Rural Life

Autumn Lockdown - Day 12 - a bit of a rant

With no other excuses today, my only time out of the house/garden was for my permitted up to 1 hour exercise no more than 1 kilometre as the crow flies from my home.  I chose a time when the clouds weren't too threatening and went for a 3.5 kilometre meander around the village, taking a couple of photos for tomorrow's blog and a couple for today. 

As I went past the Church, I remembered there was a funeral this afternoon.  Normally this means a great crowd of people outside the Church to see the coffin go in, then most file in afterwards for the service which takes about an hour, before filing out shaking holy water at the coffin and sharing a quick word with the bereaved family.  It's not an easy process, but gives some cathartic relief I believe.  Today there were few vehicles or people to be seen - numbers are limited to 30 I believe, and naturally family has the priority.  The deceased was about 95 I believe, so there was a lot of scope for family.

So as part of my walk, I went for a wander around the cemetery - I've never been in before.  The grave markers are mostly less than 100 years old, and are covered in family names that are very familiar to us, and in some cases, there are mentions of those we have known in our 15 years in the village.  It is still full of flowers - we are not so far from the 1st November and grave dressing after all, and the dead have a magnificent view across the valley as they wait for the Last Trumpet.

From there, I climbed the hill and circled round to the football pitch.  The car park has recently been dug up to allow fibre optic cable to be laid - and this is the start point of my rant.  Photo first!

Fibre is the great new hope for internet speeds I gather, and anywhere worth its salt is getting fibre in.  We have a training school for fibre technicians in Baugé.  For many months now, new green metal boxes have been appearing, verges have been dug up and relaid (badly quite often), and white vans and large umbrellas provide the work environment for the technicians.  I believe sometime in 2021 I will be offered the opportunity to sign up for this great leap forward, and it is enabling people to leave the cities and work from home.  But at what cost?  And by that I don't mean the 35.95€ a month (undoubtedly) that I will have to pay to receive this great facility.

The internet can make us all feel virtuous about not travelling and therefore not polluting, but the Cloud and the servers require huge amounts of electricity, not least for cooling.  Each smart phone, computer, laptop, screen, hard drive etc requires electricity to keep it running.  Built in obsolescence and continual software upgrades mean that we have to change these white goods relatively frequently.  Digging up the verges of roads to lay the cables has destroyed very localised ecosystems - so the banks of early purple orchids we used to see won't come back, at least for quite a long time.  The poor reinstatement means that opportunist plants like rape and ambrosia (a non-native invasive around here) take a strong foothold before oxeye daisies, wild orchids and scabious can re-establish themselves.  So while I will undoubtedly sign up, I'm not convinced the environmental cost is worth it yet.

And then people leave the cities to work from home in a greener and more pleasant environment, except that the green and pleasant environment has to be curtailed as more "nice" new houses are built for them to live in, each with a garage to house white goods, bicycles and lawnmowers, and an area of hard standing to leave at least 2 cars on.  But the people moving out of the cities don't always make the villages and rural areas live - they are used to using click and collect and supermarkets, or getting back to their roots with a bread making machine (more electricity), while the village bakeries that the older residents value go out of business or can't find anyone to take them on.  Yummy mummies rush Torquil and Davina to judo, gymnastics, boxing, tennis, football, but don't have time to support the PTA or the Comité des Fêtes, and so village life slowly dies and living in a rural area resembles living in a city, but with a bit more greenery, fast internet speeds and no public transport.

O dear - not the cheeriest post I've ever written!

Autumn Lockdown - Day 11 - new hope

I'm not talking politics, I'm not talking vaccines that have to be stored at -80ºC, I'm talking plants!

Last lockdown, I spent a lot of time tracking and worrying over my 2 small orchids that live in the bathroom.  As we got more and more freedom, they stopped producing new flowers and when we got temperatures at up to 40ºC outside and nearly 30ºC indoors, first the flowers dried and fell and then the flower stalks shrivelled too.  Mind you the flowers did each last over two months, so one can't complain.

