May: Too Hot, Too Soon

Early one summer morning in the merry month of May, I came upon a fellow dog-walker near the top of our drive. He panicked, because their Golden Retriever was off her lead. Oh let them play, I urged him. My French neighbours, perhaps the race in general, seem to want to keep their charges on leads when out walking, and yet will let them roam in the hamlets and villages. Is it a control-thing, or some vestige of the code of correctness? Like so many things in life, it seems to make no sense at all. It did at least offer us a brief opportunity for small talk. Yes, the weather was very nice, but it was too hot, too soon. August in May. I told him that I didn't 'support' the heat these days. Being of a slightly darker hue, perhaps Portuguese in origin, he likes the heat – but at its appointed time. Not so soon. Not before June.

Once the search for something to say became too excruciating, he put Pêche back on a lead, while I cycled off with Daphne trotting along by my side. I hadn't mentioned the elephant in the woods: global warming. Right about now, the presidential yob of the once United States is busy glad-handing the great and morally compromised of Europe, who are – one hopes – trying to persuade this denier of the obvious not to abandon the probably futile Paris Agreement. What does he care? He's rich, old and morally void. Why should he worry about Pacific Islanders, Bangladeshi, Inuit people and Polar Bears? His thoughts are focused firmly on the next round of golf. His descendants are already wealthy enough to buy a bolt-hole in New Zealand for the day when everything finally goes too pear-shaped to rectify.

Earlier in May, just before the mythical Ice Saints packed up for another year and took their annual cold snap with them, I wandered up the same track with the same dog. It was just after the relief of hearing that the French electorate had voted for a young, thrusting independent as their new president rather than an extremely bitter, vitriolic extremist. The acceptable face of Fascism had been rendered unacceptable by some injudicious remarks on television and a clever campaign on superimposing a Trump-face on her image. I stopped to open our green metal letterbox. It was full for once and there were three intriguingly similar letters within. One for each of us. Aha! I twigged. To be honest, I'd rather given up hope, and put it all to the back of my mind. I was quite convinced that François Hollande had instructed his Minister of the Interior – or whoever decided these matters – to block any Brits applying for dual nationality. That'll larn them for their Brexit betrayal. I had resigned myself to recommencing the whole costly, time-consuming application process once the new regime was in power. I wasn't even sure that I would bother a second time.

The letter was actually dated towards the end of April. Perhaps, if someone had pulled his or her finger out of the in-tray, we might even have been able to vote in the recent elections. But as I read on, I realised that things of course could not possibly move so swiftly. It would be another six months before we received our official gubbins: an identity card, one of those livrets familials in which are detailed the facts of your life and those of your parents and, I've read somewhere, a new birth certificate. Surely not. Anyway, there will be some official ceremony in our departmental seat of Cahors. It may feature the singing of the Marseillaise, so we'll have six months to brush up on the lyrics.

I walked off with a new-found spring in my step. Strange, I thought it might all be rather anti-climactic given the time elapsed since that hot August day of the collective interrogation down in Toulouse. Maybe I'd even be a little blasé. It's only paper, after all. Well no, it's not. On one hand it gives us a legal basis for staying on in a foreign land, on the other it's a kind of official recognition that we have served our time and merited our recompense. Now, whenever I get that inevitable enquiry as soon as I open my mouth to speak French – Anglais? – I can reply, Oui mais Franco-Anglais. Or even, to really confound them, Mais non, Français! Whereupon, I can whip out my big 10" identity card.

Actually, I felt a great surge of pride. I wanted – and still want – to tell everyone I encounter. To shout it from the highest hill. Typically, though, there was no one abroad, so I dropped in on our Dutch neighbours who are building their family home further along the crest. They were sitting round the back of their embryonic home, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sun. I accepted their best wishes but refused the offer of a beer, because the sky was ominously grey and I didn't want to subject myself or our post to the kind of soaking that had recently deepened the gullies in our track.

