Rural Life

More mundane activity than recently

The unseasonably hot weather has gone, leaving us with mild spring conditions, much more conducive to the French resident's annual May bugbear task of sorting out the tax return.  It is an existential grey cloud that hovers over you, with panics about declaring non-French fiscal instruments of all sorts, trying to decide which pensions are classed as private or public (not as obvious as it sounds), where to put that charity donation and have you got the paperwork to back it up if audited, and as a special for this year, how to do a tax return on 19 days pre-decease for my Mum. 

Actually that last one was so much easier than I had feared it would be, as naturally, the state was already aware of when she died and kept telling me it was just a 19 day tax return.  The only problem was the bit about "do you still live at the address we have for you" - I don't think the lawyer's office counts as heaven, hell or purgatory in the eyes of the French state.

The cooler, but still quite warm, conditions make it easier to get moving on the gardening tasks that are becoming urgent - mowing, planting, sowing, pruning.  We've done a lot of all that!

All bar one of the potatoes we planted are now up and the first ones are starting to think about flowering.  I am hopeful that we will have some new potatoes in June.

[photo of growing potatoes] - This photo just will not load - somewhere an AI bot has decided that it really is too dull, but the others are now there!

Last weekend I bought tomato and pepper plants and I have been able to get those planted now all fear of frosts has gone.  I regard tomato plants as the ultimate heart breakers, as I put them in so full of hope, and quite often by mid-July I am prepared to burn the wretched things as they are full of blight or broken and twisted.

While watering the peas, I noticed a bit of movement around my feet - a rather unsteady Red Admiral.  My Dad used to tell me lovely stories about a Red Admiral and a Painted Lady - I think they were very much stories on two levels as my Mum used to like to listen too.  Sadly he never wrote any of them down.

Once all the hard work had been done today, I walked round the grounds listening to birds and met a rather pretty damsel fly - it would be nice if this photo worked, as the only one to go on so far is of a boring vegetable bed!

So there she is!  I'm pleased that one worked, and perhaps tomorrow I can get more uploaded and the blog republished, but clearly the internet is clogged up with French people doing their tax returns on a Sunday afternoon and I guess I have to respect that.  Alternatively, I need to get signed up for fibre and then I won't have this problem (in theory).

Have a good week!

 

An aestival interlude

Actually I would spell it estival rather than aestival, but I think the American spell checker objects!  Whatever, April and the first couple of days of May have been a wonderful foretaste of what summer should be like, but wasn't last year.  We wait to see how this summer pans out - I have little faith in the long term forecasts peddled by the tabloids. 

We started the week with aperos in the garden with our elderly cat, and on Friday had a book signing on the pub terrace with a renowned Anglophone historian and writer (click on the Eighty Years Ago this Week link on the right of the screen when you have finished reading this for more information about Adrian Phillips, author of, among other titles, Winston's Bandits, the book being signed here).  What a week!

In between, there have been markets, a bank holiday with picnic, a final afternoon at the Mairie making paper flowers, and an extremely hot and sticky session in the Comité des Fêtes's hangar, taking down last year's cabin structure and building the new frame for this year's tableau - very hush, hush for the moment. 

The natural flowers are an absolute joy this year.  At the bottom of one of our downpipes we always have a good display of campanula growing out of the wall and a bit of tarmac, but this year is the best ever I think.  They should keep going for another week or so.

The peas I sowed in pots to keep them away from marauding mice all came up and those have now been planted into the vegetable beds, with columns of sheep netting to climb up.  The last three days have seen all of them pull away gratifyingly and I am hoping for tasty snacks of extremely fresh peas in early June.

Down among the ponds, there is one place where there is a large bank of wild marsh iris, and we have the best ever display we've seen of flowers on them at the moment.  Soon the other foliage will completely block the view of them for the rest of the summer season.

The unseasonably hot weather brought on the flowers on the false acacia rather more quickly than usual - I hope this doesn't adversely affect the honey harvest.  The trees themselves are awful - covered in sharp thorns, they spread by suckering and are a non-native invasive species, practically impossible to get rid of.  But for a couple of weeks in May or June they are coated in tumbling white flowers with a heady, honey scent, which makes them borderline tolerable.