Anyway, as the new lockdown kicked in, and I was sitting on the loo, I looked at the orchids again and one of them seemed to be getting back into action.  At first I wasn't too sure, but you can see from this photo today that a new flower stalk is pushing away and that there are a number of branches that may either be branches or will develop into flower buds.  Bad luck people, you are back to orchid watch!

And it's not only orchids.  Friends fled rural France the day before lockdown kicked in, but during the two weeks before that, they had spent hours spreading 3 tonnes of top soil, raking it, rolling it, planting bulbs in it and finally spreading loads of grass seed.  Bizarrely for November, we actually have ideal grass growing weather, moist, warm and not too sunny, and the grass seed is pulling away.  Even better, it only looks like there has been one attempt at digging up a flower bulb and it wasn't successful.  Spring should be dramatically floral in this garden next year!

From the number of hits yesterday, I think people liked Audrey the Racoon.  Perhaps Sundays need to be Racoon Days?

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 10 - big news events

Skip this if you don't feel political, but a few things have happened recently that make 2020 seem marginally less pants, although still the worst year on record for a very long time.  Firstly some reasonable news about an acquaintance fighting cancer (never good), in that it appears to have been caught in time (fingers crossed).  Then during the afternoon a rather weird way of announcing an election result - it was the media that announced the victor in the States.  No concession (not really to be expected I guess), no formal vivat rex type moment from a senior judiciary (well they are political appointees after all), just CNN, Associated Press and the New York Times pointing out that with Pennsylvania going Democrat, Biden has won.  It feels odd, not least as previously the BBC, FranceInfo, MSN and the American press all had different views on who had won what, but now they seem to be unanimous, so that is it.  A bottle of pink fizz was sacrificed on the altar of positive news, even though it is likely to have little effect on us personally and for a while.  Covid is after all still the biggest story in town.

Or is it?  Today at 13:03, off the Sables d'Olonne on the Vendée coast, 33 intrepid skippers started off on what must be the most gruelling race known to man - the Vendée Globe single handed, unsupported round the world yacht race.  The current record is just under 75 days.  There are, I believe, 6 female skippers in the race.  The fact that the race is still on is great, and I hope to be able to follow progress once I find the right link on social media.

In other news, we were felling trees and digging spuds this morning.  I did go and check on the monster badger set in the wildflower meadow and found rather better badger prints for you.

I dug up 9 more spuds - just a final 8 to go.  I wanted to crack the lot, but with all the rain, and working on a slightly different bit of the plot, the soil was wet, claggy and heavy.  So I admitted defeat after 9 and bagged up the spoils - it was good I stopped when I did, as I didn't have enough bags for more.  John weighed them when we got home - 31 pounds of spuds!!  It would have been more but there appears to be a line of "poorer" soil across the plot, where the numbers and size of tubers was less and the leeks along side are looking a bit sad. 

And finally, a Sunday treat!  A friend of a friend who lives in the States and is a cat person, feeds some local critters.  She shared some of her amazing photos of said critters, specifically, Audrey the Racoon!  Say thank you nicely!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 9 - market day

When I am doing my evaluation and research work, Saturday is MY day.  I enjoy the chat and the sights and smells of the market, and the afternoon is normally some form of garden or outdoor work.  Today was no exception, even in times of lockdown.

First thing to be done was feeding the chickens, and in addition to sparrow city, I also run the gauntlet of the "digital" starling that sits on the roof.  He is always perky and has a lot to say for himself, but has modelled his song on the sounds produced by an early Gameboy or similar and mobile phone rings.  What a depressing effect modern society can have!

Then it was market time - and boy was it crowded, so a good thing it is still in the Place de l'Europe so we can socially distance!  Didier the Purveyor of Yoghurt was right, in that I was at the market at the same time as last week, but he still had yoghurts (albeit only flavoured ones, not ones with pieces in) and rice puddings a plenty.  Then the dry goods caravan was in so I decided to try her rolled oats for porridge (3.50 Euros a kilo).  We will report back on how they are, but we are having to explore French sources for oats, as the stash in the bottom of the bureau that I bought 7 years ago won't last forever.  Something that is without plastic packaging, and may well be local and/or organic has to be a good option.

