Rural Life

First image from the Trail Camera

Yes, finally, something other than a cat or a blackbird!  We took the camera down from its position yesterday afternoon and I watched through the videos and looked a the photos.  We now know what is making the tracks around the Garden bit of the estate (not by our house in the village), but it look a lot of zooming and searching and thinking.  This is the best image I could do (because all that image enhancement on CSI and NCIS is military boloney).

Anyway, the camera is now set up in a new position, and I will have to contain my excitement until Saturday next week to see what the new position gets (Big Hint, Santa, I want hares and badgers and deer and foxes and pheasants and partridges and hedgehogs!).

In the news today I see that Richard Rogers has fallen off his perch at the age of 88.  My Dad was very friendly with his first father in law, Marcus Brumwell, and used to stay at the house Rogers designed for him on the Fal Estuary.  I was therefore fascinated to see Creek Vean featured in the BBC obituary.  I remember visiting it once, when perhaps 13 years old.  Mum was having kittens while I was in the house due to the number of quality modern ceramics dotted around, while when I was in the garden I got annoyed with all the stones with holes dotted around - only Barbara Hepworth sculptures, but at 13 one tends to be a philistine!

The photo is from the BBC website, but is credited to English Heritage.

The days are nearing their shortest now, so it isn't surprising to see the moon rise as I go to lock up the chickens in the evening.  Or it shouldn't be, but the anticyclone is locking humidity at ground level so for much of the time we have been "enjoying" wall to wall low level murk.  Yesterday was different fortunately, so I was able to capture moon rise over the Church and next door's underwear (better photo editing required in future me thinks).  It is just past the full, but was exceedingly bright.

Although the bulk of winter is still ahead of us, there are ever more signs that plants are preparing for the spring.  There are seedlings appearing of annual flowers and weeds, and the tiny buttons of next year's sedums by the dead stalks from this year.  The polyanthus that John rescued from a bin are also starting to prepare flowers to brighten up January - and in a clever bit of planting, I got the purple ones in by the shrub with the spookily purple berries.

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Well, that's all for today - there really is very little new going on at the moment, other than laying bets as to when curfew will be reinstated and when travel within France will be limited (my personal bet is for the 29th December).  The next instalment is likely to be on the 27th and hopefully will include more wildlife photography from the trail camera.  In the meantime, Happy December 25th.

 

Seasonal ailments

Much of this last week has been an uncomfortable blur, courtesy of that old familiar of autumn, the common cold.  I've not had one for two or three years - perhaps one thing that Covid has done for us, is improve hygiene to the extent that we are not in contact with every germ and bug that is doing the rounds.  Incessant hand washing, social distancing, and fear of the big C has kept us free from the annual round of sniffles, snuffles and squits.  On the other hand, when you do come into contact with one of the little darlings, there is no residual resistance in your body and you are a veritable smorgasbord for germs, mucus, infection and all the misery that goes with it.  It hasn't helped that I was in general very run down as well, but from late last Sunday night until sometime last night, I was the victim of "that nasty cold doing the rounds" and I wasn't happy.  This morning was the first time I felt life might return to normal!  A sleeping/roosting bantam is a good metaphor for how I felt!

Yesterday we had our own small backlash from Storm Arwen - nothing like across the UK, where wind, snow and rain have been doing their worst, but dull dark skies, an evil wind and sleet was bad enough.  So it was a surprise and a good example of pathetic fallacy that when I got up feeling a bit more lively this morning, the sun was shining and the sky was blue.  True there was a strong and evil wind from the North West, but so much better than we could have hoped for.  And what do you do on a bright Sunday in late Autumn?  Go looking for firewood.

It was a good excuse to go to the One Acre Wood, bring down a dead tree that had been worrying us, and generally look around and admire.  I found a mushroom, non-edible, and one of a type that I refer to as Grey Slimy.

The One Acre Wood, like much woodland around here is chestnut coppice with oak stands, the odd pine tree, and then anything else that can set seed.  There is a good reason for this - oak is a strategic crop and many woods around here were designated by Napoleon to make up for those trees felled to make warships.  There is a good clay substrate round here and terracotta floor tiles are a local product of renown.  To make the tiles, you need clay, chestnut for the firing and pine sap for the glaze/finish of the tile.  Growing them all together near clay pits makes sense. 

