Rural Life

Winter approaches

It's been another of those weeks where the weather could take centre stage, with rain, wind, snow and today, bizarrely warm temperatures.  The 18ºC we see today is a blip caused by a weird weather pattern, and amusing after the snow that fell on Thursday to the horror of cats, chickens and us!

The Douceur Angevine meant that the snow here quickly disappeared during Thursday morning, which was good as we were heading to Paris for a 24 hour trip, but further north and east it kept going and Paris in driving snow is different, but a bit uncomfortable.

Once in Paris and off the metro, we learned that our "smart" phones and Google maps don't like snow and what should have been a 2 minute walk to our hotel took 15, as we were taken from the metro in a sort of spiral.  Dumping our case and things not needed for the rest of the day, like a decent camera, we headed back out into the blizzard to find the Musée d'Orsay and the rest of the gang for a much needed hot chocolate.  We had occasional stops to admire buildings and views that were transfigured by driving snow flakes.

If it is before Christmas and it is snowing, clearly the right thing to do is go to a Christmas Market and the big one at the Jardins des Tuileries had opened.  It therefore seemed churlish not to go along and partake of the Christmas spirit and some welcome vin chaud before a turn or three on the big wheel.  As we don't like crowds, it was probably the best time to go, despite the snow, as a nice, dry evening would bring out the hoards I'm sure.  We were amused at how little French we heard while we were there!

Once we had done the fun of the fair, we headed south to find dinner - sadly we didn't go far enough and had an average and expensive meal near the Beaux Arts.  Still the place was able to cope with 7 of us, each with different food and drink needs, and more inclined for chatting and laughter than haute cuisine.  Walking through to the river, I did take the compulsory Eifel Tower shot!

Then it was time to head in different directions to respective hotels and we strolled up into the St Germain des Près district to find a café for a nightcap.  We found the Deux Megots - famed for its illustrious clientele such as Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and the like, and us!  St Germain is also famous for jazz, and Thursday night is jazz night, so we settled in for inspired music from an instrumental trio, expensive drinks, and the most amazing floor show of people watching.  That is what Paris nightlife is about!  

The following morning and the storm had gone, as had much of the snow, and Paris is much prettier in the sun.  We wandered around the district, finding another couple of amazing cafés, one for breakfast, and one for a restorative cup of hot chocolate - the sort of hot chocolate that is a large spoon of quality chocolate spread, with a bit of scalding hot milk added so that the spread melts.  If you let it go too cool, it then resolidifies!  We also found the Palais de Luxemburg or the French Senat.

And so we are home again, after living the high life for 24 hours.  And it is good to be home.  There was a Christmas Market here too today - no snow, no fairground rides, lots of French being spoken and rather than some tacky baubles and overpriced foods, local craftspeople were showing off their wares.  There were felted gloves, repurposed wood and furniture, home woven textiles, an animal psychologist, producers of seeds, and of course food stalls.  We succumbed to spice sachets for vin chaud, tomato ketchup and smoked chilli paste before heading home for lunch.

I had thought I wouldn't bother with Christmas cake this year, but I have been ranted at from Australia (and not even a family member too) about lack of respect for tradition rather severely, so I had better go and look at my store cupboard and see what I need to buy in addition for cake making on Wednesday afternoon.  I know it is leaving it a bit late, but on the other hand, the Christmas pudding has been maturing for well over a year now, so these things balance out.  That's my excuse anyway!

Have a good week!

 

Unwelcome Autumn visitors

Late autumn often brings nasty surprises - tax bills for example - and we have had a number this week.  The last, but most impactful for me is a virulent head cold, which is making every task seem much larger than it really is and more painful too.  It will go in time - taking seven days if I use treatments, and a week if I let it run its course - but I am on day 3, normally the worst, and feeling sorry for myself.

Yesterday (so day 2 of nasal misery) I came face to face with another nasty surprise, an over wintering House Slug.  Not a normal slug: in its resting mode it was a good four inches (9cm) long and half an inch (one and a bit cm) wide, so clearly a flesh eating House Slug.  It was resting on the side of the pot that holds my tiny mango seedling, grown from a pip of a fruit given to us by our new neighbour, and it is the first time I've managed to get one to germinate.  The seedling was living quite happily in the garden until it got attacked by a slug or snail, so I put it indoors to be guarded by the Country Cats.  We had a discussion about how they were slacking, but they paid no attention.  I evicted the slug and hope it was found by a questing fox or buzzard.

We have had two nights with a slight frost this week, enough to further chill down the house after an October that hit the record books for being one of the two dullest (i.e. lack of sun) on record.  It was a relief on Monday to see a strange yellow glow in the sky, but it didn't last long.  

But in amongst all this gloom, there are some truly French things that remind me why we live here. 

There was a note in our post box a couple of weeks ago - "come along to my garage on Sunday morning for a wine tasting (there will also be nibbles)".  A neighbour has a chum with a vinyard over the border near Chinon, and once a year, they lay on a tasting of bottled wines and wines "en vrac", i.e. buy a canister and bottle it yourself.  We weren't much taken with the bottled offerings, but the "en vrac" was rather splendid, so we put in an order.  The word on the street was that the wine would arrive on Saturday evening.  So yesterday evening, along with a bunch of others, we strolled down the road with our wheelbarrow and brought back our 20 litres of finest Chinon red.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that I am going to take my festering head cold away from my freezing cold office and down to the warm, where I will help bottle 20 litres of red wine, which seems a very sensible way of spending a November evening!

