Eddy Currents

Summer 2009

Sorting through a stack of newsprint for recycling after a summer away, it feels as if I’ve lost - at the risk of sounding like an appalling Bowie lyric (and I own his records) - a slice of time. Or at the very least, it was swapped (I nearly put something about shifting to another dimension instead there, but it too made me think of a clock hurtling through space, before it falls wanking to the floor). The newspapers are charmingly optimistic; the vacuous supplements bang on about festival chic; the critics try to out superlative each other over Wall-e; the broadsheets chat tentatively about Team GB’s chances in China.

My summer began in earnest, after the volley of rain and misguided verbal assault by my sisters at my Dad’s 70^th, and that cold though enjoyable afternoon with Melony observing Neil Young granny groupies refusing to be whipped up into a sexual frenzy by Rufus Wainwright, when my ballet chum Kirsty handed me a ticket for Camp Bestival in the playground.

Me and the kids abandoned the chilly, barely competitive school sports day early and, as if by magic, the sun came out to torture us as we queued round the Dorset countryside to get on to the Lulworth site. Thanks to pop-up technology (there’s a joke there that I can’t be arsed to make), we immediately established ourselves amidst the canvas chaos and lucky Fred went off to see elderly bad boy Chuck Berry (“Did you know he was a legend mum?”). By the next morning, my kids were so at one with their landscape that I just had to let them off the lead. While I sunbathed under our homemade bunting and watched the clouds rush about like stupid Londoners, I added a moment to my perfect collection (see dear Spalding Grey) and then I realised that I had to be responsible and went off in search of the offspring. I found Fred dozing in a hammock in Restival and the girls sewing for England in a marquee full of old furniture and remnants. And I don’t mean smack-head rockers. What kind of a festival was this?

As it happens, it was very English one, with jousting and marching bands and Billy Bragg and Eliza Carthy. And a castle and Bluecoats and my mates from the Dulwich Ukes and a thousand punters dancing upright in the afternoon to The Specials. My Dingaling and Wayne Coyne merely enhanced the eccentricity of it all. Kate Nash turned up to do some anonymous sewing, recognised only when she asked for some scissors. And nothing quite prepares you for the sight of a pair of flamingos unzipping their tent and stepping out. Camp it was. But for camping, it was very Englishly crap too - eight sinks for 8,000 people to do their washing up in? And one of those had a bloke defiantly shaving amongst the saucepans.

When we got back, the images of my ten year old triumphantly exiting the compost toilets with a wooden spoon, of men in wedding dresses rolling fags with their corseted backs against the perimeter and of the sign reading No Pissing Ta X beside the solar powered cinema had barely developed before we set off for Normandy on the night ferry.

A month in Northern France meant that there was plenty of rain pissing ta x, but it also meant that, as we were in the middle of the rural marshes of the marais and only fifteen minutes from the coast, the minute that ole soleil stuck its chapeau on, we grabbed our picnic and body boards. From the cracked rainclouds at the motocross to the sudden gothic storm sending the gargoyles spewing silver gallons onto us at the top of Mont St Michel, from frites at the Fete de Carottes (nothing beats eating chips whilst standing beside the field they were grown in), from dragonflies in the woods to the degustation of locally brewed eau de vie (think Calvados in the afternoon – like sex, only better) served by a man in his orchard who would not be hurried, from hugging a windturbine to ushering baby moo cows back to the safety of their meadow, we took in every single ray the sun deigned to beam down on us. And when night fell, we sat under a night sky frothing with golden stars like a dropped Pelforth.

The roll-call of participants reads like a festival line-up: Brother Jake & the baby Edsors with lead singer Caro, and special guest Jo-Jo; Gedling Hill Billies: Katie & Bob & Sarah; Ronnie & Al Skeletone, in his best shirt, with backing vocalists, Ella and Sophe; And fresh off the barricades of ’68, Nicole & Etienne, Guilliame, and Voltaire the cat (we call him Walter). Other walk-on parts included Tocquai the dog - an intriguing Collie and Dachshund cross - a wasps’ nest under the washing line and some swallow-tail butterflies. Prize for the most amazing sight of all goes, not to Bob in a wetsuit, nor to the photo of Fred in the regional newspaper, but to the hummingbird moths feeding off the geraniums outside the French windows (what else could they be?)

