Ariege Mountain Holiday; St Girons Market

Saturday is market day, we arrive and stock up with food for the holiday, and to buy presents souvenirs and a bit of food to take home (no room in car for more, sadly).  Then on the Saturday we go home, we call in again.  A multinational gathering of ecologists, hippies, artists, musicians and generally all the people I like being with selling the food I like to eat in a town I like the look of...and so drones on about how wonderful it is...in the face of disapproving teenage son who buys pizza, sits on bench, eats pizza, declares the market, the entire region Boring and "full of Old People" and every time I approach the bench asks "When can we go?"

I usually buy one pot, this one from a profound potter with blue eyes, she is part of the souvenir

Organising the mountain flower honey

Garden produce on a plain table

East-West;  Young Lebanese musician selling his organic vegetarian Lebanese sandwiches;   sauce with special thyme from the Lebanese mountains, humous, smoked aubergine pate, salad, yoghurt sauce, goats cheese...au choix

Dutch wildman goatherder, wonderful life, wonderful cheese!

Here we bought particularly aromatic lemon verbena (verveine) for tisane...

JC even found a lovely 2nd hand bookshop run by a Northerner who stocks up in Paris, opens every day it is possible to sell, works hard but loves the work - JC bought Tin-Tin cartoons and book about Eco Houses...

Beatles music...

Bought apple juice here, gathered from hedgerows, (never shake the trees it upsets them and they won't produce next year), dry the apples a little before juicing, makes them sweet... he works as a volunteer for a charity and so has use of their juice-pressing facilities, also turns wood from his garden

R cruises with headphones, to exasperation of parents,but at least he took them off

market by the river

Bought some very good caramel sauce for pancakes, made by Ariege woman who went to Brittany to learn how to cook Brittany food, and sells it to Brittany people in Ariege who complain they can't get their food...that's business!

Orange is my kind of colour

My kind of people...

 

An American grandmother hippy chick, running a portable organic cafe with camping chairs unloaded from her van:  we had perfectly blended chick pea curry and rice and a spicy chai tea with milk, very very excellent

AM I THINKING OF MOVING HERE?   YES I AM.  AM I THINKING OF BUSKING IN RESTAURANTS FOR MY SUPPER GROWING HERBS PLUCKING FRUIT AND HANGING ROUND MARKETS SELLING THINGS FROM MY GARDEN?  YES.  AM I THINKING OF WEARING FLOWERS IN WHAT'S LEFT OF MY HAIR?   YES YES YES

Eating weeds with your salad

Herbal benefits and pockets of taste to enhance our lettuce, ingredients found growing wild or planted and growing successfully in our garden.

Dandelion flower and young leaf

Violet leaf

Wild rocket

Red sorrel

Marjoram

Mint

Baby Swiss Chard

Hyssop

Lemon Balm

Sage

Fennel

Marks & Spencer Paris

I finally made the pilgrimage to Marks and Spencer's on the Champs Elysée, it wasn't exactly St Jacques de Compostelle...


Interestingly most of the clientelle was French,  "square shaped smart over-sixties French"  looking for something in navy and stone to drape over the folds of the older figure.  I did hear a few English voices.

Firstly, I do miss the English assistants in understated polyester shirts who sympathise with you when they only have your size in fuchsia and call a flustered younger manager to answer to the charges.  The French staff were trying, but inevitably the word 'no' tripped from their lips without qualification and they were difficult to catch, they all looked flustered, partly because the air conditioning had broken down and partly because they couldn't quite work out the clientelle (some of whom were looking dangerously overheated in the queue for the changing rooms which are too small)  and there wasn't a manager in sight.  They will not order your size (which is largely absent from the rails), you must go home and DIY on the internet.

Warning;  once in the changing room, quite the worst 'fat ugly' mirrors and lighting I've ever experienced, made me want to give up clothes shopping, go home and order Crimplene coveralls delivered in brown paper.

