A new beginning, an old end and continuation

THREE YEARS: On 30th April 2010 I signed lots of papers to become a French property owner, losing a lottadosh on the sterling to euro exchange which was heartbreaking but it was done. Did it really matter? It was the start of exciting times, dashed a little later! It was the end of acute anxiety and the beginning of more, but worse, much worse! It was my body telling me that something was not well! At times I thought I was about to have a heart attack! Much has happened. I'm not sure what level of progress I wished to make but there was a theory it would take a summer!!! HOHOHO! What a romantic thought that was wearing rose-tinted spectacles! I've grown emotionally, learned a few lessons, yet still have much to grow fruitfully, before it is my solitary end. Not always sufficiently mindful, I lose my way, needing to stop and start again. Roses and Fire. There have been some wonderfully warm and rosy moments; stunning food, experiences, finding solutions to diy problems, achieving projects. Also many a flame destroyed as well as cleansed.  BUT all shall be well. HOPE is what may lead to bliss, when struggles have been an endurance.  I have been lucky and I am lucky to have two small to moderate pensions, a roof over my head, a very good friend and basic needs with no absolute natural or otherwise disasters, thanks be to God. I am surviving. Onwards to continue what has been started but with French stone house renovation there is never an end!  

Yesterday's poem is linked with how I feel. My son had to study Little Gidding for GCSE or A level!! I know I'm more mature because I can begin to understand some of it now, but as a parent nurturing one's offspring to study, it was beyond me without computer advice!

I'm trying to find photos of how the house was at the beginning. Soon!

Ends, Beginnings,Thoughtful Moments

For some reason I keep reading the 4th part of T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets
(MY brown highlights are thoughtful reflections about time, space, resolving difficulties, cold, warmth, living and the dead)

Little Gidding (where was a former 17th century monastery)

I  
Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?
              If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.
              If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.


II
Ash on and old man's sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house—
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
       This is the death of air.
There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
       This is the death of earth.
Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
       This is the death of water and fire.
In the uncertain hour before the morning
     Near the ending of interminable night
     At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
     Had passed below the horizon of his homing
     While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
     Between three districts whence the smoke arose
     I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
     Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
     And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
     The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
     I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
     Both one and many; in the brown baked features
     The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.
     So I assumed a double part, and cried
     And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?'
Although we were not. I was still the same,
     Knowing myself yet being someone other—
     And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed
To compel the recognition they preceded.
     And so, compliant to the common wind,
     Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,
In concord at this intersection time
     Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
     We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,
     Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
     I may not comprehend, may not remember.'
And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse
     My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
     These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
     By others, as I pray you to forgive
     Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
     For last year's words belong to last year's language
     And next year's words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
     To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
     Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
     In streets I never thought I should revisit
     When I left my body on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
     To purify the dialect of the tribe
     And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
     To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
     First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
     But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
     As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
     At human folly, and the laceration
     Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
     Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
     Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
     Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
     Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
     Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
     Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.'
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
     He left me, with a kind of valediction,
     And faded on the blowing of the horn.


III
There are three conditions which often look alike
Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:
Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment
From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference
Which resembles the others as death resembles life,
Being between two lives—unflowering, between
The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory:
For liberation—not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country
Begins as attachment to our own field of action
And comes to find that action of little importance
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
If I think, again, of this place,
And of people, not wholly commendable,
Of no immediate kin or kindness,
But of some peculiar genius,
All touched by a common genius,
United in the strife which divided them;
If I think of a king at nightfall,
Of three men, and more, on the scaffold
And a few who died forgotten
In other places, here and abroad,
And of one who died blind and quiet
Why should we celebrate
These dead men more than the dying?
It is not to ring the bell backward
Nor is it an incantation
To summon the spectre of a Rose.
We cannot revive old factions
We cannot restore old policies
Or follow an antique drum.
These men, and those who opposed them
And those whom they opposed
Accept the constitution of silence
And are folded in a single party.
Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.


IV
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
     Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
     To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
     We only live, only suspire
     Consumed by either fire or fire.


