apéro

A note or two about the art of the apéro: this is a very convenient convention in these parts, whereby one can invite friends and neighbours (but not usually in droves) to come and take wine and some low key eats in the early evening (say 1800) for a chat. Apéro time. One usually expects those invited to start thinking about going back to their own abodes after a couple of hours or so but sometimes these affairs can run on a bit especially if the conversation is animated and the wine is flowing freely. 

Mme Melling and your author have been both providers and beneficiaries of the local apéro tendency. I like them. One does not need to ‘bring a bottle’ or other equivalent although chocs, flowers, and on one occasion, tea towels have been seen to be presented and received. And bottles. Unnecessary usually if at all. 

The wine one lays on needs to be reasonably plentiful but does not need to be grand cru. For ourselves we ply our guests with the bib quality stuff we like personally, possibly with a stand by bottle of white. We only ran to red on the apéro pictured above. Personally I will happily overlook Rosé… However, if one only has one colour readily to hand that will do. We’ve been offered champagne several times on occasion… (but we've not offered similar, we are not quite in that ball-park).  If one’s guests are long standing friends one may feel able to bring forth something a bit more ambitious by way as a personal salute to them (like a G&T for Jen). Louise drinks nothing else these days so one must make provision!

The nibbles (how I hate that term but it is in common parlance so I had better toe the line and employ the wretched word). My suggestions, lifted from the apéros we have 'hosted' (ugh!) or been recipients of this year include: nuts, stuffed olives, plain olives, tapanade, dates, three or four good cheeses, slices of salami and similar, anchovy rolls and filets, savoury biscuits, crisps, cheese straws even. Sometimes sausages on sticks may put in an appearance; Louise’s toffee-dipped mini tomatoes were very good. Indeed one can add in some hot cooked delicacies as well, hors-d'oeuvres style, maybe small pizza squares, quiches, or even a scallop shaped dish (per person) with hot prawns and a top dressing of cheesy potato (bought from a butcher, ready made – one does not go mad prepping!). 

Party food in fact. Finger buffet, I think might also be considered of the same ilk as 'nibbles': if one needs a knife and a fork then one is going a bit beyond the apéro aspiration IMHO. But naturally,  I wouldn’t complain… provided  the Ks & Fs were provided, sort of thing.

There are many other strategies that could also make one’s apéro distinguished: use your imagination, we do, and similarly we benefit too from others’ original thinking. Not paper hats. There should be choice but not so much as to stretch out the evening excessively. One should never need to start tapping your watch or hovering about in your dressing gown, the guests don't outstay in my experience. Probably grateful to get the hell out, as soon as …!

Above all one should not appear to have gone to an inordinate amount of trouble and expense while, on the other hand, demonstrating a modest generosity about the event one has instigated; and not try to go one better (but at least achieve level-pegging) than the last apéro one was invited to. But it is not a competition. We wouldn’t expect to do more than two a visit, maybe three, and we would hope to get invited to at least one or two whilst in Sablet residence.

Apéros are not parties. Numbers should be very modest. Two guests, four maybe… risky to go any higher. And anyway 1 Rue FB has limited capacity, this is not one of your grander residences. 

Conversation is the name of the game. Trouble is, if one can’t fully participate, because one’s school failed to deliver a second language to one, in a way that might be of use in later life, (and here I have to point the finger at my school for falling down so badly on this, at least in my case) one can find that one eats more than one should, and ditto on the juice. Specially those hot little sausages, on sticks. 

I am not against apéros where English is not the common language you understand; it's just that Mme Melling can expect a lot of questions après apéro, something she is rather disinclined to answer, encourage or elucidate upon. Kindly associates will sometimes let me know what is being said and I can pick up some threads. Sometimes. Usually wrongly. One unfortunate aspect of apéros can be two or more conversations taking place at a time, usually with increasing volumes as the evening matures. This can be very confusing if one is trying to get the gist of both flows: not limited to apéros I grant you but I find this habit rather irritating. There, I've said it. 

We also serve a sweet on occasion (strawberries score well) but I have never been in receipt of a cup of coffee, had no takers when offering same, nor been asked for one. Strange, that . . . (not strictly true - ed)

with apologies to Keith & Liz, Pascal & Barbara who innocently feature in one of the two apéros what we done this visit and pictured above: Gerard & Jen suffered the other, and set my train of thought on this topic accordingly. Louise & John came by for Quiches but that didn't count as apéro in the strictest sense. But who cares, we snack. 

The doors in the scene portrayed above are no longer white but are now painted standard 1 Rue FB grey. 

