Not the average holiday activity

This was the second time M&B came to Argelès from the States. I’ve known him for decades and it is approaching a decade when she entered his life and I met her at Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, MA.

He reminds me of my parents' habit of talking to strangers. The fact his French is minimal is only a blip for him.

On the unseasonably cold and windy Sunday night the three of us were the only diners at La P’etite Pause, a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Haute Savoie: tarteflettes, fondues, etc. Nadine, the owner-chef, was training a new waitress and we began talking in French, English, Franglais. She described how she had done much of the reconstruction work herself and how she planned eventually to add a mural of her beloved Mont Blanc. Before B’s wife and I knew it he had volunteered to do create the mural of her dreams. I was pressed into service as translator to make sure she got what she wanted. A day was set aside for the work (eat your heart out Michelangelo.)

An adventure to find a new art supply store was followed with prayers of thanks offered for the good road signage that is a French specialty.

B painted for 12 hours, plied with coffee and food to keep up his strength.

Nadine didn’t quite believe it. It was unheard of that an American artist would appear at her table then add her dream to a wall and not accept money. She insisted we have an inauguration, an unveiling. Within 48 hours a fête was organized attended by locals, vendors, tourists and friends. Best dress was rolled out as were delicacies from the region and party was on.

As the last person Nadine whispered to me that this was a gift from heaven, but not only that when late at night she walked by the mural illuminated only by the moon through the window, it looked just like the real Mont Blanc did in the moon light from her childhood bedroom window.

And although we visited local sites, ate at good restaurants, talked with people together, and although they beached and biked, painting a mural is definitely not the average vacation pass time, but maybe the world would be just a bit better if it were.

Soap has been around since 2800 BC when fats and ash were mixed together. The first trace was found in Babylonia. Early soaps were harsh nothing like the choices we can find today.

Argelès has increased those choices with a new savonerie, the brain child of a young local woman who wasn’t interested in taking a regular job. For the past few years she has made her own soap selling it at art fairs. This year she opened her own shop offering some of the most imaginative soaps I’ve ever seen. Thin tubes, soap necklaces combined with beads, soap wafers that can be stacked like cookies, all types of fragrances, colours and shapes are on offer. In this photo her father runs one of the machines behind the counter producing spaghetti soap. What a delight to be able to find an item so pretty, and so useful while taking my buy locally efforts to even new heights.

And when I suds up in the shower I have a memory of the pleasure of being in an adorable shop, trying to choose between one pretty thing or another, supporting an individual rather than some anonymous shareholder.

A new man in my life

I’ve a new man in my life, but he doesn’t like to pose for photos so his cute little face doesn’t show. Mostique or Mosquito. He belongs to Nadine, owner and chef at La P’etite Pause. Because she is too busy often to walk him, I have taken on the project, not daily but several times a week. There’s something lovely about walking a dog when you don’t have to. Meanwhile he checks out each leaf and twig his tail wagging happily. Like a grandmother I can enjoy him and give him back.

I once owned a share in this 18th century house and am only sorry that I couldn’t afford to buy it, but not enough to need counselling over. Because it is now owned by a favourite Dane who rents to other favourite Danes, I am often a visitor so I haven’t lost it at all. It is still there.

One of the renters invited Barbara, another Danish neighbour and me to dinner plus their daughter. The hosts filled two bowls full of shrimp. They added a tomato salad drizzled with oil and coated with finely chopped fresh basil.
What was really nice was the kitchen table where we were eating had been in the house when we bought it. The new owner keeps it, along with the pig head sculpture holding up a beam on the first floor.

You can probably measure the table’s age by its need for refinishing, but I measure it by memories: Playing cards, eating, snapping beans, my mom sitting with a bowl of hot herbs inhaling to open her cold-congested sinuses, reading, talking, holding hands, brushing out my daughter’s wet hair, looking at photos, doing puzzles, etc.

And a couple of new memories were added with the varied conversation that night. We ended the meal by ambling over to La Place de la Republique for coffee (and a tisane for me).
The grandson of the host had not been interested in sitting and eating. He rode his bike throughout the evening, stopping to peek in the window in the photo while we on the other side talked boring (in his point of view) adult stuff.

Adding memories to memories...

Yuck

On the Fourth of July potential new citizens went to a Disney Park to take their oath of office. Having seen a Disney presentation on how the PR people co-op all types of events for free publicity, I was filled with disgust.

Becoming a citizen of a country one is not born into is an honour and a privilege that carries with it rights and responsibilities. It is not to be bought and sold for free TV exposure.

I thought back to my wonderful oath-taking for my Swiss nationality in a historic building going back centuries. The ceremony was filled with the pageantry reflecting the country I had chosen and who had chosen me.

The America I grew up with has been whittled away, not just by this current president, but by corporations that has turned us from citizens into consumers.

What could be more telling of this transformation than to have new citizens take their oath in a corporate environment? Will one day the pledge of allegiance be rewritten to say “I pledge allegiance to (fill in the name of the corporation) and to the consumption for which it stands, one credit card under God with debt for all?

Kiwi Steals Extra Flying Time

Kiwi and Cocoa waited for their handlers to release them from their cage for their part in the Argelès Eagle show. They knew from the hubbub of voices that the green wooden seats surrounding the grassy performance arena were filled.

Then they were carried to their perches ready for take off and take off they did, swooping to the ahhhhs of crowd.
The day was perfect with blue, blue skies and thermals that carried them to their dreams.

All too soon, it was over and their handler whistled for them. Cocoa, always obedient, landed on the MC’s gloved hand to be put away.

Not today, thought Kiwi. She would come close to the handler, who was a great person as persons go, always having an extra treat for her and a caress when she flew

well.

Today she wanted to fly longer, to see the white walls of the Valmy castle, the scrub pines on the mountains, the sea. Let her handler whistle as much as he liked. Let him call her name. Let him hold up a treat. She was going to fly, fly, fly.

The next act came on and the next. The grouchy bald Eagle flapped and pandered to the crowd, as did the vultures with their necks tucked back. Kiki flew around watching, but tried not to upstage them. There were rules she wasn’t going to break. Also she didn’t want to hear them carping at her when they were all back in their roomy cages.

The dozen storks were airborn and performed their synchronized ballet high overhead before descending slowly, sticking out their legs for a smooth landing.

The show ended. Her handler was using the swinging bag trick, a long rope with a ball of meat on the end. Now, she thought, I will play his game. She would soar in but not take the bait and fly away.

A few of the audience remained watching. Kiwi loved the attention.

Finally her handler sent the ball of meat airborne…okay…that was it. She knew when she grabbed it, he would let her eat and then come and put her back in her cage. He wouldn’t be nasty, but happy to have her back. Playing hard to get was a good strategy. Kept her handler on his toes. Kiwi grabbed the meat and flew with it to the far corner of the field and ate as her handler approached.

Back in her cage Cocoa asked if she had a good time.