As if that wasn’t sufficient, we got the night boat back after a month and Jon unshackled himself from the till, overloaded the Squashed Tomato and set of like a real live family, all five of us. I had to keep counting just to be sure. When we got there, we discovered we’d cleverly booked into a bijou little campsite next to the Broads, with a quayside tent pitch and a rather tasty Italian in the local town. We cycled ourselves stupid around windmills, seasided at that famous corner of East Dulwich called Southwold, and then, to the smell of fear all over the county, hired a cruiser and gently perambulated in a watery fashion up stream, and down.

Finally, creaking at the panel seams, we headed across the fens and levels to Nottingham for a massive family party that featured the cast of an Alan Bennett special and a sideboard bowing under the weight of desserts that starred more types of oral fascination than the menu outside an Amsterdam knocking shop.   

I did precious little writing then; Camp Bestival was my decompression chamber where I learned to breathe normally again; I spent the first fortnight in France out of focus and the second zooming in on minutiae – moths f’rinstance – managing nowt but a couple of postcards and some enclosed cuttings of the aforementioned French newspaper. In Norfolk, I sat back and let the bookseller think he was skipper, of car, craft and crossword. I recall thoughtfully mustering a congratulations text to my sister, who gave birth to my nephew Bill whilst I dozed in my sleeping bag and listened to rabbits munching grass a foot away from my head. In Notts, I did nothing but nosebag. But my dusty laptop has remained untouched. The shock absorbers on the car have had it though.

As I shovel the more recent deliciously pinko Guardians and Observers – I have also been in plenty of red neck territory in the last six weeks - into their turquoise Southwark sack, it seems the Olympics turned out ok. One doesn’t need to be Rob McCatswee, however, to surmise that the weather in those printed forecasts was not. But me? I had fun at a festival, found sun in Northern France, had a bone fide family hol with Jon, and I became an aunty again. Thus I declare the Summer of 2008, the very best ever!

Ou sont tous Les grownups?

I was looking forward 2 a facefull of dirt in return for some lithe bikers in leathers. Afterall, it had been some days since we'd enjoyed a frisson of excitement at the sight of some Normandy sunshine. In previous years the motocross event in our village had produced some smooth silver haired veterans eager to restate their virility by throwing their   Japanese machines up muddy slopes, followed by some nervously ambitious late teens, much faster & sleeker, & always the sun came out to ensure a little light steam rose from all directions.

So it was hope that accompanied the flask & des biskwee we'd packed as me and Caro, her sister & a happy  gaggle of goslings parked on farmland, the smell of twostroke & the sound of a hundred bad-tempered chainsawsequally balanced on the air.

And there they were, pinging like cochons du sables over the ancient barns - more than twenty bikes hissing blue smoke & ricocheting like frogs on hot metal. Which is essentially what they were.


Overlaying the racket was the customary French commentary, obligatory at all events. By the time we found a ridge above the track carved out of the Norman landscape to perch on, the racers had swarmed beneath the chequered flag and the official's fag back to their enclosure. So we settled down to study the form.

The program looked promising, I remarked to Caro's sister in anticipation of some serious macho entertainment. The announcer certainly seemed to be in an excited ecstacy.

Then came the frenzied revving & coughing before the gates were snapped down and the men and machines released to cascade down a practically vertical incline. Then they left us in a pall of exhaust as they zoomed into the distance.

When they returned, leaping & turning over the hillocks, I made comment as to their daintiness. Which continued as they approached. In fact, our macho bikers were like figurines on a mantel piece up close. Another look at the program  revealed that the objects of our attention, aside from being male, were between 7 & 14 years old. Ahem. I know. It was raining but we covered ourselves up quickly anyway.

Bloghenge

In the barely cracked creases of our dusty carte touristique, the M4 counts an exotic adventure, and so it was that last Friday that me and my girls found ourselves hurling down the tarmacked corridor delighted, if a bit chilly about the shins, to be on our way to a family wedding in the West Country. White-knuckled in the Squashed Tomato, we shrieked at the slightest hint of a landmark ethereally materialising in the reams of grey behind the backdrop of a cardboard countryside. Look, Windsor Castle! Oh, it’s gone. No, there it is. Nope, gone again. Look, an air traffic control tower! Chieveley Services! There’s nothing like a scenic route, eh? And this was nothing like one. Then no sooner had we finally glimpsed the honey coloured metropolis of Bath on our right, our hearts fluttering like bonnet strings at the sight of the crescent that is perfectly arranged like stained false teeth on the hill, than we were plunged into the green cleavage of Wiltshire and the frayed charm of Orchardleigh House.

