As the last of our festive stragglers disappears out of the door and the mountain of clearing up begins in earnest, and I waddle around due to the agony of seriously bruised ribs compounded by the excesses of Christmas, I find myself reflecting on the fundamental joys of Christmas 2009. Having all the family together again for one last major beanfeast, before some of the teenagers decide to disappear off to newfound friends and families in years to come, was the greatest of them. With a whole ocean and a continent dividing us, it proved to be a very precious time forging new bonds and reaffirming old ones.
The American cousins have never spent Christmas with us, despite the older ones being seventeen. Thanksgiving is the main family holiday in the States so my sister-in-law usually just has the 25th December off work. As a single 'mom' of three, she cannot afford the luxury of unpaid Christmas leave, so the choice inevitably is between a summer holiday or an expensive Christmas trip. The airlines know that they have their Christmas pricing policy sussed! The double whammy of using up your precious holiday leave [never generous in the USA at the best of times!] and paying an arm and a leg to bring four full fare 'adults' across the pond mitigates against everyone being together. So this year was indeed something special.
Having Christmas at Bardies, en famille, then was the icing on the cake [which I only just managed to finish moments before they all came through the door!]. I even managed to make a 'stollen' this year too! We had a few anxious moments as we read and saw the horrendous holiday disruption being reported on the evening news but, remarkably, everyone made it with the minimum of delays. One brother-in-law flew from Dresden, via Schipol, the other drove down after taking an overnight crossing to St Malo with his family. My sister-in-law drove over the mountains from Heidlberg in a rental car because her own car had given up the ghost battling snow drifts in southern Germany. My mother-in-law made it from Kent to Gatwick in thick snow to meet up with my other sister-in-law and her children, who had had the good sense to take the Gatwick Express from London. And Easyjet didn't let them down either. A miracle indeed.
We started as we meant to go on, with a huge lasagne brought down from Chiswick by my sister-in-law in a freezer bag, still frozen because the weather en route had been so cold followed by a warming panetone bread and butter pudding, made with lashings of extra butter, cream and dried fruit. Nineteen around the table was a hoot and the logistics of serving everyone were helped by some deft changes to our kitchen layout - turning my workbench into a serving 'counter' was a stroke of genius, even if I say so myself! The kids, at first a little reticent with each other, and with us, warmed up as the evening progressed. By the end of it they didn't seem too daunted at the prospect of sharing rooms of six and five respectively, one sure way of getting to know one another pretty rapidly.
Christmas Eve got off to a cracking start with a solo performance on the piano of 'The Nutcracker', complete with narration and props, by my brother-in-law. I should really qualify this by saying that, as an ex Opera House Director of Music and Conductor, he does it for a living, giving solo pre-performance talks of all the major operas at the Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig opera. He has always struggled with his sight but, now, tragically, like Beethoven he has lost his hearing, torture indeed for a brilliant musician. He has his own little business now, which is much in demand, so we get personalised performances whenever he is with us. The kids will never look at the 'Nutcracker' in quite the same way again.
As we quaffed smoked salmon blinis [the blinis freshly prepared by one sister-in-law], sausage rolls [from the freezer cabinet of 'Les Mousquetaires', but surprisingly good], warmed mince pies [from Waitrose, of course!] and [pretentious or what!] 'Bellinis' [made the quick way a la recette de Jamie Oliver], we continued with carols in front of the Christmas Tree. As more alcohol was consumed, the quality of the singing deteriorated in inverse proportion. We might even have got onto 60's pop songs if we hadn't called time! I had made a huge fish pie during the afternoon so we were able to stagger into dinner without too much extra work. This was followed by Nigella Lawson's divine Clementine cake [actually, it was mine but you know what I mean!]. It was such a shame, though, that we managed to get the times of the Midnight Mass in the Cathedral in St Lizier wrong because the French go in for early starts and 'minuit' is pretty much the finale.
For Christmas Day, in true French style, we had capons, which were absolutely delicious. We started with some of Caroline's 'mi-cuit' foie gras [this is France!] and brioche, followed by the capons with all the usual trimmings. I had had the good sense to bring fresh cranberries with me to make a cranberry, port and orange relish. I had also brought vacuum packed chestnuts to make the stuffing because I have never seen any chestnut trees around us. The 'pigs in blankets' had been brought down especially from Marks and Spencer's in Chiswick because my fifteen-year-old daughter had been adamant that it wouldn't be Christmas without them. We even found Brussels sprouts locally, at the third attempt, which is more than many managed in the UK I gather. Sadly there were no parsnips to be found in a twenty kilometre radius, but with mounds of roast potatoes and honey glazed carrots, though, I don't think that anyone noticed.
The bread sauce I made with my own bread, because my darling mother-in-law had bought me a Panasonic bread machine a few years ago for my birthday "just in case you have a crowd, Lola, and can't get to the shops". Brilliant for times of mass catering like this, when the idea of slicing crusts off the round edges of baguettes is just a little too daunting. My mother-in-law had also made her legendary Christmas Pudding, which we served with creamy rum sauce from the family Father Christmas Toby jug [promised in her will to my sister-in-law in San Francisco!]. By the end of it, we were well and truly ready for the Christmas present unwrapping fracas, interrupted midway by the teenagers' urgent need to see the Christmas 'Doctor Who' special, which by all accounts was well below par. We finally got to bed, deliciously over indulged but thoroughly content, at 4.00am!
Boxing Day brought home baked muffins followed by much needed walks in the winter sunshine and trips to St Lizier and St Girons. For lunch, we had a whole leg of organic unsmoked ham, lovingly prepared by my sister-in-law and driven down, with festive coleslaw, home-made soup, baked potatoes, antipasti and salad, and the most divine cheese from Madame Gilbert in St Girons. A French 'fromagier' will never sell you a cheese which is anything other than perfectly ripe for the occasion. We had Brie, Camembert, and four different types of chevre and even the teenagers demolished platefuls saying that they had never tasted cheese so good. I had brought a Stilton with me but it remained unopened. Somehow it didn't seem quite right.
So now we're consuming all the delicious leftovers. We waved the German cousins off with sandwiches of Madame Gilbert's Brie and ham, mince pies, left over chocolate cake and fresh fruit for their long trek home. Those destined for Blagnac didn't need a packed lunch, sadly. It all seems to have gone so quickly, like Clara's 'Nutcracker' dream. The house is quiet, but ours again. We miss everyone terribly but it's nice to be just four. We talk and chat and curl up with new DVD's. We loved 'Milk' and 'Benjamin Button' especially, the first time that I've sat down in over a week.
Even the leftovers taste great. Last night we finished the fish pie and clementine cake. Today we had smoked salmon and cheese for lunch. Tonight it's ham and eggs with the remains of the 'leek gratin', followed by leftover bread and butter pudding. We seem to have eaten our way through the Christmas cookies [Nigella, again!], the chocolate orange muffins [Darina Allen] and the delicious stollen brought from Dresden by my brother-in-law, as well as the Christmas 'lebkuchen' brought from Heidlberg by the German contingent. Needless to say, the Christmas cake [mine!] and the big chocolate panetone [Carluccio's] haven't been touched. I wonder why? We are all stuffed after a festive feast of food, glorious food, that's why! The diet starts on 1st January!
Monday, 28 December 2009
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
Unbelievably pour moi, it's a whole month since I managed a posting. The last week of November and these mad, crazy three December weeks before Christmas have been fuddled in a haze of dental pain and, now, bruised ribs and a badly bashed big toe. Oh, woe is me! I am rapidly realising, the closer I get to my free bus pass, that after a certain age everything starts to wear out! First it was my eyes. Nowadays, I can't see a bloody thing without +3.0 glasses, which I seem to lose faster than Boots manage to restock them [obviously, my brain is going the same way too!]. Now, it's my teeth. There is no pain as debilitating as major tooth ache and two root canals and a shedload of painkillers and anitibiotics later, I am finally back on track for the festive frivolities.
