18.
April 27th.
Aubergine coloured hair seems to be the trend with women of a certain age here, Look closely and you will see the blueish pink tinge on the scalps. Marie has a wedge of dark reddish black coiffure and at this very moment I'm watching her toil up the red dust track to join Emile in the white Renault van. Her pinny sits nicely on the table top of her stomach, which also raises her skirt to practically mini level. The effect is finished off with short green wellies.
I feel a surge of nostalgia; a grandmother memory moment. To fight off nostalgia one has to not yearn to go back and put things right; merely remember, like watching a picture show.
Looking at an old photograph, I can still remember precisely the feel of the sun, the look of the light, a black and white picture. M. stretches his hand out to touch a plump baby’s leg and I take that moment with the camera; including the scattered toys, the wooden garden table, the old gym benches around it, the ducks rifling amongst the grasses. Skeins of nostalgia are there...
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
16.
April 19th. Dogs and Caves.
My furthest neighbour, Robert, passes me on the lane, in a flurry of mud and gear. A gnome on a quad bike. He is going up into the hills to meet friends and make a great deal of noise, as it’s the weekend. We two have a mutual antipathy, since I complained about a young dog he kept in his barn and which wailed every night so that I couldn’t sleep. My silent misery matched the animal’s protest until I lost it and threatened to go to the Maire. The puppy was re-housed with his other hounds.
He keeps an assortment of these in pens, within hearing distance. They are all amiable enough, but out of the hunting season, spend their days on the roofs of their kennels, to avoid the accretions of their own shit that join with stone, weed and rock to create their ground. Every so often, at a signal from one of their own, they set up an almost choral howl. This deeply upsets me and on worse days makes me think of selling up…..
But then there are almost silent times, profoundly quiet days, when I can only hear birds, the occasional voice or vehicle. The children are at school, the dogs are too warm and I watch, work, walk and listen.
In a landscape minus human beings there is a surfeit of beauty but a human says those words and so sees the landscape and edits it, alas. The mountains tell of deep and distant time, before and beyond human experience and thus frighten me a bit. Too far to walk, to high to climb, to deep to fathom. In a cave not far away, 2 km. inside, are marks of childrens hands and rust and black drawings of horse and hind, 15000 years old. What are equally as fascinating are the more recent graffiti, which mark the walls for perhaps one km. in. 200 years ago, people were perhaps too afraid to go further inwards. The caves had a quite different meaning for them.
April 19th. Dogs and Caves.
My furthest neighbour, Robert, passes me on the lane, in a flurry of mud and gear. A gnome on a quad bike. He is going up into the hills to meet friends and make a great deal of noise, as it’s the weekend. We two have a mutual antipathy, since I complained about a young dog he kept in his barn and which wailed every night so that I couldn’t sleep. My silent misery matched the animal’s protest until I lost it and threatened to go to the Maire. The puppy was re-housed with his other hounds.
He keeps an assortment of these in pens, within hearing distance. They are all amiable enough, but out of the hunting season, spend their days on the roofs of their kennels, to avoid the accretions of their own shit that join with stone, weed and rock to create their ground. Every so often, at a signal from one of their own, they set up an almost choral howl. This deeply upsets me and on worse days makes me think of selling up…..
But then there are almost silent times, profoundly quiet days, when I can only hear birds, the occasional voice or vehicle. The children are at school, the dogs are too warm and I watch, work, walk and listen.
In a landscape minus human beings there is a surfeit of beauty but a human says those words and so sees the landscape and edits it, alas. The mountains tell of deep and distant time, before and beyond human experience and thus frighten me a bit. Too far to walk, to high to climb, to deep to fathom. In a cave not far away, 2 km. inside, are marks of childrens hands and rust and black drawings of horse and hind, 15000 years old. What are equally as fascinating are the more recent graffiti, which mark the walls for perhaps one km. in. 200 years ago, people were perhaps too afraid to go further inwards. The caves had a quite different meaning for them.
15.
April 17th.
A mower in the distance announces a good day. A jay, as bold as you like, loops in and out of an old Laurel, pounces onto the grass and is up again. It seems a long time ago now when I could hear the jays quarrelling and grating over the autumn acorns.
Winter survived, the frogs are declaring loudly around the pond, accompanied by the rising bubble and jug of the nightingales, hidden in the scrubby copses. Joy,--in spite of the wind, for it is, indeed, spring.
It`s breathtaking to brush through the prairie fields full of ragged robin, lady orchids, ox eye daisies and rusty sorrel flowers and to listen to the shivering of new, silver backed poplar leaves.
I can lie back in a patch and listen to the frantic business of the insect hordes. I can watch the black redstart, indignantly flicking its tail and chkk-chkking at a cat, slowly meandering its way through the long grass, dark ear tips just visible.