Have a good week!

 

Quiet times

In the end we had 13 consecutive days without a glimpse of the sun, just dull, foggy, dankness.  On Friday, the sun finally made an appearance for three hours, one and a half of which I was in an office and for the rest I failed to bring out my phone and take a picture as proof.  And now the greyness is back for a few more days - how nice!

I did threaten to bring in a trail camera, as I thought the batteries might be running out.  I did that yesterday, and discovered that the batteries gave out about 3 weeks ago - my bad!  Actually there wasn't much activity recorded in the three weeks it was working.  It was placed in the Orchard, with the hope of catching boar family antics, but while there was one night time video with a couple of snuffling sounds, there was not a hint of boar.  The camera was by something we call Badger Road, and sure enough, there were numerous shots of a badger passing through at speed, so most weren't much good.  This is one of the best.

There were lots of pictures of us passing by the camera (well as many "lots" as you can get when there were only 160 files in total), which have all been removed, leaving just 49 files with anything at all, including a few of our cats.  There was a nice image of a deer, with an accompanying video I've not had a chance to load onto YouTube - for another day!

There was also a nice one of a couple of jays, again with an interesting video to follow.

Finally, there was a fine shot of the fox, showing off his magnificent bushy tail!

Other wildlife fun this week has been observing a few Asian hornets in the zone.  They are mainly workers at the end of their life, fulfilling a desire for sugary things - rotting apples and ivy nectar in the main.  A good frost and they will die off, but we will be vigilant from February, keeping an eye out for the next batch of queens to trap and destroy.  European hornets are natural, the Asian ones are non-native and causing havoc among the insect population as they seek out protein from May to August to feed the colony.

An important discovery for us yesterday was that our favourite café in town has reopened.  About a month ago I guess, I spotted that it was closed with curtains drawn, and after waiting a couple of weeks in case it was just holidays, I reluctantly decided it was gone - another blight on the year.  But yesterday, the curtains were gone, there was a new painting on the plate glass window and when we went in, the coffee was still the best in town.  Good luck to the new owners!

And now I must turn my attention back to a slightly poorly puss cat.  Poirot, the doyenne of our group, has an eye infection, which means anti-inflammatory drops four times a day and anti-biotic paste in the eye twice a day.  Fortunately she is very food oriented, with a passion for Dreamies and for cheese or salmon flavoured creamy gloop.  She is not resisting eye drops or paste as she knows that she will get a copious and tasty treat straight afterwards.  It is not so easy with cats that don't like treats!

Have a good week!

 

Half full or half empty?

While last week I showed a photo of a sunny day and a cat in a hammock, I had hoped for much more sunshine this week.  Indeed every day the forecast was for sunshine "tomorrow" or "the day after tomorrow" and today even "this afternoon".  But it hasn't happened - the high pressure and sodden ground has kept fog and low cloud in place all week with no respite at all.  The ground hasn't dried out at all, making lifting potatoes unnecessarily hard work, while the lack of light saps the spirit.  I think the constant broken promise of sun tomorrow has made it all the harder to bear and I am sick of it.

There are odd chinks of colour to look out for.  I have always been a fan of nerines, and sometimes they flower for me, but mostly they don't.  This year I have been lucky and one has flowered and I have been able to admire the circle of bright pink flowers each day for a couple of weeks as I go to feed the chickens.

The trees haven't done much by way of autumn colour - we haven't had much of a cold snap, just constant, bone aching dank.  It is possible there will be a late flush of colour but I'm not holding my breath.  However there is another plant that provides a pretty reliable splash of colour in the autumn, and because I grow it in hanging baskets, I get to admire it rather than having it covered in dead tree leaves.  The strawberry leaves are quite spectacular this year, with odd fruits hidden away.  The fruit isn't interesting as it needs sunlight to produce a bit of sweetness and flavour, and we haven't had any of that for a while (see above), but you can't have everything.

I had to visit a house and garden during the week and was stunned by the display of dramatic flower heads on the yucca plants there.  Mine have done nothing this year, and of course indoor ones don't get the conditions to do this.  For me there is no rhyme or reason to when yuccas flower, but I am grateful to see them doing their thing this year.

As the leaves fall, it becomes obvious where Asian hornets have been building nests.  While I've not spotted any in our area, not least due to the successful trapping and destroying campaigns in Baugé en Anjou, I did see this one when visiting the house and garden with the yuccas.  The nest had been breached as I saw a bird or two flying in and out - perhaps the amazing tit family have decided they like to eat them, much as they do with pine processionary grubs?

It's not all gloom I guess.  The lack of frost and the moist conditions mean that the cristophine vine goes from strength to strength, with leaves the size of dinner plates and hidden fruits.  In the gloom it looks a bit like a hut or shelter, and actually it does do a good job when it rains.  Assuming no prolonged period of intense frost this winter (unlikely given global warming, although it would be good), this brute will be back next year!

Most of the garlic we planted last year was not worth lifting, so I didn't.  But I noticed today that those bulbs are pushing back up and will provide tasty scallion style garlic "spring onions" through the winter.  It might be worth planning next year's potager plots after all!

With that in mind, I am now off to cook chicken Béarnaise, otherwise known as garlic chicken. 

I am minded to bring in a trail camera during the week, as there is one that has been in place for a couple of months now and probably needs to be checked over.  All things being equal, there could be much more exciting things to write about next week than autumnal murk!

Have a good week!