I have a confession to make. In a blues playing, jazz loving, rock and roll household of aspiring musicians, I am totally addicted to the utterly compelling 'chansons' of Francoise Hardy. Her 1996 cheapie compilation album, 'Les Chansons d'Amour', which I bagged on Amazon for £2.98 before I left the UK, has been this summer's 'Bardies feelgood album'. We always seem to have one album which none of us ever tires of for the duration of our stay. Previous year's choices have been Bruce Springstein's 'The Rising', Tinariwen's 'Water is Life', Ian Siegal's 'Meat and Potatoes', Miles Davis's 'A Kind of Blue', and Murray Perahia playing Handel and Scarlatti and Glenn Gould humming along to 'The Goldberg Variations'. Our taste is certainly catholic.
I still can't get 'Tout Les Garcons et Les Filles', with its catchy tune and evocative lyrics, out of my head. It reminds me of my white 'Correges' boots, of which I was so proud, and ironing my long wavy hair in front of 'Ready Steady Go' before going out on a Friday night. Cathy McGowan may have been the height of Sixties chic for us English girls but there was no one to beat Francoise in the style stakes. As someone recently said of Carla Bruni, "A beautiful woman in a Chanel trouser suit could recite a telephone directory in French and still sound good." Francoise Hardy really can sing as well. When I browsed through a phenomenally expensive and damaged paperback about her in our local St Lizier 'Les Mousquetaires', called 'Tant de Belles Choses' by Pierre Mikailoff, I was struck by a photo of her in concert at Olympia from 29th October 1965. She was the original trouser suited chanteuse.
Her songs grip you immediately, even, I'm sure, if you can't understand her native tongue. Raw emotion needs no translation. All the great singers, from Callas and Sinatra to Ian Siegal and Bruce Springstein, have it. Whilst we may not be able to define it, we all know it when we hear it. They speak to our souls, and we feel better people for it. They lift us up and free our hearts. They make us sing, or dance, or both. They make us, momentarily at least, forget our troubles. They give us the words for love, and they explain away our sorrows. You are never alone whilst their music plays, and what a joy it is. Oh, Francoise, as you sing 'Ma jeunesse Fout Le Camp' [ 'My Youth Went Away'], I wonder where the years have gone? But, then again, methinks, how lucky we have been with the music of our time.
Along with 'Chansons d'Amour', I also bought Jaques Brel's 'C'est Comme Ca' and Serge Gainsbourg's 'Initials SG' [at equally cheap prices] from Amazon. I love them too, though not quite as much. I first heard of Jacques Brel [1929 -1978], the Belgian singer, when Alistair Campbell raved about him as one of his choices on 'Desert Island Discs'. The song he chose was amazing, and I thoroughly agree with everything that AC said about him. I am just sorry that somehow my youth passed him by [Jacques Brel, not Alistair Campbell!]. Not so, the gravelly voiced, chain smoking Serge Gainsbourg though. How many of us girls only realised what we were missing, as we groped behind the youth club with some spotty, downy chinned fellow adolescent, when we heard Jane Birkin singing [?] alongside him in 'Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus'? The song may have been rubbish, but the sentiments were life changing! There are much better songs on this album, but none of us will ever forget 'Je T'aime'.
After nearly choking on my Friday night fish and chips a few months ago, when I saw Carla Bruni Sarkozy strutting her stuff [well, sitting on a bar stool actually] on the late Jools Holland show, I was going to ask the question, "What is she for?" I was even more determined to slag her off when I saw her singing alongside Bono and all the other 'look at us, we're so important and we're going to change the world' celebs performing at the absent Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party bash in New York. But something held me back. I don't know what it was. OK, so I know she's thin, she's beautiful, has a stunning retro chic wardrobe and has had more famous men than I've had hot quiches.
My petty jealousy seemed unworthy. I thought, purely for reasons of research, and also to compare her with the indominatable Mademoiselle H, that I might buy one of her albums. I didn't, largely because they were three times the price, but I did watch the video on the Amazon site that goes with her 'Comme Si de Rien N'Etait' CD. I am prepared to eat my chapeau! She may not have Francoise's voice, or indeed a good voice, but she certainly has that indefinable something. She talks of her music and her need to work on her voice, which I thought showed an disarming humility. She obviously loves her music and her relationship with her producer, Dominique Blanc Francard, is clearly an artistically fruitful collaboration. When she talks of the loss of her brother, of whom she sings in 'Salut Marin', I was moved. I think I shall buy the CD after all.
Music was, as ever, one of the main topics of conversation at Bardies. We have been hesitating about doing Blues at Bardies next year, our third festival, because of the economic downturn and, quite frankly, because it costs us an arm and a leg to put it on. We have always been happy to subsidise it to the tune of a big party but the costs of flying over musicians from the UK, in addition to the exhorbitant social security charges of French musicians, and wining, dining and accommodating people for a whole weekend have escalated beyond our budget since the pound has plummeted so horrendously against the euro. Last year we made the mistake of trying to mix and match it with our silver wedding anniversary celebrations, which meant that it was neither one thing nor t'other.
A year is a long time though and now that the recordings have finally been mixed, we are gobsmacked at our achievement. The calibre of musicianship and the quality of the music is mindblowing. It is easy to forget this in the sheer exhaustion of the aftermath. After many bottles of wine and much late night discussion, we have decided to go for it again on the proviso that we can, at least, make it more or less break even. We will never cut back on the quality of music on offer, but we are looking at ways to be more practical in our very amateur organisation. We have some great ideas, of which you will hear more in future blogs. I am desperate to get Ian Siegal back again [Ian, if you read this, we'll give you and Kat a free holiday into the bargain!]. His recording from the 2006 festival is sensational.
We also think it may have swung the decision of our 'locateur' to rent Bardies later this month, because Peter sent him some downloads. He [the locateur] says that we must do it again and that he wants to book his tickets now, just on the basis of a couple of songs from Ian. High praise indeed, but we are not too modest not to know that we have something very special going down here. A few house rentals will certainly help to amortise the costs. We are thrilled to say, after our 'inspection', that we have officially been invited to be included in the 'Alistair Sawday Special Places to Stay'.
When we bought the house in 2000, we never intended it to be anything but our home. Now, with teenage children desperate to hit the European nightclub scene, we have decided to bite the bullet and use a couple of August rentals to boost the flagging coffers. One friend told us about 'Owner's Direct', the most user-friendly of websites, where we now have a listing, and another about 'Schoolstrader.com', which is to 'ebay' what Primark is to Selfridges. It's not the quality of the merchandise that's at issue, it's the sheer, cluttered scale of the operation. Chateau de Bardies is the most beautiful place, and so special, so I'm not sad to share it with like-minded people. In actual fact, I'm rather chuffed because I know that everyone will fall in love with it, just as we did.
So now, we're back in England for a bit. Freddie is 18 tomorrow, the reason for our early exit. We came home yesterday, via Paris, which was 34 degrees on Thursday night. We stayed at the Hotel Clement, in Rue Clement on the left bank directly opposite 'Le Marche Saint Germain', a real find. The whole area buzzes with life and, for a brief moment, you can close your eyes and imagine what it was like in those heady days of 1968. Many of the old bookshops have long gone, now turned into trendy bistros, but the spirit remains. It was my lucky day, because I did manage to buy a copy of Francoise Hardy's 2008 autobiography, 'Le Desespoir des Singes' from a 'bouquiniste' for 8 euros instead of 21. I am determined to rent a cheap apartment here in order 'to do' Paris once again before my zimmer frame beckons. My youth may have gone away, but I'm not quite ready to give up the ghost just yet!
Saturday, 8 August 2009
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Du Fromage, S'il Te Plait
One of the by products of a houseful of 'invitees' is a surplus of leftovers. Having been brought up in the fifties by a frugal, though caring, mum, I have learnt the value of food. I don't just mean its monetary value, although in these less bountiful times everyone feels the need to cut back on unnecessary expenditure, but also the fact that a producer has gone to a great deal of time and effort to make his product. We owe it to our farmers and growers to treat the product of their hard worn labour with respect, which in my book means not jettisoning it all just because someone's taken a a great big chunk out of it and it doesn't look pristine anymore. Our advertisers have a lot to answer for.
So many leftovers can be 'repackaged' on shiny new plates, cut into smaller morsels for an appetiser, worked into a pie or casserole or just covered with a fresh sprinkling of newly snipped herbs and some good olive oil. My all time favourite transformation is when those knobbly old bits of cheese hacked into after a good lunch or dinner metamorphose into a tart of some form or other. I love all cheese, from the palest delicate 'crottin' to a nasal blowing ripe Livarot, and many would say it shows! But with a skinny younger sister who has a broken femur and wrist due to osteoporosis, I've decided I'm not about to give up my favourite indulgence in a hurry.
Cheese and pastry are a marriage made in heaven. One of our many house guests many years ago gave me a copy of the wonderful Tamasin Day-Lewis's [she with the gorgeous brother whom we all fell in love with in 'My Beautiful Launderette'] fabulous cookery book, 'The Art of the Tart'. I have improvised many of her recipes over the years, largely because we just can't get the same quality of cream here. Her asparagus tart is to die for and we live on it during late spring and early summer when French asparagus is at its best. It is her cheese tarts, though, that make for the greatest satisfaction in recipe re-working.
