More Fun.

I worry about my youngest son occasionally, but only because he has absolutely no idea of what to do in the event of something really nasty. Mummy will buy a gun. Kill Pigeons. Okay.

Me? You and whose army? I seem to remember a time when The Russians fought alongside The Germans, but that didn’t end well, so God alone knows what went wrong with that. They could have been invincible together. But which one was the most mad? Hitler or Stalin?

Putin will do no better. It is just a bit sad that he thinks he can. But for why? There is nothing to be gained. What is it that Putin wants?

Russia always was such a beautiful country for it’s own sake. The rest of it is just History.

Fun Fun Fun.

I have just done an exercise in my head on How to Survive a Nuclear War.  I have been doing this for years and years, ever since Kruschev was trundling towards Cuba, but I have now added the odd few niceties.

My Nuclear Store Cupboard is as ever healthy, although I could get a bit pissed off with Pasta after a while.  Two freezer full of meat but in the absence of Electricity I do have Salt Petre to salt down the meat.  And a few buckets to do that in.

Electricity and Gas could go AWOL, so The Wood Burner would really come into it’s own.  Enough trees around here to last a lifetime if managed properly.

Water.  I do have a fair few Rain Water Butts.  One of my dogs refused to drink Tap Water and would tip it all over the floor if I should so dare to offer it.  Really funny.  He stuck his nose under the bowl and deliberately turned it over.  But at least the floor got a wash.  Which is not one of my priorities.  You might not believe this but one, long hot Summer many years ago I actually went down to the river for a bucket of water for the dog.

 I don’t know about O’Connor.  He has only ever drunk Rain Water.  And besides, there is a river just down the road.  And since it never stops raining around here, why worry about water just now.  But if the dog drinks it then why should not I?

However, I must stock up on candles.  There is a limit to going to bed early and I have kept all of my lovely books from the days when you couldn’t buy an English book for love nor money here in France.

Growing things could be a bit difficult because I am not very good at vegetables.  But I do still have half a bucket of chicken shit which might come in handy.

And then of course, there is all of the Kilner Jars of spare whatever vegetables that I preserved when I couldn’t think of anything else to do with them and often didn’t have anything better to do.

The Quinces have been a bit of fun.  I mucked them up in the beginning, but I don’t do that anymore.  I have got them absolutely cracked nowadays. And there is so much more you can do with Quinces than might first appear.  And Yes, I do know what a Runcible Spoon looks like.

Robin Dominic will have to get a gun, but he won’t mind that.  There are enough bloody Pigeons around here to feed an army and guns aren’t hard to come by..

So that’s Putin sorted.  Stupid man.  After all of the horror stories of Russia, some of them during my childhood, he still doesn’t know that he can’t win.  And that only his own people will suffer the most.

The Bulbs. The Bulbs.

Whoops, got a bit carried away there for a minute, but there is nothing else going on around here.  I am right off Social Media, so The Bulbs will have to do.

Bulbs never get nasty.  They only get beautiful.  And now they are blooming at last, so the rest of The World can pass me by.

There is only so much nastiness that I can cope with and then it’s time to go.

Meanwhile, did any of you watch the French version of Notre Dame de Paris?  The Bells.  The Bells.   Quasimodo. 

They did it in English as well, which wasn’t the same thing at all.  It’s the language of course.  How I missed that on my odd and infrequent visits to Angleterre.

Notre Dame de Paris got very nasty towards the end.  Sadly, Esmerelda didn’t have much say in the matter.  In fact I don’t think she had a trial at all.  Not that things have changed all that much these days when it comes to Social Media.  But at least they don’t get to hang you anymore.  Although they can do a pretty mean job on wrecking your life.

Sadly, the antagonists involved in that ancient debacle didn’t understand irony any better than they do now.

The French version is well worth a watch.  It can be found on Google.  And the music is glorious.

O’Connor says, ‘ello ‘ello, by the way.  He can’t speak German, more’s the pity.  That at least might have come in handy.

To Be or not To Be.

All totally irrelevant. As if it ever was. I only watch my children behaving like absolute dick heads these days. But there you go. I know more about dick heads than they ever will. And Thank God for that.

Strange to say that they only get worse while I age relatively gracefully. But then I am of an age when women were of no importance. And so, I never did quite know what to say. Three Sons. Do me a favour.

I always liked my daughters In law. But I Neve knew how to tell them. I was so afraid that they would think that I might want to interfere.

As it is now, I know nothing of my grandchildren. Well, sorry, I bogged off to France.. But it is hardly a million miles away..

