The Weather
The weather dictates a lot of what goes on here, certainly a lot of what I do. If that doesn’t seem surprising to many people it’s relatively new to me. In England I rarely knew from day to day what the weather would be, only more probably colder in winter and more probably warmer in summer, very rarely extreme. So most of the time I disregarded the weather as far as possible and decided what I was going to do anyway. Besides, most of the time I was working and my work was always indoors. Here, the weather can even dictate work.
Pedro, the man who fixed my roof, told me that when he came here at first he worked for a builder and had to be at the builder’s house each morning at 7.30 to start work. One morning Pedro arrived, knocked on the builder’s door and got no reply. It was raining, Pedro was getting wet and so he kept knocking. Eventually the builder opened the door, dressed in his pyjamas, and asked Pedro what he was doing there. Pedro answered that he was there to work. 3Work?”, exclaimed the builder, “It’s raining; we don’t work when it’s raining”.
At the moment summer seems to have arrived with day temperatures around 32-34 degrees. Temperatures are unlikely to dip significantly until mid-August at least. For me, as a gardener, that means watering, watering plants in pots around the house and the allotment. Early mornings are not my forte now so I do it mostly in the evening. It’s tiring but that means I will sleep well. All the planting is now done barring last minute replacements and filling in so watering is the main chore. Rain can be a welcome relief and if we get any it is likely to be a storm which will thoroughly soak the ground for a couple of days. Anyway, the plants around the house are looking good and so is the allotment so those are projects more or less completed for this year; they just need to be maintained.
Another effect the weather has is eating out. I don’t remember ever eating outside in England except at pubs. Here I can hardly remember eating inside at a cafe or restaurant. And I do like eating outside.
Patriotism
The European Champions’ League final between Arsenal and PSG made me reflect on patriotism. I went to watch the match at the Bar du Pont and the assembled crowd there seemed to assume I was supporting Arsenal. But I am a Chelsea supporter, from 1952, and in the previous two years Arsenal had eliminated Chelsea in the semifinals of the FA Cup. So I have an extreme dislike of Arsenal. I didn’t really care who won. So where was my patriotism?
If patriotism means being proud of one’s country I’m afraid I don’t have it. Am I proud of England? No; why should I be? It has, in my judgment, done some very good things but also some very bad ones, like almost every other country. My school education certainly encouraged me to be patriotic but that must be one of the lessons from school that didn’t stick. Do I love England? Yes, in lots of ways I do: I love the countryside, some of the customs, some of the typical dishes, the beer, the variety it displays in many respects and some of the people. Also I was born there and grew up there quite happily; but that is simply happenstance. But simply as an entity, a country, a nation, I can’t see why I should love it or be proud of it. The same applies to France.
I shall enjoy watching the World Cup in the coming weeks and hope that either England or France win it but that is as far as my nationalism goes.
