Showers 'en plein air' and back to the soil

I spend part of the morning fitting a soap tray and towel hook near to the outside shower. I know it's weird, but I must admit that I enjoyed showering outside last summer. It's the exhibitionist in me, or something, and it's the same kind of feeling as swimming in the buff. It just feels good.

We also replant most of the tomatoes that had "fallen over" whilst we were in Spain. We have now concreted them in and they ain't going nowhere! The cherry toms last year were quite a sensation. They had the most exquisite taste. We are also experimenting with watermelon. Look, I know that they are cheap to buy, but the tomatoes were exceptional and we've never grown baby cucmbers, peppers, melons, grapes, apricots, plums, kaki and chillies before. It's a back to nature, horticultural kind of thing.

Ah, now I understand, I think

I bite the bullet today.

Because I'm anticipating leaks, a non functioning pump and what have you, I have delayed turning the pool heating on. I did it today and you know what?..........it worked. As that great philosopher Jeremy Clarkson, once wrote, "by abandoning hope, I've removed the despair", or as that even greater philosopher, me, says, "unhappiness is the difference between expectation and reality". Keep your expectations low and, with luck, reality will ensure your happiness. Does any of this make any sense?

I've given up on the first TV Repair Man. We have no English television for the moment and frankly I'm not missing it too much. I'm taking this opportunity to watch (a little) French television instead. I'm amazed at how much I understand and just as amazed at how much I don't understand, but it's good practice. I tend to watch the news and always, (the English fascination) watch the weather. Evelyne, who usually presents at 19.50 on TF1, speaks clearly and not too fast, and in any case she is nice to look at whatever the weather. The other upside is that we start to watch some of the many DVD's that are sitting with their original cellophane wrapping still intact.

I have a call out to Frederick, from Gitem in Anduze, (heaven knows why I didn't just call him in the first place - well, I do know - I thought that I'd help a young Brit with his business in France) and hopefully Frederick will eliminate the antenna as a problem. He can't make it until next Tuesday, so another week will pass sans TV Anglaise!

Pools, visitors and cheap printers

After the strong winds of the last few days, the pool is full of rubbish and needs cleaning again. That's my job for this morning.

Clean, it looks so inviting that I feel like jumping straight in, but, with a temperature of 11C, not even brass monkeys would survive. I'll get the heating going in the next day or so, so that it will at least be warm for a school reunion planned for May.

Jill and Harry arrive today so it's off to the airport. The Ryanair flight is, as usual, early, so a quick turn round and back home to instal a new printer.

It's difficult to believe how the price of printers has fallen over the last few years. I seem to remember that an HP LaserJet 4 cost me about £1200 in 1993. Jan bought a printer, scanner, copier for about £250 in 2001 and we have just now bought a similar machine for £66.

Wind, skin and more wind

Yesterday we wake to a gloriously sunny but very windy morning. The beach opposite the hotel is on the menu of visits for the day. The wind whips up the sand and blasts your skin. Female beauty adverts call it exfoliating, I call it bloody painful. Several layers of skin later, we grab a quick bite and then head back up the motorway for a very, very windy ride home. I'll miss out the obvious joke, and suffice to say I had to wrestle with the steering wheel to keep the car on the road for a large part of the journey. Not much fun and scary at times.

Jan is very unwell for most of the night, and the strong wind continues to blow for most of today, so excursions into the garden, or anywhere else for that matter, are quite unpleasant. A time for catching up with lots of little indoor jobs.

Fish and Tom Tom

Yesterday was a good day, but I didn't manage to write much because we got back so late. The day started with shopping, Jan's favourite sport. Today was all about shoes and boy, are we in the right town for shoes. Having being pointed in the right direction, the street in question, just off Placa Catalunya, has more shoe shops than you can imagine. We buy shoes.

Lunch is at, what at first glance, looks like a fish shop. You go to the counter, choose your fish and then sit down whilst they cook it for you. Very informal but a great restaurant (sorry didn't pick up a card but can tell you it's on Carrer Commercial quite close to the Thoo), and an enormous meal for 6 comes to about 107 euros. Great value.

Back to the hotel for another ziz before getting a cab for a family cooked meal in another part of town. The driver uses a GPS navigation system to get us to our destination. I've never seen one in action before so I'm fascinated. I speak to him in Italian (I don't speak too much Spanish, except to ask for 2 beers and where's the toilet) but he says that the system is called Tom Tom. He inputs the destination and then, following the map and spoken instructions, he takes us on a circuitous tour of Barcelona. I check, and he states that he has only been taxi driving for one month. I'm sure he didn't tell the machine to take us on the pretty route, but it would be charitable to say that we went a long way round. This man will be very rich, very quickly, as long as he sticks to picking up tourists.