I have to be honest and say that before the pound hit rock bottom against the euro, I would regularly phone up Martine Crespo in St Girons to put in an order for lunch. Ellie is partial to her quiche Lorraine, Freddie to her croustarde de montagne and Peter and me to her tarte aux tomates et courgettes. Less honest hosts could easily pass them off as their own! Not this year, though. We all have to tighten our belts, so to speak [ah, that it were the case for me!]. A good place to buy cheese economically is from the 'Vente directe' shop opposite the St Girons 'Intermarche', a great place to buy at good prices if there are lots of you or you don't mind freezing it. The temptation is always to buy too much, there is so much choice. It varies from day to day and you can never be sure on any given day what will be available.
This year almost every lunch has been an experiment in adaptation. One of my favourites is a chevre and tomato tart, made in a hurry the cheat's way, with 100% 'pur beurre' ready made pastry or, for real, with pastry made in the food processor. You can use any chevre but logs are best because you can slice it to overlap perfectly with slices of tomato. I put a good dollop of Dijon mustard into the base, a serious handful of Gruyere or Emmentale 'rape' on top of it, then slice the chevre and tomatoes, arrange them in rounds and top with as many fresh herbs you can muster, shaken together with some olive oil and one or two minced garlic cloves and loads of sel de Guerande and black pepper. Forty minutes in a moderate oven and you're done!
My other great favourite is a Roquefort and walnut tart, just discovered, which is great for using up old bits of Roquefort. Just sprinkle the base of your tart with the cheese and walnut pieces, broken up into fairly small bits, and pour 300 mls or so of creme de Normandie entiere beaten lightly with an egg and 4 egg yolks and some pepper, and cook till browning gently on top. Heaven! I cannot begin to bore you with the number of combinations I've thrown together, some infinitely better than others. It's so satisfying, as well as leaving you, smugly, with a tidy fridge. My mother-in-law would be proud of me!
Our local cheeses are fantastic, although rather more expensive these days. I particularly like the gloriously rich 'Le Pic de la Calabasse' from the fromagerie artisanale in St Lary, the Bamalou 'Petit Bethmale de Chevre' and the fromage artisanal au lait cru de vache from the Fromagerie de Moulis. One of the great joys of the Saturday morning market in St Girons over the years has been buying Stan's superb 'Le Montagnol' fromages made from either vache, brebis or chevre. I don't know if it's just me but he does seem to have become grumpier and less patient with his customers over the years. When he didn't even wait for me to choose a second cheese this morning before turning to his next punter, I was minded of Van Morrison in concert. You may be one of the best, but you won't always be able to get away with treating your loyal supporters with total indifference! The contrast with the delightfully smiley, elderly purveyor of the 'Le Brussard' chevre from Soulan, not far from Stan's pitch on the market, couldn't have been more marked.
Last week we had some friends for lunch and they brought with them the most delicious 'crottin de chevre' made by their neighbour in Laborie, not far from Castlenau-Durban. It always makes me laugh to think that a 'crottin' is so named because it resembles the the rear end deposits from a goat, sheep, mule etc. Only the French would happily describe a style of cheese with the same nominative as dung! How I love this country! It is what it is, end of story.
Talking of which, at the very same lunch I also served some supermarket Brie. Nothing wrong with that. My best friend in the Lauragais, Caroline de Roquette, who runs an amazing conserverie, regularly serves supermarket cheeses, saying that it's all in the keeping. Cheese must be eaten when it's ripe, something us English so often forget. Anyway, whilst Pascal, Sarah, Peter and I were discussing the merits of the crottin, Ellie tucked into the Brie. Suddenly, she gagged and yelled "Mum, it's moving! I feel sick!" I put on my specs and looked at her plate. Sure enough, there were a couple [only a couple, I promise!] of tiny white maggots on the plate. In my desire to ripen the Brie, I had obviously left it out in the recent heat, albeit covered, for far too long. The poor girl was mortified, as indeed was I, at such a lack of housekeeping in front of my lunch guests.
I needn't have worried. Pascal, being French, said 'C'est normal. Pas de probleme.' He then told us that there were certain cheeses which he preferred with the odd maggot or two. Yet another example of French practicality when it comes to food. I think, though, that when I next say to Ellie 'Du fromage, s'il te plait,' she may run a kilometre! Poor child, I've probably scarred her for life!
So many leftovers can be 'repackaged' on shiny new plates, cut into smaller morsels for an appetiser, worked into a pie or casserole or just covered with a fresh sprinkling of newly snipped herbs and some good olive oil. My all time favourite transformation is when those knobbly old bits of cheese hacked into after a good lunch or dinner metamorphose into a tart of some form or other. I love all cheese, from the palest delicate 'crottin' to a nasal blowing ripe Livarot, and many would say it shows! But with a skinny younger sister who has a broken femur and wrist due to osteoporosis, I've decided I'm not about to give up my favourite indulgence in a hurry.
Cheese and pastry are a marriage made in heaven. One of our many house guests many years ago gave me a copy of the wonderful Tamasin Day-Lewis's [she with the gorgeous brother whom we all fell in love with in 'My Beautiful Launderette'] fabulous cookery book, 'The Art of the Tart'. I have improvised many of her recipes over the years, largely because we just can't get the same quality of cream here. Her asparagus tart is to die for and we live on it during late spring and early summer when French asparagus is at its best. It is her cheese tarts, though, that make for the greatest satisfaction in recipe re-working.
I have to be honest and say that before the pound hit rock bottom against the euro, I would regularly phone up Martine Crespo in St Girons to put in an order for lunch. Ellie is partial to her quiche Lorraine, Freddie to her croustarde de montagne and Peter and me to her tarte aux tomates et courgettes. Less honest hosts could easily pass them off as their own! Not this year, though. We all have to tighten our belts, so to speak [ah, that it were the case for me!]. A good place to buy cheese economically is from the 'Vente directe' shop opposite the St Girons 'Intermarche', a great place to buy at good prices if there are lots of you or you don't mind freezing it. The temptation is always to buy too much, there is so much choice. It varies from day to day and you can never be sure on any given day what will be available.
This year almost every lunch has been an experiment in adaptation. One of my favourites is a chevre and tomato tart, made in a hurry the cheat's way, with 100% 'pur beurre' ready made pastry or, for real, with pastry made in the food processor. You can use any chevre but logs are best because you can slice it to overlap perfectly with slices of tomato. I put a good dollop of Dijon mustard into the base, a serious handful of Gruyere or Emmentale 'rape' on top of it, then slice the chevre and tomatoes, arrange them in rounds and top with as many fresh herbs you can muster, shaken together with some olive oil and one or two minced garlic cloves and loads of sel de Guerande and black pepper. Forty minutes in a moderate oven and you're done!
My other great favourite is a Roquefort and walnut tart, just discovered, which is great for using up old bits of Roquefort. Just sprinkle the base of your tart with the cheese and walnut pieces, broken up into fairly small bits, and pour 300 mls or so of creme de Normandie entiere beaten lightly with an egg and 4 egg yolks and some pepper, and cook till browning gently on top. Heaven! I cannot begin to bore you with the number of combinations I've thrown together, some infinitely better than others. It's so satisfying, as well as leaving you, smugly, with a tidy fridge. My mother-in-law would be proud of me!
Our local cheeses are fantastic, although rather more expensive these days. I particularly like the gloriously rich 'Le Pic de la Calabasse' from the fromagerie artisanale in St Lary, the Bamalou 'Petit Bethmale de Chevre' and the fromage artisanal au lait cru de vache from the Fromagerie de Moulis. One of the great joys of the Saturday morning market in St Girons over the years has been buying Stan's superb 'Le Montagnol' fromages made from either vache, brebis or chevre. I don't know if it's just me but he does seem to have become grumpier and less patient with his customers over the years. When he didn't even wait for me to choose a second cheese this morning before turning to his next punter, I was minded of Van Morrison in concert. You may be one of the best, but you won't always be able to get away with treating your loyal supporters with total indifference! The contrast with the delightfully smiley, elderly purveyor of the 'Le Brussard' chevre from Soulan, not far from Stan's pitch on the market, couldn't have been more marked.
Last week we had some friends for lunch and they brought with them the most delicious 'crottin de chevre' made by their neighbour in Laborie, not far from Castlenau-Durban. It always makes me laugh to think that a 'crottin' is so named because it resembles the the rear end deposits from a goat, sheep, mule etc. Only the French would happily describe a style of cheese with the same nominative as dung! How I love this country! It is what it is, end of story.
Talking of which, at the very same lunch I also served some supermarket Brie. Nothing wrong with that. My best friend in the Lauragais, Caroline de Roquette, who runs an amazing conserverie, regularly serves supermarket cheeses, saying that it's all in the keeping. Cheese must be eaten when it's ripe, something us English so often forget. Anyway, whilst Pascal, Sarah, Peter and I were discussing the merits of the crottin, Ellie tucked into the Brie. Suddenly, she gagged and yelled "Mum, it's moving! I feel sick!" I put on my specs and looked at her plate. Sure enough, there were a couple [only a couple, I promise!] of tiny white maggots on the plate. In my desire to ripen the Brie, I had obviously left it out in the recent heat, albeit covered, for far too long. The poor girl was mortified, as indeed was I, at such a lack of housekeeping in front of my lunch guests.
