Rural Life

Work and Mushrooms

Last week I waxed lyrical about the wonders of the cèpe mushroom, and we have been lucky to find a few over the last 10 days so that I have been able to dry a load in the desiccator for use over the coming months, as well as being able to eat rather a lot fresh.  They make a lovely omelette and work well with garlic, and with garlic and herb butter - such a pity that most of the chickens are currently on strike (nothing to do with bird 'flu, more to do with shorter days, getting older and moulting).  This panful was particularly tasty.

The challenge with collecting mushrooms from the wild, once you have correctly identified what is edible of course, is that humans are not the only beings to enjoy a good mushroom.  There is a small insect, which I think of as the "expensive mushroom fly" which can get there first, and there is nothing you can do about it.  Some people will eat fly damaged mushrooms, but I don't.  I will share with a slug, although not at the same time, but i draw the line at flies.  I found this fabulous cèpe yesterday afternoon, and from the condition of the underside of the cap, it was a very new growth one.  I was so proud of it!  Sadly, when I cut it open to prepare it, as you can see, it was riddled with the beastly fly.  I have buried it in leaf litter in the hope that it will spread mycelium and start a new colony, but I'm not telling anyone where! 

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I have a nasty suspicion that this means the end of the mushroom season for this year.

There are other critters out and about that I wouldn't expect at this time of year - caterpillars!  And not just any, but the dreaded scions of the Cabbage White Butterfly.  I have spent hours with the Cats in the Country explaining the difference between a cabbage white and all other butterflies (cabbage whites are good cat food, all others are banned), but they just don't seem to listen and don't spend enough time on brassica patrol.  I don't think this will utterly defeat my attempts at cauliflowers, but it won't do them any good either.  I picked loads off by hand (and got very green fingers as a result) and threw them away to where I hoped they would attract robins and other birds but kept finding more!  Ugh.

It has been unnaturally warm this weekend - even for northwest France, 18ºC is not normal for the middle of November - so I was finally spurred into digging up the last 9 potatoes.  It didn't help that a lot were sprouting again, and I needed to get shot of all the foliage.  It hasn't really been cold enough for storing potatoes out of the ground easily, but at the same time, frost isn't good either.  They were nice and plump, and I knocked off a load of shoots, so hopefully they will be OK.  They are now in a drying rack in a barn, hardening off, and letting the soil dry off them too.  I guess that was another 15 kilos of spuds for the winter.  I also made my first sowing of broad beans - 66 to be precise - in a bed beside leeks and cauliflowers - fingers crossed they all germinate.  I am eyeing up another bed for a further double row as it was a good-sized packet of seed.

There has been no action on the trail camera this week, so it has come home for recharging of batteries and clearing the SD card.  Next week there should be some video clips, when I have had a chance to look at what is there.

So rather than talk pigs and badgers, I will mention the one and only thing we miss from our old life in the UK - cricket.  We left in early 2005, just as free to air cricket coverage was coming to an end.  It did make the move that bit easier, as previous summers would be spent re-caning chair seats in front of the Test Matches, and occasional visits to local venues for Sunday League limited overs matches.  It was a passion, sometimes an obsession even, but selling out to Sky broke my heart and my habit.  There is a spot in the garden where I can pick up Radio 4 LW, and we still have a couple of radios that can pick that up, but any other form of radio gets nasty noises and licence restriction warnings.  So it was a real pleasure to hear that Channel 4 were showing the final of the Twenty20 World Cup free to air this morning, and a nifty app gives us 1 hour of UK TV per day.  Breakfast was taken watching a fine England bowling performance, and I gather they won in the end.  While pyjama cricket isn't my favourite form of the game, it was still a real treat to watch!

Have a good week!

 

Mushroom Time!

I had an excellent time in the UK (thanks for asking), including four days of interesting visits in and around the Broads, catching up with projects and chums.  The V.I.P. visit to the Museum of the Broads was a particular highlight - so many fascinating exhibits I could have spent a day there!  Norwich is always a nice city to visit, although those that aren't keen on spiders probably kept away from City Hall over the last couple of weeks!  Family time was also very special.