 

crestet centre d'art twenty years on

April thirteen. Just a note here about the ongoing deterioration of the Crestet Centre d’Art. It is still going on, twenty years on. The set up closed suddenly in 2003 when all its state funding was withdrawn and one of the finest small galleries in France was lost. On the thirteenth inst. we took a favoured walk of ours into the forests above Crestet which can start conveniently close by the Centre as it still has a pull-in on which to leave the motor. 

We first visited the Centre in 1996, then dropped in whenever we were holidaying or passing close by. Some singular exhibitions were staged therein: they used to have artists’ residencies in the summer with rather lovely girls (art students, you know the type) taking care of the place and wafting around the galleries to answer any eejit questions… there were sculptures to find in the forest grounds too, kinetic art, even living art, etc etc – we loved it. 

I have always been very taken by the building as a whole and in my capacity as a design educator (honest, I was once) je got myself on the centre’s circulation list, receiving invites to various private views, posters, and various mail-shots. 

In 2003 I wrote to the director to seek a permit to explore/record the upper terraces, balconies and spaces not normally open to the public —because, we were advised, the spaces lacked any safety structures like guard and handrails, so we could do, but at our own risk: I got the green light. We were indeed given the freedom of the place when we turned up that summer, ID in hand, but also got to hear from the admin office at the Centre the shocking news that the place was to close within weeks as funding was being cut and all personnel were being thrown out of their jobs.

Nevertheless we made the most of our privileged visit to the Centre d’Art, but only just in time. How fortuitous I had had the presence of mind to make the approaches for unfettered access when I did! 

The place closed half way through an exhibition in fact just a week or two later, since when it has remained closed, albeit with a caretaker for some years, but now retired, gone, and whose tied house is empty and derelict. 

In the years thereafter, a strange ghostly sound-track emanated from within the building, seemingly of a faux conference or lecture, with speakers addressing an audience in muffled tones, laughter, applause, question-and-answer etc (plenaries, tea and coffee?), on a loop to give the impression that the place was still being used.Which it clearly wasn’t. This ran on for years and seems to have worked:  we have not seen any sign of breaking and entering, vandalism, as yet… The windows stayed clean for a long time (the caretaker?) but otherwise there has been little sign of life. Sometime since our last inspection the elegant cypresses growing in the interior courtyards have been axed and removed, who knows what other plant life may have come and gone? Who has got the keys??? Well someone has, clearly.

No sign of the centre being brought back into use either. There still is, or were, some artworks inside, (and massive stone sculptures outside, the work of the founder) when we last trotted down the hill from the pull-in on the forest road to peep through any of the few accessible windows. All the local signage has now gone. The building's facias are looking decidedly grubby, even in need of patching, as you can determine from the banner photo at the top of this piece. Exterior substantial stone brutalist sculptures still sit it out, round the back, too heavy to move economically no doubt, and/or nowhere to go.

It is a crying shame. One of my most favourite buildings and it is fading away through shocking neglect while the département and the state bicker over it, seemingly [stop press, breaking news: the assembly is up for sale, but just who is selling it remains obscure]. Disgraceful, I pay my taxes here as well you know. I’d tell you a lot more about this situation but I don’t wish to introduce what might be considered tedium into this post… and anyway, the story of the place is both complicated and often in French (online). Enough to say it came into state ownership in 1985 and was abandoned and shut down in 2003 –– as I think I have already made clear. 

An important aspect of what went on at the Crestet Centre d’Art, for me at least, was the way complex creative and experimental artistic ideas were made accessible to all. Adam growing up took to the creative output with enthusiasm. It was a joy to see. I think it is fair to say it contributed. To his own creative awareness that is.

Often we had the galleries to ourselves: nice for us but perhaps not for the health of the centre in the long run. There were no charges that I can recall (and I'm a strong advocate of free access to the arts as you will know)  but even so the footfall perhaps was disappointing. Its isolation in the forest above Crestet may have been its principle Achilles heel.  

The Centre was designed and built by Bruno Stahly (architect) for parents Claude and François Stahly. They must have had a franc or two. Read all about it on the link. 

Fancy buying the Crestet Centre d'Art that was? Here's a link! 

It's a snip. 

It is listed… as it indeed should be…

… so I won't be touching it with a barge pole……

raptor report

On April Eleven Mme Melling and self decided to visit somewhere beginning with N and as we had not ventured there recently we made the destination Nyons. Nîmes had been a front runner (we’ve not been there for a considerably longer period of time) but the thought of an hour on the A9 did not appeal: Nyons via the south bank of the Eygues* (the river upon which Nyons is sited) and passing through Mirabel-les-Baronnies was a far more pleasant drive, and only 16 miles, door to lavender distillery car-park. 

We limp round the decrepit streets of the town (I maintain that streets like this, if extant in the UK for example, would be attracting campaigns for clearance and rehousing; protests regarding the shocking living conditions that such properties suggest) even unto the bridge where plans are afoot to make the river more accessible, perhaps more attractively presented to visitors and residents alike. It could be a winner, we shall see. 

