Selling off the family silver
Everyone here has an opinion about last year’s weather. I am waiting (patiently...patiently) for the really hot days to start. We’ve had a couple of warm teasers but nothing like the blazing heat that last year gave us and that, frankly, I have come to expect! Others say the heatwave didn’t arrive until July or so and other’s till that there was a lot of rain as well. But I have the advantage. Here in my blog is a faithful and contemporary record of what it was really like last summer. Maybe the real heatwave hit later than this, but on 10 June last year I was already talking about temperatures of 31 degrees. So far this year the air remains distinctly fresh and cool and the garden responds with a slow nod to the approaching summer. Weeds abound of course, as there really has been a lot of rain this year; and the grass in our meadow is fast catching up with an elephant’s eye, to steal a lyric. But seeds and plants? No thanks, we’ll just hang on down here in the soil where it’s cosier, thank you very much. Because of the greenhouse, I am the rather proud owner of a pair of well-advanced hanging baskets and we have recently adorned the tops of the gateposts with some fine stone pots. Petunias in lime-green and purple cascade away from the spiky leaves of two variegated agaves as centre-pieces and the whole display is rather fine. As are the scarlet geraniums nodding against lavender blue shutters at the windows. So we do have some colour and we know it won’t be long before the heat sets in, but at the risk of wishing the months away - do get on with it. Slow growth, however, doesn’t mean no work. Grass and weeds alone take up hours of graft. So a day out is more than welcome. Last week we ventured over towards the city of Clermond-Ferrand to visit a ‘Chateau sale’. So it was billed. It turned out to be a rather shabby but once gentile manor house. In the morning the contents were laid out for all to view and in the afternoon bids taken on the faded collections of a once-discerning eye. Or at least a bit discerning. There were some fine pieces and at least one potential gold-mine of a find but much of it consisted of the wistful trappings of someone’s long life.
We bought a lovely traditional French chaise and some Chinese porcelain. A beautifully inlaid games table didn’t sell and several ostentatious ormulu clocks were picked up for a song. At first I found it all unbearably sad. I pictured Grandmère et Grandpère spinning in the family vault as their beautiful Persian rugs got sold off for a hundred euros or worse still didn’t sell at all. In our poetry meeting we have been experimenting with form and setting ourselves tasks. Last week we agreed to write a Pantoum. We felt that the obligatory repetition and rhyme of the true Pantoum would be a good discipline; and so it was. I wrote my first in the traditional five stanza form but others allowed the Pantoum to continue on over a number of verses. I love the fact that you have to choose words really carefully if they are to repeat so often. I liked less that the enforced repetition makes it hard to tell a tale succinctly.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this Pantoum, 'Vent Enchere', sprang into my head at the auction. It had to go on beyond five stanzas in order to tell the story that then emerged.
When I shared this at our next poetry meeting we observed that it is somehow the natural order of things - the passing on to new owners to adorn another home. And so that’s how I prefer to remember it. After all the indifference of the obscure niece or nephew who arranged the sale becomes my gain; in the form of a lovely old chaise longue that will sit alongside the fireplace in our 17thC farmhouse. Vent Enchères by Sheila Schofield
At an auction sale up at the Chateau, they’re flogging off the family silver. The old limousine and the bateau have already been sold down the river. They’re flogging the family silver. The paintings, the pottery, the porcelain they’ll soon be washed down the river along with the vintage champagne. The paintings, the pottery, the porcelain once cherished by Grandmère et Grandpère along with the vintage champagne now laid on the lawn ‘vent enchères’. Once cherished by Grandmère et Grandpère their memories all under assault, Laid out on the lawn ‘vent enchères’. Do they turn in the family vault? Their memories all under assault as the public pokes round in their treasure. Do they turn in the family vault? At the value beyond human measure. As the public pokes round in their treasure, one elderly madame is curious. There is value beyond human measure her searching is slow and laborious. The elderly madame is curious, sifting bric-a-brac with scant delight. Her searching is slow and laborious when she sees it, her eyes come alight. Sifting bric a brac with scant delight, is she seeking an elusive memento? When she sees it, her eyes come alight, all her memories there in that fresco. Does she seek the elusive memento she gave it to him all those years since. All her memories are there in that fresco, and her nonchalance fails to convince. She gave it to him all those years since, when once they were lovers in secret. Her nonchalance fails to convince though there’s no further need for concealment. When once they were lovers in secret, students of art and of beauty though there’s no further need for concealment, discretion she knows is her duty. They were students of art and of beauty and now she wants only this icon. Discretion she knows is her duty as she places her bid thereupon. Now she wants only this icon, will she finish the highest bidder? She places her bid thereupon and prays that she will be the winner. And is she the highest bidder, is the token now hers once again? She prayed that she would be the winner and fortune has smiled on her sin. This love token is hers once again. At an auction sale up at the chateau - fortune has smiled on her sin. She needs neither limo nor bateau.