But I am truly outraged by the fact that there was not one pair of trousers size 16 "long" in the whole shop.  For the taller, rounded woman living in Paris, there is no hope, no long trousers, and hardly a 16 to be found, so the whole Raison d'Etre for Marks and Spencer in Paris is to do LONG trousers (which are also comfy, smart, practical, not too tight and washable).    Marks and Spencer Paris,  you gave me hope, and you took it away.

Idea for improvement?
I know what would work for me;  the entire range in every size for trying on only.  When you find the size and style that is right, you go to the counter for a human exchange where the assistants can help you order, discuss any practicalities, and generally build good customer relations and loyalty...

Measles and Badgers

The death of someone is the death of a whole world, and the death of a child the worst of all,  unbearably painful for the loved-ones left behind.  We can't want children to die or suffer permanent damage from measles.

At the same time as the measles publicity comes news about diabetes:  drinking one can of fizzy drink a day seems to increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 22 percent.  The whole history of sugar, in particular corn syrp and its mass introduction (as big as a vaccination programme) has caused untold disease, suffering and death, and the fatal addiction continues (http://www.gracelinks.org/133/film-review-king-corn).    Road traffic accidents seriously injure 200 000 people a year in the UK, kill 2,200.  The fact is many aspects of our behaviour, the conditions in which we find ourselves or the choices we make kill and maim us on a regular basis, a lot of them a result of wrong-thinking by scientists, dare I say it, or governments or epochs, and by commercial interest.  Where do we start when we want to reduce human suffering?

One pointed thinking...on the end of a needle
I guess the thing about vaccines is, it would seem to be a simple solution with no price to pay, the disease can be prevented and eradicated, just a little scratch and you're done.  That is, IF there is no deeper or wider price to pay than the little scratch, what if we are only scratching the surface of this issue?   Our information on the subject may not be totallyl unbiased:  some very big companies are making some very big money out of vaccines, and that money and the  need to keep making more money, means that these companies, sure as eggs, are spending some of that money on getting Big Access to our media world, our political world, our medical world, and our heads.

I heard on Radio 4 this morning that certain elements of yer British Public are cwoss with Doctors and have lost faith in them, because they believe them to have a vested interest in giving vaccines vis a vis a small fee which is paid to GPs for each one given.    GPs are rather hurt by this, according to the Dr interviewed.  This doctor might have shown a little more imagination, as it is undeniably true that there is commercial interest in vaccines, it's coming from behind the friendly and reassuring face of Doctor, from the companies that research, market, manufacture and distribute them, and this is big business and big business rules apply.    Is this the best way to spend society's money on researching health, reducing suffering and death?

The take on the MMR vaccines causing autism has been discredited and the last remains of possibility thoroughly ground under the heel of national publicity,  we are obviously totally stupid to have taken any notice of it, scoff scoff.  But what if Andrew Wakefield was onto something, just not exactly what he thought or could prove, because his approach was flawed? (allow Andrew Wakefield to reply and open a balanced debate by watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kbWfsygG4).   History illustrates that Scientific Certainty about health never lasts forever.  Firstly, even if a few pre-disposed children develop autism triggered by the vaccine, then these children also are a world in themselves;  the question of who is at risk, who should avoid the vaccine should be researched with equal zeal.    But more than that, what do we know about the proliferation of 'unexplained' degenerative diseases in 'later' life, for example?  How can we study and know the quality of life and health over a life time of every human world living on this planet?  Is it really so simple, so black and white?  I can't know from the material evidence available, the studies haven't been done, probably can't ever be, the task is too multi-faceted, too huge.

It is easy to fork out for a vaccine in a little vial, pay the company, get the protection.  It is much harder to look at the wider picture;  what makes some people more immune than others, what makes some people less vulnerable to serious complications from a disease, what is the exact nature of the disease, it's origins, it's place in the general picture, what makes it develop?  We are not merely herd animals, meriting herd immunity, we are, or at least we have the potential to be more.  As Monty Python put it in the Life of Brian, we are all individuals, more and more so, in every aspect of our being.

