Rural Life

Seaside Rendez-Vous

This weekend we had our first holiday together for four years, comprising a night away at Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie in the Vendée.  Once we had fed both sets of cats, and hidden food bowls around the house for the girls, we headed south west in search of pastures new, sea air, food not cooked by us and exercise.

Our first "holiday" stop was to admire the ruined castle at les Essarts, somewhat north of la Roche-sur-Yon.  it looked dramatic driving by, and has a lovely new carpark and an excellent boardwalk to the entrance, but won't be open until 7th April, so the boardwalk was as far as we got.

We then carried on to Saint Gilles itself, found a parking space near our hotel and before we checked in, went for a first exploratory wander.  The place is an amalgamation of a number of small communities along both banks of a river which takes a tortuous route to the sea.  We were on the far side, so to speak, but there was actually a further side beyond the river Vie, which we went to today.  Without a map it was horribly confusing, and as we were outside the tourist season, we had to wait until we checked into the hotel to get our hands on a town plan and make sense of it all.  Anyway, we walked out along the river towards the sea, taking a few photos on the way.

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We then checked into the hotel, let my feet recover from a lot of walking, and studied the map carefully, before changing for dinner.  We then set out inland back over the second loop of the river, and as the weather was pretty filthy, chose the first open restaurant we came to for our dinner, which was very good.  I forget how much I like Pineau de Charente as an aperitif!  We also forget how good the simple things in life are, like good bread and butter and tinned sardines (sardines are very much The Thing at Saint Gilles), which made a delicious starter.  After a very nice dinner, and once that rainstorm had blown over, we went back to the hotel, stopping only to photograph the rather dramatic church tower.

This morning was the fine weather before the storm, so we took advantage to walk up and down along the dune and Grand Plage that protect the entrance to the river Vie and the sailing and fishing ports behind.  In summer it must be vile, lined as it is with holiday apartments, candy floss shops, ice cream parlours and creperies, but firmly out of season and with a few brave cafés and restaurants open and a few mad kite surfers, it was what we needed.  The wind was blowing a gale, which made life interesting.  John had to screw his flat cap on his head to avoid it flying away more than once.  The amount of oxygen inhaled in any one breathe was intoxicating and my hair is still standing on end.

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Even though we were on holiday, we really couldn't resist this bit of interpretation about and curation of dune plants, vital for saving the Vendée coastline in all its natural splendour against the ravages of the sea.  The irony of it being next two blocks of recent and really rather ugly holiday flats seems to be totally lost on the French and local government.

The promised thunderstorm arrived a little after midday, but by that time, we were tucked up in the outer terrace (so protected from most of the elements but with a good view of them all) of a very nice restaurant having a lovely lunch and being aggressively flirted with by a waiter practicing his English before the holiday hoards descend.  We dashed to the car in a pause between rain showers, to head home to face the wrath of cats, feeling very well fed, well oxygenated and almost ready for the Spring.  Almost...

 

Truffle time

If you aren't interested in food, today's contribution is not for you!  

Every year, from early January and depending on prices and what is going on, John buys 100g of black truffle for me to "play" with.  He uses Ebay to find a supplier, and if we like their product, we stay faithful for a year or two.  The bloke that sent us a photo of the dog that found the truffles was a favourite for about 3 years I think!  Generally they come from the south west of France, although there are truffle woods around here and a truffle fair each year at Chinon.  This year we were a bit later than usual buying our black gold as I had a trip to the UK earlier in the month, but the parcel arrived on the 23rd of January with these gems.

The first thing I do is set some to infuse in cheese - this year's choice was a quarter of a Brillat Saverin, a mild cheese that we generally find fairly pointless, unless it is to take on truffle aroma.  I also mixed some pieces into cream cheese and sealed that in a yoghurt pot for a few days.

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The first meal was the classic - scrambled eggs with truffle shards sprinkled over them.  The scrambled eggs are a silly colour because our chickens produce dayglo yellow egg yolks.

