Notes from a Dark Pond ...

Randonnée in Vallée de la Manche ...

2012-01-31T19:57:00.009+01:00

As usual we did not get away from the house until about 10.30 and at 1180m altitude or so our randonnée started later than we would have liked; it was no less beautiful for that and as the old guy, waiting with his impatient dog for his elderly wife to catch up on her randonnée skis, said, "C'est féerique, ça!"
We slid slowly upward past a small chalet almost buried in the snow amongst the pines and nesting warmly if one imagines the logs licked by flames in the stone fireplace inside. We were below the cloud which hangs like a mist at this altitude and climbing steadily up into it towards the Chalet des Mines-d'Or passing the lone cross-country skier on her tenuous descent. She stopped for a chat, a chew the cud if there were any underneath the thick snow, and she was soon self-satisfied by telling us she was 78 years old, and becasue of that she didn't want to complete le petit tour her friends were making; and as it later became evident a good few years younger than she. Not easy descending sharply on thin cross-country skis without heel attachment however proficient or experienced one might be.
Just above the Mines-d'Or, where the lake was covered and the snow heavy on the surrounding trees completed a postcard scene, I found a pine branch leaning out towards the path edge; heavy with snow and beautifully stuck on one side with the hoare-frost made by the frozen cloud. It was then I realised that although I know this mountain well, in snow the topography changes and I was not making my way up the path which in truth was filled with snow but by the right hand side and across a small open meadow; in summer fenced off for grazing cows as they are gradually led up the mountain to summer pastures.

People on raquettes, snow-shoeing upward passed us as we climbed, stopped to take a breath along with a photograph; randonneurs skied down from out of the cloud descending from the Col de Coux, some skiing in terrain far above their level of competence and this time descending safely. We passed a family of three, sitting on weather proof jackets in the deep snow eating from thermos flasks the steam rising with their spoons. A greeting passed and then we see we have arrived at an altitude of 1500m and not far to go on until we arrive at our picnic spot...

Chalets de Fréterolle (1533m); a lovely little farm, opened up in summer as a 'restaurant' although 'Auberge' is probably more accurate. It serves many people, locals and tourists alike and often places have to be reserved. The carte usually contains all the usual suspects of this region; melted cheese dishes, omelettes, cured and smoked ham, salads, beignets des pommes... often as coffee rounds off the meal, the patron tours the paying tables with unmarked bottles of a local distillation, handing out small glasses of génépi, or poire william; my mouth waters as I write this with memories of summer hikes here.

Today though, the chalets are closed against the winter, and after nearly two hours climb, as we near, we can see that others have already had the same idea and underneath the corrugated iron roof held up against the encroaching snow by strong pine beams, four people are packing away their picnic debris and we take out turn. And in the cold we eat our sandwiches, dried figs and drink our cold juice and resolve to bring hot drinks next time...

Fed and watered, we removed our cold 'peaux des phoques', adjusted our bindings and change any climbing clothing for those for descent. As we climbed out of our lunchtime refuge we saw the cloud had come down and the visibility was just a few metres, this somewhat concerned my Missus who doesn't care too much for deep snow skiing at the best of times but without a fall she made it down and the thrill of 'skiing back-country' through knee deep fresh powder although for only a short descent was heart lifting. The silence, the calm, the beauty; all there. 10 minutes later we reached our starting point. And nearby was little refuge, a restaurant, café-bar where we were served delicious crépes & chocolat chaud.

Broken Pine à la Fritz Lang...

2012-01-20T11:54:00.004+01:00

Some months ago while on a favourite Sunday hike I came upon this bleached torn pine. As I stood and looked at it for a while it began to take on a surreal element. Most of the trees around were still standing, growing and reaching majesterial heights but for some reason this one had broken; snapped off in it's prime, and had assumed an almost engineered appearance.

I must make a note to go back a photograph it when I am sure it is surrounded by deep snow

Deer Tracks; Quietly Made...

2012-01-19T10:06:00.004+01:00

It may often be said that one can hear the silence. It is of course a contradiction in terms but I heard the silence only a few days ago; I stood in the quiet of that part of the valley known as La Couttetaz and listened as the silence was enveloped in the low cloud slowly and quietly building around the summit and higher slopes of the Dent d'Oche.

The fresh snow was deep, and crisp, and even; once broken, only by the tracks before me as they disappeared towards the lower branches of a line of snow laden pines.

Deer tracks. Made quietly, before we arrived and disturbed the peace with our breathing panting and puffing, a little heavier than usual caused by the upward climb and the packs we carried with just water, a few biscuits, some fruit and protective wear against bad weather.

First Ski Randonnée Of The Season

2011-12-27T17:59:00.002+01:00

Quiet, deep and crisp and (mostly) even, with just the ski tracks of the previous skier ascending Aux Gets, in the Haute Savoie in the Portes du Soleil area.

The sky heavy with more snow clouds sweep in above us as we climb and the wind gathers strength keeping the prospect of more deep soft snow at bay, this little lot is likely to blow into drifts and change the conditions before our descent... but we have the whole of winter before us and hope that it cannot be as bad as last year.

Quenelle de Brochet

2011-12-09T12:43:00.007+01:00

Lunch in Lyon last Sunday was at little place called "Café Du Soleil" at; 2, rue St Georges (Place de la Trinité) 69005 Lyon. We just stumbled upon them but from now on whenever I am there I'll call them first as we were lucky to get one of only two free tables. They only had laid about 13 or 14 tables and a rough guess would be for a total of about 50 people, but I digress. I had not realised before going in that their speciality would be quenelles, and specifically Quenelle de Brochet.

The photo above does it no justice whatsoever but it ate like a soufflé. And for fun I have linked above, an English language recipe for anyone competent enough to attempt. For myself, as much as I have loved discovering quenelles, I am cooking Queue de Boeuf, a simple recipe today.

You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs...

2011-12-09T12:26:00.002+01:00

And so the old saying goes...

I cracked one egg and there were the two yolks; I cracked another and there were two more... I shall have to speak to my missus and find out where she shopped last weekend. Maybe we should stop using the farm next to that new Nuclear Power plant.

I cannot for the life of me reckon this is just a coincidence...

The omelette? Well with a little salt to assist a good whisk and some fresh ground pepper, on whole meal toast it was a good set up for the day; a five hour hike up around the crêtes from 1160m (the rough old car park) to about 1700m where we sat on the side of a ski slope and set up the camping gaz stove to boil water and add to a proper Japanese Pot-Noodles. Mountain tucker at the beginning of December needs a little more than a sandwich.

Lyon - a lesson

2011-12-05T16:12:00.004+01:00

This past weekend has been a lesson in how one should not ASSUME things. One should check and go off and find out... and so it was assumed that the Fête des Lumière in Lyon was running from this weekend through to next weekend as the actual date of 8th December would fall during this week.

Rail tickets were bought, hotel was booked and off we went only for 'someone' to say she obviously thought that the 'lights' would be on for the whole week... Not so.

And so we decided to spend our time at the 11e Biennale de Lyon, subtitled "A Terrible Beauty Is Born", the oft repeated line from the poem 'Easter 1916' by W.B Yeats.

Mmmm. Difficult and inaccessible I would say our general reaction was.

The photograph above is of an installation that suggested a result of a collison of the moon and earth. Oh well. We had a good dinner that night in a Bouchon Lyonnais, so not all was bad.

But it gave us the chance to wander Lyon and look.

Next year, we shall book as far in advance as possible and make sure that we get there for the colours and the lights....

Wisteria Weeping

2011-06-01T12:58:00.004+02:00

Shortly before we travelled to Turkey to explore Istanbul and the Greek-Roman ruins on the coastline either side of Antalya in Anatolia, I was talking with my neighbour whose wisteria I love and suddenly a wind picked up and the petals started to fall...

It was almost as if the wisteria was weeping and shedding the petals from its flowers by way of saying that Spring was over for another year...

The petals lay as a narrow light blue carpet along the length of stone wall.

Wisteria Watcher

2011-05-04T23:52:00.004+02:00

My neighbour's Wisteria this year is looking spectacular. More so that is happens to grow on a North facing wall. I have had to wait until now for the sun to come round and light it well in the late afternoon... summer approaches.

A close up frame of the only room occupied frequently during the winter months when one tends to hibernate in these cold climes...

However my new neighbour next door has taken charge of a small house and he has been out in recent days photographing the wisteria flowers that came as part of the deal. He told me enthusiastically how he had been sending the photos to family across France, and here is a shot taken as I approach my front door, showing the established Clematis growing beside the continuing 'tiges' of the wisteria.

The perfume of the plant is a wonderful welcome home.

Lac d'Arvoin - 1663m

2011-03-29T12:08:00.005+02:00

Sunny warm and blue skied walks
above lakes; below lakes above snow flat,
ice flat blue below powered peaks.

Lower levels wooded slopes a verdant verte
of fresh growth, soft brush-tipped ends
curving, freshly in the rising breezes.

Under snow covered ice, trails crack
sandwiched between crunching boots and bubbling creek.

Raquettes mounted clacking forward,
the panting of pole planting patterns;
Stop! Breathe. Look about;
the furthest stone strewn slopes
covered by snow traced tracks of
heavy hoofed winter woollen'd beasts.

Silence completes among the trees,
personne probing -
the bark of dogs a valley distant,
only the crack, of falling frozen rain,
dripping slowly melted in the pine top sunshine.

Snow deep and wind blown slope;
a dreamlike piste demands a carve,
instead we trudge, upward to waiting lake
and perfect peaceful picnic...

Rock Bottom by Geoff Baker

2011-03-25T16:59:00.003+01:00

I always seem to have more than one book on the go at any one time.

Rarely are they novels. They tend toward the autobiographical, the travel writers of a half a century ago walking across unexplored desert terrain which I read with a tinge of sadness and regret as those 'lost' places are now found by ever more people...

But these past few months have been an exception and I have bought The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; as a new American edition threatens to do away with the word 'nigger', which I don't use but which I think in this case illustrates a country's history and this should be taught and properly explained. But that is just a personal opinion. Also I have never read the whole book and only had passages of it read to me when I was a child in the Cub Scouts.

In addition to that I found on a Geneva second hand book stall one cold February Friday afternoon a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover; from the original manuscript or edition published by Lawrence in 1935, if memory serves me well. I can see here the start of a pattern; the desire to read the classics before I die. To that should be added a borrowed copy of Nine Lives by William Dalrymple. His earlier City of Djinns I found absolutely fascinating. A collection of personal histories of a year spent in Delhi. And pretty much anything I can find on India I devour hungrily having been to that enormous beautiful country twice in the last six years.

Jan Morris' Venice is still there by the bedside too, to be dipped into following a long weekend there last September. A stunning work.

All these books have one thing in common, and it is the beautiful and extreme spoken word; the extraordinary use of language of the time and place.

To that pile I have merited Geoff Baker's "Rock Bottom." I thought it might use the word fuck too many times; more than necessary in anycase, but having laughed through the story, often aloud I have to say it is one of the most enjoyable reads I have had for a long, long time. And you can never have too many fucks.

None of the characters are what one would call nice. They are not admirable. They are hard, rude, addicted, self-opinionated modern Britons. Not very likeable at all. There are none that you can hang your hat on, and say I enjoyed him, I liked her and I'd like to read more about these people. But nonetheless I could not put the book down and worked that week suffered.

It is quite simply a view on a particular part of Britain's music industry, the people who play in it, work in it and keep the whole circus of celebrity turning. Geoff baker should know as he worked in that industry, as publicist to Paul McCartney and Linda his late wife, the American photographer.

