The 40th Glastonbury Festival has just ended and my two sunburnt teenagers are wending their weary way home after the hottest weekend in a very long time. As Glasto virgins, they trundled into the sprawling site laden with wellies and waterproofs in the firm belief that mud was the norm. Watching it on television from the cool of our drawing room, it could have been 'Reggae Sunsplash'. Indeed, seeing the sensational Stevie Wonder performing last night, just as the sun was going down, transported me back down memory lane [a trip I seem to make more and more often these days!] to being at Sunsplash in Montego Bay in Jamaica, in1981, not long after Bob Marley had died from cancer.
Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and the rest of the Wailers were bereft without their leader and we all missed him dreadfully. Sunsplash was not the same without him. Then, on the last night, just as the sun was coming up, the opening chords of 'Master Blaster' rose from the stage. There, to pay his respects and lift us all from our misery, like a vision from the Old Testament in dreadlocks, was the great Stevie Wonder himself. It was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life and I have never forgotten the sheer joy, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging and the feeling of 'one world' that such a great man evokes. It was the closest I've ever been to heaven on earth!
When we texted our daughter around midnight last night, the reply came back immediately. "I have just had the best one hour and forty five minutes of my life!" I knew exactly what she meant. Music on a grand scale is a truly collective experience. Alex Grousset, a good friend of ours, brilliant jazz percussionist and sometime drummer in my husband's old rock and roll band, 'Route 66', used to say, "When people play music together they will not fight each other." He has put this into effect by setting up a charity in Africa which provides second hand instruments to the most volatile places on that war ravaged continent and promotes inter-tribal and inter-religious harmony. Stevie Wonder knows this better than anyone and his gentle call to a better world speaks louder than any self-interested politician. Mind you, as he says, "If I wasn't blind, I'd sure kick some ass!"
I also watched Toots and The Maytals, another Sunsplash veteran, and, as they sang, 'Monkeyman', I remembered vividly Jeremiah Marks' great set at our last Blues at Bardies festival. Glastonbury it wasn't, but in it's own little way, it achieves a similar objective. Everyone dancing and singing along with Jeremiah on the last night was a sight to behold! We run it, with the help of many loyal and very hard-working friends, for everyone, friends, musicians, locals and punters alike. It is a collective, and it shows. Because we include food and booze in the ticket price, everyone shares in meals and music. And, touch wood, the sun has always shone. We are very proud of it, not least because we have had some of the UK's greatest blues players come to us, including the Matt Schofield Trio, Ian Siegal, Sonny Black, Dave Kelly and Jeremiah. It was our kids', and their friends', first experience of a music festival and one of the reasons, I'm sure, that they have all so quickly acquired their parents' music aspirations.
We are so sad not to have run it this year. Seeing Glastonbury, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia for B at B. It wasn't meant to be, I know. We were brimming with great ideas and intentions this time last year, not least in getting Ian Siegal back, but the exchange rate did for us! At, effectively, 1:1, when we emailed our list of supporters no one was prepared to commit at the time that we needed to firm up some contracts. It's totally understandable. To fly out at the most expensive time of the year, probably with children in tow, hire a car and book into the 'Eychenne' or similar is a costly exercise at a time when most people are having to cut back on household expenditure. We have always heavily subsidised the festival but even we had second thoughts about the feasability of financing it this year. We had just wanted to break even, but, sadly, it would have been impossible.
We wouldn't have been able to run it with less than 180 paying punters and, at most, I suspect we would only have made 80 to 100. Flying out all the musicians or paying astronomical French taxes on top of hefty fees, was a fixed cost we would have been committed to regardless of numbers. It was a tough decision and many people, I know, were disappointed. Watching Glasto, now that the exchange rate has improved significantly, I did wish that we had gambled a bit and gone for it. It's a funny thing in life but usually, if you want something enough, you take risks and are rewarded for your fearlessness. Not always, though, it has to be said!