The bruised ribs and blackened toe, however, are a more recent acquisition. There we were feeling thoroughly smug with ourselves that we had got through 'le Tunnel' with a mere two hour delay [at the time we couldn't understand why the sign said that this was due to winter conditions - little did we know!]. Once we got into France, it was like Narnia, only with HGV's and other more modern vehicles. The snow was falling in large flakes on the autoroute all the way to Rouen but the road remained open, despite the Arctic conditions. The gritters and 'saliers' had been out in abundance and it was apparent immediately that this is what the French get in return for their decidedly hefty taxes.
We managed to get as far as Orleans, by which time we had decided that the snow was becoming too icy and treacherous to push our luck too far. Safely tucked up in our functional, corporate designed Novotel bedroom after the obligatory steak/frites dinner, we turned on the TV. The full scale of the carnage on the French roads became apparent. People were stranded in their cars everywhere, but especially to the east in Alsace. The gods were certainly with us. After a couple of centimetres of overnight snowfall, we set off the following morning with no idea what to expect on the autoroute. It was deserted. The road was clear, every illuminated sign announced that 'saliage' was in progress and we were amazed at how easy it all was.
The oddest thing of all was driving along a French motorway with no trucks. We couldn't understand what was going on. Had we missed something? Was there a 'greve'? Eventually, on the opposite carriageway we saw a huge line of lorries parked along the hard shoulder. We ploughed on, puzzled. Then, near Limoges, we saw a similar line of stationary trucks lined up on our carriageway, topped and tailed with gendarmes. Perhaps they had become stranded during the night? Finally, the mystery was solved when we were directed off the autoroute into what appeared to be a deviation. Our hearts sank, thinking that our 'bon chance' had finally run its course.
Then, as we reached the roundabout, more trucks materialised and we assumed that there had been an accident. But, no, to our utter amazement it rapidly transpired that the gendarmes had closed the motorway simply to take any stray trucks off it. We were allowed back on, along with the few other passenger vehicles, to continue our journey. In order to keep traffic flowing and reduce the risk of accidents, the French traffic police had decided to transfer all the HGV's to the 'routes nationales'. Great for us, but a bugger for them. It made me think of my friend Caroline de Roquette, who makes divine fresh 'mi-cuit' foie gras, losing tens of thousands of euros worth of stock during a lorry drivers' dispute in the run-up to Christmas a few years ago. Perishable goods wait for noone.
We got safely all the way to the tiny 'hameau' of Gavats, less than a kilometre from the house, where we turn left to begin the climb up to us. As we turned left, we slid down the slope and, with the heavy weight of ten tons of Christmas stuff, swerved uncontrollably into the side of a neighbour's house. Unsurprisingly, the wall won, but in the process my slackened seatbelt didn't engage fast enough and the impact well and truly took the stuffing out of me! Thankfully, we weren't going too fast but, my God, it hurt. And, just to compound my injuries, as I was thrown back my legs lifted off the floor and my right toe took the brunt of the momentum. You couldn't make it up! It was the stuff of 'Live at the Apollo'.
Determined to unpack the mountains of stuff in the boot and roof rack, we managed to hobble up the hill with no seatbelts and a badly bashed in driver's wing, with me moaning and groaning all the way. Home at last - to no heating and no hot water! It's everyone's worst nightmare. It had been turned on for us by a friend the day before but something had seriously malfunctioned. I rang our heating engineer, only to find that the office would be closed until 28th December. Then, I rang his mobile just to depress myself even further. At least, though, we had the woodburners, which solved the heating problem, but they do not provide hot water and we don't have an immersion heater. Oh well, tomorrow would be another day.
We woke up to a bitterly cold, beautiful clear day. Bardies shrouded in snow is the ultimate feelgood experience, even with bruised ribs, a bashed toe, a smashed up car and no hot water. The quality of light here is magical and because we are at 500 metres, it has the same ambiance as a ski resort. We battened down the hatches and prepared for a long wait, as nothing ever happens here at the weekend. I don't think that we have ever drunk as many mugs of hot tea! Only when Peter's business partner rang to say that he had spent all day on the M20 trying to get to Folkestone with his family, en route to Christmas in Geneva, and had to turn round and go home, did we realise our luck. When we turned on the television and saw the news footage of desperate and anxious stranded travellers, we guessed that we must have been some of the last people through.
Over the weekend, the tales of travellers' woe only got worse as Britain battled, and lost, its fight against the elements. It was a story of two countries divided by a small sea and a big tunnel. It's true that noone, least of all Eurotunnel and Eurostar, had been able to anticipate the full, horrendous impact of Arctic weather conditions on the functioning of their services. However, I have to say, after our experience, that there appears to be no comparison between how the UK and France manage their road transport system in a crisis. Is it a matter of funding or one of organisation, we ask ourselves? It would be very unfair of me to cast aspersions when I wasn't there, but I can't help thinking that you get what you pay for.
Meantime, our heating is working again, the house is decorated and the family has arrived. Our car is to be towed home but, thankfully, we have our trusty, ancient, French resident Jeep here for last minute shopping. We will not go hungry. We are nineteen for Christmas, the stuff of my next blog. It's grey outside, but bright and warm indoors. The fires are stoked, the Christmas tree lights twinkling, Bach's Christmas Oratorio blasting from the CD player and everyone, so far, is happy. It's Christmas. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
The bruised ribs and blackened toe, however, are a more recent acquisition. There we were feeling thoroughly smug with ourselves that we had got through 'le Tunnel' with a mere two hour delay [at the time we couldn't understand why the sign said that this was due to winter conditions - little did we know!]. Once we got into France, it was like Narnia, only with HGV's and other more modern vehicles. The snow was falling in large flakes on the autoroute all the way to Rouen but the road remained open, despite the Arctic conditions. The gritters and 'saliers' had been out in abundance and it was apparent immediately that this is what the French get in return for their decidedly hefty taxes.
We managed to get as far as Orleans, by which time we had decided that the snow was becoming too icy and treacherous to push our luck too far. Safely tucked up in our functional, corporate designed Novotel bedroom after the obligatory steak/frites dinner, we turned on the TV. The full scale of the carnage on the French roads became apparent. People were stranded in their cars everywhere, but especially to the east in Alsace. The gods were certainly with us. After a couple of centimetres of overnight snowfall, we set off the following morning with no idea what to expect on the autoroute. It was deserted. The road was clear, every illuminated sign announced that 'saliage' was in progress and we were amazed at how easy it all was.
The oddest thing of all was driving along a French motorway with no trucks. We couldn't understand what was going on. Had we missed something? Was there a 'greve'? Eventually, on the opposite carriageway we saw a huge line of lorries parked along the hard shoulder. We ploughed on, puzzled. Then, near Limoges, we saw a similar line of stationary trucks lined up on our carriageway, topped and tailed with gendarmes. Perhaps they had become stranded during the night? Finally, the mystery was solved when we were directed off the autoroute into what appeared to be a deviation. Our hearts sank, thinking that our 'bon chance' had finally run its course.
Then, as we reached the roundabout, more trucks materialised and we assumed that there had been an accident. But, no, to our utter amazement it rapidly transpired that the gendarmes had closed the motorway simply to take any stray trucks off it. We were allowed back on, along with the few other passenger vehicles, to continue our journey. In order to keep traffic flowing and reduce the risk of accidents, the French traffic police had decided to transfer all the HGV's to the 'routes nationales'. Great for us, but a bugger for them. It made me think of my friend Caroline de Roquette, who makes divine fresh 'mi-cuit' foie gras, losing tens of thousands of euros worth of stock during a lorry drivers' dispute in the run-up to Christmas a few years ago. Perishable goods wait for noone.
We got safely all the way to the tiny 'hameau' of Gavats, less than a kilometre from the house, where we turn left to begin the climb up to us. As we turned left, we slid down the slope and, with the heavy weight of ten tons of Christmas stuff, swerved uncontrollably into the side of a neighbour's house. Unsurprisingly, the wall won, but in the process my slackened seatbelt didn't engage fast enough and the impact well and truly took the stuffing out of me! Thankfully, we weren't going too fast but, my God, it hurt. And, just to compound my injuries, as I was thrown back my legs lifted off the floor and my right toe took the brunt of the momentum. You couldn't make it up! It was the stuff of 'Live at the Apollo'.