Thanks to the lack of a real road atlas – ah! Just throw a dart at a globe - coupled with me not reading instructions about the closure of theA36, we didn’t have much time before we slotted our cold feet into our heels and boarded the incongruous hopper to the candlelit church on the estate to join the stumpy gene pool in all its wobbly finery.  The organ struck up with barely a rizla paper’s width between bums on pews and my cousin Amanda appeared on my Uncle Dave’s arm looking as if she should be turning in the porcelain cabinet at Allders. Her exquisitely sculpted white gown smothered and suffocated the flagstones one by one as they made their way down the aisle towards the groom, and the chapel rang out with the peal of fake digital camera flash bulbs. Meanwhile, my dad’s box brownie was distracted by his sister-in-law’s superb headgear that resembled a proud upright toffee paper: “Terrific…” he mused like Bailey as he got it at various angles.

After Debbie, my dad’s wife, sang us all off the park from the hymn sheet, we waddled outside, happy and humbled by the quiet lake and Duckworth headstones, and viewed the impressive turnout that consisted in part of various versions of ourselves – the Mallen streak was present in erstwhile dark hairlines; broad beams and bosoms creaked in good bits of cloth; almond eyes had crinkly twists; legs the polite side of bandy shivered; there was a familial pull away from the other invited friends, and the tall, good looking bunch Amanda was fortunately marrying into, and eventually we Crows clumped together like frogspawn.

Teeming contentedly back to the big house, where our bride risked going up like an Amoretti biscuit wrapper as she passed the roaring fire in the lobby (it is May afterall), ostensibly for champagne and kisses and canapés, the familial pull was now in the direction of a drink. There was a bouncy cah cah cah castle for the kids and we went outside to watch the photographer trying to persuade the reluctant newly-weds to slither about shoeless, and then there was loads of banter as the bridesmaids’ bouquets were fed to the stone raptors on the grand steps and we shouted “Eagles!” to the patient Man Utd contingent who accompanied the groom. And they had bona fide Northern accents.

The girls and I basked in the business of ‘being family’; there we were, adjacent to the top table – smile and wave – and it felt good to be related, to be significant and loved and introduced, but regardless of where we were instructed to sit, there was the unmistakable skein of saucy laughter looping round the tables, running through us like the number 60 bus route coughs through the Croydon suburbs.

Later, the generous wine kept up the pace as the dancing on the parquet grew more and more elaborate. As she is still stuck in the Middle East with a broken pelvis, we missed my sister Bex’s famous palm tree dance but yelled a chorus of “Broccoli!” to the tune of “Valerie” in her honour, and the day began to slide down the tapestried wall. Then, as the DJ skewed toward the maudlin, we headed back to the littered tables where the North South exchange got interesting. Backward and forwards it went until finally, at ten to two in the morning, my third attempt to escape was successful - the previous two being foiled with terrace style chants of, Where’s She Going? Where’s She Going? -  and I made it the stable boy’s room (Ya, ya in one’s dreams, darling.. All the rooms at Orchardleigh have names like that. Wouldn’t that be flash though? Quiet rub down under a blanket ma’am? I’d put my riding boots on for that) whilst downstairs continued the tinkle and thump of my cousin Dan hammering the tablecloth and shouting to the Mancs: “Balls to football! Give me art, give me poetry! Give me flowerssssss….”

The next morning when Willa and I got up to explore, we could hear nothing but ducks and wood pigeons. And a distant vacuum cleaner.

We’d already worked out the shortcuts and passed a Model T Ford under a tarp, and two low sportscars, modestly wrapped, parked amidst the motley guests’ motors, their shapes belying their pedigrees.

God, I could be rich. I could really get used to a fireplace in a hallway, and a double butler’s sink, and to double butlers, and stable boys. And a Ha-ha. I loved that. We picked our way down the discreet steps from the formal apron and stood in the rough, studded with marguerites and spent cowslips. Our feet were drenched and we hadn’t even got down to the lake.

Slowly there were signs of the house rousing in the wisps of fag smoke round the statues, and breakfast resembled something out of the Bonzo Dog Doo Da back catalogue as sausages and scrambled eggs skittered across plates with quivering hands over miraculously clean linen. Finally we squeezed round each table to say affectionate goodbyes. There was little sign of Manchester United to wave off so I figured they were still hiding their hangovers under the quilt. But as we drove back down through the estate, silly old soft Southerner me should have known they’d all been out on the golf course since sparrow’s fart, working the links like film stars.

