Honey, I'm home

An early start, so that Jill and Harry could drop us off at Luton before they carried on up to Manchester Airport for a short break in Morocco.

Ryanair's recent clamp down on baggage allowance (10 kilos carry on and 15 kilos checked bag) had us juggling items between the suitcases at the airport but we just managed to scrape inside the limits. Having said that we left a huge box of goodies in Hinxworth for J&H to bring with them next time they drive down. I see a little business opportunity here for someone to ferry items between the UK and all Ryanair's destinations. Hmnnnn.

Our plane was delayed for an hour but otherwise the flight was uneventful and we landed in a warm and sunny Nîmes. It was good to be back. It was good to see the pooches and even better to get back into our own bed.

Give me patience

Because James and Pauline had very kindly let us use their bedroom, we left Brighton early so that they could get on with their lives and we could head north to meet Jan's sister Valerie.

On the way, we stopped off at Marks and Spencer (I'd noticed that you hadn't mentioned it yet - Ed.) so that Jan could take some items back that she had bought 2 days previously. Furthermore, despite my suggestion that she buy something that would be useful and improve her life, she promptly filled a trolley with clothes, that she tried on, and then put back. What is it about women and shopping? I actually don't mind shopping, but this was a total waste of 1 hour of our lives. (What happened to all your birthday good will? - Ed.)

Val was in fine form and after a pub lunch (I had a pint of Badgers, which was really good) we headed back to Hinxworth for an Indian curry with Jill and Harry. The perfect end to the day - and the week.

Surprise No 2

Because one surprise wasn't enough, today (with help from Rebecca in England) we orchestrated 'Surprise 2'. After a lazy breakfast and a read of the Sunday papers, Jan and I wandered up to the Seven Dials Restaurant (1 Buckingham Place, Brighton 01273 885555 - recommended) for an excellent Sunday lunch. What Jan didn't know was that the rest of her extended family had already gathered for yet another surprise. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time that we had all gathered together in one place. The ages ranged from 87 years old to 2 years old.

Two perfect days were rounded off by putting Maisie (No 1 granddaughter) to bed and heading back to James' for pizza.

A nice surprise

Whilst Jan's birthday was on Thursday, what she didn't know was that I'd arranged for all our children to gather today, including Ben and Paula from Spain, for a family get together. Jan hadn't wanted a fuss made about her birthday and she was genuinely touched that all her children had gathered from the four corners. We celebrated at Aumthong Thai Brasserie (31 King Road, Brighton 01273 777256) with a long drawn out dinner. An excellent evening despite the fact that I somehow managed to lose the carpark ticket and it cost me £25 to recover the car. (You donkey - Ed.) In no particular order, Ben and Paula, Josh and Rebecca at the restaurant. Sorry Luke, no offence intended.

On the move again

We left for Brighton via Welwyn Garden City and a pub lunch in St Albans. At the pub I had 2 pints of London Pride, which I have always liked, but it seemed a bit 'thinner' than I remembered. However, whilst it may be a bit 'thinner', the price has certainly got 'fatter' at £2.90 a pint. How do kids afford to binge drink?

Leaving St Albans we took the M25 round London and boy, was it slow. It was 15.00 hours on Friday and the road was solid, stop-start all the way. It took over 2 hours to get to Brighton where we picked up James (my son) from work and then went on to his new flat in Hove for dinner. Pauline (pronounced Paolina in German) cooked us risotto ai cavolfiori, cauliflower risotto from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie's Italy. It was absolutely delicious and has instantly become a favourite. All in all a good day.

Happy Birthday

In order to get a few things for the dogs, we popped into Harrogate and visited a pet shop. The conversation got round to the possibility of Minnie getting pregnant by Max and how we could prevent it. On our way out of the shop, I made the joke that 'boys will be boys' and that I'd have to watch Max. The shopkeeper lent over the counter and in a conspiratorial whisper said, "My old Gran once said to me, 'Ner trust owt wi bollocks!'" A smart lady his granny!

***

Today was Jan's birthday and the major reason for this trip. Political correctness prevents me from saying how old she is, but if we lived in an area with any buses, her new free bus pass would come in handy. And by the way, I'm her toy boy. After a lovely breakfast in Harrogate, we jumped in the car for the 3 hour journey south for lunch. Jill had invited us, together with Bar and Geoff, for a delicious lunch. The rest of the day was spent laughing and joking (don't we all look pretty in pink?). A nice way to spend your birthday.

Food, like Mamma used to make

Today was all about R&R and so we achieved very little. The highlight of the day was going to be the visit to an Italian restaurant. I have always found it difficult to find good Italian restaurants in England. Most places are stuck in 70's mode and offer food that has only a passing resemblance to anything Italian. We were encouraged to visit Sasso in Prince's Square, Harrogate. The menu looked very appetising and the wine list was interesting to say the least. It promised a lot. Oops, that's as far as it got. I started with small bacon wrapped scallops, all three of them, followed by a seafood pasta dish that also contained asparagus and brocoli. There were far too may flavours all fighting with one another - hopeless. For main course, Jan and I had sea bass which unfortunately was covered in a porcini mushroom crust. This was far too strong a flavour for the fish. The pudding was equally disappointing. Not a good experience and not recommended and luckily I wasn't paying!

