Maybe there's something lacking in my psychological
make-up, but I just can't get excited about the thought of travel. The Daughter
arrived home on Friday evening, full of the joys of winter and bubbling with
enthusiasm about our coming road trip,
as she calls it.
Without wishing either to curb her youthful enthusiasm or
to come over as a curmudgeon, I let it slip that I didn't relish the drive of
700km or however far it is from here to Le Havre. Not to mention the interminable
crossing to Portsmouth and all the uncertainties of cross-Channel transport at
a time of year when we're subject to this new concept of weather bombs. Are they delivered by meteorological drones, one
wonders?
Plus the fact that we're taking my old shake-rattle-and-rolling
Berlingo rather than my wife's tiny but very comfortable Peugeot, because I
need the capacious boot to bring back some more stuff. My father has just moved into a new two-bedroom flat. Being
the fabled World's Laziest Man, my sisters have spent the last couple of weeks
sorting through the parental house, unearthing surprises – some welcome, most
unwelcome (including the now legendary plastic bag full of dubious underwear
and labelled by my mother, Pants
loose-fitting) – and bagging up enough rubbish in the car port to simulate
the great refuse collection strike of 19wheneveritwas.
So there's an old trunk to bring back, in which my
maternal grandfather used to pack all his stuff
for the coming term at school. Inside it there are all my mother's
manuscripts, hammered out on an old Olivetti portable typewriter and copied
onto carbon paper but never sent out to publishers. And there's a nice rug apparently
and a box of my mother's paperbacks, which alas she won't be needing now that
she's well and truly away gallivanting with the fairies. There should also be
room for a Radio Times, some
Christmas puddings and crumpets as gifts for the French fraternity and some
much-needed Patak pickles – oh, and anything small but useful that Tilley and I
might find in the Southampton branch of Ikea.
The worst thing about going away is the to-do list of
last-minute tasks. After gluing the driver's-side sidelight with some silicone
to stop it popping out of its socket – as it first did on the hellish windswept
Costa del Sol about four years ago now – there's an aide memoir to prepare for
my long-suffering wife, who is staying behind to be with our doddery dog. This note
will be about the burning characteristics of the various different types of
wood for the fire, just in case she isn't already aware that the shorter,
stubbier round oak logs are the best overnighters. That will be one less job
for the morning if the right logs continue to do their job.
Oh, and I mustn't forget to take the Christmas cards for
friends in England. They'd have probably had more chance of getting to their
destination in time if I'd posted them in Martel early last week, but never
mind. In some of the notes scribbled inside, I've mentioned that we want to
come over before too long for an infusion of culture in
London/Brighton/Sheffield.
Not that we're totally devoid of culture here in the
winter, but it's not laid on; you have to make your own. On Wednesday evening,
for example, we dined with our tall German friends, Achim and Martina, in their
monumental house. The Château Plagne has been restored and appointed throughout
with unerring good taste and offers the necessary big volumes to accommodate
our lofty friends and their frequent guests. (Is it a thriving economy that
makes the Germans so strapping?) In their tasteful château, they run
residential courses throughout the spring and summer and work 18 hours a day,
so you can never rely on them to turn up at parties and the like.
But every now and then they will lay on some refined
cultural event for their friends here. An exhibition or a concert perhaps. One
of the highlights of this summer was an intimate jazz concert in their vaulted cave, which featured the two musicians
who were running the course that week: Jutta Glaser, a bubbly singer, and
Christian Eckert, a rather fine jazz guitarist who studied in the US with the
great Jim Hall.
Achim used to be a professional chef in their days back
home in Heidelberg. He told us proudly that he didn't cook the same meal twice
throughout the long working months this year – which strikes me as tantamount
to lunacy. In the winter, they take it easy and Achim cooks normal food. But
not on Wednesday evening.
In their voluminous kitchen/dining room, in front of a
gently glowing wood fire, we were treated to something from Master Chef. We felt like the food
critics at the table, relishing and discussing every exquisite dish set before
us. I could hear in my head that awful dreary female voice: Achim's starter is a trio of ravioli stuffed
with Madagascan prawns and coloured with the ink of cuttlefish, garnished with gnocchi
mushrooms cooked in a creamy sauce... It won't be long before he'll be
buying sous-vide equipment to add to
his armoury and coming up with food froth, spittle and gas even.
Although he failed to swipe the main dish with a streak
of concentrated puréed whatever, it was quite simply the best meal I've ever
eaten in France. The trouble is, it's difficult to know how to reciprocate. Mark and Deborah have cooked a curry of
mixed winter vegetables... Well, I'm loving the taste of the pan-fried
aubergines, Mark, but frankly the presentation. Not to put too fine a point on
it, son, it's a disgrace!
Moreover, their generosity knows no bounds. It's not many
places where you turn up to eat a meal fit for catering royalty – and then go
back with a going-home present. A silk scarf for Debs and a pair of wooden pens
for moi, to mark my recent birthday,
and the kind of notebook that turns the physical act of writing a journal into
a sensory delight.
After such bounty, what return? Maybe The Kid and I can
find room in the Berlingo for something suitable from the homeland for our
beneficent German friends. A tin of Sainsbury's mince pies? Or a year's supply
of Marmite? Could do better, son...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must prepare that aide
memoir. What shall I call it: 10 Awesome
Tips for Prioritising Your Wood Pile? That trips nicely off the tongue.
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