I needn't have worried. Pascal, being French, said 'C'est normal. Pas de probleme.' He then told us that there were certain cheeses which he preferred with the odd maggot or two. Yet another example of French practicality when it comes to food. I think, though, that when I next say to Ellie 'Du fromage, s'il te plait,' she may run a kilometre! Poor child, I've probably scarred her for life!
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Old Farts and a Buddhist at Bardies
Well, what a whacky week we've all had. It was born of an idea mooted at last summer's blues festival that a select group of us old Hull University alumni would reconvene chez nous for a rather more tranquil exchange of views, work and family updates and reminiscences. We have three ex presidents, one vice president, a treasurer and the chairman of our debating society among our group so, of course, our time together can hardly be described as tranquil.
The Buddhist amongst our number was the first to remind me of my casual invitation. When I answered the phone, way back in the depths of winter, he said in his deepest bass Yorkshire drawl, "Lola, I've got something to tell you." My heart sank, especially as he is now seventy [he was a very mature student in 1970!], as I considered the potential severity of the various medical diagnoses that he might be about to impart. "I've become a Buddhist," he continued, slowly as ever. "Thank God for that, Tom," I replied, "I thought you were going to tell me that you were terminal!" Big mistake to a Buddhist!
Six months later, flights booked, ferry crossings organised, children farmed out, cats and dogs kenneled and laptops packed away, here we all were at Bardies ready to recreate our very own decrepit version of 'Life on Mars.' Tom and Areta, their daughter Jane, who had been our thirteen year old bridesmaid in 1983, and Jane's young son were the first to arrive on Monday. They had driven up all the way from Andalucia, where they now live, to holiday with Tom's brother before coming on to us. We were very touched, even more so because we all know how slowly Tom drives. A two day drive at either end of one's holiday is effort indeed to catch up with old friends.
They were followed a couple of days, and a storm or two, later by Peter, who had been delayed by a flare up of his once a decade gout, and two more friends. The others arrived on Thursday in time for a grand celebratory dinner for our wedding anniversary and our best man's birthday. As each new arrival strolled through the door, the alcoholic contents of our fridge multiplied in both quality and quantity! It was a heavy duty night worthy of the occasion but possibly one more suited to the twenty year old livers of our youth. Out wonderful butcher in St Girons had prepared a filet de boeuf fit for a dauphin, and to follow we gorged ourselves on a selection of Madame Gilbert's delicious fromage and my best and richest chocolate cake recipe. Even a Buddhist like Tom was in awe of the quality of the meat, though, of course, I served him pasta and fresh pesto.
And so it continued! It struck me as we lurched from one 'repas' and load of washing up to the next, that slow living and Buddhism is a marriage made in [oooops!] heaven, at least for a man! Time and space are infinite, I think, and one's concept of time is immaterial, except when lunch or dinner has to be put on the table. I am very open about the endless possibilities for the explanation for our existence, but the gap between this life and our expectation of the next seems to me to be dependent on the kitchen. Such routine mundanities as picking, peeling, washing, chopping, stirring and cooking are the very stuff of life and without them we will eventually die. I know the great mystics could survive on the top of a mountain with nothing but a loin cloth and and an apple, but my Irish Catholic heritage has drummed into me the need to provide. I cannot have my guests meditating on empty stomachs! Food is life and the provision of it part of a great karma.
But I digress. Tom had read philosophy and had always assumed the role of intellectual mentor to us lesser mortals concerned with the rather more mundane choices of economics, history and politics. You could not get away with a casual throwaway comment in 1970, and it was good to see that nothing has changed since. We honed our debating skills at his knee and he taught us a lot. It is hard to believe that so many years have passed by and that now, at seventy, he really is a sage. If you're not into Buddhism though, or like some of our number positively agin any religious belief at all, it's the stuff of late boozy nights screeching amicably at each other!
He is now beginning to look like a Buddha. My greatest fear for him is that he may be re-incarnated as Pope in his next life, which I would be very happy with but he would consider hell on earth. One of the most memorable moments of the week was sitting under the trees in our garden, all bar Tom hungover, as we meditated quietly in front of the white agapanthus flowers. The sun was dappling through the trees and, as Tom hit the gong and the birds sang out in unison, peace and love abounded. Cliched, I know, but the communion of old friends is something very special indeed.
There were many other memorable moments too, boring to recall for anyone not witness to them, but they all involved people working together. It is a massive logistical exercise to keep everyone fed, watered, wined and happy but, I'm pleased to say, a joyful one when everyone mucks in and does their share. And, as so often happens with a house full, I've discovered new recipes born out of a need to be creative with leftovers. My 'not quite quiche Lorraine' was made with strips of leftover Bayonne ham gently crisped before being put into the pastry case with four egg yolks whipped into some 'creme de Normandie', only slightly spoilt by my slip with an oven glove whilst it was still runny and renamed by everyone 'Lola's drunken quiche'! The green beans with pesto and grated parmesan were rather good too.
So now the house is quiet and the old farts and the Buddhist wending their weary ways home. We already have a re-match planned for Norfolk in the autumn. I have time to think, reply to my emails, return phone calls, tidy up the borders, laze in the sunshine and, best of all, practice my expertly taught new meditation skills. I miss them all already but the upside is that I am looking forward to a few early nights off the booze. And, best of all, Freddie arrives on Tuesday. It will then be just the four of us together for a few days, days to cherish as our children grow older, for I suspect, as the years go by, there will be fewer and fewer of them. More glorious summer days to savour at Bardies and I do not want them to end.
The Buddhist amongst our number was the first to remind me of my casual invitation. When I answered the phone, way back in the depths of winter, he said in his deepest bass Yorkshire drawl, "Lola, I've got something to tell you." My heart sank, especially as he is now seventy [he was a very mature student in 1970!], as I considered the potential severity of the various medical diagnoses that he might be about to impart. "I've become a Buddhist," he continued, slowly as ever. "Thank God for that, Tom," I replied, "I thought you were going to tell me that you were terminal!" Big mistake to a Buddhist!
Six months later, flights booked, ferry crossings organised, children farmed out, cats and dogs kenneled and laptops packed away, here we all were at Bardies ready to recreate our very own decrepit version of 'Life on Mars.' Tom and Areta, their daughter Jane, who had been our thirteen year old bridesmaid in 1983, and Jane's young son were the first to arrive on Monday. They had driven up all the way from Andalucia, where they now live, to holiday with Tom's brother before coming on to us. We were very touched, even more so because we all know how slowly Tom drives. A two day drive at either end of one's holiday is effort indeed to catch up with old friends.
They were followed a couple of days, and a storm or two, later by Peter, who had been delayed by a flare up of his once a decade gout, and two more friends. The others arrived on Thursday in time for a grand celebratory dinner for our wedding anniversary and our best man's birthday. As each new arrival strolled through the door, the alcoholic contents of our fridge multiplied in both quality and quantity! It was a heavy duty night worthy of the occasion but possibly one more suited to the twenty year old livers of our youth. Out wonderful butcher in St Girons had prepared a filet de boeuf fit for a dauphin, and to follow we gorged ourselves on a selection of Madame Gilbert's delicious fromage and my best and richest chocolate cake recipe. Even a Buddhist like Tom was in awe of the quality of the meat, though, of course, I served him pasta and fresh pesto.
And so it continued! It struck me as we lurched from one 'repas' and load of washing up to the next, that slow living and Buddhism is a marriage made in [oooops!] heaven, at least for a man! Time and space are infinite, I think, and one's concept of time is immaterial, except when lunch or dinner has to be put on the table. I am very open about the endless possibilities for the explanation for our existence, but the gap between this life and our expectation of the next seems to me to be dependent on the kitchen. Such routine mundanities as picking, peeling, washing, chopping, stirring and cooking are the very stuff of life and without them we will eventually die. I know the great mystics could survive on the top of a mountain with nothing but a loin cloth and and an apple, but my Irish Catholic heritage has drummed into me the need to provide. I cannot have my guests meditating on empty stomachs! Food is life and the provision of it part of a great karma.
But I digress. Tom had read philosophy and had always assumed the role of intellectual mentor to us lesser mortals concerned with the rather more mundane choices of economics, history and politics. You could not get away with a casual throwaway comment in 1970, and it was good to see that nothing has changed since. We honed our debating skills at his knee and he taught us a lot. It is hard to believe that so many years have passed by and that now, at seventy, he really is a sage. If you're not into Buddhism though, or like some of our number positively agin any religious belief at all, it's the stuff of late boozy nights screeching amicably at each other!
He is now beginning to look like a Buddha. My greatest fear for him is that he may be re-incarnated as Pope in his next life, which I would be very happy with but he would consider hell on earth. One of the most memorable moments of the week was sitting under the trees in our garden, all bar Tom hungover, as we meditated quietly in front of the white agapanthus flowers. The sun was dappling through the trees and, as Tom hit the gong and the birds sang out in unison, peace and love abounded. Cliched, I know, but the communion of old friends is something very special indeed.
There were many other memorable moments too, boring to recall for anyone not witness to them, but they all involved people working together. It is a massive logistical exercise to keep everyone fed, watered, wined and happy but, I'm pleased to say, a joyful one when everyone mucks in and does their share. And, as so often happens with a house full, I've discovered new recipes born out of a need to be creative with leftovers. My 'not quite quiche Lorraine' was made with strips of leftover Bayonne ham gently crisped before being put into the pastry case with four egg yolks whipped into some 'creme de Normandie', only slightly spoilt by my slip with an oven glove whilst it was still runny and renamed by everyone 'Lola's drunken quiche'! The green beans with pesto and grated parmesan were rather good too.
