6 feb

There are different levels of disappointment in life. The fact that our boulanger in Brantome is closing doors for two weeks is a disappointment on a level that might be called bearable. But the sad consequence of this particular disappointment is that our collection of porcelain figures will stop growing before it has reached any sign of maturity. The almond pastry cake we bought this day had an unremarkable something with the words Canada on it. No clue what the Canadian part was about.
I was in the hardware store to buy some paint. Walking around I saw the garden section with lots of seed packages. I felt a knife going in my heart. For the last ten years, a little more even, I have been working on a garden. The first months of the year are the most pleasurable to me. The preparing of the earth, ordering the mushroom compost, distributing that, looking at freshly dug, healthy black earth. Seeding the first seeds, planting the first onions, seeing the first signs of new life. Oh, I loved that, and just to see what I’ll miss this year hurts.
But then the sun started shining. It was kind of a surprise. The evening before there had been a severe storm with hail and gushing winds that created symphonies around Chassenat. Lots of branches of trees came down, enough to get a fire started for the next few months. On condition that one lets these branches dry first. We tried to be efficient and used the branches close to our house as a starter for the evening hearthfire. Didn’t work one bit.
Ok the sun. The paint I had bought was a superior Akzo product named Hammerite, acquired at the time AkzoNobel acquired the British (former) giant ICI. It is a thick juicy paint that can be put on iron fences, even when they are rusted. And there is plenty of fence around Chassenat.
Digging soil is peaceful work. Painting fences too. Definitely when the sun is shining, the temperature reaches 15 degrees (60 Fahrenheit) and there is the certainty that there is more fence to paint than there is sun to accommodate it.
One can lose oneself in this kind of work. Which one needs to do once in a while. Thoughts take unintended directions in these kind of circumstances. I am trying to rethink the nonsense I come up with in the hours that the brush dips into the paint, strikes (or strokes) the fence, only to realize after a while that I forgot some crucial parts
I was thinking of the disappointment of the boring figure of the boulanger, and thought that it was in fact a good thing that we couldn’t buy the Galettes or Pastries anymore, because now we would not have the disappointment of a boring porcelain figure anymore.
And about those onions and garlics, the most satisfying things to plant – they would start growing after about a week. I was trying to compare my excitement in the first year with the excitement in the last year. It was still excitement, but expectation takes the surprise element away. And one gets something back too, with travelling and walking around like we do.
I have gotten many great ideas for my gardens for the coming years. Tomato plants don’t need leaves, I found out, for example. And artichoke plants will need a kind of cover in the winter. French people, and Italians in fact, cover a lot of plants in their gardens and yards. It gives these places a Christ effect for the time being. Do not have more than one courgette plant. No Frenchmen will think of planting more. And they are right, except for the person who really likes Courgette Zeppelins.
And I started thinking about fences. A fence is a place which one can walk through, as the dutch comedian Toon Hermans made clear, although the fence itself is in fact impenetrable. One can walk from outside the fence, through a fence, and then consider oneself inside, while still being outside. A fence is really a perception of life. Oh I could go on about this, but the best thing is, fences can be brightened up, by painting. The only thing is that the part of the fence that hasn’t been painted yet, looks kind of disappointed. The sun is the solution to that, like it is the solution to so many things.