This is only our third spring in this house but we have begun to recognise the signs.
The first indicitation is our next door neighbour Hannah’s extraordinary prolific Camillia growing up over our wall.
Welcome Spring!

I came across this dish last summer for the first time.
We were in Sommieres, which Lawrence Durrell always said was in Provence,and he lived there for many years, but which I reckon, as it is west of the Rhone is really in Languedoc.
There were eight of us staying in a hotel which was originally a station, it was July 14th, which is notable in France for being Sile and my wedding anniversary, among other things.
Sommiere was also having a festival de Taureau, celebrating the cowboys of the nearby Camargue and the very strong Spanish influences in that part of Languedoc.
(It is a little known fact the there are still bullfights in Arles and in Beziers, and maybe many more towns in Languedoc Roussillion)
Our hotel was “sans restaurant” so we went trawling the town for a meal, as usual too late and at the busiest time.
A cafe by the river had a table for eight, “They are late, so you can have it”
We were in luck.
The speciality of the evening was the Daube de Taureau, traditionally the method of cooking the bulls killed in the bullring.
It was excellent.
The other highlight of the evening was the spectacular display of fireworks with which the French always celebrate our aniversary, bless them.

I came across a version of this in Rick Stein’s “French Oddessy” a nice little book which goes with his terrific television series of his trip down the Canal de Midi.
I must have seen most of his journey twice or three times on the tele but annoyingly I keep seeing the same bits.
I think I will treat my self to the DVD of the series for the birthday.
I have actually decided to do this recipe on WLR this morning but to spare any of you who might miss it I will give it to you here too.

Daube de Taureau
Bullfighters Stew from the Camargue
Serves 6 to 8

1 ½ kg (3 lbs) Stewing Beef
2 Large Onions
1 Head Garlic
2 Carrots
1 Bottle Red Wine
1 Sprig of Thyme,
1 Sprig Rosemary
2 Bay Leaves
1 cinnamon Stick
110g (4 oz.) Streaky Rashers
24 Stoned Black Olives
Olive Oil
Salt and Black Pepper
30g (1 oz.) Butter
30g (1 oz.) Flour

You need to start this the day before you want to cook it.
The beef should marinate for 24 hours.

Cut the beef into chunks, peel and chop the onion the carrots and the garlic.
Tie the herbs and the cinnamon stick together and put the vegetables, beef and herbs into bowl and cover with the red wine, leave for 24 hours.
Chop the rashers and fry in some olive oil until they are crispy.
Remove these with a slotted spoon and leave the fat on the pan.
Drain the beef carefully from the marinade and fry in this pan until it is browned on all sides.
Put this into a casserole or pot with the rashers.
Drain the onions and carrot from the marinade and fry these in some oil until they start to brown.
Tip these on the beef and add the bouquet of herbs and the red wine and the black olives to the pot.
Season with black pepper and some salt.
Cover the pot, bring to the boil and then turn down very low so that it barely simmers.
(Check it from time to time and add a little stock or water if it is getting dry.)
Let it cook for about two and a half to three hours, or until the beef is tender, extract and discard the bouquet and the cinnamon.
Then mix together the flour and the butter to a paste and drop this into the beef, stir in and simmer for a few minutes to lightly thicken the sauce.

This is traditionally served with flat noodles like tagliatelle but also is good with rice or potatoes.

I’m not a car person at all, I usually think of cars as being like straight lines, the quickest way of getting between two points.
Last week we exchanged our 99 Opel Astra Estate for an 05 Renault Megane Estate and I am amazed by my feelings of nostalgia for the old car.
The Astra did serve us (mainly) well, she was only six months old when we first got her, the subject (so the salesman told us) of a divorce settlement- a fact afterwards verified by discovering copies of alimony receipts in a pocket.
We are not extreme users of cars, for most of the Astra’s life with us I lived over the shop so she was mainly Sile’s car, on those days she didn’t walk to school, and most of the 100,000 miles we put on her clock would have been French ones on our annual trips to Provence and the Languedoc.
As I said she served us (mainly) well.
The “mainly” was on an Easter trip to Cornwall about four years ago when she suddenly decided to drop most of the moveable parts of her engine in a tangled oily mess on the forecourt of a garage near Newquay.
It cost us a fortune to get her back.
But she seemed to take kindly to her new Vauxhall engine (that is how you pronounce Opel in England) and continued to be her trouble free self until last year.
Since I retired we have taken to taking occasional flights to France, this involves leaving the Astra in a long-term car park for the holiday.
That this did not suit the Astra at all was indicated by the fact that when we arrived back in Dublin last February from a week in the Midi she refused to start and had to be brought back to life with the judicious application of jump leads.
She gave us no more trouble after that.
She happily drove us all over France and down to the very southernmost tip of Spain last summer without so much as a puncture.
The problem happened again last month when we went on a flight to Carcassonne, leaving the Astra at home again, this time in the long term car park in Shannon on a particularly wet and cold January.
Displeasure at this abandonment was shown, when we got back, in the usual way with a totally flat battery but this time we had to suffer the added refinement of the alarm getting stuck on and having to drive all the way back through the night with the hazard warning lights flashing.
This was the moment that something snapped and we realised that the Astra would have to go.
So she was exchanged last week for the Migane.
It is probably no accident that the Migane is exactly the same colour silver and looks fairly identical to the Astra.

About two days after the exchange I got a call from the garage.
It seems that the Astra had been stolen from the forecourt by young joy riders and written off up against a wall.
I was shocked.
How could they have let this happen to “our” car.
That was the moment when I realised that despite all the petty jealousies, the sulking when not brought on holidays, and the totally chauvinistic attitude to England I had grown fond of the Astra.
So Adieu old Astra and I hope your French double will serve us as well as you did.