This is the life. Spring, the glorious season. A good number of the trees have survived that winter and there’s a promise of real heat in the air. To confirm it I hear a hoopoe. It is ‘churring’ at me from the walnut tree, in warning. Then it takes off on its skidaddling flight, beautiful black and white wing markings fanning its flight towards the big ash, where it sets up its ‘hoop- hoop hoop’ call.
April 17th.
A mower in the distance announces a good day. A jay, as bold as you like, loops in and out of an old Laurel, pounces onto the grass and is up again. It seems a long time ago now when I could hear the jays quarrelling and grating over the autumn acorns.
Winter survived, the frogs are declaring loudly around the pond, accompanied by the rising bubble and jug of the nightingales, hidden in the scrubby copses. Joy,--in spite of the wind, for it is, indeed, spring.
It`s breathtaking to brush through the prairie fields full of ragged robin, lady orchids, ox eye daisies and rusty sorrel flowers and to listen to the shivering of new, silver backed poplar leaves.
I can lie back in a patch and listen to the frantic business of the insect hordes. I can watch the black redstart, indignantly flicking its tail and chkk-chkking at a cat, slowly meandering its way through the long grass, dark ear tips just visible.
This is the life. Spring, the glorious season. A good number of the trees have survived that winter and there’s a promise of real heat in the air. To confirm it I hear a hoopoe. It is ‘churring’ at me from the walnut tree, in warning. Then it takes off on its skidaddling flight, beautiful black and white wing markings fanning its flight towards the big ash, where it sets up its ‘hoop- hoop hoop’ call.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
14.
April 13th.
Sylvie is coming with me to buy eye drops at the pharmacie. She sits on two cushions in the passenger seat of the van so that she might see out. She is watching the fields and houses go by and remarking on who lived there, worked there, died there. The shoe factory closed long ago, where she used to walk, 6km.each day. Those were the days, she sighs. Now she doesn`t see many people. Bertrand drives very occasionally, to fetch diesel for the tractor or strimmer, to do some shopping, and she may go with him if the various delivery vans haven't quite stocked what she wants.. She misses chatting with her old friends. She is quite a walker, nevertheless, and we often tramp around the rough surfaced lanes, looking at the carpets of cowslips and orchids, so that she may stop and gossip with one or two passing acquaintances.
‘I'm not walking out on my own’, she comments, ‘anything could happen. You hear of such terrible things on the news. Aren’t you fearful when you walk alone?’
‘No, Sylvie, that’s just the television for you. One or two bad things happen, but France is a huge country’
‘All the same, I’m glad when you are around to stroll with me’. There’s praise indeed.
Last night, just after dusk, I watched a barn owl sweep low through the farmyard, a little owl flop from telegraph wire to pole and heard the first scopps owl calling monotonously for a mate: “meep……meep…….meep….”. [Owl heaven, but cat city too!]
April 13th.
Sylvie is coming with me to buy eye drops at the pharmacie. She sits on two cushions in the passenger seat of the van so that she might see out. She is watching the fields and houses go by and remarking on who lived there, worked there, died there. The shoe factory closed long ago, where she used to walk, 6km.each day. Those were the days, she sighs. Now she doesn`t see many people. Bertrand drives very occasionally, to fetch diesel for the tractor or strimmer, to do some shopping, and she may go with him if the various delivery vans haven't quite stocked what she wants.. She misses chatting with her old friends. She is quite a walker, nevertheless, and we often tramp around the rough surfaced lanes, looking at the carpets of cowslips and orchids, so that she may stop and gossip with one or two passing acquaintances.
‘I'm not walking out on my own’, she comments, ‘anything could happen. You hear of such terrible things on the news. Aren’t you fearful when you walk alone?’
‘No, Sylvie, that’s just the television for you. One or two bad things happen, but France is a huge country’
‘All the same, I’m glad when you are around to stroll with me’. There’s praise indeed.
Last night, just after dusk, I watched a barn owl sweep low through the farmyard, a little owl flop from telegraph wire to pole and heard the first scopps owl calling monotonously for a mate: “meep……meep…….meep….”. [Owl heaven, but cat city too!]
Thursday, April 10, 2008
13. April 6th.
The sunshine is truly cheering. So much stronger. While the plums are losing their blossom, taking on a slightly shabby, dirty look, the pears and sweet cherries have more than enough. The apples are biding their time and I'm thinking how handsome these trees are, so good to see full sized, big headed fruit trees. None of those dwarfed, domestic, patio types dare show up around here.
Big black bees are busy coupling and zooming and the general insect racket is a pleasing background music. The kestrels give a repeat performance every so often, mating high in the pear tree, with chattering, rising cries.
Yesterday I watched the female hen harrier quartering and hooking low over the meadows, so near and silent. I could see her white banded rump and gingery striped breast. Usually it`s the ghost grey male, black wing tips bent back, hunting in that almost skating, gliding flight. Later on I can hear their courtship and exchange calls, higher, towards the forest..
