The Cut and Thrust of the Garden

"What`s that blasted noise Angela? I`m trying to read the paper!"

"I think someone`s mowing again, Denis."

"And one of those petrol-driven jobbies, I`ll wager – completely thoughtless, some people!"

Sound familiar? If You suffer from Noisy Gardeners, you`re not alone. Earlier this month residents of a north London suburb found themselves driven to the End of their Tethers by this – the constant, pitiless Tumult of their neighbours` gardening...

 Sadly, as with so much anti-social behaviour, it seems to be a growing problem. Particularly at weekends, when everyone else is trying so hard to Relax.

Reduced to desperate measures, these residents have been forced to Form a Committee. Because it`s not only lawnmowers, but also hedge-trimmers, chain saws... and those appalling leaf-blowers - surely the worst! 

(Actually, what do they do, apart from blow all your leaves next door)?

These machines are often gigantic and ridiculously Noisy not to say Dangerous in the wrong hands! 

Why can`t everyone, is the cry, go back to using those lovely old-fashioned manual gardening tools - So much more satisfying; so much more Considerate.

The longer this menace goes on, of course, the more likely is the possibility of retaliation.  There has already been talk of Red and Yellow Cards for serial culprits - what if that`s Just Not Enough? 

There Will be Squabbles...

YET are we not all guilty in our own way?  Is it possible my own whistling-a-happy-tune out there could irritate...?!  My muttering, swearing, snarling, startling yelps when pottering `twixt our shrubs - might someone hear all that?

So let`s all make an effort; let`s keep jolly quiet in our gardens...

And then we can begin to think about Noisy Neighbours Indoors...  Did I mention George has bought me a bongo drum? 

That's 37 centimes sagely spent...

Last Sunday was the annual village brocante - car boot sale. The village is blocked off to all evil through-traffic, and every street is packed with stands selling the entire contents of peoples' attics and manky old cupboards, and all their children’s cherished hoardings.

Does anyone else find this slightly embarrassing?  I mean, it’s OK at an anonymous Field Brocante, but to gaze lengthily at the personal belongings of neighbours and village acquaintances and then Reject them muttering ‘Heavens...since five this morning?  Well ... bye then!’

Of course brocantes are always more fun if you have an objective... our general aim is Something that brings a chortle, but this year George’s additional goal was a French Monopoly set.  Evidently not played much in this village...

We found several million jigsaw puzzles and plastic men-in-cars, though, and a Poker Kit that I was tempted by. (Not sure why, as Beat Thy Neighbour has remained the zenith of my card-playing skills).  Unless Cunning was included in kit form too... 

Suddenly I spied a red, Chinese-dragon-covered parasol – quirky, decorative and jolly handy in these final days of stifling sunshine. Acceptable price of two euros.  And what a delight when the threatening drizzle became a drenching downpour, and my parasol turned out to be made not of paper but of… something… rainproof!

How proudly I twirled my beautiful brolly twixt stalls being frenziedly covered in plastic. How we Chortled when we got home and discovered the beautiful blue bit was actually Paint once lain in… 

I scooped up a handful of French paperbacks by an author I didn't know but who sounded detectively interesting.  You learn really useful phrases from such reading – ‘His body lay sprawled in the bath, brain splattered across the tiles…’, or ‘What! - That guy's still hanging around the neighbourhood?’ Doubled my party banter…

After a goodly time wandering, we were contemplating the bar or the refreshment table on the square when we walked into It! Hanging from the fence behind a stall of bottle tops and postcards was a black thing of finest netting. Topped by a black coolie hat from which dangled wisps of material, interlaced tassles and beads – all, blackest black - the Thing seemed to be shaped into a long tube – what could it be?

A lengthy Lobster Pot, I mooted boldly… or something you might get Changed Inside on a beach? (wearing the coolie hat); Mourning Dress, perhaps – elegantly concealing all expression of grief; how about an avant-garde Party Outfit?

None of these – it was of course a moustiquaire! (Not, as I kept calling it, a mousqetaire).

"It's a Mosquito Net for your bed,” the stallholder explained, “Or some people put them over an armchair or a settee - just attach the top to the ceiling”.

                

Fabulous! It’s bound to repel spiders too! Or why not, at the height of the insect season, just walk around inside it to the shops, for infallible personal protection?  You can also pull it from one end to the other of your picnic table - fly-free feasts!  How have we coped without this wonder!

The stallholder seemed surprised when we said we wanted it, but beamingly detached it from the fence with care, then found us a particularly lovely Hermès carrier bag to bear it home in. 

Styles available are manifold -the two shown above can but offer a basic hint - but here, modelled by a glamorous person we found lurking, is The Most Wonderful!

The Tour de Paris-Tours

Pchaw to the Tour de France – we have a better Tour, one that goes right past our front door! Last weekend, 155 riders set off from Paris (or Chartres, fairly nearby) on the gruelling 230km ride to Tours.

It was won by the Belgian Philippe Gilbert thanks in part, it must be assumed, to his attention to vital details such as choosing the perfect rider to get into the slipstream of on the home strait. The runner-up, Tom Boonen, was most disheartened by his own mistake there... (What about the very kind Exuder of the Slipstream, I'd like to know)…

For I understand little of this kind of stuff – what’s most memorable for me is the joyful gathering of neighbours to watch the race whizz past our very pavement, with the sharing of Almost-Champagne and Nibbles.