The favourite orchid featured last week continues to flower beautifully despite being mugged by surrounding oxeye daisies, linseed and various meadow grasses.  While I tried to bash my way through to my favourite cultivated irises, I found a second example of the orchid, possibly more spectacular than the first.  Well, see what you think!

The weather has changed in time for the UK bank holiday.  We have another ourselves on Thursday, with Victory in Europe day, which will be full of reminders of the end of the Second World War.  Sadly it seems we are gearing up for the Third World War, but I will not pursue that line of thinking, this week anyway. 

Have a good week!

 

Bells and cats and stuff - version 2

It had taken me half an hour to write 500 words and load up 4 photos, and then we had a 15 second power cut and the whole lot disappeared.  There should have been a draft saved on the server somewhere on the West Coast of the USA, but while it had three versions of last week's blog, it had nothing of today's.

On a rather dull Easter Monday morning, I have decided to try again - we'll see how it goes!

This stage of April brings bluebells dotted around the garden.  They all came from my parents' house in Kent.  There they were rampant, and once we had bought the house in France, if Mum was doing some gardening and found a few bulbs, she put them in a bucket for us to take away and plant here (you could do that pre-Brexit).  Here they battle with irises and brambles and chickens and are not so rampant, but are always delightful when they bloom.

During one of the less lovely days last week, I started to scan old transparencies I found in my Mum's desk.  Remember them?  It always took about 4 goes to get each one correctly oriented in whatever viewer you were using, and of course some were good, in focus, well composed and with a good balance of light and colour, and some were not.  They all date to before I was born - Dad gave up photography, and with his artistic talents with a pen or pencil, why bother indeed?  I did find some fascinating ones of the winter before I was born, 1963, and the snow surrounding the cottage where the bluebells came from and where I grew up.

To keep pretty flowers out of the reach of the chickens (a k a feathered vandals), we put things in pots and planters.  Sometimes the chickens get in and then they are all destroyed, but some things survive, including this rather pleasing variegated periwinkle.  We top up the soil with used tea leaves and tea bags, which is why the contents of the container look a bit weird, but only one chicken likes to eat tea bags.

With spring comes all the rutting and flirting and hormones that Nature uses to ensure species continue.  The bird song at the moment is incredible for example, and in the evening the cuckoo is incessant.  The local feral cats are also around posing and trying it on with anything that moves.  We had two boys in the next garden over singing the Song of their People very loudly until we went to throw something at them.  So a timely reminder - if you have cats, please ENSURE THEY ARE NEUTERED.  These boys are likely to end up under a car while in thrall to their hormones, and also make a horrid smell.  The photo of the two boys in question is not very clear, so to illustrate this bit, I offer a photo of a neutered male cat, Monsieur Clause, one of the Boys in the Country, suitable edited to cover his shame, because he does like rolling around on his back on any surface.

The weather broke rather on Thursday evening and we have had perhaps 8 millimetres of rain since then, as well as grey skies and colder temperatures.  We have also had the amusing phenomenon of pollen rain.  The colza (or rape) is currently in full bloom.  It is dramatically and almost artificially yellow, and produces an awful lot of pollen, as any allergy sufferer knows.  When it rains, the pollen gets stuck on rain drops and then falls to the ground, where it accumulates as the water runs away or evaporates.  This is in the centre of town so some 4 kilometres from the nearest field in full flower.

While the unbroken sunshine we basked in for 10 days was lovely, for a really interesting sunset, you need cloud as something for the sun's rays to bounce off as it sinks into the west.  This was a rather lovely example from earlier in the week.

Well it would appear that America has woken up and it is now taking ages to load photos and they take a few goes to get right.  So it is clearly time to stop, and go and have some lunch, and hear about a nice old man, who died after meeting an American...

Have a good week!

 

 

Full of the joys of Spring

Back in early March, I introduced my upcycled planters for tulips.  You could see early leaves poking out of the top and I was seriously excited to see how they worked.  They are now in bloom, and while I am a bit upset that the two types of tulip were out of synch for flowering, overall I think I am happy with the result.  Next time I do bulbs in them, I shall ensure that they have the same mix in each I think.  Still, a hit I think for the whimsical wellies!

