Last week was so truly beautiful that it should have been
without blemish. But Rory McIlroy didn't win the US Masters to become the sixth
golfer in history to complete a career grand slam, and Sir Bradley failed to
achieve his latest goal of winning the unpredictable Paris-Roubaix cycle race. Moreover,
I missed Birdman and received a
disquieting e-mail from the French administration.
Nevertheless... It was one of those weeks to freeze in
time and re-visit when your spirits need a little uplift. The sky was so blue,
the light so limpid, the air so calm, the temperature so balmy, the sun so
brilliant and the moon so full. Perfect. Of course, such conditions have
serious horticultural implications. I've already launched another spring
offensive with my biggest guns – mower, strimmer, secateurs and rake – but for
all the washing I hang up on the Siegfried Line, I know that the Siegfried Line
will still be there. Weeds are an implacable enemy and it's a case of three
steps forward and four steps back. Top Brass can't answer the question why
grass grows everywhere except where you want it to.
I won't dwell on the negatives. There are many reasons to
be cheerful. I've heard the first cuckoo – several times over – and the first
of the irises have unfurled in a flurry of indigo. My fine friend Bret has
helped me rationalise our wood and created in the process woodpiles worthy of
the neighbourhood. In the process, he's saved our marriage. It looks like a building site out there!
It doesn't any more. (Well, it's beginning not to.)
On Easter Sunday, what's more – the first of several
perfect days to come – I walked with a
zombie. Sorry, scratch that. I'm getting carried away by my love of 1950s
B-movies. No, I meant a donkey. Two in fact. If there's any animals on earth I
love more than donkeys, I haven't met them (I'm still hoping one day to
encounter a wombat or an orang-utan, but it's unlikely in France).
It was on the lovely shady path that follows a stream past
a watermill and up a kind of wooded canyon. It's a beautiful valley not far
from Martel, where we often used to take Alf for walks when Tilley was having a
piano lesson or a solfège class. Now,
the tranquillity is threatened by a new road that nobody wants, not even the jam
'n' juice company for whom it was conceived. It will, we are told, dis-enslave the northern Lot by linking
the whirring metropolis of Biars to the A20 motorway somewhere south of Brive.
So we should all be grateful and stop whingeing about the priceless countryside
it will disfigure in the process.
So there we were on our shady walk, watching the
Thompsons' dog, Holly, diving into the stream to fetch her sticks and Daphne
barking from the water's edge because she wasn't quite bold enough yet to take
the plunge, and I turned round to see two grey donkeys calmly regarding the fun.
Not wishing them to panic if the dogs were to run up to them, I walked over quietly,
did a bit of donkey-whispering in their pointy ears and strolled off in the
direction of the field where we'd noticed them. They followed me placidly while
the girls brought up the rear with the two dogs now on leads. I felt like some
biblical character guiding his asses to pasture.
That was marvellous – as was Series 1 of Broadchurch and Series 4 of Parks and Recreation – but the three of
us were thoroughly miffed to have missed Birdman
when it came on Wednesday night to our cinema in Vayrac. I found out at my
weekly yoga class late the following afternoon. So when I got back home, I
proposed a compensatory visit that evening to see Kingsman. It wasn't a film that I felt strongly about, but the Grauniad gave it four stars.
We got there to find the place almost deserted, so we
chatted a while with the woman who runs the association that runs the cinema.
She was surprised that she hadn't see us the evening before and then proceeded
to tell us how exceptional the film was – and to give the ending away. Her
breath suggested a little too much wine with her dinner and she continued to
talk as if there were no tomorrow. Meanwhile, the projectionist announced that
they hadn't supplied the English language key for the copy of the film. It shouldn't
take too long to get hold of if we didn't mind being patient.
As the woman chatted on, thrusting into our hands this
and that brochure advertising this and that local event and festival, I kept
looking outside, imagining that the digital key might be rushed over at any
second by Securicor with a noisy police escort. But no, it was just a code and
presumably it entailed just a phone call. Half an hour or more went by and
nothing transpired, so we decided to make our excuses. We had a 'baby' at home,
we explained. The woman flashed us a look of undisguised horror. What?? Surely these curious English
moviegoers don't...?
The Daughter stepped in to explain that we meant our dog,
Daphne. Not that she's a baby anymore. She's turned into a leggy blonde already.
A leggy blonde with big feet and a beard. Not everyone's idea of a beauty, but
we still coo lovingly over her when she's reposing in her oversized basket. She
was fine when we got back, if relieved to know that we hadn't abandoned her.
I'm sure the jazz I left playing for her must have helped her neuroses.
She enjoyed the great outdoors all week. Helping me in
the garden by digging holes and stealing gloves. Helping Bret and me with our work
on the woodpiles by stealing more gloves. Helping me help the Vincents move out
of their apartment at the château I look after. Much as I love cats, the great
thing about a dog is that they take an interest in what you're doing and they
like to be with you whatever you're up to.
She's not, however, allowed up onto the mezzanine level –
which is Myrtle's domain – so she doesn't know about this e-mail from the
administration. I've just submitted my earnings for 2014 to Agessa, the
organisation responsible for administering social charges for writers,
photographers and the like. Since my earnings are so modest, I include my work
at the château, because it involves a fair bit of writing – and it's just so
much easier. But this year, for the first time, I'm being asked to provide more
details and to justify its inclusion.
When is a writer not a writer? When it's not convenient,
it would seem. If they don't agree that it properly comes under my main work as
a writer, I shall have to go cap in hand to URSSAF or the RSI or one of those
mysterious and appalling organisations that deals with the dreaded
self-employed. Rather than do that, I'm inclined to swallow a bottle of pills
or just give up the work in question.
I'm still waiting to watch a programme made by a British
economist about the parlous state of the French economy. Apparently, its main
message is that the nation's nostrils are about a millimetre above the surface
of a giant economic septic tank ready to engulf the system. Already I'm hearing
tales of the recently retired who aren't receiving their pensions. They're no
doubt formerly self-employed, which serves them right for being so
independently inclined.
The e-mail from Agessa has reminded me what's wrong with
a system that employs vast legions of functionaries to pigeon-hole people and
make it as difficult as possible to be creative and entrepreneurial – and create
employment and wealth. I'll be as creative as I can in my reply and do my best
to convince them that a writer can still be a writer even when he's being more
than just a writer.
The forecast is good for this week, too. Provided that there's no catastrophic flood of economic effluent (just yet), I'll be back outside to fight the good fight with strimmer and adolescent dog at my side. Hey! Come back with those gloves, you scamp!
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