V
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
     Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

With thanks 

A Boundary

Boundaries are important.
One reason why in January 2010 I was enticed by the property was the spacious view from the garden, largely free from being overlooked by anyone.  It had previously been occupied by chickens, dogs, vegetable allotment and evidently beautiful flowers which apart from some daffodils and tulips none transpired. They'd been removed! To the rear beyond the ugly breeze-block wall is an old orchard, kept wild. On one side are two strips of unkempt land which cannot be built on, but at that time I never enquired as to whom they belonged.  On the other side was an enclosed garden. To begin with, my neighbour lived elsewhere, so I was relaxed about the garden boundary until she arrived to stay for longer, when she appeared to be very abrupt. Much later, she was friendly and invited me for coffee, but I did not return the favour because it was uncomfortable with twenty questions about my house, not about me!  She'd disapproved of the price of the property and the amount of work to be done to make it habitable.  She thought it was too expensive, yet, a lady who was born here, who now lives along the lane, said it was 'un cadeau'.  And so my neighbour asked "What was I going to do in there?" "What was I going to do with the falling down workshop at the back of the house?" I answered I had no idea... for in truth that was the case.
Ever since then she has been cool, sometimes even ignoring me in the street. When I became aware that response was very un-French and more Anglo Saxon, I persisted in greeting and shaking her hand. Some days she would not put her washing on the line if she saw me in the garden and would wait until I'd gone in. I am sure I have not wrong-footed her. I have wondered if it is because I am English ... then there are the Maire connections. 
They were resident for one year. When her husband regained employment, he, and later she, returned to the country where they work, leaving the young adult son to be at home between college days. The property is cared for by their relatives that live in the village so I am pleased that often there are people in and out.
I have a 'droit d'echelle' onto her land in order to repair my wall, guttering, roof, chimney on any part of my property - the part that was a barn. Her land is immediately behind the length of my property. Gardens are staggered.  One fence panel nearest the house can be removed easily for access.
On Sunday it was just a 40cm x 40cm stone wall on her side but which I believe is a joint boundary, (the solicitor does not know), plus my green wire 4 feet high linked fence on my land.
On Monday a larch lap fence was erected but only to a half way point.  On Friday the whole length was fenced.
P.S. interjection.. I did not realize that some struts had been left in HER garden to stablise the fence posts whilst cement sets. She complained today! She didn't want them to stay until Monday but Sunday was OK! I truly, stupidly, did not know they were there, so expressed BEAUCOUP de DESOLÉES.  Later, Saturday evening, I climbed a stepladder to remove them, depriving of her the chance to "jeter sue mon jardin sur lundi"!   What have I done wrong to incur her icy nature for well over a year!  I have never wanted to upset her but possibly have now that a fence has gone up. Oh dear!
It's ironic that the house has been empty since September, but on the day before the fence goes up I am aware that there are people next door.  Hence the purpose of the fence has been tested. It shuts out the sound of French conversation whilst they sit the other side of the tree but within view.  It shuts US all out from viewing each other.  Now I can choose to sit anywhere rather than the one comfortable position where they couldn't see me! But I don't have the lovely view of her garden.
I feel a renewal of freedom. I feel that I could wine, dine and sit anywhere in my garden, not feel watched or on alert for neighbours. I feel I could put the hammock half way down the garden. I feel I could sunbathe in my swimsuit or in the nuddy!  I feel I could jog around the garden and not be considered half mad! I feel I can 'faire le jardinage' and not worry what clothes I am wearing!  I feel that I need not be judged. She can put her washing on the line on a daily basis and I will not know!
In an early morning, I like to sit near the house, face south and east to watch the rising sun, though I cannot see the horizon.  In the later morning, I like to sit a little way out to catch the warmth of the sun or capture the shade if very hot.  In late afternoon, I have enjoyed sitting facing the buildings, with the sun moving to the west and with the encroaching shade move further into the garden. In the evening towards night,  I have enjoyed sitting at the end of my garden on the bedrock of the rockery under the breeze block wall or indeed further into the garden.  Facing west, I love how the streetlights illuminate the roof lines in a magical golden light.  In the warmth of summer's dusk, with a gin and tonic or glass of wine in my hand, ( nothing less I mus confess) I watch bats until night descends. I love to watch bats and snakes!
I know the upper horizontal line of the fence is deliberately winky wonky. It adds character but does look a bit odd. What I didn't know when trying to decide whether it was right or wrong to fence-out my neighbour, or to only fence to the halfway point, is that the fencer would normally have started at the highest-most point of land. In effect he would have worked in the other direction. He had to avoid the height of the fence being more than 1.80m. If the panels are 6 feet high with the ground rising I could see how the fence would appear to be higher.  Anything higher and one needs planning permission. This was confusing to my small wee brain especially when the neighbour's ground is at a higher level than mine! So, we had to change to 5 feet panels, leaving a larger gap underneath in order to get the correct height at the top.  The 1.80m panels are tight against the grass, so I will have to dig out a small gap beneath them to prevent them from rotting. 
I aim to grow hollyhocks, climbing roses and clematis against the fence to soften the view.
I loved the view of my neighbour's garden before I had the fence but I value too my privacy!

