Rural Life

Hope springs eternal

First off, Happy Belated Burn's Night to my Scottish chums.  In your honour, we broached our second to last tin of haggis (it is now considered contraband to bring it in - one of those gifts of Brexit), and served it with roasted potatoes from our own production (tatties), creamed swede (neeps) and onion gravy (not a drop of whisky in the house - shock, horror).  It was delicious and there was enough left over for a nice snack lunch, hot on buttered toast.

This week's location for the trail camera was, if anything, even more frustrating than the last two.  There is evidence of activity in the zone and when I checked it on Tuesday, there were 92 files saved!  I left it in situ for the rest of the week and took it down yesterday, all eager to see what had been cavorting around for my entertainment.  There were the usual shots of me leaving and arriving, and 89 files showing the sun moving around, condensation drying off, the ambient temperature rising from -1ºC and frosty to 5ºC and sunny over the space of three quarters of an hour.  And in all that time, the only thing moving and setting off the camera?  A dead leaf on the Old Man's Beard!  It was also clearly the only time that there was any sort of breeze during the whole week, which apart from that one morning, was dull, foggy, dank, overcast and really rather cold.  Here is the offending leaf - the camera has moved to another spot, which I hope gets something!

This weekend is the RSPB's Garden Bird Watch weekend, which is also running with a French bird charity too.  The evidence from a week in a secluded orchard where no birds set off the camera is not entirely hopeful for wildlife.  In all seriousness, over the past fortnight, the hunters have "been through" twice round The Shack and seem to have frightened off pretty well everything other than a couple of very dedicated mallard and the small garden birds.  Today we did not manage to raise a pheasant, which we can normally do.  As they are only supposed to be hunting boar, any claims that the hunters are supporting local wildlife seem a bit spurious to me currently.

On a happier note, spring isn't here yet, but it is definitely on it's way.  There are bright yellow catkins around the edge of the One Acre Wood, snowdrops coming up under our quince tree and the daffodils and narcissus around the edge of the Wildflower Meadow are starting to show.

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Looking forward, I'm sure wildlife will be back - roaming around today, we found someone's stash of stolen maize husks and a hole in the fence to the farmer's field with well worn tracks all around.  They may be elsewhere currently, but I'm sure things will come back.  Looking even further forward, the cyclamen are spreading well where we have transplanted corms and the flowers have set seed.  Perhaps in 20 years or so the area will be a carpet of white flowers in the early autumn!

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One thing we have learned, badgers are not put off by coffee grounds.  Back to the drawing board on that one!

 

Location, location, location

After three very good weeks with the trail camera, I sadly have to announce a complete failure this week.  We chose a location that was away from the road and surrounded by dense undergrowth, near a water source and with tracks in many directions, seemingly used by animals large and small.  When we collected the camera yesterday, there were 6 files on it, with the least awful photo below.  The others included mainly my bottom retreating from the camera or me getting up close to turn it off.  Clearly that area is not in use at the moment, possibly as the hunt were through last weekend, possibly as it isn't an interesting area at this time of year.  I'll try again there in the spring or summer, but for now the camera has moved on.

So what else has been going on this week?  The gastronomy fest continues, with more truffle influenced meals.  We are using up the last bit of the truffle tonight and that is it until early 2023.  We also had lunch out at our favourite restaurant, and honestly it was hard to move after our 12,55 Euros a head blow out.  I've not had that good a bavette steak for years, while the chocolate mousse was positively intoxicating in its chocolatiness.  

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In order to recover from all the rich food, and to keep warm, we have had to spend time in the One Acre Wood, taking down and chopping up a long dead chestnut tree.  Yesterday we did the felling and sectioning.  There was freezing fog and everywhere was covered in white tendrils as the fog froze onto spider web.  When all was still you could actually hear the ice crystals falling off.  Today we went back with the trailer and a splitting axe (or merlin) and tidied up the largesse, splitting much of it to make it usable.  Reading back over past memories, ten years ago I was able to split a stère of wood almost single handed, but this year I managed about 8 logs.  Mind you, that is an improvement on last year, when I could do almost nothing with a dodgy elbow.