As a result of our procrastination, our summer plans are very much more relaxed. Instead of charging around like a blue-arse fly, booking hotels, flights, cars, marquees, food, booze, helpers etc I am writing blogs, going to summer parties and generally enjoying the best that the sunshine has to offer. It is a strange experience because much as I love peace and quiet, I miss the razzle dazzle of music and sunshine chez nous. We will definitely do a festival in 2012, for Peter's BIG birthday. Next year, for mine, which I don't really want to broadcast too much, we may do something smaller. I've always had a hankering for 'Baroque at Bardies'! Watch this space, double dips, debt crises and potential Greek defaults permitting. We live in uncertain times, for sure, but we musn't give up without a fight. Music makes you feel good beyond the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Music and sunshine remains a heady brew and we intend to keep the alchemy going for a while yet. You can follow our progress by logging into 'bluesatbardies.net'. We hope to see you rocking with us again very soon! A bientot.
Monday 28 June 2010
Sunday 20 June 2010
Thirty Five Tons of Gravel and a Solitary Beehive
I cannot believe that so much time has flown by since my last posting - ever thus it was at this time of year. Like everyone living with a garden in a temperate climate, and many in less hospitable environments, the garden currently dominates our time management. Those of us with school age children also have the added anxiety of support for angst- ridden teenagers with school and college exams to contend with. The teapot has certainly taken a hammering, thankfully not the gin bottle. And then, of course, there are all those delightful summer invitations that pour into our email and letter boxes to tempt us away from our labours.
The most enchanting of them all this year was for the opening night of Garsington Opera's magical 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', the most perfect opera for the Lady Ottoline Morrel's stunning garden at Garsington Manor. I know she's been dead for the best part of seventy years but her legacy lives on. The gardens were designed and constucted by Philip and Lady Ottoline Morrel between 1915 and 1926. Everywhere you walk evokes the spirit of the bygone age of the Bloomsbury set. At the entrance to the auditorium you pass Lady Ottoline's ilex tree and a liquidambar planted by King George V1 in 1926, when still Duke of York. Overbearing, pretentious and pompous many of them may have been, but you cannot begrudge them their passions, and gardening was certainly one of them.
The herb juice fuelled trysts of Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander and the marital contortions of Tytania and Oberon could easily mirror the libidinous activities of that extraordinary group of supremely talented people. There are certainly plenty of hidden niches around the Italian garden to share with statues of Amphora, Venus, Daphne, Cupid, Pluto and Apollo, amongst others. And then there are the borders, filled with the most spectacular array of quintessentially English summer flowers, the wild garden and the lofty regimental box's of the lower garden to admire and covet. Not since Charleston and Sissinghurst have I been so inspired in my plans for Bardies. When the subsidiary barn is finally knocked down I intend to make an Italian garden within the retaining walls. We can but dream....
Sadly, I am no Ottoline, Vita or Vanessa but, fortunately for me, I do not have to be. Our French predecessors at Bardies had their own vision for the garden. Our box hedges are formal and square, unlike the quirky conical specimens at Garsington, but they too define the structure of the garden. All we have to do is work within them. This year, with the help of the wonderfully talented Pascal and Sarah, we began to remove the all-invading 'hypericum' in an attempt to create new summer borders. Poor Sarah has had nightmares over it all because of the vagaries of the weather and because much of the new border has been grown from seed. It has been designed to provide summer flowers for the house, as well to feast the eye whilst dining under the lime tree. We have also begun a new rose and clematis walkway, helped by my darling baby brother who shovelled out all the rocks by hand in the pouring rain. Each year we plan to do a different section until this magical garden is fully restored to its former glory.
Germaine's 'tilleul' [lime tree], planted in 1912 to celebrate her birth, has been brutally battered by the snows and winds of this last, hard winter. The weight of snow in the centre has left it seriously mutilated. Fortunately, Simone's tree, planted the following year in 1913, survived with little structural damage. Monsieur Mangan, who last amputated it in 1995, has his surgeon's instruments at hand to come in July, once the 'florissante' has finished. He assures me that there will still be enough shade below but the surgery, I suspect, will be drastic. We have also lost the eucalyptus by the pool, the price of being a non-native evergreen genetically incapable of dealing with our harsh Ariegois winters. Global warming continues to play its tricks, and never more so than this spring when 30 degree temperatures were immediately followed by heavy snowfalls. The farmers are at their wit's end.