BEFORE:

 AFTER:
final photo will appear when I take it on the next sunny day. Meanwhile il commence! 

Feelings expressed

A kind friend has responded to my need or anyone's need to express feelings. It is so apt.

    They are real and it is only in giving in to them that you can begin to deal with them.

I think acknowledging feelings and mood by watching / listening to what happens internally, can bring one to a level of acceptance of what is truth and reality. Then, when they, the feelings, have been externalised and not suppressed with the stiff upper English lip, one can begin to treat the cause of the thoughts, which in actual fact, are I believe, the feelings.

I remember.
Whilst having responsibility for children's well-being in the school environment,  I often used to ask them "How do you feel?" and "How do you think the one you have been unkind to feels?  I used to sit the children together when they had hurt each other and get feelings out into the open... even angry ones, which seemed to help find a resolution towards understanding and forgiveness, so that, usually, they made up with a hug!  I nearly always asked the ones who could not express themselves to draw a picture. That helped too. I was heavily criticised for this during my last 3 months at school.  The new manager in that time, possible goaded by those below me who were unhappy with me, said it was a punishment to keep a child in from their playtime and make them draw a picture.  I never saw it like that. They were allowed to cool down, have time out, and had a choice to write, draw or leave a blank page! Then, if there was time they went back to their playtime or sometimes wanted to help me prepare the classroom.
It wasn't as easy as I make it sound! Discipline in schools became a contentious issue.

It was a pity that this method did not apply to the adults in the school, including me.  It might have stopped the endless mindless chatter, gossip and dissatisfaction with others.

I never really learned about relationships with people because a) I FEEL that my parents never taught me nor modelled positive behaviour and b) that as an adult, I was always REACTING to events, circumstances. I regret that. I knew I had to be more proactive but TIME never seemed to be on my side.  Always as a working single parent, I was struggling to climb out of the abject poverty we had been in and make a better life, a middle class life, a life of opportunity, a life of fewer struggles. Since early retirement and in the last 3 to 5 years I've read a lot about emotions / feelings, people and relationships on the internet.  Some stuff I dismiss but I try to learn something from all that I read. There are a lot of troubled individuals in relationships and one feels for them.  There is also some wonderful insight and info on behavioural models to emulate.  It would be easy to blame emotional matters on our parents but I don't.  Mind you, I DID.  Yet, I haven't blamed them for about 20 years, ever since I forgave them in my mind. They did the best they could after the war. They probably never learned to be self-aware. They had their own struggles in the face of adversity which was probably better then than now for younger families. My mother, now in her 80s, certainly cannot understand why I am so emotional.  She has been very wronged in her life. She  had to become hard and abrupt to stand up to my father's depression and who knows what else. He is not here to ask and now I woudl talk to him but not then, not 15 years ago. I am very sad about that!
Although my emotional outpourings have been an absolute pain, I am grateful for them.  They have brought me to a better place in my mind, heart and soul, despite blips!!!!!!

I've been cautioned in the past not to write about personal matters but it does not concern me.  It is who I am. I've been wronged in my life and am  thinking that the blogger fraternity is comprised of all sorts of very interesting folk and we learn from each other.  The internet = a library!

A Beautful Party with Candles and Cheese

A beautiful party.

In a beautiful setting.

Magic. Féerique.

Like a magical fairy tale.

On arrival one gave one’s cheese and one’s candle to the organizers. 
People made themselves scarce whilst important others made arrangements. I explored the natural beauty of La Distillerie, St Pierre de Maille, an events centre for music, arts, wedding feasts, etcetera.

Nightingales, cuckoos, other birds and frogs or toads were in abundance. A dog chased a duck, which managed to escape with much quacking and flapping. It was chastised.  By wandering around the lake I began to understand what was going to happen.

