Gardening And Elections

Gardening Time
I've now taken complete stock of the garden, replaced the casualties of winter and replanted elsewhere as necessary. Two casualties were a miniature rose in a pot in the front and my plumbago ; the latter has done well to survive thus far and I've replaced both by purple/blue solanums. I've another already in a pot in the front and if all three do as well as the one did last year they will make quite a display in the summer and into the autumn. The olive tree I planted last year has also taken a hit from the winter but dooesn't look quite dead. This is the northernmost area in which olive trees grow so they can be susceptible to the cold. I'm not sure if mine is the tanche variety, which is the hardiest. I shall just have to wait and see. There remain the annuals to be planted in the front but I shan't add them until some time in May, later this year than last so that the display continues (hopefully) further into August.

Friend Steve's 70th birthday was on Easter Monday and the the pizza crowd and I clubbed together to buy him an apple and an apricot tree. I also bought him some raspberry canes and a kiwi fruit vine. So it was over to his place on the Tuesday to dig suitable size holes and plant and stake the trees. The ground wasn't as stony as I thought it was going to be but digging the holes still took some time. And staking them well was necessary as the side of the house they are on gets the full blast of the Mistral when it decides to blow. Anyway, they have been properly planted so I hope they now do what they are supposed to.

The weather over the past fortnight has been very mixed with whole days of hot sunshine, days of rain and mostly a bit of both, with even a genuinely English grey day or two thrown in. I find that grey days depress me unduly although we get very few of them. Temperatures have dropped by several degrees since March and although quite comfortable and even ideal for gardening have had a noticeable effect on higher ground. Mont Ventoux had no snow on it after early March but is now blanketed in white again. It has been a very short season for the winter sports up there so the current extension is probably appreciated.

Elections
As the presidential elections get closer (just over a week to go) so the polls show the contest getting tighter. Sarkozy seems to be gaining ground on Hollande and, far from looking like the dead duck he did a few months ago, could even be inching into the lead. All really depends on which way the votes of the minor candidates go in the second round. I don't have the right to vote (only in mayoral and European elections) but Mana asked me what I thought one day last week when we were playing boules. I think that the result will be a negative one, either way. Sarkozy will lose if enough French people simply want to get rid of him. If Holland loses it will be because he hasn't a programme of any discernible sort and people prefer a devil (and programme) they know to one they don't. That situation strikes me as a pity but also not far off the one I perceive in the UK. Where have all the political personalities, the great statesmen, gone?

Footnote
My book has resurfaced, in Daniel's house. It has lost half its yellow dust-jacket and Daniel had been looking around his house for a yellow book. It is bound in red. I could have guessed his search would have been less than rigorous but I'm glad to have it back, even minus half its dust-jacket.