Another sign that spring is here is that we have got the garden sculpture out again and he is on his plinth under the birch tree.  We bought this heron, created using a chainsaw, at a Comice (although they call it Ruralities) in the village of Beauvau some 10 years ago now at least.  It has had some surgery, as it got hit a couple of times by branches, and fell and broke its neck on each occasion, but the wonderful Olivier, a local craftsman in all things wood, has done a fix.

I have been getting a bit depressed about local markets recently.  The biggest and best near us is at la Flèche and was a lifeline during Covid lockdowns as you could go there and get real food, rather than what the supermarkets felt you should want to eat.  The town councillors seem to think that the market is a Bad Thing however, even though they make money out of it, but perhaps it is too much competition for their personal businesses?  Who knows!  Anyway, they have removed all the parking spaces within easy reach of the market, and have set up a shuttle bus, which few people take as it is never where you need it to be.  I caught it once, and found it too cramped for comfortable seating and was lucky I had no shopping with me, as there was no space for that either.  Last week my lovely fishmongers said farewell - I was in tears!

On a much happier note, Baugé market on a Saturday seems to be well supported by the local council and over the past month has acquired a fresh pasta stall, a stall selling food inspired by Guadeloupe, another selling Thai specialities, and my personal favourite, there is a new butcher too!  Long may that last!  The photo was taken by, and from, the Facebook group supporting the Saturday market.

The excellent weather over the past couple of weeks, albeit a bit unseasonable, has meant I have had absolutely no excuse not to get the potatoes all planted.  The final batch of 16 went in this morning and I can feel it in my haunches!  With the coverings (two of which are on their seventh season now), we don't need to draw up soil around the shoots as they come up, and it provides exciting habitat for toads and slow worms among other fauna, which keeps the slugs under control.  There is some protection too from cat bottoms, although not from cats rolling around in the sun and dust.

The onions are all in now, and I started peas off in old modules that we acquired with geraniums in them over the years.  I like to reuse these when I can and when they aren't too battered, and peas are vulnerable to mice and birds and mould when sown direct, so it seemed like a good idea.  Now they are nice looking seedlings, but need to go into the ground as the roots are starting to come out of the bottom of the modules, even though they are quite deep.  A job for tomorrow I think!

Next week there should be wildlife content, all things being equal, as I brought in one of the trail cameras today - it's been by the badger set for a couple of months, but the grass and weeds have grown up around it, so something needed to be done.

Have a good week and be nice to the Easter Bunny!

 

Blossom, videos and mystery packages

The week before last, the weather yo-yoed a bit between fabulous sun and dull and a bit moist, but this last week, the weather has settled into a sunny, dry and mainly warm pattern, although an occasional and rather vicious wind from the east blew part of the chicken run roof off.  That would have been the opening photo, but I just could not resist this cherry tree in full bloom.  It was humming with bees and the scent of the blossom was heady and gorgeous.  It's a pity that the resulting fruit, when not stolen by birds, is pretty well inedible as it is just a wafer thin coating of red on a pip.  Still, if the birds like it, and the bees like it, who are we to complain?

Most of the plum blossom is over, there is still some peach blossom around, but that is also mostly over.  The pears and cherries have taken over, with early apples ready to ping, and more apple and quince blossom for later in the month.  It is a beautiful time of the year and the leaves are unfurling almost as you watch, so each day the scenery changes a little bit.  The daffs are pretty well over but the tulips are coming into their own.  Next week i should be able to show off my whimsical wellies, but today the frizzy edged tulips we planted 6 years ago are putting on a display.

Before we get into Spring videos, I thought I'd better share the videos I took off a trail camera that had been put on a crossing point between two ponds.  I thought I would get some interesting coypu footage and perhaps a few ducks.  The coypu footage was really very dull - generally a tail disappearing in one direction or another, or a coypu sitting in the dark, thinking.  In some animals, that might be visually appealing, but in coypu, it isn't.  There were a few ducks towards the end of the two month installation.

I hadn't expected to see any badger activity down there, but they were around, including this bit from January.

