The Night Watch

BLOOM 5


It's 3.45am and I should be tucked up in my beddy-byes, but instead I've given up pretending that I'm going to go back to sleep anytime soon, I've thrown on my dressing gown and I'm sitting in the kitchen.
It's very warm in the kitchen, the fire is still glowing in the stove, but the Models, after an initially enthusiastic welcome have retired to their beds and SuperModel is groaning periodically - the canine equivalent of: 'Turn that light off! Some of us are trying to sleep here!'
Sleep? What is that?
A fable from some far-off land.
I'm having breakfast.

My poor, fevered brain keeps returning (unbidden, I might add) to the knotty problem of the mural.
There is a mural in my Bloom garden.
When I say it's causing me sleepless nights, I'm not exaggerating.
I'm not as concerned about the front of the mural as I am about the back, which must sound odd, I know.
The front of the mural is in Nik's tender hands, and as there are no better hands in which it could be, I have happily excised about 90% of anxiety on that score.
It's the fixing of the mural that is bugging me.

It was my contractor who first flagged it up. We spent a long time talking about the where's and whyfor's a couple of weeks ago and I thought we had - basically - sorted it.
Then I discussed it with Nik (who is inconsiderate enough to be wintering in France, enjoying himself) and he seemed happy enough with the overall plan. He pointed me in the direction of an engineer he knows.
So yesterday - no, the day before - I spent a profitable hour or so discussing it with this enterprising individual. When I asked whether he'd consider Sponsoring the required edifice, he looked at me speculatively and said it wasn't up to him, but he'd enquire.
I came home and triumphantly announced to the In-Charge that the mural was - at least in theory - sorted.

However, today - yesterday, I mean - I went to see the other engineer I've had in my sights.
He was fairly short and sharp and immediately pointed out several flaws in my newly hatched Grand Plan.
He also whacked a pretty hefty price tag on the whole operation, and when I asked if he'd Sponsor it for the greater good of the world and mankind - Yeats and Sligo in particular - he gave me a somewhat old fashioned look and said No. He then re-considered and said he'd throw in the cost of the labour.
It was a morsel, for which I was suitably grateful.

I'm not quite so grateful to find myself - at some ungodly hour of the morning - back at the design drawing board, having not passed GO and definitely not having collected 200.
The whole mural clock has, it seems, been turned back a month, with more questions now than I had at the outset.

I don't like lying in bed listening to the high-pitched squeal of my brain in overdrive.
It is not a restful way to pass the night watch, nor has it even provided any engineering solutions.
But at least I did pause to notice how beautiful my daffodils are while the kettle boiled. I picked them without even looking yesterday.
So the night is not entirely wasted.
And thank goodness the poor Models have managed to snatch a bit of kip, despite all.
That's something to be grateful for.
 

A Yeatsian Twist

BLOOM 3


I'm probably the only person around who hasn't got a picture of the eclipse.
I was in the woods with the Models at the time. It was mizzling and then it went dark - ish.
The dark didn't last as long as the mizzle actually.
Squinting up at the sky, I managed to blind myself with a fingernail, a crescent moon of white-hot sunlight.

Not that it shows in this photo.

Last time there was an eclipse, we were in the south of France and it was all much more dramatic.
The sky really did darken, birds rose screeching from the trees and the world seemed to go out of sync for several minutes, an untimely wind whipping out of nowhere to whirl briefly around the market square and cathedral tower in the town where we were shopping.

Today's event wasn't quite so cinematic, although the official pictures from elsewhere are rather amazing.
Watching them, a snatch of Yeats twisted in my head, describing the photos perfectly:
'The golden aura of the moon, the silver crescent of the sun...'

I daresay Yeats is groaning in his grave, but there you go.
As it happens, my son has the original, correct version of those lovely lines tattooed on his body.
I wonder if that would make yer one groan even more loudly, or would he be quite pleased?

