Lazy Sunday and le désordre anglais

Sunday 18 January 2015

Frosty with sun later

Had a lovely long lazy morning lying in bed and writing.  Frost shining on the cars but my bed is warm and cosy with a big fluffy duvet and snuggly green and white chenille throw. Drink tea and edit for spelling and typing errors.  Am amazed to find I have written over 20000 words since the start of the Leaving Normal project.  I have always wanted to write a book and now I am doing it, one day at a time, at an average of 645 words a day.

I write between 8 and 9 am in the mornings, before OH is awake, and when the time is quiet and the brain is free of chatter.  A good time and conducive to thoughts about all sorts of things.

There is a visit on our house at the end of the week and the main courtyard is looking sad, full of dead plants.  We head to the one nursery which opens its doors on a Sunday.  There are a number of young families in there, enjoying the warmth and the opportunity to run around the aisles.  30% off polar bears, an offer I find very tempting, but OH says we are to keep focused.  Alas, no coffee shop.  OH stands in the middle of the house plant section and is horrified by the prices.  I take him by the elbow and steer him towards the bedding plant section.  I want to get something tasteful - some cyclamen and heather and ivy.  OH is more price driven and we end up getting a dozen garish plants which claim to be of the primrose family.  They are the plant versions of Jordan.  Oh look! I exclaim to OH, they have aquarium fish!   OH reminds me that we have bought two lots of goldfish from here.  Oh dear.  Must be the lack of coffee.  Must start taking ginkgo again.

We have a goldfish pond in the garden.  It measures about 3m2 and is the depth of half way up my thighs.  (more oh dear, I have just had to look up the word for upper half of legs - I blame learning so much French so quickly).  We put in 11 goldfish (the French version of a baker's dozen) and they bred with insane rapidity.  Before the arrival of the heron, they were very tame and would respond to our fingers, waving in the water.  Now they are fewer and very nervous.  Even so, there are well over 100 in there, varying from tiny brown slivers to fat, deep orange submarine original fish.  Over to Google Answers

Goldfish will grow faster if they are fed a higher protein food, or are fed more often, and, given an adequate food supply, they will grow faster the warmer the water temperature. In ponds, goldfish usually grow quite slowly, as their growth rate is minimal over winter. 
They may grow to around 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) but possibly more. If kept indoors in large, or heated, aquaria they will reach this size sooner and potentially grow even larger. Straight-tailed varieties will attain a greater length than twin-tailed types, but since twin-tails are fatter, their actual mass may be even more. 
Like the maximum size, the lifespan of goldfish is also variable. The record is 43 years, but it is uncommon for goldfish to live this long. Goldfish usually live quite long when kept in large aquaria or outdoor ponds, up to 15 to 20 years is not unheard of. In smaller or heated aquaria, a lifespan of five to ten years is quite achievable. 

Ours eat pond flakes but we don't tend to feed in the winter and the fish stay out of sight. We also have a wildlife pond which has returning generations of frogs and salamanders. OH has ongoing war against pond beetles which are bad for some reason or other and I can't be bothered looking up.



The ponds attract the velvet winged damsel flies with their shockingly iridescent bodies and massive eyes.  The wings are so dark purple as to appear almost black, until revealed by an angle of the light.



We also have many dragon flies.  There are some wonderful pictures of these complex and savage insects and if you want to find out more about their habits and talents, go here

http://listverse.com/2013/04/18/10-surprisingly-brutal-facts-about-dragonflies/

Take the dog around the lake.  All of the joggers are older than us and some go around the lake three times for our one.  I am never convinced all that running is good for you.  Must rejoin the swimming club.

Back home and rip out all the dead stuff and plant the little Jordans.  It is an improvement. Am suitably motivated to start cutting back the shorter long border.  I have not been in here since early Summer and it is a morass of old plant growth and weeds.  Gingerly hack at the immense brambles latticing their way over, under and through the mess.  You will get an idea of the chaos when I tell you that I came across a 6' tree sapling.  The Michaelmas daisy stalks were brittle enough to snap off but I had to get up close and personal with the Gaura Lindheimerai, a plant for which I had longed when in chillier climes, not knowing what a complete thug it is

Image Crocus.com

It ramps over the front of the borders and flowers for months, so I do appreciate it, but it does tend to throttle slower growing plants.  The Gaura battles it out with a variety of Evening Primrose, given to me by a passionate plant person, which has beautiful apricot buds before opening into the classic silky yellow flowers with their spicy evening perfume. The Evening Primrose is easily 6 feet tall and is a biennial which I leave to self seed.

Image Uniprot.com

I was also pleased to see many seedlings of Acanthus Mollis, a great structural plant and one which gives year round interest.  I let them seed and then move them in the Spring before they get time to put down their roots properly.