The seasons alter: the spring, the summer,
The chiding autumn, the angry winter change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which;
[from Benjamin Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', libretto adapted from Shakespeare by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears]
We have laid two new areas of lawn [well, Pascal has!] and we have our fingers crossed. The top one is looking good and the pool area is coming on too [having paid the price in the past for shortcuts with turf around the pool]. It had to be done. Next year we will do the top lawn, not least because the plumber has just ploughed a trench right through the middle of it to re-install the pool's water top-up system, mysteriously cut off many years ago. The wanton destruction of the lawn made me cry, but at least I am now motivated to completely reseed it in the autumn. The pool rockery has been augmented and with the recent rainfall, is now full of flowers. Our experiments with alpines are paying off. A radical new step has been the laying of thirty five tons of gravel along the paths and below the two 'tilleuls'. It has given the garden a completely different, more 'tidy', look but hopefully it will have the additional benefit of retaining much needed moisture. Poor Lawrence and Florian did a stirling job with the wheelbarrow.
Beth Chatto's influence and vision creeps up on all of us as we battle on with weeks, or months, of little rainfall. Things have been so bad in recent years that the water 'citerne' has become redundant in July and August. Water is horrendously expensive here and, in any event, we have a duty to try to preserve it, especially as our neighbouring department, the Aude, regularly has water bans. Being so close to the Pyrenees, we have to date avoided such drastic measures, which not only destroy months of work in the garden but also render swimming pools useless because it is forbidden to top them up.
Meanwhile, tragically, our bees seem to have succumbed to a mystery malaise. In every previous year they have thrived here, pollinating our 'tilleuls' and borders, as well as our wild flowers in the meadows, throughout the summer. Frederic, the bee man, is at a loss as to the reason so many of them have died, scattered in droves in the dormitory. On examination, they appear healthy but they are most definitely deceased. The only explanation seems to be the heatwave that preceded May's unseasonal snowfall. There was a hive under the pantiles, now empty, and he is sure that the heat below the terracotta must have created an environment close to a 'tagine'. Horrifically, they must have been baked to death and swarmed too late to recover. We wait to see if they will return to a new home, in a proper hive placed on top of the tiles on the garage.
We all have a duty to preserve the bee population and I can't bear to think of their permanent demise at Bardies. Like many people, I used to be frightened of them, not least because my sister-in-law and nephew both have to carry 'epi-pens' for fear of being stung and succumbing to encephalitic shock. In reality, bees seldom sting. Now I see them as our friends, part of our future and the future of our delicate world. Our solitary beehive is a beacon to the future. If they return, it will be more than an omen. It will be the start of a new adventure for us, with the help of Frederic. There used to be hives here and our predecessors produced their own honey. There is no reason to suppose that we cannot do the same. Honey from Bardies sounds like nectar from heaven - we await their return with bated breath.
The most enchanting of them all this year was for the opening night of Garsington Opera's magical 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', the most perfect opera for the Lady Ottoline Morrel's stunning garden at Garsington Manor. I know she's been dead for the best part of seventy years but her legacy lives on. The gardens were designed and constucted by Philip and Lady Ottoline Morrel between 1915 and 1926. Everywhere you walk evokes the spirit of the bygone age of the Bloomsbury set. At the entrance to the auditorium you pass Lady Ottoline's ilex tree and a liquidambar planted by King George V1 in 1926, when still Duke of York. Overbearing, pretentious and pompous many of them may have been, but you cannot begrudge them their passions, and gardening was certainly one of them.
The herb juice fuelled trysts of Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander and the marital contortions of Tytania and Oberon could easily mirror the libidinous activities of that extraordinary group of supremely talented people. There are certainly plenty of hidden niches around the Italian garden to share with statues of Amphora, Venus, Daphne, Cupid, Pluto and Apollo, amongst others. And then there are the borders, filled with the most spectacular array of quintessentially English summer flowers, the wild garden and the lofty regimental box's of the lower garden to admire and covet. Not since Charleston and Sissinghurst have I been so inspired in my plans for Bardies. When the subsidiary barn is finally knocked down I intend to make an Italian garden within the retaining walls. We can but dream....