Determined to unpack the mountains of stuff in the boot and roof rack, we managed to hobble up the hill with no seatbelts and a badly bashed in driver's wing, with me moaning and groaning all the way. Home at last - to no heating and no hot water! It's everyone's worst nightmare. It had been turned on for us by a friend the day before but something had seriously malfunctioned. I rang our heating engineer, only to find that the office would be closed until 28th December. Then, I rang his mobile just to depress myself even further. At least, though, we had the woodburners, which solved the heating problem, but they do not provide hot water and we don't have an immersion heater. Oh well, tomorrow would be another day.
We woke up to a bitterly cold, beautiful clear day. Bardies shrouded in snow is the ultimate feelgood experience, even with bruised ribs, a bashed toe, a smashed up car and no hot water. The quality of light here is magical and because we are at 500 metres, it has the same ambiance as a ski resort. We battened down the hatches and prepared for a long wait, as nothing ever happens here at the weekend. I don't think that we have ever drunk as many mugs of hot tea! Only when Peter's business partner rang to say that he had spent all day on the M20 trying to get to Folkestone with his family, en route to Christmas in Geneva, and had to turn round and go home, did we realise our luck. When we turned on the television and saw the news footage of desperate and anxious stranded travellers, we guessed that we must have been some of the last people through.
Over the weekend, the tales of travellers' woe only got worse as Britain battled, and lost, its fight against the elements. It was a story of two countries divided by a small sea and a big tunnel. It's true that noone, least of all Eurotunnel and Eurostar, had been able to anticipate the full, horrendous impact of Arctic weather conditions on the functioning of their services. However, I have to say, after our experience, that there appears to be no comparison between how the UK and France manage their road transport system in a crisis. Is it a matter of funding or one of organisation, we ask ourselves? It would be very unfair of me to cast aspersions when I wasn't there, but I can't help thinking that you get what you pay for.
Meantime, our heating is working again, the house is decorated and the family has arrived. Our car is to be towed home but, thankfully, we have our trusty, ancient, French resident Jeep here for last minute shopping. We will not go hungry. We are nineteen for Christmas, the stuff of my next blog. It's grey outside, but bright and warm indoors. The fires are stoked, the Christmas tree lights twinkling, Bach's Christmas Oratorio blasting from the CD player and everyone, so far, is happy. It's Christmas. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Monday, 23 November 2009
A Whiter Shade of Pale
As the howling gales thrash the last of the autumn leaves off the trees, leaving them scattered in huge piles like confetti from a giant's wedding, my muscle memory kicks into action again. The nerves around my sternum still concentrate like tightly stretched elastic bands whenever I allow my mind to wander back. For, since the autumn of 2003, this time of year lurches me back to a dark, bleak place where even the turning on of the sparkling Christmas lights in Regent Street or Bond Street could do nothing to dispel the gloom of the hard winter looming ahead of us.
That year our eleven year old son, Freddie, had been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a form of bone cancer. With only thirty or so cases a year, we were suddenly thrown from the security of a comfortable, complacent, cosy family life into the maelstrom that is the world of childhood cancer. Nothing prepares a parent for either the shock of diagnosis or the advent of night sweats as one anxiously contemplates the terror of possible outcomes. To say that one's life is turned upside down would be an understatement. Like the mythical Persephone, you find yourself cast into an alien underworld, a complete sub-culture of chemotherapy drugs, blood counts and antibiotics.
Freddie had commenced his gruelling pre-surgery chemo in the June of 2003 on Carousel Ward in the old Middlesex Hospital on Mortimer Street. Ironically, it was not a depressing place despite the fact that a children's cancer ward functions with its own language and points of reference, where a raised eyebrow or hesitant response can yield up a dozen nightmare scenarios. His surgery, to remove a sizeable tumour on his tibia just below his left knee, was scheduled for the 4th November, two weeks after his 6th session of chemo.
We knew that Freddie, now bald as a coot, had a small window of time where his blood counts would be stable. In a moment of madness, we decided to give him a a special treat and take him and his poor, neglected little sister to Eurodisney for a Halloween treat. Even though I secretly disapprove, I have to admit that the Americans do Halloween so well. The upside of the trip was that with his wheelchair and blue disabled badge, we were officially allowed to queue jump every ride. The downside was that poor Freddie got so tired out in the cold and damp, we needed to go back to the hotel to let him sleep at periodic intervals.
He was a trooper throughout and it gave him a much needed lift in advance of the prospect of losing almost half his tibia. Afterwards, with a week to spare, we decided to fly down to Bardies from Paris on the new Easyjet service. More than a trip to Eurodisney, Freddie wanted to get back to our beloved Bardies. For him, it represented a life before cancer and a life that he was determined to go back to once he was well again. As for me, I had never thought that we would get back at all, so it was with some joy and a great deal of trepidation that we arrived 'chez nous'.
No sooner had we lit the fire and put a casserole into the oven than Freddie began to complain that his chest hurt at the point where his intravenous 'Hickman line' was inserted. There was some residual blood around it so, as a precaution, I telephoned the hospital in St Girons and they said to bring him in immediately. Whilst Peter drove him down, I frantically called the Middlesex in London, where, fortunately, Krissie, his regular nurse, was on duty. "No worries", she said, in her best Aussie accent, "I expect that a bit of blood escaped due to pressure on the plane. Just get them to wash out the line with some saline, as per normal."
By the time I got back to Peter on his mobile, it had been done. We breathed a sigh of relief and thought that our troubles were over. We all went off to bed happy to be home, but to be on the safe side I put Freddie in the bed next to me. As I leant over during the night to check his temperature, as I always did throughout his treatment, I knew that something serious was brewing. He was like a furnace. When I checked his temperature properly with the thermometer it was pushing 40 degrees and therefore critical. I dressed rapidly, scooped him up and put him into the car for a mercy dash back to the hospital.
After a very brief 'triage', we were shown to our room. It was private, spotlessly clean and with a view up to St Lizier worthy of a tourist brochure. In the half light of the very early morn, the city towered, twinkling, above us. If I hadn't been so panic stricken, because by then Freddie was almost comatose, I might have appreciated it rather more. A succession of people, all dressed in white, came and went. They were so uniform in their uniforms that I had no idea if I was discussing the finer points of cancer treatment with the cleaner or the consultant.
Everyone, but everyone, was dressed from head to toe in white, with white leather clogs to accessorise their dazzling ensembles. There was not a dirty mark to be seen on one of them. No wonder the French health service is so costly - the laundry bills alone must take up a serious chunk of the annual budget! All around were hand disinfectant dispenser gels and, without fail, everyone washed their hands the moment they came into the room. I would find it hard to believe that a single MRSI bug could survive a second in that scrupulously clean environment. If you are going to be ill with a life threatening condition, you would want to be somewhere like this. You might miss the creature comforts of a British hospital, the pictures of Jemima Puddleduck and Winnie the Pooh, the ubiquitous mobiles and half-dead pot plants, or the general clutter and chaos, but you would know that no flesh eating bug would dare to stray within a kilometer of your bed.
I have to say, though, that the Middlesex was brilliant. The care standards were extremely high and the nurses and doctors dedicated, and never more so than when we were stuck, stranded and terrified, for a week in the hospital in St Girons. They directed operations from London through a bi-lingual Registrar, no mean feat as St Girons is a local hospital and has no expertise in the field of paediatric cancer care. After a succession of different intravenous antibiotics, Freddie began to revive and the panic abated. His temperature slowly reverted back to normal and we were given, albeit reluctantly, permission to travel.
After a week sleeping in a cot beside Freddie, with the best view imaginable, I was glad that we would be on our way back to Carousel and the next stage of Freddie's cancer journey. For, with all its faults, it had become our sanctuary and the place where we felt safe. Freddie remained a whiter shade of pale until his Hickman line was replaced but his surgery was successful. We had many more roller coaster rides through his treatment, a further eight gruelling chemo sessions followed his surgery, but none was as memorable as our week in the ward in St Girons. I missed the view, but most of all I missed the glass of wine with lunch and dinner. It could only happen in a French hospital!
