Rural Life

Autumn Lockdown - Day 22 - life is dull, so how could we forget this?

Time hangs heavy in some ways, although the days speed by and my to do list gets no shorter.  When you spend 10 minutes trying to photograph a branch of a Worcesterberry shrub that is being strangled by lichen with a smart phone, you know you are heading to the edge of how to spend time usefully.  Here is the best of my many attempts!

A sign of our listlessness is that a day we usually celebrate in the calendar passed us by until I got a message from Chinon asking for my opinion - yesterday was Beaujolais Nouveau day.  Actually the French news has been rather more impressed with the English Nouveau Red Wine day at Waitrose (so we know roughly where the correspondents shop in London, and my bet is the big one near Kentish Town), covering it both yesterday and today - you would think there were more important things going on in the world perhaps?  Anyway, to some extent, we have redressed the balance as John popped into Spar for essential groceries and came out with this.

We'll try it tonight and report back tomorrow!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 21 - a different walk

The weather changed overnight as a cold front went through, and while it was actually quite nice and I got the laundry dry, it was also much colder than of late throughout the day.  This made sitting on hooman much more appealing for Nibbles, and at lunchtime she spread herself up my chest and got up close and personal.  She allowed me to take about 50 photos of her - that's how comfortable she was!  A few were out of focus and she wouldn't look direct at the camera most of the time, but ancient tribal beliefs would say that her soul is now mine (I think she thinks it works the other way round though).

When I managed to extricate myself from cat, I went out for my allowed exercise.  I had to post a letter, and had thought of going on one of the familiar routes, but wanted a change of scene, so I went down to the Pont de Godeau (he still didn't turn up) and then up to the Voie Verte and along that towards the open country.  The Voie Verte used to be a railway line and once decommissioned, was then left to run wild, which made it a great place for wildlife.  When it was reopened as a cycle and pedestrian route, that exposed a couple of large badgers' sets along the line.  Much to my distress, last winter, someone erased one of these.  Either it was overzealous path maintenance or it was a farmer trying to avoid badger tracks over his land.  Either way, my walk this afternoon demonstrated nicely that they failed and Badger Burrows are being extended and improved for the winter!

Further round on my walk, I looked across to the village from where I know to be the 1 kilometre as the crow flies from home limit.  I must admit I was very lucky with the time I chose to go out for my walk as I had sun the whole way, which took the chill off and made everything so much more optimistic.

The final photo from my walk is of the cressonière that is perhaps 200 metres from home and taps into the same groundwater spring as our well.  When we first saw it, we thought it was an old washing point or lavoir, but talking to locals, we now know it was a tank for growing watercress.  The water flow has diminished considerably from what it used to be, and I don't think that is due to residual drought conditions.  There have been groundworks and building further up the hill which are likely to have impacted on the flow.  I'm not sure how clean the water would be anymore either, so I wasn't tempted to grab a handful of greenery - and I don't think it is watercress in there anyway!

By the way, it is Beaujolais Nouveau day today!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 20 - trouble

Wednesday, so market day at la Flèche, and fortunately it is a restricted market at the moment, only food and plants.  Why is this a good thing - normally I am complaining about it?  Well fibre is coming to la Flèche, and with it, the urge to dig up everything everywhere and inconvenience as many people as possible for the longer term greater good.  I've ranted before about laying fibre optic cable.  Today, the whole of the riverside parking was closed off to punters, so we had to park where the frippery stands would normally be.  If they had been there, it would have meant a lot of people having a very long walk!

Within the market, all was as normal, although fewer people than last week - but last week was a bank holiday.  Eggs were 20 cents each for free range - important as our freeloading hens aren't laying at present.  I had planned to get a couple more this autumn, but first laziness and then lockdown have scuppered that plan, and we won't be able to increase the flock until sometime in the spring I fear.

Then on to see the Boys in the Country - and this is where the trouble comes in, as conditions were ideal for spotting the nests of pine processionary caterpillars.  Not so much now, but we have until the end of February to get traps rigged up on two of the pine trees to stop the b@st@rd caterpillars reaching the soil to pupate and fly away.  Before anyone gets righteous about that, they are a non-native invasive species with few predators (blue and long tailed tits are starting to eat them I gather) and poisonous spines that can blind or otherwise mutilate cats and dogs, and cause particularly nasty and long lasting sores on humans (I know, I've been affected twice).  The spines do wash down into the soil, but if you are planting or if (being a cat) you dig a hole for your "needs", you can still be affected by the spines.  No, they just have to go!

It was a glorious morning, indeed it was lovely until about 3pm, then boom, the clouds arrived.  Tant pis!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 19 - non-local produce

Let's face it, cleaning and sorting potatoes isn't interesting.  It's not interesting doing it, and it certainly isn't interesting reading about it.  And as that was the highlight of my day, I have had to find something else to write about.