Then Willa shrieked: “Horse! A white horse!” and ecstatic with space and adventure, we drove towards the hill where the giant equine leaned. Then busting with intrepid Englishness, I decided to drive across Salisbury Plain to show them glorious Stonehenge as well. And it was still there where I left it twelve years ago.

Only this time, the West Country flavoured FA cup was about to kick off so it was unusually quiet. Just us and a hundred Germans and Japanese. We trod the mown path, reverently listening to the commentary on our handsets, completely absorbed by the landscape, stones, light and our place in it all. The sense of belonging was overwhelming. We were even nearly tempted by the t-shirts that read Stonehenge Rocks!

Eventually, we climbed onto the A3 and trundled uphill. Serene and weathered, we dawdled through Wandsworth and Clapham in stubborn traffic a thousand years old and still calm, turned on to Acre Lane. We were on our way home in dear, dear Southwark, still warm from the greater nest, still shaking feathers from our crevices. And a filthy great Tesco lorry thundered up our outside at the lights by Lambeth town hall, and took our bloody wing mirror off.

Welcome to Sarf Lundun.That’ll learn us to be filled with a sense of belonging….   

The first time I went to Spain alone,

The first time I went to Spain alone, I found my own way to the airport, checked-in, climbed on the right bird. My folks were already in the southern Spanish mountains, having left a week earlier. I, on the otherhand, had somewhat inconveniently been sitting my O levels. Nothing institutionally educational was ever allowed to get in the way of a good hol in my family; departures weren’t matched to exams; term-time prejudiced no ticket; for whatever reason (and it would be unkind to suggest they were all hedonistic – my dad worked really, really hard), the trip went ahead with or without a full party.

I moved in with my best friend Jane Osborne after they left and I remember the luxury of lying in the spare bed in her room and lighting up a cigarette before breakfast. At home, I was allowed to smoke but only in social situations but here I could gum a Bensons before taking Biology.

The nicotine did me no good. I did very badly. Shame as I wasn’t bad at Bilge. It’s just that, well, being at Jane’s, I somehow forgot to finish my revision. And the whole damn test was obsessed with the lifecycle of the earthworm.

I also knew that I’d fluffed the only other O level I had left to take. Maths. I knew I would the moment I turned my paper over.

So, I got a taxi to Gatwick, leaving Jane and other friends partying in my house (we got in by removing the catflap and reaching round for the key). The last thing I did was knock over a pot of coffee and they promised to clear it and the rest of the place up. Right. On the flight and on the dusty bus from Malaga to the mountains, there was no mobile phone to either reassure my parents that I was on my way, or for me to phone England to check that my home hadn’t been trashed. And the last thing on my mind was my results - I was heading to hot sunshine, a pool in a converted olive mill and as many Ducados as I could suck down into my chest before my lungs exploded. Mum and dad had no qualms about boozing either – it would be Freixenet and Campari with ice and slices of orange all day long.

Despite the fun I had, given my present impoverished circumstances (the novelty of working like stink for pittance wears off a lot faster than the smell of chlorine or the fear of bailiffs), I am less cavalier about kids and school. Given my genes however, it is no wonder also, that I am a total hypocrite with a twisted sense of values that I hammer into a shape that suits my moral code: my sister Tiff called and asked if Willa would like to go to Spain with them. Only hitch it was during the school term. Like now.

Willa had never been on an aeroplane; she’s only really ever been to Northern France with me. She’d be seeing the same mountains I saw, under the same blue sky. Same olive trees; same white villages hugging the terraces; drinking and eating at the same balcon overlooking the dazzling coast. Only the lavs would be a whole lot cleaner. How could I deny my nine-year old a taste of heaven in rainy October? I said yes before I’d even written the letter to the head to ask permission.

Packing for her was a treat, my vicarious pleasure was that irrepressible as I folded bikinis and flip-flops, I was tempted to chuck in a lighter.

Yesterday she called me from the villa. I pictured her wrapped up in her adventure against a balmy backdrop of mountains and a million stars. But she had a crack in her voice.

“It is raining here,” I say reassuringly.

“I miss the rain,” she replies miserably.

“Freddy had wet play all day,” I add hopefully.

“I miss school,” she wept.

Flying back with my family, I knew that we’d be entering the house together and that this would be the ultimate test of friendship. But Jane had been as good as her word and all the horrors had been hoovered up. Except for the dried cascade of black coffee I discovered had leaked in the cupboard under the worktop where the pot had gone over the morning I left for the airport.