“Fantastic.” But she knew she didn’t want to be a wild bird. Life was too uncertain out in the wild. Here a cage kept her safe from predators, she had all the food she could eat, Cocoa’s company, and an occasional extra flying time. Yup! Life was fantastic here in Argelés.

Some thoughts on windows

The houses on my street were built somewhere in the 1600s with little distance between them. My attic loft looks out across the way to a house now owned by a Danish film maker. Much of the year the house is empty, but as soon as someone comes in I suddenly need to be more modest as I run from shower to closet.

However, there is an advantage. In an era of emails and telephones, much of the conversation to people in the house is window to window not unlike a TV program from years ago where Molly Goldberg and her New York neighbour talked through their tenement windows. Over the years, I have chatted in this way with misc. tenants from the Danish entertainment industry, artists, a French-American child and friends of mine that I have installed in the house because my space is too small to put my guests for a long time.

But at least two weeks a year, the communications become special. There’s a little Danish boy, a special needs child, who spends his holiday in the house and sleeps in the room with the window opposite mine.

Over the years as he visits his development has produced tears of happiness as he exceeds all expectations given his parents when he was born. He has grown into a lovely pre-teen.

We have a routine, established on his original visit, where he says good night to me before the shutters close for the night and good morning as soon as they open.

Although he speaks no English and my Danish is less than minimal, our sign language has gotten more complicated over the years. I do understand when he calls to me, and I never fail to go and wave. And then big smiles don’t need language skills.

A few years ago a French friend climbed out a window because she was bored with using doors. Sometimes windows open to more than the outdoors.

Good Neighbours and Black Thumbs

My street is considered one of the most beautiful because of the flowers in pots and vines. For years when I spent summers in Geneva with only the rare weekend in Argelès, I didn’t hold up my part in creating the beauty.

Then I bought two blue ceramic pots. Over the last few years I have planted and watched die a number of plants to the despair of my green-thumbed Catalan neighbours who give me lots of advice.

When I arrived for my holiday this year, I found one of the pots had been replanted with one little seedling and rocks placed around it to keep Bianca and Lola, the neighbourhood cats, from considering the pot a kitty litter box. The leaves had spread. My next door neighbour, a Catalan gentleman, so in love with his wife of 50 years that he makes her breakfast in bed every morning, proudly told me how he had rooted it.

The other pot held pansies, which slowly wilted as the season progressed. I had planned to buy more flowers for it, but was waiting.

Little Mrs. Martinez, part of another Catalan couple, had been keeping a flowering plant for me, when I went back to Geneva. Leaving it alone in my flat for the time I would have been gone would have been a death sentence, although it seems any plants I have lately tend to give new meaning to the phrase bite the dust.

Yesterday I came down and found the plant happily in my pot, the sad pansies swept away to some plant purgatory.

Senor and Senora Martinez had big smiles on their faces. I only have a couple of more weeks before I go back to Geneva. I hope I can live up to their expectations and keep everything alive until then when they will take over.

I have heard from others that they say behind my back they still hope to teach me how to be a proper gardener and that except for my lack of skill, I am still a nice person. They are nice people, nice neighbours who accept me and my black thumbness

Citizens not Consumers

I suspected after 9/11 when Bush told people to go shopping that American citizens had been reduced to consumers whose function was not to maintain their democracy but the economy at the price of the democracy. Democracy more and more seems to be equated to the out-of- control capitalism that is ruining the planet and millions of lives around the world.

The people lined up to buy the new iPhone seems to bear this theory out. First that it should even make a news story is a bit bizarre considering all the things that are going on in Congress, Iraq and with the environment. (I was cheered when a major newscaster didn’t give in to the Paris Hilton drivel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdNcCcweL0)

One man on the iPhone story was quoted as saying “I need an iPhone.” Well maybe he does, but what America needs is less consumers and more citizens who line up to fight for habeus corpus, against torture, universal health care, an end to private military armies, an end to Iraq, an end to the School of Americas, etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc. not to line up to purchase a phone.

Raw, naked love

The baby sat in the push chair, one hand holding his bare foot, the other on the bar that also held three plastics disks in blue, pink and green, which he ignored. He must have been around nine months. His face wore the innocence you see of children on Christmas cards.

The street was more or less deserted for it was Sunday night and the green grocer’s, fishmonger, jewellery shop and book store had been closed since noon. People in the apartments above the stores had their televisions on. Bits and pieces of the programs drifted down to the narrow sidewalk. No cars were driving by in the late summer evening light.

Three teenagers surrounded the baby and all four were engrossed in a game. The teens would take turns taking the pacifier out of the baby’s mouth and then put it back in. Each time the baby laughed opening his mouth to receive the gift. His face showed no doubt it would arrive and when it did he gave a few sucks only to let another hand swoop down and he would drop it and the routine would begin again.

The teenagers were all intrigued speaking in low soothing voices to the baby. They were part of a bond of enjoyment.

What I found delightful was that all three teens were boys, one with a tattoo, two with earrings, all dressed in jeans and T-shirts that showed muscles that did not hide tenderness nor did any act like they wanted to cover up their raw, naked love.

La Fête de St. Jean

The origins of the fête de St. Jean goes back to the pagan celebration of the summer solstice paying homage to light and hope. The Christians (as they were want to do) co-opted it during the reign of Clovis, the early French king 481-511. A little thing like a new religion shouldn’t spoil a good party should it?

It is still celebrated throughout francophone regions of Europe and North America. I don’t ever want to miss the one in Argelès. Pictures don’t really capture the feelings, the music, the steady beat of the drums but this is the best I can do.

The village children, dressed in the Catalan yellow and orange, all march into the square with their faggots to help build the fire. They carry yellow and orange sticks to beat to the music.

The choir, dressed in traditional Catalan costumes, serenade the crowd before the dancing starts while everyone waits for darkness (around 22:15)

St. Jean watches the festivities. At least 18 feet high he will lead the parade into the square when the flame is brought down from the top of Mount Canigou to light the bonfire and he will join the dancing crowd.

The bonfire that is lit with the flame is encircled by women and men doing the Sardana. This tradition is so much a part of the Catalan tradition with its not-so-simple three steps right three steps left, hands clasped and raised and lowered, that Franco forbid it, seeing the sense of unity it gave the dancers as a threat to his government.

The cobla, a small group of musicians accompanying the dance with a selection of brass instruments and lead by the flaviol a type of flute whilst the tambourine sets the rhythm, whines through the sound system as the bonfire snaps and crackles and threatens to catch the banners hanging above.

The fête organizers hand out sweet biscuits, Muscat and Banyuls, the local aperitifs.
A dozen drummers approach from outside the square, their beat growing stronger and stronger. The organizers encourage the people to move back to allow the Societé des les diables et les socieres to do their work.

The centre is enflamed with men and women dressed as jesters, witches, devils and one man with a Mohawk in loose yellow pants and bare shoulders. They dance with huge sparklers some throwing their sparks twenty to thirty feet as they skip and turn and circle and counter circle and jump and circle and the drums beat, the drums, the drumsm the drums...