In among all of those sensible trees, we have chequers or common service - the berries can be used to make beer (hence so many British pubs being called The Chequers), which propagate by runners, like elm, as well as by seed.  We have holly (again expand by runners).  We had a couple of rowan, but both are now dead, one felled when Enedis were clearing the lines for no obvious reason other than it was in their way and they didn't care.  We also had one beech tree, which met the same fate - it was in the way of the people felling trees near the line, so was felled as well even though it was 10 meters from the line and in good nick.  I was gutted.  Until today, when I found a 2 year old beech sapling pulling away nicely.

In amidst the awfulness of the cold, I had a birthday, but not a classic one.  However I am now the proud owner of a trail camera, which has proved very good at catching short videos of feet, and cats turning round on sofas overnight.  I am hoping that by next week I might have mastered the technology well enough to have a short video or photos of something more interesting.  Well a girl can dream!

 
 

November Travels

As mentioned last week, I made my first trip to Plague Island since March 9th 2020 this week.  The skies were dramatic as I packed the car to leave home, but it was an uneventful drive to the port and a boring wait to be loaded and a flat crossing.  The boat wasn't really that full, so I do query why it took an hour and a half to get off the ferry and onto the M27 - in part it could be explained by a lorry driver that overslept and had clearly forgotten that his vehicle was blocking everyone else, but even so!  I think I was the second last person out of the port not driving a lorry, but then it was all behind me and the adventure could begin!

My first real stop (not including caffeine and comfort) was at Whixall Marina in Shropshire where I met a representative of the Restoring the Marches Mosses BogLIFE project for a walk out to the Mammoth Tower and to see how the Mosses are being restored and rewetted.  For a couple of old crocks, we made good time and covered a few kilometres!  The best photos (I hope) have yet to be downloaded from the proper camera, but I was truly impressed with the change at the former Scrapyard, which is slowly reverting to nature, rather than piles of old tyres, stacks of twisted metal and everything with a slightly oil stained sheen.

The following day, I took a couple of hours out to walk into the centre of Shrewsbury - quite my favourite place in England!  It was sad to see many empty shop fronts, but even so, they still have lots of small independent outlets there.  I also had a quick visit to Smethwick High Street - no photos of that, and smello vision is not a thing yet.  The spices that were on the air as I got out of my car, the enticing shop fronts and the cosmopolitan nature of the area are a total joy, though different to Shrewsbury.

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Thursday was devoted to all things Birmingham, so given HS2 and preparations for the Commonwealth Games, it was easier, but unsettling, to use public transport.  It did all pan out well, until I got back to Tamworth and had to wait for 20 minutes for a taxi, and I wore a mask more than anyone else I saw!  I visited the two Victorian Cemeteries in the Jewellery Quarter - well worth it, if you have the time.  Warstone Lane is more accessible, and I was privileged to be allowed to participate in a Remembrance Day ceremony with cadets from a local school.  It was very special for many reasons.  After a spot of eco-friendly lunch at a local café, I then visited Key Hill Cemetery, including a private view of the catacombs.  This site is more private and is home to nearly 100 London Planes - it is very beautiful.

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My final day was focussed on the River Cole, where Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the Tame Valley Wetlands Partnership are leading work to improve a number of sites and equip local people and organisations with the skills to maintain then and do more once this funding pot is all spent.  Again the best photos are on the main camera, but the lake at Tamworth was improved with the previous funding, and the work at Meriden Park was at an exciting stage, where for once they are seeking to speed up the flow of water in a river.  I didn't film the way the ground wobbled around us as the digger went past as I was in fight or flight mode!

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The crossing on Friday night was much bumpier, so much more to my liking, and I was home by 10:30am yesterday, as it only took a quarter of an hour to get off the ship and out of the port (not least as I was nearly pole position on the car deck and I know where I've left my car!!).  But after walking 25km in 4 days, and losing a lot of sleep with the ferry crossing, much of yesterday wafted past in a dream-like trance.  Today I feel more normal and we spent time at the Garden, mowing, mulching and for me clearing and forking over a seedbed and sowing 52 broad bean seeds (must wear my glasses next time I buy seeds - 80g not 80 graines!).  I also had a good mooch round, looking at how things had changed, including my radishes sown in leaf mould, and lifted a winter radish for lunch... for the next two days!  At the One Acre Wood we found a single interesting mushroom, but left it there.

