Doesn't it look awful? Well, Fear not, it is not as ghastly as it seems. The dual security entryway is unfinished, allowing the inmates to escape from time to time before being rounded up by the never-vigilant guards.
The unfinished, virus-delayed porch.
Admittedly, as prisons go, this has gotta be close to 5 stars. However, for all of its unbelievably amazingly incredibly good points, there are a couple of downsides.
For example, my garden is going bananas:
The Back Gate (Palms and banana trees)
And the 'new-normal' idyllic tropical weather comes with its non-idyllic side:
A hard rain's a-gonna fall.
With the inevitable result...
A hard rain's a-bloody falling.
But I digress. This self-made prison has almost all we need. Almost.
The exclusion of other humanoid members can be difficult. My family in the UK have suddenly become much more remote. Flight now is just a distant memory, and the borders open and close like the proverbial barn door waving farewell to the bolting horse. The world seems to have stretched larger in its apocalyptic insane decline.
Being glued to this one spot can change your view of life. Gone are the days of travel. Africa really is a couple of big continents away now, and our chances of seeing it again become increasingly small. Tracking and photographing wild animals now must take on a slightly different flavour.
Shock! (A Bemused Crowned Crane)
We do have our own African wildlife park here. A pair of African Crowned Cranes and a wild cat too.
But for the really wild stuff, you need step back, take a good look around, at the colours, the textures...
Purple Haze (Russian Sage on Pampas)
Mauve on Red (Tulbaghia on Salvia)
then step forward to look closer. See the flowers, the shapes, the variety.
Target (Blanket Flower - Gaillarde)
Common DayLilly on hair grass
Bee Blossom
and then move even closer still.
There's more than just flowers in a flower garden.
There is life.
Teeming, crazy, bizarre ... life. You just need to look...
Investigating White Holes (A honeybee peers deep into a Jasmin flower)
Bees are of course everywhere. The garden is literally abuzz with them.
Mine's a pint (A honeybee drinks from a Russian Sage)
They are everywhere and nowhere baby.
Leaving on a jet plane (A honeybee takes off from a Passion flower)
A bee feeds from Lavender.
and not just your common or garden honey bees,
Bumblebee on a Lamb's Ear flower
Looking closer, you may notice other bees that are even smaller.
Sunburst! (A tiny dwarf bee tangled in a St. John's Wort)
and smaller still...
Hebe baby bees.
and then there are the wanna bees that pretend to be bees.
A bee-fly on Lavender
But on close inspection prove to be teddy bears designed by a mad creator.
Some look like wasps, but are not. This is a fly, there's no sting in this tale...
Waspish (Hover-fly on a Cotton Lavender)
Talking of imitation, when I first saw one of these guys darting from flower to flower I was convinced that France had native humming birds.
A Hummingbird Hawk-moth on Lavender.
It is actually a moth. Like this fella:
A Five-spot Burnet Moth on Lavender
And then there are their relatives;
Two Meadow Brown Butterflies say hi.
A Small Copper butterfly on a ...fake butterfly?
And there are many other insects too.
A Grasshopper on a Fennel flower head
Bugs abound.
A Minstrel Bug on Lavender
and some multi-tasking beetles sometimes called Bonking Beetles. I can't imagine why...
Red Soldier Beetles in action on a Cotton Lavender
As always in nature, there is no such thing as a free meal. Risk is everywhere. Life is balanced by death. Around every corner doom awaits.
Come into my parlour
On a suspended lotus pad, frogs await a passing unsuspecting meal.
In amongst all this vibrancy of life and colour there is but one thing missing...
We here in France are slowly discovering the new 'normal', as is much of Europe. The UK? Not so much. More of a new abnormal as your emperor (King of the World) walks around in his new clothes*.
Or hides in the fridge*.
(*Delete as necessary.)
But that story is for the next blog. Let me rewind to the last month of our imprisonment. Not that I expect any real change any time soon.
For us, this last month of lockdown (confinement) has passed quickly. This is probably something to do with it only being about two weeks long.
But let's not get picky...
So what have I been doing?
The best way for me to answer that is to look back at my Facebook feed.
Yeah, that is how sad my life has become.
It comes down to this. I live here. And this is where I am. And, I strongly suspect, this is where I will be. Until whipped away by the grim reaper...
