Sunday, September 23, 2018

Pond Scum, and Used-Car Salesmen ...

Both are unsightly, but at least the pond scum is useful ... seriously, if there's one thing I loathe (not actually the case, there are many things I detest with every fibre of my being - orange crimplene shirts, to name but one) it is chasing people up to get them to do something that should have been done, and would have been done much more easily, yonks back.

Case in point, two years ago we bought Margo's little Mito at a garage in Carcassonne. ("Prestige Autos 11", if you want a name to avoid: "Ah, the wide boys", as John sighed later on. Maybe I should have asked him before venturing onto the lot.) In principle it came with cruise control - as it turns out it had a speed limiter, not exactly the same thing but we live with that - but what it did not have was the handbook and, more importantly, le carnet d'entretien - the service booklet. "No problem, squire, I have but to ring the previous owner and I'll have it in a jiffy ..."

Fast-forward two years and a goodly number of phone calls, and I am starting to get exceedingly annoyed. Getting actually angry I find to be usually counter-productive, but I am so close ... especially when, on today's fruitless call, the guy had the temerity to say that he'd willingly give me the owner's phone number and I could chase it up myself.

At which time I pointed out that perhaps it was his job, rather than mine, to do that; that it was in fact illegal to sell a car without these documents - then I said I'd ring again next week, wished him a lousy day and hung up the phone on him.

That last will rankle, I know. It was cruel of me, but a French-person who is not allowed to end a conversation on a superficially cordial note will not be happy. He has not been permitted to make an implicit excuse, nor say that it's not really his fault, you understand, and now he will just have to swallow the guilt. (Mind you, car salesmen may prove an exception to this general rule.) Whatever, I'm glad I don't know if he has a dog, because I'd hate to feel responsible for it getting a couple of unwarranted kicks when he gets home.

For thirty years now I've laboured under the misapprehension that "37°2 le matin", title of a book and then a film, was referring to the temperature. An easy mistake to make, especially as it starts off in Gruissan, in summer, where it really does get that hot in the morning.

But finally, thanks to a hat-tip from a friend, I actually bought the book ("Betty Blue", in English, but just maybe I should get it in the original and re-read it, to see what was lost in translation) and discovered that I was, as usual, completely wrong. Well, maybe not entirely: it does refer to the temperature, but more precisely that of a pregnant woman - 37°2, in the morning.

Those cultured few of you lot out there who've read it before may now snigger up your sleeves at my ignorance if you wish, but I would still recommend it. A rather beautiful love story, for all that the author is French.

End of lit-crit, on to the rest.

Is it something in the water, I wonder, or am I getting cynical, or are they actually breeding kids to be retards these days? I mean, I went off and did something I don't do enough of these days - to wit, grab the camera, fold myself into the car and head off to take some photos. So I was wandering the quiet sun-baked streets of Luc sur Orbieu, snapping merrily away, and I acquired a cortège of two bratlings - ten, twelve, I guess.

And having watched me take photos of buildings and godnose what - I guess the only entertainment in the place is what you make for yourself - the eldest piped up and asked "Sir, sir, what are you doing?". Department of the bleeding obvious, I replied "taking photos?". "Oh. What of?". "Buildings, young fool. They tend not to run away". No, but seriously: you ask someone with a camera pressed to their eye what they are doing? Yoof of today.

Anyways, we is now mid-September and we are still enjoying what passes for summer. Bright, blue and warm; but I have dragged a pair of jeans out for the morning and late-night walks. The cool is pleasant, but still ... Margo tells me that the beginning of next week it should drop to about 21°, before going back up to 26° or so: I can live with that. If it could only stay that way through till November that would be much appreciated, and who knows - stranger things have, as they say, happened at sea.

What I'd really like is for it to be warm(ish) for the first week of October, for on the 6th - the 8th being, most inconveniently, a Monday - shall be commiserating my 60th birthday with a not-so-select group of friends and other semi-professional alcoholics. I shall have to lay in another 40 litres of wine, I feel, and Margo rather maliciously suggested making club sandwiches ("les tartines d'association?") because they always go down well with the French. I am seriously toying with the idea of making up one lot with smashed banana, honey, and Marmite ... would that be bad of me?

And still in this festive vein, I is a Happy Camper, for my birthday present arrived rather early. I am sick to death of bloody box graters removing my knuckles, and the sheer excess (and the cleaning overhead) of thinly slicing potatoes using some special disk-like blade (which you can never find when you need it) in the kitchen whizz is enough to put me off the idea, and in any case I am supposed to be able to do it quite adequately with a knife ... which is true enough but life's too short, so I ordered a de Buyer mandoline.

It is very pretty, and quite spotless, and I think I shall leave it unused for the next six months so that it stays that way - just take it out from time to time to look at it - which brings me to my current problem, this being "where the hell shall I store this thing, in my tiny kitchen?".

Because all the cupboards are full, and chucking out cooking gear is not an option because despite what one might think there is in fact very little of it that I do not actually use. (Apart from the bread-maker, which followed us down from Savoie and sat in the pantry for five years until, just the other day, we managed to palm it off on Julian & Batu, and maybe two of the three waffle makers we seem to have. And a number of the six muffin tins. Also the electric frying-pan that Margo bought some years ago, unwrapped, and put on a shelf - from whence it has never, to my knowledge, moved an inch.)

As a temporary (and, therefore, permanent) measure, I suppose I could shift one of my huge cast-iron casseroles someplace else: it's only moving the problem around, I know, but if I can keep doing that long enough it will eventually cease to matter.

Also, going off to MatCol and buying another couple of decent, sturdy stainless steel 30x40 baking trays that won't warp in the oven (making a hideous pinging noise in the process, and incidentally tilting your little gratin dishes just enough so that the crème brulée custard runs out) didn't really help matters in the storage department.

Whatever, the bells started a random cacophony this morning, bidding the faithful to prayer, as it seems that the ambulatory vicar is here today. Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of the faithful, and even more sadly they are mostly on the elderly side, and thus arrive by car.

And being as what they probably got drivers' licences - if in fact they did - back in 1914 or something, the concept of not double-parking, thus blocking in we innocent heathen folk, seems to be totally alien to them. Probably a Good Thing then that I didn't really need - or want, come to that - to head off to the supermarket this morning.

Be all that as it may, it is far too nice a day to worry about such small matters, for there are more important things to occupy my mighty brain. Such as, for instance, just how shall I while away an idle afternoon, waiting until it's time to head across to Montbrun for drinkies, and whiling away an idle evening?

This is the sort of problem with which we are constantly confronted down here in the south, but I (rather nobly, I feel) suffer it so that you don't have to.

Cheers - speaking of which, maybe it is time to open another bottle of rosé. Need moah vitamins.

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