Getting artistic

While the wind howls away outside (yes, still) and with most of the big inside jobs now done and dusted, I've been getting artistic.

Yesterday I made a picture screen for L'Atelier's bathroom, into which I've put some of my favourite whirling dervish pictures. I love the Mevlevi dervishes. They're a Sufi order founded by Rumi who use the practice of whirling as their zikr. Zikr literally means remembrance: it's a meditation practice to remember God / the One. Having been very involved with a western Sufi order in the UK I've taken part in many a whirling session and it's an amazing experience, of finding the still point in the midst of movement - a big inspiration for me of being Slow before I'd even heard of it. And so it seemed like a Good Thing to have my dervishes here as a reminder of the Slow life .....

And today I've been in signwriting mode. I've been making various wooden signs out of some ancient oak floorboards that we found in one of the outbuildings when we arrived here; I really like the idea of Grillou's original floorboards taking on a new life to welcome people here. Here are two of today's creations, with their 'captions' painted, and just now waiting for their protective coating before they take their place outside at the end of the drive:

Silver linings

Yesterday was a thoroughly unpleasant day: cold (very cold), wet (very wet) and dark (very dark). There's a wonderful French word, much loved by weather forecasters: maussade. It means dull and dismal; it also means sullen. (Don't you just love the idea of the weather being sullen? Perfect word.) And the fact that I was putting the seven hundredth and fifty-ninth coat of paint on yet another of our panelled glazed doors did nothing to assuage my mood.

But there was a silver lining: cranes. Halfway through the afternoon a strange and loud trumpeting noise drew my attention. Wah! Geese! yelled the ex-Norfolk me to anyone who'd listen, before realising that the only geese you're likely to see in Ariège are on your dinner table. Flocks of hundreds, even thousands, of flying geese - we'd get them over the house almost daily in the wnter - are about the only thing I miss from the Norfolk days, especially the Brents with their growly 'rruckk' call. I racked my paint-befuddled brain and realised that they must be cranes.

And cranes they were. Huge V shapes of them, common cranes (grues cendrées) on their way across the Pyrénées to spend their winter in warmer climes. Ariège is not on the main crane route, which is much farther west, but birding friends here have told me that we can expect to see them every so often. To see a big flock flying over our house was a huge treat. To see a second flock following at dusk was an even bigger one. But to hear, and then glimpse, a third, flying right over the chimney pots at midnight on the night of the full moon, was something unforgettable: in spite of the bitter cold, in spite of the lashing rain, in spite of being half undressed for bed, I ran outside to the track and watched, and listened.

The picture is not, I confess, mine. But this is what I saw:

And today I stumbled upon this video, captured by a local person at St Lizier, just a few kilometres down the road.





An ah -so moment.

Did the earth move for you this week?

We're having A Proper Summer in Ariège this year: for nearly 2 months now we've had day after day of clear, cloudless blue skies and temperatures hovering up in the thirties, interspersed every so often with the odd thunderstorm and cloudy day or two just so that you appreciate the sun all over again. It's not exceptional, just normal. But after the previous two cool and wet summers, it's come as a welcome relief to everybody: visitors and residents alike are happy, the mood is upbeat, the rentrée is creeping up all too fast. It's not, admittedly, good for laying mortar, which is frustrating as that's what we're supposed to be doing, but hey, there are a hundred and one other jobs to be done and when everything looks as beautiful as this who's to complain?



The crystal clear skies this week meant that we had a fantastic view of the Perseids meteor shower. I've been watching these ever since someone introduced me to the show at Dance Camp East many years ago - or rather, I've been trying to watch them. It wasn't easy in England: too much light pollution - even in our small community in north Norfolk, one of the last streetlight-free villages in the country, urbanites on holiday were in the habit of leaving their porch, and even worse, halogen security, lights blazing all night. Grrr. But here at Grillou it's a different story. No street lights (no street!), no houses visible. Nothing. Just pure darkness, and the night sky.



Stretched out in the warm night air on our beach mats, heads resting on pillows, we must have seen a good hundred shooting stars in the hour and a half before the moon rose and brightened the sky. It was stunning. As was the sheer clarity of the sky, and the indescribable number of stars that we could see with the naked eye. Looking through binoculars simply left me speechless, and determined to acquire an astronomical telescope.



Most amazing of all, though, was that for the first time ever I actually witnessed the turning of the earth. Lying there, relaxed, slightly meditative without trying to be (fatal!), looking up at the spiral arm of the Milky Way, I could see the dense star clusters appearing to move oh-so-slowly across the sky as I watched and as the earth turned. Yes, of course, the same thing happens with the sun every day. But you can't look at the sun; you can't actually see it moving. I could see, and I could feel, the movement, and it was an extraordinary experience. I haven't got words to describe it, because it was the kind of experience that bypasses the mind and speaks to something much deeper, much older. Something that just is.

Slow Retreats

I've just spent a very Slow, peaceful hour sitting in the garden in complete darkness. It was warm, but not silent: the rhythmic sounds of crickets (grilloux), grasshoppers, bushcrickets and the occasional insomniac cicada filled the air along with owl calls and the usual unidentified scrapings and scufflings of Grillou at night. It was the perfect end-of-day retreat, better than the best chill-out music.

I had an email from Carl Honoré this afternoon. Not that I know the guy personally, you understand (Carl, in case you've not encountered him, is the author of the book In Praise of Slow) - we've only ever exchanged a couple of emails - but I've been a member of Slow Planet since its inception. The email was announcing the 'first-ever' Slow Retreat, programmed to take place in Umbria this coming October: a week in a delicious looking farmhouse offering the chance to "explore and experience the ideas behind the book that defined the international Slow Movement with the author himself; a chance to connect with your inner tortoise, reset your metronome and reinvent your life". Sounds good ... and only £1299, too. Hmmm. Clearly you need to be pretty wealthy to be Slow (for most households around here, ours included, that represents over a month's income ...). 

Readers who've kept up to date with our plans for Grillou, and who dip into our 'proper' website from time to time, will know that for several months we've been planning to offer Slow Retreats here. And indeed we shall do so, though they'll cost you considerably less than £1299. (But there again you won't get a famous author as your mentor - just yourselves, and us, and of course Grillou, which could probably do the business all on its own ...). In case this is all news to you, here's the blurb:

"For people who want to take some time out and discover for themselves how to live more Slowly, we'll be offering Slow Retreats, periods of three or four days during which we'll explore our own relationship with time, and practice the art of slowing down. Good (Slow!) Food and wine, simple meditation practices, Slow Walks and play will form the core of these retreats, with plenty of time for reflection and space simply to be in Grillou's bucolic surroundings. This is a retreat to lift the spirit and (re)discover life's slow and simple pleasures, not one for existential angst or self-flagellation ... but beware, it might just change your life!"

End of Shameless Plug Number 654 ....