Rural Life

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.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 37 - more like Winter actually

Just over 2 weeks to the shortest day, and it isn't really light here until nearly 9am on a good day.  There was also a bit of a frost here this morning - the weather station in the garden recorded -0.7ºC, but that was at head height.  The pepper and aubergine plants still standing in the garden and the canna lilies at the front of the house are all showing signs of having been well frosted this afternoon, and it is probably time to cut them all down.  Except that it is too cold and yukky to really want to go out side and do that.

Surely not, I hear you mutter?  After all the douceur angevine, and you are in western France and all that, means that it is always warm and glowing?  Not all the time, no.  This morning it was a real labour of love to stand in the queues in the market, although I have to say, they were a lot shorter as a lot of fair weather shoppers couldn't face it.  I did the circuit including the tea lady up Rue Basse in about 45 minutes as opposed to an hour or an hour and a quarter.

There was a ceremony at the War Memorial as I left - poor Anciens Combattants freezing as they saluted the monument and then had to listen to a speech by a Mayor.  There weren't many of them due to Covid.  But then it started to rain too!  Once home, I had the honour of being sat on by Zola to help me warm back up again - even she couldn't be bothered with the outside world today!

After more rain, which fortunately didn't turn lumpy, it brightened up enough this afternoon for me to pop out for a bit of a walk, not much and not far, but something.  Looking to the south east from one of the lanes I went up, there is a nice view across the valley, although the clouds were not at all friendly.  There is more rain on the way, and as it gets dark, I guess it may become solid.  There was snow this morning in Normandy I gather - brrrrrr!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 35 - my favourite palm tree

Yes, clearly I am clutching at straws here to find good things to talk about!

I've had a busy day, what with meeting the bank manager, helping with a hospital visit, taking details of a potential client, driving around a lot and being shouted at by cats.  The weather has been singularly horrid.  None of these things make for a good blog.  So I have rummaged around in the computer vaults to find something sunny from Guadeloupe and have decided upon my favourite kind of palm tree.  Well I call it a palm tree, but I'll bet biologists will have other views.  Here's the science bit courtesy of the Botanical Gardens of Deshaies about the Travellers Tree.

So, not native, but found all over the place there.  Here are a couple of young ones.  These are already taller than us, and rather nice and elegant to my mind.

The apartment complex we stayed at had a few in their grounds, that were rather bigger, so that the shield-like apex of the leaves is at face level.  These are a nice, liveable with size.

But here is a salutary lesson, in that like all trees, they get big and probably too big for their space - think any leylandii hedge, think oak tree, think walnut tree.  This monster dominated part of the Botanical Gardens - very beautiful, but I would suggest quite vulnerable to strong winds.

I'll do better tomorrow, I promise!

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 32 - out and about

After yesterday's rant on the charms (or lack of) of ride on lawnmowers, today I will be much more measured and (I hope) interesting.  Yesterday was all about preparing firewood and recovering from the sheer bl00dy hard work that entails.  It was a magnificent, if cold, morning, so once I had set off an oxtail in the slow cooker, we went to the One Acre Wood to sort out our heating needs.  Our woodland is chestnut coppice with oak stands, as well as annoying amounts of service (or chequers), holly (lots of berries this year) and four pine trees.  The mix of oak, chestnut and pine is down to the requirement to grow oak for national needs (as set down by Napoleon), while the chestnut and pine are to service the needs of the local terracotta tile making industry - the coppiced chestnut provided the required heat for the kilns, while the pine sap provided the resin to glaze the tiles and make them waterproof.  Or some such story anyway.

The oaks are magnificent and we would not touch them for firewood, unless we are taking off unhelpful side branches.  This is the Queen of the Forest.

Chestnut is fair game though, and actually we have quite a bit of standing dead or nearly dead wood, which we are working our way through.  Yesterday John achieved a text book fell of a long dead tree, which I got to mark up into 50cm lengths for him to saw through.

The bigger or fatter bits get split and it all gets loaded into the trailer to take home where it is stored and dried in the more ventilated of our two cellars.  Each piece of firewood is estimated to be handled 9 times between being part of a tree and being on the fire, and that could be an underestimate.  Processed chestnut like this is sold at about 70 to 80 euros a stère (or cubic metre, 3 stères is a corde), which makes it in our view a very good value fuel if you have the right sort of wood burning stove (chestnut spits like crazy so has to be burned in an enclosed burner).  It's even better value if you own the wood in the first place!  This is our booty from yesterday - a stère of processed chestnut.

Today we were out dealing with a collapsed cherry branch - the morning was freezing and dull, this afternoon was brighter but very cold, so we had to keep active.  The better action shot would have been when we took the last chunk of the branch off, but I was holding a rope to swing the wood away from a pipe coming out of the shed, so had my hands full.  And then when it did come off, I ended up on my back in the ploughed field.  Someone thought that was funny.