That year our eleven year old son, Freddie, had been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a form of bone cancer. With only thirty or so cases a year, we were suddenly thrown from the security of a comfortable, complacent, cosy family life into the maelstrom that is the world of childhood cancer. Nothing prepares a parent for either the shock of diagnosis or the advent of night sweats as one anxiously contemplates the terror of possible outcomes. To say that one's life is turned upside down would be an understatement. Like the mythical Persephone, you find yourself cast into an alien underworld, a complete sub-culture of chemotherapy drugs, blood counts and antibiotics.
Freddie had commenced his gruelling pre-surgery chemo in the June of 2003 on Carousel Ward in the old Middlesex Hospital on Mortimer Street. Ironically, it was not a depressing place despite the fact that a children's cancer ward functions with its own language and points of reference, where a raised eyebrow or hesitant response can yield up a dozen nightmare scenarios. His surgery, to remove a sizeable tumour on his tibia just below his left knee, was scheduled for the 4th November, two weeks after his 6th session of chemo.
We knew that Freddie, now bald as a coot, had a small window of time where his blood counts would be stable. In a moment of madness, we decided to give him a a special treat and take him and his poor, neglected little sister to Eurodisney for a Halloween treat. Even though I secretly disapprove, I have to admit that the Americans do Halloween so well. The upside of the trip was that with his wheelchair and blue disabled badge, we were officially allowed to queue jump every ride. The downside was that poor Freddie got so tired out in the cold and damp, we needed to go back to the hotel to let him sleep at periodic intervals.
He was a trooper throughout and it gave him a much needed lift in advance of the prospect of losing almost half his tibia. Afterwards, with a week to spare, we decided to fly down to Bardies from Paris on the new Easyjet service. More than a trip to Eurodisney, Freddie wanted to get back to our beloved Bardies. For him, it represented a life before cancer and a life that he was determined to go back to once he was well again. As for me, I had never thought that we would get back at all, so it was with some joy and a great deal of trepidation that we arrived 'chez nous'.
No sooner had we lit the fire and put a casserole into the oven than Freddie began to complain that his chest hurt at the point where his intravenous 'Hickman line' was inserted. There was some residual blood around it so, as a precaution, I telephoned the hospital in St Girons and they said to bring him in immediately. Whilst Peter drove him down, I frantically called the Middlesex in London, where, fortunately, Krissie, his regular nurse, was on duty. "No worries", she said, in her best Aussie accent, "I expect that a bit of blood escaped due to pressure on the plane. Just get them to wash out the line with some saline, as per normal."
By the time I got back to Peter on his mobile, it had been done. We breathed a sigh of relief and thought that our troubles were over. We all went off to bed happy to be home, but to be on the safe side I put Freddie in the bed next to me. As I leant over during the night to check his temperature, as I always did throughout his treatment, I knew that something serious was brewing. He was like a furnace. When I checked his temperature properly with the thermometer it was pushing 40 degrees and therefore critical. I dressed rapidly, scooped him up and put him into the car for a mercy dash back to the hospital.
After a very brief 'triage', we were shown to our room. It was private, spotlessly clean and with a view up to St Lizier worthy of a tourist brochure. In the half light of the very early morn, the city towered, twinkling, above us. If I hadn't been so panic stricken, because by then Freddie was almost comatose, I might have appreciated it rather more. A succession of people, all dressed in white, came and went. They were so uniform in their uniforms that I had no idea if I was discussing the finer points of cancer treatment with the cleaner or the consultant.
Everyone, but everyone, was dressed from head to toe in white, with white leather clogs to accessorise their dazzling ensembles. There was not a dirty mark to be seen on one of them. No wonder the French health service is so costly - the laundry bills alone must take up a serious chunk of the annual budget! All around were hand disinfectant dispenser gels and, without fail, everyone washed their hands the moment they came into the room. I would find it hard to believe that a single MRSI bug could survive a second in that scrupulously clean environment. If you are going to be ill with a life threatening condition, you would want to be somewhere like this. You might miss the creature comforts of a British hospital, the pictures of Jemima Puddleduck and Winnie the Pooh, the ubiquitous mobiles and half-dead pot plants, or the general clutter and chaos, but you would know that no flesh eating bug would dare to stray within a kilometer of your bed.
I have to say, though, that the Middlesex was brilliant. The care standards were extremely high and the nurses and doctors dedicated, and never more so than when we were stuck, stranded and terrified, for a week in the hospital in St Girons. They directed operations from London through a bi-lingual Registrar, no mean feat as St Girons is a local hospital and has no expertise in the field of paediatric cancer care. After a succession of different intravenous antibiotics, Freddie began to revive and the panic abated. His temperature slowly reverted back to normal and we were given, albeit reluctantly, permission to travel.
After a week sleeping in a cot beside Freddie, with the best view imaginable, I was glad that we would be on our way back to Carousel and the next stage of Freddie's cancer journey. For, with all its faults, it had become our sanctuary and the place where we felt safe. Freddie remained a whiter shade of pale until his Hickman line was replaced but his surgery was successful. We had many more roller coaster rides through his treatment, a further eight gruelling chemo sessions followed his surgery, but none was as memorable as our week in the ward in St Girons. I missed the view, but most of all I missed the glass of wine with lunch and dinner. It could only happen in a French hospital!
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
We Will Remember Them
As I sat down to write this, at two minutes past the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, with the BBC's live broadcast from Westminster Abbey in the background, I felt terribly sad. Here we are, in November 2009, with photographs on our newspaper front pages of a cortege of dead young men being driven from RAF Lyneham, through the Wiltshire village of Wootton Bassett, on their way to their temporary resting place at a hospital in Oxford. Where once we watched these moving services of remembrance thinking "lest we forget", now we look at them afresh, as we vow "we will remember".
When I was growing up in the 1950's and 1960's, no one talked about the war. Looking back, I can see that it was because its horrors were best left buried deep in the recesses of far distant memory. There were only three things about it that my mother, who nursed at Charing Cross hospital through much of it, ever told me. One was that she lost a favourite green leather shoe scrambling into an air raid shelter during one of the worst nights of the Blitz. Another was that her wedding ring [my parents married in 1942, when my father was on leave] was made from gold pooled by friends, otherwise they would have had no ring. The third was that she and her fellow nurses had had to cut down a poor dead airman who had parachuted out of his aircraft and somehow landed on the parapet outside their ward.
How many hundreds of other anecdotes had she hidden, I wonder? My father, who was in the RAF, never spoke about any of it although, to be fair, he had long died by the time my interest in history had manifested itself. My mother-in-law, who was a motorbike dispatch rider charging around the Chatham dockyards in the thick of it, has recounted very little. Rather like the reluctant tourist's return from an exotic holiday, laden with tales and photographs, they must have realised pretty quickly that no one wanted to know. A new dawn had begun and war was best forgotten. Remembrance Sunday came and went once a year, and that was that.
On my flight from Toulouse to Bristol last Saturday, I scavenged a free copy of 'The Daily Telegraph' from the British Airways newspaper rack as I boarded my Easyjet flight [it did say 'please take your complimentary copy', even if they had probably only intended them for their own customers!]. Inside, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, was an illuminating article by Peter Parker, the biographer of the last British Great War veteran, Harry Patch, who died on 25th July this year at the ripe old age of 111. I had known that Patch had been called 'the reluctant hero' after his return, disillusioned, from the horrors of Passchendaele but beyond that I knew very little else about him.
It transpires that he had lost his Anglican faith when he left the army but later joined a choir hoping to revive it. "In the end, I went because I enjoyed the music and had friends there. But the belief? It didn't come. I felt shattered, absolutely, and didn't discuss the war with anyone from then on, and nobody brought it up if they could help it." In addition, according to Parker, he refused to join veterans' associations, had no wish to visit battlefields, never attended a regimental reunion and avoided all war films. It was only when the BBC wanted to film a documentary entitled 'The Last Tommy' in 2004 that he was persuaded to revisit Flanders. "What a waste. What a terrible waste," he memorably said.
I was reminded of a scene in the film version of Alan Bennett's superbly scripted 'The History Boys', almost as good as the stage play and with the same National Theatre cast. When Irwin, the new history supply teacher who aspires to a career in television, takes the boys to a war memorial, he asks them why they think has has brought them there. "To remember, Sir," they say. "No", he replies, "it is so that we can forget." And we did, didn't we?