Had I been a couple of decades younger, I could have made an announcement on Facebook, but I don't necessarily want the trolls out there to know our business. But the Good Wife and I got the chance to crow a little at yoga later that week and then again that weekend when we were invited to eat with friends in a beautiful part of the Lot/Corrèze frontier that I'd never seen before. Have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Englishwoman, the Dutch woman, the Portuguese woman and the two Frenchmen? One of the Frenchmen used to teach Portuguese. Well anyway, it was one of those lovely international affairs when the cultural blend makes for a rich, relaxed social entente. After a protracted meal, we took the various dogs out for a two-hour walk that kept providing stunning vistas – south and west over the térritoire de Brive and east as far as the mountains of the Cantal. It made me think back to the yoga class, when one of the women there implied that Brexit had prompted our application for dual nationality. I don't think on my feet very well and I should have answered simply, No, it's because I'm proud and privileged to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth (despite some of the maddening individuals who live here).

Now the heat of summer is upon us. Politically, things will be heating up if young Mr. Makron is to fulfil some of his stated objectives. Shaking hands with Trumpus Le Rumpus has already kicked up a little media firestorm. Pruning the civil service will no doubt prompt the next round of divisive strikes. Initially, though, there are the legislative elections – for which we will still be ineligible. There's plenty, though, for a downhill gardener to be getting on with in preparation for the dog days of summer. Strimming, mowing, fighting off the army ants, swatting flies and mites, ushering inquisitive and intimidating hornets out of the house, shutter management, tomato and lettuce watering et cetera. Oh, and learning my lines. Allons enfants de la patr-i-e! It's a fine, rousing anthem, but the scansion alone is hard enough for a foreigner. Still, there are six, no make that five, months ahead of us.

April: The Sound of Sirens

I love New York, but it was good to get back to the peace and verdure of the Lot after all that urban brouhaha. Ten days in another place is a long time at this time of year. When we left for Toulouse airport early on a Wednesday morning, everything was light green and succulent. Nature still unfolding. When we got back on a Sunday afternoon – just before a vicious hailstorm – the landscape had been coloured a thick dark all-encompassing green.

Not that nature hasn't established a foothold in Manhattan. My old friend has a little garden that he tends at the back of his subterranean apartment, where he lives with his books and his enviable vinyl collection. Surrounded as it is by the towering walls of the sheltering apartment blocks, it's a haven of peace and comparative quiet, visited by the local birdlife. You can sit out back and listen to the chatter of friendly neighbourhood bright red cardinals and almost blank out the constant background hubbub.

Open the building's front door and climb the steps up to the street, however, and the noise hits you like a barrage of video games in an amusement arcade. Traffic, sirens, drilling, the constant stream of passers-by. Maybe I was particularly sensitive to it this time, because it was seven years on from my last visit and I am that much older now and my ears were still reeling from the subliminal roar of jet engines. The auditory repercussions of air travel distorted every sound and magnified its impact. Assault and battery.

We were not built to fly. As usual, I spent the days prior to travel believing that I was going to die – and then, as soon as I got to the airport, I realised that I was just being idiotic. We flew across the Massif Central to Nice and, on such a cloudless day, I looked down on the extraordinary rumpled scenery without a hint of vertigo. Despite each visible fold in the landscape, it was impossible to orientate oneself. Where were the gorges of the Tarn, where were the Millau suspension bridge and the A75 motorway?

Overseen by the Maritime Alps, Nice is the most beautiful of airports (if that doesn't sound like a contradiction in terms). You describe a big sweeping circle above the Med as you swoop down on a runway built on reclaimed land between the esplanade and the sea. A uniformed official of Air France was waiting for us on the tarmac and we felt like visiting royalty. He saw us onto the bus, then guided us to the departure lounge for the trans-Atlantic leg of our trip. We whispered urgently as we were emptying our pockets at Security for the second time that morning, Should we tip him? Maybe we should... But the loot-carrying Good Wife had nothing smaller than a 50-euro note and I'm sorry, no matter how good the service is... So we shook his hand and thanked him warmly and hoped that he would put the oversight down to the ignorance of foreigners. Both of us boarded our plane weighed down by guilt. I even thought of writing to Air France with a card and a smaller banknote, but reckoned that the pourboire would be pocketed by whoever opened the letter. Later, The Kid, who is wise beyond her years, sent her mum a text admonishing her for our folly. Oh for goodness' sake. You don't do luxury very often. Just sit back and enjoy the ride...

