225. The clock's ticking..

3rd January. By one of those uneasy coincidences, I've just heard that Michel Delpech, the singer in the video below, has died.. (26 January 1946 – 2 January 2016). RIP †.

28th December. I can't think why I've not posted this video before.. it's the ride by le Petit Train up to the summit of La Rhune -  the emblematic* mountain that presides benignly over the Côte Basque. To many here it's the symbol of the Pays Basque. Make yourself a coffee before starting the trip! The ticket collector has a real local accent!

* do I get points for not using "iconic" here?!

25th December. If you've ever driven south in France in summer and switched the radio on to alleviate the boredom of the autoroutes, it's a racing certainty that you'll have heard this "summer song" that burst upon the airwaves in 1971.. and has been a perennial favourite on French radio stations (like RFM) ever since. Once heard, never forgotten..(you've been warned!) 

And for those of you who can just remember that slightly risqué* release "Je t'aime... moi non plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin waay back in 1969, this next video may amuse you.. It's Frankie Howerd and June Whitfield with their tongue-in-cheek version..

* it was thought to be slightly shocking at the time.. According to Wiki, it was banned from radio in Spain, Sweden, Brazil, the UK, Italy, Poland, Portugal and before 11 pm in France.

By the way, Happy Christmas to all of you out there! Don't let me disturb your post-lunch snore-fest.. 

23rd December. Stuck in Paris and in need of a quick Pays Basque fix?? Look no further..

I've mentioned before in these pages the fact that there is a distinct and separate Basque culture here. France it's not.. it's the Pays Basque. You won't have to spend too much time down here or have to travel far within its bounds before you'll hear Anne Etchegoyen. Here she is with "Gurekin Egon" - a song that's heard at Basque funerals, when it's sung with gusto. Anne often sings with Aizkoa, a Basque choir, and you can listen to them here. You'll hear these songs and many others like them sung with vigour whenever Basques gather together - I particularly like their version of Oi Gu Hemen (the first in the above link). You can also listen to the street version here as it's sung during the Fêtes de Bayonne.

19th December. Don't know what to make of our current warm spell.. it was 24° (75°F) in Biarritz this afternoon.. We had a coffee sitting outside - watching all the shorts and t shirts strolling by.. Hard to believe that I'll be mano-à-mano with a live Christmas pudding in just a few days.. I'll manage though (the smart money's on a first round knock-out). ☺

17th December. I was down in the cellar earlier looking at the wine situation with Christmas in mind. Just as forestry workers paint, chalk or spray a ring around trees that are destined for the chop, I was mentally eyeing up what we had, what we needed and which of the remaining good bottles were destined for the table.. Some kind soul had given us a bottle of 2008 Pomerol Chateau Monregard la Croix and I mentally sprayed a ring around it..  Looking forward to that one!

We also had a very welcome Red Cross* parcel arrive the other day - it contained a Christmas pudding and mince pies.. The taste of Christmas.. *Thanks Jon & Miki!

As it was 22°C (71°F) yesterday (yes, you heard - twenty two degrees..!) here's a glimpse of summertime in Biarritz in 1968.. Just looked at the forecast for the next few days and it's going to be 20+° until Saturday..

The things you learn on the internet.. I was just looking at the list of Christmas carols I linked to in the paragraph below and it appears that "Gabriel's Message" or "The angel Gabriel" is a Basque Christmas folk carol (in Basque: Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen). You can either drop this snippet into conversation the next time it goes quiet in the snug or, better still, save it for that late night game of "Pro-Celebrity No Rules" Scrabble!

We were out in the car this afternoon and we were watching the temperature read-out climbing forever upwards until it peaked at 23½°C.. I have to convert this into Ye Olde half-timbered wattle and daub Fahrenheit to get the full impact.. 74°F. There were people out and about in shorts and t-shirts.. I can't believe that this time next week we'll be sitting down to our Christmas meal and opening presents.. 

13th December. I was writing a few Christmas cards yesterday - and listening to Christmas carols at the same time on Madame's little internet radio (it works a treat - highly recommended) but despite that it was hard to get into the Christmas spirit when it was 17°C outside with blue skies. Complaineth I not though.. I remember going to buy a Christmas tree one year when we lived in England - it was a bitterly cold and raw Sunday afternoon and already turning dark.. Buying one here is a completely different experience!

