Cycle Races, Wild Flowers, Rugby and Bobbies

Cyclists and Flowers
Yesterday I went to see the Paris-Nice cycle race go past the village. It's not as big a deal as the Tour de France, obviously, but it is supposed to be one of the big races. It turned out to be a real anti-climax, my having got there far too early. Nothing happened apart from a few sponsor cars racing past until a break-away group of about a dozen cyclists surged past with a couple of support cars behind. They had a lead of about 5 minutes on the main peloton, which then came past with about as many support cars as cyclists. And that was it. No wonder the village didn't turn out for it. Anyway, I'm glad I saw it.

Arriving too early meant I looked around at the herbiage at the edge of the field where I was standing and saw several helianthemums growing. I think one or two of those might end up in the wall at the back of my terrace. The flowers that grow wild here are quite a surprise to me. First, there are irises everywhere, some of which are already blooming at the back of my garden. But they are everywhere in the hillsides around and there is a dwarf variety, very similar to those that grow from bulbs in England, but these have rhizomes: they are blue, yellow or white. Another surprise was to find wild tulips, although these are not yet out, which grow in the lavender fields just to the north of the village. They are all a combination of yellow and red in colour, have a much slimmer form than most cultivated tulips and the petals come to an elongated point at the top. I prefer their shape to that of the cultivated varieties. Plus red violets, one has taken root in my wall, coronilla, the salvia pratensis and numerous varieties of sedum. All wild, all common, and some destined for my back garden.

Rugby and other forms of play
Today, Steve and Jo invited me for lunch and we ate outside in some 23 degrees of sunshine. They have done a good job on the veg.beds and Jo is eager to get started on sowing; indeed, she's already planted a bed and a half of rattes, the small potatoes that are grown here, much like the earlies in England but these grow all the year round. I pruned their roses and then went on to play boules and, after boules, to meet Steve and René in the Bar du Pont to watch the second half of the France-England rugby match. England were already 29-0 ahead so it was an occasion to witness local disgust. Rugby puzzles me, although I have played it (very badly). A player was penalised for putting his hand on the ball at the wrong time; simultaneously, one player was gaily gouging lumps out of another player's midriff and shirt with his studs and yet another was busily trying to stomp an opponent's head into the ground. But that, it seems, is not against the rules. I found myself straining to see, when an object emerged from a scrum, whether it was actually the ball and not some player's head.

In the evening I went to Daniel's to celebrate his finishing the script of La Partie de Boules n'aura pas lieu. A bit prematurely, as it turned out, as he feels he has some final revisions to make. Nonetheless, we drank to the script. We still don't know what to do with it but if any reader wants a copy, I'll happily send it if I have their email address. I happened to notice, on a TV programme guide he had, a mention of les flics. Which reminded me of “going to the flicks” (to see a film) in my youth. The term, now dated, presumably derives from when kaleidoscopes were a popular form of film but where does “les flics” come from? Daniel didn't know either but a search through his etymological dictionary suggested it might derive from the sound of the whips which French policemen had in the early 19th century. It seems the French had their flics before the English had their bobbies, which is something else I didn't know.