As guests we were invited to one room for pre-evening drinks. Chatter was accompanied by French melodies. Then we had to secrete ourselves.  No voices, which was difficult because the people I joined, whom I have not seen for several years, who are so funny, kept making froggy and birdy sounds with ribald comments that I did not understand!

Francois is 60.  He was brought blindfold to the lake where he boarded  ‘une barque’ to be punted around the lake in the dark, between the ribbon of fairy lights strewn on the water’s surface, until his family, who were hidden behind willow trees and reeds burst into the Happy Birthday song in French.  We guests were instructed to remain silent until they had finished when we were to hear a lone voice singing the first Joyeux Anniversaire and hear a second lone Joyeux Anniversaire.  Then we were to join in, reveal ourselves by lighting candles that we had previously collected from the oil lamps surrounding the lake. There weren’t any solo voices but everyone joined in with gusto singing several times as the song lapped around the lake.  Silence … as we picked our way by moonlight and candle light careful not to ditch down the bank! I had the urge to sing in English so I started and at the second Happy Birthday everyone joined in, in English!  

We proceeded to the front of the lake where we sat down.  Sat down seated on logs or blankets between more candles to listen to the storyteller. There were two barques with two punters in traditional costumed dress, as was the storyteller. He proceeded to tell the story of La Rochette …a little rock… and how this man, who owns this name, came to be born, and where and how he arrived at La Rochette where he once lived, and how he arrived now here at this historical event, for in his life he had been a Gallic weaver, a medieval weaver, a woodcarver, a keeper of the Arts and Crafts, a medieval dancer.  He was overawed.  One would be!

Lots of praise and love issued forth to him from his family and friends. He is a lovely man, gentle, who, I think would wish no unkindness on any soul or creature. One only sees the public man. He and his wife have been good friends for 8 years now, patient, helping the friend and I to integrate into part of the French culture.




After ‘le spectacle du nuit’ we processed to the dining room, where long tables of 12 or more places were laid with creamy white cloths and yellow wild flowers…

Then we commenced to eat. People chose from the buffet, not waiting for everyone to be seated which is what I think we would do in UK!  I was not sure where to sit, and feeling a panic rising, eventually tucked myself onto the corner of a table, centrally facing the buffet and a screen where later photographs of the younger François were beamed.

Whilst people ate, I played three pieces on my accordion:

Autumn Leaves – 
Sous le Ciel de Paris – 
Under the Bridges of Paris -

Then the hurdy gurdy man and his violin wife again played French dance tunes… feet tapping, people dancing. I joined the spiral dance except didn’t spiral for we only circumnavigated the tables. 3 steps and a foot gesture repeated 3 times, then 2 lots of 2 and 2 lots of 1. A progressive dance. SIMPLE FUN!

After that Thomas serenaded François with Bach ‘cello pieces without music. Exquisite! Later cds of modern music. I distinctly remember Sweet Home Alabama by Lynnrd Skynnrd – a favourite song for me!  A small nucleus danced and laughed until 3am when I thought I’d better take my personal being back on home. Tables were cleared. Many had already departed some time back!

Well … we ate radishes, salads, a choice of three soups (nettle, carrot, radish and ginger).   There were so many cheeses to die for!!!!!!!!!! Baguette was largely ignored, especially when I found better bread.  I believe that I witness a French movement away from the traditional baguette. Then tiramisu cake (oh wow)  and a white chocolate cake for the children, but there was a little left to sample. Gateau was served with a grapefruit champagne. Coffee. Red wine to start, continue and finish! Plenty of water jugs on the table. The French certainly tucked in. There were 70 guests and evidently apx one litre of alcohol per person was consumed!

What a party. So spectacular! So beautifully organized.  Joyeux Anniversaire à François!

It was the first French party I have ever been to, at which, I was the only English person. I was very appreciative of my invitation and surprised to count more than 10 French people to say a little more than Hello and a smile to.   I felt as if perhaps “I had arrived” as they say. After the long haul of winter, sunshine in my heart has returned. I’ll have to accept there is just one I can direct it to. C’est moi.     

When the world convenes against one... but one sees the lighter side!

PROBLEM posted here was SOLVED about 10 days later!!!!! It required an earlier version of Adobe!!!!! 