Je Suis Moi-même

So far January has been a callous month. It has brought endless rain, a sprinkle of snow followed by brutal hail, terrifying winds and excessive violence.

I have found myself barely able to speak about the events in Paris ten days ago.
Even less able to comment on Nigeria - stunned by the lack of official comment.
Large sections of the British media appeared to move, lock stock and barrel to Paris for days on end to bring us every nuance of what they wanted us to know of events in France. Nigeria, it seems, only merited a bit of a mention by comparison.


And now everyone has hoisted a Je Suis banner of one sort or another.
It's not hard to do, hoist a banner. I would hoist one too, if it was simply about showing sympathy - my heart goes out to those who have lost their beloveds in Paris and Nigeria, as it does to the victims of Syria - victims everywhere.

But what actually happened in Paris last week?

Yes, I believe in freedom of speech. I believe, too, in not kowtowing to terrorism.
But while we're shouting about freedom of speech, where are the parallel core values that render it a human right?

Personally, I don't mind what people believe in, however dingbat their ideas might seem to me (or mine to them, for that matter). Someone's dingbat belief probably gets them through each day.
It's where freedom to say what you think (and thus to believe what you want) becomes the freedom to harm that's the problem. And how do you measure or quantify these things?

Being the complex creatures that we are, we can all wax lyrical on a thousand ways wherein we differ from the next person, but ultimately it's how we deal with difference that matters.


If I'm honest, I'm not that bothered about what cartoonists depict or journalists write, they are looking for maximum impact, after all. I daresay I'm pretty average in feeling ambivalent. I have the choice - I can read it/buy it or ignore it/tear it up - it's up to me.
I'm pretty average in other ways too: middle-aged (my kids might say old) middle-class, from the west, well fed and well educated. Not surprisingly I'm pretty happy to live and let live - it's easy for me. My biggest gripes in life are the weather and the government. I'm not going to go out and kill over either of them.

It's not like that for everyone, we are all different. Especially the young, who are passionate, hot-headed and know that they can change the world. Throw in underprivileged, marginalised and disaffected and you have created a bomb, just waiting to be detonated by something. When there is nothing else, an extreme belief system might be just the thing to make their lives worth dying for. Hello fundamentalism.

I have nothing against 'belief', and what people believe is entirely up to them, but I'm not keen on 'religion' which seems to me largely a tool for manipulating unwieldy masses. And any kind of fundamentalism makes me back away in haste. I once read the words 'we all make God in our own image', and I find them to be more true, the older I get - never more so than with fundamentalists of any faith. Marx is often misquoted, but what he actually said lies at the heart of the matter: Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. 
In today's world, I would happily replace the word 'religion' there with 'fundamentalism', and the very fact of being a fundamentalist seems to impose it's own obligatory jehad - literally, a crusade for an idea - not exclusively a Muslim concept by any means. People who knock on your door and try to convert you are on just as much of a jehad as any terrorist.

Amongst much interesting comment, there was  one article this week that left an impression on me. It pointed out that by forcing murderous distortions of Islam on the world, Muslim fundamentalists make violence their religion, 'a blasphemous interpretation of Islam, which in its truest expression is a religion of peace' By its very nature, this is 'an 'identity theft' of the Muslim faith'. 

The article also quoted Dyab Abou Jahjah, a Belgian newspaper columnist, who is Muslim, who tweeted: 'I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so.' Dyab Abou Jahjah (@Aboujahjah)

Which brings me back to the core values that need to underpin all our freedoms. The core values, that at the start, underpinned most religions.
Yes, I believe in freedom of speech.
But what happened to respect for others, for their beliefs and personal choices?
Where is the line drawn between freedom of speech and causing harm - on either side of the line.
As another good article, Five Days On intimated, it is about personal responsibility - in this instance, self-censorship. Perhaps this is a facile question, but why is it necessary to prove that we have freedom of speech by ridiculing and humiliating any culture or faith? Isn't that just a form of bullying, dressed up in suavely sophisticated clothes? It doesn't just provoke fundamentalists to acts of terrorism, it carves deep and painful fissures in the tentative bonds that grow - oh so slowly - between all the multi-ethnic communities in our increasingly homogenised world.

