Indeed - culture of the artistic nature and culture as in planting things - it's been all go this last week!
On the artistic side of things, we decided to take a day out on Thursday and went into Angers. Since the tramway has been developed, I don't like to drive into the centre of town any more, but a chum had told me about a very convenient park and ride point, so we thought we ought to try it.
The entrance is still a bit dodgy and the signage isn't necessarily the best yet, but it worked terrifically well, and gave us time to work out where we wanted to go and what ticket would be best. At 4.60Euros for a 24 hour pass, the system is actually very reasonable, and it meant that while in theory we only needed to go two stops, in fact we could jaunt all the way out to the other side of the city to see what the far end of the line was like, then hop across platforms and come back into the centre, even closer to where we wanted to go, and see even more suburbs, as well as a bit of heritage.
Parts of the route are actually very scenic and give you great views over the Maine to the Chateau and the Cathedral, so it is fun to do.
Then in the centre of town we headed to the Collegiale Saint Martin - an adapted place of worship - for the Banksy exhibition. It appears to be a touring exhibition of photos and a few installations, rather than bringing in large pieces of wall or concrete, so you don't necessarily get the authentic experience, and some of the French explanations of pieces were a bit worthy.
For us, as British people with experience of British culture, well, we didn't need the explanations quite so much, and so many of the images are high impact anyway. It was free, not much of a queue, you could take a free poster as you left, and there was an apple available for children too on leaving. Thanks, Banksy!
Banksy wasn't the only controversial art in town either. From the exhibition, we walked over to the Cathedral to look at the new portico that has been installed to protect the entry arch from weather and pigeons. The old portico is rather magnificent and still has traces of the original paint work, so it is worth protecting.
There are two ways one can go with something like this - a pastiche of old architecture that purists such as my father would label bogus, but traditionalists might call respectful, or you can go modern. Going modern naturally annoys people with not being quite the same, different materials, lacking respect and all that. It also gets called brave and challenging. I like what they have done. It protects the original, it is plain and simple and bright, but suitably imposing, so I give it the thumbs up!
But it hasn't all been about arty stuff this week. With a trailer of best compost, it was possible to get going on the raised beds at The Shack. The two lower ones are in and planted up, at least in part. One has two new rhubarb plants, as last year my niece gave me an amazing recipe for rhubarb fool and it is the food of the gods, but you still need the rhubarb. In two year's time we should be doing really well!
The other has "soft" herbs, so chives, sorrel, tarragon, and sowings of more chives, parsley and dill, with basil and coriander to follow. I also did the first of the taller raised beds, which was rather harder work to fill, and that now has waif and stray strawberry plants that we have been accumulating for the past couple of years planted in it, well away from the chickens (like 5 miles)!
Just uphill from the raised beds are a couple of pea towers.
John has a client with a bamboo problem, and so we tend to have lots of very long and quite chunky pieces of bamboo knocking around. He got bored one day and made a couple of tripods, each about 8 foot high, and they stand around looking slightly shifty. He has now found a use for them. The one in the garden (not shown) now has a triangular sun shade sail attached to it to create a sheltered corner at the top of the garden if one wants to hide and read a book. The other has been planted up as a home for more cristophines - this is something he may regret.
The summer visitors are nearly all here now, nightingales, the cuckoo, swallows, and the swifts will arrive soon, along with the golden orioles and melodious warblers, the grass and weeds grow as you watch and very soon it will be orchid time. For some aspects of gardening we are doing OK, but in other areas we are very delayed, and the potatoes are getting urgent. But I do have to remind myself that we are still in mid-April.
The other fun that arrives in mid-April are tax returns - aaargh! While we only have to fill in about 10 numbers, those are spread across some 15 pages of internet forms, with explanations and instructions written in a language that is almost like French, but not quite. Even for the French themselves, there is apparently an AI app which translates tax French into real French!
Anyway, you have some idea of what will be occupying me - tax and gardening! Have a good week!
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