A dragon is lit and he dances and circles with the others and the drums and the drums and the drums… (you must look closely to make out the jester and the dragon)

For almost a half hour the spectacle continues until the air in the centre is yellow from the fireworks surrounding the performers. Then the fireworks stop but the drums continue and the crowd joins in dancing and circling. We are touched by the primitive hidden inside us all.

The bonfire has died down, but the sun that lit the torch lovingly carried down the mountain during the day, will rise in the morning shining on the fields outside the village ripening the grapes, the olives, the vegetables, giving strength to the livestock.

Summer has arrived.

The House ALMOST Acts Against SOA

Sometimes I am so proud to be from Massachusetts. Jim McGovern, a MA Dem. Congressman proposed an amendment to the Foreign Operations and Appropriations Bill to close the school of Americas. The 61-year “school” has trained Latin Americans in torture and other techniques that the US government says they don’t do.

According to School of the Americas Watch http://www.soaw.org/ and other sources its graduates were responsible for the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador; the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero; and the massacre of 14-year-old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos, and six Jesuit priests in El Salvador; among hundreds of other human rights abuses. And some of the successful graduates were tyrants: Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzar Suarez of Bolivia.

Sadly 214 members of Congress (not mine, I checked) decided to keep funding in place. It does not make me proud of the blue passport that I hide in shame.

However, the school may close on its own as Latin American countries withdraw from the school. Costa Rica was the latest.

My street

Yes, I have a new toy and even as a non techie I am bursting with pride that I learned to upload this stuff. I have often said how pretty my street is.

Now I can show it.

Shar pei tomatoes

It’s not their real name but a couple of years ago they started appearing at the green grocers and during the marchés. Naturally it was necessary to taste and they are far superior to normal super market tomatoes. Only recently have I learned that they are part of a project where farmers use old seed from produce no longer grown in an attempt to recreate the food of yesterday. Of course GM produce is still forbidden and any imported GM foods must be labelled.

Meanwhile I will continue to buy fresh, locally grown, unmodified fruits and vegetables not just because it is eco friendly, but because they taste so wonderful even when the skin of my tomatoes resembles a Chinese puppy. So bring out the fresh basil and the locally pressed olive oil a bit of salt and pepper...

TIme Suspended

The Fête de musique is not just in Argelés but throughout many European countries. In Geneva groups play in the stations, the street corners and parks free. The concert halls are filled.

Here in Argéles it is no different. The Ecole de Musique with its brick building at La Place de Republique had had concerts all this week with different types of music including gospel and jazz.

The first summer street dance with a live band was held last night. Tourists and natives intermingles on the marble slab centre that earlier in the day had held automobiles. The restaurant had extra tables under the trees where they served wine, pastis, beer having cleared away earlier diners.

Dancers of all ages swiredl by. Some women wore dresses with full, flouncy skirts. Others wore shorts. Children twisted through the dancers, their laughter mixing with the woman singer.

It was there I found one of the Danish couples for the first time. I knew they had returned. This is a village and people say… “I and K are back.” Their progress up the street had been recounted so many times, I wondered if they had been cloned into several couples.

I had already talked to their daughter out our facing windows. She has a week of freedom before her son arrives.

These are my favourite weeks in the village, not that I don’t love the other times, but it is truly a vacation mode. I can hear my daughter saying “Vacation HAH” the same way she says “Retirement HAH” because I don’t stop writing during this period.

The longest day has come and gone and we are now heading toward the darkest, but not before we have many long summer nights in cafés, listening to music and talking to people of all nationalities. We all have other lives elsewhere but this becomes a temps suspendu in a way. We are carried into a special place of friendship, laughter, good food and muic.

The snore source

I woke in the middle of the night to loud, loud snoring. I am alone in my flat. Perhaps I had dreamed it, I thought as I made a trip to the loo. Even with the door closed the rattle penetrated the wood.

If someone had broken in they wouldn’t take a nap, and in a studio there is no place to hide.

I walked to the window. The house across the street is almost in handshake distance. Four hundred years ago when the houses were built this was normal.

This particular house is owned by Danes and is usually rented to Danes. As I get to know them we often make plans by chatting window to window. When Alexander stays I am part of his morning routine. Although he is a budding teenage, a birth accident has left him much younger. He will be here next week and I look forward to our greetings.

This week the house is occupied by yet another Danish couple, and like the others, they are drop dead beautiful. I suspect the owner makes beauty a rental requirement.

But the window was the source of the noise. I closed the window, went back to bed with a pillow over my heard, grateful, that as handsome as the man was, he belonged to the woman and not to me.

46 mpg

The G8 clowns postured about global warming. Some nations like Sweden and Iceland are acting seriously and are hoping to be carbon neutral within the next 20 years. Some states in the US are pushing standards.

However, the thing is every individual can act, not wait for his government. I am amazed at how many people don't believe each of us is responsible for our planet.

I am not claiming I have answers. Nor am I claiming I am innocent of killing the planet. Yesterday I took an unnecessary drive with friends to a spot not accessible by public transportation. That they would have gone anyway, doesn’t mean that by taking that drive I didn’t help kill the planet. I felt slightly better that the car got 46 miles to the gallon.

To assuage my guilt I am noting mileage I rack up in cars and at the end of the year I will buy trees to counter those miles. There won’t be that many because between what I drive and friends who drive me it won’t be 500 Kms a year. However I weigh each offer of a ride. There is no way I would let someone drive me across Geneva when there is public transportation most of the time. But I don’t qualify for a conservation halo. Make it 10:30 at night when buses are rare—let me open the car door for you and hand you the keys. If I see a bus on the way, then I stop, get out of the car and onto the bus, so less fuel will be burned but that’s the best I will do.

Supposing everyone owned a car that got 46 mph. (my friend’s car is not a hybrid—I think it is a Rover, but one car looks like another to me). Supposing everyone made sure 95% of their driving was necessary and instead of making two or three trips to accomplish tasks mapped out the distance to use the absolute minimum gas? Supposing people made good mileage the first criteria for owning a car?

Supposing everyone stopped using ready-on appliances, or shut them off when not in use. What if everyone turned off lights—I do have friends who leave lights on 24 hours a day—and used energy efficient light bulbs?

What if people gave up dryers and turned their air conditioners up one or two degrees?

Imagine the impact if no one ever brought their own bags to the supermarket?

If everyone did it all it would make a difference. Most people wait for their neighbours or someone else to do it first.

There was a song once about bringing peace into the world and let it begin with me. I say lets bring conservation into the world and let it begin with me.

Perolles, Picnic, Prehistory and Pumps

The abandoned village of Perolles is on a plateau at the top of the white calcared peaks of the Pyrenees. Its existence can be traced to at least 1397 when the Signor Raymond went on a pilgrimage to Ireland, the first mention of it in history.

Now only a few stone walls of former houses, a church and a well stand far from civilization. In the early twentieth century residents had deserted the place for villages in the valley.