Sylvie thinks I'm out too early, sowing and planting. She doesn’t trust this spring, she says. She nevertheless hands me six seed potatoes to plant. . Unnamed, she is proud to say they have been in the family for years and years. Small, white tubers for an early crop. I shall put them in today, I say. As I am out there, I hear the first cuckoo.
Later that night I go out onto the roof to look at Orion hanging over the hill, and the moon sliver slung between it and the mountain. The tawny owls are hooting and the bats are flicking past the alley lamp.
The sunshine is truly cheering. So much stronger. While the plums are losing their blossom, taking on a slightly shabby, dirty look, the pears and sweet cherries have more than enough. The apples are biding their time and I'm thinking how handsome these trees are, so good to see full sized, big headed fruit trees. None of those dwarfed, domestic, patio types dare show up around here.
Big black bees are busy coupling and zooming and the general insect racket is a pleasing background music. The kestrels give a repeat performance every so often, mating high in the pear tree, with chattering, rising cries.
Yesterday I watched the female hen harrier quartering and hooking low over the meadows, so near and silent. I could see her white banded rump and gingery striped breast. Usually it`s the ghost grey male, black wing tips bent back, hunting in that almost skating, gliding flight. Later on I can hear their courtship and exchange calls, higher, towards the forest..
Sylvie thinks I'm out too early, sowing and planting. She doesn’t trust this spring, she says. She nevertheless hands me six seed potatoes to plant. . Unnamed, she is proud to say they have been in the family for years and years. Small, white tubers for an early crop. I shall put them in today, I say. As I am out there, I hear the first cuckoo.
Later that night I go out onto the roof to look at Orion hanging over the hill, and the moon sliver slung between it and the mountain. The tawny owls are hooting and the bats are flicking past the alley lamp.
Monday, April 07, 2008
12.
SomePlace Pyrenean Journal. Bertrand and Sylvie
My neighbours on the east side are two siblings. Bertrand and Sylvie potter with ancient tractors, creaking wheelbarrows, geriatric goats and are nearly always in tweed and wool, impregnated with oil and god knows what stains. Sylvie adds a pinafore that sits like a ledge cloth over her precise stomach. She is not so much fat as well fed and protuberant in various places. Friendly would not be sufficient description for these two. They have welcomed me with uncanny warmth; they, who have rarely seen a stranger, let alone an English woman. They learn all that they know from the village and from their television. There are no books. The only printed paper they glance at, they assure me, is the junk that comes into their letter box , and a calendar left by the paramedic/fire service, Les Pompiers.
Their land runs alongside mine, as Emile and Marie’s does, on the other side. Strange really, that we have these long strips of fields, like allotments, all facing south to the mountains, with nothing beyond except prairie and forest. In Britain I would pay a million or more for these views. And here are layers of lives, laid down over the generations. The ruined walls, the roofless barns, the collapsing wells; echoes of rural histories and industriousness; not quite a palimpsest, the landscape is more a quilting and a layering of lives. No one here, one feels, starts with a new beginning, so much as turns and goes over again; meeting the necessities of a hand to mouth existence. My arrival has inserted a different way of living. I dig in the field and discover pottery, old tool bits, and leather scraps. But it is not my history. However long I stay here, I suspect, the etrangere status will stick. Perhaps rightly so.
Sunshine eases into my joints; there are changes in birdsong and the sward. 3 bluetits are shinning up and across the walnut trees, their courtship rivalries voiced in metallic ‘tsiiits-chinks’
The plums and cherries are all in exuberant mode; pale sweeps of flowering creep up the mountain sides and the red kites are cheeky in their display flights and courtship dances.
My ownership of this small piece of land has intensified my attention to the details of the microcosm. I notice the smallest alteration: the creeping potentilla, the speedwell, the blue flax are pushing their frontiers. The daffodils, free of snow and wind, stand upright and bright. The first spotted orchid leaves are there, in the low grass. Emile is out too, raking out the old tomato haulm from last year but I’m too far out of earshot to catch any complaint.
SomePlace Pyrenean Journal. Bertrand and Sylvie
My neighbours on the east side are two siblings. Bertrand and Sylvie potter with ancient tractors, creaking wheelbarrows, geriatric goats and are nearly always in tweed and wool, impregnated with oil and god knows what stains. Sylvie adds a pinafore that sits like a ledge cloth over her precise stomach. She is not so much fat as well fed and protuberant in various places. Friendly would not be sufficient description for these two. They have welcomed me with uncanny warmth; they, who have rarely seen a stranger, let alone an English woman. They learn all that they know from the village and from their television. There are no books. The only printed paper they glance at, they assure me, is the junk that comes into their letter box , and a calendar left by the paramedic/fire service, Les Pompiers.