It was a beautiful morning again and unseasonably warm, so I took a moment or 5 to admire the two great buildings that take up two sides of the Place de l'Europe - the Tribunal and the Chateau.  The Tribunal is about 150 years old and dramatic.  It was one of 18 buildings across France receiving headline support from the French Heritage Lottery this year, and got 500,000 Euros to kick start the 5 million Euro restoration plan.  The building behind it used to be the prison, but was gutted and redeveloped as an art and culture centre a while back.

The chateau is rather older - about 1450 I think - and was the hunting lodge of King Renée of Anjou. It too has had a chequered past, and the exhibits inside are getting a relooking I believe.  When we first arrived, it was a museum with lots of cases of old stones and bits of pottery, so not totally exciting.  Then about 15 years ago they redid it, to make it more interactive and interesting, and with nice exhibition space on the ground floor.  On the other side of the chateau they have made a physic garden, which is pretty and interesting in the summer, but at this time of year, is rather black and dull.

So there you go, a bit of an introduction to Baugé!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 8 - looking up

Well for the first thought of the day anyway.  It was another beautiful morning and not so cold as the last two, when I went up the garden to feed the chickens, so I took my time.  There were a few clouds in the sky - classic harbingers of a change in the weather, wispy cirrus that I was told were called horse tails when I was at school.  Goodness knows what they call them now, but I'm sure cirrus still stands.  There is a front on its way, although it may avoid doing much to us, other than raising the temperatures - they forecast 18°C for us tomorrow!

The chickens were being rather good this morning.  Normally Delenn (the grey one) gets bullied away from the place where I drop the treats, I do that so that I have a clear run at the grain hopper, but today they all played nicely.  Either they have finally established a pecking order that all agree with, or they are plotting something.  The two brown ones are Muck and Brass, couldn't tell you which is which, but where there's Muck, there's Brass, so who cares?  When we are down to only one brown one, it will be an issue, at which point I will have to be more decisive.

We are in an at risk zone for avian 'flu, and the next commune over is on high alert.  If we go on to high alert, we will need to cover the whole chicken run with fine mesh to keep the sparrows and other wild birds out of the run.  There is a colony of about 30 sparrows living in our bay tree, so it is a real issue and risk.  The only other solution would be to cull the chickens but we obviously don't want to do that.  That's fine for the normal hens, but Bridie the Bantam is another issue altogether.

Bridie arrived in our garden late last year, worked out we were a soft touch, fell in awe of Dummer the Big White Chicken (now deceased) and stayed.  She roosts in the shed mainly, has a feed station outside the main chicken run and spends her day (when they are confined) watching the big chickens and paying homage to whoever she thinks is Chief Chicken (now Delenn it would appear).  When they are out and about trashing the garden, she follows them around, never too close, and avoiding Poirot the Cat.  We can't really get near her, so I am not at all sure what happens if we move to High Alert.  Something to worry about, if it happens, I guess.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 7 - November gardens

Yesterday I raved about being able to buy a locally grown christophine from the market - it was delicious yesterday evening, done in a gratin style.  I was surprised no one asked what it actually was, or perhaps impressed that you all clearly do know what it is.  I think it was a little under-ripe, as it was a bit too green (it should be a bit more yellow than this), but wasn't going to try to ripen it.  Anyway, here it is before I carved it up.

As we have had a couple of frosts, I should be able to pick Brussel sprouts, except ours are tiny, little more than a hint of sprout at the moment.  Mind you I'm not used to growing them, so don't know really when they start to show, other than there are a lot around at Christmas!