I stood with my three friends listening to the bird song, the wind and the buzz of insects. Poppies and purple wild flowers grew along the paths. A fig tree, ladened with fruit, dipped its branches. Butterflies of all hues flew by. The air smelled summer hot.

We walked to the cemetery where crosses in the mid-19^th century style, were propped upon stones carved with dates difficult to read but several centuries older. Outside the crumbling church wall was a single cross.

“Maybe it was a Jew,” one of us guessed despite the cross. There had been a Jewish nation here before centuries were marked with four numbers.

“Or an Arab workman.”

“Or a suicide,” I volunteered.

No matter how we guessed, there was no way we could know. Thus we went back to the car to find a place for our picnic and we did.

A stone table and two benches were under a small group of pines. A barbecue had been set up and we had brought Catalan sausages along with the charcoal, potato salad and the last of the season’s cherries.

Below vineyards stretched across the valley until the Pyrenees rose into the blue sky. We ate slowly, talking about the Perolles. We even played a game of Boules while we waited for the last of the sausages to cook.

Our last stop was to check out the caune de l’Arago (cave) where the Tautavel Man was found.

At the bottom of the peak where the archaeologists were working a young woman brought down a sieve full of debris to wash in the river. The water was clean and clear so we could see the trout swimming. They varied in size from that of my thumb to large enough to feed two people.

Another archaeologist, this one a young male, came by to check her, and we talked with them about their work. The two flirted and she splashed him. He lectured her on respect, but his eyes were twinkling.

There is something about being in a place where history isn’t 400 years old like Boston, or 4000 years old like Europe or even 6000 years old like Syria. But 440,000 years old.

www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/tautavel/en/comp_chas4.htm

www.greatarchaeology.com/behavior.html

Slowly we made our way back to Argeles, stopping at Fitou for wine. One cave had won several gold, silver and bronze citations for the quality of their wine. The walls were wood lined and there was an old red marble sink with wine glasses from tastings were drying.

My friend had plastic containers and the woman filled them from a tank with a nozzle not unlike those at the gas pumps. I wished my wine snob friends could have seen the process.

Another ride with Monsieur Kamalt

I press the buzzer to open the door as the taxi pulls up at rue August Blanche. Monsieur Kamalt jumps out. He is dressed in avocado pants with a matching print shirt that would do well in Florida. His hand is out stretched. I notice he has cut his hair short, but his beard is still long. As always he is immaculate.

“Comment-allez vous, Madame Nelson?” he asks and thrusts my suitcase and computer in the trunk and when I tell him well he asks, “Gare du Lyon? Charles de Gaulle? Orly?”

When I say the train station he asks if I am going to Geneva or the South of France. I tell him the later.

He makes sure I am seated before shutting my door and we are off riding along the Seine. For the first time I notice he has a GPS and he tells me he always has it, but doesn’t always use it. There is a sense of relief. I don’t like to be unobservant.

I half watch our progress, half watch the pretty houses as we drive through Neuilly, the home of Sarkozy at least until he moved last month into the presidential palace. Monsieur Kamalt is not the least happy with the results of the French election – too pro American, too pro Israel, he says of the new president.

Again we discuss the situation in the Middle East. He asks how long the American people will put up with Bush? I cannot answer that. I sigh when I think of Cindy Sheehan saying people have more interest in American Idol than what is happening with the war.

He asks me when I will go to the US again, and it is too complicated to explain that I don’t want to go until Habeus Corpus is restored, although I will if there’s an emergency with loved ones.

Nor do I show him the Amnesty International map cut from Le Bleu Matin that has countries with a long list of human rights abuses colored purple. The US is purple. With the map is a list by country of which abuses each country indulges in and the US has one of the longest. I am too ashamed. Becoming Swiss has not alleviated my guilt of not doing enough to protect the democracy that gave me the strength and the skills to be whom I am today. These are not things I want to share with my cab driver no matter how lovely he is.

He asks me about my friend with whom I staying. Why isn’t she married, he asks. I explain she has been too busy with her studies. He thinks she should be married and says he will look for someone. He asks as always about my daughter, who he took to the airport a couple of Christmas’s ago, aware that he was transporting the thing most precious in my life. I only tell him she is still working in human resources.

We scuttle around the Arc de Triumph. The route is well known, not just from these cab rides, but from so many Paris visits.

On other cab trips he has called friends and relatives to introduce me, but it is so early there is almost no traffic, and friends and relatives are either in bed for just making their coffee.
We promise our next conversation will be about what Sarkozy has done as he pulls into the train station.

He hands me my suitcase and computer. “My computer is like your taxi, we cannot work without our tools of trade,” I tell him and he laughs.

He doesn’t say au revoir but A bientôt, and I get final wave as I tug my luggage toward Le Train Bleu for my petit dejeuner and to wait for my train. There is a comfort in the personal.

Long, long days in Paris

Although it was after 10 at night the red colour of the tiled Paris roof top across from my friend’s apartment was still visible in the late spring evening light. We’re in pajamas watching a DVD but the mood is so different from the December night when on another visit we drew the curtains from the spitting snow cocooning ourselves inside albeit it with a another DVD.

We are coming up to the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Long days create extra energy, night seems never to come and the desire to sleep disappears with the dark.
Dawn is for going to the beach long before the swarms of children with pails and their carping mothers appear.

I will head to Argelès tomorrow, to be there for the arrival of the Danes, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Dutch and the French from the North, people I greet each summer. We spend the long nights going to street dances, outdoor concerts or sometimes just bringing our chairs onto the narrow street to talk, perhaps with champagne, perhaps with wine, olives from local trees, some black, some green, some stuffed with anchovies pulled from the sea and sold in the next village from anchovy outlets. Others will have the nut still inside. And there may be saucisson cut in red little circles. And if we don’t nibble too much there will be decisions on which outdoor café to eat or to retreat to our own places.

For 400 years Catalan women have been sitting in the same spots it as part of their daily lives, snapping beans as they gossip and watching their children and grandchildren play up and down the street. For them it is not an escape from winter lives someplace else. Still the sitting, the talking nourishes our spirits for when we are back in our respective countries and once again facing the cold short days.

We will once again have a bonfire as the flame is brought down from the top of Canigou, the highest mountain in the area, for the fête de St. Jean celebrating the solstice. There will be music and dancing until the drums arrive and the men with fireworks shooting from their backs as they dance frantically to the beat of the drums around the dying bonfire.

The weather has been strange this year. When I left Geneva in April I was searching for my lightest clothes, but when I came back in May I reached for sweaters and woolly socks.

Today it is raining, scuttling my plans to wander an area of Paris I had missed but spied from a cab on my last trip to this flat. Instead I will treat myself to lunch at one of the neighbourhood restaurants and buy the makings of chicken soup to feed my ill hostess who stumbled off to work this morning despite it all.

