Le Couvent Diary

 

Looks like a big parasol closed up doesn't it? Well, you and I are both wrong about that. It's actually the winter sleeping quarters of a tiny pipistrelle bat. I inadvertently forced it to open one ear yesterday when I unfurled the umbrella for the first time since last October. I feel a heel. I do hope it's going to be OK.

 

This isn't my thumb, I didn't pick the poor creature up. I nicked the photo from another website - thanks if it's yours. Please let me know who you are and I'll acknowledge you.

It's been a busy week. We're don't officially re-open for the summer until 1 May, but , as a favour to our pals Nicola & Teddy, we're making an exception. We have a group of writers coming to stay for a week's workshop from 25 March. So we have to get the house and garden in guest mode a bit early.

As a result Ali has been painting like a dervish all week, the green bathroom's now germolene pink. We're not at all sure about it, but hope that the addition of lots of art and photos might make it bearable. At least it's a lot lighter now. The ceiling has yet to be lowered and new lights installed. I know, wrong way round, but you try getting a workmen at this time of year. Ali's now moved on to the orange bedroom, re-painting the ceiling and a couple of walls.

Some of the windows have taken a battering during the winter so a little outside work has to be done on those. The windows and shutters are wonderfully battered and beautiful. The paint's weathered naturally into the most glorious multi-hued fade - the sort of thing TV makeover people try to do by distressing things. There's nothing remotely stressed about our shutters, they're just slack and gorgeous. But that comes at a price - we have to be gentle with them, just doing enough to ensure they're safe and that they work, but not deciding to replace them with brand new ones. When it comes to that time we will sell up and move. I would be very sad to see this beautiful old girl tarted up like a teenager on a date.

 

 

I, on the other hand, get to tickle the garden back into shape. Actually, it's less of a tickle than a short back and sides. Having spent the whole winter pruning our vines the garden has had less attention than usual. But we must have done something right in the previous six years because it's stood up to this neglect rather well. The plants are all thriving and there really aren't millions of weeds. Last year we invested in a garden shredder and shredded everything in sight, tossing the mulch on the garden. I'm assuming the weeds gave up in the darkness because relatively few have bothered to surface.

 

Actually I'm rather disappointed. I was hoping to have tons of garden waste to take to the tip in our new trailer. I am particularly hopeless at reversing it and the municipal tip is the perfect place to practise. It's a huge open bit of ground and if I choose my timing carefully there might be no-one there to witness me jack-knifing repeatedly. For the moment, though, I'm doing it in a simulated kind of a way. See how you get on in this reversing game .

 

Damn, damn, damn. We lost, outright, no messing about with second rounds, we just lost. So we have the old Maire and his team for another six years. I console myself with the thought that we chose to live in Roujan because it felt like Britain in the 50's and with a bit of luck some things might remain that way if the villagers are so entrenched.

The main problem for me is the proposal to build a big supermarket in the village.  Roujan has two fantastic butchers, two excellent bakers, two general stores, a post office, a bank (albeit with mercurial opening hours), a bus into Pezenas twice a day, two bars, a florist, a pharmacy, heaps of estate agents, two hairdressers, two newspaper/tobacconists and so on. But the villagers are super keen for a new supermarket to be built on the outskirts of the Roujan.

Having lived through the demise of the English village we encourage them to imagine how our lives will all be when one-by-one the shops disappear and we all have to traipse nearly a kilometre down to the supermarket to drag our shopping another kilometre back up the hill. Either that or get the car out all the time. Unfortunately the rosy glow that sits over the village leads the villagers to believe that the independent shops will all remain. Now that would be a first.

 

 

 

Today we voted in the municipal elections for the first time. It's a simple affair. One is handed a blue envelope. On the table are two lists of 19 candidates. You choose the list you want to vote for and stick it in the envelope, or if you want to choose some from each list you can go into a booth to make your choices. We were both happy with one of the lists so into the envelopes they went. Then a short queue before handing in your voting card to be stamped, the envelope hovers over the open ballot box and you sign to say you've voted and an important person slides a lever to let your vote fall into the box. All very civilised. Here's Ali placing her vote.

 And me outside the Mairie after having voted. Yes my face is all puffy because I STILL have this bloody cold and cough. 

 

 

I'll let you know how we got on tomorrow. I'm praying our party ousts the current Maire and his gang. The contenders have great plans which include a festival and a market in the village - both of which I would love.

 

 

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?