So now the house is quiet and the old farts and the Buddhist wending their weary ways home. We already have a re-match planned for Norfolk in the autumn. I have time to think, reply to my emails, return phone calls, tidy up the borders, laze in the sunshine and, best of all, practice my expertly taught new meditation skills. I miss them all already but the upside is that I am looking forward to a few early nights off the booze. And, best of all, Freddie arrives on Tuesday. It will then be just the four of us together for a few days, days to cherish as our children grow older, for I suspect, as the years go by, there will be fewer and fewer of them. More glorious summer days to savour at Bardies and I do not want them to end.
Monday, 20 July 2009
Glory Days
Well, we made it! I'm so impressed with the DVLA, who got my replacement licence to me in three days, and HSBC, who got my replacement cards to me [well, to the bank so Peter could pick them up for me, but still pretty impressive]. I didn't even have to panic over the weekend! So, on Monday morning, Ellie and I took a leisurely drive from Salisbury down to Portsmouth to take the 12.00 ferry to Le Havre. As a regular Brittany ferries punter I have to say that, whilst the food and general hospitality is nothing like as good, LD Lines is a pretty good alternative at less than half the price. The ship was squeeky clean, all chrome and shiny hard surfaces, but the staff were friendly enough and with an outside berth day cabin thrown in for our eighty odd quid, we were very impressed. The afternoon siesta provided a welcome cure-all from the excesses of a long Sunday lunch with local friends. By the time we got to Le Havre, we felt ready to hit the town, which in this case was Honfleur.
Peter and I used to skip off occasionally for romantic nights in Honfleur, 'avant les enfants'. It's still as beautiful as it was twenty years ago and, as far as I could make out in one evening, relatively unchanged. I was really pleased for Ellie that it lived up to my hype, especially as, foolishly, I had booked a hotel on the outskirts because it had parking and I didn't want my precious new Bosch lawn mower nicked! It was a glorious evening and after our twenty five minute hike, we were ready to tackle a serious gourmet dinner close to the Vieux Basin. As it turned out, we were in the midst of a 'pont des fetes' and the town was heaving, so we decided to grab the first available table for two right on the waterfront. The food was average, but the view and the ambiance more than made up for it. It seemed impossible to believe that we had left the wet, windy weather of England just a few hours before. It's no wonder so many tourist ads for France picture the boats and the harbour at Honfleur. It's the stuff of paintings and TV commercials, not a quick stopover, but we loved every minute of it.
The following day, we stopped with Ian and Jackie Hoare at 'La Souvigne', not too far from Tulle. We first met them because I always carry a Sawday's French B & B book with me when I'm travelling through France. Ian is half Hungarian and Jackie is half French and they both went native many years ago. Ian is a mine of information about French culture, food and wine. He is also a sommelier and a member of the Bergerac wine fraternity, which also boasts the amazing Patricia Atkinson amongst its number. If you ever want to read a story about a woman's determination to see something through, I really recommend her book. They cooked the most delicious dinner for us, including some cured ham from 'Bernard' [the pig, not the producer] which Ian had been given in lieu of his assistance in designing a website for 'Bernard's' owner. The main course was magret cooked in an oriental style, the recipe of which I'm going to pinch for my summer guests, followed by local cheese and homemade raspberry ice cream. Ian tells me that he now has 180 recipes up on his website, so I feel a spot of plagiarism coming on. We waddled off to bed 'tres content' and a lot more knowledgeable.
After a moderate drive, we eventually got to Bardies on Wednesday afternoon and couldn't believe that everything had gone so swimmingly. The temperature guage in the car had hit 32 degrees and we were desperate to cool off our mosquito bites. As we walked slowly down to the pool arm in arm, a citron vert vision appeared before us. "Mum, the pool's gone green!" Oh, shit, I thought. What do I do now? It's never happened to us before, but that was before our 'jardinier' went walkabout. Tina, our 'woman Friday' has gone off to Glastonbury working for a fortnight and seeing 'The Boss' in the process [oh no, I'm not jealous - much!]. With no one to top up the non automatic water levels, the pump had cut out during blistering temperatures giving the algae a field day. I couldn't believe my eyes. The lime in my gin and tonic, which I needed to recover from the shock, was an identical shade of Trisha Guild green.
The next day the nice man at Ariege Piscines finally rode to my rescue, at huge expense I'm sure, and all became well just as the thunderstorms rolled in. Fortunately, we were due to go visiting because my friend Molly has had major surgery on her back. I spent Friday sorting the house out in anticipation of our imminent arrivals and cooking some tasty morsels to help speed Molly's recovery. The basil that I had planted has thrived on the sunshine so pesto was a must. There is nothing so simple and delicious as home made pesto, for which I never use a recipe. I just toast up a good handful of pine nuts, which I throw into the food processor with a bunch of basil, a couple of garlic gloves, plenty of freshly grated Parmesan and good olive oil drizzled through the funnel. A quick whizz and you're done. Pronto pesto! Divine. I also threw together a griddled aubergine and tomato cous cous salad.
We went to Molly's via the Saturday morning market in St Girons, already demonstrating the fact that the English are not keeping away from France despite Robert Peston. Whilst it's not quite Kensington 'en campagne', it's getting as close to Brits abroad as we used to deride the Gers for being. Our little secret is no more, methinks! I don't want to be a 'nimby', so I'm trying to be positive. It's good for the local economy, nobody could seriously come here if they didn't have a decent smattering of French and more people might read mine and Kalba's blogs [see 'Slow Living in the French Pyrenees' on Blogspot]. We bought masses of bio salad stuff for Molly, olives, cheese and a divine 'croustarde des myrtilles', as well as some 'fraises des bois'. Hopefully, it will keep her going for a bit, stuck up the mountain as she is without a shop.
She lives in Axiat, opposite the Roman church of St Julien. If you haven't yet been along the Route des Corniches, it's a must. A corniche is a road that winds along the side of a steep coast or cliff and whilst this isn't as famous as it's Riviera cousins, with their car ads and movie car crashes. not to mention poor old Princess Grace, it is equally as stunning in a mountain sort of way. It's the old pilgrimage route to Ax which starts at Bompas, 3 km north of Tarascon, and winds its way through Arnave, Cazenave and Senconat up to Axiat, before going on to Lordat and Unac before Ax itself. It is one of the most beautiful drives in the Ariege, and if you are a cyclist one of the most challenging. The Tour de France comes this way periodically so it's certainly not for cycling softies. Axiat itself boasts a church of exquisite proportions, if one ignores the 19th century sacristy tagged on for practical reasons rather than architectural merit. It has a distinctly Burgundian elegance to it, with its square bell tower, and it would seem highly probable that the Comte de Foix, Roger II, was highly influenced by the Abbe de Cluny who had 'donated' it on 25th January 1075.
We were pleased we went and it was great to see Molly looking so well just a week after major surgery. The afternoon flew by. As we wove our way back down the mountain in the late evening sunshine, with Springstein blasting out from the CD player, I couldn't have felt happier. Here I am back in my beloved Bardies with long summer days ahead. The first of our many house guests begin to arrive on Monday, culminating in a big reunion of the class of Hull University'73, our best man's birthday and our wedding anniversary on Thursday. What fun we shall have. Glory days indeed.
Peter and I used to skip off occasionally for romantic nights in Honfleur, 'avant les enfants'. It's still as beautiful as it was twenty years ago and, as far as I could make out in one evening, relatively unchanged. I was really pleased for Ellie that it lived up to my hype, especially as, foolishly, I had booked a hotel on the outskirts because it had parking and I didn't want my precious new Bosch lawn mower nicked! It was a glorious evening and after our twenty five minute hike, we were ready to tackle a serious gourmet dinner close to the Vieux Basin. As it turned out, we were in the midst of a 'pont des fetes' and the town was heaving, so we decided to grab the first available table for two right on the waterfront. The food was average, but the view and the ambiance more than made up for it. It seemed impossible to believe that we had left the wet, windy weather of England just a few hours before. It's no wonder so many tourist ads for France picture the boats and the harbour at Honfleur. It's the stuff of paintings and TV commercials, not a quick stopover, but we loved every minute of it.
The following day, we stopped with Ian and Jackie Hoare at 'La Souvigne', not too far from Tulle. We first met them because I always carry a Sawday's French B & B book with me when I'm travelling through France. Ian is half Hungarian and Jackie is half French and they both went native many years ago. Ian is a mine of information about French culture, food and wine. He is also a sommelier and a member of the Bergerac wine fraternity, which also boasts the amazing Patricia Atkinson amongst its number. If you ever want to read a story about a woman's determination to see something through, I really recommend her book. They cooked the most delicious dinner for us, including some cured ham from 'Bernard' [the pig, not the producer] which Ian had been given in lieu of his assistance in designing a website for 'Bernard's' owner. The main course was magret cooked in an oriental style, the recipe of which I'm going to pinch for my summer guests, followed by local cheese and homemade raspberry ice cream. Ian tells me that he now has 180 recipes up on his website, so I feel a spot of plagiarism coming on. We waddled off to bed 'tres content' and a lot more knowledgeable.
