{"id":1177,"date":"2011-02-06T22:02:16","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T22:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2011-02-17T10:02:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T10:02:40","slug":"february-6th-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/february-6th-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"February 6th 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, the sunth of Feb.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Things are different here in the winter.\u00a0 I\u2019ve forgotten what it was like, I think the last time was when Jenny & I were out here with Martin & family at Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0 But that was a festival with friends, and now it\u2019s more like it was when I signed for the house in the first place.\u00a0\u00a0 That was November, this is February, but I\u2019ve been over here in January and March before but perhaps not February.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The sky is different, the trees are bare, the air is crisp, the crisps remain uneaten.\u00a0\u00a0 There are no tourists, different things are open and closed and those that are open are open in a different way.\u00a0 A practical, welcoming sort of way.\u00a0 They clearly know there are no tourists about.\u00a0 And today was the first day when the light is longer than the dark and it was a beautiful day.\u00a0\u00a0 Spring if ever there was one.\u00a0 The sky was clear and the sun was gloating in it, so the birds obviously wanted to celebrate the fact by singing and twittering to their friends that it must be at least 12 degrees already.\u00a0\u00a0 They don\u2019t bother with Facebook.<\/p>\n

There was a frost about when I woke up, and even still when I got up which was probably later than 10.30.\u00a0\u00a0 But then it was a Sunday \u2013 so what do people do on a Sunday apart from Church?\u00a0 Yes they wash the car and indulge themselves in a little rest.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t settle down in front of the telly in the afternoon to watch the match, but I felt something would come to mind.\u00a0 The van was very dirty so I moved it into the sun which was also in reach of the hosepipe.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have any car shampoo, but thinking that a shampoo must be a shampoo whatever it was designed for I searched around the bathroom to find a suitable alternative.\u00a0\u00a0 A full bottle of Tr\u00e9 Sem\u00e9e Extra Special Shampoo for Dry or Damaged Hair Restores Moisture and Growth.\u00a0\u00a0 I checked the ingredients and they were exactly the same as that of a very defunct bottle of nasty Amway car shampoo that was knocking around from the last century.\u00a0\u00a0 So I rinsed then shampooed the van in the morning sun and all began to look white again.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bloke thing probably, but it\u2019s good to wash your vehicle by hand.\u00a0 You get to see all the marks and scratches and bumps and scrapes and blemishes as you wipe your hands over the bodywork with a frothy sponge.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026. Yes a bloke and lesbian thing.<\/p>\n

My thoughts turned to dad (nothing to do with the lesbianism).\u00a0 It was one of the last things he did for me wash the van.\u00a0 I never meant him to because he was 80 already and I just wanted to borrow his driveway and his hosepipe for a quick wash.\u00a0 But while I was in chatting to mum he was out there giving it a good clean.\u00a0 By the time I\u2019d finished my third caramel shortbread dad had come in pronouncing that he\u2019d washed the van for me and did he want me to check the oil.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So dad did a wonderful job with the van but I was horrified to think that he\u2019d been up a stepladder to reach to the roof and then stretched around the van\u2019s extremities to give it a thorough chamois.\u00a0\u00a0 The van looked good initially, but in a harsh light I could notice the smear of lighter and darker areas that I can only assume was polish, or an area that dad had worked harder at than it was worth.\u00a0\u00a0 The problem was that dad had cleaned it better than I ever did, but just slightly less consistently than I ever would.\u00a0\u00a0 It meant that there were areas of complete brilliance, and others that needed work.\u00a0 That\u2019s the trouble with white vans \u2013 there so much more bigger and obvious than a grey \u2013 sorry silver \u2013 Fiesta.<\/p>\n

Yes as I said it\u2019s a bloke thing.\u00a0 One has to feel the contours of one\u2019s own van.\u00a0\u00a0 I appreciated the commitment and love and attention dad had given to the needs of my van and me, but really I wanted to clean it myself.<\/p>\n

In a French courtyard the van looked great, and smelled of something unmistakably vague.\u00a0 Like hair.<\/p>\n

Actually it smelt of Jenny\u2019s hair.\u00a0 And that\u2019s unmistakably vague in my mind even though I would give anything to smell the real thing again.\u00a0 But the Tr\u00e9s S\u00e9me Extra Special Shampoo for Dry or Damaged Hair Restores Moisture and Growth was a one of a job lot of bottles I got for jenny when there had been an extra special offer of shampoos quite a few years back.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought it might have been a good investment since it was her favourite shampoo but we went and did that split-up thing and then she went and did her dying thing which is never going to promote growth in the hair or the relationship department.<\/p>\n

. \u2026. Good, well that\u2019s got the grief of my dad\u2019s and jenny\u2019s death out of the way \u2026 all over a shampoo connection.\u00a0 They do watch over us and laugh don\u2019t they!<\/p>\n