The second meal was another classic - linguine with a cream sauce infused with cèpe and truffle flakes.  I added the smoked salmon as I had a slice that I had got from the fish monger before the truffles arrived and it needed to be used up.  Happily, it didn't overwhelm the sauce.

The Wednesday meal was fish based, as I had been to the market that morning - a nice piece of cod filet, pan fried, with a beurre blanc sauce and slices of truffle.  There were crudités to provide a hint of healthy bits too.

By the Thursday evening, the truffle infused cream cheese was just right for a dip with aperos before dinner.  I then topped up the pot with more cream cheese to get another go at it!

Thursday dinner was a sumptuous roast chicken leg served with truffle mash - one of the very few dishes where the truffle gets cooked as it is so well encased in mashed potato.

Friday we had a day off from truffle, but Saturday night was an interesting one.  My brother had given me a couple of merguez crepinettes - for those not in the know, merguez are a beef and/or lamb sausage well spiced with paprika, while a cripinette is a sort of flat sausage encased in crepine, or the membrane of an internal organ of a pig.  We had the other half of the truffle mash too, and were worried that the meat would be too strong for the mash, but they made an excellent mix.

Sunday lunch is normally eggs in some form after a morning of labour or leisure at The Shack.  For the truffle fest, I did baked eggs with truffle slices hidden under the eggs, so another of the few times the truffle actually gets cooked, but again trying to keep the aromas in with a coating of egg, cream and mild cheese.  It worked!

Sunday dinner was another classic - pan fried scallops with truffle.  To celebrate scallops, I dug up four leeks from The Garden and cooked them down with stock, before adding a swirl of cream and pepper to the final mix.  They made a wonderful bed and foil to the scallops - that was memorable!

On the Monday, as I was in Baugé, I stopped at the market and got a pork loin from the butcher.  This enabled me to do slices of pork loin with spaghetti and a cream and truffle sauce which was a particularly lush start to a new week.

The next lunchtime we finished off the truffle infused cheeses as the Brillat Saverin was starting to climb out of the cheese box - not in a smelly way, just getting jolly runny.

The week of truffle greed ended with the second half of the pork loin, cut into medallions and pan fried, and served with a rich mushroom risotto, all liberally festooned with the final slivers of truffle.

So there you have it - 8 days of truffle heaven, which won't be repeated in 2023, so roll on 2024!  I should also add that there is a real art to photographing food, which includes the right lighting and the food not being hot.  But scrub around that - I remembered to take a snap before wading into dinner and that is the most I can promise!

Next week there should be animal videos.

 

A spot of nostalgia and a highlight of village life returns

For various, boring, administrative reasons, I had to return to where I grew up - the Tunbridge Wells area of Kent.  I've not been there since perhaps 2006 at the most recent, so it was all a bit odd.  Somethings change enormously - the main topic of conversation on local chat sites was where the most recent potholes had appeared and how many cars had broken wheels or suspension or both as a result.  That really was rather scary!  Other things don't change or don't seem to anyway, as I found out on Wednesday.

My driver parked at the entrance to the Woods and we walked along the lane as far as an ancient oak and a kink in the road that for some reason my father always called London.  One of my bedroom windows is still the same old sash window I remember gazing out of for hours as a teenager, the porch on the cottage is still the one my Dad whittled over a couple of winters in front of the fire (I wonder if his fireplace with even more whittling is still there?), while the local post box is still the same and the amazing bronze stag door knocker on another house is as I remember, although the people who lived there are gone.  Some houses on one side of the road, the older houses, are being renovated, but on the other side of the road, up the hill from the road, the more modern houses are hidden by hedges that have grown taller and more impenetrable than I remember them.

