Last night all six of us – husband, wife, daughter, dog
and two kittens – sat out on the back balcony staring at the heavens. August is
the month in which you can catch a shooting star or two, if you've got time on
your hands and your wits about you.
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| Something like this |
We stationed ourselves out there just as day was turning
to night, right at the end of another hot day. For once, there was a bit more
time than usual. The welcome weekend deluge meant that the watering wasn't
quite so extensive. Already the meadows of the plain below look a tad greener.
It's probably due to a vigorous growth of weeds, but the landscape no longer
resembles the Serengeti like it did, say, two weeks ago.
Two weeks in
another town... It's already almost that long ago that I took the Megabus
to London to spend some time with my octogenarian father in his new apartment.
The skies were largely overcast in Romsey, Hants and the temperature was
neutral, so it was a blissful change to wear another layer over my T-shirts. The
week away fortified my system and prepared me for more of the same on my
return.
In this part of France, the night sky is almost as clear
as it is anywhere in the land – except perhaps the Pyrenees, where they've
positioned one of the most powerful telescopes known to astronomers (or so I
believe). There is little or no light pollution here and when you're lying flat
as we were and staring heavenwards, it's easy to imagine that you're in some
space pod, off to explore new galaxies and to
boldly go where no man – or woman, or dog, or kitten – has gone before...
The feeling of being sucked up into an intergalactic
vortex was intensified by the remarkably appropriate music chosen for the
voyage of the Star Ship Samponz by The Daughter: Volume 3 of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. And my
God, those female Balkan voices are indeed mysterious and elemental and ethereal.
Everything in fact that a star-child could wish for.
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| They clearly don't know the answers either |
All this astral travelling got us onto the subject of
stars and galaxy. Could I explain the
difference between a star and a planet? Not convincingly. Could I explain what a galaxy was? Well,
kind of... Could I explain the difference
between a meteorite and a shooting star? No, but I knew a man who could. In
the absence of my polymathematical
friend, Winston, I referred my fellow spectators to the Bill Bryson book that I
brought back to France with me, just one of many trophies from my safari around
the numerous charity shops of Romsey, Hants. A Short History of Nearly Everything would surely have all the
answers, explained what's more in layman's terms of less than seven syllables.
Good old Bill Bryson.
Actually, I found that particular book at the Saturday
fête organised by the care home where my mother, RIP, passed her final year.
Ten pence I think they asked for it. I also found one of those racing-green-coloured
coffee cups and saucers for a pound to replace the cup that The Daughter
smashed recently. No sooner had I got it back home unscathed than she managed
to smash the saucer. Good old Supaglue.
Anyway, it's hopefully just a passing phase. My father had
just come round to the idea that we couldn't go that afternoon because of the
absence of taxis in Romsey, Hants – there was some big bash going on in the New
Forest, which had claimed all available transport for hire – when my brother
turned up on the off-chance, as he does every blue moon. He took us there and
we watched our old dad in his element, glad-handing the nursing staff and
dispensing his customary charm and bonhomie. We call him Mr. Wonderful. Me, I
watched a demonstration of canine tricks, as a number of besotted owners put
their pooches through their paces. My brother found it all a bit distasteful,
but then he's not a dog owner.
We were out there on the balcony, I suppose, for less
than an hour and in that time we counted between us seven shooting stars. Blink
and they're gone. The tally surpassed our first attempt one memorably pellucid
August night way back when we lived among the hill people. The Daughter was
just a tot then and Alfred Lord Sampson had not yet come to protect us from
hot-air balloons. That night the stars
put on a show for free, but I don't remember counting more than five
falling stars. The old lady across the road was no doubt peering at us from
behind half-closed shutters and wondering what those odd anglais were up to now.
We are not overlooked now, which is a blessing.
Nevertheless, the campers from Paris are out in force just down below. Our
keen-eared daughter caught the sound of some awful French version of '(Reach
Out), I'll BeThere', which offended her notion of good taste and no doubt
interfered with the purity of the Balkan voices. She suggested turning ours up,
but I was loathe to get into some amplified strife with the neighbours,
particularly as they're only temporary.
Our discerning daughter came with us on Saturday night to
see the first music concert of this summer. The Mauritanian singer-songwriter, Daby
Touré, who has recorded on Peter Gabriel's Real World label, was appearing –
incongruously – at a restaurant a mere 15 minutes from here. Beside the river
Dordogne and beneath the floodlit village of Montvalent, which looked like a
painted backdrop for a Victorian melodrama. As usual, the publicity was last
minute and we didn't hear about it till a thoughtful friend sent me a photo of
the poster she took on her phone.
It was free to diners and a mere €3,50 to folk like us
who came for the music alone. A major artist for a price like that; it didn't
make any sense. But he was playing with a personal friend, who played a
violin-shaped bass guitar not unlike Paul McCartney's, so I guess he was doing
it as a personal favour. The audience was a right motley crew that included one
of the women on the cash desks at Intermarché whose name, I now know, is
Valérie. But Daby played his heart out until the end, when the heavens opened
and a blocked gutter created a puddle on the floor that crept steadily nearer
to his equipment.
Before we left, the girls persuaded me to go up and thank
him. Which I did. Daby beamed and so did I. His star is probably still rising
rather than falling, but one forgets that even people in the public eye can
find positive feedback as pleasant to receive as it is to give. We drove home
very slowly, partly because of the strength of the downpour and partly to avoid
all the frogs.
My sister and her extended family arrive this weekend.
There are no concerts scheduled, but the four small boys are going to love the
animals and we adults might find some more quiet time to sit out again on the
balcony and gape at the firmament. It's recommended.
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