After coffee I found a plaque made of tin in the garage that had an interesting angel motif on it and l\u2019union<\/em> stamped out in letters like an interesting numberplate.\u00a0 It\u2019s not everyday that one stumbles upon something so unusual and so I thought I\u2019d give it a new lease of life and then it could become a memento.\u00a0 I need a memento, not just pots and pans fabriqu\u00e9e\u00a0 en France that have been in my cupboards, but something that I\u2019ve only just found as I\u2019ve left.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So I brushed and scrubbed the tin plate and got rid of the tarnish and then I knew exactly what it wanted.<\/p>\n

For no discernible reason I could gather either now or then I decided to spray it silver.\u00a0\u00a0 This is beginning to become a habit.\u00a0\u00a0 If I was a dog with a silver spray then much of the house would be silver by now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anyway this particular piece of silverware was coming home with me.\u00a0 And then I unpacked my packed paints and started colouring it over in all the appropriate stamped areas.\u00a0 White for the wings of angels, Shimmering violet for their roles.\u00a0 Gold for their coronets.\u00a0 Darker yellow for the lettering, \u00a0glimmering green for the laurels, or whatever vegetable they have hanging round their heads. \u00a0\u00a0I think the pictorial relevance is probably something deep and meaningful for the French but I saw through that and gave it a contemporary primary colour sort of grace.\u00a0\u00a0 Oh and I painted one angel black and the other pink to emphasise the UNION of the meaning of the original artist.\u00a0\u00a0 So I\u2019m happy that it\u2019s coming home with me because I can put it away until I find a perfect place to put it, and then I can be mementoed whenever\u00a0 I come across it.<\/p>\n

The other big difference being here at this time of year is that there\u2019s no insects.\u00a0 It\u2019s only eventually that you notice that all of a sudden you\u2019re not being attacked or buzzed, or zipped, or swooshed or stung or bitten by some bloody insect.\u00a0 In fact nothing happens at all as you walk through the air as if it were yours alone.\u00a0 Breathe in, breathe out, respire if you like,\u00a0 lean your arm right out next to the jam jar, smear your body in honey \u2013 nothing is attacking you. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But inevitably as the sun came out all day today, the air temperature just got above that critical threshold value to get the insects a thinking.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This afternoon I heard a buzz, and a black bee flew into existence then into the barn for a reconnoitre.\u00a0 So it\u2019s started.\u00a0 The birds and the bees, all in one day.\u00a0 February 6th<\/sup> FFS !<\/p>\n

Apres midi and the Tronchettes arrived to take a look at the sofabed.\u00a0 Sebastian had bought Christel to inspect the goods and have a go at the \u201ceverything\u201d game that is taking the locality by storm.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018surely you\u2019re not selling \u2026.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes especially that.<\/p>\n

Sebastian had learnt from his mothers bargaining and offered me 50 euros for the sofabed.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t sound right to me so I said 60.\u00a0\u00a0 Then after a short silence Christel asked me if the saucepan set was for sale because it all looked so nice and neat and new in the box I\u2019d just packed it in (wooden, brass hinged lid).\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how much a saucepan set is worth, but I wanted to regain the haggling high-ground so I said that if she took the saucepans and the sofa together it would cost 70 euros.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018And the vacuum cleaner?\u2019 she asked.<\/p>\n

What that knackered old vacuum cleaner I thought.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018 Yes you can have the lot for 75 euros.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I don\u2019t know what else I would have done with over twenty saucepans in my life.\u00a0\u00a0 Some days you\u2019ve just gotta realise that a man can only make a finite amount of sauce in pans.\u00a0 But they took the lot there and then (although haven\u2019t paid me yet), and Sebastian helped me down with the old yellow sofa that I am to take to the dump tomorrow.\u00a0 It was an exceptionally comfy sofa but the old yellow had turned to grey and it had become to smell of something unmistakably vague.<\/p>\n

I celebrated the sale of two sofas and the new found emptiness in the living room with a glass of wine and some music from RFM La Meilleur de la Music.\u00a0 But one\u2019s celebrations can only take so much of Phil Collins no matter how good the Bordeaux.\u00a0 So I got back to the task of putting things in boxes, sorting through clothes that have never been fashionable and never fitted me.\u00a0 Which ones should I keep?\u00a0 I thought like an Ilka \u2013 \u2018if you really feel your life will be lacking something by not taking this old tee-shirt into the future with you then just take it\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s not many tee-shirts that would pass that sort of test.\u00a0 It brings it all into a tee-shirty perspective.\u00a0\u00a0 And so my throw pile is now MUCH bigger than my keep pile.<\/p>\n

This evening I stole some more leaky WiFi from the hotel in the town square.\u00a0 It enabled me to check my email and see how Arsenal got on.\u00a0 The email was the highlight.\u00a0\u00a0 That and finding out that a friend of a friend of a group that I joined after having \u2018liked\u2019 a comment of a geotagged colleague had just opened a bottle of port.\u00a0\u00a0 The birds must be ashamed that they can only Tweet\u00a9 \u00a0about the weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, the sunth of Feb. Things are different here in the winter.\u00a0 I\u2019ve forgotten what it was like, I think the last time was when Jenny & I were out here with Martin & family at Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0 But that was a festival with friends, and now it\u2019s more like it was when I signed for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adieu-le-chassaing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}