 Image +Robinsyard.blogspot.fr

My style is what the French call 'le désordre anglais'

OH came out and said he was turning off the electric in the house.  A lot of clanging and swearing ensued from my bedroom.  He emerged, flushed with success, an hour later and announced, with biblical overtones, that now I had light.  I used to have a lovely mini chandelier in my bedroom, with many sparkling little crystals.  RJ had hung it and had not attached it to the beams properly, with the result that the wiring always showed and it used to descend slowly over a period of weeks before I shoved it back into the ceiling.  Too heavy alas.  OH decided it looked bad for house visitors, and had just cut off the wire, meaning I had no main lighting for about six months.  I now had light and revelled in the luxury of it. The upstairs light circuits have decided to work again which is just as well, as the electrician says he is ill and can't come.  The thing with OH is not to nag, and to invite people to come and see the house.  

When the boys were small, and a visit from MIL was in the offing, we would make a big effort.  I used to say 'don't tell her we have spent a week, cleaning the mess'.  MIL would duly arrive and say to the boys 'well, what have you been up?' and the little rats used to exclaim 'we have been cleaning ALL week!'  I didn't think I did much cleaning, until I started writing this blog.  This is how I feel about cleaning

I do love watching Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners.  Must sign off, I seem to have done something to the text editor which means it is centring all text.

Market day, treats and progress

Thursday 15 January 2015 or 15 01 20 15  pleasing balance to the numbers

6 degrees rising to 14 degrees
Very windy later on in the day

OH (other half in case you were wondering) is 56 today.  He is in remarkably good condition - fine teeth, still quite a lot of hair and youthful skin.  Has does have bad feet and legs but I won't be shooting him just yet.  The Armagnac and chocolates are very well received and we have lazy breakfast before going down town to the market.   The sunny weather has brought out a lot of people and the stalls are bursting with good things.  As we walk around, gorgeous smells waft on the air - from the Indian stall, the dense aroma of onion bahjis and chickpea curry, the sharp spice of olives from the Provence stall, the sickly sweetness of fried batter balls from the Algerian stall.   

I am drawn to the coffee shop and we have café gourmand with a selection of tiny treats, surrounding a foaming mug of coffee - chocolate mousse, beaten to a sharp peak, a piquant apple crumble, a pale pink macarron, a white chocolate square.  Totally delicious.  We are joined by one of my sellers called TT and a lady whose house we rented when we first came over here.  She is a tiny lady and in her late 60's and her favourite word is fuck.   Her house has been for sale for five years now.  For five years I have been telling them that they need to put in a fabby kitchen instead of the small cupboard that they have at the moment. Again, it falls on deaf ears.  'I should never have let T (her husband) buy that effing house. We have spent an effing fortune on it.  We had some effing people over to view last week and they bought a small modern house near effing Orthez'.  (TT's house is over 200 years old with a massive plot of land)  Alas, I know who these people are and it transpires that the offer they made was 100k under the asking price.  Did that not give them a clue that the area is unsellable?

TT is with another lady who says that she is looking to rent over the summer so I take the pair of them and show them the rental units - all of them - just in case they express a sudden and irresistible urge to buy one of them.  TT's friend says she will have a word with her husband.  About renting.

Get phone call from partner agent who tells me that the visit today went really well and that his clients want lot more information.  My seller has gone off to sodding exotic island for three months.  Email him and spent three hours pulling weeds out of the stone flags of the patio.  Weather warm with a spirited wind.

The money transferred supposedly to my bank account from this week's sale has not been credited.  The notification that my bank had received it arrived at 12.30.  At 4.30 I ring the bank and the lady tells me that it should be there within 48 hours.  48 hours!!! I squeak (temporarily forgetting to be zen) How on earth can it be 48 hours - it is electronic!  It should be immediate! Where is the money now?  The woman gets rather het up and says I cant expect it immediately because it has to go via three computer systems.  I tell her that is ludicrous.   OH is outside, suppressing molehills, with a venom normally reserved for Billy Connolly or non peripatetic gypsies (he is not keen on peripatetic ones either).  He channels his inner TT and says fuck too.

The bank obviously hangs onto the money and, somewhere, someone will be earning interest on it.   I was once told by a notary that the funds from sales used to be kept by the receiving notaries for up to six months before they were released to the sellers.  The notary would then lend the money out, at huge rates of interest, which they would then keep for themselves.   I was stupefied.  The notary then had to reassure my sellers - whose eyes were at that point bulging out on stalks - that this no longer happened.  How on earth did people accept this practice?  I ask of the notary.  Ah, we were Gods back then, he said ruefully.

Listen to Alan Bennett's play about the lady who came to stay in a caravan in his garden for three months and ended up being there for 15 years.  Lady played, gloriously, by Maggie Smith.  What a treasure she is.  A real treat to listen to.