So it was we came to Immigration at JFK. As usual, the uniformed officials were smiling, polite and welcoming. Not. Surly, rude and thoroughly off-putting, rather. You can stuff your precious United States down your outsized 'pants'. However, having come this far, I was keen to pass the test. Would they, wouldn't they let me in? They did. What a relief. I could start signing petitions again to protest against this or that latest callous absurdity of the Trump administration. I'd be long gone before the CIA could flag me up as an undesirable pinko bleeding-heart.

Seven years on and my God! the cost of New York living seems to have risen as high as the Trumpland skyscrapers that blight the contemporary skyline. It's partly to do with the disproportionate exchange rate, but nevertheless... My friend reckons you have to earn upwards of a hundred grand these days if you want to enjoy some of what New York has to offer. Every trip to a museum costs a limb. Thank God for the Met, an endless source of cultural bounty, where you can pay what you wish rather than the suggested price of $25. After imbibing your full, you can slip away into Central Park – the most beautiful municipal park in Christendom, particularly in the spring when the cherry trees are laden with blossom – and all for just a few bucks.

One thing we've always promised ourselves to do is to go and see some good jazz in Noo Yoyk. But throw in the compulsory drinks and you're talking a small fortune these days. Desperate prices demand desperate measures. I wrote to Eddie Palmieri II, whose dad I had arranged to interview on the second Thursday, to ask if he would put me on the guest list for the Monday night concert at the hyper-trendy new Subrosa club downtown in the now gentrified Meat Packing district (where I'm sure on reflection that some of Scorsese's nightmarishly comic After Hours must have been filmed). We've always taught our girl that there's no harm in asking. The worst that can happen is that someone says no. Nevertheless, being a big old hypocritical Hector, I'm always reticent about asking for favours. Silly boy. The three of us waltzed in like dignitaries past the young woman on the door. Had my request not been granted, with the $20 cover charge per person for drinks, the evening would have cost a cool two hundred bucks. It's hard to put a price on a living legend and it was a damn fine concert, but not that fine.

By then, Debs was back in triumph and able to relax after her weekend conference in New Jersey, where she addressed the multitudes on her work with essential oils. Her absence gave us boys a little male downtime during which we were able to swap music, share a smoked salmon bagel and watch three entire matches of English football. My friend is a contrarian. He chose Stoke City when most kids of our age would have chosen Liverpool or Man U. As we watched Stoke fail again to net a single goal, he reminded me that the team has never won a trophy in over a hundred years of existence. His weekly dose of frustration sure puts Arsenal's current travails into stark perspective.

Another dear friend came down by train on Monday from Newport, Rhode Island. We met him and a younger sidekick at Grand Central. After a couple of splendid exhibitions in the Met separated by a bite to eat in the basement cafeteria, we hired a skiff for a lazy hour on Central Park's boating lake, which affords the best possible views of the Central Park West skyline. Since James once rowed for England Schools and since he still plays football ever week (like a latter day Stanley Matthews, once of Stoke), we were happy to let him row, row, row the boat gently 'cross the pond. Later, we passed through Strawberry Fields where the customary crowd was gathered to listen reverentially to a busker sing yet another version of 'Imagine'.

Imagine all the people that a National Jazz Museum in Harlem should be attracting. Arguably it's the most important music form of the 20^th century; along with the blues it's the root of almost everything that has come since. Imagine our disappointment in finding that it amounted to a single room staffed by an uninformed mealy-mouthed Ivy League type with attitude and no social graces. We were the only punters there. Sure, there was Duke Ellington's white piano and Cootie Williams' pristine trumpet, but where were all the grainy photos of all the giants of the genre that I had imagined guiding my wife around? That's Wardell Gray. The Thin Man. He was found dead from a bullet wound and dumped in the Californian desert. This is Fats Navarro. Fat Girl. Another great trumpeter who died in his early 20s. Not a bit of it. I looked through a pile of old records dumped unceremoniously on a shelf like thrift-store rejects... and we shuffled out. None of us brave enough to speak the truth to the man at the door. As my friend so wisely observed, If ever a place needed a big fat donation...