There was some pretty autumn colour at this cottage - but a weirdly late flowering crocosmia!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 31 - the truth about ride on lawnmowers

Yesterday's activity and post got us chatting about ride on lawnmowers yesterday evening - yes, we have such fun!  For a start, how did we end up with 5?  So the next few paragraphs distil our experience and knowledge and may be of use to those that are thinking about them and those that want to replace them.

What are they good at?

Mowing large, flat areas of grass and light scrub with no trees or shrubs, no moles, easy access, no gravel, and no tricky bits.  If you have a suitable small trailer, towing things on the flat and strictly within your own boundaries.

What are they not so good at?

Mole hills, damp grass, fiddly bits, slopes, being moved from one site to another, gravel, narrow entrances.

What do you need to watch out for?

They are possibly the most dangerous piece of gardening equipment you can own, I say possibly because a chainsaw is clearly more dangerous, but people have a healthy respect for them.  My brother worked in insurance and read too many accident reports involving ride on mowers - when I started using them, he was really concerned and kept sending me nasty reports.  I have a healthy respect for them.

You do actually have to insure the things!  Not just against theft (although they do get pinched regularly), but against civil liability (think gravel, think injury to people or animals or fencing).  And that's not cheap.

They are tricky and expensive to maintain - wheels get punctures regularly, batteries generally only live about 4 years, and don't get me started on drive belts for the engine or the cutters!  The required lifts are expensive and irritatingly simple for the price, and the ramps for getting them on and off trailers are similarly expensive and annoying.  And yes, you will need a large, legal for your car, trailer to go with your ride on, because it will break down and need to visit a mechanic.

And on the subject of moving them around - they don't like it!  You see them being taken for drives on trailers around here, but our observation is that a ride on that moves around a lot for work lasts about 2 to 3 years, because they get bounced around so badly on the trailer, bits fall off.  They are not small tractors - build quality can be pretty shonky.  That's why we have so many - we don't move them between sites unless absolutely essential.

They don't actually replace having a conventional mower, as they don't do edges, tight spots, banks and ramps, around pools, and they don't give a particularly nice finish either.  Well some do - but those are the extremely posh, expensive ones that golf courses can afford.  If you have one that collects grass, you have to stop every 10 to 15 minutes to empty a very heavy collector, and also ungum the places where grass clippings fly.  If you have lateral ejection, you spread grass clippings everywhere, and if you have a mulching plate on your lateral ejection, you can only mow when it is very, very dry.

So as well as your ride on mower, you need a conventional mower and a strimmer, plus all trees and shrubs need to allow something 5 foot tall minimum underneath, plus all gates and entrances must be wider than about 4 foot to allow safe passage.  The storage area needs to have a post concreted in so you can padlock your dream machine to it, in the hope it doesn't get nicked while you aren't looking.

If you have 5,000 square meters or more of flat grassland, it can save time: anything less, or with lots of trees and slopes, buy the best conventional mower with traction and electric ignition you can afford - it will still be about half the price of the ride on you yearn for, will give you a much nicer lawn and garden, and you can still listen to your MP3 while mowing.  And that is the advice of people who use them regularly!!

To end this rather dull reflection on life, here is a photo of the limpid, clear and very cold waters of the village wash house, no longer used for beating one's whites in a communal gathering, but a very pretty place to visit.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 30 - not much changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 29 - the answer to the spot the cat competition

So, where was Clause the giant lump of a cat hiding?  In the walnut tree of course - here he is hiding his face in shame at running away from one of his co-locs.  It's a bit grainy as he was a distance away.

Some things and not a lot change tomorrow - we can go further for exercise and all shops and other retail outlets are open again, but we will still need an attestation and we aren't really supposed to cross regional boundaries, and there are no restaurants or pubs open other than for takeaways, and we aren't supposed to meet people socially, and we still have to wear facemasks.  However there is growing evidence that curfew and lockdown do work.  While the UK is glowing in an R number of less than 1 today, we are well below that.  These stats are on a screen shot from the #TousAntiCovid application on my phone just an hour ago.

I went out for a walk and to check on a chum's maison secondaire this afternoon.  It was quite mild but not as sunny as promised, so my laundry is about as wet as when I put it out, just less wrinkled.  At the chum's garden, I noticed an interesting phenomenon on their magnolia grandiflora.  They produce these dramatic seed husks which rarely ripen here in France.  In Australia they seem to be prevented from ripening as they get to a certain point and then become irresistible to cockatoos who go nuts over them and seem to become more than mildly intoxicated.  I have a photo of one lying on its back cradling a nut in a public park - a nicer class of vagrant than in some areas, although they can also do a lot of damage when they put their beaks to it.  Anyway, this seed pod is now producing enticing looking seeds - I may have to gather a few to see if I can get them to grow!

I carried on from that garden and found a point on the hill with a rather pleasing panorama over to the south.  The hills are the last bastion before the flood plain of la Loire.