I hope Baker writes another. And this book will make a bloody good film. I even discovered I feature on page 51... that's to say I am one of the old fuckers, the character Billy Vernon talks about.

Sympathise with me.

Where did this winter go ?

2011-03-24T16:37:00.008+01:00

This has been a very strange winter.

Maybe it is me that is strange or perhaps has become so.

I rather miss not adding to this blog, this infrequent record of what I have done or where I have been but as I see the last entry was mid-December I cannot believe I haven't done anything or been anywhere since then, and now it is approaching late March; it is Spring. The sun is staying with us longer; it is gradually getting warmer and the prospect of disruptive snow recedes. With that came the first calls of the migrating Black Kites, arriving back on the shores of the lake here for the next few spring and early summer months. They will gone by the end of July, but in the meantime their trills and calls as they rebuild nests, scavenge, hunt for small rodents and for lake fish straying too close to the surface will enthral me, friends and visitors to the area; along with their acrobatics as they soar on the thermals rising between here and the nearby mountains. Already I have watched as a recent arrivals have been mobbed by crows as they defend their nests.

In the intervening months, I have suffered pig flu' - at least it wasn't malaria - and that stayed until after Christmas. The first ski of the season was January 1st in a crowded Les Gets. Late for us. I have been to the movies a couple of times in the big city an hour from here. I flew to see my family in England in mid-January.

I have enjoyed some long hikes in snow and on ice; bending almost beyond repair one expensive Black Diamond randonnée ski pole when slipping on ice hidden from sight by the fresh thin layer of new powder snow. If I had been nearer the edge of the cliff face down which runs the metal mountaineering ladder I might well have disappeared over the edge and not be typing here now...still the view of the distant mountain ranges would have filled the falling time.

I have with my mountain path mate, trekked from Lac de Montriond to Lindarets; a three hour hike with the first 45 minutes like a never ending stair way, up, up, up until in the winter cool air the sweat on the back of the t-shirt become uncomfortable. The restaurants teem with lunching skiers when we arrive and once fed and wined we descend for two hours along the track leading past the iced waterfall, along the edge of the lake with its track clearly showing where walkers have chanced their luck and left their booted imprints the length of the ice, past the holes cut earlier by chainsaw for the weekend's expected ice divers.

I have determined to get rid of an excess of weight by eating less, eating more healthily and drinking less alcohol although that latter choice may be harder than the others; and of course by continuing to exercise as much as I can.

Monday last I called a friend whose husband has recently dumped her, and suggested a good walk, under the mountain cliffs, in the sunshine, an easy hike and one that should do her good, get her out, get her talking, make difficult decisions easier by being listened to; a problem shared is a problem halved? A solution may be easier to find if that is the case.

I have worked too although not very hard and not very much but that is a consequence of my winter here.

Each week I visit a neighbour. I teach him English. He actually speaks it rather well, in his heavily French accented way. He has much more than a rudimentary grasp of it, but what he needs is conversation and correction and with that in mind we talk. I try and put on American accents and use American idioms and slang; all in order that he might better understand his boss, an American woman, a busy politician of sorts, who speaks to him fast and while either leaving her office or just turning away from him as she has other matters on her mind. No matter that her staff don't understand.

In return he teaches me French. And my français is I think, no modesty here, more rudimentary than his English. But that is what comes of living in a foreign country, and having a shared nationality and language within a family. Each Wednesday evening, I arrive and kiss his wife hello, a French kiss of course. A kiss on each cheek and she of course is French. Very French. If I saw her in a photo or in a film before hearing her speak I know she would be French. It is her very being.

My other non-French neighbours and friends tend to have at least one French family member, or kids born and schooled here, who come home after a hard day conjugating verbs, to a mum or a dad who can help them with (or rather do) the homework given.

Time to walk, to buy baguettes for tea...

More, perhaps, tomorrow.

Oh, what a pain flu' is...but Malaria is so much worse.

2010-12-15T14:19:00.007+01:00

It makes even posting memorable photos a pain in the butt... now, a week or so later having had confirmed that I am not suffering from malaria, I can rest assured it is nothing worse than a debilitating dose of grippe...

Some of the earlier fevers were particularly nasty and had been accompanied by weird, and some quite horrible, dreams. I thought I was delirious as I burned up with skin hot to the touch. Once, the disturbing sound of my telephone broke through my painful sleep only for me to be caught by a cold sales call from a charity whose complaints were falling upon my deaf ears. It was not their time.

I determined this year I should support some of those children in a part of Africa recently visited, where malaria is still a major threat and where small African children die needlessly.

Despite malnutrition, dirty water, HIV/AIDS, general disease and wars and other tribal and territorial strife, malaria succeeds in killing an African child every 45 seconds.

Yet, £3 will buy a new mosquito net impregnated with an insecticide that will give a child a fighting chance.

All I have to do really is to buy more than a few, and to maybe pass around that knowledge and ask others to try and do the same.

So, anyone passing here, if you like these photos of a beautiful, strong winged, majestic eagle and you have a mind to help, please send some money to a charity that helps provide mosquito nets for those underprivileged kids that might die without them.

www.christianaid.org

You may not be a Christian, I'm not but they'll accept my money and so I'm sure they'll accept yours too...

Thanks.

African Fish Eagle on a small island in the Chobe river which separates the two beautiful countries of Botswana from Namibia.

memories of chobe safari

2010-12-06T13:46:00.001+01:00

This is the elephant in the room.

This wonderful animal plodded gently through the brush of what is part of Botswana's Chobe National Park. It quietly approached our vehicle with outstretched trunk sensing the air, sniffing for smell of threat. Our driver and guide, Lucky, had told us not to speak, not to make a sound or sudden movement. We could easily scare this elephant although we were all petrified in any case and it may well feel threatened and therefore charge. It's eyesight being bad as with all elephants it had to come close to investigate and once it was positioned in front of us, I felt able to take this shot of the right eye.

Look deep within it. Such a lovely brown. Soft and almost welcoming perhaps. Trusting.

She stood close and still for a few moments and then slowly moved off. All the while several other elephants had passed by, on both sides of our vehicle. Some ignoring us, some stopping momentarily and sniffing for scent, others to pull vegetation with a trunk's end and a snap of the root. Others had no sense of concern and crashed noisily through the trees and brush, and in between the legs of some the smallest and less sure footed babies stumbled, vainly making a grab for mum's tail.

I didn't time how long we sat there quietly watching as elephants from several matriarchal groups passed us by, but as we independently counted in small groups we agreed between us that we had been passed by a few thousand. A small fraction of the 140,000 odd that live in Botswana.

A most beautiful country and long may it be so.

Hadouk Trio Hi Jazz Hijaz

2010-10-12T13:27:00.006+02:00

Yaron Herman performs at CosmoJazz Festival Chamonix, 28 July 2010

Back in July, I felt like I needed a day off... shoulders were hurting from strimming steep slopes and holding hedge cutters higher than I should have. It had been quite hot and I hadn't been down to the lake for a swim and I was becoming frustrated...

Mrs, P said to me as she walked out the door at 6am to catch the 6.15 train to work... "go on, go, enjoy it...sod it...take the day off"

And so an hour later I was speeding along the autoroute A40 towards Chamonix with the mountain top of Mont Blanc shining in the summer sunshine down the valley. Once I had arrived and parked up by the téléphérique for the Aiguille du Midi, slung my pack over my arm and walked towards the lift station ticket desk, I saw an enormous snaking queue around the forecourt and tail back towards the tunnel I had just walked through. A couple of people clothed in T-shirts proclaiming CosmoJazz Festival Chamonix told me I might just make the concert en haut, but it was as likely as not that I wouldn't. However, across the valley on the other side, other concerts were about to take place and I could easily get there in time; besides, the Brévent lift was under far less pressure of people wanting to ride up and so thanking them I walked across town, buying a couple of croissants on the way and soon found myself, lift ticket in hand, at the head of the line for the télécabine to Belvédère Planpraz.

At about 2000m altitude, that's 6000 feet in proper money, I settled down to watch and listen to an excellent solo piano concert by Yaron Herman who had only walked off a Marseille stage at midnight the previous night and been driven directly north to Chamonix for this free concert. After only a few hours sleep Herman climbed on stage, settled over the keys of what lloked to me like a baby grand piano and seemed lost in his solo. He played like that for over an hour and a half.

As he left the stage at the end of his concert I climbed higher above the seated audience, and found a space to picnic and lean back against a rock and wait to discover the wonderful sound of the Hadouk Trio...

This is part of what I heard...

Working Class Hero by John Lennon

2010-10-09T12:41:00.004+02:00

If ever there was a working class hero to me, it would have to be Lennon.

As a kid growing up in Britain in the 1960's there were not many heroes who were not musicians, singers; 'pop stars'. The youths that made up these groups were seen as rebels, they acted for some part like rebels, but unlike Lennon, they did not all know how to take on the authorities and start to assert their own authority on the next generation yet to rise.

I remember arriving at school one day with a copy of Lennon's "A Spaniard In The Works". Most of it I didn't understand at first, but with assistance from an interested and enlightened teacher, who made me stand in front of class and read some of Lennon's poems, I began to see more in what he wrote, where he was poking fun but at the same time being critical and forthright.

At the time it was probably my first exposure to satire.

So for that John Lennon, thanks. And I wish I could say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Venetian steps...

2010-09-27T22:00:00.003+02:00

High pitched stiletto click clack heels across
high pitched mosaic steps of Basilica floor...

Low pitch rumble of deep whispers of the hard of hearing
breaks the sound of the hurrying nuns
requesting;
hats off,
back packs lodged,
ice cream exited,
flash prego?

The inner sanctum turnstile grinds and
greets the oohs and the aahs of the those;
without guides who know it all.

Venetian Panamas

2010-09-27T21:58:00.002+02:00

Jack Daniel's... when was 'e a Scot?

2010-09-18T18:57:00.004+02:00

Maybe I'm a perfekshunist... I dunno... but I do expect major supermarkets to get it right...

It ain't Scotch, and it is a whiskEy - wiv a Eeeee.........

PhotoShop - eat yer heart out !!

2010-09-17T18:33:00.006+02:00

Driving home on Wednesday I turned up towards the mountains and as I got closer to home I saw the most magnificent pink coloured clouds lit by the sun setting behind the Jura... I grabbed my camera, went out onto the balcony and shot off a few pictures... here they are...

A few seconds later, and just altering the light meter reading,

Then, I ran out of the house and leaving my wife and son to wait for me to return and cook dinner, I drove further up the road to an empty chalet I know, and from their garden I took the following two...

Looking westward towards the Jura and

another a few seconds later...

None of these have been altered by using a darkroom software... what you see, is what I saw... just read the light meter reading and worked accordingly...

Let me know what you think...

Saturday lunch... Black Noodles with Shrimp and Saffron.

2010-09-14T23:33:00.006+02:00

Tagliolini neri con Scampi e Zafferano

Despite the influence of the French on my taste buds after living here for 15 years, I simply adore Italian food; the way they think about it, they way they cook and the way they eat it and how they do so. Living in France I am constantly reminded of how they consider themselves to be superior in matters culinary. This is no bad thing because different people around the world think themselves superior over others in a great many ways and for the French, food, cooking and eating and as importantly, drinking wine to accompany it is as good a way as any to express one's superiority.

The Italians of course are no different. They are merely convinced.