Their land runs alongside mine, as Emile and Marie’s does, on the other side. Strange really, that we have these long strips of fields, like allotments, all facing south to the mountains, with nothing beyond except prairie and forest. In Britain I would pay a million or more for these views. And here are layers of lives, laid down over the generations. The ruined walls, the roofless barns, the collapsing wells; echoes of rural histories and industriousness; not quite a palimpsest, the landscape is more a quilting and a layering of lives. No one here, one feels, starts with a new beginning, so much as turns and goes over again; meeting the necessities of a hand to mouth existence. My arrival has inserted a different way of living. I dig in the field and discover pottery, old tool bits, and leather scraps. But it is not my history. However long I stay here, I suspect, the etrangere status will stick. Perhaps rightly so.
Sunshine eases into my joints; there are changes in birdsong and the sward. 3 bluetits are shinning up and across the walnut trees, their courtship rivalries voiced in metallic ‘tsiiits-chinks’
The plums and cherries are all in exuberant mode; pale sweeps of flowering creep up the mountain sides and the red kites are cheeky in their display flights and courtship dances.
My ownership of this small piece of land has intensified my attention to the details of the microcosm. I notice the smallest alteration: the creeping potentilla, the speedwell, the blue flax are pushing their frontiers. The daffodils, free of snow and wind, stand upright and bright. The first spotted orchid leaves are there, in the low grass. Emile is out too, raking out the old tomato haulm from last year but I’m too far out of earshot to catch any complaint.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
March 31st. SomePlace, Pyrenean Journal
The poplars are showing their sienna gold, new leaves; like waiting, ordered armies, they whisper amongst themselves. The lime yellow of the willows joins in the fanfare of spring colour and chiffchaffs, blackcaps and swallows accompany the whole concert. The first swallow arrived on the 29th. March; definitely earlier than last year. Later that day, two more joined up and by the next day there were a dozen or so, swooping and slicing low over the long grass land, inspecting the barns and chattering in their tinkling voices all along the telegraph wires. Non stop sunshine lifts the most stubborn of hearts.
I try to transpose this landscape, in my imagination, into Dartmoor, Devon, Wales, but it doesn`t work. There the signs, - the ditches, fences and hedges, would present some recogniseable language; I could read them as familiar. But here they are different. A group of ash, birch and hawthorn are somehow displaced in my imagination. There are no holloways, trodden by millennia of feet and wheels; no cottage gardens or grand demesnes, only ruined castles and tumbling barns, marking some ancient, landowning histories. These sweeping fields are not divided by trimmed or layed hedges. Huge sweeps of land, vast agri strips, their umber or emerald lines changing direction and stripes, to denote edge and perhaps propriety, decorate this wide space. Clouds of cherry and blackthorn blossom plume up the hillsides and the Prussian blue of the bigger forest crosses to and fro’, upwards towards the mountains. Here the hares are big, the deer frequent, the boar strange and the birdsong pervasive. And in spite of the Wednesday and weekend hunting sprees this a sort of a fecund paradise
The poplars are showing their sienna gold, new leaves; like waiting, ordered armies, they whisper amongst themselves. The lime yellow of the willows joins in the fanfare of spring colour and chiffchaffs, blackcaps and swallows accompany the whole concert. The first swallow arrived on the 29th. March; definitely earlier than last year. Later that day, two more joined up and by the next day there were a dozen or so, swooping and slicing low over the long grass land, inspecting the barns and chattering in their tinkling voices all along the telegraph wires. Non stop sunshine lifts the most stubborn of hearts.
I try to transpose this landscape, in my imagination, into Dartmoor, Devon, Wales, but it doesn`t work. There the signs, - the ditches, fences and hedges, would present some recogniseable language; I could read them as familiar. But here they are different. A group of ash, birch and hawthorn are somehow displaced in my imagination. There are no holloways, trodden by millennia of feet and wheels; no cottage gardens or grand demesnes, only ruined castles and tumbling barns, marking some ancient, landowning histories. These sweeping fields are not divided by trimmed or layed hedges. Huge sweeps of land, vast agri strips, their umber or emerald lines changing direction and stripes, to denote edge and perhaps propriety, decorate this wide space. Clouds of cherry and blackthorn blossom plume up the hillsides and the Prussian blue of the bigger forest crosses to and fro’, upwards towards the mountains. Here the hares are big, the deer frequent, the boar strange and the birdsong pervasive. And in spite of the Wednesday and weekend hunting sprees this a sort of a fecund paradise
Saturday, March 29, 2008
March 27th. Return.
Returned from a two week stay in England. The grass appears to have grown enormously and for the first few days back I felt like a real stranger again. Not that I didn't want to get back. I had arrived in Britain during storms and an arctic chill. Plastic bags decorated the bleak trees and verges, signage had sprung up and through, like the council knew it was supposed to be spring. Friday and Saturday evenings still sprouted their bunches of lurching blobs; a gross animus pervades. Is this just me?
Yet on return to the mountains I know that I will never be truly at home here, that the traces, signs, faces and features do not share my recent history, that I am a visitor, an escapee from the shades and clouds that drove me here to focus inwards and to the land that might give me motive and sort me out.