The celebrated market in Palermo
by Maestro
Renato Guttuso

In the late seventies I was I confess a bit of a groupie. (This must be a type of condition which it is difficult to grow out of because to this day I am still recognised as a groupie, now to my wife’s madrigal choir.)
But in the Seventies my band of choice were called Dr. Strangely Strange.
These were a sort of weird and wonderful Irish version of the Incredible String Band, musical, hippy, wordy and totally off the wall.
They were managed by a friend Stephen Pearce and, as I was a student in Dublin, I could get in free to the gigs if I pretended to do something, cart about a speaker or keep people from playing with the consoles.
There was a fellow groupie who was actually a sort of roadie who got paid to do what I did and, as we ended up sitting together in many grubby halls we became friendly in a vague sort of way.
We continued to be friends in a saluting, “Howerya” sort of way after the band had broken up.

It must have been in the mid eighties when I was going down Grafton Street with a teenaged nephew when the said roadie came our way.
We managed our usual, “Howerya, Howsitgoin” greetings and passed on.
I then noticed my nephew was flushed crimson and obviously in a state of some excitement.
He then rounded on me
“How, in the name of Jesus do you know Phil Lynott!”
I honestly had no idea that it was he.

My sister D’s first husband came from Kanturk and her father-in –law, Gus Kelleher, was probably the best man I have ever heard to tell a story.
Two of his best concerned the post-mistress in Kanturk and her dealings with a particularly fertile inhabitant.

This woman arrived into the post-office one day to collect her children’s allowance.
She also informed the post-mistress as she had recently had a new baby she wanted the allowance adjusted accordingly.
Post-Mistress:
“And how can you be having a new child and it well known that your husband is abroad in England for the past eighteen months?”
Mother (cringingly):
“Ah sure Mam, he writes to me”
Post-Mistress (as she stamps the new form):
“Well Jaysus Mam, but he must have a very long pincil”

The second story concerns the revenge of the Mother to the same post-mistress.

She arrives into the post-office, again to collect the children’s allowance, and again requests a change for a new addition.
Post-Mistress:
“Well that’s a great gold-mine you have got there”
Mother (triumphantly)
“Indeed and you have the same gold-mine yourself Mam if only you’d work it!”

I was talking to some people last night (who will remain anonymous) who told this lovely story about Charles Haughey from the eighties.
While our great and charismatic leader was living in Haugheyland, otherwise known as Kinsealy, surrounded by his usual trappings of grandeur he decided to cull one of the deer which it was his pleasure to allow to roam throughout the estate.
My friend, who at that stage was farming deer in Wicklow, was summoned to the august presence to do the necessary.
A few days later he was telephoned and asked about cooking the same deer.
The advice, given the age of the beast was to marinade the meat in some red wine to flavour and tenderise it.
After some days had passed the deer farmer was once again summoned to Haugheyland to approve of the marinating process.
There to his astonishment he found the deer, whole intact and unbutchered steeping in a vast vat of red wine, possibly about 20 gallons which would be about the equivalent of ten cases.
Knowing that Charlie wasn’t renowned for buying cheaply in wines (or indeed in shirts) one must assume that this was probably good claret or burgundy.
The mind boggles as to the cost of the marinade, well in excess of a thousand pounds even in those days.
One can only hope the resulting venison was delicious.

As we are now looking at having to furnish a large house in France we have started looking at some of the inappropriate pieces of furniture which we kept from our previous , and much larger house, (because we were fond of them), and shoehorned into our present, much smaller house.
Deciding that these would be much happier in the presbytery in France we decided to do a tour of the furniture shops in Dublin on Saturday afternoon to find appropriate pieces to swap.

In M&S we were looking at a sofa but found ourselves unable to see the price as a middle-aged man was squatting on it.
He turned out to be totally unfazed by my request to read the label under him.

The next furniture department we went into was Arnotts, a vast area of three piece suites and there we observed the phenomenon again.
Middle aged men squatting comfortably on sofas.
It came to a head in Clearys where we counted four middle aged squatters.
There was a marked similarity between these men.
The age was early sixties or perhaps a little older, they were dressed in raincoats or anoraks and were certainly respectable,clean and did not in anyway threaten anyone.
It slowly began to dawn on Sile and I what this was all about.
These were men brought into the city on a Saturday afternoon and then placed on a sofa by their wives while they went off and did the shopping.

I had this lovely notion of a harassed house wife rushing up to the furniture department in (let’s say) Clearys only to glance around at the vacant sofas in despair and say something like
“Shit! I must have left him in Arnotts”.

Watching the dull but worthy Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood on the tele tonight I am reminded of a story which went the rounds at the time of its release.
The film boasts a particularly sickly sweet theme, made a hit by Bryan Adams; “Every thing I do (I do for you)” which enjoyed a vogue as a wedding song at the time.
This story was told by a local priest on WLR, our local radio station, so of course we must assume it to be true.
A couple getting married requested the church organist to play the “Robin Hood Song” as they were coming down the aisle.
The amazed organist asked were they certain.
Being assured, she did her research and as the couple went down the aisle after the ceremony they were accompanied by the rousing refrain of the theme from the 1960’s television adaptation of Robin Hood.
The words for this particularly song went;
“Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad, loved by the good
Robin Hood, Robin Hood.”

And the marching tune that accompanied it matched the words.

On reflection it was probably an improvement on the Bryan Adams version.