Despite living so close to Italy I do not get the chance to travel there as much as I would like, and so in many ways the only opportunity for me to eat real Italian is to make an occasional forage into nearby Geneva, in Switzerland, and find a restaurant owned, run and staffed by Italians; although strictly they may have only been so two or three generations ago who also cook and not only know about Italian wines but import and serve them along with some memorable Swiss wines. Memorable for all the right reasons.

The other alternative is to cook it. But then I ain't Italian.

This is where Elisabeth David's books come in handy as do those of Antonio Carluccio and Jamie Oliver's jamies' italy which I have used often and I am getting flavour and sense enough of the recipes to recognise them in Italian restaurants although admittedly, I have to allow for regional variations...

France has now started to import and sell in it's supermarkets, produce from around the world. This is limited and has to be and needs to be. I bought some Coco Rose the other day imported not from Italy, its nearest E.U. member but from Morocco, a former French colony.

It is not unreasonable. Friends from Britain have often complained they cannot find the Italian or Spanish wines they know so well in French supermarkets, but on the other hand I have not seen French wines in supermarkets in either Spain or Italy. All three countries produce enough of their own wine so why bother transporting them by polluting truckloads to neighbouring states?

An example which springs to mind of recent supermarket finds is that of black pasta, or pasta made using ink from cuttlefish. More a tagliatelle than a tagliolini I have found it mixes beautifully with seared scallops, some small tomatoes, some garlic & chopped parsley and little white wine...

Or, just go to Murano, a small glass making island in the lagoon a short boat ride from Venice and seek out a little restaurant by the canal side called A Pianta Leoni, and there they will serve you the best black pasta dish you ever tasted... that is the photo above... Tagliolini Neri con Scampi e Zafferano... it was simply the best pasta dish I have ever eaten...

Venice - a glorious weekend...

2010-09-13T13:55:00.006+02:00

If Palladio's San Giorgio allows advertising; why not elsewhere...

Venice's Rialto Bridge ...?

Having spent a few days in Venice after taking the 07h40 train last Thursday morning from Geneva and arriving 30 minutes or so late, after 7 or 8 hours rocking through the Alps and across the flat Po valley followed by a full three days rocking about in various vaporetti around the Grand Canal and across the Lagoon to other islands, only to return on the 16h20 train yesterday to Geneva which arrived just before midnight - again, late by 35 minutes, I sit here editing photos and putting a few words onto this keyboard feeling like a cork in a bath...

(aagh! Swiss Rail... don't you believe it works like clockwork...)

The whole room seems to be rising like the choppy waters off the Piazza di San Marco...

All I can say is... I must go back but I might just fly.

And I miss my little Leica so...

Yesterday's Hike...

2010-09-06T09:19:00.009+02:00

A cloudless sky welcomed us at about 7.30am when the first needs of tea pierced dreamland.

Tea, shower, toast and home made confiture; followed by the assembly of gear. A favourite pastime. Deuter packs, fleece, boots, socks, legs to zip onto already worn shorts, walking poles, camera, energy bars (not for the energy but they taste nice and I believe they are not fattening - not that I'd care if they were), a banana or two which may well be brought back home bruised from rubbing metaphorical shoulders with a cumbersome camera.

And the inevitable selection of t-shirts. Finally, a Panama hat. Not the ideal head gear for a mountain walk perhaps but it will protect against high altitude sun and the tiny spaces in the weave should allow a little breeze to pass through, so I shall be content as long as I am unaware that everyone else on the mountain is laughing at me.

An hour and a half later and we are walking across the springy grass covered peat above Les Houches and gazing at the Bionnassay glacier not far above us. We cannot help but disturb the many birds eating myrtille berries from the surrounding ground covering bushes and they fly off in that low swooping flight like woodpeckers.

As we near the slope above St Gervais for a view back down the valley towards Pointe Piercé, Geneva and the Jura beyond we are approached by a little old lady walking on her own and as she gets closer to us she asks if the mountain behind us is Mont-Blanc. The massif behind us is indeed the Massif du Mont-Blanc but from where we are standing at that point the summit of Mont-Blanc itself cannot be seen. She asks us the way towards Le Prarion which is at 1967m altitude and as we chat, she by now recognising our English accents and breaking into heavily accented English herself, we learn that she is convalescing on the advice of her daughter, following an eye operation.

Lunch: Croute au fromage et champignons at Chalet Courant d'Air - just delicious

It occurs to us as we talk later having seen her on her way on a more gently path that maybe this is not the best place to be wandering alone if you cannot see too well. She is heading nevertheless in the direction of Col de Voza at 1653m where she can easily get refreshment and rest at the little chalet Courant d'Air and wait for the Tramway du Mont-Blanc to take her back to St Gervais. Elderly people like she certainly have my respect. They just get on with doing what they have always done. I hope I can still do that at the same age...

The weather being glorious we continue up to Mont Lachat at 2115m just to take in the view and the enormity; the beauty of the surrounding mountains.

This is not so much a decent hike this weekend as a decent taking of the view, and I am reminded that if I want to hike higher and further I should do so during the week by managing my time better.

I remind myself of a Zen koan... On the day you were born, you begin to die. Do not waste a single moment more. (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche).

As we make our way down, the roar of the melting snows and ice from the glacier, as they become a descending torrent comes up to greet us along with the air much cooled by the dangerous mass of ice by the side of us.

Bionnassay Glacier descending Mont-Blanc with rock covered ice section at the bottom, and the melt water pool.

Having seen hikers walking the GR5 crossing the tramway making their way south towards the med, I can see the Col de Tricot leading onwards to the Chalets de Miage and I feel a tinge of envy... I want to be walking away down that path some hundreds of miles and towards the sea.

Do not waste a single moment more...

Summer is over, the crowds have disappeared...

2010-09-01T13:19:00.004+02:00

...along with the clouds; and the clear blue skies of an early autumn , are at this altitude, already here. The mornings are more cold than just cool, but the afternoons still warm enough for the lake side beaches...

Walkers on mountain paths now issue a greeting as they pass, the markets have reduced their stalls, and parking spaces can be found once more. But I like the hustle and the bustle of the holiday crowds.

How else could I manage to stay here?

Worth it in the long run...

2010-08-30T16:23:00.006+02:00

It might seem to a sane person a long way to go to buy some cheese.

A 20 minute drive and then a walk for about 1 hour and a quarter. Uphill. A bit of a slog really.

I admit a 20 minute drive is not so long but that was to the foot of the mountain. Once the boots were on and the backpacks comfortable and tightened we started the ascent up the slippery rocky path between the pines and the raging torrent below to our left which carried the recent rainfall down toward the lake and the rivers beyond to irrigate the vineyards of the south.

Early risers were already on the descent, some having stayed in the refuge another 1000 metres above us and others in suntan and shorts poled their way past us working out; blood coursing through their bodies using the late August Sunday morning to get themselves ready for the following week, the following month and perhaps for the students and teachers amongst them; the term ahead.

Late summer here can feel almost autumnal as if early September is not even going to appear, but once out of the trees, and into the sunshine the few mountain flowers still in petal waved gently in the breeze and the warmth of the sunshine soon had us stripping off the outer shirts, and pulling sunshades down and moving onward, upward.

This was not going to be any great expedition today, and maybe the dew pit lake above would be as far as we wanted to reach; just needing to blow away the cobwebs of the mind, feel the mountain air deep in our lungs, and be above the normal Sunday hustle of families going to visit families and to spend long afternoons lunching over later summer barbecues.

The family living the summer months in the Alpages would soon be down in the valley below, their chalet shuttered against the winter's threat, but now they were inside preparing their lunch, the cheese-maker himself coming out with hands full of cleaned mushrooms to put on the rough wooden table outside to dry. A few family groups and couples passed by, single determined hikers in technical gear strode quickly onward to further cols and summits, and some stopped to buy fresh yoghurt and cream cheese; to savour just the freshness then and there.

The list of cheese included Bernex. Not a cheese name I had noted before. The breed of cattle is Abondance and although we were not in that particular valley, Bernex was below us. So, very much a local cheese. A large slice was cut from a huge raclette sized wheel of cheese and for a few cents less than €4 a good size lump went into the backpack to be carried down.

We started down and gone far when breeze from the west became a stronger wind and bringing with it a chill we pulled on fleeces, and buttoned shirt fronts and headed back down the mountain taking the trail through the woods. What mushrooms would we see below?

The dank pine woods smelled and the mud of the slope showed where hikers had slipped, our way being made clear by the odd bits of string tied like a weak barrier to stop the descending cows from going off track or to show the hikers and recent runners to way to the top. Off the track we found plenty of Amanita Muscaria brightening up the brown pine needle forest floor.

We hurried down so as not to be late for our neighbour's end-of-summer 'goodbye' barbecue, and later that afternoon, with a glass of wine in hand we ate some Bernex cheese - beautiful, tasty, creamy cheese yet to harden like its sister cheeses, Abondance, Comté, Emmental et al...

It can be worth while seeking out the best cheese even if it is a decent hike away....

2010-08-28T00:16:00.000+02:00

Chinese barbecue anyone...???

2010-08-02T16:06:00.004+02:00

Cote de Boeuf à Griller....

take a couple of desert spoons of Chinese dried black beans in ginger, and chop 'em up. Add to them a couple of cloves of finely sliced or chopped garlic, and either a small onion or a couple of shallots also chopped. Put them into a large jar of other utensil in which you can blitz them with one of those handy hand held processor thingys...

To the jar add a few glugs of peanut or vegetable oil and once it is all blitzed, pour it into a large bowl in order to cover a large cote de boeuf or a few steaks... make sure the meat is really well covered and stick 'em in the frigo.

You can use pork or chicken in place of the beef if you want and i found that in the fridge for a few days, the meat tenderises really well...

When you are ready to eat them, light your barbecue and get it hot. I don't bother with all that wood and charcoal and stuff, I just use a small gas jobby from Weber which is brilliant...

Stick the Beef on and seal it on both sides, turn the heat right down, close the lid and leave it to cook for 15 mins. I turned the beef once half way through, then took it off and let it rest for 10 mins...

It was fabulous, try it. Chinese barbecue sauce almost....

But don't forget to adjust the cooking time, temperature if using chicken

The French Paradox

2010-05-15T14:03:00.006+02:00

I am not feeling quite so favourable toward the froggies at present as we decided to go on Thursday last to Avignon & Nîmes for a long weekend and yesterday morning found our nice shiny black Haute-Savoie plated* VW Golf with windows smashed and all our mountain/randonnée gear stolen plus a Leica camera that I forgot was in a day pack in the boot, the idea of France being paradise on earth seems far away...

* Haute Savoie plates - 74, suggest to the rest of poor France, "les bastards riches"...

The previous evening we went to Nîmes. Years ago this used to be one of my favourite places in France, nay, on the planet. I had in ignorance always been under the impression that France had it's own rules for Bullfighting. What they did in Spain was not what they did in France. Only here had I seen the fantastic spectacle of the bull being the champion where the matador would run in front of the bull and with a kind of knuckle duster with hooks attached rip coloured ribbons tied between the rounded horns. The ribbons had different values and, putting it in simple terms, the bull that had the highest number or value of ribbons remaining on the horns at the end of the Corrida would be declared the winner. But in Nîmes that night the winner was going to be wearing not ribbons but a tight little matador number, a black hat and ballet pumps and the loser would be dragged across the rain and blood soaked sand, the smell of death dampened by the heavy dark clouds racing overhead.

