The first of June brought meteorological summer - it's just an arbitrary date, but it works for me and my filing for photos. It is true that it also stopped raining on the 1st June and hasn't started again since for us, but that won't last much longer I think. But the evening of 1st June was very cool - I know this as we walked the 3km from our front door to the Centre René d'Anjou in Baugé for the final hurrah of the Comice 2023. This was the party to say thank you to the volunteers who put in so many hours of hard work all through 2023 (although for those on the Drinks Committee, initially it didn't look like hard work!). We were warned to be there for 7:30pm, as speeches needed to start at 7:45pm - well both of those had the Anjou 15 minutes added to them!
What a night! Aperos, a four course dinner with relevant different wines, two cabaret singers and three dancers, speeches (but not too many) and dancing until dawn for those who could manage it. Light weights that we are, we left after pudding at 00:45am for the 3km walk home in the dark. My chum Brigitte ran away at 4:00am as she knew she had tidying up to do the following morning. Our President locked up at about 6:00am but didn't go to bed, as he had to be back to let in the cleaning party at 9:00am!
And that is why I had pre-prepared last week's blog!!
Once the rain stopped, we did start getting sunny weather, so that by Tuesday, my legs were timidly being shown the open air from time to time and I am now sitting in shorts, doing my typing. I wouldn't say that summer has settled in by any means, but we are now having to water things, so we are sort of in the ball park.
Last summer, the highlight of our growing season was the mighty cristophine vine, which John nurtured and which fed us well during autumn. My chum Stéphane the Estate Agent said we should watch out as they are actually perennials, and it would come back. "What does he know? Pfff!" were some of our comments to that. But we didn't have much by way of frost over winter, and John strimming the area to prepare to plant his new cristophine plants just seemed to annoy it, and it is Back and it is Angry! The weather isn't really warm enough yet for it to get truly rampant, but the phrase "Feed me Seymour" is back!
No Mow May is a real thing nowadays, and some people get very tetchy if you don't buy into it wholeheartedly. I think you have to be careful, and you need to look at your land to see where you can do this, and where you can't. Some bits of our plots have had a No Mow May more due to the weather and machines falling apart trying to deal with overly luxurious growth. My nice clear path down the side of the fruit trees to the plantation area and the mud pools has only been kept open by the passage of deer and boar, which now makes it Tic Alley!
It will take us a long time to get this passable again not least as this sort of luxurious growth takes its toll on machines. Our first trusty ride on lawnmower, who has gone miles round various different gardens, has had to be given a retirement plan of being a small towing tractor, as the mowing pan has rotted away in too many places, and can't be patched any more. It is fair to say that Maurice has worked hard over the 18 years we have had him, so we can't really complain too much. The 6 month wait for a new cutting deck is too long to wait however, so we are looking at Plan B.
I will leave you with a display of lovely flowers - where things are happy with the weather conditions, they are thriving, and the climbing rose on the front of the house, the small fragrant rose I bought at Aldi (other cheap supermarkets are available) and was disappointed with last year, bee orchids and lizard orchids are all very happy with life. And that makes me happy.
I'm planning on bringing in one of the trail cameras during the week, so there could be wildlife pictures and videos next week, you never know!
Have a good week!
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