The Relationship between the Bug and the Being
When no other solution exists, we have to use the blunt intstrument, but what if other solutions, much more marvellous, were to exist, if we went out to find them?  What about the really interesting questions such as;  how come some people are naturally immune, or suffer less from it, what makes people suffer serious symptoms or complications, what place nutrition, pollution, mental health, spiritual nourishment, love, childhood....whole human health, the relationship between the Bug and the Being, so, so interesting...

Now, onto badgers.  Are we going to send out a team of killers, or are we going to set up a team of creative solution seekers?  
In our desperation to cut down on TB, we want to 'kill' the source - badgers as the Government erroneously sees is (the scientists consulted don't).   Well, badgers are victims of TB, there are the rats as well...and so on.  But why are our cows falling for it, why is it worse?  Could the way we raise cows cause the disease to set in, and infect the badgers?  Imagine we wipe out 70 percent of the badger population.  Do we want the badgers to build up their population afterwards and start spreading TB again?  (after all, we aren't leaving the TB immune badgers behind, we're just using a blunt culling instrument).  Or do we want them gone from Britain forever.  And if they go, will there still be TB?  Yes.  And who next?  And what are the consequences in the general ecology of wiping out a species? (don't know don't know don't know but kill anyway, panic).

Getting our relationship right with nature
I observe, and I have infinite faith in humanity when I say we have in our world an abundence of creative thinking humans who can turn their attention to nature and work with it.  And I have equal faith that Nature can offer us an abundence of solutions, if we know how to work with her.    Yes folks, we have to get our relationship right.

There is a global tendancy to see ourselves as the hapless victims of a capricious Nature, clearly a heartless killer by nature,  or to try to be the capricious and heartless killer of nature in order to control it and be its Ruler.

Nature has the potential to be a horrific killer,has been in the past, and is also the undisputed basis for our physical existence, an abundent wealth of possibilities.  Here we need Discernment;  in our epoch, nature unheeded, unthought out, neglected and abused,  is a totally different thing from nature observed lovingly and respectfully without commercial bias,   thought about attentively and intelligently, and worked with co-operatively.  And who does all this?  Humanity.

We are beginning to understand (those of us who care to look at ecology and so on)  that it functions as a whole system, and can be balanced, or not.    You can't kill of bits of it without causing shifts and holes and reactions in the whole thing.   For examples of the extraordinary success which happens when genuinely free from vested interest agroecology turns its great mind to real solutions for feeding the world:  see what happens when Agroecologists think out solutions for areas where natural disasters are the norm, seeking out nature's own solution and putting it into practice (Harvest of the Future film by Marie Monique Robin) rather than 'killing' off the 'bad' bits (the Monstanto Global Disaster Programme).  This is THE film for our future, virtually impossible to hear about it in English, but this site works http://zero-games.ru/video/Les-Moissons-Du-Futur.html

So if we get our relationship right with Nature, how will this help us with Measles and Badgers?

The French Shopping Experience

I know it's shallow but shopping has to be done on a regular basis, and I'm taking hits on a regular basis, so I need to vent (again).  I'm not talking about glamorous clothes shopping in French Boutiques (Never in a Million Years) I'm talking bread and butter shopping.

Example One
We decided to invest in some wire waste paper baskets for R&B's made-over rooms, because apparently one of these in black or grey is 'cool'.  So I made the trip to Carrefour Montesson, the largest hypermarket in Europe to buy the bins which I had previously seen there.   I wondered the aisles under the quivering fluorescent lighting, battered by trolleys (French driving standards apply to shopping trolleys) and in a state of increasing desperation,  I happened upon a member of staff who was stacking shelves in a relevant aisle (who could not say 'I don't know I am not from this aisle) and who's escape was barred by a large stock trolley.  Wasting no time, I formulated my polite enquiry, beginning with a smile-free bonjour.

"AH NO!"  she replied triumphantly.  (Please, STOP DOING THAT, saying NO as a first response, in the time-honoured fashion of French Customer Services:  Happy to NOT be able to help you).

"We don't have any more of them, wire waste paper baskets are ONLY for the Rentrée (back to school after the summer hols, September), I may order some more then."