Outside in the rain were the Spanish TV mobiles beaming by satellite the events within the Arena. Occasionally the odd sound of approval could be heard, hardly roars and shouts of glee from the crowds in their plastic give-away macs.

Though dinner was delicious, Aubergine rôtie au caillé de chèvre frais, followed by Pluma ibérique (that little piece of back of neck of pork) grilled over charcoal washed down of course with a recent Costières de Nîmes, it would have been better had the weather had that usual sense of mid-May... the promise of better to come. And so driving off through Nîmes one-way streets lacking any form of direction, we found our way back to our cheap and dirty hotel with broken electrics and bare light bulb, wardrobe with door hanging off and no rail upon which to hang the three provided coat hangers. But it was cheap. Well cheapish. Mmm, not that cheap perhaps given the events to be discovered the following day...

Hence the paradox.

2010-05-15T13:28:00.002+02:00

Please, Sir, I want a little Vacherin

A boy abducted from France in a custody battle has told a court his most compelling reason for wanting to go back home: he would get a better quality of cheese in a French school than he does here. This highlights a point on which we fail, largely through laziness and incipient poor taste, to match our friends over the water. There, all food is taken seriously: they do not feed their children, or their proletarians, on cheese made from rubber, as we do, but feel all have a right to the small luxury of decent food. That this child should humiliate us so serves us right. And perhaps, too, it is no coincidence that if one gives children food fit only for animals, some choose to behave like them.

The above is part of the article .... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7725732/David-Cameron-turns-ugly-with-our-constitution.html

The French Are A Law Unto Themselves

We are still battling the Tax people as they refuse, on grounds we cannot find, to accept that ITC for whom Mrs Pondlife works is a bona fide body of the UN and have slapped us with a bill for more than forty thousand euros, yes, € 40,000 and have taken a charge upon our house until it is sorted so that if ever it were not sorted we could not sell our HOME and move elsewhere.

We must battle on.

More to come. The French are a law unto themselves.

Hugh Masekela - Stimela

2010-05-05T15:44:00.001+02:00

So what happened to April 2010 then ????

2010-05-02T15:58:00.002+02:00

Rognons de Boeuf

2010-05-02T15:52:00.002+02:00

Immerse rapidly in boiling water. Drain. Put into a frying pan of heated olive oil. As they cook...feu vif for 2mins, add some red wine and sprinkle some flour to thicken. Season, feu doux 4 mins. let rest.

Served with risotto cooked in chicken stock...

Wonderful...

A blistering ski randonnée...

2010-03-25T12:44:00.003+01:00

... up to chalets at Ardens. I left far too late in the morning to attempt this climb and only left the Lac des Plagnes at midday and reached the chalets at Ardens 2 hours, and 2 huge blisters later.

Silly me. I should have considered that a randonnée on hired skis and in hired boots might do that, but I wrongly assumed the boots would be well broken in and probably more so than my own...

It was only done so that I could test out a new pair of skis (Dynafit Seven Summits) which had different bindings.

Blistering buggering barnacles !!

The photo shows my backpack in the foreground, lying on the metal roof of a snow covered chalet next to the chimney top. In the middle distance are more snow covered chalets with roofs barely visible.

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine

2010-03-23T21:55:00.005+01:00

*

In her book "An Omelette and a Glass of Wine", Elizabeth David writes, "...la soupe au fromage instantanée. ( Ingredients: dehydrated Gruyère cheese, potato-starch, spices,salt.) Which would seem to reduce the whole matter of authenticity to the level of farce...which has made us such easy victims of the purveyors of the farmyard-fresh Surrey chicken from the battery house, the mountain-brook trout from the breeding tank, via the deep-freeze, the hedgerow-ripened blackberry pie-filling out of the cardboard box."

Last evening on telly I saw again the film Elizabeth David: a Life in Recipes. I love the film. It brought back memories and a reminder that her name should be shouted from the kitchens. At one point in the film she says to a friend that people wrote to her to ask 'how much is a pinch?' I don't now remember if they asked the size of an egg, but I have heard similar and it occurred to me that far too many cookery books, or rather books that have a few recipes listed, go into minute detail which if one really likes to create in a kitchen is just not necessary.

I was born in austere Britain less than seven years after the end of the 2nd World War. I have vague memories of being taken, along with my parents, my cousin and my Aunt, by my Uncle in his old Rolls Royce with running boards to the seaside on the south coast of England. I don't actually know if the Rolls was his, or not, but I have nurtured memories of a dashing former Hurricane fighter pilot so just assumed since then that it was. But no matter. The point is that along the way we stopped at a butcher's shop and I remember the butcher taking a shine to us, our young mums perhaps and giving us extra rations.

At about this time Mrs Elizabeth David was encouraging people to cook meals with ingredients from foreign lands that my dad and my uncle had until a few short years before been fighting in and over. I imagine they were not too enthusiastic to take up her suggestion to do so. I understand that.

That austerity took a long time to pass. At least the habits that accrued during those times did. I can remember my grannie, turning the remains of a pack of Anchor butter into the butter dish and scraping the last bits as if her life depended on it. That would have been as late as the 1970s and maybe into the 1980's until she grew too frail to even scrape the butter wrapper.

But by then I was living in Wiltshire, not very well off and with a wife and two kids to support. Instead of going out to eat we would stay at home and cook something different, something special. Eventually as we became friends with people in our village with similarly aged kids we would have, loosely termed, dinner parties. Someone would host and cook the main course at their home. Someone else would bring a first course; someone else the cheese and Sally always did the puddings. I loved her puddings and would often tell her so to her mocked surprise. We took turns doing these foodie evenings; it was great fun, we learned about food, were introduced to different ideas but however much people said they liked what I cooked I always felt I was just a follower of recipes.

It started with Madhur Jaffrey. I always liked Indian food and this was years before it became the national dish of Britain. Watching her first television series and then receiving at Christmas the book that accompanied the series and trying one or two recipes I soon realised I was cooking food that was better than I could eat in the local curry house. My wife turned her hand to cooking from Chinese recipes and the same thoughts returned.

Freshness of ingredients especially spices was the trick.

Antonio Carluccio followed, and again recipes were followed. A measure of this, a measure of that. Saturday issues of The Times, Daily Telegraph or Guardian started to put their cookery writers in front of me. Thane Prince was one cookery writer I often looked forward to reading and copying. I still have photocopied pages from those papers of her recipes ; and then someone lent me a copy of a brown paged well thumbed edition by Elizabeth David. Was it French Country Cooking or Mediterranean? I don't recall.

But Elizabeth David taught me to cook. She wrote about experiences, thoughts and said what went into a certain dish, she just didn't seem to bother with measures too much.

I love Cassoulet. But what is Cassoulet exactly? Well for a start it isn't anything exactly. Mrs David wrote in one of her books about an elderly French woman renowned for her Cassoulet which she had kept upon the fire for 20-odd years, adding stock, beans, meat as she thought was needed.

When I moved to France I found a booked on Tians, and the recipes, such as they are, are just a smattering of ideas with the odd ingredient mentioned; some onion, a spoonful of flour. But is that a whole onion? Or a half? How big and should it be chopped up or sliced? And how big is a spoon?

As these have been tried and tried again, and refined a little here and there I am aware that Elizabeth David was ahead of her time. But at the same time she was of course of her time.

I wish some of the modern TV cooks of today; the celebrity chefs and their trendy studio kitchens and twee bits abounding could take a leaf out of her book.

Elizabeth David was a much better cook and writer than I can ever hope to be. But for anyone who might stumble across this log-blog... please seek out her books, buy them and read them.

I bet you won't be disappointed. There was quite a lot to Elizabeth David.

* photo of a dish of Pot au Feu taken at " Au Pied du Cochon" at Vongy in France.

As I walked out one St. Patrick's day...

2010-03-17T23:13:00.004+01:00

... or rather, with randonnée skis fixed to my boots I climbed up towards the Col de Golese and stood panting awhile as my heart rate rose and gazed across at the rock face on the other side of the GR5.

I love the way the snow has blown into the nooks and the crannies of the sheer rock face opposite.

One of my favourite places on earth just at the end of the Vallée de la Manche.

As I walked out one St Valentine's day....

2010-02-17T17:03:00.005+01:00

Winter isn't always drab and gray, cold creeping into bones that shiver, lips that turn blue and noses running...

There are places to hike to; raquette to, like here in a side valley off the Vallée d'Abondance in the French Alps. The only sounds are the far off voices of randonneur skiers descending from the chalets at Ardens, it is still too cold for the birds to sing; at least it was on St.Valentine's day, so we came out of our cloud covered refuge and drove up through the lower mists - just to count the diamonds in the snow...

And when we'd counted them all we retraced our raquette tracks and went home, made some lunch, poured some wine, and settled down to watch England play rugby against the Italians in Rome, and in the words of Mr Dury, "What a waste..."

Evian, January 4th 2010

2010-01-06T11:02:00.000+01:00

Yeah, okay, I know....

You've got snow too but not many palms....

Is it really 10 years...?

2010-01-04T21:14:00.006+01:00

I awake to the soft silence of the snow slippery street, Christmas past and the year still new.

Winter grips.

Is it really 10 years since we sat on the balcony awaiting the millennium; the bug that would bring down planes, the world?

We drank champagne, made love and awoke to the same world the next day... only this time with a little headache.

Christmas Lights in Evian-les-Bains

2009-12-16T14:57:00.000+01:00

Rocks in Black an' White...

2009-11-24T17:05:00.007+01:00

A week or so ago we went to dinner at a neighbour's across the road from us. Our neighbour is a lovely bloke in his early 70's and yet he still does it all himself. Célibataire officially, he is twice divorced and once-left by a long term lover, however his eyes twinkle at the girls and invariably he gets one staying over for 24 hrs on her day off and then one or two others that visit during the week. It keeps him young he says...

...and he also creates really good dishes although when for so many people as we were; eight, he will apologise and do the same menu - I have told him he needn't apologise when it is so consistently good, but he will insist and so, once again, we sat down to three "first" courses;
1) a salad of thinly sliced cucumbers in lemon juice,
2) a dish of sliced oven-softened and peeled yellow and red peppers and,
3) a superb salad of thinly sliced huge beef tomatoes grown in his own garden sprinkled with fresh herbs and usually fresh garden grown basil although for basil, this year has not for him, been too good.

This was then followed by a superb risotto with wild mushrooms. A plate of perfect cheeses, a Brie de Meaux, some chèvre, an époisses and some Abondance and then a fruit salad... except that he forgot the salad because of an overwhelming guest.

She'd done it once before; slapping a dessert, a tart of fraise or framboise into his small oven and then forgotten it. It was well overdone by the time the smell reached us as we sat in his far off sitting room drinking aperitifs of rum with home made lime quarters in dark sugar. Still, she insisted we try it, and all but the Missus did as we were told. It pissed Neighbour off no end, he is the type that would rather you didn't and again he forgot his own carefully made dessert. This time however, she turns up with her English guy in tow and again has neither asked nor suggested but just got her Anglais to prepare, cook and bring along (of all things) a Bread & Butter Pudding.

After that superbly light and refreshingly tasty meal we had to try the Bread & Butter Pudding with its rough bread crust corners pushing up through the damp and covered in sugar.

And it got to be too much. Besides which it was really not very good...

How to spoil a French dinner. Indeed it is so un-French. We were surprised when we first came to live here that guests did not bring a bottle of wine which they then expected to swig during the meal with little regard for what the cook has decided to serve as is the habit in England.