After a moderate drive, we eventually got to Bardies on Wednesday afternoon and couldn't believe that everything had gone so swimmingly. The temperature guage in the car had hit 32 degrees and we were desperate to cool off our mosquito bites. As we walked slowly down to the pool arm in arm, a citron vert vision appeared before us. "Mum, the pool's gone green!" Oh, shit, I thought. What do I do now? It's never happened to us before, but that was before our 'jardinier' went walkabout. Tina, our 'woman Friday' has gone off to Glastonbury working for a fortnight and seeing 'The Boss' in the process [oh no, I'm not jealous - much!]. With no one to top up the non automatic water levels, the pump had cut out during blistering temperatures giving the algae a field day. I couldn't believe my eyes. The lime in my gin and tonic, which I needed to recover from the shock, was an identical shade of Trisha Guild green.
The next day the nice man at Ariege Piscines finally rode to my rescue, at huge expense I'm sure, and all became well just as the thunderstorms rolled in. Fortunately, we were due to go visiting because my friend Molly has had major surgery on her back. I spent Friday sorting the house out in anticipation of our imminent arrivals and cooking some tasty morsels to help speed Molly's recovery. The basil that I had planted has thrived on the sunshine so pesto was a must. There is nothing so simple and delicious as home made pesto, for which I never use a recipe. I just toast up a good handful of pine nuts, which I throw into the food processor with a bunch of basil, a couple of garlic gloves, plenty of freshly grated Parmesan and good olive oil drizzled through the funnel. A quick whizz and you're done. Pronto pesto! Divine. I also threw together a griddled aubergine and tomato cous cous salad.
We went to Molly's via the Saturday morning market in St Girons, already demonstrating the fact that the English are not keeping away from France despite Robert Peston. Whilst it's not quite Kensington 'en campagne', it's getting as close to Brits abroad as we used to deride the Gers for being. Our little secret is no more, methinks! I don't want to be a 'nimby', so I'm trying to be positive. It's good for the local economy, nobody could seriously come here if they didn't have a decent smattering of French and more people might read mine and Kalba's blogs [see 'Slow Living in the French Pyrenees' on Blogspot]. We bought masses of bio salad stuff for Molly, olives, cheese and a divine 'croustarde des myrtilles', as well as some 'fraises des bois'. Hopefully, it will keep her going for a bit, stuck up the mountain as she is without a shop.
She lives in Axiat, opposite the Roman church of St Julien. If you haven't yet been along the Route des Corniches, it's a must. A corniche is a road that winds along the side of a steep coast or cliff and whilst this isn't as famous as it's Riviera cousins, with their car ads and movie car crashes. not to mention poor old Princess Grace, it is equally as stunning in a mountain sort of way. It's the old pilgrimage route to Ax which starts at Bompas, 3 km north of Tarascon, and winds its way through Arnave, Cazenave and Senconat up to Axiat, before going on to Lordat and Unac before Ax itself. It is one of the most beautiful drives in the Ariege, and if you are a cyclist one of the most challenging. The Tour de France comes this way periodically so it's certainly not for cycling softies. Axiat itself boasts a church of exquisite proportions, if one ignores the 19th century sacristy tagged on for practical reasons rather than architectural merit. It has a distinctly Burgundian elegance to it, with its square bell tower, and it would seem highly probable that the Comte de Foix, Roger II, was highly influenced by the Abbe de Cluny who had 'donated' it on 25th January 1075.
We were pleased we went and it was great to see Molly looking so well just a week after major surgery. The afternoon flew by. As we wove our way back down the mountain in the late evening sunshine, with Springstein blasting out from the CD player, I couldn't have felt happier. Here I am back in my beloved Bardies with long summer days ahead. The first of our many house guests begin to arrive on Monday, culminating in a big reunion of the class of Hull University'73, our best man's birthday and our wedding anniversary on Thursday. What fun we shall have. Glory days indeed.
Friday, 10 July 2009
A Civilised and Cultured Nation
I had intended to write my next blog on 14th July, a significant enough date in French history but also the day on which I was going to start my summer jam making, one of the great annual events in life at Bardies. I promise that the next one will be concerned with the simple joys of such everyday mundanities.
Instead, as ever in life, events have intervened. On Wednesday morning, after an overnight pit stop with Peter near Lancaster Gate, I decided on the spur of the moment to pop down briefly to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, before meeting up with him again for our special treat to ourselves of a theatre double bill at 3.00pm. As I hopped on the number 94 to Picadilly, two undernourished and painfully thin men blocked my way through the almost empty bus, and I thought 'how odd'. A few seconds later, I realised that they had pickpocketed me and there I was with no money, including lots of euro notes which I had exchanged especially, no credit or bank cards and worst of all, no driving licence. Quel catastrophe!
With the lunchtime ferry to Le Havre looming on Monday, I did not begrudge them the money [well, not much!], but I am beside myself with the loss of my cards and driving licence. It is, to my knowledge, unlawful to drive in France without carrying a driving licence. After the bus was evacuated, the police called, endless phone calls and mild hysteria on my part, Peter met me with some cash and off we went to Ronald Harwood's double bill of 'Taking Sides' and 'Collaboration' at the Duchess Theatre. All thoughts of my predicament evaporated the moment the curtain went up.
The first play, 'Taking Sides', is about Dr Wilhelm Furtwangler, the German composer and conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and is set in 1946 when he was interogated by the Americans over his collaboration with the Nazis. The second play, 'Collaboration', is about Richard Strauss's relationship with his Jewish librettist, Stefan Zweig, and the impact on their relationship of Nazi threats to Strauss's Jewish daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. Both plays examine the propensity to take the high moral ground from the safety of our own comfort zones. Nothing is as it seems, especially when we discover that Furtwangler also helped over eighty Jewish musicians to escape.
In case you are wondering why I am writing this in a blog about Bardies, I wanted to share some thoughts about some notes in the programme. Mathew Scott, the composer, asks why such a cultured, intelligent country fell for Nazism. Ronald Harwood, the writer, replies, "It is one of the mysteries of history. I've always said about the Germans that they are cultured but not civilised, we're civilised but not cultured and the French are civilised and cultured, which makes them unbearable."
Of course, it got me thinking. Firstly, about the fictional events in Sebastian Faulkes's 1999 novel, 'Charlotte Gray', specifically about how some people behaved in occupied France, and the events surrounding the Drancy holding camp to the east of Paris. The plight of the two little Jewish boys in the story, Andre and Jacob, still brings me to tears. And then, inevitably, my thoughts turned to what is probably the greatest and most awe-inspiring work of fiction that the occupation of France produced, the wonderful 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky.
Only two of the planned five books were written, in her miniscule script in a leather bound notebook. 'Storm in June', about the flight from Paris, and 'Dolce', about life under German occupation in the fictional village of 'Bussy', are all the more compelling because they are almost simultaneous with the events in the lives of the writer, her two daughters and her husband, Michel Epstein. These two magnificent novellas are set between June 4th 1940, as German forces prepare to invade Paris, and July 1st 1941, when some of the German occupying forces are re-deployed to the Soviet Union.
We shall never know what happened to the vast array of characters in her planned later books because Irene Nemirovsky was arrested on 13th July 1942 in the village of Issy-l'Eveque, and sent to her death in the Auschwitz infirmary, of typhus, on 17th August 1942. Her husband also suffered the same fate a few months later, when he was sent to the gas chamber immediately upon his arrival, but her daughters survived. One of them, Denise, discovered the treasure of her mother's manuscript in 1999. The book was published in Paris to great critical acclaim in 2004, and later brilliantly translated by Sandra Smith for a wider audience.
I cannot reccomend it highly enough to all lovers of all things French. It is both sad and joyful, as Nemirovsky records the best and the worst of times in France under German occupation. Who knows what any of us would do in such dire circumstance? We all like to think that we would behave with the utmost honour and integrity, but the reality of choices with the severest of consequences would undoubtedly lead most of us to inhabit that grey world of uncertain morality in between the black and white.
Both Furtwangler and Strauss, and many of the characters in 'Suite Francaise' were confronted with difficult dilemmas. The fictional Bruno von Falk, the young German Wehrmacht officer billeted with Lucille Argellier and her widowed mother-in-law in Bussy, in 'Dolce', the second novella, is charming, has read Balzac and plays the piano beautifully. He had hoped to be a musician before his Wehrmacht obligations intervened. Like Captain Corelli, he is a civilised and cultured man living in uncivilised times. We feel for him, because the world he now lives in was not of his making. He is from our world, where music, art and literature are the mark of the civilised human being.
But, oh, how quickly such glorious things can evaporate before our liberal eyes. The real choices of war take precedence, unless like Furtwangler we close our eyes to reality. In our part of France, the starting point of Le Chemin de la Liberte was St Girons. Evaders, who included hundreds of Frenchmen wanted by the Gestapo, Jews fleeing their oppressors and the many RAF and American airmen shot down over Nazi occupied Europe, were passed from one link to the next in a chain of local helpers who clothed, fed and hid them at great personal risk to themselves. According to official statistics, there were a staggering 33,000 successful escapes across the whole length of the Pyrenees during the course of the war.
Of these, 782 escaped over the mountain peaks of the Ariege. In June 1943, there were 113 successful evasions through Le Chemin de la Liberte. Several other escape trails were established near St Girons as the war progressed, starting from Foix, Tarascon, Aulus-les-Bains, Massat, Castillon, Seix and Seintein, each one known only to its special guide, its 'passeur'. These men were incredibly brave. Not for them the musings of black and white, as they risked not only their own lives but the lives of their nearest and dearest too. As German surveillance increased, often they were betrayed by their fellow countrymen working for the hated Vichy run paramilitary 'Milice'. Over a hundred 'passeurs' were arrested or deported, or shot on the spot for their bravery. Remarkably, despite such setbacks, the St Girons-Esterri escape route via Mont Valier remained operational until the end of the war.
