The Horsebreaker. A Holiday Piece

This being the holiday season I though you might like this further edited piece  from the collection 'A Life in Short Pieces'. It was inspired by a holiday visit made by me and my little family to a Scottish farm in the 1970s. The children enjoyed it and so did I.

The Horse Breaker

 Now here is the man. His clanking boots

stamp the tender clover underfoot.

In his  wiry brown hand he clutches

a woven leather whip. His weathered face glows

and his  black eyes glitter -

ready for the work of his morning

Later today - in his thousand year ritual -

we’ll walk his fields, beat his boundaries,

and check his fences. He’ll point out the ruins

of antique houses, built stone on stone by

his own ancient forbears.

I’ll tramp across the fields by the side

of this man who breaks horses.

The sun is not shining but my face is glowing. I am-

feeling cool but still my features burn.

We stay by  a long gate and a bird spins upward

beating its wings in the cool air

The man makes kissing noises, his mouth pursed.

One horse snickers and -steam rising from its flanks -

Canters in our direction across the tussocky field.

The horse’s  roughened coat sports  a rank shine

and its mouth glitters with sores -

ancient scores, still not settled.

Now two birds spin upwards in

what looks like feral combat -

all fluttering and  hoarse chirruping  –

a dispute with only one resolution

Holiday Reading: Well! Is it a race?

 I returned much refreshed from my recent very welcome holiday with two favourite people with whom I share a good deal, including a joy in reading.

We all have busy working lives, so time spent in easy sunshine beside a Mediterranean lagoon is to be  relished. Truly the thought of a week reading at leisure in the clear southern light becomes a distinct and positive pleasure, even for Mme Lickedspoon and me   who read and write for a living. For us, reading of all kinds – even fiction - is also work or some kind of research

.

But it doesn’t feel like work here in the bright French sunshine, overlooking the silvery lagoon. No hurry. No politics. No commitments. Just the pleasures of the place and the language in the air and on the page.  Then there is the communication with each other: the deep breathing, the smiling, and the relaxing. And the food

As the weeks went on I became interested in the fact that the three of us read with equal enjoyment but at very different speeds.

M. Lickedspoon  is not a writer and doesn’t read fiction as part of his busy day job. On holiday he made his way through the most books in the three weeks. He does read for leisure though, in his normal life. Among other books he likes thrillers and detective stories and easily moves between Kindle and paper forms. I thought you might be interested in his impressive list of books read over three weeks.

1. Blackwater Lake - Maggie James (Kindle)

2. All Kinds of Dead - (Inspector Carlyle Book 11) - James Craig (Kindle)

3. Hunted - (Detective Mark Heckenburg, Book 5) - Paul Finch (Actual Book)

4. Strangers - (Detectiv Lucy Clayburn, Book 1) - Paul Finch (Actual Book)

5. Stalkers (Detective Mark Heckenburg, Book 1) - Paul Finch (Kindle)

6. Sacrifice (Detective Mark Heckenburg, Book 2) - Paul Finch (Kindle)

7. Stop for Breakfast (Augill Castle Book 2) - Simon Temple-Bennett (Actual Book)

8. The Killing Club (Detective Mark Heckenburg, Book 3) - Paul Finch (Kindle)

9. Guapa - Saleem Haddad (Kindle)

10. Dead Man Walking (Detective Mark Heckenburg, Book 4) - Paul Finch (Kindle)

This total is an improvement on that of Mme Lickedspoon and myself  - the two of us who write for a living. Between us in those weeks we read – and very much enjoyed - a total of four books and one Kindle:

1.   Commonwealth: Ann Patchett 

2.   Hot Milk: Debora Levey

3.   The Vanishing Futurist: Charlotte Hobson

4.   The Burgess Boys: Elizabeth Strout (See my comment on this novel in my last post on Lifetwicetasted>

5.   New edition of Jilly Cooper’s whimsical; Class – read on Kindle by both of us. But this doesn’t count as it is better labelled work/research.

I’ve been wondering if I could come up with an explanation for this gap - this difference.

Some Possible Reasons?

·        We all agreed it wasn’t a competition.*

·        Madame L and I cannot resist enthusiastic discussions - on the balcony or in the café on the quayside - about what we’re reading. Time consuming of course. But then, for once, we did have the time.

·        Madame L had a commissioned article to write. So she did have some work to do.