I'd never been to Harlem before. When first I visited New York almost 40 years ago, I wouldn't have dreamt of crossing 110^th Street. Even that far north was pushing it. The inexorable rise of rents, which is shoving more and more shops, restaurants and small businesses into extinction, and the march of gentrification have rendered Harlem respectable now. The sun was shining and it looked a little like a north London suburb in places. The tourists were queuing up at Sylvia's famous soul food restaurant. Only the junkie nodding on a stoop and the drug-crazed bare-chested man brandishing a belt and the bombed-out woman dancing sinuously at her reflection in a shop window and the man crossing the main road under the elevated railway, furiously venting his anger at police harassment, suggested a disquieting world. I felt out of my depth and impatient to get back to the comfortable midtown norm.

We walked as far as the Apollo ballroom, where Eddie Palmieri's wife, he told me, would wander down from her family home in the upper West Side and pop in to see the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. As with the jazz museum, there was nothing much to see inside. In the foyer, we stood with a desultory bunch of tourists and gawped at a counter of disposable souvenirs, trying to imagine what the place must have been like when Chick Webb, Lionel Hampton, James Brown et al were playing to a packed house of steaming dancers.

On the way back to the subway station, my friend was collared by a street vendor who tried to persuade him to 'buy a book for a brother'. One thing he doesn't need is more books. As it is, he seems to have digested a collection as complete as the NY Public Library's. Our excursions were a constant source of education. Off the beaten tourist track, there is so much to see and learn about. One afternoon, for example, we discovered a beautiful Art Deco church on 5^th Avenue – with no spire. It was built on land donated by the Carnegie family, whose home now houses the splendid Cooper Hewitt Institute (of decorative arts), on condition that it was built stunted lest a spire cast a shadow across Mrs. Carnegie's beloved garden.

Another time, we trooped up towards Morningside Heights for lunch at a dimly lit Ethiopian restaurant. At one point, we walked under a span of scaffolding. My friend explained that landlords now erect these 'temporary' 'sidewalk sheds' whenever there's any potential maintenance work to be done and thus the slightest possibility of some chunk of masonry beaning a pedestrian on the sconce (thereby incurring some astronomical legal settlement). The city fathers ordained that all wooden panels should be painted a particular shade of bottle green. This being the US, some enterprising individual bought up thousands of gallons of the requisite shade of paint – and made a killing.

You can kill someone with a cricket ball. Fortunately, my friend and I didn't even come close when we gave the bat and ball an airing in Central Park late on the final afternoon. Not the team game, you understand. Just the equivalent of a friendly knock-up. It was the first time in maybe 30 years that either of us had picked up such implements and it underlined just how difficult it is to bowl a length or hit the ball with a straight bat. We both got lost in Geoff Boycott's corridor of uncertainty. It wasn't helped by having to re-tune our cricketing antennae in front of casual spectators. They probably didn't even know what kind of game we were attempting to play. Are they mad? No, just horribly nostalgic.

New York, New York. So good, they named it twice. With twice the amount of skyscrapers than its nearest municipal rival (apparently Toronto), New York is emblematic of our whole 20^th century industrial and cultural heritage. To Allen Ginsberg in 'Howl', it also stood for Moloch, the ancient Canaanite idol into whose fiery belly sacrificial victims were thrown. Yes, indeed, it's an endlessly ambivalent and fascinating place. After 10 days of clamping my hands to my ears whenever yet another police car or ambulance blared its way through the traffic, I was glad to be sitting on an Airbus 380 bound for Paris, watching Genius, a meditative film about the now forgotten literary giant of the '30s, Thomas Wolfe, and his relationship with his editor, Maxwell Perkins.

Only a week later, the French electorate voted for an investment banker as its new president. We'll see how that goes. At least it seems like a breathing space for dispossessed expatriates. Four more relatively undisturbed years, or is it five, of signing anti-Trump petitions in the comfort of my own home.