So this is Lockdown Month 3:
Apologies for the cut and paste. Facebook doesn't play well with the rest of the virtual universe...
Day 1: Rain.
It rained most of yesterday. It’s going to rain again today. At times like this I find it a good idea to be philosophical.
I thus refer to the great philosopher Eeyore: “The nicest thing about rain is that it always stops. Eventually.”
I wonder what he thinks about viruses... “Days, weeks, months. Who knows?”
Day 2: Seeing things... This isolation must be getting to me. Everywhere I look in our garden there are flowers, birds, insects, and then this...
Day 3: Love. What greater gift than the love of a cat? Charles Dickens.
Day 4: FEED ME!! Life moves on. One day; child sitting in front of our tiny terraced house in London reading Gerald Durrell, next day student, next day veterinarian, next day parent, next day retired. Now? Chief cook and bottle washer. Half my day is spent cooking for the ravenous beasts. I need to be free. I am not a number! I am a free man! I walk out into the garden in search of solace. And what do I see? I live in the Little Shop of Horrors... Day 5: Nothing. Oooh. A bad day. Let's skip it... Day 6: Feeling lonely? Let me take you by the hand...
Day 7: Weeds. When life is not coming up roses, look to the weeds, and find the beauty hidden within them.
Day 8: To be a bee or not.
There's no sting in this tale...
Day 9: Sex
It's better to copulate than never...
Day 10: Not knowing.
Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.
Day 11: Knackered.
It takes a bee 10,000,000 trips to collect enough nectar to make 1 pound of honey.
The poor thing must be completely knackered...
Day 12: AAAAAARRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!
Day 13: Be Alert!
Look out!
There may be Ferbies about!
Day 14: What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; But I refuse to call them 'Boris'.
Day 15: Gardening again. You may have noticed that almost all my photos now come from my garden. Well, photos of me picking up the shopping or dressing up in a mask do not a great photo make. There is another reason though, and that is because the garden is just so full of colour and life it's difficult to know where to look next. So, with apologies, I'll keep on posting photos of flowers, macros of monsters and collages of colour. It's fun. So here's a couple of quotes I live by: An old Chinese proverb: Life begins the day you start a garden. Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone. – Jean Jacques Rousseau A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. – Greek proverb Gardening adds years to your life and life to your years... Unlike viruses...
Day 16: Purple Haze... all in my brain Lately things, they don't seem the same Acting funny, but I don't know why 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky. Day 17: Growing up. The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot. Salvador Dal Our pair of Crowned Cranes are growing up, so we've built them a new feed station, tropical style...
Day 18: The Final Day... Bittersweet. Well guys, lockdown is gradually coming to an end, so it looks like this much anticipated daily photo-shot with added barely-witty remarks must also come to an end. The new normal seems nearly here, with the local roads as busy as ever. Masks and distancing seem widely (but not totally) accepted over here, despite there being virtually no corvid around here. The new StopCovid app is out today, and we are insisting that all visitors must use it. The usual 'Darwin Award' rebels have been quashed. Restaurants open today. We still have to be careful, but yesterday seemed almost as before with Sophie & the kids around for a bbq and swim. I even had my first game of snooker since BC (Before Corvid). Later on a video chat with my brother then with the gang from Wales dragged me back from this utopia, bringing home to me that the world has got much bigger as distance becomes much more significant. It's going to be a long time before travel between France and the UK is going to be possible, even by car. A long time before I see my other kids and their sproggs. Bittersweet. So farewell guys, and thanks for all the fish.
And so we enter the next phase. Much like the old phase.
The age long tradition of La Bise has gone, to be replaced with masks and a suspicious look.
But fear not dear reader, this too shall pass.
It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.
Many, if not all of us are asking that now, in this time of deep uncertainty.
The classic answer in the UK is that it is an oncoming train, (thus the cameo role of trains in the video below). Unfortunately in the US it was used in the Vietnam war to refer to fire bombs chucked into the vietcong tunnels. Not nice.
Either way this is not boding well. Not well at all....
I, however, would like to offer you a different point of view.
I am concerned that we have lost sight of the world around us, our new reality. This new 'normal'. To look for the light at the end of this tunnel is to find ourselves missing out on what is most important in life. The tunnel itself. That which is happening NOW.
