshed by rain, our thoughts turned to a long-planned project, extending the flower bed by the veggie patch:

... a sweaty, exhausting job involving removing ridiculous volumes of stones. In the afternoon I was cream-crackered (by my crazy war against horrid, invasive chien dent weed) and basked in the idyllic late afternoon sun:

Creating the new bed starting us thinking about the overall garden design, and possible repositioning of the rockery. Reading up on rockeries in an ancient Reader's Digest book I found these gems of information: "no attempt should be made to copy an actual mountain in a garden" (thank you, I was seriously thinking of replicating one of our local 3000m peaks close by the house) and "on a 5m x 3m site 1.5 to 2 tons of rock should be sufficient". Hmm... 2 tons... that's gonna be quite a few trips to our local stream with the wheelbarrow.

A plant fair at Uriage gave us a timely excuse to acquire several plants, mostly aridity-tolerant, the experience of this summer a lesson on the subject. Juan was excited to find Sternbergia lutea (aka autumn-flowering crocus) bulbs. I hope he won't be disaapointed - bulbs are very hit and miss chez nous.

On the Saturday evening we tried out a local restaurant, Le Manoir, and had a pleasant meal. But - modesty apart - the chocolate cake I cooked for birthday dessert on Sunday (using 2 large bars of 70% cocoa-solids chocolate) was better than either of our restaurant puddings.

On the 24th, my birthday, I was blasted from sleep at 5am by cracking thunder as a massive storm hit Vaulnaveys. It was a day of worthy domestic chores: I got to the bottom of the ironing pile while listening to Rupert Everett on Radio 4 recounting his miss-spent high-celeb days; then attacked the hem of the curtains destined for Juan's flat.

At tea-time I celebrated with Katrina and Joseph, Sunday's cake given a facelift with edible flowers and frog-green icing kindly sent by mum. Joseph was beyond doubt the man for the job:

In the evening I was with the aikido club, mum's "Happy Birthday" candles ablaze above a huge empanada/coca that everyone insisted in refering to as pizza.

A good day.

Rentrée, autumn Ecrins, hammam

It's the annual gear shift as everyone returns from holidaying on the south or Atlantic coasts, school starts and every village has its forum des associations to launch the programme of sports and other activities. Serge asked the aikido club (all four of us) to support him at Vaulnaveys-le-Bas. The event was a qualified success as far as we were concerned: when the occasional punter approached the stand we shot ourselves in the foot by Véronique describing our style of aikido as a travail personnel (heavy, man) and Isabelle talking about the pedigree of Sumikiri (which no one has heard of). I berated them, explaining what an elevator pitch is and suggesting that we marketed the class as massages, bières et détente (this is how we end each class). Intriguingly, the three people who called by in the 2 hours we were there, each thought the class would be good for their spouse! (which is of course true)

For the last 2 weeks the weather has been perfectly temperate: lashings of rain (a relief after the drought but 3 days was quite enough) early in the month followed by cooler temperatures and the sunny, pleasantly warm days that precede the displays of colour we'll see in weeks to come. When Katrina's parents came to stay, and she had the unaccustomed luxury of live-in childcare, we seized the opportunity and indulged in a girl's morning at the downtown hammam. On a Monday morning the place was deserted and we had the steam rooms to ourselves to enjoy long chats as we sweated and scrubbed.

Another social highlight was a girls night out at Vaulnaveys-le-Bas. Again thanks to Kat's parents kindly babysitting, Katrina, Honor and I ate a delicious meal, each cooking a course. Around the kitchen table we put the world to rights, chewing the cud until midnight - all, I think, a little nostalgic for a time when this kind of socialising happened a little more often.

September is an ideal time of year for walks. A couple of weeks ago Juan and I headed for Molines en Champsaur, in the southern Ecrins, long on my hitlist of places to (re)explore. I feel real embarrassment when I write that I was there in 1981, after the work camp that I did in Grenoble that summer, and then in 1984 with the family - and that on that second occasion I didn't recognise that I was in the same village. I cannot explain my lack of awareness. And it has only been as a result of perusing old photos (I knew I had been somewhere in that area), and seeing the identical skyline in photos of landscapes from both years, that the penny dropped just recently.

As soon as we walked into the village I recognised the house in the photo. Here it is in 1981:

and in 2012:

In a nearby building was a display of "then and now". We read about the last permanent inhabitant of the village, who died in 1987. And of course, when I looked at my photo, I saw it was the man who appeared on the steps of the house in 1981. Did I realise, at the time, his significance? I have no memory of it.

The following weekend Juan and I went to Prentiq valley (near Ubac, in the Valgaudémar), where I'd walked with dad in August. Agreeing that there was no compulsion to complete the full circuit, we started to walk up the valley.