He could at least have tried Delia's luxury version.

And throughout it all, at the start of the Autumn Rugby Internationals; we realised that France was playing South Africa in Toulouse, it was on the telly and we couldn't watch it....

andouillette à la moutarde...

2009-11-24T16:44:00.004+01:00

Autumn Colours No., 3

2009-11-22T17:00:00.006+01:00

We live at about 550metres above sea level and at this time of year that is roughly 150 to 200 metres below the cloud level. However we have a weird phenomenon at the end of each autumn when the cloud level over the lake builds up and the air temperature causes the cloud to either rise or fall and sometimes rather than be just underneath it, or worse, in it, we find we are above it... it doesn't last long and usually as winter's battle over autumn is won, the cloud rises and we live beneath the blanket of cloud while the snow capped mountains around us stay in brilliant sunshine.

The pictures above taken from my balcony show the cloud lying low over Lake Geneva which is approx., 380 metres above sea level...

Interestin' eh?

Autumn Colours No., 2

2009-11-20T13:06:00.001+01:00

Autumn Colours No.,1

2009-11-19T00:41:00.006+01:00

I had been out on my first 90 minute midweek off-road walk since my knee operation and had felt good upto a point when I needed a breather and a swig of water.

While walking, I was looking for 'that' autumn colours shot and had traipsed about taking the odd shot from a slightly different angle of maple, beech or chestnut leaves. As I took off my pack I became aware of a tired wasp slowly moving about some nearby berries in a last ditch effort to find some sugar before the eventual cold of winter and the approach of death. My little Leica did the rest.

There are times of camera and no mojo...

and then,

There are times of mojo and no camera...

This was one of those days when I think I had both.

Sunday 1st November ...

2009-11-01T18:40:00.007+01:00

On the GR5 below the Col de Bise at 1915m heading south towards the Cornettes des Bise and the Col that leads down to Chapelle d'Abondance...

A warm day despite the forecast and whereas I should have slaved over cold stones and wet mortar pointing the front wall of the house before the weather changes and winter arrives I decided I should benefit; and my wounded knee too, from a short walk above the cloud, above the tree line in the mountains and maybe take my Moleskine sketch book to try and capture a huge rock face in pencil, pen & ink...

Having tried it and viewed the results, I thought that mountain sketches are best left to those done by the great Wainwright. How he so meticulously drew those northern English hills; and so beautifully too, I shall never know.

The colours this autumn have been stunning; breathtakingly beautiful, with the golden leaves on the maples and the beeches inbetween the dark evergreen pines, still clinging on until the winds of winter loosen them.

So, then home to while away an hour or two of daylight warm autumn Sunday afternoon mixing cement and sand and finishing off the stonework on the front of the house... I might start to call it a cottage soon...

Marseille - an end of summer weekend...

2009-10-22T11:54:00.009+02:00

I love Marseille. But I'm not so sure why exactly I do so. It is smelly. It is noisy. I can't always understand the accent of the Marseillais, but there is something about the Ville, that I really love. It is vibrant and passionate. It is the biggest town in Algeria so I have been told. It is everything that Paris is not. It is a poor city by and large; at least that is my feeling when I have been there and because I do not know it intimately I may very well be wrong. But there are a great many beggars and some of those could be straight off the streets of Indian cities and North African towns. Arabic music wafts from small shops in the side streets where more than 30 years ago I witnessed my first knife fight in a street amongst these, between two women. Apart from the screams and the shouts of those involved all I remember is sitting in a rough restaurant and having my first menu du jour. I had no idea what I was ordering, or in what order.

(the photo above shows an outdoor art installation on the walls of the old fort in Vieux Port)

As summer ended, up here, I found I needed to dip my toes, to plunge deep into the Med and swim in warm water, and feel that I had not missed having a beach under my feet for yet another year. And when that need was satisfied, have a pastis de Marseille...

...while deciding what type of seafood to eat and where to eat it...

A pot of rosé wine, a first course of aioli, followed by salade des poulpes, a dessert of fresh fruit salad and a strong coffee for €11 + and then the patron wanders over and offers small glasses from an unlabelled bottle of an aniseed flavoured digestif.

The afternoon was spent wandering about the town taking photos of buildings, and boats in the old harbour while looking for somewhere to eat that evening.

Two sides to Marseille architecture...

In the Cours H. d'Estienne d'Orves (now with a name like that it is worth having a square named after you...) I found the Maison de l'Artisanat et des Métiers which housed a travelling exhibition of patchwork... Hmmm not usually my cuppa tea but a quick glance inside and the mention of the words, "entrée libre" got me inside where I was confronted by a collection of modern and traditional style patchwork, mostly on a visit from the American state and former French territory of Louisiana. Most of the work was simply beautiful. Fabulous fabrics, worked delicately and boldly. A real knock out.

One side was this.... a small group of poppies and a single poppy; so turn it over, or go around the other side of the display and ...

see a field of them...

Maples? Simply beautiful. I'll stick some others on Flickr.

A weekend by train through southern France, and filled with sand, sea, tremendous limestone cliffs, fish on plates, Arabic music and sweets at the end of a Ramadan day, pastis, climbing up to Cathedrals, packed street markets, graffiti covered walls and the steady siren scream of les flics - Plus Belle la Vie

While still feeling drowsy from the anesthetic ...

2009-10-20T19:24:00.004+02:00

I thought the scaffolding was crying out for a couple of potted geraniums, and soon it will be too cold even to keep them out on the south facing side of the house.

Already we have had some killer frosts, as Sylvie next door has reminded me when asking me to go and pick some of her parsley...

So before I hand them to Aurèle for safe keeping over the winter, here they are...

Renovation of an old barn - 2009, take3

2009-10-18T19:32:00.006+02:00

Finished!

Well almost. But the odd thing is that creativity has entered my life again...

A simple act of sorting through some collected stones and patiently positioning them against an ugly old wall, has been quite an exciting pastime.

I used to think climbing mountains and skiing fast was exciting. But something has obviously happened to me. I have loved it and it has, in the eyes of those close to me been quite noticeable.

Now all I have to do is mix a load of mortar and apply that with a block of tight sponge, and do that while it remains above 5 degrees centigrade, which is usually between the hours of 11am to about 3.3opm or so and when the sun sinks behind buildings and the air temperature drops. All this at only 550metres altitude.

Thought for the Day...

2009-10-15T22:06:00.003+02:00

I wish I had not thrown the bloody thing in the bin, but an envelope I received a few days ago containing a well deserved cheque from some Swedish clients, had a beautiful stamp on it.

It pictured a bunch of carrots.

Fancy that. Swedes sending carrots.

Has anyone told them?

Rutabagas the lot of 'em...

Renovation of an old barn - 2004

2009-10-14T21:24:00.002+02:00

Some years ago we bought an old barn in need of renovation while we were in need of a roof. The fact that said barn overlooks Lake Geneva should be taken with a pinch of salt. The barn was in need of everything.

Three years or so after we took it on and started to live in and renovate it around us we decided it needed shutters on the front of the house. Some neighbours, Aurèle et Stéphane, watched as I struggled single-handedly to position and fix them eventually tiring of my growing frustration at my own ineptitude. They came over and took over. By this time, I thought the best thing to do was to go into the house and find a camera and record their endeavours. What they fixed is still in place and swinging open and closed as we desire. All I have done since is paint the buggers.

I was pissed off I must admit with the large patch of flat and ugly concrete above which was laid three rows of breeze block that had been mortared into place to block a gaping hole left where the original barn had been closed by some large door that would have opened onto the street outside. The amount of straw lying about when we took the place on suggested the upper part had stored hay and straw that fed the animals that lived below stairs... in the dank, dark and dreary space that now houses a bathroom, a laundry, two bedrooms, my office and a small wine store.

Only now have I had the real opportunity to get to grips with that ugly space...

Renovation of an old barn - 2009

2009-10-14T21:07:00.007+02:00

Day 1... 9th October. Now, five years on I have decided it is time to fill the awful concrete filled space on the outer wall with stones collected from the garden, dug up when the four unwanted barn supporting pillars were removed and some given, again from Aurèle and Stéphane. Slight progress.

Day 2... 13th October... a few more stones posed and it is starting to generate a few complimentary comments from neighbours and passers-by. Encouraging.

Day 3... 14th October. I think I might get this finished before Christmas. More stones donated, all very important as the stone is and from a seam in the mountains that is particular to this area but is, unfortunately porous. Against the treated breeze blocks it will not have a detrimental effect. When the stone is used as a foundation all sorts of problems can be had but the damp only travels a certain distance upwards and the chalet type wooden living area is then put on top...

The damp caves or cellars below is perfect for storing wine...

I'm beginning to feel a little creative...

I'm getting quite a buzz from this. Lumilyon said in a post that she had felt a lack of creativity during August... I had had that very same feeling, but sad to say, with me it lasted into October. Lucifer begone...

4 nashonal potree dayee

2009-10-08T10:10:00.003+02:00

Previously published here...

abstract landscapes

2009-10-06T12:39:00.001+02:00

The last day of September 2009

2009-09-30T09:42:00.004+02:00

I haven't felt too creative lately so thought I would just offer a smile and in some cases, maybe, a laugh to anyone who clicks on the link below...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/6240537/Guerrilla-signs-15-funny-road-and-rail-notices.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=6245626

the 532nd edition...

2009-09-05T18:39:00.010+02:00

There're mountains not far from here where I sit tapping at the klavier and each year on the first Thursday of September people who are normally locked away from the outside world are allowed down to the town of Thonon-les-Bains for the annual Foire de la Crete. This year was the 532nd annual fair. So they know how to do things properly.

Some of these obvious inbreds are employed in the process of preparation, cooking and serving of food to the hungry visitors that flock to Thonon each year. The roads are sealed and myriad stalls are erected and all manner of goods are offered for sale. The cuisine at this time of year is Cochonaille - I am led to understand this is anything to do with pork, particularly the offal and the blood. The food on the stalls is varied and usually always good. I have never had a problem, but sometimes when speaking to neighbours or friends; people at the occasional dinner party I might refer to the atriaux or diots vigneron and often these same people will make an impression of someone about to vomit. Not nice but sometimes humourous nonetheless.

This year I found one or two stalls selling "Hot Dogs" - the name conjures an image of a frankfurter type thin sausage in a soft elongated bun with a line of mustard or ketchup drawn along the length of the sausage from a squeezy bottle. Here nothing could be further from that image of the Chicago cop standing on a blowy street corner in the windy city with gloved hand wrapped around the hot dog while taking the change from the hot dog seller and getting some word off the street at the same time.

Here, these hot dogs are big fat bastard sausages, cooked in wine and garlic and onions and then stuffed into a hunk of pain campagne with some of the jus liberally poured over the saugage and into the bread. The resulting feed is just superb. Drinking some draught beer from a plastic cup to wash down the bread and sausage only heightens the enjoyment.

If a Hot Dog is not required then how about a diot ? This is a mountain sausage from this area and when vigneron as the one I had was, can be cooked in wine and herbs and consist of chittlings, and pork meat, and cabbage and of course all contained in edible skin. Proper food. Then afterwards a little wander around some of the tiny chalets with small groups of people gathered around and about, all sampling wines from various parts of this beautifully bountiful land.

A shopping stroll down one of the many side streets found a stall that sold knives and knuckledusters. How do the French get away with it? I love it. There was no one looking at the knives or other blades; no one seeking to buy or even steal one.