Holy contraceptives

Mum has a small house and very kindly lets us sleep in her bedroom whilst she moves to something smaller in another room. Being a staunch Roman Catholic, the room is full of religious artifacts, crucifixes, statues et al, which kind of puts you off your stroke if you are feeling in the slightest bit amorous. I presume it's a type of Catholic contraception. Anyway it bloody works!

***

First stop today was Knaresborough. A delightful market town where mum has her doctor's surgery. As a note of warning, never offer my mother a lift anywhere, it will take the rest of the day. On to Harrogate where, between them, mum and Jan achieved 2 hours of shopping, I hung around whilst they 'popped' into shops and, other than boredom, I achieved absolutely nothing. Now usually I don't mind shopping but my mother tests every kind fibre in my body to breaking point. When will I ever learn? Anyway, I had another bite of the cherry this afternoon and managed to buy Jan's forthcoming birthday present.

***

Out to the theatre tonight to see Alan Bennet's, Talking Heads. Harrogate Theatre opened in 1900 as Harrogate Grand Opera House and, over the years, has been visited by many famous old actors, Sarah Bernhardt, Isadora Duncan, Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree and even Charlie Chaplin. It has a charming Victorian auditorium and only seats 500 people. The play was well performed and was very entertaining, albeit in a very gentle northern humoured way. The test for me, with anything like this, is whether I fall asleep or not. I stayed awake.

A short interlude

We left for a week in the UK today. The flight with Ryanair was, as usual, trouble free. Jill and Harry kindly met us at the airport, lent us their car, and we set off on our journey north to Yorkshire. The primary destination was Harrogate where my 81 years old mother lives. She left Italy when she was 22 and has lived in Harrogate ever since.
Whilst I lived in Harrogate for 21 years (it's the sort of place that I wanted to leave when I hit 21 but recognised as very attractive when I got to 40), I spent a lot of my early life in and out of Leeds. At school from age 11, and with my first job as a trainee quantity surveyor. Leeds was our first stop because we had to visit the best fish and chip shop in the world. I've been eating at Bryan's, (6, Weetwood Lane, Leeds, LS16 5LT, 0112 278 5679) for over 35 years and this visit is like revisiting the Holy Grail. I speak with some authority having eaten fish and chips all over England. According to Bill Bryson, the Magpie in Whitby makes the best fish and chips. Jan and I, who followed some of his trail in Notes from a Small Island, disagree. Forget Harry Ramsden, forget the Seashell in London and forget the Magpie. Bryan's is definitely the best. I had baby haddock, 3 fresh, moist, delicious pieces of haddock with chips, deep fried to perfection in beef dripping. None of your low fat, low cal nonsense here. Just pure, honest to goodness heart attack material with an exquisite taste. Recommended.

Who cares who the winner is?

At this time of the year I spray all the fruit trees, vines and the oleander bushes with Bouille Bordelaise (copper sulphate to you and me). This acts as a good fungicide and kills 99% of all known household germs (and anybody who eats the fruit - Ed.). It's used by all the vineyards around here to help prevent mildew. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

***

Jan has, by now, learnt not to ask me about recipes. Instead she uses her superb instincts and tries new and sometimes unusual combinations. Today was no exception because she served a Smoked Mackerel and Grapefruit salad. If she had told me about this beforehand, I'd have laughed my head off. It sounds awful but tastes delicious and she found the recipe here on the BBC food site.

***

To help with your cinema viewing, I am pleased to point you to this years winners of the Golden Raspberry Awards. Don't say you weren't warned.

Is that book interesting dear?

In need of something to feel righteous about, but in reality because the water had turned an olive green colour, I decided to clean the pool. It's amazing how 75 cubic metres of avocado soup can turn to an azure blue in such a short time. And yes, I did feel self righteous.

***

It was Woody Allen who once said, "Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's a pretty good empty experience."

This reminds me about when I complained to a friend, that the woman I was with at that time, didn't seem to enjoy sex. Being a man he was immediately interested in my observation.

"How does she display this?" he asked.

"Well, she didn't stop reading her book," I said.

Being a kind friend and trying to cheer me up he said, "You can always tell whether she was enjoying it or not,"

"How?" I said.

"Did she turn the page?" he said.

Crestfallen, I remembered that she had in fact turned the page.

***

Following last night's dinner, we went this morning to Domaine de Baubiac to see if we could taste some wine. As Jan correctly observed, I was on a mission. The sign on the caveau door said open between 11.30 and 13.00. A strange opening time by French standards, but not so strange by another French standard, because there was no one there. Anyway, I made contact and arranged to return at 16.00. We met with Raul Philip, one of the two brothers, the other being Hervé, and he offered us 4 wines to try. They were so good and so very much to our taste, that it was difficult to chose. So we bought some of each. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Being British

As an add-on to my rant about the Oscars, I am pleased to display the logo for the Golden Raspberry Awards. Please support this very worthy cause.

