From yesterday evening at 7pm, France entered its third Covid lockdown. Many call this Lockdown Lite, as there are fewer restrictions in some ways, although reading through the rules in detail this morning I found a big difference to last time. We don't need attestations for travel up to 10km from home between 6am and 7pm this time, so we can get to The One Acre Wood (off limits last spring) and The Shack without paperwork. We just need to carry our residency permits with us.
So what is different? I cannot get to la Flèche market, I will be deprived of my raw butter, my croissants and my suppliers of chorizo, serrano ham and rotisserie chicken legs. This is because while I can travel up to 30km for purchases of premier necessité (i.e. food, plants), I can't go over departmental boundaries, and thus la Sarthe is closed to me. Not happy about that at all.
Still today we could go to the Shack and prepare the beds for tomatoes, squashes and courgettes, and sweetcorn. The sweetcorn bed had been manured and rotavated, so just needed to be levelled and covered until we sow later this month once the cold snap is over. The tomato and squash beds had been rotavated and covered, but then needed manure adding and recovered. All ready now!
From the Shack, we went to the One Acre Wood to pay homage to the King of the Forest who is just starting to get his new leaves on.
Further down the hill in the Wood, we spotted the first spikes and buds of lily of the valley coming through - in total I think there were about 7 showing but there will be many more coming up in the next couple of weeks.
At home, there is a lot of blossom. While the plum is now over (and we will have to protect the tree overnight for the next three nights of sharp frost to protect any tiny set fruit), the pear is in full swing and the first of the apple trees is starting to have open blossom. The cherry next door is coated and has a strong perfume (see - no sign of Covid for me!).
Although this week might be a bit erratic (major changes in the offing in some aspects of our lives), I will try to do my daily confinement blog, although I know many of my readers are now starting to enjoy ever more freedom! We felt for you in your extended lockdown, feel for us in ours!
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