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We support a cat charity locally called Cat's Garfield - they catch, sterilise and rehome, as far as possible, feral and stray cats in the area.  This weekend they were trying to educate people and raise a bit of cash through an exhibition of photos taken by one of their members, a half-English lady who has just started up as a photographer in the area.  The pictures were lovely and it is also nice to hear the good news stories of adoptions.  What impressed us most was the venue - a converted chapel.  The downstairs was pleasant with nice features, the upstairs was breath-taking.

To close, a final picture of the frost in the wild clematis Old Man's Beard, which surrounds the wildflower meadow and strangles all the fruit trees, and much else besides.  The birds don't seem to be interested in the seed heads, but when the freezing fog does its thing, they are rather pretty.  Fingers crossed for some interesting footage from the trail camera next week!

 

Of truffles and badgers

The New Year and a new moon, with good conditions for taking a photo, which worked quite well.  It was a cold evening, but very beautiful.

One of our new year rituals, which has been going for about 7 years now, is the purchase and consumption of a small quantity of black gold or truffle.  A few years ago, John found a reliable source, who has a very handsome and effective truffle dog, and since then in early January a small box has been delivered with between 50 and 100g of perfumed joy.  I have a number of tested recipes - truffle omelette, scrambled eggs with truffle, truffle stuffed camembert - and some others that I tinker with each year such as stuffed chicken breast, truffle cream sauce, scallop and truffle slice, truffle risotto.  The feasting lasts about a week, and then that is it for another year, but while it goes on, it's lovely!

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There has been quite a bit of rain this year so far, but Tuesday was a lovely day, so we bunked off for part of the afternoon and went walking, following a very well marked footpath through farmland and woods and what must be very ancient ways before tarmac defined where people should go.

The trail camera had an exciting week.  It was placed in a friend's garden, where there has been some significant digging going on, and we promised we would try to work out what or who the culprit was.  When I retrieved the camera yesterday, my first site visit since installing it, I was delighted to find 50 data files, meaning 25 photos and 25 videos.  Now some were rubbish - me leaving, me arriving, a cat mooching past, a bird going through the line of sight so quickly that the camera didn't capture what it was - but some were very clear in showing what was causing the trouble, and some were other interested parties.  For those who can't be bothered with the videos, here is Badger, banged to rights!

Here is footage of the badger looking around for interesting smells

Here is footage of the badger making a mess.

And here is footage of a couple of passers-by.

The camera has moved on to another site - I wonder what it will find there!  It really is the best birthday present I have had in a very long time!!  Have a good week!

And before anyone gets picky - yes, the time stamp on the videos is out by about 6 hours.

 

 

Happy New Year - 2022, the Year of the Pheasant?

Happy New Year to chums near and far.  And a healthy one too, which is on my mind as others have been "pinged" in our close circle and it's a worry.

The period between Christmas and New Year is always an odd one, and this year is no exception.  The weather has been unseasonably mild, and the last couple of days have been gloriously sunny too.  Yesterday morning there was a hint of mist, which made going up the garden to feed the chickens a slightly spooky affair, as can be seen.

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The mist burnt off very quickly though, and both yesterday and today we have sat out with cats, watched birds, done some gardening and enjoyed nature.  It was lovely to get the hammocks out again today and sit in The Garden watching the tits and a robin working their way through a coconut filled with fat and seeds.  I was surprised to see the robin doing that in fact, as I thought it really was a trick of blue tits and great tits.  We do actively encourage great tits in The Garden as they are the only bird to have decided to eat pine processionary caterpillars, and with nests in a couple of the pine trees round the garden, encouraging them seems like a good idea.  A friend did happily point out that great tits also predate bats, but if my bats live where I think they do, no great tit could get into the space!

The weather is also conducive to good, dramatic sunsets - this was yesterday's.

The French make a big deal of the Reveillon as they tend to call it and New Year, although this year the festivities were more muted due to the charm free Omicron.  In previous years, we have gorged on foie gras, smoked salmon, steak, oysters (occasionally done as Angels on horseback with bacon and prunes), but this year we went for tartiflette, a delicious mix of potatoes (home grown of course), smoked bacon, onion, garlic and Reblouchon cheese.  We didn't eat all this pan, we did save some to go with sausages today!