These two deer were around in February.  The one closer to the camera looks like it might be pregnant with a couple of lumps around the belly area, but the other one looks like a fawn from last year.  I welcome thoughts.

Naturally there were boar doing the rounds in February - after dark so moving between areas of cover, I think.

They were back again in March and in force - they didn't leave much of a mark in the pond they were heading for bottom right of the screen.

The final segment is of the fox, living as it should and not raiding dustbins.  The pine martens were around too but didn't stay still enough in that area to give anything more than a quick sight of a fluffy tail disappearing in any direction.

There is a phenomenon over here in France for selling off undelivered and misdirected packages - I'm sure it is the same anywhere where there is a flourishing home delivery service and drivers who aren't given enough time to do their rounds.  They are "blind" sales in that you can generally have a good feel of the packages, but you can't open before you buy - it's a grown up lucky dip, but instead of a fishing rod with a hook on it and a bucket of parcels, you have a number of tables heaped with all sizes and shapes of packages.  In general, you pay by weight - today it was 3.50€ per 100 grammes.  It is important to remain sensible and not spend more than you can afford to lose, and we steered clear of anything that could have been clothes or shoes as they would have been unlikely to fit, but we came away with 3 mystery packages each as a sort of Christmas stocking (many months late I know) for the princely sum of 18 Euros.

These were my three packages.  The flat one bottom right, which I thought might be a lipstick, was in fact some jollop for thickening eyelashes - not really me.  The cylindrical one to the left was some highly concentrated car wash liquid - might be useful at some stage.  The box style one at the top was a no blue light click light, presumably for use in a bedroom or office setting, which might actually be useful, if it works, and is rechargeable too.  It was a lot of fun, but I have to emphasise, a complete lucky (or unlucky) dip and never pay out more than you can afford to lose.

Next week is set to be lovely again, so I must work in the garden, getting the other half of the potatoes planted and weeding and pruning and cutting back and preparing beds and sowing seeds and all that good stuff.  Have a good week too!

 

Longer days

Last night here in the Northern Hemisphere, and more particularly Europe, the clocks sprang forward an hour.  We lag behind the Americans I think on this, as they went earlier in the month and for the past three weeks I have missed Martha Quinn in San Francisco and her afternoon show that ends at 3pm, or midnight in our terms.  It'll be good to hear her dulcet tones again from tomorrow!  

Normally there are lots of stories on TV news about how changing the hour affects your health and how it will kill you in the long term.  Although as someone who used to commute to the UK regularly and therefore went through the change of hour twice every trip, I think that is something suitable for feeding growing vegetables.  What about those countries with multiple time zones - do their citizens die because they have to travel east to west and back again?  Much more interestingly, we discussed the issue of summer time at the weekly flower making session on Tuesday.

I have to say that normally, what is discussed in flower making, stays in flower making, but this was an interesting perspective.  Here in western France, in the height of summer, it doesn't get dark until 11pm, but it doesn't really get light much before 6am.  The view among the group was that actually lighter mornings are preferable as there is so much to do and some are up at 5:30am so a bit more light then would be nice.  Who, they asked rhetorically, wants to be up and outside doing stuff every evening until 11pm?  This is a fair point.  Getting children to bed when it is light is always a challenge (from my memories of being a child and difficult to get to bed when it was light), but they are still in school in June when we have the longest evenings and part of July too.  It's great for holiday makers, but for this group of pensioners, it was a doubtful blessing.

Just to explain what you can see on the table there - I was cutting out circles of paper the size of a CD.  You then take three circles, put a small button of some sort in the middle and secure it with an elastic band, then open up the resulting "flower".  We will be making some 4,000 paper flowers, if not a few more, for the village float for the Comice in August.  If you don't know what a Comice is by now, look through past blogs for August!!

On Tuesday, we went on one of our very rare visits to Angers to do a bit of business.  Last time we went in was November last year, to get a train, driving in from a different direction.  I'd not gone my old favourite route for a couple of years.  The second tram line has changed the road system a lot, and accessing the familiar car park was a bit more of a challenge.  John was convinced we were going to get mown down by a tram.  We also could not find the entrance to the ground level car park so had to go underground.  As we weren't there for long, less than an hour, it was free though, so one good thing!  When we got above ground, we admired the law courts - Justice at it's most impressive!