Almost fifty years after the end of the Second World War came Bosnia, and Srebenica, and our attitude to war began to change. A sense of failure was seared into our complacent brains. Then, twenty one months into this new century, on 9/11, everything changed irrevocably. The poppies of Flanders' fields have now been replaced with the poppies of Afghanistan. Jonathan Friedland, writing in today's 'Guardian' headlines with "The coffins will keep coming until we conquer our amnesia on Afghanistan". It is a mess, a horrible, bloody mess, not least because we have forgotten why we went in there in the first place. A war whose aims have long been lost in the quagmire of international politics is taking young lives once again.
Harry Patch was conscripted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in October 1916. Many of his friends had volunteered earlier for the Somerset Light Infantry. "We were the PBI - the Poor Bloody Infantry- and we were expendable," he said. I think of the fallen from Bardies today, too. Like the south west of England, the south west of France provided the infantry divisions in the Great War, the cannon fodder. The effects on the economy of both were devestating.
The Barthet family, who had owned the Chateau de Bardies since 1822, was decimated. Louis Barthet, the eldest son of Joseph and Marie Lesparda Barthet, survived but returned from the war wounded. His younger brother, Etienne was killed in 1916. Amelie, one of their sisters, married Captain Ambroise Henry, who was killed not long after the commencement of war. Suzanne, another sister, married Ambroise's younger brother, Lieutenant Auguste Henry, who was himself killed three weeks later.
There were many more from our little part of France who were sacrificed; the husbands and fiances of the maids, whose uniforms were still tucked away in 'armoires' upstairs when we bought the house, the gardeners who had left hidden traces under overgrown laurel trees, rather like at the lost gardens of Heligan, in Cornwall, the farmers who had tended and husbanded the land, the 'voisins' from the nearby 'hameaux'. They are commemorated in St Girons and will be remembered today.
The Second World War took a heavy toll too. George Crinon, who had married the daughter of Auguste and Simone Henry, professor of mathematics and principal of the college, was killed in June 1940 fighting for France. Many others, ununiformed, lost their lives as members of the 'maquis', the resistance, who were very strong in our area. The nearby village of Rimont on the main St Girons/ Foix road was the scene of a Nazi reprisal on 21st August 1944, when forty four trucks filled with soldiers newly back from the eastern front rampaged through the sleepy, innocent village. On that day, 11 Rimontais were executed, many women brutally raped and 236 buildings torched. We must not forget the price that civilians also pay in war.
The town of St Girons was also the starting point of 'Le Chemin de la Liberte', the final stage of the escape route over the Pyrenees organised by the O'Leary network. More than a hundred brave local men and women, called 'passeurs', lost their lives or their liberty taking the evaders over the high mountain passes to safety. They had a choice, and they chose to help people that they did not know at huge personal risk to themselves and their families. They are the unsung heroes and we remember them today, with deep gratitude, too.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
When I was growing up in the 1950's and 1960's, no one talked about the war. Looking back, I can see that it was because its horrors were best left buried deep in the recesses of far distant memory. There were only three things about it that my mother, who nursed at Charing Cross hospital through much of it, ever told me. One was that she lost a favourite green leather shoe scrambling into an air raid shelter during one of the worst nights of the Blitz. Another was that her wedding ring [my parents married in 1942, when my father was on leave] was made from gold pooled by friends, otherwise they would have had no ring. The third was that she and her fellow nurses had had to cut down a poor dead airman who had parachuted out of his aircraft and somehow landed on the parapet outside their ward.
How many hundreds of other anecdotes had she hidden, I wonder? My father, who was in the RAF, never spoke about any of it although, to be fair, he had long died by the time my interest in history had manifested itself. My mother-in-law, who was a motorbike dispatch rider charging around the Chatham dockyards in the thick of it, has recounted very little. Rather like the reluctant tourist's return from an exotic holiday, laden with tales and photographs, they must have realised pretty quickly that no one wanted to know. A new dawn had begun and war was best forgotten. Remembrance Sunday came and went once a year, and that was that.
On my flight from Toulouse to Bristol last Saturday, I scavenged a free copy of 'The Daily Telegraph' from the British Airways newspaper rack as I boarded my Easyjet flight [it did say 'please take your complimentary copy', even if they had probably only intended them for their own customers!]. Inside, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, was an illuminating article by Peter Parker, the biographer of the last British Great War veteran, Harry Patch, who died on 25th July this year at the ripe old age of 111. I had known that Patch had been called 'the reluctant hero' after his return, disillusioned, from the horrors of Passchendaele but beyond that I knew very little else about him.
It transpires that he had lost his Anglican faith when he left the army but later joined a choir hoping to revive it. "In the end, I went because I enjoyed the music and had friends there. But the belief? It didn't come. I felt shattered, absolutely, and didn't discuss the war with anyone from then on, and nobody brought it up if they could help it." In addition, according to Parker, he refused to join veterans' associations, had no wish to visit battlefields, never attended a regimental reunion and avoided all war films. It was only when the BBC wanted to film a documentary entitled 'The Last Tommy' in 2004 that he was persuaded to revisit Flanders. "What a waste. What a terrible waste," he memorably said.
I was reminded of a scene in the film version of Alan Bennett's superbly scripted 'The History Boys', almost as good as the stage play and with the same National Theatre cast. When Irwin, the new history supply teacher who aspires to a career in television, takes the boys to a war memorial, he asks them why they think has has brought them there. "To remember, Sir," they say. "No", he replies, "it is so that we can forget." And we did, didn't we?
Almost fifty years after the end of the Second World War came Bosnia, and Srebenica, and our attitude to war began to change. A sense of failure was seared into our complacent brains. Then, twenty one months into this new century, on 9/11, everything changed irrevocably. The poppies of Flanders' fields have now been replaced with the poppies of Afghanistan. Jonathan Friedland, writing in today's 'Guardian' headlines with "The coffins will keep coming until we conquer our amnesia on Afghanistan". It is a mess, a horrible, bloody mess, not least because we have forgotten why we went in there in the first place. A war whose aims have long been lost in the quagmire of international politics is taking young lives once again.
Harry Patch was conscripted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in October 1916. Many of his friends had volunteered earlier for the Somerset Light Infantry. "We were the PBI - the Poor Bloody Infantry- and we were expendable," he said. I think of the fallen from Bardies today, too. Like the south west of England, the south west of France provided the infantry divisions in the Great War, the cannon fodder. The effects on the economy of both were devestating.
The Barthet family, who had owned the Chateau de Bardies since 1822, was decimated. Louis Barthet, the eldest son of Joseph and Marie Lesparda Barthet, survived but returned from the war wounded. His younger brother, Etienne was killed in 1916. Amelie, one of their sisters, married Captain Ambroise Henry, who was killed not long after the commencement of war. Suzanne, another sister, married Ambroise's younger brother, Lieutenant Auguste Henry, who was himself killed three weeks later.
There were many more from our little part of France who were sacrificed; the husbands and fiances of the maids, whose uniforms were still tucked away in 'armoires' upstairs when we bought the house, the gardeners who had left hidden traces under overgrown laurel trees, rather like at the lost gardens of Heligan, in Cornwall, the farmers who had tended and husbanded the land, the 'voisins' from the nearby 'hameaux'. They are commemorated in St Girons and will be remembered today.
The Second World War took a heavy toll too. George Crinon, who had married the daughter of Auguste and Simone Henry, professor of mathematics and principal of the college, was killed in June 1940 fighting for France. Many others, ununiformed, lost their lives as members of the 'maquis', the resistance, who were very strong in our area. The nearby village of Rimont on the main St Girons/ Foix road was the scene of a Nazi reprisal on 21st August 1944, when forty four trucks filled with soldiers newly back from the eastern front rampaged through the sleepy, innocent village. On that day, 11 Rimontais were executed, many women brutally raped and 236 buildings torched. We must not forget the price that civilians also pay in war.