·         As for me I spent a good time listening to Hilary Mantel’s clever, insightful Rieth Lectures – even making notes. This was surely research but it was the same time totally enjoyable – the line between work and leisure entirely blanked out.  Then because we were there we had to make time on the balcony to discuss the importance of Mantel’s ideas to any writer.

Anyway when I got home - fully rested and inspired by France as well as Madame Lickedspoon and Hilary Mantel - I rushed to order Jean Rhys’s luminous Dark Sargasso sea, (which had come up in a discussion). I also ordered Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety, set in the French Revolution. 

The books came yesterday and I spent the day curled up reading the whole of The Wide Sargasso Sea – a brilliant slender volume of a hundred and twenty pages. Mantel’s novel is a heavier tome at eight hundred and twenty pages and could, I suspect,  take much longer than a day to read.

Portrait of the charismatic Camille Demoulins.

Perhaps another holiday? Another balcony?

* OK! Monsieur Lickedspoon definitely won!

Marseillan Family Retrospective: Meaning in Photographs

I was tempted to call this 'The Sixth Postcard from Marseillan'. But that would be cheating. 

I'm home again and going through the last ritual of unpacking - sorting through the photographs.
For you, here is a selection of Sean and my photographs. (His are the good ones...)

Every picture tells a story  of a time, a place, and great warm relationships. To complete the story scroll back to Postcards 1-5.

 

 

      n

Wish you'd been there

Wendyx

Postcard 2 from Marseillan: Two Towns

Marseillan and Agde

We are staying in Marseillan, a small seaport between the larger Agde and the even larger Sête. Here, boats, surfboarders,  sailors anf holiday makers promenade on the newly laid shoreline path. 

To my left is a large-masted boat, apparently permanently docked. To my right is a large residential boat evolved from a barge – holiday accommodation of some kind. Yesterday we saw a chef in whites go aboard. There’s posh. And beyond that is a web of tinkling, small masted vessels clicking in the morning sun. Round the corner cafes line the quayside, each different in style and flavour. Such easy walking distance for that early morning cafe et croissant. 

Something near to Heaven perhaps.

With #lickedspoon in charge the wonderful food in the apartment is de rigeur, of course. And the talk has been good, referring to brilliant food writers – Ruth Reichl is a new discovery for me. We’ve also been reading the subtle Helen Simpson, the sharp-eyed   Alice Munro, the spiky Nell Zink – another new discovery for me.

We have ironic Muriel Spark as well as the sublime Norah Ephron who defines the creative process – in journalism, fiction and film – with finesse, political insight and humour. Re-reading her pieces is a refreshing writer’s education. And in crime we have Stephen Leather and James Craig. And – appropriate for the Football fest – John Cross’s biography of Arsene Wenger.

As usual S is winning for the annual ‘reading race’ - for reading the most books. His Kindle could be his secret weapon.

Recently we visited nearby Agde. This town is where we first

experienced the peculiar magic of the Languedoc - for several years renting a slice of a medieval fortress in the centre of the this very ancient market town, with its layers of history going back to the time when the Languedoc was not even part of France. It was always a port, welcoming traders from the the North, the East and the middle East – rich enough to be a target for pirates and invaders, and making a valuable access the mainland Europe.

With its feeling of a medieval market, this flourishing and crowded space is pure theatre.  Many of the customers are local, comingto the same place as their fathers and grandfathers   both to buy and to sell. 

All kinds of goods are for sale - from scarves and shirts to shoes and cheese, from bread and fruit to meat and soap.Essentially local, it provides a vibrant backdrop us people passing through. The sprinkling of visitors sit in the cafes and relish the distinctive drama.

 The town of Agde inspired a popular novel of mine called An Englishwoman in France, where the past and the present are curiously intermingled . It is also the focus of my novel Writing at The Maison Bleue. And in its ancient form it also plays a role in The Pathfinder. See if you can recognise it in that one. 

Did I tell you this place is inspiring for writers?

I had coffee in the Plazza Cafe the Market Square then I filtered down the narrow old streets with their vague sense of threat, to the Cafe Capitaine on the quayside for a welcome glass of the rose wine of  the Languedoce

Needless to say I did a bit of scribbling…

Au revoir 

Wx

Postcard 1 from Marseillan. Arrivé

A dark challenging winter meant that  for me this  holiday has been the most welcome ever.