Just this one time I will say that it was never my intention to abandon any of you, or that I would love any of you any the less..

But sometimes things get a bit particuliar. And France has been so very good to me in latter years.

I would like to think that any of my grandchildren could come here if they so wished. This is my Home and who I am.

God.

I think I might be having a God Crisis.  Not my God, you understand.  I don’t have a God.  Just thoughts on omnipotence.  And what better person than me to decide on that.  If I am wrong about this then I will talk to God when I have to.  But I somewhat doubt that I actually have a conscience.  What is right is right.  I inherently know that, so I doubt that I will be apologising.

I only wish to be kind, although I do occasionally fail, but only when I have had enough of blatant unkindness.  This can destroy your soul if you allow it to do so.  Best to get out and away while you still can.

I am putting these strange thoughts down to  “Spooks”.  Ten Seasons and I am still only on Season Four.  Fuck knows how I will survive the remainder.  They are all corrupt and self serving.  And this is good?

Yer yer, I know that it is only entertainment.  But who wrote this shit?  It pollutes the minds of Earth’s Children.  The end justifies the means?  No, it doesn’t.  

But I’ll tell you what, if you are going to try to destroy someone then please don’t plead for the good of all.  Just get on with it and then deal with your justification in the dark hours of your night.

I am done.  Bon Soir to all.

Maureen Eccles Lang.

And Another Thing.

There is always Another Thing, of course. How would life go on without it. Rhetorical Question. No question mark required.

“Sister Boniface Mysteries.” I watch a lot of crap on Pirate Television and this one is hugely awful, but really nice. Ten Seasons of “Spooks” is getting through to me so I need a break from the hard stuff now and again. A bit like “Father Brown”.

I suspect that I am a closet Catholic. Although I won’t go in to that. I just gabble the odd Hail Mary when the going gets a bit rough. And the going has been a bit rough this last couple of years. I so knew who I was before all of this Covid shit. But I am struggling now. And I don’t understand how this happened. Although I suppose I should if I own even half a brain. But sometimes Crowd Think can override Common Bleeding Sense.

I haven’t had a vaccination against anything in fifty years so I can’t think of a reason for why I should now.

Anyway, it is now the dark of the night again, and I will live or die. Tomorrow morning I won’t even think about it. I will just be glad to be alive. I always was glad to be alive, albeit for no great purpose. So perhaps I am one of the lucky ones.

Gardening.

This Blog could be long or it could be short.  I’m nor sure yet.  But let’s start at the beginning.  I worked as a Gardener in France for twenty years  so I do have some experience of this, but it’s often not about Gardening.  It’s about people.  Oh and The Weather of course.

First you have to have people who own Gardens.  They vary somewhat.  Some of them leave you to get on with it and some of them don’t, although how much it is going to cost is generally a consideration.  So long as I got paid for what I did I wasn’t all that bothered.  And I did have only one bad experience in all of the twenty years.

The Weather is something else.  I spent twenty years riveted to The Meteo.  God knows why since The Meteo Persons largely have no idea of what they are talking about.  Sunshine tomorrow.  Oh really.  It is pissing down again.  But don’t despair and don’t get drunk because it could well be lovely tomorrow, even if The Meteo says Rain Again.  Sorry, Mr. Garden Owner if the grass is knee high.  It has rained for three weeks.  Nothing unusual about that around here.

Oh for that one beautiful Summer when it didn’t rain for eight weeks.  I can’t remember when that happened.  It was so long ago.  But The Weeds went on growing.  Try explaining that to an Absent Garden Owner whose Lawn could have become a weed bed.  You have to catch the weeds before they go to seed.

So to The Gardener.  Garden Owners generally don’t trust women to do this  sort of work, but due to a lack of reliable French Gardeners I did eventually cop a few jobs.  “Reliable”  being the operative word and them being let down all too often, with their Holiday Visitors arriving imminently.

I did as I was asked even if I didn’t like it sometimes.  There are a lot of lovely wild flowers that I would have left, but uprooted they were.  But I knew that they would come again.  There is a wild bush here, with yellow flowers that aren’t particularly interesting.  This is St. John’’s Wort.  Not that I have ever been motivated to stew it.  I prefer getting out there and doing something.

There is only one request that I always refused.  “Could you run your lawn mower around my lawn once a month?”  No chance.  Grass grows and there is only so far that  you can raise the lawn mower.   This is basic logistics.  After that it is a Strim Job and strimming is not good for lawns.

Then of course, there is the cost of half decent machinery, plus the servicing and the oil and the petrol . So you can say goodbye to half of what you earn.  I loved my machinery, but this is an Italian thing that I couldn’t possibly explain.  It is just in my heart.