The town of St Girons was also the starting point of 'Le Chemin de la Liberte', the final stage of the escape route over the Pyrenees organised by the O'Leary network. More than a hundred brave local men and women, called 'passeurs', lost their lives or their liberty taking the evaders over the high mountain passes to safety. They had a choice, and they chose to help people that they did not know at huge personal risk to themselves and their families. They are the unsung heroes and we remember them today, with deep gratitude, too.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Toussaint
'Toussaint' is a time of reflection here, as well as being a special time of year for family and friends - a bit like Thanksgiving in the States, only a bit more sombre and minus the turkey and pumpkin pie. At this, the very start of winter, families get together from all over the country to remember their departed and count their blessings. I am constantly amazed to see people that I haven't seen all year arrive from Paris, Marseille, or wherever, for their annual get-together whatever the weather. It is always a weekend 'en fete' and, I suspect, a uniquely French celebration.
Since American film makers hijacked 'All Hallow's Eve' and turned it into a beanfeast of witch's hats and orange and black-iced cupcakes, most of us have forgotten the ritual significance of this time of year. 'All Soul's Day', the day after 'All Hallow's Eve' was a big event in my childhood. It was the day the dead returned to earth to make their presence known to us again, and we needed to acknowledge them big-time if they were to leave us be for the rest of the year. Pre- Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video with his brilliant coterie of ghoulish dancers, it was a terrifying time for a child. Very sadly, and somewhat ironically, he has now become one of the departed himself.
I see that Sting has written a song called 'Soul Cake' for his latest album celebrating both winter and north- eastern folklore. According to him, the soul cakes were made to give to the dead when they returned on 'All Soul's Day'. The poor, though, being both very hungry and very canny, offered to exchange the cakes for prayers for the dead instead. According to him, it is a tradition that goes back five hundred years and was the precedent for 'trick or treat'. Amazing! We can't blame Hollywood then for all the ghastly commercial spin-offs that make today's Halloween a largely unpleasant experience, especially for terrified pensioners too frightened to open their doors.
All Saint's Day' [Toussaint], in complete contrast, was a time of light. We still had to go to Mass, but to give thanks rather than out of fear for peripatetic malevolent souls. The priest wore a white surplice, I recall. I don't remember it being anything particularly special, other than having to take flowers to my father's grave in Epsom cemetery afterwards. By then, as kids, we were much more excited at the prospect of fireworks on November 5th. Collecting old socks and scraps of fabric to make a 'guy', and firewood and kindling to make a huge bonfire to put it on, was much more of an adventure. Thankfully, my Irish mother had no real grasp of the nuances of English history, so it was party-time in our garden.
This year, I spent 'Toussaint' in the Lauragais, with my good friends Caroline de Roquette and Christian and Inez Sarramon. Christian and Inez come down from Paris every year to visit the family grave and spend time 'en famille'. This year, like last, was particularly poignant because Louis-Charles de Roquette, Caroline's husband and Inez's brother, and my darling friend, was killed in a tragic car accident in May 2008. Caroline's lovely farmhouse was filled with seasonal crysanthemums, in glorious, autumnal, deep red hues, in his memory. They had taken many more to the cemetery in St Felix Lauragais after a special mass for him. The pain of loss never really goes away.
I met them for a delicious dinner at Inez's house, where she had prepared her signature dish of 'blanquette de veau', one of my favourite traditional French dishes and one that she makes brilliantly. We talked and laughed, reminiscing over the old times but also looking forward to new ones. It made me think how sad it is that none of my siblings meets up to remember our mother, and that I am as guilty as they are for not organising it. The great thing about 'Toussaint' is that the date is always fixed in the calendar so there are never any excuses for putting it off. It is a great institution and it is such a shame that in the UK there is no real equivalent.
Christian had two new books, hot off the press and still wrapped in plastic, to show us. One is called 'Delices', full of fabulous photographs and history of the patissiers of Paris, and the other is called 'Linge', with stunning pictures of old linens from all over France. He is a genius! I had just bought 'France, A Sense of Place' and 'Gourmet Bistros and Restaurants of Paris', new, on Amazon's secondhand site for a knockdown price, which I just happened to have in my car. He kindly inscribed them for me for the biblioteque at Bardies.
Tellingly, he wrote in 'France', "quelques morceaux de France d'avant les e'oliennes". At Merveille, they have been invaded by enormous, triffid-like wind turbines because the Lauragais has a huge number of windy days each year. There is a price to be paid for everything and France has not shirked difficult environmental decisions. The 'e'oliennes' can look very striking when seen from a distance, but if you live in their shadow they are an ominous and noisy presence. Would we want them here? No, I don't think so!
'Toussaint' is a special time, and I am so pleased that they allowed me to share it with them. Without Peter and 'les enfants', I have time to reflect on the summer just gone and think of the year to come. We need this time to take stock, to batten down the hatches, especially when the wind is as strong as it is here right now, and to give thanks for what we have. Our need for preparing ourselves for the hardship of winter seems to me to be celebrated in so many ways at this time of year - Bonfire Night, Harvest Festival, Michaelmas, Thanksgiving, Advent and, the ultimate winter festival, Christmas. After that, sadly, unless you're a skier, it's downhill all the way!
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome
I had thought that enough had been written in response to Jan Moir's disgraceful homophobic rant in last Tuesday's 'Daily Mail' and that, anyway, it probably wasn't the stuff of a blog from Bardies. As someone who would rather eat wild toad droppings than buy a copy of the loathesome 'Daily Mail', I must confess that I have only just downloaded the offending article. My reason for doing so is simple. When I opened my emails this morning, there were two from my closest, and gay, friends here in France, lamenting their shock and horror at the implications of Jan Moir's article.
Their request that we all boycott the newspaper is easy enough to deal with in my case, but their emails instantly prompted me to discover for myself just what she had said. It is, indeed, a shocking piece of 'kneejerk' journalism and one that must have broken the heart of poor Stephen Gately's mother. To use the story of his sad demise, of which to date none of us knows the exact cause, to legitimise in some perverse way, the consequences of being gay is media fodder for all homophobes. At a time when we know from police figures that homophobic crime is on the increase, such irresponsible journalism merely serves to stoke the fires of hatred.
Those who abbhor the idea that two people of the same sex can not only love each other but can also consolidate their union through a civil partnership ceremony, must have opened their paper of choice and rejoiced at Moir's statement that "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships." Excuse me! How? Why? A young man dies tragically in the home he shares with his same sex partner and the whole legal edifice of civil partnerships can be doubted? What sort of distorted logic is this?
My friend Giovanni, quite rightly, is beside himself with anger at the implication that Stephen Grately must have died as the result of drug-taking and a sleazy gay lifestyle. How easy it is for right wing homophobes to link drug taking with sleaze and being gay! It reminded me of something that Rabbi Lionel Blue once said. "Just because you're in the gay world doesn't mean you go to orgies. You've also got to deal with relationships." In a heterosexual world, with a great deal of drug taking, pornography, prostitution and child sexual abuse, we don't question the legitimacy of marriage, do we?
It is the last line of Moir's article, though, which is the most shocking. In a chilling line, which Josef Goebbels himself could have written, she says, "For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see." In a week when the BBC, wrongly in my view, gave Nick Griffin of the BNP a voice on the 'Question Time' panel, my thoughts turned to parallels with 1930's Weimar. The similarity is clear: gay equals deviant, and therefore dangerous.
Alan Cumming, the Scottish actor, who has played Emcee in Kander and Ebb's stage version of 'Cabaret' and is himself gay, presented a fabulous documentary on BBC 4 this week called 'The Real Cabaret'. It followed a showing on the same channel of Bob Fosse's 1972 film with Liza Minelli and Michael York, one of my all time favourite movies [thank goodness for satellite TV!]. The real cabarets were often run by Jewish impressarios, many of whom finished up in the gas chambers. What the 1972 film didn't show, was that the likes of the fictional Emcee and his coterie of homosexual and sexually ambivalent musicians and dancers would have finished up in the gas chambers too.
Not so long ago, we went to see Julian Clary in Rufus Norris's revival of the stage version. Norris, bravely, took Fosse's narrative all the way to its logical conclusion. In the film version, Emcee closes the curtains with the camera panning round the Kit Kat Klub to show swastika armbands on many of the visitors. In Norris's revival, Clary and the other performers slowly and subtly remove their clothes, turn round with their backs to the audience and huddle together at the back of the stage. As the light shines on them, the shower above them rains down. No one leaving that show would have been under any illusion about what happened to many of Berlin's homosexuals under Nazism.