Returned from a two week stay in England. The grass appears to have grown enormously and for the first few days back I felt like a real stranger again. Not that I didn't want to get back. I had arrived in Britain during storms and an arctic chill. Plastic bags decorated the bleak trees and verges, signage had sprung up and through, like the council knew it was supposed to be spring. Friday and Saturday evenings still sprouted their bunches of lurching blobs; a gross animus pervades. Is this just me?
Yet on return to the mountains I know that I will never be truly at home here, that the traces, signs, faces and features do not share my recent history, that I am a visitor, an escapee from the shades and clouds that drove me here to focus inwards and to the land that might give me motive and sort me out.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
If you manage to get up very early in the morning and go out into the snow that fell, just before the full night began, you may see the tracks of animal traffic. These are untainted, as yet, by thaw or new snow. The passers by leave their signs. Here is a hare, two prints in front, with just a trace of hock or thigh. These first are the hind feet, passed under and through the fore legs, which print themselves behind. I follow them alongside and find scrapes where this hare has found tasty shoots. The hills are silent, no birdsong, no cursed dogs. I'm almost ashamed to sully the cleanliness. It's not that cold, just white, but the trees up the mountain have already shed their shawls and the thorn blossoms are like dirty handkerchiefs. I can hear the river clearly; the water sounds are exaggerated, framed by the muffled landscape.
Being a poor gardener one gets excited by very small things. And they are here, the tips of ruffled daffodils around the well. The snow lies like a skirt around each prima donna. In spite of the snow, the season is changing. Molehills are lumped in a diagonal across the field, like big brown mushrooms. I watch a greater spotted woodpecker shin up the bare trunk of a beech. 'Pchikk, pchikk!' Its call ecoes its French name: 'pic epeiche'. Its loopy flight gives it away before the sound.
In the house, ash from the fire fills a metal bucket and fills me with pleasure too. The simple and repetitive routines I indulge in, riddling the stove, collecting the wood and ash, are profoundly satisfying. Yesterday's despair has lessened. Nature might be waving at us frantically, her imperatives obvious, but, as James Lovelock says: enjoy life while you can; and that is why I am here, lucky, in this wild and abundant place.
Being a poor gardener one gets excited by very small things. And they are here, the tips of ruffled daffodils around the well. The snow lies like a skirt around each prima donna. In spite of the snow, the season is changing. Molehills are lumped in a diagonal across the field, like big brown mushrooms. I watch a greater spotted woodpecker shin up the bare trunk of a beech. 'Pchikk, pchikk!' Its call ecoes its French name: 'pic epeiche'. Its loopy flight gives it away before the sound.
In the house, ash from the fire fills a metal bucket and fills me with pleasure too. The simple and repetitive routines I indulge in, riddling the stove, collecting the wood and ash, are profoundly satisfying. Yesterday's despair has lessened. Nature might be waving at us frantically, her imperatives obvious, but, as James Lovelock says: enjoy life while you can; and that is why I am here, lucky, in this wild and abundant place.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
8. March 9th. Pyrenean Journal. Oaks.
I'm off to plant a red oak, whatever the weather, before I crumble into an elderly bigot.
The wind howls, the sleet streaks and drives and hail tinkers with a tin roof. The broad beans are just miserably proud of this thin blanket of snow. Garlic, too; erect points of bright green hope. No optimistic blackbird pipes up this time. But I am out; winding up the wind, slurping over the field, to dig a hole for the oak. Emile has told me not to plant it too near the fruit trees, as its root system will eventually be unsympathetic to them. That is, the fruit trees will not prosper. Now that is interesting because I also know that oaks planted near other oaks ARE mutually conducive. They can, in a way, share each others' root systems, and, so to speak, download nutrients to others in their group that are perhaps struggling to survive. Ah trees, what magic is working there!
I'm off to plant a red oak, whatever the weather, before I crumble into an elderly bigot.
The wind howls, the sleet streaks and drives and hail tinkers with a tin roof. The broad beans are just miserably proud of this thin blanket of snow. Garlic, too; erect points of bright green hope. No optimistic blackbird pipes up this time. But I am out; winding up the wind, slurping over the field, to dig a hole for the oak. Emile has told me not to plant it too near the fruit trees, as its root system will eventually be unsympathetic to them. That is, the fruit trees will not prosper. Now that is interesting because I also know that oaks planted near other oaks ARE mutually conducive. They can, in a way, share each others' root systems, and, so to speak, download nutrients to others in their group that are perhaps struggling to survive. Ah trees, what magic is working there!