People were passing by and not even glancing at them. What would the reaction have been in Britain if such a stall was allowed in a street market. I imagine it would have been like a magnet to most youngsters. They would certainly have tried to buy one or two. I am no psychologist but I do wonder if the knife crime that is reportedly at such a high rate in the UK is not in part caused by the difficulty in getting hold of a blade. You mustn't have one so you immediately want to have one. Here they are readily available and knife crime is thought to be very low indeed.

Someone? Anyone? Got any answers to my quandary?

One stall that had several people clamouring to buy was the one stuffed to the gills with garlic...

The stall holder wasn't taking any crap from anyone. "What are you looking at? Are you going to buy some or not? Its the best rose garlic from Provence, don't just ask me what is what, get yer money out missus..." All said loudly in a smoker's rasping growl.

So having bought my string of garlic all I needed now was a decent joint of lamb and I'd cook that slowly on a deep bed of garlic cloves and heaven would enter by mouth....

The Bestest Blog Entry In The Whole World Ever???

2009-08-29T18:26:00.003+02:00

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100007596/ira-sympathiser-ted-kennedy-was-no-friend-of-britain/

Mrs Pondlife may remember me and she went off to New York in 1978 and while there were taken to a nice little Oirish bar where some red haired idiot threw the beer bottle at me rather than serve it to me, and rattled the IRA collection jar from a safe distance.

The red haired idiot never bothered to find out my politics; the very fact I was an Englishman was enough for him.

How the US played at terrorism support then.

droplets on my hosta...

2009-08-28T09:50:00.001+02:00

I'm not the most green fingered of people which might come as a surprise to any interested parties given that I garden for a living amongst other activities...

But I bought myself a book on Hostas while on a trip a year or so ago to Shropshire.

My in-laws of the sibling variety like to have breakfast at their local garden centre which is en route to East Midlands airport...so a stop off for a mug of stewed tea and a plate of sausage, eggs, bacon, a fried slice and a huge field mushroom fried in lard; a good cholestorol dose if ever there was one, and a side trip into the gift section brought forth a small handibook of hostas written by a New Zealander lover of these plants. I had no idea they came from Japan. But so it seems.

I hadn't upto that point considered hostas for my small garden, north facing and frozen solid in winter so thought the balcony would be a good enough space. Wrong.

The blazingly hot summer afternoon sun comes around the house in a furious arc, and falls upon any balconied plant. The geraniums hold their own but the hosta in it's pot and the bonsai'd acer both discolour and burn. I removed it therefore, to the garden and thought it was on its way to the green bag for garden refuse and would shortly be dumped with the cuttings from La Tanna' L'O or Chez Bochet at the local déchetterie. But a cool day, and a couple of nightly rain storms, brought forth new leaves and so now it rests in the middle of the shady grass on a stolen rock placed flat into the turf. And not quite over watered it seems to thrive.

We'll have to move house. But if we go further south, we shall have to find somewhere with a good bit of shade and maybe a little dampness somewhere near... I'm thinking Pyrenees.

Poem in an outdoor restaurant...

2009-08-18T17:34:00.003+02:00

If only i could draw...i'd draw her.
Ms Fit-As-Fuck,
lunching in laughter while ignoring her man opposite
she tps txt in2 mobile...
reads her sms smoke curling about her thin tanned fingers
nails long...
Her long legs crossed easily below the table...
she dips and pokes, pushes morsels and moves about the plate.
Her water sipped she morsel moves again
her lean form hides at something deeper...
now she settles her tackle down and finished
pushes the plate away...
As Geoff would say,
Fit as fuck...fit to fuck...
but not he...

6th August 1945... 6th August 2009

2009-08-06T20:09:00.005+02:00

This guy is the youngest survivor of the bomb that fell towards and exploded above Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. He was born some months after the bomb exploded but in Buddhist terms he dates his age and existence from the time of conception, hence he survived. He was our guide on a visit there last April. And I feel honoured to have been guided around the area by him.

This building was the exact spot above which the bomb exploded. And is I think the only structure that is still standing from that time. It is all rather poignant as i have just started (or restarted) to read David Peace's "Tokyo Year Zero". I couldn't handle the style first time around and did not get past the first few pages... this time is different. So far very strange but very absorbing.

Fused in the heat of the explosion, these porcelain rice bowls have become one massed moulded lump...

The face of Hiroshima today. Smiling Japanese kids give the peace sign and greet us as we pass through the Peace Park and Museum. The attitude of the local people was quite palpable. They see it as their destiny to preach peace, and bear witness to the real cost of WMD. And all this on the day that Harry Patch WW1 veteran, was buried.

One of Hiroshima's specialities. A green tea bun... and they are truly fabulous. At risk of missing the train back towards Kyoto, I had to run back to the bakery and buy some more to feast upon as the Japanese countryside slipped by the train window.

Latest!! - Storms leave beautiful light and colour in their wake...

2009-07-24T07:47:00.003+02:00

Dawn towards the Swiss Alps and Gruyere... Wednesday 22nd July.

North Nor-West, towards Lausanne and the Jura, following spectacular thunderstorms earlier, Thursday 23rd July.

Nice spot, 'ere.

Claude Nobs, BB King & The Montreux Jazz Stupidity Festival...

2009-07-20T16:13:00.004+02:00

I'm one of those people that like Jeremy Clarkson. Actually seeing that written I realise of course I don't "like" him, but I do find him funny at times, thought provoking certainly, and I like to watch that petrol head programme even though I am not myself a petrol head.

Be that as it may, I have for a long time, supported Clarkson's continual jibes at the Health & Safety people in their yellow plastic over jacket thingys and the constant calls for sales staff in places like Café Néro, to tell you that the double espresso you just ordered is HOT!!! There are times though, that Health & Safety type rules and regulations are not only adviseable but simply good common sense for the well being of all.

European countries have their own versions of H&S and as an example, the Austrian instigated little number whereby the carriage in a vehicle of a fluorescent yellow reflective jacket for use in the event of a breakdown, became law, was adopted by the French.

Switzerland while not a member of the E.U. is still part of Europe which some people seem to forget, and they have interpreted different rules and laws to suit themselves. Fair enough one may think. This became all too clear last Monday 13th July when I went along to Le Petit Palais, in Montreux where B B King was to hold a blues guitar workshop free to all comers. I went to one some years ago and it was quite simply wonderful. This guy is now 82 or 83 years old and he still feels that he wants to hand something back and so for any interested people he will get his band together, sit on a small stage for at least an hour and maybe longer; in front of a welcoming audience, talking to them, answering questions, play short blues riffs, telling stories and then end up with a couple of full blast blues numbers. Great. And this is FREE. Thanks B.B.

However on this hot day, with temperatures hitting the low thirties the room quickly filled and included, elderly people, kids who hated loud music and cried; all the while being ignored by their parents, and some babes in arms. Some even took the guitar workshop in the programme title too seriously and turned up with guitars in huge cases which they placed on the floor of the crowded room allowing people to trip and fall over them and into the laps of those lucky enough to have bagged a seat. Many more crowded at the doors and tried to push their way in.

About 15 minutes after B B King had been on stage talking and playing, Claude Nobs - THE Director of the Montreux Jazz Festival since 1967, which he started with nothing but a bit of string, a marble, some bubble gum and a couple of thousand US $ in his pocket, pushed his way into the room, got onto the stage and announced that BB King was there to provide a workshop and further; as there were outside a few (hundred it seemed) people still wanting to get in, everyone in the room should move around along the walls, so that these others could come in and climb into the gangways and aisles and spaces at the feet of those sitting, and thereby fill the room way past its legal capacity.

As the heat in the room increased, it was easy to see the discomfort on the faces of some of the people and eventually, not long before Mr King finished, they pushed, much to the annoyance of some others, their way out.

It was a good thing no-one fainted, or collapsed. No one had a heart attack, and no security nor medical people were needed. But if they had been, I would not like to have guessed the unpleasant outcome. That function room at Le Petit Palais, surely even in Switzerland, has a limit on the amount of people it should be accommodate at any given time.

Claude Nobs stupidly flouted any rules that country, that town, and that hotel's management must know exists for the well being of all.

The general policing on Saturday 11th, the evening of the Brazilian Night was woefully inadequate to the point of non-existent. There was an air of menace and threat once some of the pissed-up idiot country yokels arrived mid-evening and decided to push their way through the overcrowded pathways outside some of the venues.

This used to be a great Jazz festival, but for me this year, coupled with the near extortionate prices of most of the gigs it has become a has-been festival. I'm not saying that some has-beens are not good, but just a quick look at the list of acts suggest that has-beens possibly out number the maybes...

Freshly painted balcony rail...

2009-07-19T18:52:00.002+02:00

From a 3 litre tin of Ultra Bois - Gel lasure satiné - if you must know. The colour is "chêne".

Fire in the Mountains... another view from the office window...

2009-07-19T18:40:00.004+02:00

The smoke rose slowly from amongst the trees and seemed to hang motionless. The cloud above obliterating the Dent d'Oche and in the dense cloud out of sight is a refuge no doubt full of hiking holiday-makers, some walking the GR5 and some too frightened by the rumbling of the thunder within the cloud to continue.

It used to be thought that monsters lived on the tops of mountains, until the British (mostly) turned up in their tweeds with lengths of rope, and hob-nailed boots and puffing on their pipes announced to the local people that they would climb up to the top and would be looking for guides to help them. The fools.

And now the mountains are full of fools, some much less foolish than others but all waiting to take their place in line and climb ... and I'm one of them.

Friday - waiting for the storm to hit...

2009-07-19T18:34:00.001+02:00

Wednesday - A view from the office window...

2009-07-19T18:33:00.003+02:00

Over the past week or so I have been painting the balcony on a chalet in the mountains and the heavy clouds that built up during the accompanying heatwave had a beautiful effect on the light.

Montreux Jazz Festival... 2009

2009-07-10T08:29:00.006+02:00

Off to Montreux Jazz Festival tomorrow night for the freebie stuff, that's to say swilling draught Swiss beer from plastic cups while listening to one of several high-school bands from USA playing Glen Miller or Benny Goodman classics, other compositions, maybe their own, and watch the odd solo effort by an enormous kid, the size of a small elephant in a school uniform...

Usually though, these high school or university jazz bands are excellent. There's even one or two from the UK this year, so we'll pop along and have a listen...

But the middle weekend is dedicated to all things Brazilian, although less football more music. And a lot of very good looking slim brown skinned women in shorts or tiny skirts and a bikini top often made out of the Brazilian national flag. Saturday night is Brazilian Night with capital letters and the samba bands, the salsa bands and almost anyone with either a trumpet, that they are half good at, or congas, timbales (bongos as I collectively call them), will be out there in the balmy evening park air playing along too.

Sometimes the resulting discordant noise can be a bit much, but as No.2 son's girlfriend is Brazilian and currently living with us, we thought we'd go ensemble if you will and see how it's really done... In addition to that, her percussion teacher is flying in from Brazil and will be appearing at the Jazz Café so I might go along as a groupie.

in the meantime I thought I'd post a picture of some characters I spotted at the festival a few years ago... a couple of curly haired, very bearded American chaps with a nice line in head scarves...

Monet's garden - Giverney...

2009-07-09T09:01:00.007+02:00

A couple of weeks ago, I found I had a free weekend... the only one before October, which, while something to enjoy, I also found frustrating that I have let work take over to the degree that I cannot be away from here for more than a few days at a time... And I am beginning to get itchy feet and thinking about moving south. I want somewhere without 6 or 7 months of winter to pay for each year. 2 or 3 months of heating bills will be quite enough.

