Summer Already?

Summer Already?

The weather seems to be ahead of itself this year. Spring does not last long here but already the primroses, japonica and forsythia bushes and all the spring bulbs have finished their blooming and now we have a show of irises, wisteria, tamarisk and Judas trees and coronilla and poppies in the wild. I've already planted the hanging baskets that I don't usually plant until May. No doubt there are still cold and wet days to come, helped on by the Mistral, but sun and warmth are already predominant. Several of my clematises have buds on them about to open and two of my red roses in the front already have their first blooms. Gaps in the flowers at the back have almost all been filled and it's all looking promising.

Friend Steve and I wrapped up the English conversation classes for a month on Tuesday: we'll restart at the end of the month and carry on until mid-June before stopping for the summer. The group kindly treated us and Steve's wife Jo to dinner at the local Tilleuls restaurant the following Thursday and it turned out to be a very enjoyable evening with all of us together and good food and wine. «Les anglophones» as Steve and I refer to them have become a social group as well as an English class, which I find doubly rewarding. The group's confidence with English and their fluency is improving all the time which has thrown the spotlight on pronunciation; misprononced English spoken quickly is more difficult for Steve and I to decipher than the same spoken slowly. Sounding «h»s is a well known problem for the French but English vowel sounds, the dipthongs, need a lot of work too. I've bought a dictaphone device so that we can record and play back what the mispronunciations. We haven't used it yet but plan to do so when we restart.

The local growers of strawberries and asparagus have put up their roadside stalls, resulting in a halving of the price. That should mean a reasonably priced supply of strawberries through until July, although the asparagus won't last that long. The orchard trees are still mostly in full flower although some, probably the almond trees, have been dropping their petals. Anyway the local fruit season has started so I will be able to indulge my addiction to fruit for the next few months.

Some months ago I bought a bottle of port, simply because it was discounted and cheap, and thought I'd use it for cooking. Then I couldn't think what to cook with it. However I recently noticed tins of pork cooked with prunes in the local supermarket and thought pork and prunes might work with port. I cooked it yesterday and everybody thought it was good so I'll do it again a couple of times until I use up the port. I can't remember ever having meat with prunes in England but the French cook veal with prunes also and that works well too.