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Another blast from the past was travelling as a foot passenger (last done in 1984 on the Harwich-Hamburg ferry), and using the Dieppe - Newhaven crossing, which I last used when I was perhaps 14.  The boat was more modern, but the crossing still lasts at least 4 hours, and as there was a gale in the Channel, it actually lasted more like 5 or 6 hours!  Travelling over to the UK, it was dark when I got on the boat so could see nothing, but coming back on a day crossing was rather splendid in the storm.  Near port, you could really see the waves crashing against the harbour walls, as well as admiring the Seven Sisters as we got further out.  Once away from the coast, the spectacle of a stormy sea was enjoyable, although 5 hours of waves can, after a while, get a bit dull!  I don't get sea sick fortunately.  Given the weather conditions, I couldn't get out on deck, so the photos are through slightly grubby windows.

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Back in France, every January, there is a ceremony in most communes of a presentation by the Mayor to wish the local population a Happy New Year, to share a review of the year that has passed and to set out the main projects and excitements for the year ahead.  In an election year, they have to be very careful what they say, and as all and any residents can attend, for the last two years there has been no event, just a video, which is not the same.  This year these ceremonies are back.  A major difference was that there was practically no kissing - normally these events are a marathon of cheek kissing and hand shaking, this year it was fist bumps, nods, smiles and acknowledgements.  Fingers crossed it wasn't a super spreader event! 

For something over an hour the high and low lights of the past year were shared, from the Mediaeval Fair to the great fire, with so many things in between, a presentation to a retiring member of the village school team, an outline of changes for 2023, including how we pay for rubbish collections, and the works being undertaken to restore some community woodland.  There was also a presentation on, and exhortation to get involved in, the Comice 2023, which will be in Vieil Baugé.  After, there was an opportunity to nobble a member of the council about undeclared building work going on, as well as to drink a glass of fizz, greet a number of friends and each cheese puffs.  It was great to be back to something like normal.

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So 2023 is now fully launched and things are back to near normal.  Have a good week!

 

New year, new promise?

Last blog was all about looking back, today is more about looking forward as the days start to lengthen and we stop thinking about how to celebrate midwinter and concentrate more on what the new year has to offer.

On the last day of the old year, it was unseasonably warm.  Now it is always hard for a gardener to hold back on sowing things and planting things, because that is what it is all about, making things grow.  That challenge is even harder when it is mild and you see buds developing and catkins shedding pollen everywhere (and so the start of the new season allergies).  However I felt justified in doing a bit of sowing, as I hadn't got around to the second patch of broad beans, and I like to do autumn sowing to avoid the worst ravages of blackfly.  So I uncovered a nicely clean bed, raked it over to remove any foolhardy weeds and a bit more of the underlying builders' rubble, made about 88 dents and sowed broad bean Aquadulce Claudia.  I then raked soil back over and added a nice long piece of netting to avoid the worst ravages of cat bottom.  I guess it will be another 3 weeks or so before the shoots show.

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Another major winter occupation is firewood - now is a good time to fell as the trees are quiet, not too much sap around or leaves to encumber the fall, we aren't worried about missing mushrooms and we aren't being attacked by mosquitos.  We've brought down two trees so far this winter and want to bring down another couple to ensure continuity.  We had clearly grown soft this summer as moving the dead/dry pieces up to the top of the One Acre Wood is proving harder work than in previous years and neither of us have really felt that our elbows are in a suitable condition for doing a lot of splitting with an axe, however satisfying it can be.  We borrowed a log splitter which made short work of the existing stash of big logs, which are now ready for use.

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We are still eating the fruits of last year's gardening, and the Brussel Sprouts seem to be nearly ready for John to crunch his way through.  I won't touch them.  Next weekend we will have our first red cabbage, but I fear that the cauliflower plants, that grew so large and lush, won't have the reserves to make good curds in February/March.  I mentioned that it was unseasonably warm?  Today I found them covered once again by caterpillars!

It is good at this time of year to look around and appreciate what we take for granted.  Two examples of this.  Firstly I was in a neighbouring village for a work appointment, and rather than park at the client's house, I parked by the church.  Once the work was done, as I put my stuff back in the car, and changed sweatshirt to one that the cats could and would dribble on, I took a moment to marvel at the magnificent St Médard church in Cheviré le Rouge.  It's not the largest village by any means, but perhaps 800 or 900 years ago it was way more important, and deserved this large and impressive church.

