A month of holidays

I begin this blog with a boast about our wonderful daughter-in-law Fi, who has just been awarded an honorary doctorate by Keele University.  Here's the announcement, excellent news for the theatre too because her colleague Theresa also received an award as you can see.  The New Vic has just reopened after a long layoff - in France too, culture and arts are tentatively coming back to life, and choral singing is not lagging behind - we hear that in England it has still been singled out as especially risky

May in France is, it seems, stuffed with holidays.  It is not the first time I've commented that many of these are Catholica, Christian, religious festivals - as I write this Monday afternoon we have the Pentecôte holiday, what in England would be called Whit Monday.  Years ago when our new library, the médiatheèque, opened to fanfares (rightly) and soon afterwards the town announced that it would be open on the first Sunday of each month.  That year, the first one, the first Sunday of April was April, was Easter Sunday and - guess what - the Library was closed!  France will continue to honour its Catholic heritage but inconsistently refuses to acknowledge equally other religions such as Islam.

I was intrigued this week by this piece by Duncan Campbell about Bow Street on its final day as a functioning court.  On that day in 2006 he was a member of the press bench  "I still have my pass). A young woman, arrested for posting advertisements for sex workers in telephone boxes, was given a conditional discharge and ordered to surrender her Blu Tack. A businessman facing extradition to Germany for a £14 million fraud case was remanded in custody. Two Kosovans were accused of paying £4000 to buy a Moldovan woman from an Albanian gang in a deal agreed in a pod on the London Eye. They denied forcing her into the sex trade but were rejected for bail because false documents had been found at their home. A young Londoner who had stuffed £200 worth of Marks & Spencer lingerie down his trousers was remanded for reports.  At last, the list-caller, Angela Georgiou, told the magistrate, Timothy Workman: ‘With sadness, I call your last case ever at Bow Street, sir.’ The honour fell to a 32-year-old Scot from Kirkcaldy, who had breached an Asbo (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) – he was found in possession of a bottle of red wine and some lighter fluid – and little knew that the hand of history had landed on his collar the previous night in the Covent Garden piazza. It was his fifth visit to the court and he pleaded guilty. ‘The closure of the court, with its great legal heritage and its history,’ Workman said, ‘is of great sadness to me and to all who are associated with this court.’ He was the 33rd chief magistrate, a role once held by Henry Fielding, who presided over the first detective force, the Bow Street Runners."  All that was happening the same year, 2006, as we moved to France.

I read a lot, and am frequently caught up in discussions about tablet (Kindle or iPad - I have both) vs the traditional book.  Lots of things jostle for importance in my mind.  Librarians like me were constantly surrounded by books, arranging them on shelves and keeping them by the bed or armchair.  I love our shelves of books, and know most of them pretty well.  So although the electronic formats are less evocative, but more practical for two reasons.  One is often the sheer size and weight: reading in bed holding a large heavy hardback is a struggle, but my Kindle has one other advantage I've come to appreciate reading in French - I can click on a word I don't know and find its translation instantly.  And since we are now of an age when we have to start thinking of downsizing, getting rid of many metres of shelves may in future be a necessity though not yet!  The seemingly limitless capacity of a little Kindle to hold a library of books, and its ability to search for characters whose identity has been forgotten, are great assets.  And, living in France, our regular periodicals like The Week and The London Review of Books arrive right on time.  Mary nevertheless prefers to wait for the paper versions a few weeks later!

We are constantly reminded of litter and waste.  As a dog-walker I  see the endless trail of muck and litter (and of course picking up our own) on the daily trips round the neighbourhood; and of course we have to keep track of regular council rubbish collections, feeling pleased that our own local refuse service has widened out its plastics recycling service, but at the same time wary that we don't really know what happens to the sorted plastics, tin cans and card we throw away.  There is a relatively new, large incinerator in the next village, not at all liked by people living there but clearly it has to be kept busy so one always wonders if some of our waste is not recycled but burnt.  All the same our local authority makes big efforts to encourage us to recycle and has special collections for metal and large electronic items etc - our old computer printer has to be disposed of soon.  And also, the local paper is regularly full of stories and pictures of fly tipping in town centres.  Not a simple process to manage either for us or for the authorities.

My next blog will include a tour of the garden, much changed since our arrival 15 years ago.  The photos each time often chart its simple pleasures, and in the glorious weather we've been having it is a constant joy to watch things growing and glowing.