It was hot in Dorset...

A fantastic long weekend in the loveliest county in England: 

Lying in the hot sun on Burton Bradstock's Hive beach, blue, blue sky and seagulls floating overhead, desperate to be photographed...
Lunch was local crab sandwiches in the Hive Café ... 
and proper English breakfast in Eileen & Isabel's garden, to rival all others, both breakfast and garden!

Portesham: Barbara & Robert's ceilidh/french dance party with GIG-CB's big sound, a great bourrée or three, seeing old friends, bed at 3.30am I gather... then recovering with brunch and music in the garden... I even danced on my bad foot!


Chideock Manor was open as a special treat for the Dorset Gardens Trust. A spicy white rose - The Garland; Black Lace a lovely black leaved, pink flowered Sambucus, the Santolina parterre, arum lilies in the stream. Tiny russet and green wings on a maple in the woodland, a limetree walk leading to a folly, stained glass and the boating lake.

And the sunset over Swanage - a little bit Concarneau, a touch of the Mediterranean, yet quintessentially 1950s England. 


What a privilege to spend some slow time in such beauty...

Focs de la Sant Joan

24th June is Saint Jean's Day (St John) and the Trobada is a celebration that takes place in the Catalan southern bit of France and north of Spain is the meeting, at the summit of Mount Canigó, of people from both sides of the border, and the making of a bonfire around the iron cross that marks the highest point (2784 m), starting on 22nd June, Summer Solstice. Then at the midnight, a flame is brought from Perpignan to light the fire. The next day torches carrying la Flama de Canigó are run down the mountain back to the communities either side of the border (Canigó is in France) whereupon everybody celebrates St Jean by lighting their own village bonfire and dancing all night! 
I will do it one year, but have yet to even reach the top of Canigó under normal circumstances (ie. in a 4x4 jeep) let alone walking it in the dark...

Links: 

in Catalan, routes, etc: http://flamadelcanigo.omnium.cat/www/flamadelcanigo/ca/

in French & Catalan, history, etc: http://flamadelcanigo.free.fr

in English: http://www.anglophone-direct.com/La-Trobada-du-Canigou-and-Les-feux

Les Bleus de France...

Reporting on the World Cup fiasco, Le Monde said "Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that "in football, everything is complicated by the presence of an opponent" but this French team showed you don't necessarily need an opponent – they were able to sabotage themselves. "


Here are some alternative Bleus...

Man in denim at Montaillou, stained glass window in Nevers Cathedral, Serardy Chocolatier in Moulins, Millau Bridge, RF in Prades, Blue Man in Thuir, un bleuet on War Memorial in Aulnay, volets in Place de la Republique, Perpignan, blue Canigou, Pyrénées-Orientales.

Fruitfulness...

My garden today

 Love-in-a-mist          Obelisk, a present from Julian          The first ripe strawberry!

Sunshine and shadows...

Ah, it's nearly summer solstice and at last the sun is out. Time to take down the heavy velvets, wash the nets, lift the rug, polish the floor and put up the summer curtains ... heavy white French linen sheets, two strips woven on a narrow loom and flat-sewn together. The sun streams in at about 3 o'clock onwards, and the pale wood floor gleams, the air heats up, the dust lifts in the vectors and eddies about in the sunlight. White lilies in a big Glen Colledge jug sit in my fireplace and fill the room with a heavenly, heavy scent.

Mandy's birthday party

(top) Mandy playing concertina in the Foundry 12 June 2010 and (below) nearly everybody else playing too! 

Mandy, Maggie and Martin singing, in the kitchen

Oh look it's morning already! 04.40 to be exact

Mandy's garden

Dancing costs nothing....

I can't remember where I took this photo. It would be nice if free dancing was in a party manifesto, so that you could vote for it. I don't mean "free dancin' " as in Express Yourself!!
Dancing is a brilliant antidote to sitting and thinking, and all that executive computerworking and headbanging!  Murray Hope (in The Psychology of Ritual, I think, but I'm still looking for the reference) says it is the perfect exercise for a sedentary worker. Now that I am less sedentary, I want to dance more! 

Highlights of the Grand Tour de la Retraite... pt 1

more photos to come...
and in no particular order:


- St Hilaire's magnificent romanesque church in Melle, one of the Patrimoine stops for pilgrims on the Chemin de Santiago route
- hearing larks in the fields around Numancia, Spain
- the roadsides packed with spring flowers and the abundance of the red poppies
- Madrid's haberdashery shops

- watching bored Spanish teenagers in the old theatre in Amalgro having a lecture on the plays of Lopa Vega - fiddling with their mobiles, chewing gum, eyeing each other up, giggling in the back row, just like anywhere else!

- Orihuela: meeting Michael's oldest Spanish  friends and their family, and eating the Orihuelan speciality arroz-with-a-crust

- soft sand and shallow, crystal clear sea in which to swim, at La Zenia

- Miguel Hernandez and the camino de Santiago... everywhere!

- storm clouds over Canigó  
- blue sky everywhere else!








- cooking paella at home, with Sierra Nevada sunset
- rich & garlicky seafood in Casa Emilio at Salobreña
- my favourite.. seiche à la plancha in the Café de la Paix in Prades... rich & garlicky seafood... hmmm :-)     

- Cordovan Patios - Fiesta de Rejas y Flores - A bit like the Brighton Artists Open Houses, the route maps take you to courtyards full of massed pelargoniums, tinkling fountains, blue pots, white walls, lemon trees, painted plates, trailing greenery, ferns and la casa des vecinos - inspiration to plant pink bougainvillea and red geraniums de lièrre in my French garden.

- staying with Jill & Alan (near Niort, Deux Sèvres) and marvelling at their plans to cycle the Camino, and thence to Morocco! 

Got those bad feet blues...

Today I found out that my right arch has fallen, which explains the pain in my right ankle... oh, hobble, hobble, old age etc. 
Also I am missing the sunshine of Europe and waking up to bright blue and cloudless skies (apart from in Prades!). I can't believe I've been home two days already and been woken in the night by dripping rain outside the window.  Later at 4am, a wonderful birds' chorus - blackbirds singing their little hearts out. 
And my eye test went well, no change, so I guess that's a little bonus. And I get my hair cut tomorrow, so I'll feel a little better... and I'll play some music so I should feel a LOT better!! Oh, OK, OK, things are looking up... 

feet in sea at Berck

Amazing clouds...

The weather here in the Pyrenées... it was supposed to be three days of pure sunshine, but we have had windy gusts and clouds of all sizes and guises... above is a sunset, layers of thick cottonwool stratocumulus, duvet-like protuberances, skeins of grey, woolly hats on Canigo, high scattered contrails, the 'piles d'assiettes' formations, and the most curious sight of not knowing which is mountain and which cloud... 

a Flickr compilation will be linked from here... once I get the photos edited.

Clermont 19 : 6 USAP

Saturday... Ceret... the final in the French Championship Rugby 15s... Perpignan played none-too-well and lost... did the Catalans celebrate or commiserate? Who knows? The massed 'bandas' did play "Those were the days..." so I guess they did:

Still, with a good dinner in the square, and most people not looking at the Ecran Geant... one man went past and muttered... "it all depends whether you want to do an Auvergne bourrée or a Catalan Sardane". At which point we looked at each other and grinned!