And ground work needs to be done... where to move to, and how much could we muster?

Nevertheless, I left home at 2.45pm one Friday towards the end of June and got to Mrs. Pondlife's office at 4pm, and off we went. After seething in a traffic jam on the auroroute in the Jura for an hour we pushed the pedal to the metal and drove north towards Paris and Normandie picking up two speeding tickets on the way (they arrived chez nous two days after we did), and eventually found our way to our humble tumble down medieval B&B.

The following day Monet's garden awaited.

I had wanted to visit this place for a good many years; it was just never that high up on the list.

It was however, magical.

Reflections...

2009-07-08T13:26:00.001+02:00

So what's happened to summer??

2009-07-08T11:06:00.006+02:00

Last week as Wimbledon sweltered under blue skies and a relentless sun, it seemed, for a while that summer was well and truly here. We had fun and laughs watching the overweight tennis fans in appalling Union Flag sleeveless sports tops stretched over ample girth, fanning themselves with a programme or sitting with a sweater pulled over the head.

Oh! How we laughed. The weather boys and weather girls had forecast sunshine and warm, warm weather but still these dopes hadn't listened. No bottled water or sun hats for them.

Here it was no better.

Did I learn anything from what I saw and heard last week concerning the weather?

Did I hell....

I carried on, blow torch in hand burning off layer upon layer of paint on a chalet's balcony rail, overlooking a beautiful mountain valley, and off I went at the weekend to do other scheduled jobs. And so it rained. And rained. The stripped and sanded wood taking on a new tint as the rainwater hit and stained it. Bugger.

Now, Wednesday and the skies are covered with a chill thick layer of rain heavy cloud, the breeze from the north chilly. Somehow it always seems to be like this early July. Will I remember for next year? Probably not.

Back by public demand --- Coco Rose in a Coriander Pesto (heaven...)

2009-07-08T11:01:00.004+02:00

I was looking for something to do with some Borlotti beans or Coco Rose beans, and the basil growing on the balcony and I thought ...

" I know..."

So here again (first published 12 August 2008) is an orgasmic recipe that you might like... and I'm going to do if for dindins tonite.

Pod yer Cocos Rose (Borlotti beans...) cook 'em wiv an onion impregnated wiv a girofle; clove to you... and a peeled carrot...

when cooked, remove from heat and strain off the liquid... let the beans cool...

Meanwhile get a mixer and stick a large bunch of coriander in it, and give it a blast. Add some shaved garlic cloves, some pecorino cheese grated, or parmesan, and some pine kernels; about 50 grams or so... Jamie Oliver would tell you to warm them first... then drizzle...lovely word...about a glass, of olive oil in it, and season with some salt and fresh ground pepper. Mix it all together and you'll have the most orgasmic coriander pesto...

Then, having soaked some dried raisons in warm water for about 20 minutes, drain them and add to the beans in a large salad bowl. Chop up the cooked carrot and onion and add to the beans as well. Chop finely, one or two red onions and add them. Keep back a few thin strips of red onion to add as decoration.

Add the coriander pesto to the beans and mix well. I think they look good in separate earthenware bowls with a bit of red onion stickin' out...

But you know the rest. Just enjoy.

Note the date... lest we forget.

2009-06-17T17:23:00.001+02:00

I quite like green...

2009-06-17T13:10:00.003+02:00

Sometimes there are days when work just has to be left undone, and only a hike in the mountains will suffice...

Not that I cannot hike without me iPod playing Waka Jawaka but the missus complains when I play that at home, amongst others...

Peonies & Sushi...

2009-06-15T13:35:00.002+02:00

More an amuse geule.....

Nijo - jo Castle gardens, Kyoto

2009-06-13T13:08:00.007+02:00

The colours of spring in Japan, the mix of textures of the foliage leave me breathless and I decide that maybe I should put away the camera...

And take out the sketch pad, pencils, watercolours, the tiny easel, the small pot of water, the folding chair from my canvas shoulder bag; bought from the Tate Modern gift shop of course, and...

Try and capture the beauty of the symbol used on the shirts of the Japan Rugby team...

Until I am transfixed by the complex petal pattern of the cherry blossoms that we thought we'd missed... only then to be defeated by the well positioned sign...

Bet Banksy never 'ad this problem...

Writing with Light...

2009-06-13T12:50:00.006+02:00

From infinity by Shinkansen to Himeji...and it's castle, made famous by appearing in countless movies of samurai and ninja, storming up it's seemingly endless steps...

But inside, and high in the roof, the last bastion to be defended is the coolest of chambers, the old wooden floor shiny and squeaky - a nightingale floor; so called so that intruders could easily be heard.

I love the light reflecting the frame upon the floor...

Last Night's Sunset Through The Rain

2009-06-10T22:00:00.003+02:00

There are times,

When I wonder

Why...

I ever bought

A television.

Never doubted buying a Leica...

More Bonsai Photos *

2009-06-10T13:17:00.007+02:00

There was no evidence that a fork lift truck had entered the house in order to position the bonsai, and so I imagine that it was a small army of gardeners, or an army of small gardeners... brought in to do the job. The person walking to the right was a 'normal' sized Japanese woman in her middle age, and I did not ask her name although she did say, Hello....

This was about 6 foot tall or so, 1m83-ish

These were both much smaller again, about 3 foot or so, a metre tall.

Some were exquisite, and their perfume filled the house. Glad I don't suffer from asthma, or hayfever...

The interior walls as in most tradionally designed Japanese house can slide so as to be moved to enlarge or to make smaller, a room. Some of these sliding walls are easily removed entirely.

This specimen was probably no taller than about 1 metre including the size of the pot...

And then.... when I needed to find a loo, I slid open one wall panel/door and found myself in the most beautiful little calm zen garden built between the house I was visiting and the house next door. A tranquil little space, not wasted, in which to chew the fat, chew to cud or just go, "Omm" in, with the neighbours...

* Due to enormous public demand....

In praise of tourist offices...

2009-06-05T10:01:00.002+02:00

Grasping a guidebook the Gaijin & his girl get off at the gare and grab a cab...

Under arm, in hand the tomes plain to see, Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Fodor or Cadogan; there should be a guide to guidebooks.

Does no-one use Tourist Offices anymore?

We are now in an age when tourists refuse to be tourists. What me a tourist? Heavens no, dear boy! Me, I'm a traveller. I do it all meself, on the Net. But the Tourist Office always sits there waiting for someone to walk in and ask, that is all just ask... They await you with a smile and maybe something else a little special....

But us? We had our Lonely Planet guide and arriving in Nara off the local train service from Kyoto we needed to find an ATM for yet more yen before we could do much else. We could not see where we were on the map in the guidebook and, bizarrely, as the Japanese seem to print maps upside down, the plan of the town erected by a wall on the pavement was no real help either.

"There's a tourist office," Mrs Pondlife said helpfully. "We'll ask in there." In we go - Hello, we're travellers you know, not tourists but we need to find an ATM.

Welcomed by a smiling woman at the counter she greets us in English, reaches for a map and indicates where we are, the location of the nearest International ATM and then asks where we are from? France I reply as Mrs Pondlife says, we are English. It always confuses. Do they mean where are you from or what is your nationality? Not necessarily the same thing.

But no matter, after explanations that take seconds and card filling for management feedback, she looks at us and asks,

"Do you like bonsai?"

Yes, I blurt and tell her I have a few at home. No not in Engrand, but Flance. She moves aside and takes a bright coloured flyer off a shelf and gives it to us and marks on the map she has in front of her, a cross.

"Here is bonsai. Wisteria, in private house. Free to foreigner. She gives me another flyer and the map and after prolonged thanks and bowing, we walk out into the sunshine and follow her directions to the private house, with open gates, and smiling owner gesturing us to enter. We are the only gaijin there and for the next hour we walk in our socks with Japanese visitors and a film crew, marvelling at the most beautiful bonsai'd wisteria imaginable...

Breathtaking in their perfume, staggering in their strength of trunk holding cascading shapes of the most beautiful blossoms, we walk from room to room fascinated.

If we hadn't entered that Tourist Office, we'd never have found this. It isn't in the guidebook.

Travel with a good guide books by all means, but don't forget the local Tourist Office which is usually free...

Ryoan-ji, Kyoto. A zen garden.

2009-06-03T22:47:00.005+02:00

Once upon a time my darling wife and I drove 'ell for leather across the southern French countryside towards the chateau once owned by the Marquis de Sade...

Some years earlier we had made a similar journey to the roman arena in Arles...

Some years later it was the turn of the Colosseum in Rome...

And then on a whim we drove north from here to take the Route de Vin through the golden vineyards of the Alsace, our goal on this occasion was the fantastic square in Nancy, dedicated to some old bugger by another old bugger - but we could never tell as, with the other destinations, the statue, the chateau, the monument, the zen garden - was covered in scaffolding. A pointless waste of our time apart perhaps from having the golden nectar of an Alsace wine slipping down the gullet...or the chance to ride the Shinkansen and eat from a bento box at the same time; but the tourist offices never advise that the intended glimpse of some far off splendour will be if not obliterated, then certainly spoilt, by scaffolding.

As it was to be at Ryoan-ji in Kyoto. A pilgrimmage to a place of study and contemplation awaited for so many years...

In we go and .... bollocks... completely covered by scaffolding and tarpaulins...

Yer gotta laugh though, haven't you?

A Part of Japan; Koya-san

2009-05-09T19:02:00.006+02:00

The pilgrim waits for the Buddhist priest to beautifully write an entry in the record of the pilgrimage confirming this as a legitimate stop on the pilgrim's way...

Having done so, the pilgrim can continue until a time when he or she hopes the ash remains of the mortal part can reside here in Koya-san

Home from Japan

2009-05-05T08:53:00.002+02:00

Somewhere over Northern Russia

Japan...

2009-04-14T23:20:00.002+02:00

I thought this was like some Japanese script... some vertical zen-like squiggles that could be a haiku.

I'm beginning to fulfill a dream. I have wanted to visit Japan for many years now and the opportunity has not presented itself; until now.

Tomorrow to Paris, then to Tokyo, then onward to Fujiyama and eventually Kyoto and Takayama. Zen gardens and temples await.

But I can't...

Aurèle's Risotto...

2009-04-13T08:52:00.004+02:00

And this works.....

1 volume of Carnaroli or Arborio rice... to 3 volumes of good stock... chop up a load of garlic and an onion... sweat 'em out. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Turn heat down immediately and simmer for 15 minutes. Leave the pot sitting for at least 5 minutes.

Check the rice is al dente. Give it a stir... and it should be perfect... it was for us last night.

I grabbed a bag of huge lumps of Porcini/Ceps from the freezer and put them straight into a pan as the instructions said, without any added oil or butter until all the moisture had evaporated. I even put them into a non-stick pan but still they stuck. Dried and rehydrated mushrooms will always be best. Then I added some olive oil and a small clove of peeled garlic and a handful of finely chopped parsley.

I served the mushrooms beside the risotto rice and sprinkled some freshly grated parmesan on the rice.

Bloody great. It was and none of this standing there for forty minutes stirring it until yer arm goes numb....

Aurèle said this is how the Italians do it, and he should know, his parents emigrated here from Italy in 1919, and that was the cooking he was brought up with...

Mijoter....(the best word in the French language...)

