For Whom The Bell Tolls - Tuesday 29th July

Vineyards at Montaud

Well it isn’t tolling for us – at least not the last time we picked up the telephone receiver and had a listen. Today is the last day before the guaranteed date, and we really do need to get back in touch with the outside world and start sorting ourselves out. It’s incredible just how much we have come to rely on having instant information. I used to be prepared to jump on my bike and go down to the local library to find something out, but now I need “Uncle Googs” on hand to ask him about all sorts of things pertaining to my new life.

Jean needs it urgently as his entire business is run on the internet and he knows that things are starting to back up. Frequent and increasingly desperate requests for information keep coming from our erstwhile employer as he starts to realise that he didn’t have the faintest idea of how to cope with the running of the office and the accounts and left everything to Jean. We have tried time and again to explain that without our own connection, we cannot open up our laptops and access all the answers that he needs, and clearly his expectations of the skeleton service at the library are over extended.

Speaking of the library, we had to zip down there this afternoon to reclaim our library cards which we had inadvertently left at the Montpellier branch. I have discovered that the young man who operates the computer section speaks exceptionally good English, and he directed me to the area where the English books are kept. It was nice to know that my dwindling reading supply was about to be topped up but once I found the right shelf, I discovered that whoever had chosen them had a deep seated interest in the works of John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway and not much else. However, I picked about among these worthy gentlemen and was happy to discover “A House for Mr Biswas” by VS Naipaul and a couple of other books which will do very nicely until our boxes arrive. In the absence of television and the internet, I have read three books in two weeks which is more than I have probably read in the past year, and in addition to that, I have written over 13,000 words, some of which I hope are worth reading.

At last has it cooled down and we went out into the garden at about 8.30 and set about lifting the incredible number of bulbs that are buried in the long concrete enclosed flower beds. Papy had clearly decided at an early stage that there was going to be no lawn which needed mowing and he had concreted over every available surface, leaving only a few coffin shaped beds for Mamy to plant up with muguet or Lily of the Valley. When we were living in Africa, she used to send us a pressed flower of this dear little plant for the 1st of May which is called fête de muguet. Jean tells me that on that day, sprigs of muguet would sell for upwards of ten francs when he was here in the mid 80’s and it will be interesting to see next May if the market value still exists.

I can report that the new mattress is excellent and I slept soundly last night. No attacks by the beasties, no snuffling of the sanglier and only a rather annoying dream where I put a large amount of money on a dead cert in a horse race which came in first, but I had forgotten to collect my ticket when I paid my bet and consequently couldn’t claim my winnings. I have no idea what Freud would have made of that but I was aware of being very comfortable and bug free, and I am about to turn in and test it out a second time. Here’s hoping that tomorrow will bring the ringing of the telephone and connection to the rest of the world who are becoming rather impatient with the lack of communication, and for those of you who are following their progress, the beans grew another two inches in the past couple of days.