Contents of article "36. April 2008"
Friday 4th April
Tuesday 8th April
Sunday 20th April
Friday 4th April
Shhhhhhhhh. Put down whatever you are doing and listen. Can you hear it? The wind has dropped, the sky is a flawless wedgewood, birds are chattering cheerfully and new leaves and wild flowers are whispering gently that spring is in the air. If you can’t hear it, close your eyes (but not while you’re reading this - that would be just silly) and imagine. Wow!
March closed for us on a strange note. The wind hurrumphed and harassed for more than a week, fraying tempers (but not mine as I am just naturally sunny - yes I am) and bouncing garden furniture around. Last Friday we met cousins Jerem and Nelly in Perpignan for an evening out and Bisou managed to stand on the central locking system of the car (whilst she was inside it and we were outside of course) and lock herself in! After half an hour spent banging on the window going "Up Bisou up’" to try and coax her to do it again, Olivier and Jerem had to shoot off in Jerem’s car, back to Maureillas, with more than a beer or two inside them, to retrieve the spare keys. In the meantime, as Nelly and I sat in a bar (it was hard but somebody had to do it) some villain stole her dog food which we had left under the car, complete with bowl and fork! Well, bon apétit mate is all that I can say. if you enjoyed your bowl of Canigou, good luck to you.... and may the wind return chez vous tonight!
Tuesday 8th April
Arghhhh! It’s happened! I’ve got to that stage in life where it’s easier to stay in all day rather than spend wasted hours trying to make myself look reasonable, only to look in the mirror to find that I look exactly the same as when I woke up in the morning (but without the sticky dribble stains on the side of my mouth)! I must admit I don’t like this ’getting older’ business. Life is just so flippin’ exciting - there is so much to do out there! I must admit that I look at myself in the mirror without my glasses on and I think ’Not bad for your age’ - then I put my glasses on! Argghhh! What do you do when your inside still wants to go out on the razz but your outside looks like you should be sitting in with a mug of cocoa and a copy of ’Gardening weekly’?
Yes, this is one of the pieces of modern art!!
Sunday 20th April
I’ve just returned from a chilly week amongst the hailstones of Leeds to a week of wind and rain over here. While I was away, Olivier told me every day, several times day, that the weather here was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL (nah nah nah) and it remained so until I arrived at Perpignan, at which point the heavens opened to greet me! However, gorgeous husband, grungy, whiffy, belchy adolescent son and stinky dogface were all waiting there to meet me, so let it rain! I’ve got what is most important and the rain can’t wash that away!
.... and another
Despite the above moan about the loss of my youthful good looks (!) life is still pretty fantastic here. P-O Life mag is still my baby, my passion, my obsession.... and I’m getting invited to all these posh nosh do’s and being treated like a proper, important, over-five-foot type of person! Before P-O Life, people just used to peer over my head and say ’who’s there?’ which is why I developed the big gob (little man syndrome I believe they call it!!) but now they look me straight in the parting (with no grey hairs since the latest intervention from my excellent new hairdresser, Christine at Curcuma at Pollestres) and actually take me seriously!
Last week I was invited to the chateau de Salses by Jean-Marc Lopez, who is the ‘
Chargé de développement Centre des monuments nationaux’. Quite apart from the fact that he was very cute, he gave me a fabulous guided tour of the chateau, around the non-public areas. We took a look at some of the modern avant-garde sculptures around the chateau, as it is also a museum and kind of backcloth for weird art and sculpture, and I can’t say I was impressed (tho’ of course I pretended to be cos I’m British ) Take a look at some of the photos and make up your own minds!
...... and another!!
An explanation of the artwork!!!
The Château was built by King Ferdinand, King of Aragon, at the end of the 15th century to keep France out of the Roussillon region.. It was later abandoned, and turned into a nature reserve for migrating rare bats. It has recently been refurbished and has a rather nice reception area and bookshop and guided tours can be booked. Incidentally, did you know that the word Salses comes from the Latin salinas fons - salty water source. Aren’t I a mine of useless information?
