This week the inaugural edition of the Tour du Pays de la Loire was run, and Day 3 of the race started at Baugé en Anjou. While it was a professional race, the teams were limited to 6 riders each, and the top names were saving themselves for this weekend's Paris-Roubaix, although I am sure many would give up the threat of the cobbles in the latter race for the joys of Anjou! There was the usual Village Depart in town, but as parking would have been vile, I had just got my new orthopaedic insoles, and the Depart Fictif was coming through the village, we decided to watch it go through just up the road. By quarter to midday, a small crowd of villagers had gathered in the Place d'Eglise to see it go past. With the Tour de France, you get the media helicopters and a publicity caravan dishing out goodies. With the Tour du Pays de la Loire, you get more official Tour motorbikes than seems feasible, plus loads of police outriders, until the actual competitors arrive. Then after they go through, you have at least one car per team, plus ambulance, doctor, red lantern van (picks up stragglers) and a final van for anything that looks dodgy. Here are the riders arriving in the village up the big hill (something to warm up the leg muscles).
We are in a race against time and the elements to get the potato bed ready for planting. In theory the spuds go in on Good Friday, but weather and other people's lawns have made it difficult to get going on this. Still yesterday John managed to get perhaps half the bed, or at least enough for 2 to 3 rows of potatoes to be planted if there is nothing else to do!
The trail camera is in the Garden at the moment. In theory it was placed to see what is coming through the fence, prior to blocking off the hole, but we don't have any evidence of that. We have plenty of wood pecker action (due a blog of its own), and have many fine shots of the massive rat that has a burrow in the garden. We have also occasional shots of these two racing around - they never stay close to the camera for video footage, just stills. I am pretty sure they are not rats (the tail is wrong where it exists), but otherwise I am not too sure. It could be the pine martins that seem to live mainly over in the meadow, not least as one of those is minus a tail now, but I'm not totally convinced.
Flowers and blossom have been a bit delayed this year compared to the last few, so the tulips are racing away to flower before it gets too hot. The red ones are in their second year in a pot by the Shack kitchen, while the yellow ones (which were brought as white) were planted three years ago on the edge of one of the cultivated squares. The square has moved it would seem as they are a way off it now!
Of course not everything is rushing around (thankfully), and this week we have been able to taste the fruits of our labours in the form of harvesting 2 of our 6 cauliflowers. These aren't the easiest vegetable to grow and are in the ground for ages - over 7 months in this case. I think the only thing I can say about our success is that the wretched plants seem to favour being planted in near solid clay. Anyway, here is a portrait of the one we are eating at the moment (half roasted yesterday, the rest raw today).
The Easter weekend is proving to be beautifully sunny and warm - well, at least until late tonight or early tomorrow when rain comes in. We laboured long and hard in the potager yesterday, what with rotavating, planting onions, and clearing soil to sow mangetout peas, so we were both entitled to hammock time. It was lovely lying there, looking up at the tiny new birch leaves opening above us.
Next Sunday we are selling "stuff" at a vide grenier, so the blog won't be written until the following day - it's not like the UK where a car boot is over by midday. Here you set up at about 7:30am, and don't get to dismantle and go until gone 5:30pm, but which time I won't want to communicate with anything!!
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