Weather-wise it has been a weird week, with one day fine and warm, the next moist and dull (see above), but next week promises to be fine and dry and warm - we'll see if that is the case.  The spring flowers are coming on most prettily.

It also means that I no longer have any good excuses for not planting the rest of the potatoes and even more onions, while waiting for seeds to germinate so I can plant them out and start the next batch.  After last year's dismal failure at getting anything very much to grow in the vegetable garden, we have invested in over a tonne of high quality organic matter to feed the soil and break up the clay soil.  Let's hope it works!

Another labour of love has been weeding and feeding the asparagus bed - frustratingly, we won't be able to eat any from here this year as the corms are yet to really settle in, but next year, it could be different!

It is therefore time for me to publish this and go and prepare myself mentally and physically for a week's hard graft in the gardens.  Besides, it is taking ages to load each of these photos - too many kiddies playing computer games and taking up band width I suspect!

Have a good week!

 

Spring, birds and horses

It's now officially spring!  Days are longer than nights, the weather is capricious and mostly warmer, and birds are singing.

The bird song is now getting pretty intense.  The all year round residents of the land in the Country (Garden, Orchard and Meadow) are getting pretty frisky and pairing up or even sorting out nests.  All year round we have a loud chorus of chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds and carrion crows.  During the winter, the woodpeckers (greater spotted and green in the main), dunnocks and long tailed tits are also very audible, with a core of about 10 species all year round.  We get a few interesting things passing through such as hawfinch and redwing as well.

Now the first of the summer visitors are coming back, with chiffchaffs, blackcaps and Cetti's warblers making a real racket, drowning out my beloved skylarks much of the time.  It is still too early for my summer favourites - nightingales, melodious warblers (even the name is fabulous) and golden orioles, but by the end of April they may be here.  I am astounded at the variety of birds we get, few of which are in the "concerns" categories of endangered species, but the sheer variety must mean something good.  Most months we have at least 30 to 35 species spotted using the Merlin birdsong analysis app - I have to stress that visual sightings are generally pretty limited, due to the quality and quantity of hiding places!

We spent Saturday in a very different way to normal, with a day at the races, courtesy of my brother who part owns a couple of horses and one was racing at Angers hippodrome yesterday.  I have been to the races at Worcester as a guest of an owner, and the dress code was formal, so heels, frock, posh jacket, a bit of bling and lippy.  No such codes were applied at Angers - clean, comfortable and suitable for the weather was the order of the day, even in the panoramic restaurant, where we had lunch with the trainer.

Even in the stable area, where we went to see the boy being walked around to warm him up, everything was very informal and open.

We were allowed in the parade ring, which I didn't photograph as we were listening to the discussion between trainer and jockey and then working out whether to bet (we didn't) and where best to watch the race.  We found a very good spot, on the advice of the trainer, right by the finish line and quite well sheltered from the typically moist and dank weather, that has plagued us these last 6 months.  I was well placed to see them jump the water fence.

For the bits of the race that weren't close by, we were also well placed to watch the big screen with the action from cameras around the course, and naturally there was the usual, unintelligible commentary over the loudspeakers.

Given the excellent position, I was able to capture him going over the finish line (navy blue shirt with a yellow V), not first, but not last and he made it all the way round, which 3 of his competitors didn't.

We then spent a lot of time with him, both in the ring and at the stables, as he cooled off after his exertions over 3,700 metres and a bunch of fences (I didn't count how many).  The initiated and eagle eyed will spot that he is missing a shoe, which he shed somewhere down the back straight - the jockey knows where!  You will also note the rather lovely heart shaped mark on his forehead - he is called Legend Race, which seems a silly name to me.

That was his first run for my brother and his colleagues, and his first race over fences; he has had a couple of outings over hurdles before this.  Overall, everyone was very happy, and it was certainly a fun day out.  Racing in France - much more egalitarian than the UK, and cheaper too!

I'll finish this week with a couple more flower photos, because it is that time of year when every new bloom is a source of joy.  Firstly there is a flower that isn't a cow slip and isn't a polyanthus and isn't a primrose, but probably a hybrid of all three.