Where's Snowflake?

The main point of this trip is to meet up with some of Jan's children. No 1 son lives with his wife in Barcelona, and No 1 daughter and her husband and child and No 2 son all decide to visit from the UK for a get together. No 3 son can't make it.

We meet at a Catalan restaurant which offers a great 12 euros, three course, lunch time menu. If you know where to go, you can eat really well and really cheaply in Barcelona, and of course we are led by locals.

So where do you take your grandchild for an afternoon out? The answer is the zoo, or as the Spanish pronounce it the Thoo, which is just next door. Barcelona Zoo was home, until recently, to Snowflake, an albino gorilla, who was quite famous and who died a few years ago. I'm not sure what I feel about Thoos. For a start there are 7 adults, at 14 euros each, to accompany one 20 month old child, who gets in free! But that's not the main point. There are the usual array of wild beasts (which reminds me of a girl I used to go out with - but that's another story), but the enclosures don't seem large enough at times and you see quite a lot of repetitive pacing and rocking, which I believe is a sign of boredom and potential mental health problems. But enough about me, and back to the zoo. Or more precisely, back to the hotel for a quick sleep, because tonight is going to be a late one.

Pretty but dangerous journeys

I never fail to get a buzz at seeing Barcelona signed on the motorway near us. It's not too far, about 350 kilometers, and the journey takes about 4 hours at a steady pace. We always enjoy this trip, and as you head to the border, there's nothing nicer than seeing the snow capped Pyrenees on one side, and the sea, in the distance, on the other. Well, it would be, except today is cloudy and misty, and you can't see anything.

One day I'd like to get the train. I imagine it would be an interesting journey. However, trains can be dangerous, and that reminds me of the last time I made a train journey. In the seats opposite, on the other side of the aisle, there was a couple having sex. Everybody just sat and watched and nobody said anything. After about 20 minutes, they finished and then they both sat back and lit up a cigarette. I was really angry, and felt that I should make some comment at their unacceptable behaviour. "Excuse me", I said, "but don't you realise that this is a no smoking compartment?"

I don't know how Jan does it. She always find good hotels at very attractive prices. This one is no exception. Hotel Atenea Mar, www.bchoteles.com , is right on the sea front, not too far from the underground, and has the best breakfast buffet that I have seen in ages. Definitely recommended.

We're off to sunny Spain

Jan, clearly remorseful about the terrible lunch the other day, and now humbled by last night's feast, serves up bacon and tomato butties for breakfast. I knew some good would come from all this.

But then she shouts at me, because she wants to know what I want packing. In the good old days, I always used to pack for myself, but I've turned into such a scruff now, that Jan insists that she knows what I will be wearing (a good little ruse for all my male friends).

I never tire of the trip down to Barcelona. It's an interesting drive along the coastal plain of Languedoc, but more of all this when I post on our return in a few days time.

Back to the box? and great food

Yippee, the TV repair man is scheduled to arrive at 11.30 am today. Remember, I said scheduled because this is France, and he ain't here til he gets here! He calls at 10.30 am, to say can he meet me near the motorway and give me a box to try, excuse, excuse, excuse. No I say, because the problem's probably with the antenna. He finally arrives at................ go on, guess. Yet again he does not show up. What is it with these people? If you, unlike me, like to waste your time hanging around for someone who says one thing and then does another (when I was young it was called lying) then I will gladly give you this company's name.

But the good news is ...................we are invited to Bob and Lynne's for a "scratch supper". Now, I have no idea what a "scratch supper" means, but I can certainly recommend one to you!

We start with asparagus sitting on pancetta with Parmesan cheese and a poached egg on top. And that was just the starter - yummy! To follow we had gnocchi with a wonderful cheese sauce and for desert a chocolate pudding, soft in the middle with raspberries on the side. What was it she said about scratch supper?

From now on, I want scratch suppers!!

Bob, not to be outdone, serves his favorite red (name withheld because I don't want to start a rush on it) but you can get it from http://www.picwines.co.uk ,an excellent wine company based just 20 minutes from here, and who really know their stuff.

Whenever we have eaten at Bob and Lynne's they always push the boat out, and if you like good food and good wine, I seriously suggest that you get to know them.

On top of all this, we meet Arri their new black Labrador puppy, who is soooooo cute. A wonderful evening!