As the potential destination - Sebeyras and Pétarel lakes - grew closer our (or was it just mine?) motivation to get there heightened. So we continued, Juan finding the last 300m to Prétarel col a challenge more than he needed.

It was here that we realised (by dint of the accumulated effort, nothing whatsoever to do with me being an incompetent map reader!) that we'd climbed a total of around 1500m. This is how Juan felt at this point:

But it was worth it, to see the views of the lakes and Pic Olan:

and to know that we are still capable of doing the occasional mega walk.

Descending to the village of Andrieux, on the main valley road, we were lucky to get a ride back to the car almost immediately - which was just as well as we wouldn't otherwise have been in time for the meal booked at the Ban de l'Ours hotel. From there we drove to the campsite at La Chapelle, pitching the tent in the dark.

The next morning we had breakfast in 6 degrees, wearing full winter gear:

An hour later summer returned and we were in shorts and t-shirts in 24 degrees.
Such is the diurnal range at this time of year.

Juan was in dodgy physical shape (every muscle complaining) so we had a relaxed day exploring the hanging valley that leads to the abandoned (1935) village of Navette south of La Chapelle. Its chapel was recently restored, in line with the wishes of the descendents living in less challengingly inaccessible villages close by.

Today I have the luxury of Juan here on a Monday (it's a public holiday in Switzerland). We have done a successful IKEA run to make Juan's Yverdon pad a bit cosier. Just like old times.

Happy Birthday Mum! and cloudy Ecrins

Mum liked my birthday picture:

But should I be upset that she saw this as chard, orange, parsley and peas when it's obviously chard, tomato, green pepper and courgettes? I'd already given the clue, "vegetables", and orange is clearly not a vegetable. If I'd also said "smaller than you'd expect but that's how they come from our veggie patch right now" would I have scored four out of four instead of just one?

While mum marvelled at her daughter's talent, said daughter was stomping the Vallon de Lanchatra with Kelli and friend Scott, visiting from Boise, US (Olivier hospitalised by an allergic reaction to penecillin prescribed by his GP). It was a chance for Scott to get the flavour of the Ecrins - on a dour, cloudy day that would not normally have tempted me out. The semi-restored village was as quirkily charming as ever, especially when graced by a few rays of sun:

It was near this village in June that Juan and I saw Dracocephalum austriacum (included in redlist of protected species in France, Spain and Switzerland):

On this September day the cloud closed in and, just after lunch, we decided to head back.

Postscript: with Juan the previous day we floundered around in cloud between Roche Béranger and Lac Achard, the remains of Saturday's snow lingering on the Crête du Brouffier:

On the way home Juan and I stopped at Uriage park to catch a bit of "Uriage en Voix":

Not for the first time I'm happy to benefit from the entertainment budget of this wealthy neighbouring commune (whilst paying "poor relation" tax at Vaulnaveys-le-Bas).

rain at last

Anticipating being offered a little English teaching job at one of the Grenoble engineering schools, I asked my niece Poppy for some coaching regarding what was/wasn't interesting for her age-group. She advised me, "don't talk about traffic, difficulty parking or the weather unless it's really insanely bad... or do it as a monologue in such a way that no answer or further comment is possible". But, when it rains after 2 months of drought - and is so cold that snow is visible on Chamrousse, I can't resist. From one day to the next we have changed from keeping the outside doors shut so as to keep the house cool, to doing this to keep the house warm. I'm wearing wool underwear and thick jerseys - all just one week after it being too hot to sleep.

(In the event I didn't manage to convince either the university or me that standing up in front of a large group of not-hugely-motivated students was the job for me. To my relief I am not offered the position. But the issue of how to be more economically autonomous remains.)

The rain means plans to go camping have morphed into just hanging out chez nous. After getting up very late we call in on our local flea market to buy some scales because this is the issue:

I want to at least chart my descent into middle-age flab, whilst not promising to change course. I like food too much! Yesterday we had pasta pesto (our basil) and garden tomato salad for lunch, then local organic veal stew and pear and almond tart (maison) for supper.

In the afternoon I pick up my paint brush to capture the only two flowers (rudbeckia and japonese anemone) to have survived the drought:

Later we watch "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990), a glorious film which earns Dépardieu a place in the annals of cinema, even if some of his more recent efforts are insufferably crass. The surprise for us both was quite how difficult we find the French. Even with (French) subtitles much of the dense vocabulary in the five-beat lines eludes us. But the emotional punch of Cyrano's final speech, after revealing to Roxane - too late - that he is the man she has loved all along, is the same each time I see the film:
Quelque chose que sans un pli, sans une tache,
J'emporte malgré vous,
et c'est...
Mon panache.