As the plane landed in Montpellier I knew I could finally breathe out.  S. drove us through the  yellow and ochre landscape of South West  France, wiping out the memory of the lush green lanes of Yorkshire as we drove from County Durham to the airport.

Well, we got here. Nous arrivons. My dear sister was worried that we might be caught up in the ‘football riots.’ No worries. Wrong place.

Of course - three of four of us being football fans - we settled down to watch some matches on TV – no talking heads, just football, a accompanied by the soothing sub-murmur of the French commentary. Even I enjoyed it.

This apartment overlooks the Etang de Thau, the huge lagoon that sits alongside the Mediterranean. People drift by on the road below our balcony  – sun-tanned sailing types, couples hand in hand, smooth haired teenagers, mature cyclists, a small boy on skates and a little girl on a tiny scooter.

At the next table in the market café yesterday was a cluster of brown whipcord-fit middle aged cyclists, laughing and preparing for their ride. Couples pass by – the men middle-aged, solid and fit, the women smart in pedal pushers and leather sandals.

Our favourite companion here is Barney, silent in the flush of conversation, wise in his silence. His  French is improving, although he hasn't managed to lose his aversion to French bulldogs. He can sense them round the corner, one floor down, before they bustle into sight.

The apartment is elegant, pale walls, pale furniture,  natural wood,  with vast windows looking out in the étang, overcast now with streaming clouds. Yachts of all sizes turn to make their way into the harbour. 

The company is first class - as well as Barney we have the witty gourmet  lickedspoon, the problem- solving techno wizard and the English gentleman. And me. All Francophiles.

I never felt more European. And I voted to stay in, to live on in history alongside the engaging, down-to-earth French

Au revoir

Wendy

PS And then there are the books we're reading, But that will take another postcard...

The Ninth Postcard from Marseillan

Last summer, staying in the Languedoc again, I posted  eight 'Postcards from Marseillan'  here on Life Twice Tasted. I was determined to share with you my feelings about  this very special place  which has inspired two novels. some time travelling and much happiness.


But now here I am in north Britain in November. It's dark at four o'clock and winter is looming  - the worst season of the year for me. (I suspect I may have that SAD disease, but I haven't yet checked it out.) And my writing friend*Avril has just escaped for a break in  India and the lovely *D is just back with pictures and stories of quick Autumn flip across to Marseillan. She writes that she had coffee in the market cafe with our friend Laurence* who knows everything about Marseillan

So, to cheer my self up I decided to tidy up the Life Twice Tasted mansion.  (Hope you like it...). And my virtues was rewarded. In the process I came across a ninth Postcard from Marseillan written especially for a competition which never materialised. 

That  postcard was never posted, so I decided to post it here now to bring a little sunshine into my dark day and perhaps into yours too.

This Ninth Postcard  reflects a very special visit we made to the ancient port town of Sete. 

I hope you too on this November day
enjoy this touch of sunshine and the sea. 

'...So, our car crawls round and round and up and up this extinct volcano. Not what you think, Joe. Just a conical hill now. We pass pale, shuttered houses and jutting bougainvillea. (Did you know the person who discovered Bougainvillea was a woman who disguised herself as a man in order to accompany her botanist lover on his circumnavigation of the globe?)

Anyway, we jump out to a panoramic view across a great, shallow lagoon - they call it an étang – that edges onto the blue Mediterranean.  We look down at the city of Sête – more Neapolitan than French – whose  elegant quayside buildings glitter golden white in the sunshine, beside  the artificial waterways and inlets which are hemmed with fine boats of every kind – these days dedicated as much to leisure as commerce.

Being a history geek, Joe, you’ll be interested to know that the Greeks helped to build this port around 600 BC, importing spices and luxuries from the East in exchange for Langedocean oil and wine. Then the Romans occupied it in their bid to conquer the world. Then, when France became France, the French took over the city from the native Languedoceans.

Later that day we took a boat trip on the étang. You would have loved it. We went to a place on the water where they farm the biggest oysters in the world. The ‘field’ consists of a series of square wooden frameworks sitting on the surface, with thousands of ropes hanging down to the bed of the lagoon – a kind of forest, with hundreds of thousands of oysters and mussels attached to them. Like so much fruit.