Looking down, once at the Orchard and having a bit of a walk, I marvelled at the intricate patterns of cyclamen leaves and was perhaps a bit concerned at the number and size of orchid rosettes under the big walnut tree.  The cyclamen flowers in the autumn were magnificent.  The orchids are most likely to be lizard orchids - impressive, particularly when there are a lot of them, but not pretty.

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I'm travelling next week, so there may be photos from other places next Sunday!

 

Never enough time!

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks, with getting the draft report done for clients and then this week a presentation that could have gone a lot better, if IT had been on my side.  Then there was the house sale we were helping with, so last weekend was a flurry of moving "stuff", and in particular sofas, and the angst of returning the hire van full of diesel when the local petrol stations were empty!  The actual sale went swimmingly well in the end, so that was a relatively easy Monday - well until yoga, when the joints in my legs and feet really didn't want to play ball with various positions! 

Tuesday was taking a cat to her first vet visit in 10 years to be chipped and passported and vaccinated so she can go travelling.  I had had more nightmares about that than sofa moving or interpreting, and it turns out my subconscious was right, as she was a bit of a problem (other more pungent phrases are available).  In the end, we had to leave her with the vet to be sedated for the three required injections, and there is a prescription for tranquilizers for the return visit for the booster jab in a month's time.

Tomorrow, I head to the UK for over a week to do some evaluation work and see family and friends.  It should be fun, but I've still got loads of sorting, printing, ironing and packing to do before I am anywhere near ready to head off.  This is a long-winded excuse for not battling with YouTube to load the latest dollop of cute wild boar videos, but there are some photos!  If you are looking at this on a computer (and possibly a tablet), click on the photos to get the full joy and the right number of boar - the first one actually has 10 in it!

In In

In other news, we did get to the One Acre Wood over the weekend to see if there were any nice edible mushrooms, as this is supposed to be great weather for them.  Hmmm.  Well, I spotted the three below, but they were not numerous, not particularly edible, and not particularly inspiring either.  Perhaps it is just our bit of woodland, and we need to look about 300 kilometres further south?

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Some things are working as you would expect at this time of year - the badgers are doing some vital work on the summer love nest prior to moving back up to the main badger village a couple of fields away for winter.  All we see of their activity are the piles of bright soil added to the spoil heap around the entrance.  Other things are not as would be expected - the yukkas flower in April and May, not the second half of October!!

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So, a short missive this week and I won't be writing again until 1st November, but I hope to share with you some lovely photos from the Broads and Essex when I do write.

 

Piggie fun and other stuff

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with the report for the Marches Mosses BogLIFE last weekend and helping some people move out of their lovely maison secondaire this weekend, which included moving a lot of furniture, and not all of it ours.  We have had our much-loved DFS sofa and armchair for over 30 years, and while they started out stylish and comfortable, the sofa had become a lot less comfortable with time, while my beloved armchair was visually a thing of shame, if not horror when some of the innards splurged out.  The friends who are leaving had two smart small sofas and no desire to keep them and passed them to us.  My armchair went to the tip, but the sofa moved next door (!), and their sofa went to the tip as well.

We also have an embarrassment of storage units, shelving units, garden chairs and tables, extension cables and running blocks, chainsaws, rakes, spades, mowers, books, DVDs and bedding.  At least I know what I will do with the excess bedding...

Taking a breather from moving storage and shelving units around, we had a chat to the neighbour of the people moving out.  His garden is immaculate in general, although his front garden has too many gnomes and white stones for my taste.  There was a vine of some sort going along the fence and in passing I had tended to assume it was a form of bryony, but discussing it with him, it turns out I was completely wrong.  A tender but thug-like vine, the cristophine (or however it is spelt), is a semi-tropical or tropical savoury vegetable, which looks pear-shaped but knobbly, and tastes rather like salsify to my mind.   It makes a very nice gratin.  Here is a baby fruit, which was about 3 inches long.