I have learned to restrain myself in French shops, as I do not want to be prosecuted for Aggressive Behaviour and in some cases Actual Bodily Harm.  I nodded sagely, yes of course, silly me.  Silly me to think that French people might want to use waste paper baskets in April.

Example Two
I have been frequenting the same somewhat seedy supermarket for seven years, and I always wheel my trolley to the car parked opposite, and religiously wheel the trolley back to the shop and collect my coin.    I was wheeling my overflowing trolley on Tuesday, when the cashier actually abandoned her post, ran after me, shouting 'MADAME MADAME', and just before I got to my car she got within shouting distance of me and I realised she was shouting at me;      "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE THE TROLLEY OUT OF THE SHOP, FORBIDDEN, NOT ALLOWED, AH NO!".

I have trained myself not to reply in such circumstances, and instead stared at her unblinkingly (a technique inspired by reading Paddington Bear as a child and very useful in France).  Then I stared at my trolley, loaded with shopping.

I considered for a brief moment emptying all my shopping onto the street and handing her the trolley but I have resolved not to respond to such attacks with self-violence.

The cashier, unaccustomed to running in high heels and without her coat, was starting to to shiver and clutch her arms to her chest, the moment for me to strike:

'Madame, I have been taking my shopping to the car for seven years in one of your admirable trolleys and I always return them'

"Oh no, it is Not Allowed.  You are not allowed to take the trolley out of the shop!"  (did her job depend on it, would she go to the death?  Probably.)

"You can see that I'm parked right here, in front of the shop!"

'No!  You must park in our underground car park' (the one which forces me to make a mile long detour to get out of).

I stared, in a considering kind of way, just long enough for her to realise she was in an uncomfortable position - just what was she intending to do about it?

"Madame, I ask you to place your confidence in me just one more time, and I promise I will return your trolley, recover my 1 Euro coin,  and Never Do It Again'.  She returned to her post with a snort.

But, will I be returning to this supermarket, I ask myself?

Example Three
They've recently changed the parking arrangements at the other supermarket, installed barriers, you get first half hour free, if you spend 60 Euros at the supermarket, you get another half an hour.  It is always a bit stressful in the queue to pay,  with a particularly slow cashier, wondering whether you've gone over time.  I went to leave the car park, put in my ticket in the barrier, but the barrier did not raise.  When I re-entered my ticket, it told me my ticket was not valid in this car park.  I was trapped.

After buzzing for human contact I was interrogated lightly over the intercom, asked to re-park and make my way to the 'office' (clear instructions not given, took me 10 minutes to find it in another underground car park where the reception area was under renovation and the office temporarily housed in a prefab with a door marked 'private do not enter').  Here I was very thoroughly interrogated,standing in front of the desk of the seated parking official.  If I am ever arrested for a terrible crime I will be well-prepared;  had I inserted the card incorrectly, had I reversed, had I tried again, what time did I arrive, when did I press the buzzer?' etc.  I have trained myself to keep calm in such situations and answer all questions obediently never once claiming my human or customer rights.   When he finally agreed to release me, no apology or explanation was forthcoming and I was lead to understand that it was somehow my fault.

So I won't be going to this car park again either, my shopping options are becoming seriously limited...

Bach Together Again

There's something about the St Matthew Passion, and I'm not the only one who has felt this, but the final act leaves you feeling...calm...complete...really down here right now and ok.  Actually, I can't ever remember feeling this before.

Before the final rehearsal, I was confident;  I had worked hard  and I had it licked, oh yes, all by myself (sometimes with JC or another singer, the odd group rehearsal...).     I knew the words, the music, the musicality came to me, I learned all the solos, oh yes, I was good all by myself.

Then we got together to sing as a choir and a few more things came in to play...the unexpected things, and some of which had to be Overcome.

My immediate singing neighbours
The strange beast which is the ensemble of all the singers
The weather, the dust, the heat, the dark, the day
The accoustic
The instrumentalists and their tempermentalists
The listeners
The Direction

Oh boy.