I'll give you a metaphorical example. (Philosophy is definitely my thing today, along with metaphors...) In our garden we have a jasmine tunnel. It's a tunnel made of old concrete reinforcement rods, but what the hell, it's a great support for the jasmine that we're growing on it.
It goes from the back gate of the garden to the 'lower levels'.
But no, it is so much more than that. As you walk through it, just soak in the smells. The odour is both subtle and yet overpowering. Stunning. Here is another world, between here and there, full of sensations. Smells, colours. Life.
And that is where we are now. That is my somewhat laboured point. To get to where we are going may take more than just a long time, it may take the rest of our lives. We need to live were we are now, to the full. It's just a different life, that's all.
We need to adjust. To adapt.
When I was a young kid, I wanted to be a vet. (Lucky that really.) But there were other possibilities. Maybe something with biology? But always with animals.
Then life took over. Time moved on.
Stress mounted.
Maybe a change? Maybe do something else? Get out of this cycle of anxiety. Hmmmm... How about gardening?
Lot's of possibilities out there, but some definitely never came onto my radar. For example, I never ever wanted to be a chef. The hours, the frustration, the hassle.
Fast forward to our new reality.
My time now revolves around the house (aka the garden), trying vainly to keep fit, and cooking.
And attempting to remain sane.
This is absolutely not what I had envisaged, but it is here, it is the new now.
So why not make the most of it?
Change it from a chore to a challenge.
So what, that we have to social distance? So what, that we have to wear masks? So what, that we have to be alert? (Whatever the f**k that means.)
Life is worth fighting for. Even in the kitchen...
And so to this month's Lockdown video. Two months of confinement in one of the best places on the planet. Who can complain? The fact that my life now revolves around the intestines of my mother-in-law is not a problem. It's an opportunity.
Hahaha.
For those of you who haven't seen our latest family extravaganza, here it is; Jon on guitar, Lisa singing and myself on blues harp and photo-mangling machine...
Dawn was preceded by the usual cacophony. The cockerel strangling out his morning wake-up call, still with his timepiece in the wrong timezone. The peacocks screaming at him to shut the f**k up. The swans screeching their morning vehemence, the frogs croaking their last, and the Indian Runners, erm, bonking.
Phil cracked open his eyelids. Blackdog Day again.
Crawling quietly out of bed, narrowly avoiding various carefully placed vases intent on giving away his escape, Phil slowly made his way to his first cup of espresso and his first of many daily chores. The same chores as yesterday. The same chores as tomorrow. Keeping the cycle going, keeping the black dog behind him.
His first chore, coffee in hand; to check what the heck is going on in the world outside. The same thing as yesterday, the same as tomorrow. Blackdog Day.
The curve. Always the same sickle-shaped curve. But wait, there are signs we are reaching the plateau! Did we say that yesterday? Or was it tomorrow? The number of pointless painful deaths may be higher but the most important sign is a good one; Boris is getting better.
Thousands dead, but Boris is getting better.
The Almighty-God-Ruler-of-All Trump is once more spending his time wisely, telling all his subjects of his supreme power and intellect. His immense ego feeds the black dog that hovers there, near us all.
And always that morsel of great news; the end is just around the corner.
The end is nigh.
Reading the same news every day, Phil finds himself unable to stop. He drowns himself into its mind-numbing relentless huge figures, endlessly dulling our concept of what a large number really is, eroded by politicians in joint competition to become world leaders in hypocrisy. Every one's a winner.
Finally, the pressure becomes too much, the Black Dog too close. Enough. Time to move on to the the bubble in which reality languishes. On to the next chore....
Every day, Phil takes time to understand those around him, not that there are many around him any more. He has chosen to live amongst those who speak a different language. This language must be learnt, its rules understood, its exceptions remembered, its tenses forced into a comprehensible shape, its conjugations knitted together. An hour a day with that despicable owl Duo is enough to drive any sane man into abject confusion. A chore that must be done to better understand the fineries of the French language. Like this...
Then: fetch the wood, light the fire and, as dawn finally arrives; the universal need. Sky needs a shit.
The morning walk is a discrete moment of calm thrown into the long day of... more calm.
This morning's walk is kept within the confines of the law and the confines of the garden. As it was yesterday. As it will be tomorrow. That it takes three quarters of an hour to finish this brisk morning stroll, interrupted only the occasional stop for nature's call (several of them, for both man and dog) gives some idea of the huge expanse that is the life blood to Phil's every day. His love, his hate. His chain, his freedom. His garden.