8th December. Forgot to mention that I went down to the rowing club late on Saturday morning in time to meet all the boats as they returned. A problem with the joints at the base of my thumbs has kept me away for about three months. Not quite sure what the problem is but if it's no better in the New Year I'm going to try going out in a boat to see if there are any ill-effects. It was good to see everyone again - they're almost a second family to me. One of the small speedboats that the coaches use came back towing a empty pair oar. Apparently the two girls who'd been in it had contrived to turn it over. There's been a lot of wood in the river lately and I suspect they'd had a collision with a tree and there's usually only one winner when that happens. (ask me how I know!)

We won't be using our "Made in China" synthetic Christmas tree* this year.. We asked the tree man to lop the top 6-7 feet off from the tree he cut down in our garden and we've now got that waiting in the wings ready to be moved into the house.

* Add this to your ever-growing list of "Is there nothing they can't make" things.

The choir I sing with is busy rehearsing this piece by Mozart, ready for a concert sometime in the New Year. It's his "Coronation Mass" in C major K 317. I think it would be fair to say that we have quite some way to go before we're anywhere near the standard set by Laurence Equilbey and the Accentus Chamber Choir..!

7th December. Ker-ching! That's it.. Christmas shopping finished!☺

We've had a spell of bright sunny weather lately.. yesterday the temperature was up around 18°C (65°F) and so we took advantage of it by a morning trip to Biarritz. The sea was a sight to behold - it looked like someone had opened the doors of the wave factory! As each towering roller neared the beach, its crest was lifted off by the wind in silvery parabolas (is spindrift the right word?) before it exploded in a melee of white foam. No surfers in evidence!

We parked ourselves at the Café Dodin on the Grande Plage to watch the spectacle.. One brave soul stripped off on the beach and walked down to the water's edge watched by all.. he didn't dally long before he was in. I think many envied him.. I know I did!

Today it's more of the same.. wall-to-wall blue skies. Problem for me is that it's difficult to associate the onset of Christmas with this weather.. I'm not complaining though!

A few days ago we had a tree feller to the house to take down a Christmas tree that someone had planted in the back garden before we arrived. It had grown to a good 50 feet high and it showed no signs of stopping.. We'd had one tree blown over a year or two ago in a storm and we didn't want to risk this one suffering the same fate - so down it had to come. The tree man wrapped himself up in something like a parachute harness and strapped on what looked like a pair of crampons and with his chain saw attached to his belt - plus other tools of his trade, he started shinning up the tree. Branches started tumbling down and every now and again there'd be an almighty dumph as a large section of trunk landed. He soon had all the major parts of the tree sawn up and I stacked those at the side of the house to dry out for a couple of years. He dragged all the branches outside where he had an industrial sized shredder that made short work of reducing everything into a mulch. He then returned to the garden with a leaf blower and blew off all the sawdust into the back border - job done! He'd started at 2pm and by 4pm he'd finished. I'd had thoughts of doing it all myself but without the tools I'd still be out there sawing everything up by hand with my bow saw..

  

22nd November. Two days ago it was 21° (70°F in real money) so we had lunch out in the garden. Yesterday, it was wild, windy and wet.. Today, we thought we'd nip across into Spain to do some shopping and as we approached the mountains, we could see that the summits of some (not too) distant peaks were covered in snow.. Explain me this.. (as they say here..)

I've been off rowing for a couple of months as I think I have tendonitis (possibly de Quervain's syndrome) around the base of both my thumbs. And before the suggestions come flooding in, I don't have a Blackberry or a mobile..! So I'm excused vacuuming.. (into each life a little rain must fall..!)  

Bleu Café, Grande Plage

9th November. According to the TV news last night, it was an unseasonal 27° in Biarritz and 28° at Saint-Jean-de-Luz yesterday.

8th November. We're enjoying an Indian summer here - yesterday we went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz and, as usual, pinched ourselves with our good fortune at being able to live here in this corner of France. The beach was crowded with late season sun-worshippers.. and there were quite a few in the water. The car indicated 25° - but it felt warmer than that in the sunshine. 

This morning we were in Biarritz (or Bayonne-Plage as wags in Bayonne refer to it!), once more enjoying the dazzling light, clear blue skies and 25°C (again!).. We stopped at the Bleu Café on the Grande Plage for a coffee. There must have been 100+ surfers out there - trying to catch the rollers as they marched in as if from a production line. 