Of course, this may sound a little over dramatic in the context of a second rate piece of journalism in a right wing 'red top'. We live in liberal times, don't we? Nick Griffin, thank heavens, has none of the misplaced abilities and political canniness of Jean-Marie Le Pen. But both Jan Moir and Nick Griffin have become major players this week in a debate about the sort of society we all want to live in. We have fought hard for our freedoms, for the right of all human beings not to live in fear of their lives for their race, their religious beliefs or their sexual orientation. Why does anyone care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes? Sadly, for all of us, it appears that fascists and fundamentalists still do.
In December 2007, on a bitterly cold, damp, grey day we went 'en famille' from Oskar Schindler's factory in the majestic city of Krackow to Auschwitz-Birkenau, less than an hour's drive away. The museum at Auschwitz is a true and fitting memorial to its lonely ghosts, but it is at nearby Birkenau that their souls speak to you. As we stood in the watchtower, alone, looking through the wintry mist at the forked railway line where Rabbi Hugo Gryn had waved 'goodbye' to his little brother, where Irene Nemirovsky and countless others were herded to their deaths, and Jacob Bronowski wept into the red earth for the failings of mankind, I knew why we were there. I said to the children, "This is what happened when people stood by and let injustice take hold. We must never let it happen again."
........... 'Auf Wiedersehen........ auf Weidersehen........ auf Weidersehen...........'
Their request that we all boycott the newspaper is easy enough to deal with in my case, but their emails instantly prompted me to discover for myself just what she had said. It is, indeed, a shocking piece of 'kneejerk' journalism and one that must have broken the heart of poor Stephen Gately's mother. To use the story of his sad demise, of which to date none of us knows the exact cause, to legitimise in some perverse way, the consequences of being gay is media fodder for all homophobes. At a time when we know from police figures that homophobic crime is on the increase, such irresponsible journalism merely serves to stoke the fires of hatred.
Those who abbhor the idea that two people of the same sex can not only love each other but can also consolidate their union through a civil partnership ceremony, must have opened their paper of choice and rejoiced at Moir's statement that "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships." Excuse me! How? Why? A young man dies tragically in the home he shares with his same sex partner and the whole legal edifice of civil partnerships can be doubted? What sort of distorted logic is this?
My friend Giovanni, quite rightly, is beside himself with anger at the implication that Stephen Grately must have died as the result of drug-taking and a sleazy gay lifestyle. How easy it is for right wing homophobes to link drug taking with sleaze and being gay! It reminded me of something that Rabbi Lionel Blue once said. "Just because you're in the gay world doesn't mean you go to orgies. You've also got to deal with relationships." In a heterosexual world, with a great deal of drug taking, pornography, prostitution and child sexual abuse, we don't question the legitimacy of marriage, do we?
It is the last line of Moir's article, though, which is the most shocking. In a chilling line, which Josef Goebbels himself could have written, she says, "For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see." In a week when the BBC, wrongly in my view, gave Nick Griffin of the BNP a voice on the 'Question Time' panel, my thoughts turned to parallels with 1930's Weimar. The similarity is clear: gay equals deviant, and therefore dangerous.
Alan Cumming, the Scottish actor, who has played Emcee in Kander and Ebb's stage version of 'Cabaret' and is himself gay, presented a fabulous documentary on BBC 4 this week called 'The Real Cabaret'. It followed a showing on the same channel of Bob Fosse's 1972 film with Liza Minelli and Michael York, one of my all time favourite movies [thank goodness for satellite TV!]. The real cabarets were often run by Jewish impressarios, many of whom finished up in the gas chambers. What the 1972 film didn't show, was that the likes of the fictional Emcee and his coterie of homosexual and sexually ambivalent musicians and dancers would have finished up in the gas chambers too.
Not so long ago, we went to see Julian Clary in Rufus Norris's revival of the stage version. Norris, bravely, took Fosse's narrative all the way to its logical conclusion. In the film version, Emcee closes the curtains with the camera panning round the Kit Kat Klub to show swastika armbands on many of the visitors. In Norris's revival, Clary and the other performers slowly and subtly remove their clothes, turn round with their backs to the audience and huddle together at the back of the stage. As the light shines on them, the shower above them rains down. No one leaving that show would have been under any illusion about what happened to many of Berlin's homosexuals under Nazism.
Of course, this may sound a little over dramatic in the context of a second rate piece of journalism in a right wing 'red top'. We live in liberal times, don't we? Nick Griffin, thank heavens, has none of the misplaced abilities and political canniness of Jean-Marie Le Pen. But both Jan Moir and Nick Griffin have become major players this week in a debate about the sort of society we all want to live in. We have fought hard for our freedoms, for the right of all human beings not to live in fear of their lives for their race, their religious beliefs or their sexual orientation. Why does anyone care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes? Sadly, for all of us, it appears that fascists and fundamentalists still do.
In December 2007, on a bitterly cold, damp, grey day we went 'en famille' from Oskar Schindler's factory in the majestic city of Krackow to Auschwitz-Birkenau, less than an hour's drive away. The museum at Auschwitz is a true and fitting memorial to its lonely ghosts, but it is at nearby Birkenau that their souls speak to you. As we stood in the watchtower, alone, looking through the wintry mist at the forked railway line where Rabbi Hugo Gryn had waved 'goodbye' to his little brother, where Irene Nemirovsky and countless others were herded to their deaths, and Jacob Bronowski wept into the red earth for the failings of mankind, I knew why we were there. I said to the children, "This is what happened when people stood by and let injustice take hold. We must never let it happen again."
........... 'Auf Wiedersehen........ auf Weidersehen........ auf Weidersehen...........'
Photos by Peter Vardigans, Auschwitz-Birkenau, December 2007
Monday, 19 October 2009
A Week in the Garden
I woke up to a glorious autumnal morning at Bardies – the first frost of the season and a herald of the Pyrenean winter to come. Because we have had no significant rainfall, the vast spread of the Pyrenees looms, still snowless, to the south of us. I feel my energy levels rise. I love this time of year, just as I do Spring, because the air has been cleared of summer haze. It seers through my nostrils and clears my head of summer clutter, the endless meal plans and day trips mentally packed away until next year. Now, 'sans invitees', I can speak French again!
The garden is full of leaves, but not those on the stubborn lime trees in front of the house, which hover defiantly high above me. It will take more than a solitary frost to shift them. These two majestic trees, planted in 1912 and 1913 respectively, to celebrate the births of Germaine and Simone Henry, have seen much in their long existence and time is of no consequence in the rhythm of their lives.
Their crooked, wild sibling, however, who hides in their shadow, is destined for the chop in December. Pascal is already sharpening his tools. We are loathe to cut down trees but this one is cramping the style of her bigger sister and becoming seriously deformed herself in the process. Pascal brought the tree man round for a second opinion and it was a ‘no brainer’. As soon as all the leaves are off, it will be no more. There are mounds of mistletoe on it to harvest into the bargain, as well as a lot of chopping work for Pascal afterwards.
Another benefit from this summary execution, will be the climbing roses, stunted below her shady boughs by lack of sunlight. The old yellow climber on the dilapidated metal pergola has barely flowered in ten years and the recently planted St Swithun variety pink ones have sulked ever since they were dug in. Quelle sacrifice! One life for three more. Sydney Carton, eat your heart out!
We have had a labour intensive week at Bardies, jollied along by the heavenly weather. I say “we”, when really I mean Laurent, our ‘jardinier’. Actually, his name is Lawrence and he is English but I didn’t want you thinking ‘Mellors’! He is a genius and he comes to help me re-design bits of the garden twice a year. I have big plans, courtesy of a lifelong passion for Christopher Lloyd, and Lawrence interjects a note of practicality into my rantings. He listens to me patiently, with no hint of horror or disapproval on his face, then does exactly what he thinks is right, regardless.