There is an Arab fruit and vegetable hall with bins of bunches of fresh parsley, carrots, onions, eggplants and the apricots each prettier than the next, full of juice. The last of the cherries have been brought up from the south. Yesterday I began to establish a relationship by using the few words of Arabic I know. It worked with the internet café owner whom I cultivated on other visits and now we chat each time I time I come in. Even in a city in Paris it is possible to create a small village feeling. At the green grocer my Mahaba brought a smile that was not given to the three women in front of me even though I explained I really only know a few words of politeness.

When I serve the soup to my hostess, she will tell me I shouldn’t have and we will put on another DVD as in the window behind the TV set the sun lingers late into the evening as we eat.

Hair cuts out of the ordinary

My hair dresser is not your average hair dresser. He is so good that my daughter considers a cut and head massage a necessity on any trip to Switzerland. For many years his salon was also an art gallery as well and the discussion while he cut my hair were about music, art, events in Geneva, my writing, etc. In fact I even held a book reading and apero in the salon. My writing group used the salon to launch one of their anthologies.

Yesterday I was in for a much overdue cut and relaxed. The conversation was much about reading. He asked me if I could read in French. I said yes and read a book in that language at least once a month to every six weeks. We went on to other topics often breaking into laughter. He has a silly sense of humour and appreciates mine as well.

Finished I used the loo prior to paying. When I came back, he had disappeared. Although I was tempted to pay his brother who is co-stylist in the salon, I waited.

Jean-Pierre rushed in with a bag from Payot, the bookstore next door. He handed it to me.

“Un cadeau,” he said. A gift of one of the books we were discussing written about Kabul. I promised him a report (oral not written) for my next hair cut.

I could find hairdressers less expensive. Some might be almost as good. None would make a hair cut an experience and I doubt if I would find one who adds to my library.

A must listen

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/video_popups/pop_vid_kingston1-1.html

Toilet Paper Memories

I once had a guest who used three rolls of toilet paper a day to my one a week. It is not that I begrudge toilet paper to my guests nor do I belong to the Sheryl Crow school of one-sheetness, but I never understood how anyone could use so much, considering they she was out most of the day.

The opposite extreme was an uncle once who explained how to use toilet paper frugally and even sat on the closed toilet seat to explain how much to tear off and he held the paper on his knee as he shared his wisdom and until he could put it back on top of the roll for the next person, a true non wasteful New England Yankee.

When I was in fourth grade, a friend of my mother’s went to Europe. She made a presentation to my class with slides of war-torn Europe, telling us how lucky we were to live in such a rich place (now the standards of living are reversed). She had a roll of French toilet paper that reminded us of cardboard. For years I heard that about how much better American toilet paper was than that the Europeans had to suffer with.

In the early 60s as a new bride, living in a room in Stuttgart, our landlords provided newspaper in place of toilet paper. Although we wanted to use American paper bought from the PX, the said it would clog the toilet. Needless to say the toilet was clogged enough with the newspaper. My husband and I located a new place to live as soon as we could find one.

In Geneva my housemate and I use toilet paper as is needed, but when I returned home this week I discovered she had purchased some of the most unusual toilet paper that I have ever seen. The back ground is small light, light grey pinpoints of colour with white daisies embossed. Laura Ashley easily could have been the designer, if she were still alive. The paper would work as well for a wall paper in a room with a few red accessories perhaps. We will continue to use it however, for the purpose it is intended, rather than for redecoration.

However, it is strange to think of the pleasure looking at pretty toilet paper can give as well as give rise to memories of toilet paper long gone into unnamed sewers.

Ten Little Indians

Ten little Indians
Laying on a bed
One rolled over
Nine little Indians…

I’ve song the child’s backward counting song since nursery school, on Rainbow bus trips, with my own daughter (although she often asked me not to sing or sing softly). Always I pictured each Indians almost as Fisher-Price figures with a black Dutch-boy cut, leather head band, single feather, different primary colour shirt and pants and for some strange reason bright round black shoes.

Only recently did I take it as a metaphor for life and death. The older we get the more often one little Indian rolls over never to be seen again. How do the other little Indians feel? Would Indian number 2 cut back on his cholesterol? Would Indian 5 and 3 jockey for a place to keep his place on the bed a bit longer? The song doesn't go into any of that.

Then were the Indians always on that bed. Did perhaps Indian 2 come from another bed? How did the loss of Indian Number 6 get back to those on the other bed – smoke signals? How did the Indians from the former bed react to the news? Did they rush to comfort Indian 2 or shouldn’t No 2 go to the first bed to comfort those left there. Can smoke signals comfort as much as hugs?

So many questions from a childhood song. So few answers.

2 Euro entertainment

If my first day in Argelès was the vide grenier, it was appropriate that the last before returning home to Geneva, a brocante at the Château Valmy. I never really appreciated antiques that much until a woman I knew showed me some of the more interesting things. She could have had a bumper sticker that said, I break for antique stores.

I should have walked to the Château instead of spewing more pollutants into the environment. It is only about 20 minutes on foot and I would have been able to appreciate the flowers and vineyards on route, but I hadn’t realised that there were sidewalks all the way. Next time.

Those who know my anti-shopping stance may wonder, why I did this…

Well having trailed my friend through fairs, shops and auction rooms, I had learned a lot. Combine that with several BBC programs on antiques, I have learned a bit. So each time I go, I “buy” stuff for my imaginary farm house.

My purchases this time included

• A wooden trunk with all edges covered in iron to hold linens
• A Napoleon daybed for my office in case I have an overflow of guests
• A Scandinavian style pitcher and glasses in a triangle shape coloured chocolate and mint
• A five toothpick thick silver stick with a retractable ball and little silver threads to debubble champagne (the woman explained for people who can’t take the bubbles)
• A geometric paining of lavender in a style that could have been done by an offsping of Gauguin if his genes were mixed with Van Gogh
• A red corner cabinet painted with half moon laughing faces perfect for storing CDs
• Three book cases with light green and stencilled painted cabinets under the shelves for my library

As I left the brocante, a man with a hooded falcon on his leather-gloved wrist, talked to one of the ticket takers. Below the Mediterranean was grey against the grey sky.

For 2 Euros I had two hours of entertainment. No worry about deliveries. No worry about rearranging anything. No worry about credit card bills coming in. One of the great advantages of furnishing my imaginary house.

Little girls in white

Outside the church little girl after little girl shifted in place or ran to greet friends. All were dressed in white. They were leggy in the way that young girls are. Parents stood around before the service. Unlike many Sundays the worshipers were not predominantly grey haired, although the regulars were there with their canes and twisted backs.The bells began to peel. Deductive reasoning tells me it is First Communion combined with Pentecôte services.

More than soft soap

People who know me, know I chafe against mass production as well as things that have to be shipped distances. Now I can buy soap made locally -- good soap, beautiful soap.

Last summer at the beach crafts market, my New York friend and I came across a young woman who designed and made her own soap. My friend bought me a beautiful blue square.