There were more visitors in town than is usual.. I suspect many had combined a couple of holidays using a "bridge".. On the way to pick up a baguette from our favourite bakers we saw a bright red American 60s convertible (might have been an Impala?) coming towards us.. It looked to be the size of a cruise ship lifeboat. I can't think of a more unsuitable car for bumbling around the narrow winding streets of Biarritz. Parking (or mooring) a monster like this must be a nightmare.

I forgot to add that "The clock's ticking.." refers to the imminent arrival of Christmas.. We've been thinking about doing something then and so we've been looking around at places to go.. I'm not sure I want to be out on the roads then and also I'm not sure that I want to be in a commercial environment at that time of the year. We went out for New Year's Eve during our first year here and I don't want to repeat the experience. If we go anywhere it will be to here - our "ace in the hole" - Chez Pantxua (left and below) at Socoa.. We found this great family-run seafood restaurant 20+ years ago and in all that time the quality has never varied. For the freshest of seafood, cooked to perfection, in a friendly ambiance - there's nowhere better.

25th October. Here's a short video I made showing (part of) what happens during the Fêtes de Bayonne..

180. First siesta of the year

22nd March 2012. After the shocking events in Montauban and Toulouse were resolved this morning, I think it's time for a reminder that Man is capable of producing works of great beauty as well as the most horrific of crimes. As you listen to Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's Symphony No 5, spare a thought for the families who are mourning the loss of loved ones:

24th March 2012. It was a lovely warm morning down by the river and there was a good turn-out. I went out in a mixed ability VIII sculler and it's always sorties like these that are the most tiring. I was at 2 (which corresponds to 7 in the UK/US) and the upriver leg was fine. We stopped after 10 minutes to take our warm-up tops off as they were clearly redundant. At the turn-around point, the cox and the stroke changed over and the return leg was - how to say it - less rewarding. We did 14km.

We had lunch outside on the terrace again today.. and I finished up with a Greek coffee and a contemplative cigarillo.. I was still getting over the morning sortie and the heat coupled with a glass or two of wine had me ready for a siesta.

At the end of the afternoon, we went for a drink on the terrace of the bar/restaurant La Plancha (above), on the beach at Bidart, just below the Château d'Ilbarritz (mentioned a couple of posts ago). It must have been 22-24C out there on the terrace. Definitely a new addition to my list.

Here's another look at the Château d'Ilbarritz..
Here's something that sounds as fresh today as the day it was recorded - in 1959!

In case you've ever wondered who the great undiscovered literary talent behind this blog is - pause while the guffaws die down - I've decided to respond to several requests and break cover at last.

Here's a fairly recent photograph of me hard at it at the editorial desk! This must have been taken on a 'dress down Friday' and it looks like the pressures of getting the latest post out and the long working days are slowly getting to me..

26th March 2012. We ate outside on the terrace this evening for the first time this year.. Now where did I put my Eric Morecambe shorts?

27th March 2012. A perfect evening's row up the river on a warm, still evening - shorts and t shirt in the boat for the first time this year. 14km. Once back home, after a quick shower and change, it was straight out to our west-facing terrace for a roast farm chicken eased down with a glass or two of Burgundy. Afterwards, I sat there feeling pleasantly tired in the evening sunlight listening to the sound of birds twittering and the distant hum of traffic as I watched the pale contrails of jets as they sped silently northwards. It was with great reluctance that I replaced the cork in the bottle! As my uncle used to say: you've got to know when to hold, know when to fold and know when to walk away.

29th March 2012. We decided to go to San Sebastian this morning to try and achieve terminal meltdown of my credit card. Don't get any big ideas though - two packets of peanuts would be enough to do that! The first strange thing was that we were waved through the first motorway toll that we came to in Spain.. and then on arrival at our favourite underground parking garage in downtown San Sebastian, it was suspiciously easy to find a space.

Ayuntamiento (or, in more prosaic Anglo-Saxon speak - Council Buildings), San Sebastian

Then when we emerged into the daylight we noticed that every shop was closed. Not only every shop, but also there was not a single kiosk, bar, café or restaurant open. The streets were curiously busy and there were flyers scattered everywhere on the pavements in Spanish and Basque proclaiming that today was a General Strike. Sure enough, we spotted some red flags in the distance as groups of strikers started gathering. Walking through town we half expected to find at least one little dissident café open for business but no - the Basque solidarity was impressive. It was a beautiful day too for bumbling around shops pensioner-style but after a while we realised that nice though San Sebastian is to wander around, there's not much point if everything, as in everything, is closed.