“How would I know how that got there?” I hissed. “I was staying at Jane’s, taking exams..”

When August arrived with my results, I was in Yugoslavia with Mandy.

“Three ‘A’s!” squawked my mum happily down a crackly line. “… some Bs and a C.”

The matter of the two ‘U’s, for Biology and Maths was never, ever mentioned.

Willa flies in on Saturday and I can’t wait to have her back in my lap.

Errant Post Script.

At 3.30pm Etienne arrived to take Alex to the village bar as arranged mid-burrito collapse the night before. The both looked a bit green but Alex donned his straw Stetson and in his best bright orange Hawaian chemise (“where’s my shirt?” has been A’s catch phrase all week as, like the short-sighted forever lose their specs, he was forever stripping off to catch the rays and then mislaying his clothing – no matter that each garment he wears is louder than the klaxon that wails out over the leek and carrot miles to signal to the pickers that it is time to go back to work), went off to dazzle the locals. Afterwards he reported that E was too hungover to join him in a beer at the bar with the farmers. He had a coffee instead. Thank Christ you had booze, I said, or else Etienne would have to live with the rumour that you two were an item…

Ronnie and I packed and cleaned like stink and then ate a smashing bbq with delicious lean burgers and minty strips of courgette, local mushrooms, fragrant (if field pilfered) corn cobs, potato salad with fresh mayo and garden chives, local bread and then, for pudding, the green gage and apple tart that Ronnie had baked with her own fair hand. Genius. No cream, but she served it with vanilla custard. We stuck to light beers for our livers’ sake. Crikey, Nicole and Etienne lucked out big time last night. They’ll think twice about having a refill next time. And fancy serving up refried beans to a Frenchman….

And then, I missed the ferry home….

Final French Blog 31st August

Final one, and first and only on the lappie. As  there is no landline here, my witterings have been brought to you on neat French graph paper, A5. Good discipline writing to fit four sides exactly, especially using an old quill. This, on the otherhand, feels frightfully modern and, somehow, my fingers have grown fat and clumsy. I have not, as you will guess, done much creative writing this year: sunny days were so valuable that they were spent at the beach or at the market. This was the first year that I had just one day lazing in sunshine at the house, deadheading, drifting, stalking in the fields. Apart from that, we were either inside avoiding the rain or outside, getting soaked - the good humour of my muse could stretch no further than a French student’s pad.

Our last free day was a good one, including the evening’s antics when, not content with having the fabulously satisfying company of Ronnie and Alex, I decided it would be politic to invite Nicole and Etienne, our dear neighbours, round for a drink. Well, they help us so much with the house and the car. And Etienne takes Fred off to football to train with his youth team. And Nicole is so smiley and implacably Francaise. And they did invite Caro and I and all the bloody kids over for an apero during a foul wet spell, and they lit a fire because we complained we were cold.

So, we flew back from our final outing, the posh little resort of Courseulles, where the kids rode the Edwardian style carousel, and we pedalled a nine-seater bike thing (it is a tradition) round the roads without anything so sensible as brakes or insurance, and we ate frites on the soft beach with its beach huts and mildly diverting lifeguards, and had ice-creams, and stopped off at the Champion to buy a bottle of white to offer kirs to our guests, and the wraps and veg that Alex had decided to put together faux Mexican style for the kids, nice and easy if we had people to entertain first, and a little bit of fun. We added a cheap off the peg pear tart for pud. And on the way back from Calvados to Manche, we stopped at the Bar des Sports - scene of many a match of soccer rods in my misspent twenties (ditto Jon’s thirties) when we went wild at the Chateau de Balleroy - and had a fine pair of crisp pressions each. They didn’t touch the sides.

And les voisines arrived vers sept heures as arranged, with a bottle of red and some cider, and me and Ron had put the French snacks (lots of fromage futbols!) out like bonne French wifeys and they were on form, and so was Alex’s hilarious Spanish French. Muchos merci beaucoupos.And they refused our kirs and Etienne asked for a glass of white and my tummy did a little flip of horror at the thought of him actually drinking the modest white Bordeaux I’d picked to go with the cassis. So embarrassed was I, that I poured his out in the kitchen so he couldn’t see the label.