Finally, we are getting a bit better at this "keeping a fire in" lark, mainly due to having some nice big lumps of cherry wood, which burn slowly overnight.  Tonight we won't be keeping it in however, as we need to remove ash, and hot ash isn't fun to deal with and can burn through what you put it in.  Still, this was a cheery sight this morning.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 25 - back to normal

Yesterday was one of those days when social media really did come into its own.  Sunday birthdays are always a bit annoying as there is no postie to wait for, and in lockdown, there is no nice restaurant or pub trip.  What I had instead were loads of lovely messages from all over the world, including a few that developed into conversations with people I haven't been properly in touch with for ages.  The weather was also fabulous (but no sunburn in the end), so I was able to take a nice photo of the dusk (the new house blots out the sunset).

In the morning I also took a moment to enjoy the play of sunlight on the walls of the staircase.  The stone walls are unfinished (and have been for over 20 years), and we do plan to get a bit of a skim on them while keeping the stones visible... one day.  The wooden panelling is relatively new (a bit under 3 years) and was part of the staircase renovation project.  We love the contrast and the patterns in the wood.

Back on the 9th November, I put up the first photo in the new orchid watch collection, and here is the second one.  The new stem seems to have gone a bit further and the bud nodules seem to have got bigger, but as it is winter, it's not growing hugely fast, so this could get very frustrating!!

It seemed colder today as it wasn't so sunny - it has taken ages for my office to warm up and now that it is a supportable 21ºC, it is time to close down, turn off the point heater and go and cook supper.  I have spent most of the day wrapped in a serape I bought from a charity shop in Worcester about 17 years ago - so that was £5 well spent!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 24 - personal New Year

Yesterday I hinted that I was making Christmas Cakes as a throw away at the end of my post.  They had just gone in the oven and I was still hurting from all the mixing - as you add more and more chopped fruit, it gets harder and harder to break up the lumps and get it all well mixed in.  Then there is getting about 5 pounds of mix into two cake tins that have been lined and padded to avoid burning, and smoothing and damping down the top so you don't get burning and a split cap.  Then once in the oven, they need regular turning and checking, but at 8:45pm last night, I decreed them done.  Here is one in its tin, before being wrapped and put away to mature.

Today marks the start of my personal New Year, so we went to feed the Boys in the Country and I was able to sow a row of broad beans to provide some food next year.  As ever, the soil was claggy and damp, but I am told that broad beans like that and their roots are a good way to break down clay, so we'll see.  They did fine last year after all and in a worse bit of soil.

It is a beautiful day here, so we sat out with Fergus and Clause and did some solid Vitamin D capture.  We did the same this afternoon with Nibbles and Zola in our garden.  The skin on my face feels a bit tight, so we may have slightly overdone the Vitamin D thing, on the other hand, you have to keep Covid at bay somehow!  And it would be fun, if a little mad, to say I got sunburn in the garden in late November in north west France!

We sat out in the garden with mugs of The Coffee from Guadeloupe and honey and almond pastries from our Moroccan friends - normally we would go out for a meal, but it's not possible this year, and while I have to cook our dinner (maximum garlic chicken, also known as Béarnaise chicken with mash), the materials I have to work with are wonderful, so it will only be my fault if it's no good!

Personal New Year resolutions?  As every year, eat less, drink less, lose weight, do more exercise, eat better, earn a bit of money, be happy, don't sweat the small stuff.  Chances of keeping any of them?  50/50 at best!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 23 - dismantling an old friend

While we were initially up and about full of vim and good intentions, a flat tyre on the van and an annoying experience in the market (some poser bought all the local garlic and the quarter of red cabbage with MY name on it) took the shine off the day.  It was a cold but beautifully sunny day, so that was a shame.  So in a fit of energy, we decided that it was time to start to dismantle further the dead cherry tree in the garden.

As one would expect from a pro, John spent a lot of time looking at angles and weights and plotting how each bit would come down without damaging the neighbour's wood store or our "shed".  Then we got the better pole saw out, the ropes, relevant safety gear for John and we were ready.

I can't show you any action shots, as I was on the end of the rope, holding up pieces of tree and then gently lowering them to the ground, ready to be turned into firewood, but this is what it looked like when we were done for the day.  Clearly there is more to do, but in the rest of the daylight and the "making a noise" window, what was down needed to be turned into log burner sized logs.

This is just part of the booty - there is more and it is all now stacked and sheltered from wet.

While the neighbours kept popping their heads round the corner to see whether we had broken anything (we didn't), and admiring a man working, there were a few garden residents who weren't so impressed with what was going on.  Muck and Brass are appalled and Delenn has gone AWOL, having refused to go through the sawdust and into the run.  I don't know where she is sleeping tonight, as I couldn't find her on my last check round the garden.

In other news, I made the Christmas cakes, and they are now in the oven.