I did do a couple Landscape jobs.  But that is in The Eye and not all that remarkable to me.  You don’t have to be an Expert.  You take what you see and do something with it.  It will all go back to jungle if you leave it be.

Gosh, I had forgotten so much of this.  It was The Weather that defeated me in the end, at the age of Seventy Five.  But my youngest son inherited all of my wonderful machinery and is now doing really well.  I don’t know if he loves machinery as much as I do, but at least he isn’t stupid.

He did once ignore my advice about Mulchers, but I doubt that he will make that mistake again.  And he is only of the age when I first decided to take up Gardening.  There’s a funny thing.

Gardening is all good.  Fresh air.  Some sought of autonomy.  And all will be well.

Thanks for this Blog to The Last Furlong Blog.  And a few others who all seem to own Dachshunds.. Christ knows how that happened.  I had never even heard of them before..  Dachshunds destroy gardens..  My own garden is now a complete wreck.

Mais En Y Var;

Very Odd. Or Not.

One Blog often motivates another. If only you can think of something to say after you have run out of Broad Bloody Beans.

The Bloody Dog? Nope, belay that pipe. Presuming that you know what a Pipe is. I shall leave you all to work out that one. But it is frightfully Naval.

I was lucky enough to wake up to Bloody Bag Pipes most mornings when I was young. I will love that sound for all of my life. Some grotty little girl child who decided to become a Wren and then discovered Scotland.

The Bloody Dog is absolutely fine. He has no conception of not being loved. He doesn’t even know what it means because he always has been loved. Little Shit. Ya Ya, love you to death you rotten little horror story. But I do. He is a long streak of Pelican Shit with slant eyes. His eyes are definitely not Dachshund. More Osiris. Some long forgotten God of The Underworld. And do you now what? He actually likes me.

So what now? A least another month of what has been a very dark Winter. I don’t remember any Winter that has ever been so dark, and so depressing.. Whoops, sorry. I fell over an Oxford Comma there, but mayhap they have their place.

Thursday tomorrow and nothing to do. Shit. Wonderful. Nothing to do. Well, apart from feeding The Dog and The Birds. Always my only priorities. And so I will watch a load of absolute rubbish on Pirate Television and the rest to the world can pass me by.

Plans Afoot.

I am one of life’s great planners. I spend more time planning than actually doing. But I lost the plot this last Winter and spent far too much time sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

The Bulbs were an Autumn Plan before everything went dark. They are on their way up now with half a dozen tiny buds from 150 Bulbs, although still a way to go yet. More to be planted next Autumn. I have got a lot of pots, some of which I forgot about.

I have just planted 30 Broad Bean Seeds, but that was desparation. It was getting a bit late on and they had to be in before Full Moon. Unfortunately I forgot to Google which way up to plant the seeds until after I planted them, but they are tough little critters and will no doubt survive. Make a note for next year.

Next year the Broad Beans are going to be planted in November. I have done this before in November and before I went into my latterly Winter Decline. They crop sooner. Robin Dominic doesn’t like Broad Beans so all the more for me. Especially since I am not a vegetable person. He prefers those ghastly French Beans. And loads of Carrots. I won’t die if I never see another Carrot ever again.

I have also found a small piece of Salpetre infested wall that I can actually paint. This hovel has got it all on every wall, mainly due to The Bretons collecting sand from some beach or other and then not washing it properly. But I am not doing the other walls yet again. I am too old now. Although I have to say that this took care of a fair few Winters.

Just one small wall, which houses my Gauguin Print which was drawn in Pont Aven by said artist to pay his then current bar bill before he bogged off to Tahiti and went a bit peculiar. Also my pen and ink drawn face of Karl Marx. It is an original although not by anyone famous. It is very good. And No, I am not a Communist. Plus half a dozen Cartoons from long ago about English Life. They are probably worth a few bob now albeit from a more gentle age.

What else to do next Winter? This is where the planning gets a bit difficult. I could dust my lovely old furniture a bit more often if only I was in to that sort of thing. I always had a Cleaner in my hey days which means that I never did understand quite how to do it.

Oh, my beautiful old Table. It needs stripping. I have done it before but I have now forgotten how I did it, although it looked bloody lovely afterwards. I do remember that. No Power Tools involved. Just Wire Wool and something else that I can’t remember. And guess what. I have just found the remains of the original wire wool that I bought at the time. Never throw away anything.

Ultimately I am a Things Person. Things don’t let you down.