2009-04-12T23:38:00.005+02:00

There are some days when things just don't go to plan... Thursday 10 April was one of those days. Went to plant some new bushes at a client's chalet, took a little longer than I had hoped and got finished by 12.30pm and home for a bite, a shower, grab passport, the travel documents and at 14.30 jump into the van to go to Geneva and find an office of JTB to buy a couple of exchange orders for Japan Rail passes for when we jet off on Wednesday. and the van broke down. Called OJ who came to pick me up, left the van and drove to the nearest rail station. Next train 16.08 change Annemasse, arrive Geneva 17.00 or so, find some Swiss change, catch a tram into Cornavin, walk down Rue de Lausanne and get to the offices and manage to buy the ticket seconds before they closed the shop... and just then Mrs Pondlife enters...

What obliging efficient people and a great first introduction to the Japanese who could not have been more helpful.

After the rush I needed a beer and across the street was Les Brasseurs for L'agave au citron vert...wonderful. What the hell is Agave? Luckily Mrs Pondlife had driven into work that day and so the car was parked below the station and off we went relieved that Easter would not be full of worry due to bad timing of arranging our own travel plans...

Feeling hungry? How about perch and chips on the way home? Fresh out the lake. Well, not the chips of course, they'd be soggy.

I know a little place. Anthy. Les Pieds Dans L'Eau ?

Fabulous sunset...

Feels like holiday time...

Not quite infinity...

2009-04-03T22:35:00.002+02:00

A different kind of Boat Race

2009-04-03T22:30:00.003+02:00

Winter relaxed its grip and the part of the world that is here played in the spring sunshine of April Fool's day...

The swan won.

Spring Melt in noir et blanc

2009-03-23T09:01:00.004+01:00

Le Philosophe - Drageur

2009-03-20T17:43:00.005+01:00

With the shutters firmly fastened closed, the philosophe drageur bends slightly to reach the lock of his small front door, and resplendent in his shiny black veste-en-cuir bought cheaply at the Thursday market, removes his brown stained hand rolled cigarette and coughs into his Ford Mondeo, starts the engine lets it warm before moving off and proceeds down the hill to his usual cotie of philosophical friends smoking and coughing over myriad empty cups stained by bitter black coffee.

They sit in the warm March early afternoon sunshine that has now peeked over the buildings opposite for the past two weeks. The air is still cold in the shade while around the small of the back remains cool but the sun is beginning its warming arc in earnest, and the vuarnets, the raybans, police and cheapo copies are being flicked open from the breast pockets and planted fully on the face, some even being allowed to slip easily from the slicked back dark hair where they have rested all winter.

He doesn't work. He collects his unemployment or odd jobs-noir when he has to, when the social cheques stop. His circle of older women, with the dried, stained, sagging skin of the chain smoker; not pretty but with needs, look after his; both liquide and physical. He is frugal. He distrusts. The business down the road past the traffic lights is a voleur! They charge lots to do what he can, but they train youngsters, they have premises to pay for and taxes and social charges to keep the less fortunate from being further unfortunate.

They will feed him, they will buy his coffee, and they will sleep with him because no one wants to sleep with them, and he has his uses. He can erect a table as well as himself, he can put up a shelf and mend their cars, and then for a short while he will mend their broken dreams and put an end to their own small sadnesses but continue his own...

Sometimes when the women are not at hand, he has a pretty young man call upon him, and often the shutters will close firmly and the house closes down, only for the young man to remove his foreign car away the following day.

He watched quietly as my young man son strode home in his homey gear one winter day, wrapped against the wind, heaving a pack of beer. In the dull dusky light of an end of January day, he did not see me standing in the doorway in the shadow of the overhanging roof. There was longing in his lined lustful face. Not all of which were filled by the tanned tone of the new men's range...

Down in the town the tactics change, the café on the flank shielded from attack by the winds from the north, provide the warm wall to laze against, and wonder when to start the interested interrogation of the pretty black bobbed girl; her sleeves drawn up to her shoulders to start her tanning early. All about are wrapped in coats and scarves, some are gloved and hatted against the cold wind whipping across the water of the lake below.

And later, much later, the sound of a motor car reversing back into the small parking bay below the balcony announces his return with a small plastic bag of groceries for one.

The philosphe-drageur returns to his loneliness. Until tomorrow...

England 34, France 10

2009-03-17T10:27:00.002+01:00

I had predicted that this 6 Nations tournament would see England beating only Italy.

I was sure that Ireland and Wales would beat us as indeed they did. The scores suggested games closer than in truth they were, but now I'm beginning to think, well, maybe they were closer than I previously thought, but no, England playing Ireland were crap. Ireland were not at their inventive spoiling best and we should have had a scoreline that showed the real difference....

And then came France. They are a paradoxical team. I thought we would have our noses rubbed in the dirt and, living here in France, fully expected to be on the receiving end of a bit of friendly French leg pulling.

I didn't see it coming.

The neighbours must have heard our shouts and cries of glee, our loud table thumping cheers and the knock upon the door after 40 minutes was half hearted to say the least, when a French neighbour arrived with a bottle of red, and entered with his daughter to sit down and watch the 2eme mi-temps with us.

29 nil and half time...

The kitchen table was covered in empty stubby bottles of Grimbergen, Leffe blonde, Carlsberg and Fischer from the Alsace; the bowls of peanuts and chips were empty... the red wine poured, I was glad it wasn't my turn to cook Sunday dinner...we always dine, we rarely déjeune on a Sunday...

And the end came, with two tries gifted to the French... well no, that isn't strictly true either, they were well worked and consolatory but the end result said 34 -10.

I couldn't believe it. I still can't.

We now have to beat the Scots, and I doubt that Italy will beat the French; they will be on the rebound and pride is at stake... and Ireland ? Who knows? I just hope they stop the Welsh from playing their game and have the steadfastness of mind to hold on, control the game and win the Grand Slam. If they do, I'll buy a bottle of Paddy. I might even go out and buy Le Maillot Vert

As Spring approaches....

2009-03-12T14:19:00.003+01:00

As Spring approaches my thoughts have turned to the the tiny back garden and what to do with it... there is little room for anything other than a small patch of grass and some herbs... so between the two large rambling roses I thought I ought to put a statue or similar...

This gargoyle in a garden in Cheltenham inspires me.

Sunsets ...

2009-03-10T19:42:00.003+01:00

Winter is clinging on and the snow continues to fall while the village is surrounded by thick cloud...

Not a lot of chance to get above the cloud and the wind swirls the flakes...

How I miss the sunsets of early winter's months.

Sublime Soups I Have Slurped

2009-03-06T10:46:00.002+01:00

Bowl;
Steaming
Broth,
Stock,
Bones,
-soup...
Enjoy!

Beef.
Sliced
Black Beans,
Not crushed.
Onions,
Sliced,
Green
Sliced
Peppers

and...

Monosodium Glutomate.

Wondeful... £ 5.70 Chinatown.

Mediocre Meals I Have Masticated

2009-03-06T10:24:00.003+01:00

Slice of gristly dried beef roasted some days before;
Upon which sat, a dollop... of mayonnaise dolloped,
by spoon from factory made boite. Made for dolloping.

quivering lump of fatty veal in a lightbrown thick sauce
from a packet...squeezy mustard and haystack of chips
- salty thin and full of fat...

Processed cheese creamy and plastic in this
fromage fabriquant filled France...

Washed down with wine from vines throughout the
Eeee Youuu in a starneckedbottle -

Bitter coffee finishes the chocolate sickly flan...

€ 12,00

How I wish I had had some chillis instead....

England versus Ireland at Croke Park...

2009-03-02T09:25:00.004+01:00

This is how I felt after England's poor playing against a committed Irish team even with an off-colour Ronan O'Gara missing his kicks at goal.

The horror.

I played rugby at school and college. I loved it. There was for me, no team sport like it. There still isn't. I did not join a club and play after my college days, but now wish I had.

Nevertheless I still love the game and wonder why football/soccer is called the beautiful game. Eleven men, one of whom stays in goal while the remainder split into two unequal units; eight or nine passing to one or two others for a moment of glory. I fail to see the "team" in that. But that is just me. Never liked it or played it, except when I had to at school... but my State school preferred rugby anyway.

Having watched various teams in England over the years, both on the telly, and at the grounds I have enjoyed seeing a running passing game, but somehow it all slows down when England play and the same men who don a white shirt adorned with a rose start to ruck and maul, and forget to run and pass and take risks, and score tries...

It is all very frustrating, and I don't know what to do about it.

I wish we could have played like France played on Friday evening against Wales....

Rugby...

2009-02-27T21:59:00.004+01:00

Sitting here in my France shirt at half time... wondering if England can muster the enthusiasm, the talent and the heart, to play as either the French or the Welsh are this evening...

Somehow I think not.

Good engineers do not necessarily make good managers. Good soldiers do not necessarily make good officers, and as much as I admired Martin Johnson's captaincy of England, and as a lock forward, a World cup winning player; I do not believe he is a good manager or coach and tomorrow will show how far England have slipped in both world rankings and in the minds of their fans.

I hope I am wrong, but, having written that, I think it might be necessary to see another defeat for Will Carling's 57 Old Farts at Twickenham to realise they have to get the best coach available.

Martin Johnson is not the man for the job...

Pit-stop

2009-02-26T22:23:00.003+01:00

One of the pleasures of hiking or skiing hereabouts is the discovery of a small wooden chalet, open and ready to serve passing skiers, hikers and the occasional dog sled team; the warm interior inviting and a decent plate of mountain fodder made mainly with melted cheese served.

A jug of some rouge often goes down well too...

Vallée de la Manche - Morzine.

2009-02-26T22:09:00.006+01:00

We've had a lot of snow as you can see... and probably another metre of the stuff since this was taken.

This is the Vallée de la Manche, near Morzine and the GR5, which passes nearby taking walkers to either the Mediterranean in the south or to Lac Léman and on to Amsterdam for those inclined ... but today this is a randonnée ski up to the Col de Golese. A good three hour ski hike above where the weather closed in and a storm brewed. It took us just 15 minutes to ski down.

A beautiful place for a picnic, sitting on upturned skis and slicing sausage and cheese, and tearing pieces of bread from a baguette.

A great way to spend a day.

2009-02-16T21:46:00.003+01:00

Having renovated an old barn on the edge of the Alps in France, I am often struck by the beauty with which local carpenters and other workers in wood, both amateur and professional use the old and the new side by side. The new rough edged but carefully planed outside planking perfectly complementing the new piece inserted to lift the horizontal rafter above the cross 'poutre'.

One of my main loves living over here is to see that houses are still being built by hand, mostly, and not thrown up, which of course does exist; but individual houses and chalets are still the norm.

I wonder if there is a French verb used in housebuilding in much the same way that Mijoter, is used in cooking...?

Reasons I love London, No 8. an irreverant series of indeterminate number...

2009-02-13T10:21:00.003+01:00

Another of the reasons I love London. You can pop along to Chinatown and have a good meal of razor clams, and duck, and some brilliantly cooked green veggies, some boiled rice or noodles, and some strange cuts of meat in a wonderful broth with whole slices of ginger floating on the top. A pot of tea and ask for the bill, and what you get is a card receipt printed in Chinese.

It would seem that H.M. Revenue & Customs cannot be too bothered about it, so why should I be ?

Moon rise over la maison d'Aurèle

2009-02-13T09:08:00.003+01:00

22 January 2009. A cold and frosty morning; the snow on the hillside behind Aurèle's house clearly visible in the dawn light.

Nice spot.