Uncle Frank's Pipe

 

The other day I received a present in the mail from my sister Susan.

She had forewarned me of its arrival, saying it was an unusual gift.

It arrived about a week after my birthday and I opened it with much anticipation.

As I removed the wrapping, I saw that it was a pipe, an old-fashioned tobacco pipe.

Before I read my sister's card that accompanied the gift, I guessed who it must have belonged to.

Her card confirmed that it belonged to Uncle Frank, after whose house in Chinchilla, Queensland, I had named this house in France.

My sister recently travelled to Chinchilla and took these photos. The house itself is much changed from how I remembered it and is under different ownership since Frank's death in 1982. 

The nameplate, Ellesmere, is now in the Chinchilla museum.

I was thrilled to get this marvellous memento of a man I much admired.

I examined it thoroughly, turning it over in my hands and fingering its curved stem. 

I smelled the bowl. 

Could I detect the lingering odour of pipe-tobacco, after all these years? 

Or was it my imagination? 

After all, it would have been 40 years since Frank took his last smoke of this pipe.

I had no idea how my sister had come into possession of Frank's pipe, but seeing it triggered many memories.

Like that of Frank sitting at a table on the verandah of Aunty Viv's place in Eumundi, Queensland. 

A land surveyor by profession, he'd be pouring over one of his detailed maps, pipe in mouth.

I can see him tapping the dregs of the bowl into an ashtray.

And then he'd reload his pipe with long, gnarly fingers, extracting a quantity of tobacco from a pouch and pushing it down into the bowl with his forefinger.

There'd be the whoosh of a lighting match, which he held over the bowl. Then he'd draw on the mouthpiece, with long puffs, and extinguish the match with a flick of the wrist.

Absorbed in his work, a look of calm concentration would came over Frank's face. His eyes squinted slightly with the up-drifting smoke. 

The odour of aromatic tobacco would make its way into my nostrils. 

Oh how I loved that smell!

Frank's pipe was a calabash style, not dissimilar to the one smoked by Sherlock Holmes.

I am absolutely thrilled now to own this rare treasure, it evokes such wonderful memories. 

It takes me back to my boyhood and brings the image of Uncle Frank before my mind's eye. 

I found an attractive, cross-sliced piece of timber, framed by segmented bark. I sanded, oiled and polished it to form a mounting for the pipe.

It is positioned beside the fireplace. A fitting location.

Frank's old pipe now takes pride of place in Ellesmere. I feel like it has returned home.

Mornings and Evenings

In the winter, we often see the morning mist, low in the valley.

It heralds a fine day and soon disappears before the rising sun.

Then, in the early evening ... a full moon ascends, majestically, a milk-white disc against an indigo sky.

I take a shot through the spikey branches of the Lebanese Cedar.

Paris

 We were strolling along the street in the fifth arrondissement when we saw a building that said ...

the poet Verlaine died here and Earnest Hemmingway lived here

I was quite surprised and delighted by this discovery, because one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs ... You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go ... contains these lines:

situations have ended sad, relationships have all been bad, mine have been like Verlaine and Rimbaud's ... 

We went shopping in Galeries Lafayette. Carolynn and Cliona went into one of the stores and Hedley and I went into the basement of another.

If the love of food is a religion, then this was the Heaven that awaits all good gourmands.

Later, hungry, we went looking for a good but inexpensive restaurant and discovered Casa Cosa.

Compared with les grandes brasseries, it was an unprepossessing eatery, but we entered on a hunch.

It was a good hunch.

The place was warm., the staff inviting and the food excellent.

It was a great find and one we will remember whenever we return to Paris.

Later that night, we joined the throng in the Montmartre version of that Parisian iconic eatery Boullion Chartier.

 

It was heaving ... and we were prescient to get there early.  As we were leaving, a large crowd had spilled onto the street in a long queue.

It'd been more than three years since our last trip to Paris.

I certainly hope it won't be three years before our next one. 

Five Years

Today, it is exactly five years since we arrived in France.

It was the start of our new life.

To quote Goethe, "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid".

We were bold and France did the rest.

There are no regrets .... just reassurance.

On that day, five years ago, we set off on a great adventure.

We left our children and grand-children behind in Adelaide ... but they wished us well.

Since then we have experienced France in all its moods, shades and nuances.

Like all newcomers, we encountered frustrating, bureaucratic complexity,  but got through it all .... and learnt patience.

We have always been assisted by acts of  generosity and selfless friendship, from the French and fellow expatriates.

We found a magnificent property at an affordable price and it is our continuing joy to live here.

We are happy ... 

Tomorrow we head off to Paris to meet our good friends and share the excitement and pleasures of this great city.

France has been everything I'd ever hoped for.

It has its faults, of course, but these pale against the joie de vivre we encounter everywhere.

Autumnal Colours

 

The regular morning mist lifts and the sun, revealed, moves on its low trajectory across the southern sky.

There is much less heat, but there is a brightness and a soft clarity of light which illuminates the garden.

