This isn't a classic autumn, with lovely colours, sharp, bright days, and cold nights with a log fire. October was the warmest ever recorded in France, Europe and indeed the world, so the sudden shock of cold that is needed for the marvellous reds and yellows of autumn hasn't happened. Instead we had a warm and relatively dry October, and since the start of November, we have had two named storms and at least 66 millimetres of rain. Of course that is nothing compared to up in the Pas de Calais, where they have unprecedented floods, but it is quite enough here. Our ponds (other than in the One Acre Wood) are filling with water finally and there are waterlogged fields, testimony to the areas of clay pan in the valleys around here. There is some autumn colour, but really only offered by field maple.
While in the UK not wearing a poppy is near criminal behaviour, here in France, you can choose to wear a cornflower, but have to look hard to buy one. However, every village in our district has its own Remembrance Parade, before everyone converges at Baugé for the big one. The local Cadets get to play a lot of jaunty marches and the fire brigade and police need to attend as many of the parades as they can get to, and pity the poor standard bearers for the Anciens Combattants, not in the first flush of youth in any case, and then needing to parade their standards at least twice! However the stigmata of war are to be found everywhere if you know where to look - small shrines to fallen planes or murdered resistance fighters, bullets and marks in walls, hidden arms in roof voids or skeletons in cellars, and a repurposed Nazi bunkhouse doing time as a garage. It is therefore more than just the uniformed groups that are out and about whenever the 11th November falls, not the nearest Sunday, but the real day, to remember, to demand the end of war, and to think of those that have fallen.
Despite the lack of frost so far, I couldn't wait any longer and dug up a couple of parsnips. In my defence I found a lovely oxtail in the market, and you can't slow cook oxtail without a nice parsnip or two and carrots. That's tomorrow's joy as we have the rest of the cristophine and cauliflower cheese tonight, plus I set the slow cooker off at about 10am for oxtail and at that time today, these beauties were still in the ground!
Although the leaves are still on the trees, particularly the oaks, we made a start on this year's firewood campaign. In late summer I check round to see which trees are either dead or mostly dead, and mark them up for felling, and then through the winter, we will cut down perhaps five and process them, taking the long dead stuff away, and leaving the lengths of recently living wood stacked in the One Acre Wood to mature.
Three years ago, the plot next to the One Acre Wood was clear felled and that has made a difference to the light and the wind patterns. Added to that, the desperately dry and hot summers, and there are actually nearer 20 trees marked for felling. Yesterday we took a huge one down that had a good position to fall nicely - an easy one - as it has been almost a year since the last felling. It came down nicely, but with a huge bang - it had fallen directly onto an old stump! Close inspection of the trunk showed evidence of a fence nail from some 18 years ago, before we bought the Wood.
Another bit of evidence of how mucked up this year is, is a late flush of kittens. Normal kitten time is the summer, with them being discarded by the road or in woods between late June and mid-August as people go on holiday. So to find a young kitten, perhaps 14 or 16 weeks old bouncing around the garden and the courtyard in November was a bit strange. A plea on the local Facebook site did not bring forth a worried owner, rather someone else who had the same kitten bouncing around, two gardens over, and wasn't able to take it on. Another neighbour had taken it to the vet to see if was identified (a legal requirement here in France), but no. He also tried to take it to a shelter, but was told no. The shelter I support I know has run out of space as well. What to do?
Well, as an xx year old Mad Cat Woman, what could I do? Rebus - current gender unknown (but will be neuter as soon as possible) - has landed and made itself very comfortable. Nibbles is unaware and so not fussed, but Poirot and Zola are unimpressed. It's going to be a long winter!
Have a good week!
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