Wandering around the grounds today, we spotted this rather dramatic and interesting fungus - I might work out what it is by next week!  So bright that I wondered if it was a piece of plastic brought in by one of the foxes in the Orchard, it stood out among the detritus under one of the walnut trees.

And so to the Year of the Pheasant.  The trail camera has been in a very tucked away part of the Orchard this week, and I managed to control myself and not visit it every day to see what it had caught.  We have dodgy photos of a fat pigeon, a rat, a hedgehog, and a possible ragondin, or coypu.  The fox was also nosing around and a blackbird did his thing in front of the camera too.  A duck walked past.  But the most prolific visitors to the area, and yet not the ones that make the paths, were the pheasants.  Here are three girls doing what they do.

The warm weather means that the male pheasants are getting frisky, so clearly my three girls are interesting prey.  There are sounds off too!

But I don't think male pheasants are that bright, and this one has also been tagged by someone, so is also at a bit of a disadvantage.  Doesn't stop him thinking he is pretty fab though!

The trail camera is on the move now, to keep an eye on what is causing damage elsewhere, and hopefully will have some good footage again for next week, when I will be back to Sunday updates.

 

 

All quiet on the French front

It has been mostly grey all week, so a very quiet time really - not least as it always takes ages to process all the information I gather on one of my work visits to the UK.  We had an afternoon and a chunk of a day that were fine, so I did manage to get laundry dry on the line.  There was a dramatic moonrise the day of the fine afternoon, which I managed to capture, sort of, as I came in from putting the chickens to bed.

Last Thursday was the third Thursday in November so Beaujolais Nouveau day.  I bought us a bottle to share that night - as the critics have said, lots of cherry flavours this year, but as they haven't particularly said, it is fairly expensive and it is pretty silly.  Still that didn't stop us quaffing a couple of bottles when out with friends for dinner in Chinon on the Friday night.  The lady of the establishment was adamant that if we wanted to experience France, we really needed to try it (we did NOT go with her recommendation on eating tripe however), and bizarrely it was cheaper than the house red.  Finally I had a glass or two as we celebrated beer o'clock a day late at the local pub, but that is now it until Beaujolais Nouveau 2022!

Spooky, the Black Cat in the Country gave me a scare this week, with a gummy eye, so on Thursday it was a trip to the vet.  I have never had such an excellent feline car passenger!  No offensive smells with suitable sound effects before the smells, no "singing the song of his people", no chewing my fingers through the bars of the cat carrier - he thought it was alright.  OK so he tried to bite the vet once, but he does chew quite a lot, and he didn't appreciate having his temperature taken, but he was really very good.  He has reacted well to his antibiotic injection, so doesn't have a return visit tomorrow (phew).  It would be unfair to share his photo showing why he had to visit the vet, so here is a photo of Donald, who was clearly a pirate's parrot in a previous life!  He also drools a lot.

Today's visit in the wet to feed the Boys in the Country was very exciting.  Last week John had discussed with our neighbour about access to the communal well, and the guy offered to get a machine to help find it among all the vegetation.  We arrived to find him in full "Find and Rescue" mode.  He did take a bit of the hedges as well, and took the buddleia back to large size rather than the Godzilla monster size that it had become.  As we have rainwater recuperation tanks, we are unlikely to use the well, but as it is a shared resource, we are delighted that, with a bit more work, our little hamlet will be able to use it (assuming there is any water at the bottom of course).

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Apologies for a dull resumé of the week - I'll try to do better next Sunday!

 

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.

Scary things

Happy Halloween!  And to keep to the theme, I will draw out the scary side of everything today.  For a start, I went to a different Super U (local supermarket chain), as I was fed up with the one in Baugé and it's slapdash attitude to restocking things like Chicken Whiskas cat food, rose scented shower gel and its boycott of Duracell batteries.  So I went to the big one at Mazé - it's further away so I won't do it that often, but I felt like a complete hick when I went round it as it was so fresh, sparkling, well stocked and (dare I say it?) a bit exciting!  However, among the condiments I spotted Worcestershire sauce, which as you can see, flaunts that it has been matured for 18 months.  I would argue that it is still nearly raw, and therefore pretty inedible - it needs at least 30 months to mellow!  And as I lived opposite the trade entrance to the factory for over 10 years, I think I am well qualified to point this out!