I did also visit a full-size windmill but haven't downloaded the photos yet.

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I've not yet been home a week, but have really noticed the difference to before I went away in October.  There has been quite a lot of rain, although it is still unnaturally warm for this time of year.  That has meant that fungi are finally making their presence felt at the One Acre Wood and in the Orchard and Meadow.  The ones in the Orchard and Meadow are interesting enough and meant that we felt it was worth frequent visits to the Wood in case.

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There have been lots of interesting sightings.

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The red ones are interesting as there is a silly rumour on social media that you always find cèpes near them!  Anyway, having a wood that is full of interesting mushrooms makes one a bit paranoid about "visitors" having it away with anything edible.  Before you accuse me of being paranoid, this did happen once - we surprised a bunch of dubious industrial mushroom pickers, challenged their right to steal our mushrooms, which had no effect at all, and the scale of their picking meant we had nothing at all for three years.  So, while the lot of bolets of the left were fine, I did wonder if these other ones had been tampered with!

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We are ultra-cautious about mushrooms.  Some bolets are fine, others taste very nasty, and some are downright poisonous, so we left all these where they were.  But there is one type of bolet that is not confused with any other, the mighty cèpe de Bordeau (or Pennybun or porcini depending on your country/language of preference).  We have those from time to time, and this last week has been a good week!

We've eaten some and we've dried some to keep the joy going through the year, and we also have a couple in the fridge for supper tomorrow - very good in omelettes!

The boar have mostly moved on, but one came back on Friday night in the rain to eat more nuts - the last few are still there, in case she feels hungry again, but with the hunting season now upon us I fear boar and deer will be much more discrete for a few months.  There is more good footage of boar eating nuts and when I have the time, I will get more videos loaded up for all to enjoy.  In the meantime, have a good week!

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!

 

A few autumn photos

I'm sorry, I'm going to keep it brief today as I am trying to get a report done for a client for tomorrow and it's not going easily. 

As you may have spotted - it's autumn!  Leaves have been turning colour and falling since August, but we are now starting to see some good colour, including Red and Amber maples in town.  In the One Acre Wood, the colour is provided by Common Service (also known as Chequers - yes, the same as the PM's country mansion or many pubs).  Here is a bit looking particularly fine!

The pheasant shooting season will open soon in the UK, I'm not sure when it is here.  They aren't native and they aren't bright, but they do seem to like the Orchard and the Meadow.  Here is one fine fellow.

I also spotted a garden helper late one night after I had locked up the chickens, in the guise of Timid Toad, although actually he wasn't at all timid, he just sat and glared at me until I took my torch away.

The boar have been back to have another go at the walnuts and have also attacked the trail camera more than once.  There are videos, but I'm afraid today, that would take too much time to sort out, so how about a few photos instead?

So now I'd better get back to my report, but before I go, you can read up on the project here and if you like what you read, please consider voting for the Marches Mosses BogLIFE in the ICE People's Choice Awards!

 

Autumn harvests and who gets what?

First off, an apology - I was unable to do this blog yesterday as the Typepad system was down for renovation (always worrying), but today it is back, so here goes!

We have had rain - not the torrential amounts seen down south, but enough to encourage some things to really put on a spurt - the red cabbages have huge leaves, the size of dinner plates, so I am hoping that we will soon see a heart developing.  Of course, I ask why I only bought 3 plants, but previous attempts have been disappointing at best.  The cauliflowers are also looking quite fine, so I hope for a few decent heads in the spring.  The agony of trying to grow a decent cauliflower is why they should be expensive in the shops!