I was supposed to be mowing this afternoon - it has been dry for two days and the wind has blown away the frost and dew, so it should have been ideal conditions.  The ground is still very wet, but not so much that I would sink in the mud.  The real thing you need with a mower (in this case a ride on one), is that the blades engage and turn round at high speed, thus cutting the grass.  Annoyingly, the blades failed to engage, however many times I tried to reset and engage, they just weren't having it.  Over the year, it has become harder and harder to get them to engage, so I guess today is the sign that the mower (this one is called Ginger) needs to go to the nice man at Durtal for a thorough going over.  I also need to borrow a mower from another site to do these grounds before worse weather kicks in.

So when I got home, I went into our garden to release the chickens for their daily vandalism spree (although they could soon be in lockdown as there is bird 'flu close by).  I noticed that finally, now the frosts are here and they will be struck down very soon, my Cosmos have finally decided to flower.  I've been nurturing the wretched things for 7 months (alleged time sowing to blooming 3 months) and only now do they decide to blossom.  Very annoying!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 6 - out and about

Thanks to advice from chums who read this via Facebook, I decided to brave the market at la Flèche, armed with my attestation and a shopping list.  I was glad I did - for a start it was a lovely drive up, with magnificent leaf colour most of they way.  Parking by the river was easy, and I could stand and watch this view for hours!

Pretty well all my regulars were there, except the bread, croissant and cake stand, which was a real shame as I had been looking forward to croissants later in the week (although the porridge is still magnificent).  I came home laden with local produce including a very fine cauliflower and a christophine - probably the only one this year, as the guys who manage to grow this tropical delicacy found that the polytunnels were too hot for it this year.

This afternoon I finally started on a rather nasty but essential task, and progressed it as far as I could, at which point I felt that I needed a treat and some exercise.  Armed with another attestation (fortunately the paper supplies 3 normal and one work related per day), I set out on a short but beautiful walk.  First I turned up the mediaeval Rue Basse to the Church.

I then walked down to the Pont de Godeau (once again, he didn't turn up).  Passing by the wall of the mini-chateau, I noticed they had a very fine crop of olives this year.  If they have a couple of kilos, I'm sure they could get them pressed for oil at the oil mill - we are thinking we might get some walnut oil made, if I spend a period of confinement cracking them.

I then went up to the Route de Beaufort, along a bit and back down the Rue de la Croix de la Mission.  I had to go over the old railway line, now a walking and cycling path.  I did pass a jogger at one stage, and spent a few minutes contemplating how far he was taking the Mick, as he had clearly come and intended to go further than 1 kilometre from his home base or his place of work.  But what the hell - people are working within the spirit of the regulations, and keeping their distance, and that is surely the point.  I was wearing a mask too, so should have been safe from any droplets he was shedding around him. 

Anyway, on the field side of the disused railway, I spotted this magnificent spindle bush covered in bright pink berries.  The higher up berries are hawthorn and can be cooked, but spindle is pretty poisonous so is best admired at a distance.

And then towards home and the road back to the village - a very nice walk, but not the longest I can do in my allotted hour and within the radius of one kilometre, but more about that another day.  Now I must join a Women in OR and Analytics virtual conference.

A demain!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 5 - a change in the weather

What a difference a day makes!  The hot but wet front has gone through, and today has been noticeably colder, but o so much brighter.  The cooler weather meant I slept better (or relatively healthy eating) and the fear of missing an important phone call ensured I was up promptly.  Not everyone thought that cooler was better, and despite the sunshine, or perhaps because of it, Zola decided it was a donut day.  It must be so nice to have such a snug fitting and cosy bed!

Today was a day to feed the Boys in the Country - what a difference to Sunday!  I stood at the view point, and this was so much better and more uplifting to look at!  I also clearly had the right mindset, as I didn't fret that the hill in the distance is unattainable.

We are forecast frosts over the next few days, possibly quite sharp ones out in the rural areas, so it was time to check over the tender crops and see what needed to be gathered in before being damaged.  I cut the final 3 butternut squashes, and got 6 courgettes ranging in size from pretentious restaurant to what you might find on a market stall.  We've not been inundated with courgettes this year - just the right amount really - and I've been impressed that they have kept going so late into the season.  In the garden at home I found 1 aubergine hiding away, a load of green peppers and a small number of chillies on the only plant to escape the chickens.  The top pepper in the bowl came from a self-seeded plant, not sure what it self-seeded from though!  Anyway, that's why it is a different shape to the others.