Sadly, I am no Ottoline, Vita or Vanessa but, fortunately for me, I do not have to be. Our French predecessors at Bardies had their own vision for the garden. Our box hedges are formal and square, unlike the quirky conical specimens at Garsington, but they too define the structure of the garden. All we have to do is work within them. This year, with the help of the wonderfully talented Pascal and Sarah, we began to remove the all-invading 'hypericum' in an attempt to create new summer borders. Poor Sarah has had nightmares over it all because of the vagaries of the weather and because much of the new border has been grown from seed. It has been designed to provide summer flowers for the house, as well to feast the eye whilst dining under the lime tree. We have also begun a new rose and clematis walkway, helped by my darling baby brother who shovelled out all the rocks by hand in the pouring rain. Each year we plan to do a different section until this magical garden is fully restored to its former glory.
Germaine's 'tilleul' [lime tree], planted in 1912 to celebrate her birth, has been brutally battered by the snows and winds of this last, hard winter. The weight of snow in the centre has left it seriously mutilated. Fortunately, Simone's tree, planted the following year in 1913, survived with little structural damage. Monsieur Mangan, who last amputated it in 1995, has his surgeon's instruments at hand to come in July, once the 'florissante' has finished. He assures me that there will still be enough shade below but the surgery, I suspect, will be drastic. We have also lost the eucalyptus by the pool, the price of being a non-native evergreen genetically incapable of dealing with our harsh Ariegois winters. Global warming continues to play its tricks, and never more so than this spring when 30 degree temperatures were immediately followed by heavy snowfalls. The farmers are at their wit's end.
The seasons alter: the spring, the summer,
The chiding autumn, the angry winter change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which;
[from Benjamin Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', libretto adapted from Shakespeare by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears]
We have laid two new areas of lawn [well, Pascal has!] and we have our fingers crossed. The top one is looking good and the pool area is coming on too [having paid the price in the past for shortcuts with turf around the pool]. It had to be done. Next year we will do the top lawn, not least because the plumber has just ploughed a trench right through the middle of it to re-install the pool's water top-up system, mysteriously cut off many years ago. The wanton destruction of the lawn made me cry, but at least I am now motivated to completely reseed it in the autumn. The pool rockery has been augmented and with the recent rainfall, is now full of flowers. Our experiments with alpines are paying off. A radical new step has been the laying of thirty five tons of gravel along the paths and below the two 'tilleuls'. It has given the garden a completely different, more 'tidy', look but hopefully it will have the additional benefit of retaining much needed moisture. Poor Lawrence and Florian did a stirling job with the wheelbarrow.
Beth Chatto's influence and vision creeps up on all of us as we battle on with weeks, or months, of little rainfall. Things have been so bad in recent years that the water 'citerne' has become redundant in July and August. Water is horrendously expensive here and, in any event, we have a duty to try to preserve it, especially as our neighbouring department, the Aude, regularly has water bans. Being so close to the Pyrenees, we have to date avoided such drastic measures, which not only destroy months of work in the garden but also render swimming pools useless because it is forbidden to top them up.
Meanwhile, tragically, our bees seem to have succumbed to a mystery malaise. In every previous year they have thrived here, pollinating our 'tilleuls' and borders, as well as our wild flowers in the meadows, throughout the summer. Frederic, the bee man, is at a loss as to the reason so many of them have died, scattered in droves in the dormitory. On examination, they appear healthy but they are most definitely deceased. The only explanation seems to be the heatwave that preceded May's unseasonal snowfall. There was a hive under the pantiles, now empty, and he is sure that the heat below the terracotta must have created an environment close to a 'tagine'. Horrifically, they must have been baked to death and swarmed too late to recover. We wait to see if they will return to a new home, in a proper hive placed on top of the tiles on the garage.
We all have a duty to preserve the bee population and I can't bear to think of their permanent demise at Bardies. Like many people, I used to be frightened of them, not least because my sister-in-law and nephew both have to carry 'epi-pens' for fear of being stung and succumbing to encephalitic shock. In reality, bees seldom sting. Now I see them as our friends, part of our future and the future of our delicate world. Our solitary beehive is a beacon to the future. If they return, it will be more than an omen. It will be the start of a new adventure for us, with the help of Frederic. There used to be hives here and our predecessors produced their own honey. There is no reason to suppose that we cannot do the same. Honey from Bardies sounds like nectar from heaven - we await their return with bated breath.
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