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The chillies I set off from seed in the late spring are now covered in ripening fruits and I have already frozen 30 or so, which should deal with our need for spicy curry and chilli con carne for a year.  This time I grew two varieties, cayenne - the long thin ones, possibly from French Guyana, but a good solid favourite, and Jalopeno thanks to a free packet of seeds from Kitchen Garden magazine and probably about 5 years ago (they no longer provide seeds to European subscribers, so I no longer subscribe).  These have been a bit of a revelation, at least in the kitchen.  They take longer to ripen but the fruits are reliably hot and a bit juicier and plumper than the cayennes.  I may have to try to save seed for next year!

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The rain has also brought on the autumn flowers nicely and it was a real treat to see how the cyclamen in the One Acre Wood are starting to spread.  It seems to take four or five years for a cyclamen corm to go from a seed that produces a small leaf or two, to one that can support one or more flowers, and this patch have been tantalising in that I seem to have waited well over four years for these ones to flower, but now they have!  A real joy!

Autumn is also the time of nuts.  October 1st is generally the official start of the walnut harvest, as ancient wisdom says that those that fall before that aren't good.  This year that doesn't really work as the weather hasn't been "right", but the nuts are now coming off the good tree as well as all the others.  We really need to be on war footing with that tree as it is the one with the tastiest and plumpest nuts and other "people" also like nuts. 

When I went to check the trail camera yesterday, it was on its side - I thought perhaps a gust of wind had taken it, or a cat had been sitting on the log.  So, I righted it and then checked the photos and footage.  A first look at a daytime photo before the camera went over showed that there were visitors.

The five videos below show the marauding hoard and give an inkling as to what it is like to be investigated by a boar!

 

 

 

 

 

Something else has been getting the sweet chestnuts before me too, but that is a whole other story and not one I can comment on as the camera is too far away!

How long the boar will be in the zone, I don't know.  I suspect that will be determined by the hunt and when they decide to clear out all wildlife, but for the moment, we continue to enjoy the spectacle.

 

A question of who can harvest what!

It was an odd week, with The Funeral on Monday and falling temperatures and even, over the last couple of days, a weird phenomenon where water falls from the sky to make the ground moist rather than me lumping watering cans around!

Today I have lifted more of the potato crop and set it to try in a covered but open barn space.  We have also sown a bit of the grain we feed to the chickens as the price is going up and we need to scrimp and save a bit.  I picked a courgette today and there seem to be 5 more aubergines developing on the plants, but production is slowing down noticeably now.  With cooler weather and now we are past the vernal equinox, it is not entirely surprising that the summer crops are starting to flag.

So here are the potatoes in their drying rack - those on the left were dug up last week and have had the small and blemished ones removed for immediate consumption, while those on the right are what I dug up today without any triage.  Then there is the bed where the grain was sown.  The brassicas are looking a lot larger than when they went in - fortunately!!  The chard is doing well, and you can almost make out bean pods!

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We had to cover the seed bed with wire net to prevent it being used too much as a cat toilet, but it is bound to be used as a rolling around zone assuming the rain doesn't continue!

In the garden area we mainly defend things against cat bottoms and let nature take its course with any other visitors.  We have a pear tree in the garden that has been loaded with fruit this year, and we know when it is ripe as it falls off.  We do a triage before the chickens are released and John has a couple of barrels of burping brown goo which will be distilled early next year.  We had hoped to add some of the pears from the trees by the Meadow, but there never seemed to be any on the ground, while the ones on the tree remain fairly hard.  Well, the trail camera gave up its secrets during the week as the batteries needed boosted, so I took the opportunity to clear the SD card.  The camera has been pointing at the pear tree to see what is going on.

Badgers like pears.

It's probably not entirely unsurprising that boar rather like pears too!

The pine martin is actually trying to pick the pears off the tree though.

There's lots of deer and badger action, a hare and more from the pine martin but you'll have to wait until next week for that!

 

A time of reflection and change

This time last week, it was so hot, I was sticking to my desk as I typed.  Today my office is a more liveable 22ºC and rather than being concerned about how to keep cool, we are starting to trap heat again, while ensuring that chillies and fruit aren't damaged by near frost conditions in the early morning.  Once again weird weather is here!