We owe these truly brave and civilised men and women, an incalculable debt. For, as well as the precious lives that they saved, they have enabled us to retain our fundamental faith in human nature. Sadly, I do not know their names. They will never have the fame and adulation that Furtwangler and Strauss were accorded, both in Germany and beyond, for their great music making. But they are as much a part of the great tapestry of human history that has made France a civilised and cultured nation as its greatest writers, artists and composers.
Instead, as ever in life, events have intervened. On Wednesday morning, after an overnight pit stop with Peter near Lancaster Gate, I decided on the spur of the moment to pop down briefly to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, before meeting up with him again for our special treat to ourselves of a theatre double bill at 3.00pm. As I hopped on the number 94 to Picadilly, two undernourished and painfully thin men blocked my way through the almost empty bus, and I thought 'how odd'. A few seconds later, I realised that they had pickpocketed me and there I was with no money, including lots of euro notes which I had exchanged especially, no credit or bank cards and worst of all, no driving licence. Quel catastrophe!
With the lunchtime ferry to Le Havre looming on Monday, I did not begrudge them the money [well, not much!], but I am beside myself with the loss of my cards and driving licence. It is, to my knowledge, unlawful to drive in France without carrying a driving licence. After the bus was evacuated, the police called, endless phone calls and mild hysteria on my part, Peter met me with some cash and off we went to Ronald Harwood's double bill of 'Taking Sides' and 'Collaboration' at the Duchess Theatre. All thoughts of my predicament evaporated the moment the curtain went up.
The first play, 'Taking Sides', is about Dr Wilhelm Furtwangler, the German composer and conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and is set in 1946 when he was interogated by the Americans over his collaboration with the Nazis. The second play, 'Collaboration', is about Richard Strauss's relationship with his Jewish librettist, Stefan Zweig, and the impact on their relationship of Nazi threats to Strauss's Jewish daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. Both plays examine the propensity to take the high moral ground from the safety of our own comfort zones. Nothing is as it seems, especially when we discover that Furtwangler also helped over eighty Jewish musicians to escape.
In case you are wondering why I am writing this in a blog about Bardies, I wanted to share some thoughts about some notes in the programme. Mathew Scott, the composer, asks why such a cultured, intelligent country fell for Nazism. Ronald Harwood, the writer, replies, "It is one of the mysteries of history. I've always said about the Germans that they are cultured but not civilised, we're civilised but not cultured and the French are civilised and cultured, which makes them unbearable."
Of course, it got me thinking. Firstly, about the fictional events in Sebastian Faulkes's 1999 novel, 'Charlotte Gray', specifically about how some people behaved in occupied France, and the events surrounding the Drancy holding camp to the east of Paris. The plight of the two little Jewish boys in the story, Andre and Jacob, still brings me to tears. And then, inevitably, my thoughts turned to what is probably the greatest and most awe-inspiring work of fiction that the occupation of France produced, the wonderful 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky.
Only two of the planned five books were written, in her miniscule script in a leather bound notebook. 'Storm in June', about the flight from Paris, and 'Dolce', about life under German occupation in the fictional village of 'Bussy', are all the more compelling because they are almost simultaneous with the events in the lives of the writer, her two daughters and her husband, Michel Epstein. These two magnificent novellas are set between June 4th 1940, as German forces prepare to invade Paris, and July 1st 1941, when some of the German occupying forces are re-deployed to the Soviet Union.
We shall never know what happened to the vast array of characters in her planned later books because Irene Nemirovsky was arrested on 13th July 1942 in the village of Issy-l'Eveque, and sent to her death in the Auschwitz infirmary, of typhus, on 17th August 1942. Her husband also suffered the same fate a few months later, when he was sent to the gas chamber immediately upon his arrival, but her daughters survived. One of them, Denise, discovered the treasure of her mother's manuscript in 1999. The book was published in Paris to great critical acclaim in 2004, and later brilliantly translated by Sandra Smith for a wider audience.
I cannot reccomend it highly enough to all lovers of all things French. It is both sad and joyful, as Nemirovsky records the best and the worst of times in France under German occupation. Who knows what any of us would do in such dire circumstance? We all like to think that we would behave with the utmost honour and integrity, but the reality of choices with the severest of consequences would undoubtedly lead most of us to inhabit that grey world of uncertain morality in between the black and white.
Both Furtwangler and Strauss, and many of the characters in 'Suite Francaise' were confronted with difficult dilemmas. The fictional Bruno von Falk, the young German Wehrmacht officer billeted with Lucille Argellier and her widowed mother-in-law in Bussy, in 'Dolce', the second novella, is charming, has read Balzac and plays the piano beautifully. He had hoped to be a musician before his Wehrmacht obligations intervened. Like Captain Corelli, he is a civilised and cultured man living in uncivilised times. We feel for him, because the world he now lives in was not of his making. He is from our world, where music, art and literature are the mark of the civilised human being.
But, oh, how quickly such glorious things can evaporate before our liberal eyes. The real choices of war take precedence, unless like Furtwangler we close our eyes to reality. In our part of France, the starting point of Le Chemin de la Liberte was St Girons. Evaders, who included hundreds of Frenchmen wanted by the Gestapo, Jews fleeing their oppressors and the many RAF and American airmen shot down over Nazi occupied Europe, were passed from one link to the next in a chain of local helpers who clothed, fed and hid them at great personal risk to themselves. According to official statistics, there were a staggering 33,000 successful escapes across the whole length of the Pyrenees during the course of the war.
Of these, 782 escaped over the mountain peaks of the Ariege. In June 1943, there were 113 successful evasions through Le Chemin de la Liberte. Several other escape trails were established near St Girons as the war progressed, starting from Foix, Tarascon, Aulus-les-Bains, Massat, Castillon, Seix and Seintein, each one known only to its special guide, its 'passeur'. These men were incredibly brave. Not for them the musings of black and white, as they risked not only their own lives but the lives of their nearest and dearest too. As German surveillance increased, often they were betrayed by their fellow countrymen working for the hated Vichy run paramilitary 'Milice'. Over a hundred 'passeurs' were arrested or deported, or shot on the spot for their bravery. Remarkably, despite such setbacks, the St Girons-Esterri escape route via Mont Valier remained operational until the end of the war.
We owe these truly brave and civilised men and women, an incalculable debt. For, as well as the precious lives that they saved, they have enabled us to retain our fundamental faith in human nature. Sadly, I do not know their names. They will never have the fame and adulation that Furtwangler and Strauss were accorded, both in Germany and beyond, for their great music making. But they are as much a part of the great tapestry of human history that has made France a civilised and cultured nation as its greatest writers, artists and composers.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Grafting for a Slow Life
I was rung up last Thursday by our delightful 'Alistair Sawday' inspector. She is an American lady of high culture who has gone native up in the high Pyrenees with a restored auberge called 'La Genade'. We met almost a fortnight ago when she came to give us the once over for inclusion in next May's re-publication of 'French Holiday Homes'. She is the epitomy of that group of civilised, well-travelled, intellectual Americans, so despised by their previous president and his accolytes, who is as at home in London, Paris or Beijing as they would be in New York, Atlanta or San Francisco. We have been privileged to meet many such Americans on our travels over the years and I am thrilled for them that the new Obama administration has enabled them to lift up their heads once again.
Needless to say, after the serious business of the day was done, we talked of such things. We also talked of 19th century English literature, her great love, and every conceivable aspect of French, English and European history and culture that it was possible to cram into a long, slow lunch under the lime trees at Bardies in one afternoon. I finally waved her off to drive back up the mountains at 7.30pm.
Such are the joys of life and lunching in our part of the world. Speedy Brits, used to a 'Pret a Manger' sandwich or salad at their desk, take a few days chez nous to 'chill' [as my teenage kids would phrase it]. We consider it a good lunch if we are still going at 4.30pm and there is still some chilled 'rose' left in the bottle to finish. Critics of the French economic model, of course, bemoan the impact of the lunch recess. Given the choice between the two, I know which is the more civilised option, although it has to be said that when you find the electric doors of your local 'bricolage' store, or bank, or 'tresorerie' refusing to budge at one minute to midday the temptation to mutter 'merde' is often overwhelming.
Meredith had just finished harvesting some fresh peas from her 'potager' when she called. She told me that she had been speaking with the head of Sawdays in Paris, who is putting together their first 'Slow France' publication, and that I should seriously consider applying for a listing at some stage. I was flattered, of course, but my reply was 'Gosh, Meredith. Think of the work!' I simply couldn't imagine doing it all myself, and neither could she. It takes a phenomenal amount of energy keeping up with her own 'potager', her 'table d'hote' guests, and her own cleaning, as well as the washing and ironing of bed-linen. When my house is full with non-paying guests, it's not much easier either. We had a laugh as we spoke of the vagaries of a fantasy 'slow' life, a la William Morris et al. Such a life was always the privilege of the aristocracy, who had minions, inevitably paid a pittance, to support their creative aspirations.