We moved the trail camera to nearer where the boar were finding food, and frankly it was a bit of a disaster.  The camera was normally upright for at most 12 hours before they bashed it over, looking for food.  Instead, we strapped the camera to a suitable tree and a bit higher up than normal too and waited to see what we caught.  I had hoped that there might be some badger action, but I think they stay out of the way of the boar.  The following five videos were over the last week, with three during daylight hours and two at night.  It is a sizeable family group, with two parents, possibly a couple of young from the previous litter and smaller ones from this year's litter.  First the night time marauding, then the daytime playful ones - they seem to regard our orchard as a safe space - at least until the hunt come through the area (although they don't access "our" land).

The bright dots are eyes in the infrared light.

Daytime feeding is more amusing to watch.

And watching playtime, I am glad that this is as close as I ever get to a live one!

 

 

I'm hoping for a more tranquil week now, when I can concentrate on getting crops in and doing a lot of paperwork!

 

What a strange week!

Last Sunday the weather decided to break, with thunderstorms and rain, except around us.  I could see storms, but couldn't actually hear them, and we had little rain during the week despite the predictions for quantities of up to 20mm.  We had 5mm.  Not really enough to do anything other than make the air heavy and uncomfortable.  But then the temperatures went down, and I even wore a pair of jeans one day! 

The chimney is now swept, so we could have a fire, but the house is still very warm, so no need.  It got ever cooler so that on Friday, when visiting Chinon, I turned down the opportunity of a soft drink in the Place Jeanne d'Arc on the basis I didn't have a jumper with me.  Today I am back in shorts, and we expect temperatures of 30ºC and over for the next couple of days.  Crazy!  This storm was to the North of le Mans, 50km away!

The trail camera is starting to be accepted again by the local wildlife - it takes a while for them to get used to a lump of willow trunk sitting and looking threatening in their "zone".  There are some videos, but i don't think the bandwidth is there today to load them onto YouTube and share them.  In addition to the badger, deer and birds of last week, more deer have been spotted, and the pine martin is back.  A new addition to the local gang is a hare - the field next door was ploughed, and he/she seemed to object.

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Yesterday was the annual Méchoui or outdoor pig roast at our local Boule de Forte club, la Paix.  Covid meant that it couldn't run in 2020, as no large gatherings were allowed, while the rules were changing so often in 2021, the organisers wisely decided not to bother.  This year, with no restrictions, it was back. 

While for the organisers, it starts early on a Saturday morning, getting the pig cooking, for us punters, things kick off from about midday with a long drinks and nibbles session, before we are called to table for more drinks and nibbles.  Then there is a collation of cold salad starters with bread (at which point the chaps buy wine and water), and by about 3:30pm, people are starting to get restive, so six chaps will carry the pig over to the carving table and serve it up.  Platters of hot pork, bowls of beans and bowls of ratatouille then do the rounds, and there are always seconds.  There can be a bit of a scrum for good bits of skin and crackling, but I did well on that this year.  Then when you feel you couldn't eat or drink another thing, cheese and slices of apple tart arrive, followed by coffee. 

We dragged our sagging tummies home at 6:30pm, as our brains were ringing with French, including heartfelt condolences from French friends who had been thinking about us, they assured us, constantly since Thursday evening.  The warmth of community feeling is a wonderful thing.

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So yes, that's the final aspect to a strange week - Thursday 8th September, at 7:33pm the France 3 news was interrupted in its first story by the breaking news that Queen Elizabeth II had died.  By the time we turned over to France 2 for the detailed weather forecast including the Caribbean islands, their 8 o'clock news had started early, with presenters wearing black, doing a four-hour special on Her Majesty.  Their coverage was sad but also celebratory.  They managed to find a couple of British, but fluent French speakers from their staff to make some sort of serious comment, while National Treasure, Stéphane Bearne (OBE) was wheeled out to talk about the several times he met the Queen, including for his investiture.  It was an excellent homage to a great lady. 