The classic autumn sunsets continue - yesterday's was rather good, and I just managed to catch it over the top of the charming bungalow opposite.  Autumn leaf colour is also getting good.  We spotted a couple of sumac saplings showing off their best colours - the horror of that?  There are sumac roots encroaching into the Wildflower Meadow - as the nearest tree is over the road, the roots have made it under a tarmacked road, a 2 foot deep ditch and a leylandii hedge to get to where they are!

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Our spring time obsessions are cowslips and orchids, but wandering around the garden I find that they are already coming up.  Now I was well aware of the range of the cowslips, or so I thought, but the sheer density of them this autumn is a bit concerning - although something to look forward to when they flower in the spring.  The orchids on the other hand - there were no orchids there this year or last, where these two have been found.  That means that they have hitched a ride on one or more of the mowers or brush cutters, and are now colonising a new area.  They're coming to get us!

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And then there was last night - a hint of a social life again.  We went to the village bar to meet some friends and were faced with The Demented Bride, complete with knife through her head and glass shards in her heart, while the food offering wand handburgers!  For the first time in ages, I actually felt a bit festive, although as we arrived at 7pm and didn't get home until gone 10pm, I suspect I actually felt a bit tiddly!

Bring on November!

 

 

The Days are drawing in!

We are blessed with a late spurt of good weather and so far October has mostly been lovely - cool overnight, but no frosts just yet, and the days dry and sunny, and not too hot.  The sun is good as it bakes the stones of the house, which acts like a storage heater, and means that we aren't using the point heaters much and aren't too worried that we haven't seen the chimney sweep yet (he comes on Wednesday).  We daren't light the fire until he has done his thing in case.  We did have a small chimney fire many years ago and it scared us witless!!  The conditions mean that we do get some very good sunsets, like this one.

Fruitfulness continues, with some late figs, more walnuts and lots more chestnuts.  I also cut the 7 butternuts and put them on a chair to do their final ripening, before bringing them home on Tuesday, after which the weather is due to get wet.  I made up a nice chestnut crumble recipe during the week and will try it out again tonight to refine it a smidge before writing it into my big Black Book of My Recipes.  The base is red peppers and leek, to which I'm going to add a bit of garlic, and the crumble is chestnuts, butter and cheese.

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Once the butternuts come home, there aren't many crops left at the Garden.  We do have a number of Mooli radishes, and tried one today.  One makes a nice side salad for two as part of a light lunch - it is very crunchy and has a little bit of a kick.  Still no major mushroom discoveries although there was a dodgy bolete in the Garden - a birch bolete probably as it was by the birch tree.  The cracks on the cap are testimony to the dry conditions.  Once the rain starts next week, they could be popping up all over the place!

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As the days get shorter, I return to my indoor orchid obsession.  But I have a problem.  One of the DIY stores in town buys large quantities of ornamental orchids and sells them for a certain price (a bit too elevated for me).  They probably over buy and they don't necessarily look after them too well, so after a while the orchids lose their flowers and look sad, at which point they get sold off half price and without their cachepot.  Then I go in looking for chicken feed, have to go past the orchid pen, and if I have an excess of cash, generally can't help myself as they are a bargain, aren't they?  So while last winter I mithered over my two tiny orchids, now I have three tiny orchids, and five strapping ones (one is a refugee from Chinon).  And I don't have that much space suitable for orchids.

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You've not had a cat photo for a while I'm thinking and actually what better picture for autumn than a totally relaxed cat?  Nibbles is pretty well stone deaf now, so I can get nice and close to take candid photos of her, like this!

Until next week!

 

Mellow fruitfulness, sort of

Last week I was in mid-pudding steaming when I wrote, so I won't leave you in suspense any longer - here are the puddings, cooled after 10 hours of steaming and ready to be wrapped up and left for 2/14 months depending which gets eaten first.  The smaller one is pretty good looking all round, the larger one I clearly didn't wodge down enough, so is a bit crumbly.

