No visa ..... yet

News, at last. Though not the good news that I have been waiting for all this time. US Homeland Security has turned down the visa application, although with the invitation to appeal the decision. I am not entirely sure how this works, or what difference it can make, but Cynthia, the owner of Love Apple Farm has to put in the effort and has decided that, for the additional investment, it is worth pursuing.

It is great to know that there is still the opportunity to go, but after nearly a year of considering, working towards, and a lot of waiting, I shall be glad to know one way or the other whether or not I am going to return to the farm. It is strange to be in this vacuum of indecision, especially when it is completely out of my control. If the result is positive, my life has direction for the next three, possibly six, years. If not, I then have to decide what route to take. Until that time arrives there seems little point in expending huge amounts of energy in planning and arranging what I am going to do. Life continues with only short term considerations and decisions to be made.

There are plenty of ideas being mulled over, and opportunities arising as I travel around France. A very interesting offer of setting up a vegetable garden for a local restaurant here in the Pyrenees, although the downside is challenging mountain terrain and a remote mountain location. Fun to think about, but definitely not something I would consider long term. I have plenty of other ideas, some mere fantasy and other options that would be quite achievable with a bit of effort and some determination. All to do with plants, and, as time goes by, more specifically to do with vegetables and food production in one way or another. May be doing, teaching, or educating, in association with others or independently. Only time will reveal what shall actually happen.

Until then, life continues apace, searching out new opportunities and experiencing new things. Scottish dancing last night, in a small village hall with a group of expats and some french locals, something completely new, immense fun and great to meet more people.

the gauls

Maylise asked me if i knew what gauloise was, I said they were cigarettes, they are, but more properly, the ancestors of France, the gauls!! Oops. Anyway, she had been out with the hosts for the evening and had seen signs to a museum last night, on their way back from a concert (I had slept again, trying to shake off a cold) that looked as if it could be interesting. A replica gauloise village, it was pretty impressive, with smokehouse, carpenters, blacksmith, coinmaker, weaver, clothmaker, potter, bronze cast maker........... all in their low steeply pitched thatched barns, complete with sleeping quarters in each and most with live demonstrations which was excellent and completely in french. It is getting a little bit easier to understand. More reminders of Maori, the shapes of the buildings and their uses, though out of very different materials and a complete lack of metal down under, more stone though. Some interesting similarities and a fascinating visit.

watching

I have been watching them since i arrived, a several fields away. Every time i thought I would get the opportunity to go and see them something happened. We worked late, Pascale had some errand to run, the weather threatened rain, or there was just not enough time.

Still, they were there, not going anywhere, waiting till i got the chance to go and see them. We frequently went out in the car, to town, a concert, the market or to the mountains and I saw others in fields throughout the region and I got close, but that was in the car, always going somewhere, en route from one place to another, never for the purpose of a visit. Some that we passed were old and fading, heads facing the ground, disappointed that their time had passed. Others bright and new, rising up towards the sky, enjoying the sunshine and benefiting from the recent rains. There were plenty of them, I guess they like the climate here.

Finally, after nearly two weeks, i got the chance to stop and see them at close hand. It was Sunday, a day without work and Maylise had gone for an afternoon nap following an unusually large lunch with plenty of wine. Surprisingly for me I had plenty of energy, usually wine at lunchtime is more than enough encouragement to take a siesta. But not today. I took a bicycle and set off for an afternoon in the french countryside. Heading out and down the road, remembering to be on the correct side, more difficult on a bicycle than in a car, I took the route that I knew would take me passed their field. To the bottom of the valley, over a little bridge with a stream and turning right at the crossroads. About one hundred yards or so and there they were. I left the bicycle on the verge and went over to take a better look. They were magnificent, tall and proud. Amazingly all facing the same way, just as you see them in photographs, all in neat lines just as they had been sown. Some were taller than others, but on the whole, one huge, deep carpet of sunflowers. Vitalite. (for those of you that remember)

the sunflowers

up the mountains

Maylise and I took a trip into the mountains to look at old churches, I think that she quite likes them, and to get some mountain air. We managed to get plenty of both. I am fascinated by the old buildings, the architecture and the work that must have gone into construction would have been enormous, it’s just the religion bit that I don’t get. All that toil, effort and money spent on grand buildings for worship when people were living in squalor and poverty, barely managing to scrape by in their tiny cold and drafty houses. (I suppose not much has changed in some places through the years) I imagine how much better their lives could have been if all that effort had been spent on well being and enjoyment instead. Castles and forts are different in a way, they are more for protection and survival, though with less religion, there would probably have been less to fight about in the first place. Enough!!

The mountains were amazing, I always like mountains, the air and the views and the enormity of the landscape, but I was amazed in a different way this time. I was looking at the ground. They, whoever they are, always go on about the mountain pastures in summer and how diverse and colourful they are. I agree, and I have only seen one.