In the end, if we can't control ourselves and decide what constitutes a freedom of speech that does not cause harm and allows everyone to live in dignity, we leave the way open for governments and their military to control us, which they willingly do - with greater surveillance, new laws and tighter reins, none of which are ever rescinded. And let's not beat about the bush here - it seems a symptom of the human condition that those in power will always seek security in office via the old adage, divide and rule. They may have marched in Paris, they may profess to want unity, but unity doesn't serve them, and the ways of all political parties have become too tangled to allow for any single truth - so while, in the public gaze, governments train their hoses to put out the fires, in the background they are often busy fanning the flames. Politically the convolutions are endless, and nothing is what it seems; so we are told what they want us to hear and left to puzzle over the all too frequent anomalies afterwards.

Who can say with any real confidence what actually happened in Paris last week, and why?
More and more, we are taught to live in fear - something we have learned from America, and taken to our hearts.
All of which causes more 'distress' as Marx phrased it, which ultimately leads to more protest, more radicalisation and more problems - the endless vicious circle.

As Jim Wallace said in the Sojourners article, the only way to change fundamentalism is from within.
That's for the leaders and followers of all religions to address.
But everyone needs to address what the humane parameters of freedom of speech encompass, and what we can expect in return for our ability to express everything we think.

Food, Glorious Food

A typical sight in France

At a very cosy supper party last night, a friend was telling me that she had just come back from France, and went on to comment on how thin everyone is over there - especially the women.
Didn't I say the very same thing just a few months ago! 

There is nothing thin about me - well, apart from my bank balance that is - but nothing personally thin about me. And nor is there ever likely to be - I have just come in from a damp morning's work in the garden, utterly ravenous, and devoured I don't know how many rice cakes and cheese, closely followed by a large slice of the delicious chocolate cake that my friend Clare kindly sent yesterday.

Much to the In-Charge's disgust, I am very fond of rice cakes - especially with cheese. He often says: 'I don't know why you buy those, I've loads of that stuff in the workshop.' (He is, of course, referring to polystyrene insulation board.) My friend DodoWoman jokes of low-fat yoghurt: 'The more you eat, the thinner you get', and I guess rice cakes fall into the same category.
Although the trials on that one aren't too promising so far, despite forming the basis of my lunch, I haven't noticed any thin-ity creeping in.


Needless to say, it was at the chocolate cake stage that the extreme 'lightness of being' maintained by so many French women returned to my mind.
How is it possible to be thin in France (or anywhere else for that matter)?
Do the French not have eyes? Don't their mouths water? Do their tummies not rumble?
Are they boulangerie-d out, or are they just made of sterner stuff?

How can one resist?

I suppose, on reflection, I don't dive into a cake shop every time I go into my local town, but then (please forgive me, Irish cake shops) - there really is no comparison. NO comparison.

A pâtisserie in Paris

We sat at the high bar-style table in this very shop in Paris and had a quick bite one day. The In-Charge, as is his wont, chose some savoury item, and I ummed and aahhed and aahhed and ummed. The thing is, I tend to choose old favourites over and over again, instead of branching out and trying something new, and I was about to go for a tarte au citron when I surprised myself and - shunning strawberry, almond and chocolate confections - opted for the tarte à l'orange instead.

One mouthful convinced me that I had, in fact, died and gone to heaven. It was 'Tivine' as #1 Son used to say when he was tiny. Totally Tivine. I'd thought it might prove to be slightly artificial in flavour, or too sweet, or too something, but no, it was melting, smooth, tangy perfection. And had that particular pâtisserie been on our daily route, I would have found an excuse to go in every morning.