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Looking in the flower border, I saw hopeful signs.  I left the annual flowers to set seed and die back, before pulling away the old stalks a couple of weeks ago.  Looking at the seedlings that are coming up, I can see signs that the frilly purple stuff and cornflowers have indeed set seed and are now sprouting to put on an earlier display next year.  I'll not do any more weeding there now, but let things over-winter, and then see if they need a helping hand in the spring.

The camera isn't always there to hand

Well what's that about?  Only that the Patrouille de France - the French answer to the Red Arrows - have been based at our local airport for the past few days.  They arrive, they do a practice of their air show, they go off and do their air show at Saumur, they come back, they get a delivery of air force kerosene, they do another practice, then they go and buzz the Tour de France finish before heading home.  I've heard them three times and seen them twice - in formation - and not had a camera of any sort to hand to capture the moment.  Rather splendid though.  It was easier to capture us both relaxing in different forms of hammock at midday today, after working hard.

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We are getting different flowers out now.  My favourite cultivated flowers, agapanthus, are coming out by the front door.  The first cyclamen have started to show in the lawn, making mowing so much more challenging.  The gladioli are coming out but are a disappointing yellow - perhaps the red ones are the ones that got munched by snails.  Last year in the UK, when I could still get there and visit a Poundshop, and could bring back bulbs, I bought a couple of mystery lily bulbs.  They didn't do much last year but will be magnificent soon.

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I worry a bit about our older cats and that they can be a bit lazy, so last weekend, I invested in a couple of things to arouse their interest.  While Poirot has made it clear that all this is beneath her, Nibbles has taken a very keen interest in finding and catching the Red Spot, public enemy number one for all cats.  She has also taken to worshipping the planter that the giant catnip plant is wedged in at the moment - I don't think she can climb into the planter, or it could get very ugly.  She is not a pretty spaced out person.

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We lifted the shallot harvest on Wednesday - magnificent though I say so myself - and they are now drying on a nice bulb drying tray I got from a chum locally - thanks Brigitte!  I am concerned about the spuds.  They have flowered and there is a lot of die back.  I foolishly didn't read the packet properly and these are second earlies, so I am hoping they are doing what comes naturally, as the other explanation is Blight, which is Bad.

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Have a good week!

 

Still a chunk of weather out there!

I wouldn't want to be considered one who rubbernecks, but I did feel that if it was from a suitable distance, getting sight of what had happened at St Nicholas de Bourgeuil a couple of weeks ago would be interesting.  It didn't disappoint, and on Friday, as I took a different route to Chinon, I was able to stop just below the buildings of la Jarnoterie (many may know this grower) and look across the vineyards to something that might be compared to what Godzilla would do if she visited the area.  The village is still blocked off, and quite rightly.

The weather is really not right for this time of year, with sweatshirts not banished to the back of the cupboard, jeans de rigeur much of the time and mushrooms!  Further south, friends have found cèpes.  Yesterday we found three different varieties in the Garden - none of them convincing for eating purposes, but wrong at the beginning of July.

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There are also the things that you would expect from this time of year - lovely banks of lavender humming with bees and hawkmoths, peacock butterflies on the buddleia and marbled whites on the wild scabious.  Our nascent herbaceous border has lots of bee friendly flowers out now as well as hidden shrubs and rampant weeds - actually it is hard to distinguish it from the surrounding weeds as it has been too wet to get a mower in there to define the edges.

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Of course July in France is all about la grande boucle - the Tour de France - and today they are up in the mountains with an uphill finish at Tignes.  I downloaded the Tour de France app this lunchtime and am impressed by it.  But now I must go and watch the utter pain and ultimate glory of an uphill finish!

Until next week!

 

 

Waiting for Summer, although Spring might be nice!

No lockdown title at the moment, although we do still have curfew between 9pm and 6am, and aren't really supposed to travel across international borders unless it is really important.  I said I would continue to do the odd blog - I'm going to try for Sunday afternoons, once I've done my afternoon's work.

The big news this week was of course that café, pub and restaurant terraces could open to customers outdoors - our local opened on Thursday (officially he could have opened on Wednesday, but it isn't one of his "days"), but we were tied up with work until 7:30pm, so our first indulgence was on Friday evening.  Normality was restored and beer o'clock (or wine o'clock) was back!

Of course this had to be outdoors, and while there is a high roof over the terrace, that doesn't stop wind, and when it rains and there is wind, it doesn't stop rain much either, so we had to move tables.  The showers currently are very localised, so while it was pelting it down with rain, there was also sunshine and therefore a rainbow, or even two!

This morning we spent at The Shack, hedge trimming, a bit of mowing, a lot of weeding, some potting on and some planting of seedlings, but probably the most important activity was getting the ropes installed for the hammock.  And then we had to try it out - OMG!  Really rather blissful, to lie in the hammock, swinging slightly, listening to the birds and the blasted wind in the leaves, because yes, that wind is still going.  Cats also thought that this was pretty good, as whichever of us was in the hammock was also pretty horizontal and therefore unable to do much about being laid on and licked.

I also beat the bounds and found more bee orchids coming into flower - I'm quite pleased with this photo.

Finally, a serious bit.  The past 18 months with Covid have been hard in many ways for many people.  I guess John and I have got away with it pretty well, as we are fairly antisocial, and with our outdoor lifestyle and the gardens, have been able to be out and about without too many constraints.  But we have been pretty limited in how far we can go and who we can see, and this was brought home rather brutally, with news that an old friend died during the week.  I'd seen him in September 2019, and had planned to see him again in April or May 2020, when over for work, but of course that didn't happen, and in any case I wouldn't have been welcome because of the virus.  But I have good memories of September 2019.  Worse is that he was one of a pretty tight knit bunch of us that worked closely together in the early 90s, and at this time in normal circumstances, we would be able to get together, share stories, memories and a glass or three, and that most basic of human comforts, a hug or four.  This blasted disease has deprived us of that comfort, and that is the same for so many families and groups of friends across Europe over the past months.

But looking forward, have a good week all!

 

Lockdown III is now pretty well over!

Yes, great excitement here in the Hexagone as you can sit outside bars and restaurants, buy silly things like crochet hooks and summer shoes and stay out of your house until 9pm!  It's like turning 14 when I was a child!  Well, not quite, but you know what I mean.  No one has actually told the weather gods about this, so there is still a cold, gusty wind, frequent heavy and sometimes thundery showers and no incentive to actually wear sandals, shorts or remove one's sweatshirt.  From the Meteo France website, that change comes next Wednesday - I'm sure there is a good moon related reason for that.

Anyway, as proof of the release from dour confinement, here are photos of fripperies for sale at la Flèche market, and I have to say it was heaving this morning.  While I was lucky to find a parking space close by (necessary as I was buying a lot of geraniums for the window boxes), I think that was only because the weather was so pants.  That is also why I didn't bother with a coffee on a terrace either.

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So while that is the end of my daily blogging activity until the next time, I did manage to get a nice photo of the black iris in the neighbour's garden yesterday evening at chicken confinement time.  The buds and the lower petals really are a lovely velvety black, the upper parts are "just" a magnificent dark purple.

So now I will try to provide a weekly blog, monitoring how things change that I have written about during Lockdown III, and also reporting on the insanity that is the Attestation d'Acceuil for if you want to come and visit and stay with friends and family in France, but don't have an EU passport (and by that I mean a real EU passport, and not an old style UK one).

Thanks for reading!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - the day after

Well, I am pretty sure the vaccination yesterday is doing something as when I woke up this morning, all my joints ached and were only soothed by a hot shower and an ibuprofen.  In addition I felt tired and woolly.  None of this was worrying or unexpected really, in fact, like I say, I am sure it is doing something, so actually a bit reassuring.  (And clearly I am still a bit woolly.)

Yesterday evening I spotted a few interesting things in the garden after I had locked the chickens away for the day.  In no particular order - chive flowers, poppies that could be a bit dodgy, set raspberries and strawberries and the display from the red hot pokers getting going.

Stuff at home

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Then after lunch today, I went to The Shack to feed the boys and see what was going on there.  The vegetables are coming on OK although a bit more heat might be good for them, not least for helping the sweetcorn to germinate (now there are 4).  I did meet some butterflies trying very hard to make new butterflies, which isn't easy when you are also flying (which they did, but had stopped that for the photo).

Walking round to the wildflower meadow, I noticed a lesser spotted woodpecker in the sycamore tree, so flushed with the success of the butterfly photo, I tried to capture that too.  It is honestly in there somewhere, but I need a posh camera with a telephoto lens for that sort of thing!

Anyway, the wild flower meadow was looking fabulous as the clover and the oxeye daisies and the linseed are all going great guns, plus I did spot and photograph badly the first of the bee orchids.  Soon there should be lots more with the sun and the rain that we have at the moment.

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My favourite irises are coming out even more, and looking rather fabulous.  The irises I covet are starting to come out too, in a neighbour's garden - jet black!  I might get a photo of those tomorrow, but for today I bask in my purple and white ones!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - vaccination day!

Another mixed day here in rural France weather-wise.  There have been some blustery and heavy showers, including an absolute corker when I wanted to leave the vaccination centre, and in between, the sunshine has been helping the grass to grow.  I've got my work cut out with that soon!

Anyway, this afternoon, it was my turn to be vaccinated.  The Centre in Baugé used to be a fortified jail, so that prisoners were held securely, were taken next door for trial and sentencing and then could serve their sentence just a few yards away.  About 10 years ago, the somewhat run down building was fully refurbished into a cultural centre, with a 500 seat main theatre, which is also a big hall (the seating can be pushed back into a stack, and a number of smaller conference rooms that can be used by clubs or the music school.  Currently the whole thing is taken over by the vaccination centre, apart from when there is a council meeting.

Anyway, apart from a dull ache on my arm, it all went well, and the relevant information is stored on my TousAntiCovid app on my phone.  It is a pretty slick process.

The roses outside our house are slowly putting forth buds and flowers - nothing like the show at Chinon yet, but then they are more exposed.  The rambler rose should have been pruned over the winter, but somehow that just didn't happen.  The blossoms are very fragrant when you can get near one.

The red rose has been here longer than us and survived having scaffolding set up around it, the old mortar, concrete and other rubbish picked off the wall and new lime mortar added.  It is less fragrant, but the flowers are a lovely colour, and if I keep on top of the dead heading, will keep flowering until November in a good year.

One more day and then we have a significant release - the joy of a coffee on a café terrace awaits on Wednesday, assuming I can find a seat!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - seedlings and work

Finally - nearly mid-May and my chilli seeds are sprouting, along with some red basil seeds I also sowed.  The cool temperatures, the dry conditions and the really rather unpleasant April have all contributed to making this a challenging growing season.  I hope that these come to some good - they are certainly staying well away from chickens!

As we have rain today off and on, I am really trying hard not to complain about the weather, but it is hard not to.  And that is also the go to conversation topic for the British in any case - I did a phone interview for work this afternoon and we had a good 5 minutes on the difference between the weather here and the weather there.  It creates a sort of empathy.  We didn't do the new conversation starter - have you had your vaccination yet?  It wasn't appropriate, but as part of the interview we did discuss the challenges that Covid has brought to working life.

My correspondent and I compared the conditions in which we were undertaking the interview - he was sitting in his bedroom and still wasn't used to that as a workspace, even after a year.  I was in my "office", which has been my workspace at home for 16 years now, and very much my comfort zone.  What he missed was seeing people around him in the large offices of his organisation - people he didn't work with directly but would see at the water cooler, or walk past their desk and say "hi".  For those used to that volume of human interaction on a daily basis, and who liked it, this last 14 months must have been a nightmare.

For me, there has been little change to the work routine except that I used to travel and visit people and places at least once every three months.  My last such trip was the 2nd to 6th March last year, and was rounded off by visiting family.  My fake filofax (how dated am I?) bookmark is stuck at that point, as I've not needed a roaming diary since.  I can't see me doing a trip before September, which is a little sad.