Owen spackles,

while Conor caulks.

I have just noticed that I haven’t blogged since July 14th, virtually a week.
Remiss I know but my only excuse is that I have been busy.
My nephew Owen (of the same ilk) and his friend Conor Mc Sweeney came out on Wednesday and have been house painting for me since then.
Now as they are paid on a sort of vague Meitheal system, they get fed and watered and the odd treat but no wages, I do feel duty bound to work beside them, this doesn’t leave much time for blog writing.

One interesting moment happened in Carcassonne airport while I was collecting them.
I was for the first time recognised by someone who reads my blog.
It happened that a man near me at the arrival gate had started to chat and asked was I here on holidays.
As I explained that I now, sort of, lived out here the lady in front of us swung around and said “Are you Martin Dwyer ?, I read your blog every day”

A moment to treasure for the Dwyer Ego.

Otherwise the week has been spent painting; or to be more accurate stripping off old loose paint, spackling (French for polyfilling) and bonding with undercoat before the easiest part of the whole job; applying the top coat of paint.
Having the two lads here, both a credit to their rearing, has made this job go much faster so now all of the bedrooms have been decorated and also the corridor and even now they are attacking the stairs.

Yesterday I offered them a day out as my half of the Meitheal and the two young lunatics opted for a days Canyoning in the Gorge de l’Herault
No I didn’t know what Canyoning was either until it was explained to me.

Canyoning means that for a day you offer up your body to group of people who then dress you in neoprene and crash helmets and proceed to throw you down the gorge of a river. This can consist of putting you down waterfalls on ropes and throwing you sometimes 30 feet down into rock pools and doing a whole heap of very painful scrambling.
As it was described to me I confessed that, if offered the choice, I would opt for root canal work as a more enjoyable way to spend a day.

Nevertheless the lads headed off and declared afterwards to have had a wonderful time. Furthermore to my great relief they still had their full quota of limbs so I didn’t have to make any uncomfortable phone calls to mothers.
While they were scrambling down their canyons Sile and I were in a village called Laroque at a “Medieval Fare”.
This mainly consisted of a craft fair where everything normally sold at craft fairs was labelled the French equivalent of Ye Olde and sold for twice the normal price.
We did however end up at a concert of Medieval music in the chapel which was interesting, one group consisting of three bagpipers and a drum (and a lady with two scallop shells) while totally arresting in sound did remind me a little of the definition of a gentleman;
A man who can play the bagpipes, but doesn’t

The French celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve therefore it comes as no surprise that they should celebrate their national holiday July 14th, Bastille day on the night of the 13th.
So for the second year running we were about for the large meal which is held outdoors in the square outside the Mairie.
This year they excelled themselves.
There were various bonnes bouches on the tables when we got there, olives and nuts and the like and copious quantities of Sangria to wash them down.
Next a respectable Assiette de Charcuterie, with Rosé proffered in jugs, A Confit of Canard, with Red wine supplied, a good plate of cheese each and then a dessert which was a sort of trifle and a bottle of sparkling wine to wash that down.
The extortionate cost for this?
€8.50 a head.

And not only was this subsidised by the Mairie (it must have been) but the town councellors also waited at table for the night.
Surely this could be repeated in Irish towns and villages.

All this and the DJ remembered me from last year, that I had requested a Pink Martini song, came and shook my hand and then played two.
How cool was that!

My friend Isabel, always renowned for her sartorial elegance, recently celebrated a certain significant birthday.

A group of friends got together and bought her a canoe to mark the occasion.
This morning she sent me a picture of herself setting out in same and she claimed to be as “Happy as Hiawatha”

I felt a short verse a la Longfellow might therefore be in order so sent her the following few lines ;

On the lake beneath the hill top

…………

Just north of us in the Languedoc is the town of St. Pons de Thomieres.
In the middle of the town is a fairly massive church, in fact because it was once the principal church in the region it is a cathedral.
This is very ornate inside with a truly ancient organ (the second oldest in France they say) and lots of great pictures and statues (yes they have a St. Roch )

On our first visit there we met a shabby old man wandering around inside.
He was fairly obviously the parish priest.
He recognised us as tourists and came up to ask us where we were from.
I said we were from Ireland but were now living in Thezan Les Beziers.
On a whim I told him that we had bought the old presbytery there.