If I lived in Paris, I would get fatter and fatter no doubt learn to control myself. I would certainly have to plan my routes quite carefully in order to avoid such places of temptation. But that's just the problem - they are around every corner. Even the least promising of of streets will throw a chocolatier or boulangerie at you out of the blue.

Patrick Roger's wondrous chocolates

Innocently walking round the corner from Saint-Michel towards Odéon, we stumbled upon Patrick Roger, chocolatier extraordinaire, and stood staring, spellbound through the window. Or at least, I did. How could chocolates possibly be so beautiful? How could you bring yourself to eat them? I would just want to collect them - a different one each week, to keep in a gorgeous glass jar on the dresser.
I did - and do - wonder what they taste like. They look like splendiferous king-of-the-castle gobstoppers. Either that or Murano glass marbles. Alas, we didn't go in, so I shall never know.

Not everyone would find such things a temptation, I know.
My friends Sarah and DodoWoman don't have sweet teeth. But they are just as easily waylaid by other delights. They would, no doubt, have found their feet automatically turning left outside our apartment door every day, to visit the huitre-stall just a few feet round the corner. If there were just huitre-stalls everywhere, I would be mince, très mince indeed.

And I know for a fact that when Sarah or DodoWoman are in Paris, Italy, New York or even St George's Market in Belfast, just the sight of all this glory is enough to cartwheel both their brains and tastebuds through a kaleidoscope of cookery books, and they can't wait to rush home with newly-bought treasures and start cooking.

Glorious tomatoes

Every vegetable under the sun

More huitres - and allied fishy things

Charcuterie

For me, the orgasmic delight isn't in the thought of mouth-watering dishes to come, as it is for them. It's in the colour-fest here and now. I can't get enough of looking, and could happily walk around all day, just absorbing the complete palette such an array provides, the light, the shadows, the shapes, the contrasts. The food itself could be flowers, or yarn, or bolts of material - if the rainbow colour effect was there, I'd be perfectly happy. Take these, for example. They fulfil all my colour-desires, but arouse no hunger whatsoever, so I'm obviously not past redemption.

Meringues as only the French could make them

I suppose part of it is that, much as I like eating, I don't particularly enjoy cooking. Perhaps the deciding factor on whether I see food as actual feast or visual feast is when it's already done for you - no cooking required. And while I have lots of sweet teeth, I have a good few savoury ones as well. These, lovely as they are to behold, I - like Sarah and DodoWoman, would also stop and buy.

A rhapsody of olives

 Instant food.

And these.
In fact, I might linger in the vicinity of this stall until I'd finished eating my purchase, so that I could get some more. They are my absolute favourites.

 And these I would buy because they combine both kinds of feasting in one fell swoop.

But then it's back to the boulangerie stuff. More instant food?

I don't know what it is about bread. Perhaps it has something to do with being one of life's staples, but it's hard to walk past a shop full of fresh bread without diving in, even if you don't need any. It's about more than need, it's about comfort and stability and well being, about sharing with friends and family, about hospitality and food on the table. And of course 'bread' is a generic concept, embracing all other food.

And once you're inside the baker's shop, well there you are, back at square one.

I'm afraid thin isn't going to happen any time soon.
How do these French women do it?

(I suppose I could try burning my passport. It would be a start.)

À la Recherche du Temps Perdu

I sat down two days ago to sort out a bag of paperwork that has been sitting, minding its own business for six months. I have to confess that we are neither very tidy nor very organised about lots of things, paperwork being top of the list. Or bottom of the list, depending on which way you look at it.
I was only driven to do something about it now because I want my bag back.

I have my bag back at last!

The trouble with us is that every now and again we can no longer cope with not being able to see the kitchen table. (Literally.) At this point lots of virtuous people would sit down and sort out the offending mass of mess. Sometimes I too am virtuous, but if there are too many other things going on, I sweep the whole lot into a tottering pile and shove it into the first box or bag that comes to hand.
Thus is was six months ago, and unfortunately, the first empty receptacle that came to hand was the lovely bag my mother gave me last Christmas.
Since then I have added to its contents, but not taken anything away.