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There are still quite a lot of flowers around.  The rudbeckia on the flower border are still going, while the cosmos is just starting to flower - they are always so late for me, other people have dug theirs up already but mine is covered in buds!  In the One Acre Wood, there are small white cyclamen that we transplanted from another woodland about 10 years ago, and they are really coming into their own now.  The ones in the garden around the birch tree have been going since July and show no signs of stopping yet.  They always lift the spirits.

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In terms of fruitfulness, well we have a couple of walnut trees that have produced good looking nuts and we now have two big drying racks well stocked with drying nuts.  Sweet chestnuts are just starting to fall now - the ones that are worth eating, others have been dropping for a while - so we enjoy the guilty pleasure of roasted chestnuts with our aperos.  I also have some interesting savoury crumble ideas tucked away, including leek and red peppers with a savoury chestnut crumble topping... 

The last fruit of the year are always the medlars - still not ripe, but getting there.  They aren't edible raw unless they have been bletted, or left to rot for a bit, but in their unbletted state, I believe you can make a jelly from them.  There is a tree that we know that is coated in them.  Some people also have olive trees in their garden and they are also a very late fruit, and I gather making them edible is quite a process.  I regard them as a pretty curiosity this far north.

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Wildlife is getting more scarce and preparing for winter.  I met this young toad in the Garden, and encouraged it to steer clear of the cats, who miss all the mice in the now harvested and empty maize fields.  The badger preparations for winter continue and as the meadow has been mown now, ready for winter, the entrance to Badger Delvings is pretty obvious.

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It wouldn't be autumn without a few leaves turning colour - this is a Wild Service tree in the One Acre Wood, one of the earliest to turn there and also the species that is likely to produce the best colours for us.

Until next week!

 

Distinctly autumnal now

To finish the saga of the juicing apples, we went to the press on Monday lunchtime with our (to us) vast collection, and within half an hour were back on the road with 79 bottles of pasteurised apple juice in the boot.  As two kilos of apples is needed in general for a litre of juice, we therefore managed to pick 158 kilos of apples last weekend.  This is the bottling machine - not working, as when it is working we are the end of the production line taking off the bottles and packing them!

This week we have gone rapidly from summer to autumn.  Last weekend we got hot and sticky picking the apples, the sun was out and during the week, when mowing, I had a long discussion across a lake with a heron.  It was all glorious.  Friday I was taking a half day to meet friends, and take the scenic route to Azay with a picnic to do some birding at the lake at Rillé.  It started to rain as we got to the hide, and didn't stop until we got to Azay - that'll teach me to try to take time out!  We were lucky in that when we went for a walk around central Chinon, it stayed dry and fairly bright however, so there is a view of the mediaeval bit of the town from by the Chateau ramparts.

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The walnut harvest has now started.  We are actually rather lucky in that our trees have escaped whatever it is that is turning the nuts black before they fall, and therefore rendering them useless.  I show below a good nut still on the tree, and what bad nuts look like.  The third picture is me after gathering a couple of kilos, taking a rest and being jumped on by two cats.  Fortunately John was able to take over!

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It's Christmas pudding making time - actually it is a bit late, I should have done it a couple of weeks ago, but there we go.  There are some changes this year.  I thought I had packets and packets of almonds tucked away, but couldn't find any at all , and as the weather really was filthy yesterday, I wasn't going to dash out to buy any more, so they have been replaced with walnuts.  I couldn't find any currants in the French shops, they aren't so keen on Spotted Dick, Eccles cakes, squashed fly biscuits, and so forth, so don't see the need.  I had to replace them with more sultanas.  I had no fresh quince (instead of cooking apple) so had to substitute in shredded quince that had been sitting in quince eau de vie for a year making liqueur.  I used candied fruit rather than candied peel and lime instead of lemon.  Time will tell if all those substitutions were an error or not!  Raw puddings, the hallowed steamer and the cooking - which is still going on, so no pictures of the finished articles.

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Now to get back to watching the puddings cook.