***

I quite often talk about insular French attitudes to 'things foreign' and laughed when I received this today.

"Being British is about speaking on a Finnish mobile phone whilst driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer and trying to pick up a Scandinavian girl, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign ".

***

Driving into Nîmes today we saw yet another instance of the French police standing at the side of the road and pulling cars over. This wasn't as scary as the other night when one of the flics was standing with his rifle ready to shoot somebody, which reminds me of a time when we lived in Windsor. One night we saw several police cars, having rammed a car into the barriers, at a roundabout near where we lived. What was really scary, was to see a man, handcuffed and face down on the road and an armed policeman standing over him pointing a rifle at his head. His 'moll' was screaming and having to be restrained and a police dog was barking at her. If you'd seen it in a film you'd have thought that it was a gross exaggeration of reality. (No jokes please about how you paid his parking ticket - Ed.)

***

We headed off for a pizza tonight in Quissac, but found that our target was closed for a private function. The next choice, recommended by William, was busy but if we wanted to eat there we would have had to eat outside. Mnnnnn, it was warm but not that warm. So La Baraka it was. As you enter Quissac from the south, this place is just before the traffic lights on the right. Thank goodness we ended up there. It was one of the best meals (at the 19.90 euros price) that we have had for ages. We both had the terrine de cèpes et poireaux, Jan then had fish and I had magret de canard gratiné au pelardon. I wasn't bothered about the cheese but it was interesting. This was washed down with an excellent Domaine de Baubiac, Coteaux de Languedoc, 2000. One of the best reds at the price that we have ever had. We have previously tried to visit this domaine but it was shut. It's now high on the list for a visit because I've got to see if he's got any of the red left.

Get a grip

It's wind up time again. Wind up for me that is, because each morning on breakfast news, a considerable amount of time is given over to the forthcoming Oscars. I now know all about this worthless event. An event where so many people are so far up their own backsides. I have seen interviews with dress designers, providers of jewelry, one or two columnists from the LA Times, the guy who sweeps the carpet, chauffeurs and technicians. The only one that bore any semblance to normality was the guy that runs the alternative Oscar ceremony, "The Golden Raspberries". The BBC quite often mentions the phenomena of celebrity worship, but it is as guilty as anyone of fueling the media hype.

***

So what did we do last night? We watched Oceans 12, a film with so many "stars", it begs belief. Over time we have collected many DVDs, all still in their protective cellophane wrapping, for general winter viewing. Jan, who is partial to the odd drool over Brad Pitt and George Clooney, chose the film because we both quite enjoyed Oceans 11, but it was she who, for the first 30 minutes, kept asking me, "What's going on? Do you understand the plot?" Me, full of male bravado, told her not to worry (dearest) because all will be revealed in the fullness of time. At which point I fell asleep. I was trying so hard to understand what the hell was going on and straining so hard to hear the pathetic dialogue, that my brain gave up the ghost and I sank into a coma. It was awful. (Might have to agree with you on that one - Ed.) As if I need to prove my point, I typed Alternative Oscars into Google and look what I came up with.

How to avoid spam

The weather in February was quite good. Whilst we had to light a fire because it was cold at night, the average midday temperature for the second half of the month was 13 C. There were 23 days of sunshine and only 1 day of rain. Pretty good really. It's no wonder that the weeds are growing.

***

Having now tried it out for several months, I have to give a thumbs up to my Gmail account. Whilst my 'regular' email account gets lots of spam (just how do they know that I've got a small willy and need Viagra?), the inbuilt spam filters in Gmail catch everything. Google have decided to only open new accounts by referral from existing account holders, so if anyone wants one please email me. The other bit of software that I have tried recently, and like, is Mailwasher. Mailwasher acts as a buffer between you and your mail handler and allows you to delete spam before it reaches your inbox. It's neat and has the clear advantage of making you less visible to spammers. You can try the simple version for free. Recommended.

***

We had to nip out for a couple of things this afternoon, with the intention of popping into Domaine Arnal to see if their boxed white wine is ready yet. I've noticed that Jan is getting a bit twitchy, so I'm sure that a couple of boxes will help calm her down. Last year, this was our white wine of choice, and at 2 euros a litre it was an absolute bargain. First stop was Sommieres, where we parked outside the chocolatier Courtin, just outside the town walls. This place makes delicious handmade chocolates and you can watch them plying their trade at the back of the shop. I just had to buy a little present for Jan (and you - Ed.). On to Arnal to be told by Madame that they had only just put the wine into the cuve and it would be ready in a couple of days time. Not a bad guess from yours truly! Not to be outdone, we drove back towards Sommieres and called into Domaine de Christin to try their whites. Like Arnal, they had little white left (most vineyards attempt to make just enough white and rosé to last a year) but we tried and bought some Sauvignon and some boxed red to try at our leisure.