Spring Is In The Air

 

It’s Spring!

The weather over the past week has been brilliant, warm and sunny with temperatures around 20 degrees in the sun in the middle of the day. Next week is predicted to be cooler but hopefully not too much so. Maybe it will rain, we could certainly do with some. Having decided to start watering a couple of weeks back I’ve found that some plants that I thought were dead have shown new shoots; so if I want to keep them alive, as I do, I have to keep on watering. It turns out that I had very few plants die over the winter so I don’t have a lot to replace.

Gardening 

I’m particularly pleased with my «front garden», the roadside across from my kitchen that I dug up. Only a half-dozen of the 20 or so irises I planted bloomed last year but this year almost all have. Allied to the daffodil and narcissi bulbs I planted last autumn, they have made a great display. I’m now thinking of trying to grow some ginger among them over the summer. It will be an interesting experiment. All my clematis (a dozen or so) bar possibly one seem to have survived and the only significant failure seems to be the grape vine in the back garden. That was very unexpected and as there is a climbing rose and a clematis growing through it I’ll probably have to leave the dead stems where they are. Nick, an English friend who has now departed for pastures new, left me some low rectangular pots, two of which I put on the front of my balcony filled with daffodil bulbs. These have flowered and so I shall replace them with something that shows up from below; marigolds perhaps, or petunias, I’m not sure. When I decide over the next few days the result will be a list of plants to be acquired in the Vaison market next Tuesday. The back garden, my «jungle», is now complete, so all I need is plants for the three pots in front of my bedroom window and the few spaces to be filled elsewhere. I’m looking forward to fulfilling the expectations of the village of the mad English gardener. Photos will doubtless follow.

Clearout

Spring is a time for spring cleaning and although cleaning other than the essential is not my forte I definitely need a clearout. Departing English friends have left me with a plethora of things that I need to sort out. I have also had at the back of my mind for some time the knowledge that I have a ridiculous number of shoes, pants, socks and jackets (many saved because they’re still OK for gardening – well, it’s only got a small hole, tear, stain in it) that have to be culled. The same goes for technical equipment: bits of old computers, cameras no longer functional, superfluous cables, etc. I need to go to the village dump anyway to get rid of garden debris so a major clearout is indicated. I just have to get down to it……...

Boules

The fine weather has got me playing boules regularly again, mostly in Buis. I’ve been playing reasonably well but with only occasional flashes of consistent good form. The problem I find with a flash of good form one day, producing small miracles, is that people get disappointed if you can’t do the same the next day. Anyway, if the village tournament is cancelled this year as it was last year, that will mean I will have been village champon for four years in succession, surely a record for an Englishman anywhere in France.

What Restrictions?

France is still well and truly under the cosh of COVID but Patrique and Valerie at the Bar du Pont epitomise for me the French attitude to restrictions. Public spaces are closed so where to play boules? Patrique opened the Bar’s garden below the Bar by the river so that we could play boules there; it’s private ground. Although restaurants and cafes have to remain closed, apart from for take-aways, the Bar du Pont can be open for 6 hours per day for newspaper and tobacco sales. Since it can also provide take-aways, you can also get a drink there but you have to take it away, at least as far as the terrace outside. Of course the terrace is officially closed but how do you enclose an open space like that especially if, from behind the bar, you can’t see if anybody is on the terrace or not. Business (not quite) as usual.

The Jab And French Attitudes

I’ve now had one anti-Covid jab and the next is scheduled for a month’s time. The system for applying for a jab here is broken. You have to apply for one by pho ning a number that seems permanently engaged. Friend Jo made a breakthrough by suggesting she, Steve and I go to the vaccination centre in Nyons to see what could be done. When we arrived there were notices that no appointments could be made there. However, a kind nurse said that although she couldn’t give us an appointment she could ask the vaccination centre to phone us, rather than us trying to get through to them. This she did, Jo was phoned the next day and bingo!

This aligns with other anecdotal experiences to bring me to the following conclusion. In France, if an official system is broken, the people working within it know it and understand the difficulties Jo Public faces. Remain respectful and polite but dtermined and officials will themselves try to overcome your difficulties. It seems to highlight for me a difference between officials in France and in the UK. In the UK Jobsworthy seems to rule; in France officials seem inclined to regard their duty to the public more important than their duty to their employer.

The Power Of Ignorance

I resolved a while back to just let UK politics go and not comment. It seems obvious to me what is happening politically there and, I arroganlty feel, if others can’t or don’t want to see it or try to do anything about it, too bad. However I still feel a residual loyalty to the country, as a used-to-be beacon of democracy. The great far-right gamble, which was attempted but has been temporarily halted in the USA, is so far succeeding in the UK and may continue to do so. As an article in The Independent recently pointed out, a lot of people in the UK have seen through the obvious shenanigans by the government but feel powerless to do anything about them and are resigned to them continuing, resulting in apathy. Which is exactly what the government wants for it to remain in power. Satire and ridicule are powerless since the government is already itself a parody of good government.

What the government, and its servile elements in the media have done is to harness the power of ignorance. At any one time, most people are ignorant of a lot of aspects of how things work in practice. These are not necessarily stupid people but ignorant, as they must be, of a lot of things; nobody has the time, let alone the intellect to be anything else. Many people in the UK are just now waking up to what Brexit means in practice. Exploit this ignorance and you can expound all types of fantasy and get away with them. With Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in all kinds of disarray, even if you see through the fantasy, what can you do?

Flag waving is all the mode in the UK at present, particularly among the money-grubbing pygmies currently running the country. It needs true patriots to see the danger, to be vocal, to be active and to protest, to prevent the UK’s demise as a country of any worth or standing. The demonstrations of protest in the UK need to continue, if only to combat apathy. Please, Keep Britain Great.

Little Green Men

I never really believed in little green men, even in the depths of lockdown (honestly!). However, a scientifically knowledgeable friend and I have come up with an interesting (for the moment) conjecture. It is known that Einstein was wrong in some aspect of his theories of relativity but not in what aspect. So what if that aspect was the speed of light as a delimiter? The implications would be enormous. Teleporting has been shown to be possible, albeit with only a particle over a matter of yards and the time taken was probably not measurable. No one yet knows whether larger items over longer distances are possible. But what if…………………? Hesienberg said that physics is not only stranger than we think but stranger than we can think. Should be good for a few sessions over aperitifs or digestifs until someone with better knowledge can elucidate.