Then begins the first of many times allotted to his main purpose in life. The calls can be heard. "Feed me!"
Donning his protective gear, he enters the arena. First; the ducks and swans. He is welcomed with the usual caterwauling. The ducks flapping, quacking and bonking. The swans, well, the swans...
The mute swans are regal, if not actually mute. They emit grace. Their slow movements make them almost unflappable...
And then there are the black swans.
Two soft feathery killing machines. Their sole purpose in life to attack that peasant that comes every day to steal their eggs. You can't really blame them can you?
Tactics have slowly developed to avoid fatal injury to both parties. First a stick, then a broom, now a complex series of gates and fences, including a portable piece of fencing designed to separate the two warring parties.
None of which seems to stop those Indian Runners bonking. Only for them, bonking often ends in the death of the poor sod underneath. This seem a very poor evolutionary development. These three crazed sex maniacs have had to be put on an indecency order and confined to barracks. The occasional escape provides entertainment for all.
Leaving this den of madness, Phil then makes his way to the aviary, wherein lies tranquility, serenity and supreme vanity.
The two cranes have gradually become less timid, but still must retain a significant amount of social distancing. The chickens cluck about as if there is no international crisis at all, and the peacock struts his funky stuff as if he doesn't give a shit about others, nor even a care for the health of Boris.
In this place the Black Dog dare not tread.
Once the evening's omelette has been retrieved from under the bums of various dinosaur descendants, it is time for a spot of daily exercise. A 2K swim every morning helps clear out the cobwebs of another Blackdog Day. Every day. Every yesterday. Every tomorrow. An hour swimming back and forth in a small pool may sound like the extreme end of boring, but the ability to listen to a book at the same time makes this experience a true escape from reality. A reality which has become somewhat strange and bizarre over this last few weeks. At least, it could be a few weeks. Who knows?
The hours are passing. Chores to be done. Get on with it. Escape the black dog.
That old list of 'things to do' that has laid buried in an inaccessible place for sooo long has been shown the light of day, no more excuses. Weeding and feeding, Repairing and varnishing. Cleaning and maintaining. Jobs that are ticked off one end of the list, just to magically reappear at the other. Today, like yesterday, like tomorrow. Blackdog Day.
All then focusses in on lunchtime. There is a houseful to feed. Time to see what's in the fridge. Time to get inventive.
Two meals a day to cook. We used to eat one main meal a day, but with the addition of an extra member of our family, all has changed,
Yes, Phil's household has increased by one. His story about the 'rescue' of his mother-in-law will not be repeated here. It was previously published on Facebook as a parody but, little known to him, some of the French side of his family saw an 'automatically translated into French' version. Parody does not translate well. Suffice to say that some of the family think that he really is a member of a Special Weapons and Tactics team (spelt in full here to avoid another translation farce) and thus his status in the family tree has been lowered by several branches so that he now nestles somewhere amongst the roots.
This, the Black Dog loves!
The afternoon slowly arrives, following a quick nap.
Then on with the chores, be it building support for the rapidly growing kiwis...
... extending the railway system vital to the country's infrastructure...
...fighting back the flowering undergrowth...
...pretending to work on the computer...
...all the time enjoying the peace and quiet of the countryside in lockdown.
Oh yeah?
Every day, Phil takes precious moments to play with himself.
Loser.
In these closing hours of the afternoon, Phil finds time to play his blues harp.
Having played the chromatic harmonica in his youth, (in an orchestra for christ's sake!) he has now decided to torture civilised society, or what's left of it, with the minuscule diatonic blues harp.
Bending notes was not something that you did in orchestras...
After which, it is once more time to torture the bird's children by whipping them up in a bowl and frying them. And Phil wonders why the swans are so angry with him.
And thus we see the extent of Phil's day, covering more hours than actually exist in any normal day. But these days are a new normal, on repeat, on repeat. And this is how the Black dog is kept at bay. It was kept at bay the same way yesterday. Tomorrow? When will he break through?
And what is all this for? Why does he do these laboriously enjoyable chores?
Because life is good. Savour it.
La vie est belle. Soit prudent.
Dawn was preceded by the usual cacophony...
___
To avoid further confusion and/or depression: the Black Dog