Nicole plumped for red (I shoulda got her pastis, but I’m a dumb Brit) and so, mysteriously did Alex. Me and him have been on a beer fest all week, interspersed with the odd glass of grape, and the fridge was full of Pelforths, brune and blonde, but I poured them both a glass out of sight and judgement in the kitchen – the red was a 5 euro Samur left on the rack so I was equally anxious. And before I knew it, their glasses were empty. They chatted, they laughed, Alex had his guitar out. They drank.

I downed yet another Pelly and ate a ton of Minizzas as my stomach growled. More wine was demanded. I had to open the one that Etienne brought. He had finished the white. It was 9pm. I whispered to Ronnie: “Should we offer them dinner?” She said yes, the kids were starving and we needed to cook. Alex’s veg and chicken was pretty charred by now as it has been in the oven so long. At least, we thought, this would be easy.

They accepted. Then Nicole’s face dropped when she saw what we were to eat. Wraps. With fingers. And mashed haricots. And sludgy avocado. She was horrified. And she put some pimento sauce on and it was too hot. And Alex kept pressing more of the bloody things on them. Three times Etienne declined but A kept on passing them the pyramid of doughy tubes. And they struggled to keep the veg in, and their mouths burned. And we ran out of wine! No worries said E and whipped nextdoor for another. No doubt to soothe his tongue and disguise the over-salted refries..
 

The tart was produced. It tasted like papier mache. Which is also French, I suppose. Alex offered it to them with crème fraiche. That we didn’t actually have. No matter, said they, probably appalled by our lack of finesse, as they chewed their sugary supermarket abomination masquerading as dessert. We ran out of wine again, And it was bedtime for les enfants. “Make a jug of coffee,” suggested Ronnie, “that should round off the evening and get us out of the alcohol hole…” ahem. We delivered the hot Bodem with a flourish. But Nicole didn’t like coffee. “It keeps me up,” she said without a hint of irony. Alex offered her a herbal tea, which she accepted. Except he thought he was in Dulwich. And we didn’t have any herbal bloody tea. Although I was tempted to go cut some nettles…

We offered them a glass of Calvo from Alex’s special supply to take home. “I will get some 42 year old Calvados,” said Etienne, probably terrified of yet another assault on his palate when he saw the label, and returned through the side gate with a very special bottle indeed. It was absolute hell trying not to knock it over.

By now Etienne was singing and Nicole was all emotional and the kitchen was full of dirty pots. Suddenly, E stood up and announced he was drunk and going to bed. He does this de temps en temps. Meanwhile, Nicole had no intention of shifting and I could not drink another drop of beer. I could have belched for England. Finally, at ten to one in the morning, I plucked up the courage to say that I needed to sleep and Nicole wobbled away to find le Gaviscon. Alex, meanwhile, was strumming his guitar in the field and howling at the moon.

But the star did all the washing up before he went to bed and I woke up without a hangover. Incroyable, given that, as A pointed out, we’d been drinking for 7 hours. We had to clean the house before tomorrow’s departure and as we hoovered and wiped, Ron and I wept with laughter recalling poor Nicole’s ghastly expression at the sight of the floury wraps that she had to eat with her hands. And at Alex offering things we didn’t have. And at that disgusting tart they swallowed. How to impress the French with English cooking, eh! Mock Mexican finger food and stale cake. Oh, and don’t forget not to serve pastis, to run dry of wine and to put a bottle of tourist Calvo on the table…

Steamblog: 24th August

It took me some time to stomach the idea of owning a people carrier. Worse, the only one we could really afford was that ubiquity with the crap name, a Citroen Picarsehole.

I was so ashamed that I begged friends not to take the piss, but soon I became quite fond of its high, easy-on-the-back-when-slotting-the-kids-in seats, of all the glass, of the fact that, as my first “new car”, it basically ran itself; no need to check oil or water; on-board computer reminding me when it needed a service. And it loves French roads. We got the wheel nicked almost immediately after we’d taken the wrapper off the car because of the decision taken among several mpv manufacturers not to ensure a securely locked spare under the chassis but the Trouser Press, as it became known to me, soon proved itself a fine labour-saving device. Albeit a sparkly blue one with middle-class cheapskate stamped all over it.

Which is why it was quite a shock when, while Caro was packing up her pristine Zetec to leave, I ambled up to the TP to throw in the recycling, I discovered it wouldn’t unlock with the remote. I fixed that manually but the computer was mute.  tried starting it – flat as one of the surrounding cowpats. Merde.