My very special husband has to put up with a lot of wailing when Death in Paradise is on, as we try to work out where filming has taken place.  One day a week or so ago, Postie turned up with a decent sized parcel, and John just had to share it with me, as it was just so special.  When we were last in Guadeloupe, we went to the Coffee Museum (they have all sorts of useful museums over there).  From the outside, it was pretty unassuming, but once through the entrance gate, and having paid our entry fee, we were enchanted.  For a start, as well as growing coffee, they also grow chocolate!

There are some long, low buildings with all sorts of displays, including how the islands were colonised, how they discovered coffee grows nicely there, and how it was cultivated and prepared.  Outside there are some old machines that could be used for various phases of the preparation of the coffee beans, but the main production site is separate from the museum.

There were a number of coffee trees or shrubs around the compound, and you could sit on a shaded veranda and try the local brew.  It is pure arabica, although they do have some robusta trees as well to show the difference.  The coffee trees are not particularly remarkable and the fruits not as impressive as the chocolate pods.

So last Sunday, with no more of our shop bought Guatemala brew left, we got to open the first of two 500g packets of coffee from the plantations around the Coffee Museum, and to breathe in the aroma of fine Guadeloupean coffee and dream our way back 7,000km or so west and south to our favourite island.  They don't supply any shops in the Metropole (as mainland France is referred to over here), and production isn't huge, so John had to contact the plantation itself to get some.  And that is a treat that will keep giving for several months, as we don't drink that much coffee!  Aren't we lucky!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 18 - spuds

It's difficult to know what to write about today.  I spent the morning in front of the computer looking at invitations to tender for things that might be within my competence to do, in theory.  Well one of them I didn't quite understand, another looked really juicy but like they wanted a team working on it and possibly from a University or a top name consultancy, and one is in London and over 5 years so I would end up paying them to do the work given the budget.  There was one that looks eminently doable and would be interesting - I'm just trying to get the team together now!

After lunch, it was time to see the boys in the country and when I got home, I could find no other excuse so had to start to prepare the harvested potatoes for storage in the garage.  A few buckets of water later and I have perhaps a quarter of the remaining harvest sorted, having rather lazily picked out the biggest tubers, so will have to do the smaller ones tomorrow.  This tray of spuds was very heavy when I carried it into the garage!

Someone asked what variety I grow - the last two years I have grown Stemster.  They are a main crop potato, good for baking, chips, gratins and mash (and roasties), with a preponderance of large tubers (that's the blurb, but I think they are right) and good keeping qualities.

I was reminded this afternoon that I really need to point out that I have excellent support when growing potatoes as Fergus keeps a very close eye on them.

After all that excitement, I get back to my desk and computer and find loads of emails, including an invitation to tender for something that has me written all over it.  Two in two days!  Now I've just got to write the proposals and beat the competition.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 17 - details

I have a friend who helped to get herself through the first lockdown (in Denmark) by using her daily exercise period to find something and photograph it in enormous detail.  She looked at flowers, insects, leaves, buds - and each photo was a small miracle and was shared with her chums across the world.  Today I have taken a leaf out of her book and have details of two natural things that have brought me a certain joy.

People go on about lichen being rare, delicate and a sign of good, clean air.  As some of these are scientists, I guess I have to believe them.  Clearly the lichen in our garden is a mutant version, as a large quantity has chosen to colonise one of the plastic chairs in the garden, is growing away strongly and is pretty well impossible to remove, even with a pressure washer and a scouring pad.  Why would I want to remove it?  Well, I'm not so keen on sitting on lichen as it also marks your clothes quite badly (it is purely a nightmare that it would start to colonise my jeans as well, but someone might want to make a Dr Who script out of that).

That's the chair leg, and this is the chair back.

I've shared a couple of photos trying to show the joy of spindle berries, but today I found some that I could get up close and personal to, and these do show the colours and the shapes.  My mother in law remembered seeing great banks of spindle berries on the shrubs by the side of the railway line over the Malverns, taking her and her sister to the school in Herefordshire they were evacuated to.  We tried to buy and plant spindles in her garden in London, but they were never as prolific as the wild ones here around us.

Finally I did promise another racoon photo on a Sunday.  Here is a photo of Rachel the Racoon, another of the critters fed by a friend of a friend in the States.  Isn't she gorgeous?

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 16 - market heroes

Saturday is market day in Baugé en Anjou, specifically the food market (there is a small market on a Monday with other stuff as well, when we aren't facing restrictions).  It is my go to place for fish, milk products, fruit and vegetables that we don't grow ourselves, crèpes and galettes and nibbles, among other stuff.  There are also 3 very good meat products stalls.  A fine morning in Covid lockdown brings out the crowds - all stalls had queues.  I stood in line for 10 minutes for fish, and a further 20 minutes for fruit and vegetables.  Some would say that was a waste of time, but I firmly believe in supporting local businesses, so I didn't see it as that, but as a chance to relax and look around and contemplate.

So what did I contemplate in my queue?  Certainly not queuing theory, so my bad - as an OR person, I really should have been doing a bit of mental modelling!!  Instead I was looking at the chateau and wondering how the view had changed over the years.  While one might like to believe that the Lord or good King René would have looked out over a similar market scene (although without the motorised vans), in fact the Place de l'Europe would have been within the curtain wall of the chateau, and so we would probably have been among sheds and stables and pig pens or the potager.  The market would have been elsewhere in the town.