I pulled up the chilli plant and it is now hanging by the bananas in the faint hope that the fruit will turn red - you can eat them green but visually I prefer red.

Tomorrow is market day at la Flèche - I'm not sure if I dare attempt the trip or not.  One the one hand I need raw butter, croissants, decent cheese, bacon, fish.  On the other hand, I don't want a 135€ fine if some jobsworth decides I'm not allowed to go there.  Decisions, decisions.....

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 4 - a precious hour

I can't remember if sleep was hard to come by in the first confinement, but this time round it isn't easy, and there have been some deeply weird dreams.  Today I am trying a healthier day to see if that makes any difference.  First off, and force majeure as there is no bakery in the village any more, was breakfast, and a delicious bowl of porridge with quince jelly to get the day going.  Hopefully the oats will prove that they really are a super food - quince is also pretty special.  I should point out that I don't make the porridge, and it is also not my quince jelly - so a double treat, in that someone else made it all!

The weather was once again miserable, so for much of the day, I had to content myself with staring at the computer and dealing with trying issues that threaten to overwhelm me at the moment.  So it was a relief as it got round to four o'clock that the skies cleared a bit, and I could change my mindset and find a blank attestation, my map of allowed walks and a few bits to deliver.  Then I strode out armed with ID card, attestation, face mask and a desire for exercise and fresh air.

Once I had dropped off the things that needed to be dropped off, and had chatted with a friend who was walking her dog, I pursued the route I had mapped out in my head.  Once I got to the highest point, I could look out towards the main road and one of the chateaux in the area, but actually while I thought a view into the distance would help, it only showed how short a distance I could go towards the horizon.

Back into the village and I went down to the Pont de Godeau (you can wait there, but Godot doesn't turn up I find) to see how the local river is swollen with the recent rain.  That was a far more satisfying view.

This time, parks are not closed, so I could walk around the village lake and look back along the valley.  Here I could let my imagination run wild as I was close to the site of the Battle of Vieil Baugé, (in)famous for being the turning point of the Hundred Years War.  But sadly I stayed firmly grounded in the here and now - not least as next year is the 600th anniversary of the battle, but how many of the plans for celebrating that will actually happen?  I had hoped my Scottish friends would be able to join us, but that looks less likely (the invitation still stands, guys).

Clearly I need to prepare myself mentally before taking advantage of my precious hour out and about.  Something for tomorrow.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 3 - yukky Sunday

Nothing like an out of focus vampire cat to wake you up!  Yesterday was Spooky's Day, and he seems to have coped - I didn't see him but there were no obvious broken bodies so I think he tidied up well.

Reading my Spring Lockdown Diary entries last night, I noted a lot of sitting in the sun in the garden, and enjoying the peace and the sun.  In November that is likely to be a rare event, and getting wet, taking exercise between showers and trying to stay sunny mentally is more likely to be the norm.  Armed with my attestation I went out to visit the Boys in the Country, and checked on the rainfall gauge and the remaining vegetables, but it wasn't nice, and I only spent 5 minutes or so outside.

I picked my way down to the inspirational view, but that was misty and the autumn colours are fading, while the stark necessity of doing some hard graft with a hedge trimmer comes to the fore.  And my feet got very wet (note to self - there are wellies at that site, use them!). 

I can hear the sparrows making a racket in Sparrow City from here - the massively overgrown bay tree that needs to be trimmed, but otherwise it is very quiet in the village.  I looked out last night close to midnight and all I could hear was an owl shouting about something.

I hope for a brighter day tomorrow, and the ability to take advantage of my allowed 1 hour exercise out of the house and gardens - it should be dry in the afternoon.  But now I must go and tend to my pot roast and help John bottle the pear and peach eau de vie that is judged to be "ready".