By now, it was pouring with rain and sick to the depths, I crunched down the drive back to Caro and broke her the news. We went inside and drank the contents of the flask we’d packed for a last coffee-with-a-view before her departure and tried to douse the butterflies we both felt as, this was potentially big trouble and I hadn’t planned for it.

The coffee did not do the trick. My spirits plummeted. Bollocks. Bollocks. The weather was shite, and my car was shite. And dear Caro had no choice but to bugger off. Eventually, I went in search of the neighbours who had already done so much for us this holiday.

Feeling stupid, I told Etienne I that I thought the electrics were gone due to all the rain. It couldn’t possibly be the battery as the on-board computer always warns me if I’ve left something on. But, did he have jump leads so that we could rule that out before I called Citroen Assist? We were, it has to be said, a tad hungover after the extensive aperitifs these same neighbours had continued to pour for us the evening before but he – Etienne – and his brother-in-law, Pascal, were fresh as the first glass of pastis, and jumped to it. As it were.

Then we played hunt-the-battery. The rain went down our necks and Caro and I fluttered about like David Walliams and Matt Lucas in frocks and parasols, and I exclaimed in French that it looked nothing like (my old) Citroen Visa under the bonnet. I’m a lay-deee….

Eventually the bloody thing was located under the front passenger seat (natch’) and the men busied themselves with men’s work, connecting the sleek Trouser Press to Pascal’s beaten up sardine-tin of a farmer’s Peugeot, and with a fizzle not unlike being zapped by the electric fence by mistake when blackberrying, it opened its eyes and revved. Revealing that I had indeed left the headlights on. It must have been when we’d arrived back from our rare glimpse of the sun on the dunes at Hatainville and we were late for those drinks avec les voisines. I’d probably completely ignored the computer’s plaintive bleep to switch them off.

“Take it for a 20k drive,” prescribed Etienne, so needing no persuasion, wipers going like the clappers, I fled off to bury my embarrassment in the wet Normandy countryside. It felt fantastic!! Like Liberte! Like a holiday! Such relief! And then the sun came out. No, truly. It made the hairs on my arms stand up and made my eyes run without sunglasses to hand. And car kept on going.. Ain’t happiness a simple thing? 

Steamblog 23rd August

The thing that attracts me to global warming, is the warming. Especially now. Under heavy cloud. It is August and I am cold. I have the lights on because it is so dark. The bright blue mega pool that the children gleefully spent their euros on is trapping frogs up on the lawn. The downstairs bathroom is hung with the wet washing I foolishly loaded into the machine yesterday when I believed a local weather report that today was to be sunny.

Caro and I have dealt with this damp interlude (it was interminably moist through the week that Helen was here too) by eating. You may find that photographing our dinners is distasteful but here, surrounded by cows and full ditches, it passes for entertainment. The food we are showing off is cheap and local and good for us. At the moment my carbon footprint is roughly the size of an unworn espadrille (you can’t put them on in the rain), so I feel no guilt

I know I should be grateful for my holiday, especially as Jon is soldered to the shop and his bicycle, and I am grateful. I feel full and relaxed. I’m just pissed off that I’ve run out of socks and I had to spend precious cash on a warm coat for Willa.

I’ve even begun sleeping better. I slept like a cat under the thin slivers of tent, in all that fresh air, but when I got to the house, I found it too dark and quite at night and the chatter in my head was as persistent as the rain. Two O’clock in the morning turned into four o’clock. The World Service droned on. I read. I ironed (it helps get the clothes dry). I paced. Perhaps, Helen suggested, not altogether helpfully, it is the alcohol.

Thankfully that explanation went right out the window when Caro arrived, with her kir o’clock precision and our hearty feasting. I began sleeping like a whole pile of logs. Now I can’t open my eyes in the morning. Mindyou, it is warmer in bed. And the sun’s relentless absence is hardly an incentive to take a jog down the lane at dawn.

Unfortunately, with increased sleep, I am dreaming again and usually these long business-like episodes involve teaching in freezing, bottomless, murky swimming pools without a wetsuit. Then I wake up shivering.

So, it is to the comfort of food I turn, and I am looking forward to lunch right now. Caro is out staying dry in a few choice Frencg old tutu emporiums with my eldest and her top daughter. The Edsors shop with aplomb. Caro can always find fab bargains, whereas I always get stuck in the aisles telling my kids to put things back.