An outstanding example of a business start up and also the importance of being reliable (unlike the purveyors of yoghurts and dry goods, neither of whom were there today) to build a solid customer base is the family business selling Moroccan prepared dishes.  She started up selling home made cakes and mint tea out of the back of her car, finding a spot where she could, but turning up rain or shine.  The cakes were fabulous and sensibly priced (1€ each) and word spread.  Then she added stuffed pancakes (mesnems I think they are called) to the repertoire, again sensibly priced, and fabulous quality.  A year or two of solid trading like that, and she expanded her repertoire to include couscous and tagine to take away, ordered a week in advance.  The cakes have increased in price a little (now 1,20€ each), but the range has increased as well, and there are now 20 different delicacies.  There is always a short queue and everyone raves about the quality of the food.  If she is going to be away, she warns you.  Her husband helps from time to time, her daughter occasionally, but she is now at University, so her most faithful (and charming in my view) assistant is her son.  She has built a fabulous business, so if you are in Baugé on a Saturday morning, go along and buy a yummy cake or two and admire a true entrepreneur.

I should point out that they dropped their masks for the 30 seconds that it took to photograph them, and then they were back on.  All cakes were well covered while they did that, as you can see.  She takes food hygiene very seriously.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 15 - how far can I go?

The rule here for exercise is that you are allowed out once a day for a maximum of an hour for exercise and can go no further than 1km as the crow flies from your property.  It's difficult to get your head around what that actually means in some ways.  In theory you can do a walk out 1km, then the circumference of a circle with radius 1km and then back 1km to get home (2πr + 2), which is about 8.28km - probably a bit far for walkers doing between 4 and 5kmph per hour, but not far enough for joggers, runners and cyclists.  They would need to look at star shape patterns or get with the spirograph to see how far they could go.

The French government has made available a nice little tool to map where you can go in your daily perambulation.  For me it looks like this:

There are some options, although the nicest means going about 20 meters outside my permitted zone.  During lockdown in the Spring, I did say how lucky I felt to be out in the country, and I feel the same way now, but thinking about legal exercise options, I'm not sure those in the towns don't have it easier.  If I lived in central Chinon, my allowed map would look like this:

That has a lot of options for different circuits and could make it easier to find routes that get you going further than about 3.5km, which is the maximum walk I've worked out for me so far (but I plan to find longer).  The town has variety going for it (and a couple of steep hills).

Further out in the country than we are, and you are even more limited in terms of legal roaming, as I found when I tried a friend's place:

There's something to ponder over, on your Friday night!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 14 - lovely November weather

The end of the second week of lockdown - there are big announcements tonight from the Prime Minister, so things may change a bit.  I've got an appointment shortly, so today's blog is short, sweet and early.

What a beautiful morning!  The church looked particularly fine from the garden. 

The lane looked enticing and there was a brilliant X in con trails to be seen from where the Boys in the Country hang out. 

I also spotted a few orchid rosettes, preparing for next spring.

However for some reason, at present I can't load any of the photos to show this.  Perhaps later on, if I can be bothered when I get home, or more likely tomorrow.

But I am thinking of my public, honest, it's just that technology is letting me down!

Update - the photos are now there - a new day and it all works!

 

 

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 13 - Remembrance Day

The 11th November is a bank holiday here in France - the second of two holidays to remember those who gave their lives for France (the other being 8th May, or Victory in Europe Day).  They are not quite so fixated on a two minute silence at 11am, not least as in a normal year some dignitaries and local marching bands have to attend more than one ceremony, so they can be at any time from about 9:30am to midday.  Ceremonies are well attended by local elected officials, the uniformed public services, the junior council and the old combatants, who wear their campaign medals and their best clothes.  Once wreaths have been laid and a few words said, there is then a vin d'honneur for those not going on to another ceremony.

Each commune was required by law to set up a war memorial in the years following the Great War, and to simplify things, the Government made available a catalogue of different styles, so it is quite common for towns across the country to have the same soldier or group of soldiers on a plinth.  This was an interesting snippet from a recent lunchtime news programme.  This is Baugé's war memorial, photographed on Saturday, next to the Tribunal.

This year the ceremonial has had to be much reduced, no vin d'honneur, and I could not track down when the wreaths would be laid in the village - turns out sometime between 10am and 11:15am.  It is near the cemetery so I photographed it yesterday on my walk, before the wreaths had been laid, but the flags were out already.

People have taken advantage of the bank holiday though, and when I went out for my walk, I saw more than I normally see, taking advantage of a fine afternoon to stretch their legs and get a change of scene.  I didn't go as far today - just 2.5 kilometres - as I was mixing up the routes a bit.  I may well have a rant soon about the relative ease (or not) of getting a different walk and one's potential full allowed distance, but not today!  Instead I found some more spindle berries but closer to where I could photograph them, so here is a better view.  The pink is almost synthetic and you can just see on one, that the seed inside is a bright orange.  They are still poisonous mind you!