Paris sieges and prospection

Friday 9 January 2015

Crisp and clear

6 degrees

Off into the sparkling morning to see most exquisite country cottage with Pyrenees dark and jagged on the horizon.  Exposed stone, original tommette flooring, beams, fireplaces, nick knacks everywhere and full central heating.  Price 80k too much but has been taken on by partner agent who holds the mandate so will have to present at current mandate price.

The owner shows us everything, at length, and gives me a plantlet of Catalpa Bignoides.  Thrilled!  Plantaholic in me loves nothing better than free stuff and also have a huge pod full of seeds.

Back home to watch unfolding sieges in Paris - one in a small printing works north east of Paris (weather really crap) where the brothers who committed the atrocity chez Charlie Hebdo are holed up with one hostage and another in a Kosher supermarket in Porte des Vincennes.  Unfortunately four hostages were later killed and policemen injured - the hostage from the printing works was unharmed and all three terrorists were killed.  What a dreadful week for freedom and democracy.

Rang lots of potential buyers and no one was in.  Emailed them all.   Made chops with onion gravy and added maizena (corn flour) to thicken the gravy and it promptly congealed into solid lumps so I had to sieve it.   Even my normal Fanny Craddock method of whisking the hell out of it hadn't managed to get rid of them.  Maizena is excellent for coating before frying and now I know why.  As soon as it hits the heat, it forms a protective crispy coat.

Watched Homes by the Sea based in Kent and Sussex.  That is where I will be living this year, seaside town with fabby cliffs and waves.  Universe; please listen and take note.

Huffington Post and happiness

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Misty with promise of sun later
10 degrees

Reading the online Huffington Post, I come across a divorce attorney, Krista Barth's New Years Resolutions - there are six and the last one is the most telling for me6. I will be accountable for my own happiness.

I will try in 2015, to be accountable for my own happiness by remembering to be grateful for the amazing blessings I have and not focusing on what is missing. I will try not to complain about becoming older by remembering it is a privilege denied to too many others. I will try not to complain about work and recognize I am lucky to have a job. I will do what I can to choose happiness, even when it is not the easy choice. I will remember this life is full of more laughter than tears, unlimited beauty to behold and opportunity to love and be loved every day. Perspective is reality, and I will try to make 2015 the year I keep mine squarely in check.

We can choose whether or not to be happy about a situation but Krista has really hit the nail on the head, when she says that being happy is not the easy choice.  I know personally that it is so easy to spend ones time complaining, and plotting, and scheming, and imagining all the clever put downs you will use on a future occasion.  I actually got to the stage last year when I resented hearing and seeing people laughing and looking happy.  This is the year to regain my sense of perspective.

At the doctors yesterday to review the results of the scan.  All clear.  I tell the doctor I am taking a supplement because my hair was falling out.  He said was I tired and I said permanently.  He asked if I was stressed and I said I had been, enormously.  He said I needed to step back - admittedly not easy - and distance myself from the things that were wearing me out.  If that is the only thing that writing this blog will enable me to do, then it will serve its purpose well.  As well of course as enabling me to write the book that I have always wished to write.  Looking at analytics, I see most of my readers are in the US of A so a big 'Hi!' to you all out there.  Dont be shy, drop a comment under this post and introduce yourself

Walk the dog along the old river track.  The sun comes out and because it is midday, no one else is around.  Fields full of sparrows and field fares who accompany us along by flicking in bursts from tree to tree along the way.

Learn, by looking at his emails, that WF has interview today.  His phone has been switched off since last Friday.  He is completely infuriating.  RJ has left SILs house and had intended to go down to see WF but ends up back at the hotel where he works.  He is not pleased and spent an age hanging around in nearby train station waiting for WF to turn on phone or reply by FB.  Hotel not open until 10th so he will just have some R n R and hopefully get down to see WF before it opens again.

Go and take estimation report to house I went to see yesterday.  Discover that another agent has valued it 15% more expensive than me.  High value property so this translates into a lot of euros.  Oh bloody hell.  It is not worth that much and they will jeopordize their chances of an early sale.  Take it on at the elevated price and tell them that we will review the situation monthly.  It is absolutely key to get the property on at a reasonable price in the first place.  The longer the property is on sale, the more invisible it becomes to potential buyers.  They think - why is it not selling - is it too expensive and the owners are inflexible? Is there something seriously wrong with the house or the location?  We will see.  It is a lovely property but not that many euros worth of lovely.

Really must take down the Christmas decorations and record my New Year's speech.News  devoiles shocking news of murder at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo - 9 journalists and 2 police officers.  Criminals escaped.  There will be a muslim backlash I fear. How dreadful.  Around the world, people unite to say WE ARE CHARLIE