We clamber up to the Madonna and shuffle amongst the hilly lanes that grace the steeper bits of Nyons, well above the Aygues*. (*spellings of this river’s name used here are just two of at least three we have seen employed on the local signage: there may be more).

Lunch is taken at the rather refined looking hotel in the square. As you do. Or as we had tried to do on a previous occasion, in season, when carnival was about to break forth on the town, precluding and compromising our aspirations, and bringing them to nought. This time we manage it. The food is good enough (guinea-fowl in a black olive sauce, the plat-du-jour if you want the detail, not with chips neither) but above all the ambience appeals. Crisp service, well spaced tables on a sheltered airy terrace, very nice; as usual we are almost the first in as the midday chimes ring out, repeated here as they should be, for those without benefit of pocket watches.

I suggest a return to Sablet via the Ste. Jalle road. It takes us through some lovely countryside and over an impressive col. I’ve probably banged on about it before. This time however, just after turning off the main road to Gap, on the road to Ste. Jalle itself, Madame Melling is calling out sightings of the feature raptors of this locale, namely vultures! There, above the valley side trees and shrubs. She is gamely trying to snap them as we motor along, with a phone fgs, reporting extravagant numbers to boot. I conclude that Mary might be exaggerating — there is a lot of that sort of thing about, where fish, fowl and the like are concerned, so I turn left off the route, and up a track going to a hamlet called Arpavon and pull over. 

There they are. In flocks! Never seen so many. I concede the numbers suggested hitherto. I am reckoning on well above fifty individuals in sight at a time! Why, I manage to snap thirty in a single frame – with ease, point and shoot. Griffin, Egyptian and Lamagyre are identifiable even without one’s Collins to confirm what we are seeing, they are a glorious sight to behold. 

Highlight of the day. 

Driving up and through aforementioned Arpavon, hoping for further views but these do not materialise beyond the odd stray, so we chance a slightly better maintained road, completely omitted from Michelin incidentally, that drops down a steep valley and kindly returns us back to the Ste. Jalle road almost where we left it.  Somewhere along its passage my camera case falls off the roof of the motor where I have parked it in my excitement, and which I notice in its act of abandoning ship, in the rear view mirror – so am able to retrieve the kit without loss or damage or the later inconvenience of being so careless with my belongings. We have previous form in these car roof deposits, have we not, Mme M? 

Our circuit goes on as planned, over the Col-d'Ey and down the steep side to Buis aux Baronnies then Mollans and on to the former petit train route to Crestet, then Vaison – and finally on to Sabbers. Fifty-nine of our good English miles or eighty-four of your official continental kilometres, with a decent lunch thrown in. And a spectacle there for the asking. I bet you haven’t seen that many vultures in a single showing, so there…

We picnicked roadside hereabouts, some years back,  unless I am getting confused… I've walked over those two hills on the left in the past, on my own that was. This view looks back to the hills (centre) where the vultures  circle and wheel…

orientation

 

April Sixth. You know that the goings on in this neck of the bois are modest when I cough up a post about a new table d'orientation we discover on the road to St Maurice, where we were intent on filling up the bidon with their smooth but cheap-as-chips rouge. 

You see, we went off to Tulette to get some provisions, but that just wasn't enough excitement for one day – so we motored on to Bouchet, a place with a bar-restaurant we've dined at before (I include an image of the establishment herewith) when they'd had all the copper communications wire stolen that served the village thus preventing us settling up for the repast with carte bleu. That was some time ago and we ate inside then. Today we sat out, sank a snifter and decided to stay on. Whatever it was that we had this time was as good as previously (the CEO will know what that was but my grey cells can't store facts like that anymore, beyond an hour or two) and the credit card functioned like a good'un. Bloody thing is red hot with use, if truth be told.

 

Having gained the calories needed to get back home we motored on to fair Visan, (see above likeness) where we found the coop still in closed-for-lunch mode, denying us the chance to purchase the finest wines that money can buy as well as the Côtes du Rhône we'd set our hearts on (a bidon is carried at all times). So it was over the back roads for us, nothing for it, passing close by the snail farm and the starting points of some of our track walks on the hilly ridges up there… until we came down the hill that leads to St Maurice. And that is where we spotted this new orientation table and just had to frequent it for half an hour or so. The banner composite above captures this experience to the full.

The hills I've labelled are known to us. Ventoux, well, of course. But the two in the middle also: I climbed both of them, solo, when I was a callow youth of some sixty years, back in 2007 when we holidayed in Jonchiers. There you are. That's the thing. I can't ever remember those hills by name but I do by experience. They had butterflies and harebells on them. It was blistering. Mme Melling came and collected me from my traverse on Linceuil. 