His face lit up, “Le Presbytere en Thezan “ he said, “many the fine cup of coffee I drank there after saying mass on a Sunday”
It was a little insignificant meeting yet for some reason I treasure it.

We call this room the red room because it has the original Red tiled floor (now unfortunately, covered with some particularly persistent glue with which they stuck down a hideous carpet)
This room has the worst walls so far, covered in cracks like a spiders web, it is going to need tons of spackle to give it back its school girl complexion.
However it does have one HUGE advantage over the last two bedrooms which we have decorated.
Cast your eyes up.
There you will see a modern clean recently decorated ceiling.
No plaster columns, no intricate Italianate mouldings, I don’t think I’ll even have to paint it, just dust off the heavier cobwebs.

I know, I know. This is evidence of the philistine former owners, the Catholic Bishopric of Montpellier, they very likely removed beams and mouldings to produce this bland dull ceiling.
A travesty, but, having broken my heart repairing and painting two of them I am, for once, suitably grateful.

This anyway is the “before.”
One hopes that the “after” will be an improvement

Living in a former presbytery we are, as you would expect, very close to the church.

If I glance up now from my computer this is the view I can see out of the kitchen window.
The bit at the top is the belfry or bell tower which my friend Clive tells me is unusual in that it is Bell Cast, or flared slightly at the bottom.

The same tower contains the church bell and this has started to order our lives.

There are in fact three bells in the village, two civil bells as well as the one in the church and all start ringing vigorously at 7 am in the morning. They then ring a single peal for the half hour and the correct hour on the hour.
The morning carillon from the church is certainly intended to rouse the village as after the initial seven strokes it goes a bit potty and does about 33 strikes before fading away.
But then, rather like the snooze button on the alarm clock, you know the wretched thing will leave you in peace until a single peal at 7.30.

It is strange how soon one becomes attuned to these peals, already I find I rarely look at the clock but am forever counting the peals.
My conscious mind no longer hears them but still, I find myself counting feverishly.
A moment of complete confusion happens after midday.
Then the church gives three single peals in three half hour intervals at 12.30, at 1.o’clock and 1.30.
This is probably the only time of the day I have to search out watch or clock to find out which it is.

After the 8 bells of 8 o’clock, out of consideration to the workers I guess, the bells cease to chime and we are allowed rest in peace, until 7 the next morning anyway.

Having gone to much trouble to match the colour of the tiles in the chimney room (gray in some lights a pale sort of purple in others) I noticed that Síle had, quite involuntarily, matched it perfectly with her choice of painting trousers.

And stranger still if you glance to the left of this piece you will see that my daughter Caitriona’s choice of colour for the border of my blog is the same colour again.

Having successfully almost finished the Chimney Room Síle and I decided it was time to have a day off so we headed down to Serignan Plage for a swim.
30 minutes later found us on a fairly uncrowded Mediterranean beach. Wonderfully warm, sand too hot to walk on, not too crowded, not too windy.
Families enjoying themselves all over.
Most people would be in heaven.
Not me.
I am just not a beach person.
After 10 minutes I get twitchy.
I had a swim.
After another twenty minutes of me being twitchy Síle gave up and we headed home.

We went to visit our friends Barry and Mary (from Mallow ) who live in our village and went and had a swim in their pool.

I am much happier.

After painting, not by any means finished.
The tile was particularly difficult to match, a sort of cross between gray and lilac.
I think we did fairly well to match with Wind from Devine Color.
The plaster columns and the gray marble fireplace and again beautiful (but hell to paint) ceiling are a real bonus for this room.
Of course it still needs its skirting boards and its woodwork painted, Mais on avance