That same young woman has opened a Savonerie in the village. The soaps are in all different shapes and colours, including a tube shape in the Catalonian yellow and flecked with orange. For those who want to give an assortment as a gift, there are choices of baskets. Or it is possible to buy just one for personal use.

Something as simple as washing my hands, now has become a pleasure, not just for the beauty of the soap, but the sense that I know who made the soap, what her mother looks like, where she went to school.

It puts the personal into what before was impersonal.

Sweeping up the Sahara

The wind blew hard. Cars left parked outside are dust covered.

Few cars have garages, which could almost make New York or London real estate look cheap. Well not totally. Some of the Catalans living in several-centuries old houses use their ground floor, which once housed cattle and chickens, to park their cars. But none of the transplants from the north of France nor other countries would waste the space on a car when it could be a kitchen or living room.

The dust has entered my flat leaving a fine coat on my sideboard, dishes, table, mantle and floor. I dust. I sweep it up, realising that it has travelled across the Mediterranean and I wonder if it once was stepped on by a camel. Had a Bedouin put up a tent over it and sat there with his family drinking tea and talking about the next day's plan? Or had it just sat there undisturbed until the wind picked it up for its journey?

No matter what happened to it before its journey, it had no control at all of its destiny. In a way it is like humans who can make little decisions, but are unable to change the direction of a hurricane, a downsizing company firing them, or a nation deciding to drop bombs on their home.

Sand doesn’t talk. I wish it did. There is much I would like to talk to it about.

Ben & Jerry

When I was first in Switzerland my flat mate and I discussed what we missed about the States excluding, of course, people we loved. That was a given. It usually came down to food. Things like Dr. Pepper and Oreos became valued like fine jewels.

Now approaching two decades later it still becomes a question of food. I often think of

Dunkin Donuts raisin bagels

Dunkin Donuts blueberry muffins

Stouffer’s welsh rarebit

Among other things. My daughter used to bring the muffins whens he flew from Boston to Geneva despite being teased about fear of hunger by the attendants, and a friend arrived once complete with an assortment of donuts that were gobbled up with joy.

And there was a time when having an email from a friend who talked about eating a blueberry muffin in her library with a cup of tea when an overwhelming wave of homesickness hit. I shared the feeling with one of my team. She went home and had her mother bake me blueberry muffins to make me feel better.

And it just isn’t stateside food. I never arrive at Cornavin without going directly from tracks to the sushi place and then to pick up taillaiul bread for my breakfast the next morning. Filet of perche from Lake Geneva is usually on my menu within 24 hours, and a fondue shortly after. I also think the best paprika potato chips are a Swiss brand.

But then when I return to France, I head for the fresh fruit and veggies. There is something about the Southern French sun that kisses goodness and creates produce where flavour explodes in my mouth.

So imagine my pleasure when doing errands when I saw a café with the sign “Ben et Jerry’s ici” Memories of the Boston ice cream wars came flooding back. Walks after dinner to have khalua cream with oreo mix-ins, or stopping for an ice cream after an evening class at BU.

How long did it take me to buy a cup? As long as it took me to dig out my Euros.

Waking up and smelling the coffee

Monday morning. The 5:30 Hardtalk was an interview with the president of Ikea. I have fresh melon and a cup of tea and I’ve finished my tweaking of Triple Deckers for the day and am on to my column for Writers Forum. It is due today, and although I wrote it a week ago, I want to give it a look-see now that some time has passed to tweak that as well.

Through the window comes a wonderful, wonderful smell of freshly brewed coffee. I can’t drink coffee because it makes me feel as if ants have moved into my skull, but that doesn’t destroy the pleasure of the wonderful aroma.

I recently bought coffee for my coffee-drinking friends from the tea and coffee shop down the street. They roast and ground the beans there, so just walking by produces wonderful sniffs.

My friends get the Guatemalan beans (sadly not fair trade) but I also asked for this amount of their cheapest beans. I held out my cupped hands.

Those beans now sit in a small crystal dish with a tea candle in the middle. My ode to coffee.

I want the main section in English

Guilt and Trees

The planet is in crisis and I know that every bit of electricity I use is destroying life. I know every second a car engine runs the planet is in more danger.

Now although I can reduce driving to a minimum and make sure no electricity is wasted, I am just one person.

I also know flights represent a real danger to the planet, but I do need to go to Calgary this summer on business. The plane will go whether or not I am on it but that doesn’t mean that I am innocent of being part of the problem while I am in the air.

Then I read how Desjardins Group is planting 97,000+ trees to balance the energy used by their members to attend their annual meeting.

I made the decision that I will plant a tree for every flight I take. So I am sending to messages to friends with land – so many have apartments – that if they let me know I will buy them a tree.

Will my trees save the planet??? Absolutely not, but then again, it may balance just a tiny, tiny bit of the damage I am doing.

So friends who read this and want a tree, let me know.

The 38 hour break

I decided to take a 38 hour break from my “work activities” although I don’t consider them work because I have so much fun doing them. Producing this article gave me a sense of pride www.thewip.net/contributors/2007/05/a_chair_can_be_a_powerful_symb.html my tiny, tiny part against the violence in the world. However, I decided to shut the computer off for 36 hours which meant…

• No emails
• No writing for thewip.net
• No working on Triple Deckers
• No editing
• No articles for Writers Forum
• No emails to senators or congress men

Now despite all these things that I love doing, there are other things I take pleasure and do regularly, but I thought I would revel in them so for 36 hours I…

• Did a café sit with a poet/play writer that I bumped into in a book store
• Knitted
• Watched three movies (see knitting, multi-tasking) while I still have Canal Plus
• Ambled to the beach taking in the scent of the flowers that I can identify as pink, blue, purple, yellow
• Had sesame encrusted salmon with a hollandaise nappe at La Reserve as I watched white caps dance on the water
• Took a long nap
• Read, read, read

Now, I do realise that there’s so much in life I love doing, that maybe I need to compartmentalize a bit…or not.

