Memento Mori

We are returning to France after being in England to reinstate the furniture in our Whitstable home.   Mistress R Soul has had a very expensive service and MOT and we have too.    Much cheaper, ours, thanks to our National Health system.

We took the opportunity to catch up with many friends and family.    A group of us met up one evening and I remember looking around at the ten of us, sharing food and wine, faces smiley, animated conversation flowing, interjected with bursts of laughter,  shared memories turning laughter to smiles and my feelings were of sweet contentment and privilege.

We also took the opportunity to visit Wheelers Restaurant in Whitstable , a favourite of ours over the last 20 years or so.   Chef Mark, is a magician.   His fish cuisine is a treat for the eye and a surprise on the palate.   Long may he welcome visitors from all over the world to his small and unpretentious restaurant.

We decided to avoid the meteorological vagaries of the Massif Central and drive down the eastern side of France along the Autoroute des Anglaises which becomes the Autoroute du  Soleil.  A much easier route, though less interesting terrain.

For our overnight stay, about half way down, we chose Beaune, with its unique architecture and its bars,  where students sat outside laughing, smoking and talking, despite the relentless rain.   A pretty, lively  town with many restaurants offering a wide range of food styles at a wide range of prices

We found a restaurant towards the more reasonable end of the price range.  Le Fleury.   I chose two local dishes:  Oeufs Meurette (poached eggs in red wine, bacon and mushroom sauce) followed by Boeuf Bourguignon.   Gazzie? Snails in garlic followed by a Charolais beef steak    We shared a bottle of the local white Beaune wine (very dry with a hint of honey)    Yummy scrummy  (a gastronomic term, mes amis, with which you may not be familiar].

We strolled the sunlit streets of the following morning and wandered back to the hotel to prepare for the last lap of our journey back to Gabian.

Unfortunately,  Mistress  R. Soul, despite all the money we had spent on her, decided to down tools, refusing to start.   The helpful hotel lady called a car medic who kindly offered to jump the Mistress for 100 Euros.   After two minutes work, he sent us on our way with the warning : “Whatever you do, don’t stop”.    A very tense four and a half hours later, I extricated Gazzies paralysed fingers from the wheel and dear friends Bassie and Hugh fed, watered and succoured us in their home.    And that damned contrary Madame started first time and took us back to our house.

It was the  10th November 2018 when we crossed the Channel and on that day before Armistice  Sunday, the tunnel at eight in the morning, was full with British families coming to France to commemorate,  with French families, 100 years since the end of World War I and to remember those brave souls  who gave  their lives on the fields of France.

Heavy rain seemed appropriately cleansing, as we drove alongside the green pastures that now cover the battlefields of the Somme.   The natural glory of autumn on both sides of the channel paid fitting tribute to those men and women who gave their lives for our freedom.

 

GARDEN
(Written after the Civil Wars)

SEE how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand display’d:
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walks round about the pole,
Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl’d,
Seem to their staves the ensigns furl’d.
Then in some flower’s belovèd hut
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too; but if once stirr’d,
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
The garden of the world erewhile,
Thou Paradise of the four seas
Which Heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With wat’ry if not flaming sword;
What luckless apple did we taste
To make us mortal and thee waste!
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers,
And all the garrisons were flowers;
When roses only arms might bear,
And men did rosy garlands wear?

(Andrew Marvell   1621-1676)

“ When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?”  (Pete Seeger   1955)

I am taking the opportunity of repeating a Facebook post of  these amazing sculptures by Jackie Lantelli  in St Johns Churchyard,  Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.