Maria Christina bridge

So it was back to the car and we headed off back towards France again. I think we got away just in time as a massive demonstration was forming up across the river to march into town - and that would cause traffic chaos. The column was at least 20 people wide and it stretched back for ½ mile probably.

By this stage, stomachs were threatening wild cat strike action if food wasn't taken pronto so we swung off the motorway at Saint-Jean-de-Luz and a few minutes later we were installed on the terrace of Chez Pantxua at Socoa. Just look away for the next few minutes while I recall what we had - mmmm-mmmmm - OK, it's safe to come back now! Suffice to say, it's the best place for seafood by 1.6km. (that's a mile to you!) Almost forgot - two hungry strike-breaking Spanish couples sat down at the next table and in a touching display of solidarity with the strikers they started by ordering a bottle of Bollinger* - the ladies had foie gras to start with while the men had oysters..

Madame Lily Bollinger

* It was Madame Bollinger (right) who famously said of champagne - “I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and I drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it, unless I’m thirsty”.

It was such a beautiful late afternoon that I raised myself from my post-lunch snooze stretched out on the terrace (in swimming trunks no less!) to get changed for an evening row. It turned out that I was the only bloke-type person there and so we put an VIII out on the water. I must say it went very well, apart from a congenital need to stop for a chat at suitable intervals..! Joking aside, it was a very worthwhile sortie and it felt like a crew that had rowed together for some time. So Tick VG from me! Think we did 12km.

31st March 2012. Down to the river again this morning (four times in a week!) and had an outing in a mixed VIII. We rowed as far as Villefranque before turning where another VIII caught up with us. G, our always-cheerful responsable, coach and all-round good guy, who was with us in a speedboat, thought it would be a good idea if the two VIIIs raced each other back to the clubhouse (known curiously in French as the 'garage'). If I was sitting comfortably in a speedboat on a sunny morning that's just the kind of idea that I might have had too! We gave the other crew a head start and then we were off.. It wasn't long before we could hear the splashing of the other crew as we drew closer plus the various incomprehensible shouted exhortations which seemed to consist mainly of "Ensemble!".. (ie, together) - which gave me heart as it indicated that they weren't.. Gradually the stern of their boat came into view and we steadily overhauled them before building a nice lead of 2-3 lengths. About 2km from home, we both stopped for another go. This time we started level and after ten strokes we were up on them and going away. All good fun! Did 18km all in all.

Blew the dust off my shorts and I took them and the dog for a walk after a quick shower.. 31st March too!

I was taking an inventory of the fridge contents after lunch (OK, aka casual thieving!) and I noticed a packet of Ossau-Iraty cheese in the cheese box. If you've been paying attention (Post #179 refers) you'll remember that this is the cheese that's been adjudged to be the Best Cheese in the World.. I might just try some this evening.

1st April 2012. The two local rugby clubs in the Pays Basque aren't having their finest season. Aviron Bayonnais are firmly in the drop zone of the Top 14 and after yesterday's dire performance against fellow strugglers Perpignan (final score 47-9) the only possible conclusion to be drawn is that Bayonne are going to go down. Meanwhile, Biarritz (also down amongst the pond life of the Top 14) played out of their skins yesterday to squeeze a much-needed victory by a 1 point margin against Clermont (who are 2nd in the Top 14). Now where's the logic in that?

4th April 2012. I'm afraid I've been neglecting the broad sunlit uplands of Blogistan lately but, as always, I have a convincing explanation. I've been knee-deep in reviewing, correcting and occasionally re-writing just shy of 1,000 PowerPoint slides on aircraft flight deck instruments of every flavour - some of which hadn't even been thought of when I was last directly involved in aviation.. As you might expect, a thorough understanding of flight deck instrumentation in minute detail takes centre stage in any Commercial Pilots course and so it is that I've been burning the midnight oil lately, wearing a flat spot on my backside, armed with a couple of hefty technical Anglo-French dictionaries, trying to make sense of some of the slides and put them in Angliche.