We walked up a steep valley, above the tree line, snow still lurking in the shaded areas, probably from an avalanche, judging by the amount of debris sticking out of it, along the line of a mountain stream until the going got too steep, then zig zagging up a narrow path through the lush green grass. Well, it looked green from a distance, but up close, there was much much more than green. And so many plants that I recognised from gardens back home. Blue geraniums, bugles, campanulas irises and violets. Yellow wallflowers, pink alpine dianthus, white astrantia........ , plenty of others that I have never seen before as well. So this is where they all come from, well, most of them I expect. Some have probably escaped from gardens and become naturalised over the years, but the rest have evolved on the slopes, covered by snow every winter and bursting into life each spring. Some covered the whole slope, others restricted to bands across the hillside, maybe to do with altitude, or sunshine or the soil beneath the dense vegetation, it didn’t matter, I just enjoyed being there ever so much more than I had expected to, even at the start of the climb.

We got far further than we had initially expected to get, the mountain hut by the car park a mere dot on the landscape below. As far as the sign that said 29km to the next town, I can’t remember the name, but it must have been in Spain and I knew that we weren’t going to go that much further. Just a little way, to the foot of a cascade, to enjoy the cool draught of moist air, brought down by the tumbling water, for a breather, a cool drink and a few minutes to take in the enormity of one small corner of our tiny planet. Wow.

Going down was much quicker. We feasted on wild blueberries and, later on, collected enough wild strawberries to take back to the house to go with dessert. Enough that is, to get that wonderful flavour and add colour to a bowl of creme frais, a little demerara sugar to provide some crunch, it finished off the meal rather well.

Pascale & Christian

A proper rustic, run down french farmhouse, complete with french people, just what I had been expecting. The building almost looked deserted from the outside, though many french houses do. Walls with bits falling off, old wooden shutters on rusty hinges, not a lick of paint for years. The garden, or, more aptly described, land around it had a neglected air about it too. Plenty of garden shrubs in no particular order, some scrubby grass with long stalks all over it, mounds of brambles, elder trees and long grass going to seed everywhere. The whole place looked a mess.

First impressions. My outlook has changed since I first arrived. There is plenty of method in the initial madness, and good reason for most of it, though it is still appears to me like a form of organised chaos.

Pascale and Christian have been here for several years and are slowly restoring another part of the farm to live in using traditional methods. They live in the main building, but as it is sound, have done very little to it as there is so much else to do.

They are also passionate about providing for themselves from the land and have a vast potager where they grow all their fruit and vegetables. Seeds are very expensive in France, so they collect some seed from everything that they grow for the following year and also extra to swap with others. That explains all the plants that have been left for far too long, just one or two, in strange places, I guess the end of a row at some stage. Huge towers of parsnip plants that have gone to seed, similar clumps of lettuce, carrots, parsley etc etc. All waiting in the sunshine until the seeds are ready to harvest. I spent several hours painstakingly clipping dry heads off brown stems and carefully putting them into trays ready for sorting and storing. They are also active in keeping rare and heritage vegetables going, government regulations here, and I guess throughout the EU are making it more and more costly to register varieties, and, if not registered, it is forbidden for the seed of those varieties to be sold. Thankfully there is an active seed exchange movement that helps to limit the demise of such old and treasured varieties.

The brambles have arrived to cover over piles of earth and subsoil that remain from excavations to dig a large pond and install rainwater storage tanks. The water is saved from the roofs for irrigation and the excess ends up in the pond. The subsoil is clay of a quality that is ideal for traditional building methods. Crushed, sieved and mixed with chalk and dry stalks from the long grass, it makes a durable plaster like substance and also a traditional mortar. Sieving the clay isn’t that much fun, but using the resultant product is interesting and gives great, rustic results. The brambles are just there for the berries and because there is too much else to do. As are the elders, the flowers are used in conserves and wine, as are the berries, and to make a mixture that is supposed to ward off colds and promote a healthy respiratory system. The wine cleared the cold I arrived with in a couple of days and the concentrated jam is taken every morning for breakfast, either in coffee or on bread.

Christian is another tomato fan. During the summer, when he has finished working, you can find him in the potager tending his pride and joy. He grows 100 heritage varieties every year, changing about twenty so that they can try something new and also to increase their seed collection. It has been great to learn so much more and, more enjoyably, to be here as the first fruit ripen and are ready to eat. Tomato salad almost every meal. Excellent.

My french has improved dramatically, although the enormity of completely understanding a second language is something I think I will just admire. Just when I think that I am getting to grips with a subject, it changes and I am at a complete loss again. A couple of days later most of the vocabulary that I had discovered has gone and been replaced with words that are no longer immediately required. I am sure that it is getting easier every day. Perhaps I will stay a while longer if my visa does not appear and at least get a decent accent going. That, I suppose, will depend on finding other french hosts, they are few and far between.

fireworks