France « Christopher Allen

I don’t seem to be very good at keeping up with writing this at the moment…and now have far too much to write in a ten minute lunch break. Will try harder…

We spent two fantastic weeks in September/October in France, firstly in the Ardeche and secondly in a friend’s House in Marseillan.

The highlight of the first week was canoeing down the Ardeche River through it’s wonderful gorge, camping en route. After a day’s paddling in some of the best scenery in France, what better than to make a fire, cook a couple of steaks on it and wash it down with a bottle of red wine (miraculously having survived the journey) and some Talisker, smuggled into France in the hunter’s flask. We capsised fire minutes after getting into the boat the next day.

The second week involved lots of lazing about on a roof terrace reading, listening to music, eating cheese, drinking wine and playing Scrabble. This was punctuated by long walks along the beach, and blissfully lonely swims in the Med. Strange how books and music shape a holiday. Listened mainly to Joni Mitchell’s Blue and read Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers – both genuine masterpieces, the latter in particular shooting up my list of all time great works. Marseillan is one of the Oyster capitals of Europe and you can pick up a dozen for about 3 quid. Ate Oysters every day for a week; could I justify emigrating to the south of France based on the price of Les Huitres? No, but only because I’d miss English beer too much.

Last month I went the CAMRA beer festival in Oxford town hall. Absolutely worth going, if only to taste Hobsons Mild for the first time (CAMRA Supreme Champion Beer 2007). Wonderful flavours: quite malty and biscuity and with a nice bitterness. Haven’t seen it anywhere since. I’ve been into the Eagle and Child in Oxford quite a lot recently. It’s a pub I didn’t frequent as a student, but it’s just round the corner from where I work. Quite a good little pub (albeit with a misjudged conservatory style extension mercifully hidden at the back.) It’s where CS Lewis and Tolkien used to drink. They keep a good pint of London Pride, always seem to have Deuchars IPA (which I tend not to fancy after Summer) and I’ve recently been won over by Brakspear Bitter.

Listening:

Martin Simpson: Prodical Son (Blew me away. Best album of the year.)

Davey Graham: Folk, Blues and Beyond (And have been since September. Why did nobody tell me about this when I was eighteen. )

Joni Mitchell: Blue (See above)

Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending

JS Bach – Watchet Auf

Schubert – Winterreise

Reading:

Anthony Burgess: Earthly Powers (Genius. Read it.)

Iris Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea (In progress; not sold on it yet.)

Richard Dawkins: Climbing Mount Improbable and The Ancestors Tale

Alan Bennett: Writing Home and Untold Stories (Dipping in and out. Brilliant, obvioulsy.)