According to the bronzed god driving the boat they fix baby oysters to the lines with dots of cement and leave them there to devour plankton to their hearts content in the warm, tide-less waters of the lagoon. He said these mature in a year, unlike the oysters grown in the cold Atlantic which take three years to mature because they close up and stop eating when the tide comes in. Or goes out. I forget which.

It was D’s birthday, so we crowned the day with a feast of these fruits of the sea, artistically presented in size order on small volcanoes of ice. The restaurant was a deceptively simple shack up a narrow track on the edge of the étang. Owned by family who had harvested the sea for generations, the shack was open to the water. We passed tanks of oysters, and made our way to simple chairs and tables topped with industrial glass behind barriers of bleached wood that glittered in the sun.

We toasted D with glasses of crisp Picpoul de Pinet and gulped back these magnificent oysters; it was like swallowing the sea, going back to the very beginning of everything. I don’t know whether oysters are aphrodisiacs but I have to say I ended up very happy. Wish you were here.  Love, W

NB. Wish I were there now ... Wx

Links for You Avril  Debora  Laurence   

Postcard 3 from Marseillan. Treats in store!

As a non-cook and non-foodie co-traveller I hope I have something to offer here in terms of conversations and observations  at the holiday house where both the lovely D and S, are food aficionados  in this territory where food is harvested fresh and enticing from the sea and the land in an astonishing and inspiring variety.

The thing is, although I don’t cook myself, I’m interested in talking more generally about the history and cultural importance of food and cooking,  and the whys and wherefores of its significance here in the South West. This is a wonderful extra to the exploring, reading, drawing and painting that is at the core of this stay.

So it’s a special pleasure to sit at the balcony table among the palms and pines of thie house in Marseillan where I’m lucky to enjoy good food in great company every evening.

As a writer I relish generous feedback on my work from people who would rather not put pen to paper themselves. As I said, I don’t cook myself, but here in this special house in Marseillan I’m keen to  give proper and appreciative feedback to the lovely D and S, who apparently effortlessly produce food to be dreamed of from the cornucopia which is the Languedoc.  

There is a heritage of cooking here. D. picked up a book at the Marseillan Plage brocante called ‘Chez Constant’.by the chef Christian Constant.  This is a cornucopia of recipes from here in the South West.

On tonight's menu is Jansen's Temptations. Surprisingly, this originates not in the Languedoc but it Sweden. It involves Onions, Anchovies,  Potatoes, and Creme Fraiche, Apparently you bake until soft, add breadcrumbs and bake on until it is crisp, I'm here while it is baking, It smells wonderful.

Treats in store!Wish you were hereWx
Later. It tasted absolutely delicious,

Listening to Sounds at the Port

On holiday in  Marseillan in Herault. Our house is in the middle of the town - a few steps from the port with its lines of boats in one direction and a few steps from the town centre in the other -
I find myself ...

 Listening to Sounds at the Port 

Town bus grinding

Builder’s truck brumming

Small car purring

Scooter buzzing

Swallows chirruping

Small dog barking

Family voices -

father deeper, children higher,

mother somewhere in between

Guitar playing

Drummer drumming 

Church bells ringing
Skate-board growling
Rigging clattering

In this summer life

So very much to listen to ... 

'Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.'

John Betjeman

Postcards from Marseillan on my Facebook.
 

Postcard from Agde: The Courtyard

Balsalt Paving

Escaping the cluttered house and the cluttered life and the writing of an intense (though not cluttered … ) novel, I am now at the Maison D’Estella a medieval house lodged tightly in the centre of the  2,700 year old small Languedocean  port town of Agde - my favourite place in Europe apart, perhaps, from Bishop Auckland.

Originally built by Greek traders and occupied by the Romans, who both left their marks on the town it ‘s now an intricate,un-touristy coastal town in the Languedoc tidying itself up for next year’s election.

New door in old doorway
Around us are doors and windows
 from several eras
of this mediaeval building.

We have our breakfast in the high walled courtyard which is paved with blocks of volcanic basalt,

Windows are set in older doorways. Doorways are set in older doorways. There is a medieval staircase which leads nowwhere.

Breakfast is fresh bread and croissants, made this morning, with fresh butter and marmalade made at home and brought here by Licked Spoon.

And a little posting.

Heaven or what?

The biggest problem here is to decide just what I want to read. More about this later.