And St Maurice Coop was open and did supply the modest wine we sought (we bought both bib & bidon) but we decided against pizzas from their vending machine FGS! I am all for convenience but this would have been the last straw.

By now you are probably looking around for a suitable hard surface upon which to slowly but repeatedly bash your head, but please, don't do it. I know you've wasted precious moments reading this ordure but I would hate to think it might lead you to physical injury. Pity me! I have to write this stuff! I could bore for England if called upon, I am in no doubt. So Sorry.

travellers drop by

We've had two visitors drop by this spring: friend Anne blew in shortly after we had signed in at 1Rue FB, en route to Nice, from Nîmes this time I gather, and friend Nicola, who stopped by from Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris, en route to the Vermeer show in Amsterdam via Puglia in southern Italy; I can't explain how or why just now, its complicated. It is the truth though. 

It was a delight to see N here, a first for her and thus a first for us, obviously. We gave her in the short time she was ensconced ici a hopefully varied taster-menu of what makes things tick here for us: our friends here that were in residence (both here in Sablet and Gigondas) to be presented to, a sampling of a village or two, a hillside or two, a walk here and another there…and some victuals, plat-du-jours, markets and a modicum of rouge. This post just marks her visit, thanks for dropping by, both … see you sometime soon again at 1RueFB as long as the shack remains in our portfolio!

But please (general note to would be visitors not proceeding with independent transport means): come by train or TGV and try to get as close to Sabbers as you can. We've stopped collecting from airports; we'd quite like to give Avignon TGV a miss from hereon as well… There are now connecting services to the TGV to within a few miles of Sablet, like Orange, or better still Monteux, which Anne has tested – they work when not falling victim to strike action, obvs. To which end, both our guests played ball willingly and with enthusiasm.  Thanks y'all!

snake oil chip in

My plan to transfer the bare bones of my personal day-to-day log into the format of this post has hitherto not kick-started my enthusiasm this far into the spring of ’23. I realise that there may be those, a handful at best, who have been impatiently waiting to get on with their lives, fortified by the anecdotes and observations revealed in the latest Driving on the Right posting. They have looked in vain, up to now that is. And even now, I can’t promise anything startling or even remotely of pivotal interest. I’ve conveyed the excellence of my CEO’s regular offerings before: she leaves barely a crumb of intrigue for your author to hang a tale upon, embellish and pontificate around.

Hot news right now (at this minute: 10:25, 14 April)) is a delivery of 500 litres of domestic heating oil — the first we’ve bought here in Sabbers since 22 March 2018… but it doesn’t really grab you as a topic does it, even at the eye watering price per litre we are compelled to expend here in France, where TVA (or VAT if you prefer) is still substantially more than back in Blightey. I can’t quote you figures for comparison right now (you'll be relieved to hear) but the PPL ici is almost double that quoted by Boilerjuice (who stay in daily contact to try and get me to fill the Bullsmead tanks). Thank heavens our use of the stuff in the République is frugal. That on-end doughnut thing in the corner of our garage (see illustration herewith) is what we keep our oil in. The chalk marks record the extent of the 500 litres: the tank holds 1500 max. Incidentally, there is a plan in Fr to phase out all domestic oil use in less than ten years time, replacing it with lovely clean electricity. Fat chance most folk opine! 

OK, the log idea is stillborn. Instead I’ll try and do an odd feature occasioned by this stay, to endeavour to placate those who want my guts for garters for wasting even a few seconds of their precious internet time seeking the low-down, from this source at any rate, concerning Spring in Sablet 2023… Or whatever I can think of to give a title to the nonsense dribbling from the keyboard of your delinquent author.

Not that much of note has occured, mind you. Small potatoes generally. I’m afraid we have camera problems, both. We sport the same models which have developed what we fear are terminal malfunctions: Mary’s screen images tremble and skip. My telephoto won’t retract without manual assistance and the images I secure tend to be somewhat OOF (out of focus) right field. I concede that our phones, pads and ipod-touch are doing a better image capturing job this time round, but they lack respectable telephoto capacity (you’ll know all this I expect, and be up to speed with the latest superior three lens smarts, but you know my views about the right tool for the job, contracts, prices of phones etc. so I won’t trundle that one out again here, just now).

So it looks as though we might aspire to be in the market for new kit before the year is out, one of us, or both, if finance can be found… a big if with the price of oil (and everything) being what it is…… etc etc.

Could we crowd-fund some of this? I believe it's all the rage! I mean, how would you feel about ‘chipping in’ so that we can get us vital box-brownies replacement aspiration on the agenda ?

Hmm… just as I thought… not even worth a try, was it?