Rural Life

Autumn Lockdown - Day 2 - retail in the time of confinement

Saturday is always a shopping day for me - has been for years.  I do the small local shops of wherever I live to get food and treats for the days/week ahead.  It was the same when I lived in Hertford, Wallsend and Worcester, so no different now. 

However was a sad day in some ways.  For the past 15 years, I have walked up to the boulangerie about 200 metres from my front door and have bought pastries, bread and sometimes cakes made by the very talented Bruno Pellé, and sold with charm and a caring word by his lovely wife Arlette, or one of their three children.  But today was the last day - health reasons dictate that he stops working the fierce hours expected of a baker (2:30am to 11am 6 days a week, Christmas included, and sometimes an afternoon shift too), and they have not been able to find anyone prepared to take the business over.  From tomorrow, we have to seek our bread elsewhere, and further away (not so easy in the time of confinement).

But we do not live on bread alone, and as the outdoor markets are still open, it was into Baugé for the usual purchases - fish, fruit, vegetables, raw milk, desserts, thick cream, crèpes and galettes, and delicious but unspellable things from the totally charming Moroccan family.  The market was heaving.  By the time I got to the milk products chap - Didier - all yoghurts, all bar 3 rice puddings and all bar 1 milk pudding had been carried off by others.  As he sorted out milk and cream for me, we pondered on the phenomenon - "they will never eat all they bought from me over the next week, it's impossible!"  Well, his stuff is delicious, but clearly there was some panic buying going on too.  "The psychologists are watching" was another clear message!  By the time I got back to the vegetable stall, they had run out of carrots.  Carrots!!!!

For all we are restricted in our outings, and people had to wear masks, there was some insouciance among those in the market - for the first time in ages my bottom got bumped several times by the basket of the lady behind me in the fish queue.  She also didn't understand Paddington stares, so I guess she was a Parisian taking advantage of her second home.  Hopefully she will go home tomorrow if that is how she is going to behave.

In all this, one of the key gripes is not lockdown itself, but the existence of unfair competition from the super and hypermarkets (last week it was between restaurants (allowed) and bars (closed)).  One good meme doing the rounds today wondered if Covid might not be better controlled if we closed the super/hypermarkets and other big stores and let the small shops run the economy for a couple of weeks.  Provided I had a good stock of cat food in, I would so totally support that!

Remember if you have small local shops open, use them, even if it costs a few pence/centimes more!  Because once they have gone, they won't come back.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 1 - how does it work again?

Actually, after doing yesterday's blog, we went to Excalibur to support our local pub, while he was still open.  As he is officially a bar/restaurant, we had to have a small plate of tapas each, which was a real hardship, and I gather there was a steady flow of people out for one last session before December.  It was a bitter sweet experience.

From 9pm last night we were under curfew, and once curfew was over, it was lockdown.  I had to cut out an attestation from the newspaper before I could go up to the bakers for pains au chocolat and baguette, which made reading the paper later on a bit tricky.  After that it was as before - or almost.  There was more traffic noise than I had expected when I put the laundry out, and while I was at a work site nearer the airport, I saw and heard another Lear jet come into land, presumably more intensive care patients being moved out of Lyon and St Etienne.

Because, yes, I did need to go out and about to deal with garden type things, armed with another attestation and I was surprised at how many people were out and about.  A major upside to the last confinement was the silence, so all you could hear were birds and insects and the wind in the leaves.  Not so much this time it would appear, although as we move into November, it may quieten down I guess.

Anyway, out in the country, I could enjoy time with Fergus, and be astounded at the magnificence of the amaranth this year. 

I could also admire the Brussel sprout plants.  Those who know me well, know that I regard this vegetable as the work of the Devil, however John loves them, raw or cooked.  We have a chunk of land that is solid clay, but that is where these magnificent specimens are growing.  Not sure if they will ever have sprouts, but actually I do rather like the tops of the plants, steamed, so there might be something in it for me after all!

Yes, I know, the one with the pointy leaves isn't a Brussel sprout.  It is actually a cauliflower - but I'm not sure it will ever have a curd in it.

Autumn Lockdown - new beginings

I guess it was predictable, and following a day mostly spent in bed with a migraine, it was with enormous trepidation that we sat and watched the President's address last night.  As expected, he announced a four week national lockdown, but kicking in a day or two sooner than many had thought.  There was I think less warning this time, or rather, less official warning.  We are also on alert here for bird 'flu, so things are pretty special.  So here's a heads up - from tomorrow, the daily lockdown blog post starts again!

This one seems to me more daunting than the last one.  Already days here are short, with only 10 hours between sunrise and sunset, and that will only get less between now and late December.  The weather will get worse - despite a slight reprieve in temperatures over the next few days, we are heading for winter, and can spend less time outside and less comfortably.  There really is nothing to look forward to now in 2020 - all events are cancelled that we would usually go to - and the last of the "part timers" left today - we doubt we will see any others before the New Year now.

The glories of Autumn are nearing their end.  We found these cèpes in the One Acre Wood a couple of weeks ago, and there may be a couple more this weekend, but then days are too short and cold to get them going again until next year.  These were delicious by the way!

This year has been particularly good for cyclamen.  The ones in the lawn started in July, and are still going, with some very dense patches of pink flowers.  The ones in the One Acre Wood don't last as long but have been going for a couple of months now, including two new flowering corms which have clearly self-seeded.  These delicate white flowers are a real joy to me, whatever the weather.

Autumn also means we have an extra visitor downstairs - the log fire.  It is like another member of the family and a welcome sight and feeling on cold and wet nights.  Lockdown brings challenges with finding firewood - we might have to go out and about with our best Professional Forest Workers kit on, but that is something to worry about another day.

The same day as the new confinement was announced, I received my official number for my new way of earning money.  I am now officially registered as an autoentrepreneur that helps people out with translating and interpreting (NOT official translations having said that) to get through daily life over here in France.  So getting that business up and running when I can't go out and about very much is going to be really easy, isn't it?  2020 just keeps giving!