Garden, lierature and supermarkets

Water, water......
It's been a couple of weeks of intensive watering as temperatures in the sun have been well into the 30s. However, most of the plants in the front, as well as the rose I planted across the road, seem to be doing well. The greatest success is clearly going to be a late-flowering clematis that has made its way out from the pot by the front door up to the porch roof and out and up the grapevine which ends up over the balcony. Also, the trachelospermum jasmoinides in a pot on the balcony has got about two thirds of the way along the balcony and is now covered in bloom. The pansies are finally giving up; however, as I planted them in November and they have given a brilliant display for most of the time since, they don't owe me anything. I shall plant pansies again next November.

I had spotted one or two interesting wild plants by the roadside and was about to go and dig up some samples but the local commune has been round clearing the verges so that is that for another year. I've had a real bonus from the poppy seed I scattered on the back ground last year, though; poppies popping up all over the place. Against that, there is a wild yellow poppy that I snaffled from the roadside last year that didn't look as though it would take but survived long enough to produce seed; the seed clearly hasn't taken yet. I say “yet” because Jo had admired some wild sweet peas I had tumbling over a fence in my garden in Reading and I brought out lots of seed for her garden about three years ago. Nothing......until this year when several plants have appeared. Sometimes you can't hurry nature.

The back garden is in full flow. I've eliminated some of the plants I didn't know but have discovered I don't want but most of the perennials I have bought this year seem to be taking. It'll be a year of wait and see. The stocks I grew from seed are all planted but haven't got very high or robust; the compost they sell here seems to be quite poor (mostly chewed up wood) and quite expensive. Will bring more back from England when I take the car over.

Literary Festival
Daniel has been helping to organise a literary festival, Lire en mai, in Nyons and so I went along to sample it. The main sessions are by authors invited to discuss their work. The setting was superb: the walled garden of a house right in the centre of Nyons. The talks I heard were, however, disappointing. The microphone being used seemed to scramble what was being said to the point where it often defeated my command of French. Also, I was reminded that people who can write well can't always speak well (or interestingly). The French do love their theory and “philosophy” but when the discussion turned to “the necessary tension between the author, his characters and the reader” I gave up. Still it was a pleasant way to pass an afternoon.

Supermarkets
The English, or Anglo-saxon, “model” for driving the national economy is much criticised here, for some good reasons, although I'm not sure model is the right word (muddle, maybe?). There is much more emphasis here on quality of life, although also much anguish at the persistent unemployment rate. About three months ago, one of the supermarkets in Vaison, Intermarché, decided to open on Sunday mornings, totally against the prevailing work ethic. I went soon after it started and found the place heaving with customers. I thought then that the other supermarket, SuperU, would have to follow suit. Sure enough, it has now happened. The tensions between customer focus and free market forces on the one hand and sensitivity to workers quality of life still have to be worked through. I find the common French knee-jerk reaction to favour the quality of life of workers encouraging but quality of life also requires having an income (i.e. job) and there are too many French people without the latter. Over time, perhaps there will be a way to resolve these tensions better.