I never know which side I like best

Happily - by chance rather than planning - the electricity has not been cut off, and neither have the bailiffs arrived at the door in the interim. There were bank statements, bills, receipts, newspaper cuttings, work stuff, notes to self, telephone messages and what-all else... but now, after my final stint with the bag this morning, I have reduced its contents to several piles: a large one of rubbish, one of filing (which - alas - could be the start of the next bagful, unless I actually file the wretched stuff), a small pile of 'in urgent need of attention' and a somewhat larger pile of 'on-going'. But, I have my bag back.
I also have a little heap of scraps which I discovered stuffed down amidst all the bills and receipts, which turned out to be the paraphernalia we brought back from Paris in June.

Oh joy! Needless to say, I spent more time going through that than I did the dreary bank statements.
It was the typical ephemera one brings back from holiday. At least, I presume 'one' does. We certainly always seem to have bags and pockets full of cafe receipts, gallery cards, museum tickets, maps and who knows what.

Jardin du Luxembourg

So much else has happened this summer that I haven't spent much time mentally revisiting our lovely trip to Paris, so it was very nice to sort through all the bits and bobs.

'A litre and a half of bottled water only costs 23c in Paris' I told the In-Charge, apropos of very little. A supermarket bill - which I probably didn't glance at at the time, now made riveting reading.
'Did we really spend  €14 on a cup of coffee and a glass of wine?' I asked in disbelief as I picked up the next slip of paper.
'I expect it was Les Deux Magots or that expensive cafe at St Michel,' he replied, and added sagely: 'It's a bit late to be worrying about that now.'
How true. And now that I recall, it was St Michel, and we'd dodged in out of bucketing rain at the time, and we really hadn't cared at all.

St Michel another day - watching the brilliant street performers

I found a list of incomprehensible notes scribbled on a scrap of card and puzzled over it for several minutes before remembering that we had, at long last, after I don't know how many previous visits to Paris, spent a happy afternoon exploring each and every one of the Passages - some in sad disrepair, others a total delight. If the notes I'd jotted down were even slightly decipherable, they'd be a useful guide next time round, but sadly even I can't get to the bottom of my own scrawl.

One of Paris's beautiful Passages

Probably the most famous of the Passages

And here's another - with colourful guerilla knitting decorating the entrance!

Another dog-end of paper revealed my approximation of the recipe that must have been used to concoct one of the most delicious tartes it was my pleasure to sample. So good was it, in fact, that we had to re-visit  Le Bistrot du Peintre several times to test it all over again. It never failed to hit the spot. I'd forgotten about it, but I must have an experimental session in the kitchen. (Current note to self: buy oranges, almonds and ingredients for sweet pastry deliciousness.)

Inside Le Bistrot du Peintre

And speaking of deliciousness, the next item to emerge was the business card of a chap we'd got chatting to in the Marché Bourse. He plied us with samples of his wares, and told us that although he got up before dawn every morning to cook, it was all worthwhile as he went to Boston several times a year to visit his sister. He was Lebanese, and his food was so delectable, we bought enough for supper that night and a picnic lunch in the Jardin du Luxembourg the next day. (And while we were talking to him, two girls came up and presented us with a shopping bag listing all the Paris street markets, their arrondissements and addresses. How cool is that!)


There was a receipt from the Kilo Shop - the wonderful emporium on St Germain where vintage clothes are sold by weight; train tickets from our trip to Monet's garden at Giverny; passes for the Musée d'Orsay (probably my favourite of all the Paris art museums) and a billet for the Sainte Chapelle - another favourite place of incomparable beauty.

Gingham shirts in the Kilo Shop

Inside the wonderful Musée d'Orsay

Some of the amazing, original floor tiles in the Sainte Chapelle

One of the windows of the Sainte Chapelle (taken, sadly, with my phone camera)

The Rose window - also, alas, taken with my phone camera

It didn't do much to reduce the pile of paperwork, but it was a very happy half hour remembering our holiday in Paris.