Weird behaviour

It's really weird, but regular as clockwork, whenever I suggest that we eat out, it is always at about 6.00 pm on a Monday. I promise that when I make the suggestion I never think about the time or the day, but as soon as Jan giggles, I realise what I've done. So, last night, (now that the village restaurant has closed) off we go to our new local, Mas de Roux, in nearby Bragassargues. The restaurant is a very large, very airy room, that despite its size always feels comfortable. There's only one, four course, 20 euros menu. There is a reasonable choice of starters, and the main course is a selection of meats, beef, lamb, veal or pork, which are cooked to order over a wood burning fire. This is then followed by cheese and a selection of gateaux style puddings. The wine list features local wines and is reasonably priced. One thing that I really appreciate is the linen tablecloth and napkins (you can see that we don't get this at home!), so overall, a pleasant and relatively inexpensive evening out.

Where did all the water go?

You just can't tell a man about his pool. For some time now I have been putting what seemed like an inordinate amount of water in the pool. I finally decided that it was leaking, and so stopped filling it, and let it settle to its natural level. The level stopped falling just below the skimmers, so in my mind the leak had to be above that level. Seemed simple enough to me. So I call in my 2 experts, both called Manu. One a Portuguese builder and the other a French plumber. What do they think? They both give me conflicting advice and neither agrees with me that the problem is at the skimmers. I'll need some convincing on this one.

With endless patience I insisted that we remove the covers to the skimmers, and, well blow me down, there's enough evidence to show the truth. So who's a clever boy? It will be fixed tomorrow, when I'll clean the pool and start the heating, and then Jan can start her lengths. Hopefully, she'll do enough for the two of us!

Sleep, books and Happy Birthday

I have always slept very well, however of late, I have a tendency to wake at least once in the night to take a leak. I know that you didn't really want to know that (or as my daughter once said "that's just a bit too much information"), but bear with me. Generally I think that it's an age thing. Sometimes I can get straight back to sleep, sometimes I read until I feel sleepy, and now, for the first time ever, I'm sitting at the computer.

Not earth shattering, and certainly not an unusual event in the great scheme of things, but very different for me. It's 3.34 am and I'm typing.

The book I've just finished, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, was a good read, and highly recommended. It was slightly more enjoyable for me because it's set in Barcelona, and we recognised many of the places and names. At one point, I did get lost with some of the characters, but that was probably just one of my senior moments. My current read, Boris Becker's autobiography, couldn't send me to sleep (but I bet it has for a few people), so here I am.

I can't even go and watch television because the satellite box has just packed up. Despite appealing, man to man, that it would mean I'd have to talk to my wife all weekend or worse still, watch French television, I still couldn't get a quick fix out of Mr TV Repair Man. I definitely need to improve my pleading skills!

Ouch, my typing finger is starting to get sore and I'm starting to feel sleepy. At least this worked, I'm going back to bed!

Is it any wonder I get up late? This afternoon I set off to borrow a satellite box, that Chris has kindly offered, so that I can start to eliminate some of the possible causes of my TV problems. Bum, still no signal. It's starting to look like the problem may be with the antenna. We shall see.

It's my number 1 son's birthday today. Happy birthday.

RIP

The Pope died this evening. Now I'm not at all a religious person, (despite having being brought up as a good Catholic boy) but whatever ones religious beliefs, I think that that he was a good man, doing what he tried to do, in a humble way. I certainly do not agree with everything he said or did and of course he could have done more, but he followed his beliefs, presumably to the best of his ability, and I feel a sense of sadness.

It's not fair being a man

Today I upset Jan. In the great scheme of things it was a small event but boy how it blossomed. What was my sin? - I complained about lunch! I suppose that's what they mean by in vino veritas, a couple of glasses and you tell the truth.

I conservatively estimate that the number of times I have complimented Jan on her prowess as a cook will be approximately (gets his calculator out because the need for balance here is important) 8760. Jan is a great cook and I love eating her food!! Now maybe I was under the weather, being absent minded, or foolishly, just speaking my mind, but I happened to mention that lunch was substandard.

I knew she was upset. There were lots of little clues, like kitchen knives being sharpened, the sudden appearance of weed killer in the kitchen, the odd attempted knee in the groin, and worst of all, she stopped talking to me.

I mentioned my problem to Floyd, who happened to call from the UK, and he found it all hilarious. He sided with Jan immediately, stating that she could serve dog shit and that it would still taste delicious. Nothing if not imaginative our Floyd!

He went on to remind me, (this is Floyd, who is still single at 42) that a woman will conveniently forget thousands of compliments, but will remember the one complaint, and refer to it in an argument 10 years later. It's not fair being a man!