We gathered last year too, but made the mistake of not realising that the riders came in two chunks – not only the Elites (or Proper ones)... (I don't mean that, I mean Super-Experienced ones), but also the Espoirs (Aspiring Star ones). The Espoirs race an hour before the others and last year, we all thought that was the end. They were Going Like the Clappers, after all…

It was only when George put the TV on later, that he noticed something very like Our House on the live coverage of a bike race. Sure enough, a quick peer out of the window found a helicopter circling, closely followed at ground level by the Whoosh of a second clutch of racers.

Well? Everbody else was fooled, too…

This year, George took up position at the top of the slope well in advance and armed with super-charged video camera, while I popped down to banter gaily with the other spectators. They’d been there since before the Espoirs, and were suitably merry.

If my French were more equal to the multi-dialect SpatterChat that is a street gathering, I’d have gone out earlier too. As it is, twenty minutes of vague nodding and slipping in the odd completely inappropriate sentence, is enough. For everyone…

The ambience, though, is convivial and patriotic, with yells of “Vive l’Angleterre aussi!” generously tucked in. There were about twenty of us, and it was a great chance to cement relationships with, for example, the couple who’d only moved in a week before (I’d launched myself at them while walking past one day, but this time they showed no anxiety whatsoever).

There were two wise-looking elders in the best seats (cushions on their picnic chairs), and various people of the vicinity. We discovered that the horrid, rotund neighbour who drives right up our exhaust is, in fact, quite a nice person, as are the gang of shady-looking second-homers who were leaning on the fence opposite (keeping it between them and us).

In fact, when retired Hélène impressively caught the water bottle flung to the crowd by one of the Elites, she took it across to the ten-year-old. (She may have suddenly realised it had been heavily dribbled-upon)…

Disappointingly, that was the only Present flung this time. Usually the very long publicity caravan has staff chucking tee-shirts, caps and sweets into the excited masses, and there is much gnashing of teeth and elbows to grab a prize.

A few years ago, George and I went to see the Tour-Tour de France, but in the galaxy of delights raining down, all we managed to catch was a wizened bit of dried sausage. And I had to really shout at that evil little child, too… Wasn’t his Puncture Repair Kit Enough?

We don't know if the Paris-Tours will happen again next year - there are rumours it will go a different route. How we'll miss the flashing lights, the motorbikes, the smiling, waving policemen and the loud hailers screaming: "Get Out of the Waaaay!"

Everybody needs...

They’re all moving! In this time of financial crisis and House Market plummets, everybody else in our little clutch of outer-village dwellings is moving away. What are they not telling us?

In fact, old Philippe died fairly decisively… the man opposite changed his job… next door but one wants to be near her grandchildren… and two doors down – well, it’s just too sordid to talk about (any more)…

People don’t seem to move as often in France as in the UK, maybe because it’s such a faff. When you leave, you empty the house completely – curtains and rails, handy picture hooks, light fittings with bulbs (although they did leave us a solitary 40w on a scary bit of wire).

George and I landed in this unrecognisably bleak shell one freezing December night straight from final solicitor’s signings to find also that gas, electricity and water were switched off. With our furniture arriving next day, we got wine, water, candles and edibles from the village shops (mercifully open till 7pm), toasted our little cave and shared a sleeping bag, wearing every jumper we’d packed into the one case.

Next morning, our great big van arrived at seven thirty, having demolished a string of Christmas lights negotiating the village. (Perhaps nobody would know it was us…). There followed a frenzy of organising gas, electricity and water – the wherewithal for tea being paramount if we wanted our stuff unpacking...

With daylight we found not only our two cellars, but keys thereto, and the nice man from the water company patiently explained where the stop tap was. (Had we been able to see it the night before, we could apparently have unleashed that utility right away). Once we did unleash it, the water from the kitchen tap went into overdrive-flow and wouldn’t stop – switched on or not.

We then had visits from gas and electricity; French utilities insist on coming to inspect new customers for unfortunate tendencies and out-of-date equipment (which they find), then they tell you to get hold of a private contractor because they wouldn’t touch that apparatus with a barge pole.

In spite of all this, though, most seem to approach moving house with a gallic shrug; presumably they’re resigned to spending several months unscrewing everything because they know the place they’re going will also be devoid of content. Unless you count twenty years-worth of empty wine bottles, rusty garden implements and a gestapo greatcoat that we unearthed later.

Our current neighbours are exuberantly friendly and I’m sure we’ll miss them, but it’ll be exciting to see who’ll take their place. Our estate agent noted with hilarity that English people always ask "what are the neighbours like?" What’s so funny?

Admittedly, you have to try and glean true meanings behind the inevitable “lovely”, "salt of the earth" (or baffled “Pfouff” in France), but pleasant neighbours are a huge bonus. Even Unpleasant, you’ll have to communicate with them sometime, if only to borrow an emergency plaster or to extricate your cat from their dog…

Oh lord, the pets! Now how are they all going to get on?...