'There's an un-used Metro ticket here,' I said, picking up a little blue and orange-stamped Mobilis from some carnet we bought along the line.
'I suppose we'll have to go back then,' the In-Charge replied.
It can't happen too soon.

The famous bridge in Monet's garden at Giverny

Paeony Envy

I'm suffering very badly from paeony envy at the moment.
Unjust, I know, as my own paeonies are flowering their little pink hearts out.
Despite the rain.

What you can't see in this picture is the gold at the centre of the flower

Sarah Bernhardt strutting her stuff

But on our recent trip to Salthill Garden in Donegal, the paeonies would have struck lust into the hearts of all but the most saintly.
We nearly wore them out with looking at them.

Elizabeth Temple, their owner, could have told us the name of each and every one. But unfortunately, she wasn't at home that day. She'd been kind enough to warn me, and even suggested we come another day, but it was the only time I was free.
She is extremely knowledgeable and I daresay would have had all their Latin and colloquial names off pat.
 

Like this one

  And particularly this one

But it wouldn't have done any good. My friend and I have looked - believe me, we have looked in all the garden centres, but there is no Bowl of Beauty to be found locally. Nor any of the other ones we saw (though names would help, I'm sure).

Sadly, I have to confess that it's not just paeony envy that plagues me.

While we were in Paris, we went to see Monet's garden. It was our 900th wedding anniversary and, as I have long wanted to visit Giverny, I couldn't think of a better way to spend it. Happily the In-Charge was agreeable.

Monet's house at Giverny from the lily pond

I had not taken the crowds of other visitors into account, I must say.
In fact, I hadn't really thought about it, but I suppose I imagined us strolling, arm in arm, along the flower-lined paths as if we owned the place.
Hah!

I am evidently not alone in knowing that late May is garden-visiting-time.
As we set off, de bonne heure on Sunday morning, the In-Charge commented acidly on how full the train was, but I cleverly remembered that it was Mother's Day in France. 'They're all heading home  to their Mamas,' I said brightly. 'Isn't that nice!'
It only dawned on me as the train emptied ontoVernon platform, that all and sundry were bent upon sharing our day out.

There were four full coach loads from the station, and that didn't include people who had arrived under their own steam, so to speak, or on other bus trips.
However, I sternly repudiated the In-Charge's hopeful suggestion that we board the next train back to Paris, and actually, although there were a lot of people, the gardens are big enough to swallow them up and we didn't feel crowded - except on the famous bridge over the lily pond.
It was worth every moment of queueing to get in.

We had, sadly, just missed most of the famed tulips, but the wisteria was in full, hyperbolic bloom.

The famous bridge over the lily pond

Luscious beyond belief

And so were the flags.

Look - there's a paeony in bud beside the flag. I need to go back there - now!

I have wisteria.
It doesn't garland a bridge over a lily pond, admittedly, but even so, I do get my wisteria fix every spring.

But I don't have flags. Not really.
Not rows and rows of glorious, wonderful, beautiful flags.

My friend - with whom I visited Salthill - and I pored over a French catalogue a few years ago, from a nursery that specialises in flags and irises. We drooled, we ooh'd and we aah'd, and I eagerly jotted down the names of all the plants I couldn't possibly live without.
The bill added up to about €187 - before shipping - so with deep regret I threw the catalogue away.
'We don't have enough sunshine, in any case,' I tried to console myself. 'They need hours or sun every day to flower properly.'
But I am not really consoled
Deep down I want a walkway in my garden lined with flags, preferably on either side.
Like Pierre Berge's garden in Deauville.
Like Monet's garden at Giverny.
Like the Tuileries gardens in Paris.

Or failing that, a purple border (with flags in it).

A purple border at Giverny

Is that too much to ask?
It's all I want.
Well - apart from the paeonies.

And I'm rather envious of Monet's pansies too...