notes from the La Chaise study...adult bedroom

OK - so originally these two rooms had a floor to ceiling wall between them and were part of the addition to the main house when the then proprietor added them in order to house his mother in law - including the barn and wine cellar and the two small rooms that housed wine barrels  and the present day woodshed - 

The room that is now - as I write 17/04/23 - my bedroom was originally the main living/sleeping room for the in-laws, there was a wood fired stove where there is now my wash-basin... and the downstairs room was the kitchen/dining sitting room..there was a glass panelled door between the two...Cooking was done in the open fireplace next to which was a cupboard for crockery and other useful stuff.

When Harry was born the upper room became his bedroom and I had added a washbasin, we (the parents) slept in the room down a short flight of stairs - the room that is now ((april 23) set up as a dining room - and Clea later joined him there.  So they had a sleeping room and, down the short   of steps - a playroom with all their toys.  There was a memorable incident:   Clea could not yet walk, so slithered down the steps to get to the toy area....she fell and let out a tremendous yell, Harry came rushing to find me, was reassured to see her sitting up....'I thought she was broken' he said.

Some years later - when Harry had graduated to an extended 'lit bateau' upstairs in the attic and Clea had the whole front room to herself, with a very posh desk, lots of dolls and soft toys...my architect cousin Tom from the Netherlands came to stay.   The good thing about architects is that they can always see improvements, the bad thing is that it often costs money...

John and I used the upstairs room as our bedroom - pat self on back for useful washbasin - and John used the downstairs room as his office.   We had installed my Dutch grandfather's imposing oak desk - the one he used when he was chief of police in Rotteram - and John added an expensive leather desk chair that swivels. A Jotul cast iron stove warmed the room - Clea had once managed to set fire to its flue, at least then we did not have to have it swept...

Tom came, sort of approved but pointed out that the wall between the two rooms was not only useless but also ugly - it had to come down. The damp walls could be hidden, according to him, by elegant oak panelling and, indeed, in the place of the demolished wall clothes hanging cupboards could be installed. The proportions of the panelling were directly linked to the panels of the half glass door to the garden....

Mores notes about 'Stuff' in the house....

 Sorry 

but this is going to be a bit of a ramble, like the previous one....

All the 'blue' glass stuff in the house - whether bowls or other form of containers - is Jordanian glass - we bought in in Bahrain no doubt...all hand shaped and blown - and tougher than it looks..

Also the hall cupboard which also has brass inlay probably also came from Bahrain...

When your father decided to set up his freight agency in Bahrain - I forget the year but there had just been a huge upsurge in the price of oil and the Arabs were feeling rich and hugely buying 'stuff' - causing much shortage of cargo space, hence the freight agency - he rented an unfurnished house and imported a 'package' of house furniture from a London retailer (Conran or Habitat) which comprised beds, tables, chairs, probably a sofa...

Communication was by telephone and telex machines which were operated by punched tape produced by a form of typewriter which I had to use....fortunately having done a typing course many years before...Unfortunately the climate of Bahrain was very humid which meant the tape was often damp and could tear....so I had to iron it before processing it..

The brass table in the sitting room dates back to this period too - it probably was imported from nearby India...

The screens upstairs decidedly came from India, sadly I no longer remember what tropical hardwood was used...

As I was having a conversation with Clea in the sitting room, she raised a question about a conple of paintings....and I asked her if she was curious about all the things, would she like some background? Answer yes...

But first I should answer the question: why elesphants and bears?  When the war ended in the Netherlands, roughly in 1944 - I was only just born.   My mother, an excellent scrounger and finder of impossible things during the war, found me a bear, a very big bear.   Bear and I shared a cot for many years.

My maternal grandfather, Brigadier Coloneil Wilhem van der Vlerk, when courting my future maternal grandmother, was posted to what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).  Every year he was away he posted her an elephant, large black with ivory tusks.  Eventually there were four - of whom I now have three ....on the lintel of the kitchen doorway.