Saturday, March 08, 2008
7. Pyrenean Journal, March 8th. Here and there.
After a forgiving February, sleet and hail are sweeping across the plateau. The pale blossom of the blackthorn/sloe is torn from tree and twig by a vicious wind. I'm trying not to let the weight of depression measure my days. I watch the TV, read books and newspapers, write my journal, fiddle with paint and listen to the weather. Outside in the wider world, [because that's what it feels like here; like I'm in a removed space, a world separated from the real, political, conflict strewn planet that does exist], platitudes are breathed, wars are conducted and managed, habitats are defiled, ecosystems lost or interrupted and profits made there. Here, because I'm not outside, because the weather is persistently atrocious, I find myself lost in a mind rant on the corruption, ineptitude and irrationality of the human species.
If we were living at the tail end of human existence, with environments either degraded or lost, what would we dream of? Our lost landscapes? The dust deserts and skies of Ulan Bator? The soft fields and water mills of Suffolk and the Cotswolds of little England? The crusted crags of the Pyrenees or Rockies? The melon slice of a beach or the enveloping forests of our childhood, when trees were no surprise? Or a palingenesis, a new space,a rebuilt paradise?
After a forgiving February, sleet and hail are sweeping across the plateau. The pale blossom of the blackthorn/sloe is torn from tree and twig by a vicious wind. I'm trying not to let the weight of depression measure my days. I watch the TV, read books and newspapers, write my journal, fiddle with paint and listen to the weather. Outside in the wider world, [because that's what it feels like here; like I'm in a removed space, a world separated from the real, political, conflict strewn planet that does exist], platitudes are breathed, wars are conducted and managed, habitats are defiled, ecosystems lost or interrupted and profits made there. Here, because I'm not outside, because the weather is persistently atrocious, I find myself lost in a mind rant on the corruption, ineptitude and irrationality of the human species.
If we were living at the tail end of human existence, with environments either degraded or lost, what would we dream of? Our lost landscapes? The dust deserts and skies of Ulan Bator? The soft fields and water mills of Suffolk and the Cotswolds of little England? The crusted crags of the Pyrenees or Rockies? The melon slice of a beach or the enveloping forests of our childhood, when trees were no surprise? Or a palingenesis, a new space,a rebuilt paradise?
Monday, February 18, 2008
6.Pyrenean Journal, Some Place, Feb. 22nd
Two booted eagles, with seagull like cries and chatterings pass down over the roofs of the village, coming in from the mountains, followed by two complaining crows. Later on they are higher up, hovering almost motionless, silent, wing edges blurry and fingered, so high up they are difficult to discern, against the azure light, but I can see their pale legs, dangling, angled forwards.
"In the garden again, Alees," says Emile, peering through the hedge, put there to hinder the peepshow.
"Yes, Emile, I'm making a garden that's a bit different, with enclosed compartments to bluff the wind and lots of climbers around them. A wild flower meadow, too, down there, nearer the well".
"Hmphhh, there will be plenty of wild flowers out there, soon". He indicates up the hill towards the early orchid prairies. He has a point, of course, but has missed my stealthy mention of enclosures. I didn't have the heart to include the words: 'more privacy'. I'm not deterred, however, not yet. The welcome sunshine and drying soil are too great a temptation. I grin at him, turn my back and get on with my labour. Did he smile too, before I turned?
Labels: February 22nd. Eagles and sunshine
Two booted eagles, with seagull like cries and chatterings pass down over the roofs of the village, coming in from the mountains, followed by two complaining crows. Later on they are higher up, hovering almost motionless, silent, wing edges blurry and fingered, so high up they are difficult to discern, against the azure light, but I can see their pale legs, dangling, angled forwards.
"In the garden again, Alees," says Emile, peering through the hedge, put there to hinder the peepshow.
"Yes, Emile, I'm making a garden that's a bit different, with enclosed compartments to bluff the wind and lots of climbers around them. A wild flower meadow, too, down there, nearer the well".
"Hmphhh, there will be plenty of wild flowers out there, soon". He indicates up the hill towards the early orchid prairies. He has a point, of course, but has missed my stealthy mention of enclosures. I didn't have the heart to include the words: 'more privacy'. I'm not deterred, however, not yet. The welcome sunshine and drying soil are too great a temptation. I grin at him, turn my back and get on with my labour. Did he smile too, before I turned?
Labels: February 22nd. Eagles and sunshine
Saturday, February 16, 2008
5. Pyrenean Journal, Feb. 18th.
Marie is back at my kitchen table. She says she likes the coffee and the chat, for a change. We've talked of the emmerging wild daffodils and now she has veered back to the shootings. I'm waiting, holding my breath. "The German soldiers came knocking on the front door there, asking for the two lads. They fled by the back door, just there, where there used to be a corridor, into the alleyway, but soldiers were waiting for them there, too. Oh, they had some information, for sure". "Were they Maquis?" I can't resist asking. She shrugs and her mouth turns down. "Whatever,...they took them over to the Lavoir and shot 'em. And now what do they want to do, the old veteran's committee?" We wait and sip, and sip again. "They want to put up a memorial. Is it going to be straightforward?" We sip once more and wait again. Marie appears to be enjoying the silences. "No! We say around here that those who talk behind backs have several faces. Hmphhhhh! Well, there are multi faced people around here, I can tell you, because the next we hear, there's a disagreement, a debate, even. Somebody doesn't want that memorial. " Her head bends again and jerks in the vague direction of the square. " We'll see."