While flags were lowered on Friday in many places, and any news programme or channel is a bit obsessed by it all, we can turn over and watch other things.  We can also change channel on the internet radio and go from mournful or reflective music on Classic FM and Radio 2, to jollier tunes and normal voices on French radio stations.  Come the 19th September, I guess we will be glued to a news channel though - after all, it is history in the making.

But now I must go and make peach jam, because over-ripe peaches wait for nothing and no one!

 

Back to School time

Actually, it is called the Rentrée and is taken very seriously here in France, with lots of things changing as well as kiddies going (back) to school.  It happened in general on Thursday last week, the 1st September, although we went out for lunch and were surprised at the number of people under 16 eating out with parents, and noticed the slow service due to the lack of people aged 15 to 18 serving tables.  It's the Rentrée effect. 

Another phenomenon at this time of year are the local Forums d'Associations or open day for clubs and societies, normally organised around a large sports or cultural centre, where you go to sign up for all the arts and sports and worthy things you are going to do after the Rentrée.  I got my sign up form for yoga for old people and talked to the blood donor society as I heard a rumour that rules are being relaxed about the British being able to donate blood.  Time will tell, as they recommended I speak to the doctor on duty at the next donor session on the 20th October.  A date for my diary.

The trail camera has been moved back "home" and was placed near a pear tree to see who is enjoying the pears as they fall, as we aren't getting a look in.  Sadly I placed it a bit too far away, and as the culprits attack after dark, and the infrared light only captures images so far, while the camera is tripping, I'm not getting much by way of images, certainly not video.  However here are three who are partly in the frame, and today I moved the camera closer to the tree, in the hope of seeing more soon.

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The vegetable plots are still going strong, with courgettes finally attempting to produce a glut, aubergines still producing slowly, butternuts filling and ripening, and the winter brassicas starting to look a bit more serious than they did when I first planted them.  We have red cabbage, winter cauliflower and Brussels sprouts in this row, and three more cauliflowers in another row.  Whether they will work or not, I don't know.  The soil is heavy clay which seems to suit brassicas, but weather and water are also important factors and those are in the lap of the gods.

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The uncultivated crops are coming on too - the hops are wild, or at least unintentional, and I don't know if they would be any good for brewing.  As for the sweet chestnuts, well they have a good while to go as they generally start to be ripe around the end of October.  They are still small, and may need more water than the gods provide this year, but there are a lot on the tree, so fingers crossed. 

Apparently I'm not allowed to show the photos of these for some reason, so instead I share a picture of the slow worm that I found when digging up potatoes earlier today.

As it took ages to get that image in, I think it is fair to say that the Web is also suffering from the Rentrée today, so I will leave it there and next week I hope to bring you more exciting images and events from rural France.

In the meantime, have a good Rentrée yourself.

 

 

Quiet days of August

Last week was the flurry of excitement that is the annual Comice here in Baugé en Anjou, and since then, things have generally been much quieter.  Local people are either on holiday or preparing for the Rentré next week - the start of September that brings a new school year, a new year for the sports and arts clubs, people going back to work and taking things a bit more seriously, being able to get an artisan to answer the phone, the tax assessment results, getting the chimney swept and starting to think about winter heating.  It's a big thing here, probably bigger than New Year, and taken most seriously.

For us, it should mean that the holiday makers disperse, making it easier to park at the local markets, less frantic calls from people who can see weeds in their lawn or furry pears on their trees (actually known as quince, but there we go), and a slightly less fraught diary.  In fact, in previous years, September has been a month where I have had something on every weekend, and sometimes more than one thing too.  This year seems more sane - only a pig roast in a couple of weeks' time and perhaps being able to visit things for European Heritage Weekend.