These days, Sissinghurst, Charleston and the like have been superceded as role models by the much more 'hands on' approach of Jimmy's Farm and the River Cottage. We sit in our cosy houses with food on the table and look back nostalgically to a world where we could physically touch and see the products of our labours. Marx got it absolutely right when he describes the process of 'alienation' in a soul-destroying world of rapidly advancing industrialisation and 'division of labour'. Cut off from the source of our energy, especially our food, the capitalist role model swallows us up in its ever-demanding quest for profit. We are left bereft and in search of our very souls. It is the price we have paid for material gain.
Short of a major revolution and the overthrow of capitalism as we know it, it's hard to see how the average working man or woman can afford a slow life, especially at Tesco prices. I know that the demand for allotments in the UK is at an all time high, but I wonder at the other compromises that have to be made to put home grown vegetables on the table. My mum did it in the 50's and 60's, when over half of our long, narrow garden was given over to vegetables. She had both the most beautiful and the most productive garden in the street, alongside a full-time nursing job, four children and home cooked food. She certainly couldn't afford help and as a result, she was permanently knackered. Sadly, I don't remember her ever having enough time to sit down to talk or play with us.
Don't get me wrong. I think that slow living is great if you are privileged enough to be able to do it. I just know, as a busy mum, that there are only twenty four hours in the day and that the struggle to do and be all these things often leaves us going to bed riddled with guilt and failure. It takes real graft to lead a 'slow life', as the five historians and archaeologists who set out to recreate farm life in 1620, in Peter Sommer's 'Tales From the Green Valley', so ably demonstrated on our television screens recently. Carl Honore's admonition of impatient sex in 'In Praise of Slow' may be wonderfully apt but, unfortunately, at the end of a tough day labouring on the farm, my guess is that some 'slow sleep' is more likely to be the urge that comes to mind first!
Interestingly, I read today that Britons are less satisfied with life than many people in poorer countries, and that they use too many of the world's resources. The 'Happy Planet Index', devised by Nick Marks [no pun intended!], which measures life expectancy, happiness and the environmental impact of different nations, put Britain 74th out of 143, with Australia at 109 and the USA at 114. The highest ranking European country was the Netherlands at 43. Britain's poor ranking, unsurprisingly, was deemed to be due to a combination of social problems, including high levels of inequality, poor living and community breakdown, as well as the high carbon footprint of most of the population. The countries that came top were middle income countries in Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean with a high level of life satisfaction and a low carbon footprint.
Clearly, if we aspire to the basic tenets of slower living, and reduce our carbon footprints in the process, we will be happier human beings. We will also be doing something, hopefully not too late, to improve our world for our children. This strikes me as the main motivation for a conscious realignment of our priorities, rather than the misty-eyed vision of past times gleaned from our television screens. We can learn a lot from the lessons of the past, but we need to be realistic. The great advances of the 20th century, in science, technology and medicine, have already made our lives much easier and, let's not kid ourselves, better. We now need to harness them to the needs of a changing world with an uncertain future. And we will.
Slow living is the natural order of things in this part of France, and long may it last. Bardies, until the ravages of two world wars, had always been self-sufficient. Throughout the house, when we bought it in 2000, there was evidence of the industry of the previous owners. They did everything themselves, from growing fruit and vegetables and making their own conserves and chutneys in enormous copper confiture pans, to raising cows, chickens and sheep and making their own charcuterie. In between they rode, hunted and fenced. The women made, embroidered and mended curtains, bedlinen, napkins and clothes. Bardies was a veritable cottage industry, little changed in centuries. But hidden away in armoires upstairs, were masses of servants' uniforms, all hand-made as well. A whole army of people enabled the house to function. These days, there is just me, with a little occasional help from Carine. I'm forever grafting for a slow life. The good news is I'm a fast worker!
Needless to say, after the serious business of the day was done, we talked of such things. We also talked of 19th century English literature, her great love, and every conceivable aspect of French, English and European history and culture that it was possible to cram into a long, slow lunch under the lime trees at Bardies in one afternoon. I finally waved her off to drive back up the mountains at 7.30pm.
Such are the joys of life and lunching in our part of the world. Speedy Brits, used to a 'Pret a Manger' sandwich or salad at their desk, take a few days chez nous to 'chill' [as my teenage kids would phrase it]. We consider it a good lunch if we are still going at 4.30pm and there is still some chilled 'rose' left in the bottle to finish. Critics of the French economic model, of course, bemoan the impact of the lunch recess. Given the choice between the two, I know which is the more civilised option, although it has to be said that when you find the electric doors of your local 'bricolage' store, or bank, or 'tresorerie' refusing to budge at one minute to midday the temptation to mutter 'merde' is often overwhelming.
Meredith had just finished harvesting some fresh peas from her 'potager' when she called. She told me that she had been speaking with the head of Sawdays in Paris, who is putting together their first 'Slow France' publication, and that I should seriously consider applying for a listing at some stage. I was flattered, of course, but my reply was 'Gosh, Meredith. Think of the work!' I simply couldn't imagine doing it all myself, and neither could she. It takes a phenomenal amount of energy keeping up with her own 'potager', her 'table d'hote' guests, and her own cleaning, as well as the washing and ironing of bed-linen. When my house is full with non-paying guests, it's not much easier either. We had a laugh as we spoke of the vagaries of a fantasy 'slow' life, a la William Morris et al. Such a life was always the privilege of the aristocracy, who had minions, inevitably paid a pittance, to support their creative aspirations.
These days, Sissinghurst, Charleston and the like have been superceded as role models by the much more 'hands on' approach of Jimmy's Farm and the River Cottage. We sit in our cosy houses with food on the table and look back nostalgically to a world where we could physically touch and see the products of our labours. Marx got it absolutely right when he describes the process of 'alienation' in a soul-destroying world of rapidly advancing industrialisation and 'division of labour'. Cut off from the source of our energy, especially our food, the capitalist role model swallows us up in its ever-demanding quest for profit. We are left bereft and in search of our very souls. It is the price we have paid for material gain.
Short of a major revolution and the overthrow of capitalism as we know it, it's hard to see how the average working man or woman can afford a slow life, especially at Tesco prices. I know that the demand for allotments in the UK is at an all time high, but I wonder at the other compromises that have to be made to put home grown vegetables on the table. My mum did it in the 50's and 60's, when over half of our long, narrow garden was given over to vegetables. She had both the most beautiful and the most productive garden in the street, alongside a full-time nursing job, four children and home cooked food. She certainly couldn't afford help and as a result, she was permanently knackered. Sadly, I don't remember her ever having enough time to sit down to talk or play with us.
Don't get me wrong. I think that slow living is great if you are privileged enough to be able to do it. I just know, as a busy mum, that there are only twenty four hours in the day and that the struggle to do and be all these things often leaves us going to bed riddled with guilt and failure. It takes real graft to lead a 'slow life', as the five historians and archaeologists who set out to recreate farm life in 1620, in Peter Sommer's 'Tales From the Green Valley', so ably demonstrated on our television screens recently. Carl Honore's admonition of impatient sex in 'In Praise of Slow' may be wonderfully apt but, unfortunately, at the end of a tough day labouring on the farm, my guess is that some 'slow sleep' is more likely to be the urge that comes to mind first!
Interestingly, I read today that Britons are less satisfied with life than many people in poorer countries, and that they use too many of the world's resources. The 'Happy Planet Index', devised by Nick Marks [no pun intended!], which measures life expectancy, happiness and the environmental impact of different nations, put Britain 74th out of 143, with Australia at 109 and the USA at 114. The highest ranking European country was the Netherlands at 43. Britain's poor ranking, unsurprisingly, was deemed to be due to a combination of social problems, including high levels of inequality, poor living and community breakdown, as well as the high carbon footprint of most of the population. The countries that came top were middle income countries in Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean with a high level of life satisfaction and a low carbon footprint.
Clearly, if we aspire to the basic tenets of slower living, and reduce our carbon footprints in the process, we will be happier human beings. We will also be doing something, hopefully not too late, to improve our world for our children. This strikes me as the main motivation for a conscious realignment of our priorities, rather than the misty-eyed vision of past times gleaned from our television screens. We can learn a lot from the lessons of the past, but we need to be realistic. The great advances of the 20th century, in science, technology and medicine, have already made our lives much easier and, let's not kid ourselves, better. We now need to harness them to the needs of a changing world with an uncertain future. And we will.
Slow living is the natural order of things in this part of France, and long may it last. Bardies, until the ravages of two world wars, had always been self-sufficient. Throughout the house, when we bought it in 2000, there was evidence of the industry of the previous owners. They did everything themselves, from growing fruit and vegetables and making their own conserves and chutneys in enormous copper confiture pans, to raising cows, chickens and sheep and making their own charcuterie. In between they rode, hunted and fenced. The women made, embroidered and mended curtains, bedlinen, napkins and clothes. Bardies was a veritable cottage industry, little changed in centuries. But hidden away in armoires upstairs, were masses of servants' uniforms, all hand-made as well. A whole army of people enabled the house to function. These days, there is just me, with a little occasional help from Carine. I'm forever grafting for a slow life. The good news is I'm a fast worker!
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Voyages of Discovery
Well, I finally hobbled onto Eurostar on Saturday morning after a long night on the autoroute, toute seule, and ten glorious days at Bardies getting ready for our Alistair Sawday inspection [more excitement on this to follow in the next post!]. My only incentive for driving back was the urgent need to replace our ancient rattling lawn mower and recently deceased hedge cutter. With over thirty metres of ancient box hedging to contain after the spring rains and early summer sunshine, and a still decidedly unfavourable exchange rate, I decided to hit the road in pursuit of UK bargains rather than prop up the profits of our local 'Briconautes' yet again. French prices before the nose dive of the pound were horrendous. Now they look like someone put the decimal point in the wrong place.