There are simmering feuds in these hamlets. Who knows when they originated. They are usually unmentioned but ever present, affecting everyone in insidious ways. I'm learning to pass the time of day with many in this small place and I've come to interpret a sudden averting of eyes, a refusal to say bonjour and a swift turn of the head as sure signs of these old wars.
Marie is back at my kitchen table. She says she likes the coffee and the chat, for a change. We've talked of the emmerging wild daffodils and now she has veered back to the shootings. I'm waiting, holding my breath. "The German soldiers came knocking on the front door there, asking for the two lads. They fled by the back door, just there, where there used to be a corridor, into the alleyway, but soldiers were waiting for them there, too. Oh, they had some information, for sure". "Were they Maquis?" I can't resist asking. She shrugs and her mouth turns down. "Whatever,...they took them over to the Lavoir and shot 'em. And now what do they want to do, the old veteran's committee?" We wait and sip, and sip again. "They want to put up a memorial. Is it going to be straightforward?" We sip once more and wait again. Marie appears to be enjoying the silences. "No! We say around here that those who talk behind backs have several faces. Hmphhhhh! Well, there are multi faced people around here, I can tell you, because the next we hear, there's a disagreement, a debate, even. Somebody doesn't want that memorial. " Her head bends again and jerks in the vague direction of the square. " We'll see."
There are simmering feuds in these hamlets. Who knows when they originated. They are usually unmentioned but ever present, affecting everyone in insidious ways. I'm learning to pass the time of day with many in this small place and I've come to interpret a sudden averting of eyes, a refusal to say bonjour and a swift turn of the head as sure signs of these old wars.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
4. Pyrenean Journal, someplace, February 14th.
Emile's wife Marie sits opposite me, drinking dense, black coffee from the tiniest of cups. Her eyes are misty and pink, but this is normal. She's not upset or ill, just rheumy and reminiscing. "I remember my mother in law telling me that two of my husband's brothers were shot, shot right by that Lavoir, there, in the square." She says this with no precursor, no entree atall. "And it all started in this house." In this house? My eyes widen but I`m afraid to prompt; the moment feels too precious and I'm afraid she might lose the thread..No one has told me any histories, any stories of the village, as if they were theirs to keep close. Or maybe they just didn't talk about their wartime past. Or perhaps it's me, the foreigner, who stops up their voices. One thing is for certain; though they appear not to gossip, they know everything going on around them. They have long ears, perhaps even peep holes through the walls, and a village telegraph for sure. Every so often, in conversation, one may nod sagely and tap the side the side of her or his nose. To hear of something as dramatic as a shooting, and connected to my house, now that is worth waiting for. Marie bends her neck and points with her head in an indeterminate direction. " Yes, well, they wouldn't have been caught but for someone betraying them". She pauses, I wait, I say nothing, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and says that another time will do for the rest of that story. The coffee was good, though, and the log fire has warmed her up, but she must go and check out the cows.
posted by SOME PLACE @ 10:01 0 Comments
Emile's wife Marie sits opposite me, drinking dense, black coffee from the tiniest of cups. Her eyes are misty and pink, but this is normal. She's not upset or ill, just rheumy and reminiscing. "I remember my mother in law telling me that two of my husband's brothers were shot, shot right by that Lavoir, there, in the square." She says this with no precursor, no entree atall. "And it all started in this house." In this house? My eyes widen but I`m afraid to prompt; the moment feels too precious and I'm afraid she might lose the thread..No one has told me any histories, any stories of the village, as if they were theirs to keep close. Or maybe they just didn't talk about their wartime past. Or perhaps it's me, the foreigner, who stops up their voices. One thing is for certain; though they appear not to gossip, they know everything going on around them. They have long ears, perhaps even peep holes through the walls, and a village telegraph for sure. Every so often, in conversation, one may nod sagely and tap the side the side of her or his nose. To hear of something as dramatic as a shooting, and connected to my house, now that is worth waiting for. Marie bends her neck and points with her head in an indeterminate direction. " Yes, well, they wouldn't have been caught but for someone betraying them". She pauses, I wait, I say nothing, and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and says that another time will do for the rest of that story. The coffee was good, though, and the log fire has warmed her up, but she must go and check out the cows.
posted by SOME PLACE @ 10:01 0 Comments
Saturday, February 02, 2008
3. Some Place, ..........Pyrenean Journal, February.
A grey green covering of lichen, like a burdening of blossom, emerges from the old trees as the snow patches diminish. The grass appearing seems too bright, too intense. A grey, Irish mist sort of day frames the fuzzy orb of the sun. In full light the little owl bobs up and down on the barn roof and makes a cross patch sort of cluck, chuck. Later next month the first swallows will sail in and my spirits will soar. I`m in the field, sinking the last posts into the sodden ground, each barrow load of cement mix aching my arms.
