Driving Home for Christmas
I’m looking at Meteo France weather predictions for Lescun even though I’m sitting in my office 700 miles away, back in England. A number of family and close friend commitments meant that we needed to be home for the month of December. Not that I am absolutely sure where home is any more. The sky has remained a tarnished aluminium since we arrived with scarcely a dash of blue. Back in our other home, however, le grand bleu has reigned supreme since our departure, much to the annoyance of Alf who is now impatient to get skiing. So the first item on my Missing You Already list, despite the fact that I know it is a “now” thing and not an “always” thing and that, in the past, I have revelled in the low sun and the astonishing colours of my English winter… just now I am missing the light. It seems that since arriving we’ve been continually on the the move, sorting things out and visiting those who do not have the capacity to come to us. But the first thing that hit us after the long journey North was the garden. It was a mess and, obviously, the arrangements we’d made hadn’t worked. I’d received a number of fretful emails from my daughter on the subject but I’d chosen not to involve myself as managing people from a distance is never a good idea. She had been right, though, with the result that we’ve spent a lot of time in the garden carrying out remedial work. I suppose, though, it is exercise of a sort - something we’re not getting as much of away from the mountains. And yes, I do feel a physical ache for the blood-pumping stubborn effort required to get us up, sometimes, a thousand metres of altitude… not quite ready yet to ease into the comfy slippers and on to the daytime sofa, tempting though it occasionally seems. Second item on the list, then - “exercise”. So, that’s the garden? And what about “Gardens”? One of our trips to friends trips took us to Pembroke and Picton Castle where we strolled briefly around a very soggy, out of season, landscape. It was, perhaps, the worst possible day to visit, yet there were still plants in bloom with vestiges of summer and autumn splendour but, most of all, the spirit of the British Garden. The Australians do it, the South Africans do it, the Japanese certainly do it but we do it really well. Earlier in the year, for example, the town of Beaminster and the Village of Netherbury, both in Dorset, hosted their “Open Gardens” weekend, where grand and humble plots were made accessible to the public and, I have to say that the level of horticultural excellence at grass (or maybe herbaceous border) root level are beyond compare. At home, visiting gardens whether they be small amateur plots of the grand affairs of Forde Abbey, Rosemoor or Stourhead has been an important part of our lives. And though the French have a go, they don’t come within a million miles of the creativity and knowhow of Brown or Lloyd or Jekyll. And you know what, if I were young, I might just see that as a business opportunity. So, just to start loading the other side of the scales, I will plonk “gardens” into the “What I Miss About Home” side of the equation. The trip back had seemed more tiring than usual, even though we had broken the journey by visiting friends in Brittany. The time of year, I think, is the major factor with much more driving having to be done in the dark and, regrettably, my vision is not as keen as it used to be. Of corse, nothing is as it used to be but my simple philosophy of carry on doing it for as long as possible seems to pay off. So, for example, the more I keep climbing mountains the longer I feel I will be able, with a bit of luck, to continue. It’s when we say “I can’t be bothered with that today…” that the rot starts to set in.