And then there are my tiny anemones that each year I fear will have died off, but which appear again every spring over the space of a few weeks, and contrast nicely with the shoots of peonies that are springing up.

Soon there may be tulips!  Have a good week!

 

And we're back!

Apologies - there really is nothing that can be done when the main provider server is down.

Spring is so close now - the official start date is Thursday 20th March in France anyway - and we have been having more and more tasters of (hopefully) better days to come.  As you drive around the countryside now, the hedges are dominated by the bright, white blossom of blackthorn and wild plums.  It is a sight that always fills me with hope and anticipation for the longer days and better weather to come.  The blossom should also provide a lovely rich feed for the insects that will be starting to get the countryside humming, although up to now, the only place I have heard that buzz has been in a garden with japonica in full bloom.  The plum tree blossom that I have been tracking for the past few weeks is now out - but if you look at the photo, there are no bees to be seen.

Other flowers are also coming out - parts of the Meadow and Garden are turning into cowslip lawns.  I use the term cowslip probably to generously, as I gather there are lots of variants, but the number of these and the colour variations that we will get in due course (red and orange) are a very happy sight for me.  They are so prolific that mowing even paths can be a challenge if one is obsessed with not taking a few out!  Whatever, they are a sign that I need to get out in the garden more.

A sure sign that spring is on its way is the start of the car boot season, or vide grenier as they are called over here - literally empty attic.  Jarzé has the first major one, and it is big!  Despite foul weather with warnings of sleet and snow, between 150 and 200 brave souls turned out to set up their stands from about 6:00am and most would have to wait until about 5:00pm to be able to get away again.  In response to the terror attack years ago in Nice, events like this mean that roads are blocked off with large vans and huge slabs of concrete if held on public roads (fields are a bit different).  I would guess something between 10,000 and 20,000 people will have traipsed the length of Jarzé on Sunday in search of that essential item or elusive bargain.  We bought nothing but saw lots of people we knew.

As well as the outside plants starting to put on a show, my special Mediterranean corner of the Country Kitchen (or cat feeding room) is doing well.  The lemon "tree" is looking healthy and the leaves are a better colour than they were at the start of the winter.  The tiny olive "tree" seems taller and glossier now, while the big plant that we inherited from Francois the Drunk, and split into three, is preparing to flower.  The other two bits are in pots outside, and while they survived last winter, this one doesn't seem to have been as easy on them.  We will see if they revive and then I will bring them indoors in the autumn!

I am very fortunate to have a chum who used to grow flowers for a living and still has a large number of cutting flower plants.  If you pop round to see her for any reason, it is hard to get away without a bunch of something.  My latest gift was a bunch of large and lovely anemones - wow, they are spectacular!

Now that the birds have found the fat balls that I put out for them over the winter, they can't get enough of them.  This is a shame as I stop feeding the birds on the 1st April, as there might be babies hatching and they don't need the somewhat artificial foods in commercial fat balls, or peanuts.  This fuzzy image shows two well fed great tits stuffing their beaks - I would prefer it if they were ripping the pine processionary nests apart, but they are lovely to watch.

So that's it for this week's late epistle, and I hope to be back on Sunday as usual.  Have a good rest of the week!

 

A more positive outlook

Finally bugs are behind me for the moment and I can look more positively at the coming weeks and think about what needs doing.  Last week we dug up the very last potatoes from the 2024 crop - a bit sprouted but eating nicely!  The potato bed is now getting ready for other, more interesting crops, having received most of the 400 kilos of top quality compost.  The first strip has been sown (too late in my view, but nothing I can do) with broad beans, with wire cages over the top to defend the seed bed from cat bottoms.  The next block will have onions and shallots when I am a bit more convinced about the weather, while the final block should have the aubergines, chillies and courgettes, assuming I get round to sourcing plants or sowing my own.

On Friday I picked up what I thought would be refurbished Asian hornet traps, but turned out to be brand new ones, with my old trap numbers painted on them.  They will go out in the next couple of days, as I have seen a bumble bee, so things are starting to stir in insect world.  The plum blossom on the mirabelle style trees is starting to look very close to exploding so that will attract other things, and therefore also overwintered Asian hornet queens looking for nourishment.