'You'd be better just burying those posts straight into the ground and tamping them in with the soil and stones.' Yes, Emile is peering over the nascent hedge. How does he manage to pop up with advice at every turn? Since the crowbar reaches what appear to be the roots of the mountain at a 15cm. depth, I feel I can't do this.The sun is trying but the wind, amongst other things, defeats, so I plead cold hands and sulk indoors
A grey green covering of lichen, like a burdening of blossom, emerges from the old trees as the snow patches diminish. The grass appearing seems too bright, too intense. A grey, Irish mist sort of day frames the fuzzy orb of the sun. In full light the little owl bobs up and down on the barn roof and makes a cross patch sort of cluck, chuck. Later next month the first swallows will sail in and my spirits will soar. I`m in the field, sinking the last posts into the sodden ground, each barrow load of cement mix aching my arms.
'You'd be better just burying those posts straight into the ground and tamping them in with the soil and stones.' Yes, Emile is peering over the nascent hedge. How does he manage to pop up with advice at every turn? Since the crowbar reaches what appear to be the roots of the mountain at a 15cm. depth, I feel I can't do this.The sun is trying but the wind, amongst other things, defeats, so I plead cold hands and sulk indoors
2. Some Place ... end January.
This was to be the year of making a garden. Well the snow has been down for 2 weeks, newly planted trees are leaning horizontally and the trunk of a young cherry has snapped raggedly at the stake tie. Stored onions freeze in the barn. 'It`s the season', says Emile grimly. 'Nothing to be done.' He pauses. 'It's not always like this.' I'm learning.
'Tie the tree at a lower angle next time,' he shrugs.. I cross the alleyway where the wind shrieks, clump out into the field that I try to call garden. I test the wind as it thumps me, gulp the air, appreciate the razor chill, avoid the mud sumps that lie at the base of my little trees and force my hands to struggle with a fork, levering up a few leeks for the pot. Will it ever be spring?
This was to be the year of making a garden. Well the snow has been down for 2 weeks, newly planted trees are leaning horizontally and the trunk of a young cherry has snapped raggedly at the stake tie. Stored onions freeze in the barn. 'It`s the season', says Emile grimly. 'Nothing to be done.' He pauses. 'It's not always like this.' I'm learning.
'Tie the tree at a lower angle next time,' he shrugs.. I cross the alleyway where the wind shrieks, clump out into the field that I try to call garden. I test the wind as it thumps me, gulp the air, appreciate the razor chill, avoid the mud sumps that lie at the base of my little trees and force my hands to struggle with a fork, levering up a few leeks for the pot. Will it ever be spring?
1. January
The snow is piling up on the window frames and the pear trees are straining against the stakes, holding them against the wind. Chaffinches, like cotton wool balls, fly from stacked bales of hay to barn ledges, hoping to find something to eat in this bleakness. For them it's just a matter of holding out at this time of year. A robin follows me, in & out of a hedge, as I battle up the lane. I have bread in my pocket. He knows it. In a juniper sparrows quarrel over a mystery and Emile's piped music echoes thro' the vast cattle hangar. He says it helps keep them calm. They stare at me, rustle their fodder and rattle the metal barriers. Emile is there too, bucket in each hand. 'Warm eh?' he says. 'In England too?'
'No Emile, in England it's raining, naturally'.
'Ah well,' he adds, 'this cold stings but is prettier, aint it?'
January 27th. and a memorial prayer for holocaust victims was read out this morning in the village square. There was a strong maquis movement in this part of France so they have fewer guilty secrets of their war past to hide. I've been reading Art Spiegelmann's MAUS this week so the speech was doubly disturbing and the weather tends to dampen any optimism, so that's trebly disturbing.
The snow is piling up on the window frames and the pear trees are straining against the stakes, holding them against the wind. Chaffinches, like cotton wool balls, fly from stacked bales of hay to barn ledges, hoping to find something to eat in this bleakness. For them it's just a matter of holding out at this time of year. A robin follows me, in & out of a hedge, as I battle up the lane. I have bread in my pocket. He knows it. In a juniper sparrows quarrel over a mystery and Emile's piped music echoes thro' the vast cattle hangar. He says it helps keep them calm. They stare at me, rustle their fodder and rattle the metal barriers. Emile is there too, bucket in each hand. 'Warm eh?' he says. 'In England too?'
'No Emile, in England it's raining, naturally'.
'Ah well,' he adds, 'this cold stings but is prettier, aint it?'
January 27th. and a memorial prayer for holocaust victims was read out this morning in the village square. There was a strong maquis movement in this part of France so they have fewer guilty secrets of their war past to hide. I've been reading Art Spiegelmann's MAUS this week so the speech was doubly disturbing and the weather tends to dampen any optimism, so that's trebly disturbing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)