Many flowers and shrubs have preformed their annual disappearing act, or have been pruned.

But some are refusing to yield to the austerity of winter.

Walking around the garden, diminished in its scope and vibrancy, I find joy in these hardy blooms, these last flowers of the year.

The colours of autumn, from top to bottom ... salvia, wild cyclamen, maple, rose and heather.

Armagnac Festival

The annual armagnac en fête at Labastide-d'Armagnac in the Landes department is held over the last weekend in October. 

It didn't happen last year because of Covid restrictions, and this year inclement weather dampened the celebrations. But it was still an indulgent affair. 

In fact, despite the smaller crowds and fewer producers, it was one of the most enjoyable festivals we've attended in our five years in France ... it seemed to be as much about the spirit du pays gascon (of the Gascon people) as the spirit of its famous liqueur.

We arrived after lunch on Saturday, having briefly lingered at a fabulous winery called Domaine de Pellehaut, about 15 minutes north of Lasbatide-d'Armagnac.

 

After security staff checked our pass sanitaires (vaccination certificates), we bought two tasting glasses and walked somewhat awestruck into Place Royale. 

More than two dozen local producers had stalls around the perimeter of the 13th century town square. We strolled and we looked and we considered. We had not a clue which of the armagnacs was best, we chose mainly on the look of the bottle ... and the seller! 

We tried new armagnacs and old armagnacs, the latter being smoother but much more expensive.

 

But it wasn't just about armagnac; producers of wine, cheese, oysters, charcuterie, pastries, confectionery and much more were on hand with generous samples to savour.

 

Local potentates, some in medieval gowns, many wearing Gascon berets, assembled on the church's portal to officially open the festival ... in a scene that looked like a renaissance painting.

We noticed a large crowd had gathered around a man putting a flaming torch to a huge bucket of armagnac, into which copious amounts of lemon and orange peel and sugar had been added. 

One of the gathered throng told me this was an ancient practice to reduce the alcohol content and produce a gloriously fruity drink of about 15 percent . This compares to the usual armagnac level of 40+ percent. 

 The flamer of armagnac then scooped up the liquid into a large jug and, leaning forward to the crowd, poured it generously into people's tasting glasses. It was divine.

The famous English cartoonist, Perry Taylor, who made Gascony his home in 2004, was on hand to sell and sign copies of his work.

He is well-known as an observer and recorder of quirky French life, and draws in an attractive and commercially successful style.

He seemed absolutely in his element, enjoying the atmosphere, surrounded by his art and with a bottomless tasting glass in his hand.

When we got home, we unpacked our purchases. As well as armagnac, we had bought floc, wine and champagne. We won't be cold this winter!

 

We will definitely be heading back to Labastide d'Armagnac  next year.

A Wedding in Galapian

We attended the wedding of our dear friends Richard and David in the tiny village of Galapian, where they live, in the south-west of France. This event had been postponed from May of last year due to Covid. The ceremony was held in the Mairie across the road from Richard and David's village house to which we retired for a wedding lunch.

The food and wine were supplied by Richard and David.

Richard and David have been together for more than 50 years. They retired to France 18 years ago. Their wedding was a joyous and unforgettable event.

Lunch at Chateau Carbonneau

Sunday, a midi, we accompanied our friends, Kerrie and Graham to the picturesque village of Gensac, about a 15-minute drive from their home in Port-Saint-Foy-en-Ponchapt. From Gensac, which is a stone's throw from the Dordogne River, we travelled about a kilometre east, turned off the road and drove down a gentle slope along an avenue of mature trees.

This was the magnificent 19th century Chateau Carbonneau.

We parked under a shady, exotic tree where dozens of weird, tennis-ball-looking fruit had dropped and were strewn on the ground. With the Chateau's vineyards as a backdrop, two couples were seated under a giant conifer which I later found out was a Sequoia Gigantea, or a Californian Big Tree.

Kerrie and Graham had been to the Chateau before and knew the owner Jacquie, who showed us to a table in the cool shade of a stately chestnut tree. What a magnificent site for an alfresco lunch.

Our lunch platter was a work of art and a gastronomic delight. It consisted of charcuterie (cold meats), paté de compagne, two types of cheese, olives, crudites, fruit and dips. The accompanying bread was superb.

For pre-lunch drinks we had the house semillion bubbles, followed by a claret, a wine that sits between rosé and red and is served chilled... apparently this style is all the rage in France this summer. We continued with a bottle of Classique, the Chateau's vin pour tous les jours, a smooth and very enjoyable blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon with a dash of Malbec. After lunch, I took a walk around the Chateau to admire and record its beauty. The following shots were taken in the grounds.

There is a very warm and welcoming tea-room at Chateau Carbonneau, specialising in delicious scones, cakes and pastries. I particularly loved the spiral staircase.

There are five themed chambres d'hôtes and an exquisite conservatory. After a satisfying lunch in such salubrious surroundings, we came away with a more convinced view (if indeed it needed re-inforcing) that retiring to France was the best decision all of us had ever made.