When my mother took me to England - she had married an English soldier - Bear came with me and also my new ability to read - in Dutch of course.    Somewhere in the boxes there is a picture of me sitting at a child's desk, reading a book - it was Barbar the Elephant - I assume it is in Dutch.   I use the present tense because it is somewhere in La Chaise, in fact there are several Barbar the Elephant books upstairs - the large foolscape sized, hard backed ones. She and her new husband moved frequently - almost every five years - my main security was Bear and my Barbar the Elephant books

But now, into the sitting room ....where I see a child's chair with a pink padded seat - that is MY chair that came with me from the Netherlands - in the picture it was painted blue and yellow...There is a second child's chair, more in the English style with rounded back...possibly Regency period.   It came from Kimsbury, the Percival house in Gloucestershire - which will crop up from time to time...and was probably used by your father..John.

The large gilt framed pictures over the radiator (bad positioning!!) are of the River Spey in Scotland - a precise point which John used to fish for salmon every July, a passion he learned from his father, Alexander Hope Percival.  I cannot remember why or when we acquired these paintings - including the little one over the CD shelvwes - but I do know that the River Spey was usually running through muddy,mossy, weed-full GREEN stuff.

Somewhere there is a photo of John fishing under the bridge in the picture...and I have very clear memories of the fight with winds to cross that bridge, even when in a car...    

John's mother had bought a house at Nethybridge, just outside of Grantown on Spey, for herself as a rival interest to Kimbsbury, and for her fishing mad hushand, Alexander, and son John. They spent most of the summer there when Alexander retired and before John had to take a job..

The sitting room furniture came mostly from Kimsbury ( a fairly hideous Victorian country house) when John's father decided to sell the property - my favourite piece is the rocking chair   I did not chose the colours - as far as I can remember - Catherine, John's mother was very fond of pink and blue for decorating..

The very large bird tapestry is one that I bought - I think - in Fulham (London) way back when, probably 50 years...probably for my house which I had just bought in Clapham (south London)...but I cannot swear to this...hanging next to it is a fly whisk with ivory handle and horsehair, it would have been used by the elephant mahoots...

The two framed embroideries have different histories: Clea thinks I did the one on the terrace wall but I doubt this, too perfect, too long to create. The other is one I definitely had framed, it was part of a fire guard that had got damaged.  Below it is the most interestting piece of furniture in the room - a corner cupboard probably of the Georgian period - probably the most valuable as well.

The three white board shelves holding all the DVD's are the only sign of DIY by John - but then the disc collection was his...the two metal birds on the bottom shelf are Persian oil lamps; the gilt and orange drum on the shelf above is a Chinese 'biscuit' container, on the topmost shelf there is an ostrich egg and what I think is a South Korean tea-pot that John back from a trip there...

(The sofa is of no interest whatsoever except that it is covered by an old pink kelim in need of repair)

There are two pieces of furniture which I believe we brought back from our time in Bahrain - the rectangular brass table and the two tier brass inlaid trolley which has been so wonderfully restored by Eric le Belge..

The floor carpet is definitely an Afghan which John probably bought in a London sale...all I can remember about it is that he said its colour was due to being soaked in camel pee...actually I think I might have bought it at Peter Jones, Sloan Square....

the day the dishwasher died....

 So, for reasons only best known to the machine - my dishwasher decided to give up the ghost.   It showed this by refusing to drain and sending me repeated 'BIP' messages asking me to 'verify' the water levels.   Whilst I speak a number of languages BIP/BEEP is not amongst them.... and everytime I opened the dishwasher to check on the water, there was water, water everywhere.

The setting I had chosen was for an 'intensive' wash - so I decided this might be too strong and changed it for a normal programme .....which worked apparently perfectly..except the dishes, though clean, were not quite dry...

And then I noticed the machine had not properly drained...so, gloves on, I fished around in the drain but found no impediment.  Next solution: there must be a blocage, so I reach for the sink plunger.   Of course, sod's law, no sink plunger where there should have been a sink plunger. Quick trip to the local hardware store (nine kms away) to buy the last plunger it had..