The fog is less omnipresent at the moment and that means we are getting more interesting sunsets of an evening.  It is also lovely that those sunsets are ever later into the evening - just 4 weeks now until the clocks go forward, although the mornings are still too dark to be inspiring.

In theory this is the last weekend of the big game hunting season - I'm sure they will find a good reason to carry on but Sunday walks may be safer from next weekend onwards!  Looking around the plot, there is evidence of a lot of animals on the move, and I've just scanned through some trail camera footage which shows that nothing has stopped the wild boar in their inexorable fight to conquer the French countryside, as a group of 15 passed through!  For today you will have to do with print evidence though.

This week I had to resort to ordering a load of t-shirts - we've not indulged for perhaps 5 years and it is showing, so I gave in to cheap fashion and ordered 7 (3 for me, 4 for John).  Home delivery didn't seem to be possible without a huge additional cost, while leaving the parcel at a local shop didn't seem to be an option any more - I had to choose between three different ranges of deposit boxes.  Now I have to say it all worked really nicely and from placing the order on Wednesday, it was pretty amazing to collect the goods on Friday, but...  I liked going to a shop to pick up the parcel, sometimes I was tempted to buy something from them too, and certainly they got paid a bit for being the deposit point.  So while these boxes work very nicely, I think I preferred the human touch!

Now I need to go and watch the last half hour of an exciting rugby match!  Have a good week!

 

Sunshine makes everything better

This last week has all been about the slow recovery from a nasty bout of 'flu, with a slight blip when a gastro bug decided to make life more challenging.  But aside from that, it is amazing how sunshine makes things feel so much better!  On Monday, the sun was a bit tentative, and with dramatic clouds that did nothing but look impressive, so it was enough to tempt me out for a short walk to get the blood circulating and track down a bit of vitamin D.  The church was looking as magnificent as ever, to create a perfect image of sunshine, cloud and architecture.

There was a cruel wind, so to keep out of its path, I kept to the small lanes and built up bits of the village, rather than stride out to the route de Beaufort.  For a change I pottered down the cobbled lane that leads to the lavoir, or village wash house, to admire the clear spring that rises from a chum's cellar into a deep pool before pouring through the washhouse and down to the river.  Even in the big droughts a couple of years ago, the spring didn't dry up and it is always tempting to dip one's toes in during the summer.  Nothing would have tempted me to dip any bit of me in it on Monday!

Tuesday morning we treated ourselves to a trip to the compost emporium nearby.  They take all the green waste from the local tip as well as serious loads from farmers and others with significant quantities of "material" and on an industrial scale, produce the most marvellous compost.  Bagged up, it is a bit pricey, but take along your own trailer and it is much more reasonable.  A trailer load of about 400kg comes in at 32Euros, or roughly what you would pay for 3 bags of 50 litres of something that has been sitting around at a DIY shop for a few months but has "added goodness" apparently.  They also have a loyalty scheme.  Of course the only challenge now it to move it out of the trailer and onto the bits of garden that need it.

A bit of sunshine and a bit of motivation and the ability to be distant from a bathroom was all I needed this morning to do a bit of work in the garden.  There were a few final potatoes to lift before they got too interested in growing, so I struggled with the heavy clay soil to get them up.  While they are covered in weed suppressant matting, so there aren't too many weeds, the soil has soaked up as much water as it can and is heavy and unpleasant to work with.  Despite that, I managed to disturb a hibernating slow worm.  I put him in a sunbeam so he could warm up enough to move to safer ground, and stood guard while he did so, ensuring no prowling birds or cats could attack him in his sleepy state.  I'm sure I'll see him again later in the year - we do seem to have loads and I am very fond of them for their slug control capacities.

Finally, the early spring bulbs are doing their thing, and in very sheltered corners, the first of the daffodils are showing flowers.  Others will take up the challenge as it gets warmer, but these are tucked under an apple tree so not in any draughts.

The forecast is good for the next few days, so I should be able to tackle the compost and prune apple trees and set up my hornet traps and get prepared for spring, which isn't so far away now!  Have a good week!