Good News

France24 is carrying as running headline that Costa Rica has withdrawn from the School of Americas Torture School How much of the American Press will pick that story up? Int'l Campaign Launched Against U.S. "Torture School" Gustavo Capdevila GENEVA, (IPS) - Peace activists from the non-governmental School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) will tour Chile, Peru and Ecuador in August to persuade the governments of those countries not to send any more military personnel to the training centre in the U.S. state of Georgia. Activists were enthusiastic about the results of a similar mission in recent months to convince the authorities in Venezuela, Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina. The former School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), still bears the stigma of having trained thousands of military personnel in the techniques of repression, personnel who were subsequently involved in the bloodiest dictatorships in the region during recent decades. Research has shown that the United States instructed thousands of Latin American officers, NCOs and soldiers at the School every year. Upon graduation, these military personnel returned to their countries and perpetrated crimes against the civilian population, U.S. Catholic priest Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOAW, told IPS. An SOAW delegation will implement the Latin American Initiative to convince governments and grassroots organisations in the region's countries of the need to permanently close the WHINSEC, which has been based at Fort Benning, Georgia since 1984. The School, initially established under another name in Panama in 1946, moved out of Panama in 1984 as part of the agreement transferring sovereignty of the canal and its surrounding zone, formerly under U.S. control, to the Panamanian nation. Bourgeois, a veteran of the Vietnam War who left the U.S. Navy to become a priest of the U.S. Maryknoll religious community, said that SOAW activists had returned in high spirits from the first tour of Latin American countries to promote the campaign against the School of the Americas. In Venezuela last year, the SOAW delegation met with President Hugo Chávez. A few weeks after the meeting, Caracas announced the withdrawal of its military personnel from the Fort Benning training school. An SOAW mission travelled to Bolivia this year and was received by President Evo Morales, who promised that Bolivian soldiers would be gradually withdrawn from the U.S. training centre. In Argentina, Defence Minister Nilda Garré announced that the government will order the return of military personnel taking courses at the WHINSEC. "The following week we went to Uruguay, where the minister of defence, Azucena Berrutti, told us that her country would make the same decision," said Bourgeois, although as it is, Montevideo has not taken up places reserved at the school for Uruguayan armed forces for several years. "Following this tour, we are very hopeful that these countries will withdraw (from the School), also because of what is happening in many Latin American countries which were formerly close allies of the United States, or rather, subject to Washington," he remarked. Bourgeois was present at the Mar. 24 ceremony in Buenos Aires commemorating the 30th anniversary of the coup d'état of 1976, which led to a brutal military dictatorship, responsible for thousands of deaths and disappearances. The U.S. priest listened to Argentine president Néstor Kirchner's speech, in which he declared that "never again" would such things happen. Bourgeois asked himself if they really "could happen again." The school is a threat to the promise made by the Argentine president, was the pacifist's deduction. The Maryknoll priest's doubts are based on his certainty that "the aim of the school is to keep the military in power." The WHINSEC is a threat to democracy, human rights and human dignity, he warned. In addition, they resort to deceit, as in the case of the war against Iraq, Bourgeois said. "The Pentagon (U.S. Department of Defence) lies about the school. They say it teaches democracy. How can you teach democracy from the barrel of a gun?" he asked. SOAW plans to carry out a third tour later on, to Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, with the same purpose of encouraging these countries to give up using the former School of the Americas. Bourgeois thought that Colombia, on the other hand, was a "very difficult" case, because most of the students at Fort Benning are from that country, which is living through a half-century-old civil war, fuelled by the lucrative drug trafficking business. Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt. "Getting Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's approval (for SOAW's cause) is a very complicated issue, because over the last four years Colombia has received about four billion dollars from the United States. They are not going to risk that flow of dollars to close down the school," he predicted. Bourgeois traveled to Geneva to attend sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which on Jul. 17-18 examined the report by the United States on its compliance, in policy and practice, with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Bourgeois wants the committee, which is charged with supervising implementation of the Covenant, to look into cases of espionage committed by U.S. authorities against SOAW leaders and activists. Our peaceful demonstrations are monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "under the guise of counterterrorist action," he stated. I have come to the U.N. Committee with the hope that international pressure will stop "unwarranted espionage on U.S. citizens protesting peacefully against their government's policies," he said. "We know they are unlawfully tapping our telephone conversations, even though official records acknowledge that our movement has a long history of pacifism," Bourgeois maintained. The spying is occurring because any person or organisation in the United States that criticises the government's foreign policy is "seen as an agent of subversion, agitation and perhaps even terrorism," he said. And it is known that soldiers from other countries trained at the Fort Benning school "will go back to their countries and become the agents of U.S. foreign policy," the priest said. "They protect the economic interests of the United States in those countries," he added.

Morning light

We are coming up to the longest day. I love waking as the light is breaking. Although my windows are covered with quilted curtains, the skylight gradually turns from blue-black to gray. Items in my room appear first as shapes followed by the details. The rock wall made with stones placed there 400+ years ago begin to show colour: greys, browns and even a dark rose. For centuries they must have looked at grain (for that is where food was once stored) or unused items from a time nothing was discarded. I wish they could talk about what the people who lived in this house have felt.

The day breaking also reminds me the silliness of ownership. The earth is millions or billions of years. Man exists individually maybe 100 years, but most much, much less. How do we really think we can possess anything?

When the light is full, a hirondelle, a swallow struts across the glass, the feet making little clicking sounds. I get up to start the day.

Canal Plus and Cannes

I do not understand my TV cable service. They shifted stations around. For the month of February I had Canal Plus, a series of stations with great movies. Then they went off except one for a couple of hours. Okay. Because I live in Geneva I am not willing to pay extra for when I am in France especially all year round. Basic service yes, extra no.

Now they stations are back and happily just in time to watch the opening of the Cannes Film Festival. They ran short clips from the entries, a good insight what I want to see in the future.

A good morning

8:03 As I walk out my front door, my Catalan neighbour comes up to me waving his hands. He has a full head of white hair and has told me how he makes his wife breakfast every morning and how he loves her more than anything although they have been married over 50 years. He speaks so fast I have to ask him to slow down. Then he points to where a table USED to be holding some of his plants.

Rue Vermeille, my street, is considered the prettiest street in the village. Plants in planters line both sides of the narrow street and overhead wisteria and some red flowering plant make archways of colour and shade canopies.

However, this morning, several of the plants and their holders are missing. He drags me to where I once had two Spanish rectangular pots. Only one is there. I had bought them across the border in Bisbal, a factory outlet town for Spanish ceramics. Thank goodness I had only paid 5 Euros for them. The two big blue pots that flank my front door and are the same colour are still there, one over flowing with pansies, the other with patients still not in bloom. Other plants on the street are missing. A Catalan old lady is stomping up and down angry that someone took her pot of peppers and her pot of spinach that was just ready to be picked.

It is the second robbery on the street. About three weeks ago when I was still in Geneva, someone stole several of the black garbage cans. They left the ones with the yellow top for paper and plastic recycling.

8:15 I excuse myself to have breakfast at La Noisette. Today is marché day and I like watching the vendors set up their tables. Michel offers me the paper to read and it talks about Sarko's swearing in today and the beginning of the Cannes festival. Michel is a nurse in Perpignan and another regular. I see several of the English, who treat Argelés much like retirees treat Florida. I am one of the only ones in my family whose first words were NOT “When can I move to Florida.” I have never wanted to live in a retiree environment, although many of them are very nice people. I gravitate more to the artists who are still doing stuff...yes stuff...stuff that means something to them not just going from social event to social event and using the téléphone arab (gossip and grapevine)

Franck sets my hot croissant and baguette, tea and orange juice down. The butter is sweet. I know most of the people and I don’t get a chance to read my book L’étudiant étranger.

8:50 The marché is set up. The table next to the café is piled three two feet high with artichokes, about the size of a normal balloon. The centers are open and filled with iridescent purple spikes. I know from experience how meaty the leaves are when dipped in vinegarette and pulled through my teeth, but I pass. Today I am looking for melons.

