Le Couvent Diary

 

 

Our lovely friends Chris & Sue sent us this photo taken from their house in Brighton. Meanwhile, we have kind Frances & Alistair bringing our Christmas ham and crackers from Brighton in a van driving through snow-covered France. I do hope everyone's safe.

Meanwhile, 'though we have no snow, it is absolutely freezing here. The godawful Godin woodburner in our apartment has fallen to bits so we've moved downstairs into the main house (and away from the sickenly addictive English TV we had installed recently - phew). We are now revelling in underfloor central heating and no lugging half-metre logs upstairs. The only drawback is that we're heating all the house for just three of us, so we're going through oil by the tanker load. The dogs are comatose in the unaccustomed heat and we're wondering if a t-shirt is too many layers. It's really not very green, and as much as I reduce the temperature, the boiler (french, obviously) takes no notice and wallops out the heat anyway.  Without the TV we're back to books, iTunes and Scrabble. All very gentle.

 

 

Ali picked up a beautiful Christmas tree yesterday so we had a jolly evening tossing up between tasteful or plastered. We went the tasteful route, so the tree is decked out in silver and navy. My mum, who's staying with us for December, says she still has decorations from 50 years ago. Thank God she didn't cram them in her suitcase along with her hair rollers.

She hasn't needed the rollers of course, because, bravely, she went to make an appointment for a shampoo and set at the Roujan hairdresser's. Dredging up french learnt 70 years ago she managed to negotiate an appointment for yesterday afternoon. On arriving home afterwards she looked somewhat shocked. She described the experience thus: "Despite the place being rather ramshackle it was the best shampoo I've ever had; the hairdresser massaged my head for ages which was lovely. Odd though, because she and her pal spent half the time outside smoking, then rushing in to say they'd seen five flakes of snow, and would I like to look." The hairdresser has no English, 'though she'd like to learn, so each time she picked up an item Mum had to tell her what it was in English. So all very jolly. And Mum says she'd like to go back before she flies home again. A success.

In the annual round of awards I'd like to offer one to the fantastic technicians at Santa Maria in St Thibery . They are gardening machinery suppliers and repairers. Three weeks ago I took our 14 year old Husqvarna tractor-mower in for repair. We'd driven it into numerous tree and vine stumps and the blade had sliced a hole in the metal protective skirt. We don't need to use it right now, but I reckoned they'd be overwhelmed with business in the Spring, so best to take it in. They rang to give an estimate of 400 euros to repair it. As the machines are 4000 euros new we bit the bullet. A week later they rang to say it was ready. I arrived with the trailer ready to pick it up. Not only had they done a complete service, replaced the blades, welded and redesigned the skirt so it can't happen again, they'd done it all for 300 euros. I love these clever french boys. They love showing off their artisanal skill and ingenuity. Thank you.

 

 

I bought this riveter the other day, drawn by the name. Do you think it precedes Nike's 'Just do it'?

 

 

By the way, if you're planning a trip here to Languedoc-land, do take a look at our new Bookshop . We've listed books, maps and walks you might find useful, and yes, we earn commission on anything you buy through our site. We're going to use the dosh to buy trees, so with a bit of luck it'll be like paper-recycling.

And finally, the weight loss thing is going well and I put it all down to the help and motivation I'm receiving from the DailyBurn website. They even have an app for the iPhone, and as an iPhone addict, it's a double incentive. Christmas is going to be a test though. We're going to be 14 for lunch and I'm cooking in the big kitchen downstairs. It should all be great fun and I just have to avoid the naughty foods. But isn't that all of it?…...

Ali and I send you and yours our very best wishes for a spectacularly happy Christmas and a healthy, happy 2010.

 

I'm currently limbering up for entry into a competition. You know, the one for the untidiest desk on Earth. I think I stand a good chance of winning.

 

 

The problem is that I have a butterfly brain and find everything my eyes fall upon interesting. As a result I have the Filemaker Pro 10 manual permanently open, the Boden catalogue waiting for me to order Ali's birthday present. (Her birthday's tomorrow, so I'm already way too late.) There's a tube containing a biodynamic calendar waiting for me to find a suitable place to pin it up. Countless list of done and undone jobs litter the desk. Wires are everywhere despite wireless networks, bluetooth and magic connections. I'm in the middle of sorting out health insurance, car registrations (we're six years overdue on that too), how to treat olives, wondering where to send extra tax information,  reading the mini-tractor manual, updating websites, cogitating dry-stone walling courses, keeping vineyard records, taking part in a national health study, not to mention hopping haphazardly through dozens of websites each day whilst I'm waiting for guests to come down to breakfast.

The only thing I'm truly rigorous about is answering guests' e-mails and keeping the bookings database in crisp order. For the rest of it I'm in perpetual chaos. Largely because I loathe paperwork with a passion, but love my Macs, books and the internet with an equal lust.

As if the untidiness wasn't bad enough, I also share my office with the dogs. So there is the perpetual tumbleweed of hair and toys to negotiate. And they just sleep though it all. Not a care in the world. Confident of the next meal and the next visit to the vineyards.

Thank God the guests don't see any of it. It's all tucked tidily away in our private bit of the house.

 

 

 

This past week we've been privileged to have the Bloomberg Tricycle Writers Group staying with us. Each year, thanks to the Bloomberg Foundation and the Tricycle Theatre around a dozen writers meet together for a week here in Roujan where they find space to work on their current writings. Each evening we've heard scenes from plays, short stories, stand-up routines and seen short films made by the individuals in the group. It's been utterly fantastic to hear such wonderful imagination at play.

So thank you Hassan Abdulrazzak, Michael Bhim, Neil D'Souza, Jennifer Farmer, Amit Gupta, Amy Evans, Winsome Pinnock, Trevor Williams, Dolly Dhingra, Lorna French and Kwame Kwei-Armah, you've been absolute stars. See you next year?

 

 

 

For the past week Ali and I have had rotten colds. We've done no pruning, no gardening and very little that involves standing up. On the other hand, when the eyes have stopped streaming, if only for half an hour, we've ploughed our way through endless books. Even when preparing supper, Ali finds it impossible to stop. That's not a cookbook you see her with, it's The Indian Clerk , which she obviously can't put down.

I, on the other hand, have been reading some tripe so bad that it made me think perhaps we should start a 'plant a tree for every crap book you've read scheme'. I'm sure we'd have a forest in no time, and each tree could be labelled with the name of an atrocious book that never should have been published. That way we'd soon know what to avoid and the trees wasted printing the trash could be offset with freshly planted ones. Whaddya think?