No-brainer question du jour: "So whyja wanna be an airline pilot, son?"

Young man's dream (or fantasy!)

67. Anniversaries

29th June 2010. I think someone was trying to tell us something..! Today we planned to have lunch out to celebrate a major marital milestone.. This clip is more or less how we met!

We thought we'd try one of our favourites - Bar Jean in Biarritz (mentioned before here) - as the seafood there is always good - and fresh - and there's always a vibrant atmosphere..

However, when we arrived outside, despite 1st July being only days away (start of French holiday season) it was unaccountably closed.

Plan B clicked instantly into action.. This entailed a quick trip down to St Jean de Luz to the open air cafe that operates adjacent to the covered market there - but only when the market has finished for the morning. Again, seafood as fresh as can be - never had a bad meal there and it's great for people watching. Horrors! At 12.55 the market was still in full swing and no sign of his tables and chairs being set out..

No worries - Plan C was launched. This was to try Chez Pantxua in Socoa - just the other side of the bay.. the seafood is the best in the region (IMHO) and there is a fine selection of Basque art (inc. work by the noted Ramiro Arrue) on the walls inside:

Ten minutes later we were staring disbelievingly at the row of restaurants at Socoa - one of which was closed. No prizes for guessing which! 

We looked at all the menus from its neighbouring restaurants before finally settling on one establishment. (no names!). We were shown to a table outside in the welcome shade and there were 2 menus on the table. Within a few minutes we'd decided what we wanted - Madame's selection was gambas followed by lotte (monkfish) while I chose the salade Landaise and the paella - and then we waited and waited for someone to come and take our order. Finally, a waitress turned up. Oh, it turned out that the lotte was off - no more left - so Madame asked for the sole. Also off! So she chose the fish soup. We sat and waited again. And waited some more. The waitress didn't return to ask if we'd like an apero - which we would have liked - nor did she return to put some water or bread on the table. Everything was telling me that we should just get up and leave.. I don't make a habit of this - in fact, I don't think we've ever done it but this time I was getting more and more agitated.. Finally we managed to catch the eye of another waitress to ask for a wine list.. and to order some aperos while we were at it - a kir for Madame and a pastis for me. Ten minutes later, she returned with 2 kirs. Ye godfathers..

When the food arrived, it went from bad to worse.. my salade Landaise was awash in almost neat olive oil; Madame's gambas floated in an oily sauce that BP would have been proud of; her fish soup was watery and my paella was sponsored by BP as well.. Without boring you with all the details, suffice to say that, for the rest of the day, we both felt rotten. What was that about the best laid plans of mice and men..? This was the first time - in 3 years of living in France and in 20 years of visiting the region - that we've had this kind of experience. All we can think is that perhaps the restaurant in question had recruited unsuitable staff for the season.

30th June 2010. While Madame was in town, I decided (perhaps not 100% true!) that the windows needed cleaning; the stairs, the living room and the dining room carpets needed vacuuming; the front path needed sweeping and the dining table needed waxing (I threw the last one in as a freebie).. I worked myself into a lather in the morning heat accompanied by this playing in the background: 

 

More music for a summer's day:

  

1st July 2010. Up early this morning - swimming things on - and down to the beach at Anglet before the sun climbed up too high. We stayed there for 1½hrs and very pleasant it was too. I'd recently started re-reading Peter Mayle's "Hotel Pastis" again, his amusing and enjoyable tale about an adman opening a hotel in the Luberon, and I finished it there on the beach this morning. 

In re-reading the book, I was reminded of the sheer awfulness of the BBC TV series "A Year in Provence" with the late John Thaw in the lead role. I watched about 5 minutes of it once when it was first transmitted in 1993 before switching it off. I can only imagine how Peter Mayle must have cringed and squirmed with embarrassment when presented with such a steaming and odiferous adaptation of his work. This was banal television at its most banal. And while never a fan of the curmudgeonly John Thaw, his selection for the Peter Mayle role was a piece of mis-casting on a truly epic scale. Fine in other roles but definitely not this one. The series is available on YouTube.. I tried watching it again just now and it's still every bit as turgid as I remembered. It has every cliché in the book.. The first scene in France is accompanied by... guess? An accordion playing in the background and cicadas..? Well done. How the humour and deftness of touch of this genuinely funny and enjoyable book was transformed by the dead hand of the BBC into this 33 carat dross remains one of life's little mysteries. Watch it and weep.. (Edited to add: It looks like someone has had a rush of common sense to the head because the video seems to have been removed. Phew!)