The olive dealer, who offers marriage and romance despite having a wife and twin daughters, with his selections is busy proposing to another woman but winks at me as I pass by. I still have olives from Saturday.

At the boulongerie the line is short. The smell of yeasty bread baking floats around us. There is a sign that tells me about le coeur Catalan and I ask about it. The woman describes the honey and apricots in the bread and I tell myself to go tomorrow. They are selling it for the holiday, although I can never remember whether is it Ascension or Pentecost. France has more holidays in May than it seems normal days.

9:05 I stop at Pedro’s for tofu burgers made with mushrooms. He is a shy man and it took years before he spoke to me.www.virtourist.com/europe/argeles-sur-mer He is still unhappy that the writer described his shop as esoteric in the write up with the photo on the website above. We discuss the exhibition at the Gallerie Marianne where poets described the paintings done by local painters.

Back at the house I put my purchases away to get to work, grateful I make my own schedule. It has been a good morning.

Music stories

Music Story No 1.

I was taking a pair of too-tight brown shoes worn less than once and a backgammon game (I have another) to the charity shop and took the short cut through the building with the hall where the elderly go for lunch each day. This time music rang through the hall. An organ grinder dressed in a red and white striped crew neck jersey and a straw hat looking like he had been attacked by Yves Montand or Maurice Chevalier led the group in singing old French songs. I paused at the door and listened. I knew some from watching the variety shows on television.

An older man painfully made his way to me. “Entrez-vous,” he said.

I did, and despite being considered as part of the troisème age, the audience were anywhere from ten to thirty years older. I might be sprier but they could out sing me.

Music Story No. 2

He had a red clown nose, a drum on his back with Teletubbies La La and Po hanging off the back. A harmonica was suspended near his mouth and each step he took caused his cymbals to go ting ting ting. The English artist stopped him and said, “Musiques, s’il vous plait.”

The street musician complied and soon they were chatting in basic French. The English artist stood a bit taller each time the musician understood and taller still when he himself understood. The artist’s progress in French has been slow and he is unsure of himself, so anyone who speaks to him slowly and in simple terms he considers a gift. Finally the musician started to move on.

“A bientôt,” the artist said.

“See you later,” the musician replied.

“You speak English?” the artist asked.

“Of course, I am from Scotland,” the musician said.

Choosing verbs

I know why I adore my life. It was a busy day wrestling against time to get my newsletter out www.cunewswire.com and setting up interviews. However, I took three breaks, one to wander around the marché, one to have lunch at La Noisette (easier then cooking and washing up) and a third to meet with a rather new but dedicated writer who lives nearby. I traipsed to at La Noisette for a second time. Everyone should have a neighbourhood tea room around the corner.

We sat in the shade, the sky a royal blue, the 700-year old church across the street in various shades of ochre.

Sophie, the waitress as disgustingly beautiful as ever with her Catherine Zeta-Jones hair and Sophia Loren lushness, delivered une boule de café glace with chocolate sauce and one cappuccino.

The writer and I talked and talked about her new writing group, writing projects, my writing and a workshop I am planning.

However, I knew I was with a kindred spirit when she described a woman, not as beautiful, tall, thin, funny, but as someone who chooses good verbs.

The mirror

I have a friend in New York with whom I disagree on much and agree on much and we laugh at the differences but with respect. One of the biggest is that she takes shopping to an art form and I’m shopping phobic, although I admit double the pleasure of a sweater she persuaded me to buy this past summer in a specialty store in a medieval village. (I won’t tell her that shopping in a specialty store in a medieval village doesn’t have that much to do with shopping and a lot more to do with sharing of time and fun). She likes to hear when I go over to what I call the black side of consumerism so this blog is dedicated to her.

I bought a new mirror for over my fireplace. Did you hear that all the way to New York???? I confess not only did I buy it, the second I saw it I couldn’t imagine not having it, but then again it does fit one my criteria for a possession, it is beautiful and so original.

The mirror is round with a five inch leather frame. The interior edge is cut to reflect the design, which includes elephants and jungle plants. The colours of blue and green with touches of rust for fruit match the other colours in the flat. The clock that was there was moved to the side wall over the couch, the tapestry designed needlepointed by my daughter that was where the clock now is was transferred to the place where a copy of a grave rubbing of a medieval noblewoman bought decades ago on a trip to the UK was and that was put in the outside hall next to my front door.

However, I do make have to make it clear to one and all that these are Democratic elephants cavorting on the mirror not Republicans. I will be flexible on some things but siding with the war thugs in Washington would be impossible. I swear as I went to bed last night one of the elephants on the mirror whispered to me “Don’t forget to call Nancy Pelosi’s office on Monday and tell her that she can’t cave on the timeline

Vide Grenier

In France 1 May is a holiday. and I returned to Argelès to make sure I didn’t miss the Vide Grenier (empty attic) which is a giant flea market mostly with people selling their own stuff and a few professionals thrown in. I had no idea it would be so big. The area normally covered by the marché was full of blankets with everything from a carved apple to a stuffed zebra, some junk, some nice stuff. The Vide Grenier covered all the main streets and ran along the river and took up the parking lots.

As a non-shopper I loved browsing hoping for a copper fry pan that was tin-lined, no luck. If I had found a Clarice Cliff vase I would have been thrilled. No luck.

However I bought two replacement Chinese ceramic spoons to replace one I broke for 1.5 Euros. One broke before I got them home.

For 9 Euros I bought 10 wine glasses with blue stems to replace the mishmash I have been using and they co-ordinate perfectly with my dishes.

I did not look at all the places, it was too much. I suspect there were at least 500 sellers. And that doesn’t count the those selling kebabs, sauscissons, chickens, crêpes, waffles, etc.

I had planned to do another quick tour at the end of the day to pick up the Lilies-of-the-valley that are traditional sold on the first of May, but looking out at the red tiles of the house across the way I see they are wet. I suspect people are putting their wares in boxes and folding their blankets and their attics won't be empty once they get home and put the stuff back.

The blues

No not music, not sadness, but refrigerator. I stupidly forgot to leave the frigo door open when I shut off the electricity and when I opened it blue mould (a rather nice shade at that) covered everything. I quickly shut it again.

I concentrated on getting the wifi and TV working (it takes a while before the cable kicks in after being off for several weeks), my suitcase unpacked and made the executive decision to wait until morning. I wasn’t hungry (and after seeing the mould wouldn't have been even if I had been) since my friend Barbara had, as is our tradition, fed me. This time it was lasagne instead of the promised goat stew because the goat cheese man hadn’t delivered the goat. Chris, the artist whose house is www.virtourist.com/europe/argeles-sur-mer photo 7, joined us. He had lifted my suitcase up the three flights of stairs. My back thanked him.

Sleeping seemed a much better alternative but it is not a solution to the blues (mould). The next morning, I was ready to tackle the job. I doubt if my frigo has ever been so clean, and that leads to anything but the blues.