 The techno world convenes against me as now my Apple Mac will not allow me to watch / listen to videos for news items, YOUTUBE or blogs. There are missing plug-ins which were there and then one day recently not! How can that have happened?  Content advises:

Cannot play media. You do not have the correct version of the flash player. Download the correct version

but when I click to do so, this ☛ Adobe Flash Player 11.7.700.169 (17.1 MB), does not work. I have as far as I can tell removed all other Adobe reader and flash players from my computer .... and even tried to download previous versions of Adobe, as that is said to solve the problem... but nope!!!!
 OR it says 

A plug-in is needed to display this content. Instal plug-in.   which takes me to a Conclusion statement telling me that no suitable plug-ins are available.

Talk about going around the houses or going crazy...

HOHUM.... the positively good point is that this negative glitch prevents me from procrastinating on the many tasks I see before me.  Imperceptibly, aka slowly, I am learning to focus and concentrate on activity instead of updating myself about worldly affairs and wasting my own time!!!!!!!!!!  It's better to move about than to sit and let the muscles stiffen. You know this happens in old age!!! Hey ho!!!
I'm sure I'll solve the computer issue in time... I just let things be these days and see what come with the passing of time!

Another day

Pick myself up...dust myself down...keep busy...DO...take action...stop the mind chattering...live in the NOW...I've been practising for quite a while, so one would think I'd be better, and indeed I have made huge strides, but every now and then, I give myself permission to grieve and wallow in a bit of self pity...then I feel better and able to cope!!!!TIME has to be the Healer...

Some days..

It's a hard life......  Words and music by Freddie Mercury

I don't want my freedom
There's no reason for living with a broken heart
This is a tricky situation
I've only got myself to blame
It's just a simple fact of life
It can happen to anyone
You win - you lose
It's a chance you have to take with love
Oh yeah - I fell in love
And now you say it's over and I'm falling apart
It's a hard life
To be true lovers together
To love and live forever in each others hearts
It's a long hard fight
To learn to care for each other
To trust in one another right from the start
When you're in love
I try and mend the broken pieces
I try to fight back the tears
They say it's just a state of mind
But it happens to everyone
How it hurts - deep inside
When your love has cut you down to size
Life is tough - on your own
Now I'm waiting for something to fall from the skies
And I'm waiting for love
Yes it's a hard life
Two lovers together
To love and live forever in each others hearts
It's a long hard fight
To learn to care for each other
To trust in one another - right from the start
When you're in love
Yes it's a hard life
In a world that's filled with sorrow
There are people searching for love in ev'ry way
It's a long hard fight
But I'll always live for tomorrow
I'll look back on myself and say I did it for love
Yes I did it for love - for love - oh I did it for love

Restless in France lives with Love in heart, spirit and soul,
despite absences of  Love,  for Past matters not, in the NOW of  Today.
Love emerges from Hope. Hope is born of Love. Therein is Alpha and Omega.
Love like a plant can die but new Love springs eternal as new seeds are sown.

Sunday Springtime

It was 25C in the shade in my courtyard!
I've managed to fork over the drying soil where I'd previously turned over grassy clods which I have now removed to place in the dips of my "lawned" garden. I took the plunge and planted 50 seed potatoes.  It might be too early but too bad! I've also worked hard at housework - at least two hours! It was not so much dirty,  just disorganised, but dust from the woodburner, with all doors open seems to settle!   Today, I can tick off

• smiling at a lizard scooting around my courtyard,
• hearing a cuckoo in the distance, 
• listening to nightingales in the morning and evening, 
• a 45 minute cycle ride, 
• dining in the evening al fresco. 

Hurrah for the nightingale(s)

.... which was / were singing in the rural countryside beyond my garden tonight, at 7pm ish,  after I had finished mowing the lawn... It was my first hearing this year of the unforgettable song, that as one listens, one is immediately in heartfelt bliss. Swallows were flying and blackbird sang its song. My lawn smelt delicious. I'd cropped the clover which had failed to be killed by the nitrogenous weed'nfeed, as rain fell after I'd laboriously sprinkled the liquid on rampant clover a few days ago!
I'd intended to sit in my large garden but as night fell it became too cold.  I cooked my evening meal after lighting the woodburner, which for some reason decided to fill my Grand Salon with smoke. It was still warmer in the courtyard than indoors, so, with all the door windows (or are they window doors) open, I indulged in a simple meal with just a little more than a glass of Fitou and espied two fat bats above me as dusk fell.  SPRING has come; never mind the fouine which is what I think I hear in my attic.   Evidently, I can't kill what is a protected species and must purchase a trap at more than 80 euros. The trap is huge.  I would never get it beneath the floorboards of the attic!   No, if I hear it again, I will have to go up into the attic, stomp above the metre gap between my bedroom ceiling and attic floor and play music at whatever hour it is.  They do not like noise and nor do I when I'm trying to sleep!  Thankfully I think the neighbour will not hear me unless they are in the garden!!!!