Driving through France is always a voyage of discovery. At Easter, we detoured 'en famille' to Oradour-sur-Glanne in the Haute Vienne department not far from Limoges. I had wanted to visit this remarkable testament to the horrors of war since seeing the Jeremy Isaac's award winning 1973 series 'The World at War'. Thirty six years later, the image of Dr Desourteaux's abandoned car, amongst many others, still remained with me. Everything is as it was left on Saturday 10th June 1944, when one of the worst civilian atrocities in France was perpetrated on the innocent people of Oradour by the Der Fuhrer Regiment of 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich. 642 men, women and children were brutally murdered, the majority being burnt alive beyond recognition in the church. A visit to Oradour is a pilgrimage rather than a voyage, a 'must' for children studying the history of the Second World War. We were all deeply moved by the experience. 'Souviens-toi'.
Returning home after Easter, sans enfants who had flown home with their dad, I went via Caen-Ouistreham, another reminder of those dark days. A month after the horrors of Oradour, on 9th July 1944, seventy five per cent of the city of Caen was destroyed by allied bombers as part of the back up for the D-Day landings. There were more than 2000 casualties. Anthony Beevor, controversially, recently said in an interview that the bombing of Caen was close to a war crime. I found myself wondering if an atrocity is easier to conduct if you cannot see your victims. Did the people of Caen suffer the torment of their burns with less pain than those in the little church in Oradour? Having also been to Dresden, I find this to be an essential moral question.
On a cheerier note, with almost a day to spare, I indulged myself beforehand with a seafood lunch in Deauville-sur-mer, as 'Great Gatsby'ish' today as it ever was, only bigger and richer. Taking a post-prandial walk along the seafront afterwards, I came across a plaque to Claude Lelouche's 1966 film, 'Un Homme et Une Femme', which won the coveted Cannes 'Grand Prix' and was partly filmed in Deauville. My first ever serious boyfriend, who was called Michael, was obsessed with Anouk Aimee and we saw it at least three times. I was in the sixth form, not doing French 'A' level, but from that moment I knew I had made a big mistake. Until then, French, like Latin, had been a chore, studied only because they were compulsory subjects at GCE for aspiring historians. We saw ourselves as the lovers in the story, French of course, and my love affair with all things French began in earnest.
I picked up my French again at the Alliance Francaise, where I finally learnt to speak the language, rather than rote learn irregular verbs and schoolgirl vocabulary. My French improved considerably, albeit only to the level of a seven year old. Then, over ten years ago, I watched a BBC TV documentary called 'The Language Master', where the polyglot Michel Thomas taught a disparate group of sixth formers in a London comprehensive how to speak passable French in just five days. I was gob-smacked. There were no books, no blackboards, no little notebooks of vocabulary and no homework. He got and kept their cynical attention for long enough to teach them the basic structure and ability to use the language. I immediately went out and bought his French course, and we've never looked back. As I drove into Calais last Saturday, I listened to the very last CD of his advanced course and finally learnt the elusive subjunctive tenses. Twelve years later, I finally feel that I'm getting there.
Just over a hundred years ago French was a foreign language to the majority of the population. In 1880, just over a fifth of the population felt comfortable speaking French, so I am not so far behind. In 1863, down where we are in the Ariege, virtually none of the communes was French speaking. Some cynics say that this is still the case. It's certainly true that the Ariegois 'twang' is difficult on the ear but getting oneself understood is as big a problem now as it was to Racine and his fellow metropolitan travellers in previous centuries. So much misunderstanding of French culture and custom derives from this essential fact. For a real insight, I thoroughly recommend Graham Robb's scholarly 2007 book, 'The Discovery of France', which I am currently engrossed in.
The rebranding of the France in 1790, with the formation of uniformly sized 'departements' named after rivers and other geographical permanences and the deliberate attempt to obliterate the Oil, Oc, Franco-Provencal and gypsy Basque and Catalan Calo languages, separated the language, customs, culture and superstitions of the traditional 'pays' from the demands of the new order. This mis-match continues today as we are all taught the highly codified and formal foreign language known as French. We struggle with our genders, pronouns and irregular verbs yet none of us speaks the language correctly. It's a consolation to know that this is just as true for the average French person too. We have a number of recognised minor dialects in everyday use not so far from Bardies. They include Ariegois, Fuxien, Luchonnais, Capcinais, Andorrais, Puigcerda, Roussillonais, as well as the major dialects of Couseranais, Commingeois, Catalan, Bigourdan and Languedocien.......and I worry about the accuracy of my French? Everything in France is a voyage of discovery, and long may it last too.
Driving through France is always a voyage of discovery. At Easter, we detoured 'en famille' to Oradour-sur-Glanne in the Haute Vienne department not far from Limoges. I had wanted to visit this remarkable testament to the horrors of war since seeing the Jeremy Isaac's award winning 1973 series 'The World at War'. Thirty six years later, the image of Dr Desourteaux's abandoned car, amongst many others, still remained with me. Everything is as it was left on Saturday 10th June 1944, when one of the worst civilian atrocities in France was perpetrated on the innocent people of Oradour by the Der Fuhrer Regiment of 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich. 642 men, women and children were brutally murdered, the majority being burnt alive beyond recognition in the church. A visit to Oradour is a pilgrimage rather than a voyage, a 'must' for children studying the history of the Second World War. We were all deeply moved by the experience. 'Souviens-toi'.
Returning home after Easter, sans enfants who had flown home with their dad, I went via Caen-Ouistreham, another reminder of those dark days. A month after the horrors of Oradour, on 9th July 1944, seventy five per cent of the city of Caen was destroyed by allied bombers as part of the back up for the D-Day landings. There were more than 2000 casualties. Anthony Beevor, controversially, recently said in an interview that the bombing of Caen was close to a war crime. I found myself wondering if an atrocity is easier to conduct if you cannot see your victims. Did the people of Caen suffer the torment of their burns with less pain than those in the little church in Oradour? Having also been to Dresden, I find this to be an essential moral question.
On a cheerier note, with almost a day to spare, I indulged myself beforehand with a seafood lunch in Deauville-sur-mer, as 'Great Gatsby'ish' today as it ever was, only bigger and richer. Taking a post-prandial walk along the seafront afterwards, I came across a plaque to Claude Lelouche's 1966 film, 'Un Homme et Une Femme', which won the coveted Cannes 'Grand Prix' and was partly filmed in Deauville. My first ever serious boyfriend, who was called Michael, was obsessed with Anouk Aimee and we saw it at least three times. I was in the sixth form, not doing French 'A' level, but from that moment I knew I had made a big mistake. Until then, French, like Latin, had been a chore, studied only because they were compulsory subjects at GCE for aspiring historians. We saw ourselves as the lovers in the story, French of course, and my love affair with all things French began in earnest.
I picked up my French again at the Alliance Francaise, where I finally learnt to speak the language, rather than rote learn irregular verbs and schoolgirl vocabulary. My French improved considerably, albeit only to the level of a seven year old. Then, over ten years ago, I watched a BBC TV documentary called 'The Language Master', where the polyglot Michel Thomas taught a disparate group of sixth formers in a London comprehensive how to speak passable French in just five days. I was gob-smacked. There were no books, no blackboards, no little notebooks of vocabulary and no homework. He got and kept their cynical attention for long enough to teach them the basic structure and ability to use the language. I immediately went out and bought his French course, and we've never looked back. As I drove into Calais last Saturday, I listened to the very last CD of his advanced course and finally learnt the elusive subjunctive tenses. Twelve years later, I finally feel that I'm getting there.
Just over a hundred years ago French was a foreign language to the majority of the population. In 1880, just over a fifth of the population felt comfortable speaking French, so I am not so far behind. In 1863, down where we are in the Ariege, virtually none of the communes was French speaking. Some cynics say that this is still the case. It's certainly true that the Ariegois 'twang' is difficult on the ear but getting oneself understood is as big a problem now as it was to Racine and his fellow metropolitan travellers in previous centuries. So much misunderstanding of French culture and custom derives from this essential fact. For a real insight, I thoroughly recommend Graham Robb's scholarly 2007 book, 'The Discovery of France', which I am currently engrossed in.
The rebranding of the France in 1790, with the formation of uniformly sized 'departements' named after rivers and other geographical permanences and the deliberate attempt to obliterate the Oil, Oc, Franco-Provencal and gypsy Basque and Catalan Calo languages, separated the language, customs, culture and superstitions of the traditional 'pays' from the demands of the new order. This mis-match continues today as we are all taught the highly codified and formal foreign language known as French. We struggle with our genders, pronouns and irregular verbs yet none of us speaks the language correctly. It's a consolation to know that this is just as true for the average French person too. We have a number of recognised minor dialects in everyday use not so far from Bardies. They include Ariegois, Fuxien, Luchonnais, Capcinais, Andorrais, Puigcerda, Roussillonais, as well as the major dialects of Couseranais, Commingeois, Catalan, Bigourdan and Languedocien.......and I worry about the accuracy of my French? Everything in France is a voyage of discovery, and long may it last too.
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