It is with modest reticence that I have not recorded our lunches as well as our dinners but yesterday’s was worthy of a photograph: we struggled out to the market at La Haye du Puits with umbrellas and then head to the coast to eat a soggy picnic in the car. Only, we found a slice of sunshine. Perched up in the dunes above the beach at Hatainville, just at the elbow of Carteret, we ate bread and cheese, and then lay down on the picnic benches while the heat breathed on our faces. We then frolicked in the nettles and rough grass; we walked down to the sand and the kids blew the cobwebs off their wetsuits. We found a dip in the dunes away from the breeze and snuggled down. It was bliss. But when we headed home, the rain closed in again.

I was convinced that when I woke, I would be warm and today was to be a three flask day (coffee, hot milk, tea – all day in other words) beside the sea. I put the aforementioned washing on before bed to be ready for the return of summer. I was roused from a dream about a pool with a crack in it to the sound of rain gushing off the gutters. Lunch has now become an event to mark the day. I’m tempted to dress up for it but I can’t fit anymore on. Will it be a roll of goat’s cheese to be toasted on pain de campagne with tomatoes? Or baguette with Tomme de Savoie and fleshy local lettuce. We have discovered that tuna tastes best when out of a tin steeped in sunflower oil.. add eggs and white beans.. Oh, I think I’ll distract myself by unloading the dishwasher while I wait for Caro. At least I can warm my hands on the glasses and plates. Especially if I do it slowly…

The House: Steamblog 20th August

A week has passed at the French house and already Helen has gone. Tina and Bea left at the weekend their man (father/husband), the veritable Count Olaf, owner of Armani jackets for camping in, in tow.

With Helen there is no time to write. No time for anything. She moves so fast. Even her own fella, Andy says, ' you have to be quick to get on top of Helen...'

She is fast even when she is slow. Projects like planting herbs, taking photographs of the old garage to be re-furbished, blackberrying, cleaning out the car, writing joint postcards, washing moules...all seem to bank up like so many buses at rush hour and suddenly, a slow day, with a tardy (you think) start, takes on epic proportions. Don't try and imagine a busy one.

We packed much in to a solid week with little sunshine to show for our efforts. This is what i like about holidaying with H; contrasts.

With Tom and Linda it was beaches and good wine, ripe melons and canoes. With Tina and Bea it was books and breakfast and tanning bosoms, badminton, calvados, Normandy castles and culture.

With Helen...crikey, we are pinging around the countryside like so many bikes on an undulating motocross track embedded deep in the medieval landscape.

Now she and her girls are gone, in a maelstrom of adventure that included trains, planes and automobiles, not to mention typhoons in Cuba, customs shakedowns, missing passports and hockey in a restaurant, the old house seems remarkably placid.

Except that I find I don't like change. Yes, I like the contrast. Yes, I can't resist having the house to myself and my kids. No I can't help being sentimental, missing Jon, missing my mum (the house is full of her stuff) and wishing my sisters, my past was here.

But now the place is more quiet, I have noticed changes. There is a hedge grubbed out down the newly gravelled (?) lane. Gemma (my little sister) planted willows but the cows have worn them away, rubbing their flanks and faces on them.

Gemma is not here. Something I don't think I will ever accept after her four years guardianship of the house, creating the greatest vegetable garden on earth, fashioning a living out of nothing, having nothing but love to give.

I also can't help but notice that there are no swallows this year. Usually, I watch the parents in the shed or garage stitching back and forth, lining up the babies on the telegraph wires for flying lessons, snipping the evening air above the front yard for insects before the bats take over. But the bats seem to be gone too. And this year, for the first time in four years, there are no signs of Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars on the fennel. Nothing. No fluorescent grubs the size of a little finger. Someone has cut back the fennel, like the grubbed out hedge, there is something missing on my landscape.

Still, the land is stunning; the hedgerow is bustling with butterflies, bees, spiders, thistle, clover, cow parsley, fox glove, elder, hawthorn, honeysuckle. The cows are quieter - no bells this year - and the farmer yonder appears to have lost the dog. The old lady who left a small churn on her sill at the end of our road has died (the whole village turned out for her funeral) and the pretty gites by the chateau have been abandoned, un-rented, over-grown this season. As if they knew how bad the weather would be.

Fred has played football in a beach tournament so missus muggins moi, has even spent a day on a touchline, albeit sandy, so some things never change. Did you know Caen plays in the same colours as Palace.

Caro arrives tomorrow, with her three. And no doubt a change of air. And then for our final week, the venerable Alex and Ronnie.

The French won't know what's hit 'em.

I hope...

Things to do in Normandy in the rain: Cow spotting