A Wasteland - Wasted land - Waste Wilderness

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.	T.S. Eliot 1922 The Wasteland

On my return journey I came across vast aggression towards a rural landscape which now was a wilderness. Land not to be Wasted?  I presume, it will be a new roadway. It was a shock to see desecration, huge machinery worth millions standing still on a Sunday, and a cut off rail track.

 

And then I came across what look like ruins of a former grandiose empire!   Fascinating!

I think I was on D109 but can't be sure..I'd just come under the A10 or a major road.
Looking at Google maps... perhaps what I witnessed is that a huge lake has been landfilled?
Looking at my photos I can see that this is probably true and clearly a roadway is being constructed?
Is this a waste or improvement for the future?

POSTSCRIPT: I am now wondering if the landwork is for the TGV and having done a little research I am now sure this is correct..... 
http://www.lgv-sea-tours-bordeaux.fr/construction-de-la-lgv/les-cartes-du-trace-et-des-travaux

Fritillaries et friperie

Colours of the lighter Loire and the darker Vienne as  they form a confluence  at the village of Candes Saint Marten, France courtesy of Google maps

 

 

 

The confluence of two rivers, the Loire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loire and the Vienne, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienne conjoin the wealth of the Touraine and Anjou regions of France.   At first they swirl alongside each other before eventually settling in combination in their descent to the Atlantic Ocean. The river valleys bring together Man, his habitat, his ancestry; his longstanding, developing relationship with the rivers’ waters and the land’s flora et fauna. 

As I crossed the bridge at Candes St Marten  I read a panel all about the oxbow lake that is there to help pike spawn. Fascinating.

For some years I have wanted to come to this point and today, it was because Susan had told me that the snakeshead fritillary flowers were in bloom here in abundance. I wanted to walk in the area to find them but glad I didn’t as it is GI-NORMOUS area! I’d like to do that maybe when I’ve studied a local map. However, in the car, I drove down many tracks alongside flooded dykes / ditches and there, through (maybe they were poplar) trees and lo, peeping between green grass blades were little pinkish treasures….SUCH JOY to see them.

I once planted fritillaries in a UK garden … they only flowered the one year.

It was fascinating to view small fields called bocage, feel history amidst ancient coppiced trees, newly planted or maturing tall silver barked trees,  hedges that meander,  tracks that go to wherever,  and swathes of celandine or were they winter aconites?  Though there are more cowslips in my region than there!

My early morning departure was delayed as I’d been asked to look after two year old twins…. That WAS fun… reading books, playing ball, singing songs.. as well as changing a nappy! So I arrived in Chinon a little after 1pm. It was necessary to find lunch. I had a feeling it would be pricey but I found a very nice Café des Arts where Boeuf Bourguignon and a glass of Chinon was 15e in immaculate modernistic setting. Lovely glasses!

There was a REAL bric a brac sale in the streets which deterred me from roaming where once I'd been before though I did have a browse.

 Another reason for why I headed into this direction (an hour and quarter drive north of where I live) was to catch a glimpse of the Loire-a-velo route! Don’t ask!!!! BUT .... I dream of having courage to do some solo cycling.  I’d prefer company for camping wild but chance to find anyone of my age to do that is a fine thing!!!!! I can but dream! Anyhow... one never knows, but maybe in the Summer I could just do a shorter velo trail than the grand aspiration which goes from St Nazaire to the very east of other European cultures once the Loire is far behind one's journey.

Hence after wandering in fen land, I headed towards the Loire where I knew that if I turned left I’d meet the Vienne and sure enough over the bridge is the ancient village, Candes Saint Marten, where I climb up high to have a panoramic view of the confluence, then potter about the narrow village lanes steeped in history.

I’m tired and cannot find a place to have tea, so indulge in dried pears and naughty Easter chocs I have in the car, whilst heading home via a different route, though one I know, once near St.Maure du Touraine.

In addition, the following amused me: