Rural Life

Lockdown III, Day 17 - revisiting an old haunt

While rarely mentioned at the moment, Brexit has brought a number of changes to our lives, including the fact that friends and clients are selling up and moving back to the UK.  They give a variety of reasons - grandchildren, the garden has become too much, fear of being cut off from loved ones.  Covid has helped to hasten the flow, as properties are selling quickly and sometimes for reasonable amounts of money.  Properties that would normally take between 2 and 5 years to sell are now disappearing like hot cakes, while those that have been on the market for a while are also suddenly gone.

When that happens, in many cases we are asked to help with disposing of stuff (over the years, we have increased our collection of ride on lawnmowers in this way), get given things (towels are always appreciated) and try to have a final drink/meal with those heading back.  Those that are clients tend to leave John's card with the new owner - for which many thanks, and in this way we gauge the new owners.  Those that quibble at John's prices are those who really shouldn't be affording a second home, not least if there is also a pool at the site, as they clearly don't understand the level of work entailed in maintaining a country home.

This afternoon I was "helping" at one site where John has been working for years and where there has been a change of ownership.  Already the garden is taking on a new character, but then I've not spent much time there for a good 7 years, so it is interesting to see the changes.  The woodland paths that we created years ago are being taken over by nature, but when we first cleared them, they were surrounded by early purple orchids.  This year there are some - already almost over due to the dry conditions - but not as many as I remember.

This garden also has a pond that is spring fed (I think), and I remember watching newts doing what newts do in the spring when it was very clear and with no plants.  I'm pretty sure the newts are still there, but with a certain amount of planting, there is a greater diversity of wildlife, and I met two small and very beautiful frogs.  I also met a lot of mosquitoes - today was the first day it was propitious for them to emerge, so I demanded that the frogs do their job better and walked away.

 

Lockdown III, Day 7 - by way of explanation

With this lockdown being announced for the 4th April, there was a certain inevitability that I would be informed on the 3rd April that we finally had a date when a room would be available in a carefully chosen nursing home.  So much to be done, so many arguments and discussions to be had, and of course lots of work to do as well.  And then lockdown itself to contend with.  Hence going dark for essentially 3 blogging days (I don't think posting an Armadillo really counts), while, depending on your point of view, someone entered prison or a caring and safer environment.  As I left on Thursday, I admired a group of ladies of a certain age, sitting on the sun-drenched terrace wearing rather fetching boaters, drinking lemon squash and keeping each other company - I didn't feel quite so bad!

Nibbles has felt the undertones of what has been going on and this morning both sulked and lived up to her name - hopefully that sort of behaviour will wear off soon and she will go back to ignoring me and sleeping or seeing off young intruders from the garden.

And as if cat shaming isn't enough, I am now going to chicken shame.  We have 5 - yes FIVE - full sized chickens and a small freeloader, so why did I have to buy this today?

Finally a comment on lockdown rules or my notoriety locally - I'm not sure which.  Yesterday I was driving home at about 6pm after having visited a client.  As the visit had been outside the allowed 10km, I had an attestation on my phone as well as my ID card, so when I saw the police block as I drove between the Chateau and the Tribunal in Baugé, I pulled over as indicated and started to prepare.  I put on my face mask, turned off the music in the car, prepared to get my ID and phone - but the lovely young policeman just looked in at me, and said with smiley eyes, "no don't worry, on your way, Madame!"  I was a little upset at not showing off my lovely new WARP (Withdrawal Agreement Residence Permit) card, but having said that, with Vieil Baugé stickers on the car and being convinced I'd met him before, I guess I wasn't surprised! 

 

It's back! Confinement Blog! Day 1

From yesterday evening at 7pm, France entered its third Covid lockdown.  Many call this Lockdown Lite, as there are fewer restrictions in some ways, although reading through the rules in detail this morning I found a big difference to last time.  We don't need attestations for travel up to 10km from home between 6am and 7pm this time, so we can get to The One Acre Wood (off limits last spring) and The Shack without paperwork.  We just need to carry our residency permits with us.

So what is different?  I cannot get to la Flèche market, I will be deprived of my raw butter, my croissants and my suppliers of chorizo, serrano ham and rotisserie chicken legs.  This is because while I can travel up to 30km for purchases of premier necessité (i.e. food, plants), I can't go over departmental boundaries, and thus la Sarthe is closed to me.  Not happy about that at all.

Still today we could go to the Shack and prepare the beds for tomatoes, squashes and courgettes, and sweetcorn.  The sweetcorn bed had been manured and rotavated, so just needed to be levelled and covered until we sow later this month once the cold snap is over.  The tomato and squash beds had been rotavated and covered, but then needed manure adding and recovered.  All ready now!

From the Shack, we went to the One Acre Wood to pay homage to the King of the Forest who is just starting to get his new leaves on.

Further down the hill in the Wood, we spotted the first spikes and buds of lily of the valley coming through - in total I think there were about 7 showing but there will be many more coming up in the next couple of weeks.

At home, there is a lot of blossom.  While the plum is now over (and we will have to protect the tree overnight for the next three nights of sharp frost to protect any tiny set fruit), the pear is in full swing and the first of the apple trees is starting to have open blossom.  The cherry next door is coated and has a strong perfume (see - no sign of Covid for me!).

Although this week might be a bit erratic (major changes in the offing in some aspects of our lives), I will try to do my daily confinement blog, although I know many of my readers are now starting to enjoy ever more freedom!  We felt for you in your extended lockdown, feel for us in ours!

So here it is! Christmas!

And a very Happy Christmas to you all!

For many it won't be a normal Christmas, or what they had planned, and for anyone in that situation, my heart goes out to you!  For us it will be pretty normal, as it is generally just us two with cats and chickens, and phone calls/computer time with friends and family around the place.  Boxing Day sees us being social and that is where we will see the difference, as we will have to be home by 8pm for curfew.

We would normally broach Christmas cake on Christmas Eve - something to look forward to!

(This is actually the one we are giving as a present, but it is prettier than our one!)

Tomorrow we will be out and about picking the sprouts I've been growing for John - they are a bit bigger than this now, amazing what a difference a week has made!

We will also be having major cat cuddles with the Boys in the Country.

And we will go to the One Acre Wood to make offerings to the Wood Gods and enjoy the fresh air and views.

However you spend your day, enjoy the moment and don't regret what might have been.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 46 - and the last day, until the next one

Yes, that's right, from midnight tonight we are released from lockdown, and into being careful and being subject to curfew.  The real difference will be the ability to cross regional boundaries without fretting about being pulled over for having the wrong numbers on the car license plate, but the curfew between 8pm and 6am means that it is not a complete release from constraints.  There is also the small matter of bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres and sports halls all still being closed until (currently) about the 20th January 2021.  As new cases are not actually going down to the desired levels, I would actually predict a new lockdown not long after Christmas. 

Anyway, we are nearing the Festive Season, when good food and luxurious goods may come to the fore.  In previous years, we have acquired one of these for a nice Christmas Eve supper.

We also tend to broach the Christmas cake on Christmas Eve - last year's were done with pretty marzipan - I've not got round to decorating them yet this year - something for the weekend.

The Christmas Pudding is normally taken on Boxing Day, and we meet up with the Chinon Two for that.  This year we will be having the smaller of these two.

Then early in the New Year, John buys truffle on eBay, and we have about a week of eating everything with added truffle - risotto, scrambled eggs, stuffed scallops, stuffed chicken breast and linguine with truffle and a cèpe and cream sauce.

Whatever you have, enjoy it and have a safe and warm Festive Season.  When the next lot of restrictions are announced here in France, I will be back on the daily blog, but for now, I am going to reduce my offerings until I have something worth saying.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 44 - it's getting to be a bit like Christmas!

After a couple of truly miserable days, this morning we saw the sun!  Not for too long - it was raining by 4:30pm, but this morning was definitely sunny.  As it's Saturday, it is also the other market day, the one in Baugé.  Last week was quiet, as the weather was awful, but I thought it would be a lot busier today, as it was fine.  Although the car park was pretty full, the queues were actually quite short - I think 5 minutes was the longest wait.

Normally around now Baugé hosts a large and rather good Christmas Fayre in the big René d'Anjou centre, but that was cancelled back in September I think, as it became clear that Covid wasn't going anywhere soon.  However today's market was augmented by two stalls selling wine, one selling macaroons, one selling books and a huge fire/steam powered cooker selling take away meals.  It was very impressive (but I didn't buy any of the food).

While I was waiting in line for fruit and vegetables, a familiar figure walked down from the Mairie ringing a bell, and making jovial HoHoHo noises.  He was dishing out sweeties too, but only to small children, so I didn't get one.  A few I watched him offering the basket of sweets to, looked absolutely horrified!  I think they might have been concerned he wasn't obviously wearing a mask (I bet it was hidden behind the beard!).

As well as the Christmas Fayre, there would normally be all sorts of fun for the children around now.  There are decorations and Christmas trees and bits of red carpet all over the place but it's not the same.  The various committees that organise festivities and events all year round have clubbed together and hired in a small merry-go-round for children to have free rides on.  As I didn't have a child in tow, I had to be careful to photograph no faces and ideally no children!

When I got home, John had ClassicFM blaring out with a number of seasonal tunes, to help the festive season along - so much nicer to listen to than "right on" talk radio or depressing news stories.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 41 - a bit of Christmas cheer

A funny day today - before breakfast I had a call from a client in the UK 99% certain in confirming that I had won a new contract with him (his actual description was "it is more sure than Brexit"), but that it would take a bit of time to sort out the paperwork.  Now contracts have been given out by HM Government recently for millions of pounds without the level of due diligence required for this bit of work, which amounts to about £8,000 over two years.  Still, every small victory has to be celebrated, and it was a weight off my mind.

So armed with that knowledge, I headed for the market at la Flèche for all sorts of goodies, but rushed around a bit rather than taking my time and enjoying the scene as I needed to get to the office supplies and copy shop to get the Christmas cards printed.  Last year it was so easy - here is the computer, insert your USB stick, select the file you want to print, do a test print, buy a ream of expensive heavy paper, put about 50 sheets in the printer tray, decide how many you want and hit go.  All done by me.  I got to keep the rest of the ream of heavy paper, which doesn't work in our printers, to use "next year".  Back I go today with my trusty USB key, the rest of my expensive ream of paper and a light heart, only to be told I would have to send the file by email, had to buy a new ream of paper, and to book a time to come to collect my prints.  As they also didn't have the required envelopes and printer labels, I left with what I went in with and a problem still to be solved.  So much for using local businesses (although it turns out they are big enough to sponsor a boat in the Vendée Globe race, so not that needy)!

This image is actually pretty relevant, as for the first time in about 13 years, I have had some sort of office Christmas party!  OK it was actually a professional society special interest group Christmas do, but that's the nearest I get nowadays.  There were games and competitions, including a scavenger hunt, all done by Zoom and hosted by the 2019 Most Interesting Mathematician (she kept her title in 2020, as they couldn't run the competition).

Since then I have been stung by a hornet that was trying to hibernate in my office, so I'm not very happy and typing with one finger.  Here is a pretty view to round off the post.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 34 - OK, some things change

It's Wednesday so it is market day in la Flèche, and finally we see that some things have changed here and for the better.  It has been a source of huge frustration that while you can sell plants (deemed essential), you cannot sell flowers (deemed non-essential) unless done by order/click and collect or some such system.  So it was lovely to see my friend Brigitte out with her stand and the glorious colours of flowers and ornamental cabbages and bouquets and cyclamen.  Brigitte raises her own cut flowers about 1.5km from us, but buys in some potted plants.  It isn't worth her while coming to the market in the hope of selling a 2€ cactus sometime in the day, but people are always after a good bouquet, and hers are some of the best!

The fripperie stands were out as well - so much acrylic and lycra and faux leather in one place!  But people were  happier, even if they weren't buying much.  It was enough that the extra colours and activity were a treat for the eyes and you could dream of wearing that pretty draped blouse, "enjoy" the accordion music from the CD stand and wonder who on earth dreamt up the plastic stuff on the "anything for 2€" stall.  Life seemed a bit more normal.

While Radio 2 and Zoe Ball were going all mushy about the Pfizer vaccine being approved for deployment next week, the feelings about vaccines against Covid here are rather different, with nearly 60% of those questioned saying they wouldn't want it.  They want to ski, to cuddle their grandchildren/grandparents, eat in restaurants and drink in bars, but they don't want to have the vaccine that will make all that possible.  Weird.  Even more weird was a promotion of the Miss France competition that runs later this week with all the 28 contestants (Miss Tahiti can't make it) posing in pretty cocktail dresses, open coats and face masks outside Versailles.  We assume they get to remove the face masks at some point, but it will ruin their make up.  Below, we have not so much Frosty the Snowman, as firewood bundle the Snowman.

Finally, walking around the wildflower meadow, I found the first hints of next spring's bee orchids.  I see at least two on this photo!

I think the damage is badger looking for roots and stuff.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 33 - it's the little things...

I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation.  We are all plugging our way through 2020, with its lockdowns, cabin fever, Brexit anxiety, money worries and all the other things that make this year such a doozie.  So when you spot something unexpectedly lovely, when someone says or writes something unexpectedly kind, when there is just a hint of something good, it can open the flood gates a bit.

I'll not go into the written or said thing - that's personal, but I will share lovely and good.

First of all, a handsome cat portrait to set the scene!  This particular cat is looking forward to the 20th January, when he will become the undisputed only Donald that matters once again!

Today John was cutting the grass at Aldi in Saumur - when he used to do that at Baugé, it could take a while as so many people we know shop there, so would say hello.  It isn't a thing at Tiercé or Saumur, or so we thought.  I got a text from John to say that he had seen someone we know.  Before the old longère next to us was classed as insalubrious (and that was before the ceiling fell in), it was a rental property of last resort, for those who would not get a reference in a million years.  We had some nice neighbours (few), and some stinkers.  Joel was in between - we liked him, but his friends were really the scum of the earth.  He was the original slave of Nibbles.  He was also a tortured artist - some of his stuff is very good, but a lot isn't easy to live with.  We are lucky in that he gave us a slightly disturbing picture that we like, and he added a few very nice sculptures to the outside of the house when it was being renovated.  He moved away when his lease was up, and the last we heard from one of his chums was that he had died.  We were sad but not surprised.  So it was with great joy that I read that John had seen him at Aldi Saumur this afternoon - rumours of his death were clearly exaggerated!

Not all corona is bad, or rather korona!  We bought six strawberry plants in the spring of the variety korona - not deliberately, they were the only ones that Lidl had that day.  They weren't very productive, but what fruit we did get was very tasty, so we hope for more next year.  We grow strawberries in hanging baskets to keep them away from slugs, hedgehogs and chickens.  The leaves have turned the most magnificent colour - the plants just keep giving!

Today's blog was brought to you under slightly challenging conditions - Poirot is being very clingy at the moment!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 30 - not much changes

O the excitement!  At one minute past midnight, the #TousAntiCovid app on my phone updated to produce attestations that mean I can shop with less discernment and can exercise for up to 3 hours away from the house but only within 20km of the house.  Wowzer!  It really makes very little difference to life as we know it, the big change may come on 15th December when travel restrictions are lifted and we don't need an attestation, but we will be under curfew again between 9pm and 7am.  I guess the novelty for us is that we can go to the One Acre Wood and cut firewood (counts as exercise rather than essential purchases apparently), but we didn't do that today.

This morning the market was heaving!  All stalls had some sort of queue and were doing good business.  Inevitably, when standing for between 5 and 20 minutes for each stall required, you get into conversation with the people around you.  We all agreed that the queues were long, which was rather a bore, but that it was a very good thing for the stall holders.  We liked the fact that it was sunny, as we could top up our Vitamin D while waiting, assuming we were in a sunbeam.  If we weren't, it was jolly cold.

This weekend is a bit sad.  The reason we weren't out doing firewood today (that is tomorrow's fun) is that we were moving lawnmowers.  We have three sets of people we know who are completing on the sale of their property next week. 

Dear friends made it over just before lockdown to do their final removal of stuff, their leaving party was at the end of October, but my monthly planner shows that we had planned to cook them Sunday lunch tomorrow as a final huzzah before they sold.  John's second ever clients over here move out next week, heading back to the UK and the charms of the Scottish coast - they have hosted a ride on lawnmower (two actually but not at the same time) all that time, but now we have had to stash it in a barn until we find a new client to offer it a home and John work. 

This afternoon we had to clear another ride on from a newer client whose sale goes through on Monday, again we have had to find a barn to stash that one in until he has a new home, so for the first time in 6 years, John actually dished out publicity material to someone who might know someone who might know someone...  I had a final walk around the garden - it is a pretty one, very large and home to a number of different wild orchids in the season.

On the way back from hiding the mower, we noticed a magnificent moon rise.  It wasn't possible to stop to photograph it at its most impressive, so this will have to do.