The gardens are relatively quiet - chillies are ripening, as are the meagre corn cobs, borlotti beans are flowering and setting and the potatoes need to be lifted.  With August, some of the loveliest flowers arrive - cyclamen.  They are mainly pink but some are white, and over the years, the clumps get larger.  The ones in our lawn started as the odd flower here and there and now have spread.  It's the same in the One Acre Wood.  These ones are at The Studio and seemed to come up overnight.

Although the weather remains frustratingly dry, there are more clouds in the evening now, which make for colourful sunsets.  I'm never great at taking photographs of these, but I am getting better, and this one was a pleasing one.

I've not taken many photographs this week, and the trail camera was pointing at an area that looked like it was a badger playground.  Well if it was, they weren't playing last week.  The camera has moved and there are no photos to share from it, so I will have to round off with a photo of young Monsieur Clause, who is looking very sleek and pleased with himself at the moment.  I think he is having a good mousing season.

I'll take more and better photos this week - I promise.

 

Comice 2022

It's that time again!  In 2020, there was no Comice due to Covid.  In 2021, Echimiré did a Comice Lite, which was actually pretty impressive, despite masks and health passes.  This year the major fire meant that for a moment, there was a fear that the Comice might be cancelled, but it went ahead.  There was still an intervillage ploughing match this morning, although most mayors were too tired to take part themselves I gather, at least some found willing and able substitutes from the photos on social media.  There won't be fireworks tonight, but there will be entertainment and dancing.

The big thing on the Sunday in a traditional Comice is the procession of decorated floats for each of the villages in the commune.  Last year there were just two, due to constraints on meeting up.  This year all villages were able to do a float if they wanted.  In practice, four didn't send a float, and I'm not going to speculate why.

As is traditional, the Cadets de Baugeois led off the parade in their unique style and following them were the sapeurs pompiers - not a vast number and only 3 vehicles, but they are still keeping an eye on hotspots around the devastated area, in case of small outbreaks.

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Then there was the host village, Pontigné.  This year's theme was the silence of the countryside (possibly hitting out at townie incomers, possibly not), and the symbol was the cockerel.

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Then came Vaulandry with the milking parlour and Bocé with the vendors of vegetables - they were very keen to point out all the produce was grown in their village!

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Cuon showed us the grape harvest or vendange, while Montpollin celebrated the mobile still - that does make a racket when it comes to a village!

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Le Guédenieu took a cynical stance and had a mobile phone tower and celebrated the mobile phone, including all the annoying ringtones you can imagine.  Interestingly, there was a WiFi network for the Comice field, supplied I believe by the local purveyors of fibre optic.  Cheviré le Rouge paid their own homage to the firefighters, but as you can't stop them singing, there was also a purposeful float with lots of singing and jollity too.

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Echimiré had a magnificent float with a dodgy clown and Baugé got the church theme this time round and had a church service going on.

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St Martin d'Arcé had more music going down - it could have been a guiguette.  The final float was from Vieil Baugé, celebrating those women who used to work hard at the village lavoir doing the laundry.  The Comice will be at Vieil Baugé next year, hence their position of honour at the back.

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But that wasn't all, as there was a strange mobile piano heading backwards up the hill, while being played (he also did pirouettes), and a couple of farmers with the giant water cisterns that were used to damp down the fires last week.

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There are also lots of things to see, food to eat, things to drink, local ice-cream and honey, and stuff that you probably don't want to buy.  There are massive agricultural machines in to wonder at, including this absolutely mahoosive beastie.  The wheels were taller than me!  The width of area that could be dealt with in one pass had to be a good 15 meters.

 There were horses, donkeys, miniature ponies, cows and a lovely display from Loué chicken farms with hatching eggs and then the chicks, all fluffed out and dried, under heat lamps to wonder at.

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Well done and thank you, Pontigné!  I feel weak already at the thought of all the work to make next year's episode happen in Vieil Baugé, and there will be no escape, John and I will be helping out somehow or other!

Until next week...