But, he got us together (Eric Noyer eric-noyer.fr).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f3jk8ml9p4

Here is a taste of what I've learned

You can have a bad accoustic with cloth and building dust, but a wonderful 'echo' from your audience. For example, for the concert at the school for children with learning disabilities, Eric boiled down the story of the arrest and crucifixion of Christ to the essential, and the children were absolutely scandalised that anyone would want to nail him to a cross; as one they drew in a horrified breath  "Why did he keep silent?"  they shouted out.  Isn't this how we should all feel?  This gave us a charge of righteous energy for some hard hitting singing!

Seeing the audience meditate, weep, come back for a second concert, say how moved they were and how they feel they have heard the story for the first time...this is what music is about for me (and not competition, personal glory and technical or expressive 'perfection').

There is something wonderful about a bunch of amateurs getting it together, for an audience who thinks...perhaps I could do that, and when an amateur makes a mistake, warbles, and perseveres, it is moving, attention grabbing, and a wake-up call.  It reminds me of Shakespeare's plays performed by travelling troupes in market places - brought down to earth for us to understand and live.

There is something which I call 'living music', when the music touches us, rattles out internal organs, makes us ecstatic, fills us with a total-being understanding, makes it seem as though the concert is full of angels rejoicing...rare, has to be heard to be believed...a privilege to take part, whether audience or performer.

The Community of Music is important, among the performers, and between them and the audience.

Music is my sublime expression.

Bach Brought Down to Earth

The final performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion was laid to rest yesterday, Good Friday (not so Good in France, as it is not a holiday and there are no hot cross buns).  This morning the dishwasher still needs stacking, there are hungry mouths to feed, and the washing machine has broken again...JC calls me Castafiore these days.

Bianca Castafiore, the Comic Singing Anti Heroine from Tin Tin who may have esoteric significance

If I were La Castafiore I would definitely have someone in to take care of the dishwasher stacking and the hungry mouths and so forth (my personal assistant Irma, and perhaps a lend of Captain Haddock's butler Norbert) would spend the day reclining on my chaise long being fed grapes by my handsome and admiring beau, re-living past glories, and doing a profound artistico-spiritual analysis of the music.   As it is, this part will have to wait...but in the meantime, some photos of the preparations, the slightly tense moments 'before' (no cameras during).  In summary:  full house, standing ovation, tears and glory...

The Stage is Set

Surly Adolescent, Cheeky pre-adolescent and Proud Father

The offprings took the subject of the Passion (crucifixion) very seriously.  There were strongly encouraged ("forced" in R's words) to come, and felt themselves to be the victims of a similar event, the promise of the forthcoming resurrection did not seem to console them...B sat at the back during the warm-up before the concert, headphones on and nose in a book, utterly unaware of the sound projected in his direction.  His comment after the show was:  nice solo, can we go home now?  R took some photos, but just as the hush descended and the final launch commenced he broke cover, moved seat, appeared to be searching for something (the camera as it turned out), ran along the front row in a bright red top, clambered along the back row disturbing everyone and causing a number of tuts and sshhhss, found his seat was taken and disappeared to the consternation of his mother.   He was discovered by B at the end of the show stretched out on a sofa and gone solid gone, as Baloo would say, although R does claim to have heard my solo before he fell, clearly identifiable by the 'English accent', he says.  All these things have to be overcome when one is an Artiste, and yes we did question whether we should have invited our progeny, but it is a once in a lifetime event and perhaps one day they will look back on it fondly.

Yer archetypal resentful teenager, yes, this is what I live with

JC and I Prepare

R does impromptu performance of Gangnam Style

The first chorists arrive

Our heroic tragi-comic choirmaster

Dreadful, but the only photos we have

Ditto

JC and JC the Pianist who hums as he plays, has a meloncholy  face and a cartoon smile

R decided to take a video of the moment when JC accused me of Losing his Music Lamp and I counter accused him of Having Lost It Himself and it was subsequently Found in the Bag.  How come the only people who ever take photos of me come up under my chin, at my age I need top angles.   Must find some taller companions.