    

A mega-yacht belonging to one of the world's mega rich was moored at the bottom of the road this morning. It's the very distinctive-looking "Skat" - it comes with its own colour co-ordinated helicopter (natch!) - and it belongs to an extremely wealthy former Microsoft software engineer (is there any other kind?). All that money from ones and noughts - I guess the tricky bit is putting them in the right order..! 

This was a few evenings ago down on the beach at Anglet looking west:

And finally, a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G-Major (I-Allegro) on a Moog synthesiser.. (pity this is ingrained into everyone's memory as the old "Antiques Roadshow" intro..) I prefer this version:

However, for the traditionalists, here's the same piece played on conventional stringed instruments:

So - which one does it for you?

43. Junk that BBQ! Vive la plancha!

4th February 2010. One of the best things we bought since arriving down here is a "plancha"..

Stunned silence in the snug..

"C'est quoi - une plancha..?" I hear you ask?

It's a means of cooking outdoors that consigns the BBQ firmly to the Stone Age.. (Cue howls of derision, chest beatings, etc) Now I realise that this may be heresy to a few readers - as there's some strange psychology tied up with the Western male fixation with BBQs that has never been satisfactorily explained. There are many elements at work here - the playing with fire, squatting over a smoking heap of charcoal that refuses to get going, Suburban Man reverting to Hunter/Gatherer (joke apron optional), the outsize tools, the "know how", etc etc. The stage whispered "tutting" from the neighbours as washing is hastily taken indoors due to the smokescreen drifting over the hedge that the Royal Navy could hide a medium sized warship behind (if we had any left)..

And then there's the food that's been cooked on a BBQ.. we've all suffered the chicken legs that have been cremated on the outside and are virtually raw inside - accompanied by the familiar cry of "It'll be OK, just scrape off the black bits..".

Those days are gone. A plancha is a heavy slab of cast iron (I suspect ours is a recycled bulkhead from the "Bismarck") that's been enamelled and it sits on top of a gas burner or two. How to use it? It couldn't be easier. Light the gas, wipe it with a smidgen of oil, wait 5 minutes for the cooking suface to warm up and you're in business. Ours is identical to the one above. 

Once you've tasted food cooked on one, there's no going back. Sardines cooked on it have never tasted better.. It does fish, meat and chicken beautifully. I think planchas may be Spanish in origin but they are everywhere in the Pays Basque. 

  

I think I'll be heaving ours out of the garage in a month or so (it weighs a ton.. and I have to lug it up a few steps between the garage and the terrace) and then it sits on our terrace through to October/November - & no, it won't blow away! 

Madame loves to cook on it and she cooks like an angel. My job? In March I carry it out, and in November I clean it off, lightly grease the metal parts & put it away again. In between that I sort out the drinks. Happy days.

PS With Feb 14th coming up, and if the thrill of sleeping in the dog-house has lost its appeal, then rescue is at hand..! The site offers substantial discounts on French perfumes..

Sunday, 7th February 2010. Went down to Socoa to have a look at the menu at Chez Pantxua.. ie, to see if we could afford to go there next weekend. We've been there several times before and for sea food it's in a class of its own. Today we decided that it would be foolishly expensive (around 100€ for 2) for lunch so Madame said she would make something special next weekend. She can always outdo anything a restaurant can serve up anyway - and I can extract a cork with the best of them. We stopped off at Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the way home and walked along the seafront watching the surfers. The temperature was hovering around 15C.

Tomorrow, we're having the remainder of the windows at "Piperade Towers" double glazed so we'll be one step closer to finishing all the thousand and one jobs that we've had to do in the house..

I just had one of those random memory moments - I was reminded of a conversation I had years ago.. I was telling a friend about my new watch and he came out with: "Yes, I used to have a watch like that - it lost 2 minutes a day, regular as clockwork"  Still makes me laugh!

Now, it's fast approaching that* time of day but first - put your feet up, close your eyes and enjoy the beautiful tone of Michael Lucarelli's guitar as he interprets Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".. (and filmed through a war surplus U boat periscope)

* "Apero" time!

PS. Style Tip: Ditch the flat 'at!