But that was no use, no amount of plunging brought up any obstructive matter...and the power supply to the machine died.  So now I am back to handwashing dishes, pans, cutlerly and glassware - only to find how much I had forgotten.

The use of rubber gloves, what to wash first, how to set washed items properly in the drainage rack, how to rinse after washing to get rid of the soap...

My mind went back to memories of my number two American stepmother preparing to load her dishwasher....I always mocked her because she rinsed the dishes before loading the machine...now I think she was right.   Machines are not as good as people.

Return of the Weather Gods...

 The Weather Gods are at it again...having mizzled us all into thinking summer was nearly here - if not actually here..everyone relaxed and sun-bathed.    Plants woke up and started their usual summer cycle, putting out flowers, starting fruits, growing more densely. Possibly this was the third year running that the Perigord had such a warm May.

Someone pointed out that this May was the driest since that of  2020, a mathmatically minded commentator observed that there was 45% less humidity...Gloomsters suggested that the likelihood of warmer summers would also increase the likelihood of forest fires....

Here at La Chaise I am not too worried even though our house is firmly in a woodland glen, all around the wood appears of have been cleared.   The blight on chestnut trees of the last couple of years had something to do with his.

Now we are in June - and on its second day the Weather Gods threw an ice-storm with hail, lashing rains and winds..  Guess where?  Yes - on the vinyards of the Bergeracois and Langedoc...

 This last week - starting May 10 - has seen the greatest blossoming/presence of wild orchids at La Chaise since....oh, since we have been here some 40 years ago.....Sadly with the joy of such rare plants come human quarrels....this because the grasslands of La Chaise have been let to a random local person who is entitled to take the hay from the fields. And this person is using the phrase 'exploit' in its more pejorative sense.

We have had orchids at La Chaise before - in fact the sheep used to rest on the biggest display of 'lazy purples' regularly seen under the corner ash tree in the main field.   But this time we have had some truly exotic ones - stems decorated with imitation bumble bees, some with flies - there was even one known as the 'hanging man' orchid because it seemed there was a skinny green skeleton hanging inside its petals.

 

But what has been different this year is that there has been a greater show of public interest - and consequently administrative interference....Official bodies have been set up to 'administer' the life of these flowers....what are know as 'arretes' in french are issued that threaten fines on any one who is know to have destroyed orchids.  Of course if one is haymaking it is difficult, given the size of present day hay-making tractors, to skim round a fragile plant which sometimes is no higher than the grass

So this year, Stephanie who is our 'gardienne' at La Chaise and is highly qualified in the subject of wild flowers, put stakes and warning ribbons round the plants...fortunately most of them were near existing fencing so it really should not have been a problem. Equally fortunately the plants are very short lived - possibly not more than a week for the whole cycle from emergence to flowering to fruition - eventually the 'exploitant' agreed to differ his mowing until he was called.   He is probably sacrificing many things, praying very hard, that the May meteo stays clement - so far no sign of rain.

My suggestion for a collective noun?   A profusion.....

Summer - orchids

Chalk stones, age blackened, are slathered

down the hillside like petrified spume,

thrown from fields below by calloused hands,

to grow the staff of life - oats, barley or rye.

The cairn, labour’s monument, now

collapsed near the field’s edge of marjoram and thyme.

Frost-split stones  show fossils of shells. 

Here was once the Sea.

Today wild oats, barley or rye grow over the heap,

trefoil and clover creep, mossy patches slither

Solitary orchids rise above waves of wild grasses

a dark pink pyramid, heavy head bending the stem

a bright green spear, apparently adorned with flies.

Bees and spiders also have honeyed traps,

pale pink or spotted, each with its insect idol 

inviting from the flower’s throat.

This mycophilic orchid powders its dupe    

with grains of pollen to fertilise others of its kind.

Below earth, the hair tendrils of mycelium,

fed by their aerial host, wait to nurse its ripening seed, 

germ of another sweet flowered, insect attractive

fungus nourishing, rare plant.