Whilst I ferried the winter flowering pansies for the pots on the terrace and hauled bags of potting compost, Lawrence dug out masses of hypericum and re-seeded the lawn, lugged 18 barrowloads of horse shit from the stable to feed the shrub roses, pulled out the summer bedding plants from the veritable army of terracotta pots, untangled the borders and rockery, and planted 140 alliums, 200 ‘tete a tete’, 120 English, not Spanish, bluebells, as well as uncounted numbers of snowdrops, crocuses and tulips. He also scattered masses of aquilegia and poppy seeds scavenged from a friend's garden. That’s next year sorted then!
He chopped up a huge mound of smaller logs for the ‘salon’ woodburner for Christmas as well. Good man! Thank goodness we blew the budget on two of them last year, because with 12 young people in the house over Christmas, ranged in age between 13 and 21, the ‘salon’ will be a no-go zone. At least now the electricity meter won't be in freefall. Whilst the kids are welded to whatever celebrity game show final is scheduled for the festive period, the adults can be getting suitably squiffy in the ‘biblioteque’. We can meet in the middle for meals and the annual fracas that is present opening chez nous. Meantime, I must start searching the woods for a suitable Christmas tree. It will be fun!
Having cleared up the debris from the flue installation, I was suddenly inspired to wax all the oak floorboards and doors. Mad or what? We have enormous armoire doors from floor to ceiling on either side of the fireplace and they were so dry, it took a tin of ‘cire liquide’ for each one. I must have significantly reduced our fire risk! Rattling old edifices like this really need an army of servants, as I’m sure they once had, not just me and the occasional help of a ‘femme de menage. It’s a long time since I have been down on my knees for so long!
In between times, as ever, the kitchen beckoned and I had great fun being creative. Amazingly, there was still some basil growing in its large pot outside the kitchen door [a sign of global warming?] as well as tarragon, chives, parsley, marjoram and verveine. I made a plum and thyme jam to go with magret of duck, which seemed to work quite well. The basil, gently sweated with shallot, freshly chopped tomatoes and garlic, made a great coulis for a vegetable lasagne and a Chicken Basque. With Halloween around the corner, the ‘potirons’ are in season so we had a risotto one night and a pumpkin and cumin soup for lunch. I added a tin of chopped tomatoes and half a chorizo, together with a good dollop of smoked paprika, to the leftovers to make a really hearty Spanish style peasant soup, very Allegra McEvedy!
I also managed to find some lovely girolles in Cazeres, because we still don’t have any in our woods. There has been nothing, so far, to forage for this year. We desperately need some serious autumn rainfall. Apart from asparagus omelettes in Spring, mushroom omelettes in autumn are my favourite lunchtime treat. In the garden, the figs are finished [indeed, this year they never really got started] so instead I poached our windfall pears in red wine for desert. I still have some of last year’s bumper crop of figs marinating in ‘Absolut’ vodka in the fridge, which will make for some merry post-prandial activity at Christmas!
Meanwhile, my Facebook journey continues. It may seem to be a virtual world, but so far I have caught up with many old friends with whom we’ve agreed meetings in real time. There is definitely something so much more personal about Facebook, which makes you want to reply immediately. With regular e-mail, the temptation is always to leave it until after the gym, or supper or a good night’s sleep with the inevitable forgetfulness that follows. Is it the visual stimulus of a photo image, I wonder? Anyway, I’m loving it. It makes being in France like being next door, which may, or may not, be a good thing after all.
The garden is full of leaves, but not those on the stubborn lime trees in front of the house, which hover defiantly high above me. It will take more than a solitary frost to shift them. These two majestic trees, planted in 1912 and 1913 respectively, to celebrate the births of Germaine and Simone Henry, have seen much in their long existence and time is of no consequence in the rhythm of their lives.
Their crooked, wild sibling, however, who hides in their shadow, is destined for the chop in December. Pascal is already sharpening his tools. We are loathe to cut down trees but this one is cramping the style of her bigger sister and becoming seriously deformed herself in the process. Pascal brought the tree man round for a second opinion and it was a ‘no brainer’. As soon as all the leaves are off, it will be no more. There are mounds of mistletoe on it to harvest into the bargain, as well as a lot of chopping work for Pascal afterwards.
Another benefit from this summary execution, will be the climbing roses, stunted below her shady boughs by lack of sunlight. The old yellow climber on the dilapidated metal pergola has barely flowered in ten years and the recently planted St Swithun variety pink ones have sulked ever since they were dug in. Quelle sacrifice! One life for three more. Sydney Carton, eat your heart out!
We have had a labour intensive week at Bardies, jollied along by the heavenly weather. I say “we”, when really I mean Laurent, our ‘jardinier’. Actually, his name is Lawrence and he is English but I didn’t want you thinking ‘Mellors’! He is a genius and he comes to help me re-design bits of the garden twice a year. I have big plans, courtesy of a lifelong passion for Christopher Lloyd, and Lawrence interjects a note of practicality into my rantings. He listens to me patiently, with no hint of horror or disapproval on his face, then does exactly what he thinks is right, regardless.
Whilst I ferried the winter flowering pansies for the pots on the terrace and hauled bags of potting compost, Lawrence dug out masses of hypericum and re-seeded the lawn, lugged 18 barrowloads of horse shit from the stable to feed the shrub roses, pulled out the summer bedding plants from the veritable army of terracotta pots, untangled the borders and rockery, and planted 140 alliums, 200 ‘tete a tete’, 120 English, not Spanish, bluebells, as well as uncounted numbers of snowdrops, crocuses and tulips. He also scattered masses of aquilegia and poppy seeds scavenged from a friend's garden. That’s next year sorted then!
He chopped up a huge mound of smaller logs for the ‘salon’ woodburner for Christmas as well. Good man! Thank goodness we blew the budget on two of them last year, because with 12 young people in the house over Christmas, ranged in age between 13 and 21, the ‘salon’ will be a no-go zone. At least now the electricity meter won't be in freefall. Whilst the kids are welded to whatever celebrity game show final is scheduled for the festive period, the adults can be getting suitably squiffy in the ‘biblioteque’. We can meet in the middle for meals and the annual fracas that is present opening chez nous. Meantime, I must start searching the woods for a suitable Christmas tree. It will be fun!
Having cleared up the debris from the flue installation, I was suddenly inspired to wax all the oak floorboards and doors. Mad or what? We have enormous armoire doors from floor to ceiling on either side of the fireplace and they were so dry, it took a tin of ‘cire liquide’ for each one. I must have significantly reduced our fire risk! Rattling old edifices like this really need an army of servants, as I’m sure they once had, not just me and the occasional help of a ‘femme de menage. It’s a long time since I have been down on my knees for so long!
In between times, as ever, the kitchen beckoned and I had great fun being creative. Amazingly, there was still some basil growing in its large pot outside the kitchen door [a sign of global warming?] as well as tarragon, chives, parsley, marjoram and verveine. I made a plum and thyme jam to go with magret of duck, which seemed to work quite well. The basil, gently sweated with shallot, freshly chopped tomatoes and garlic, made a great coulis for a vegetable lasagne and a Chicken Basque. With Halloween around the corner, the ‘potirons’ are in season so we had a risotto one night and a pumpkin and cumin soup for lunch. I added a tin of chopped tomatoes and half a chorizo, together with a good dollop of smoked paprika, to the leftovers to make a really hearty Spanish style peasant soup, very Allegra McEvedy!
I also managed to find some lovely girolles in Cazeres, because we still don’t have any in our woods. There has been nothing, so far, to forage for this year. We desperately need some serious autumn rainfall. Apart from asparagus omelettes in Spring, mushroom omelettes in autumn are my favourite lunchtime treat. In the garden, the figs are finished [indeed, this year they never really got started] so instead I poached our windfall pears in red wine for desert. I still have some of last year’s bumper crop of figs marinating in ‘Absolut’ vodka in the fridge, which will make for some merry post-prandial activity at Christmas!
Meanwhile, my Facebook journey continues. It may seem to be a virtual world, but so far I have caught up with many old friends with whom we’ve agreed meetings in real time. There is definitely something so much more personal about Facebook, which makes you want to reply immediately. With regular e-mail, the temptation is always to leave it until after the gym, or supper or a good night’s sleep with the inevitable forgetfulness that follows. Is it the visual stimulus of a photo image, I wonder? Anyway, I’m loving it. It makes being in France like being next door, which may, or may not, be a good thing after all.
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