I've frozen some 30 chillies now to see us through to August next year, but I am sure there will be more as the plants are reasonably well placed so they won't get frosted tonight and then things start to warm up again.  We won't see 30ºC again this year, but I'm not sorry, it was wearing. 

I've picked about 8 pounds of quince - well, 8 good sized fruits each weighing about a pound, and I will spend tomorrow morning chopping and boiling them while watching the broadcast from London.  There are still loads on the tree too, but my batch tomorrow will be for making quince jelly and perhaps shredding one for quince liqueur.

Obviously when you get hot temperatures, particularly at the wrong time of year, they tend to end with a bang.  As the maize was finally harvested in the field where I go to say goodbye to the day, we could also stand there after dark and watch the distant light show - once again, just a couple of millimetres of rain for us, but somewhere got soaked!

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Conditions were right, and there were few insects around as well, so it was time for the meadow to have its annual mow.  We don't take any of the material off the field, so it is there as a mulch, any seeds can fall and be eaten or can germinate, and the ground is clear for things to resprout and grow.  If we didn't do an annual clear, the meadow would soon be overtaken by brambles and old man's beard, which would grow taller and taller, killing any low growing plants and providing meagre shelter while blocking access to the ponds.  We know this, as there are still blocks left like that, which we are slowly turning to something better for biodiversity. 

One effect of this is that the trail camera is marooned on its log in the middle of the meadow.  So today I decided to move it.  Actually the batteries need a boost, so I moved the log to its new position so that things can get used to it, while we boost the batteries and I clear the SD card.  As far as I can tell there are a lot of videos of night as the deer have been setting it off just outside the range of the infrared lights, but the big screen may show more and prove me wrong.  There are lots of videos of some bloke on a mower driving around too.  Anyway, I hope next week there will be some films, but this week you will have to cope with just photos of a deer, a boar and the pine martin.

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So much for change, but what about reflection?  We don't have UK television, just radio and the BBC website, plus other news sources, not necessarily British.  Last weekend our French friends were asking how we felt about the death of the Queen, to which our standard response was "sad, but not unexpected, and time to celebrate a life well lived".  We have been able to separate ourselves from the media message in the UK, so cannot hope to comprehend what the sentiment and feeling is like over there.  We watch with a certain incredulity as the queue to view the Lying in State takes on a life of its own.  We will watch events unfold tomorrow, taking a day out to participate, mainly vicariously, as history is written.

When I was younger, if I had feelings about the monarchy at all, it was of a glittery entity that didn't really affect me or have any relevance for my life.  My parents both met the Queen a couple of times, while my father met her father and mother on several occasions and worked with the Duke of Edinburgh occasionally on questions of Design.  I did the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, was a Scout but had issues with the Scout's Promise, and more recently have worked with and have huge respect for The Prince's Trust. 

Reflecting now on the end of the Post-War Era, as it has been described, for me the value of the Royal Family and Queen or King as the Head of State is as a non-political, non-elected moral core and standard for the country.  That point of reference for what is British, who represents us irrespective of the vagaries of popular votes and ever more self-serving and mediocre politicians is an important one.  France doesn't put Presidents on coins or stamps, rather Mariane, an idealised woman and spirit of all that is best in France.  The USA does a similar thing, but with an Eagle and dead Presidents, who may not be as above reproach as history is rewritten from a 21st century perspective.  

With the passing of the Queen and the New Carolingian era that is about to start, the moral compass will be reset.  I expect there will be a slimmed down monarchy, but fascination with the Royal Family will not fade (indeed it is one of their purposes - filling pages of glossy magazines and fuelling book sales).  My hope is that King Charles will maintain his emphasis on the importance of conserving environmental and built heritage and saving the planet, and that the leadership he has shown in that field over the past 40 years will continue during his reign.  Planet Earth needs a few big hitters in her team at the moment!

 

 

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.