Rural Life

November Travels

As mentioned last week, I made my first trip to Plague Island since March 9th 2020 this week.  The skies were dramatic as I packed the car to leave home, but it was an uneventful drive to the port and a boring wait to be loaded and a flat crossing.  The boat wasn't really that full, so I do query why it took an hour and a half to get off the ferry and onto the M27 - in part it could be explained by a lorry driver that overslept and had clearly forgotten that his vehicle was blocking everyone else, but even so!  I think I was the second last person out of the port not driving a lorry, but then it was all behind me and the adventure could begin!

My first real stop (not including caffeine and comfort) was at Whixall Marina in Shropshire where I met a representative of the Restoring the Marches Mosses BogLIFE project for a walk out to the Mammoth Tower and to see how the Mosses are being restored and rewetted.  For a couple of old crocks, we made good time and covered a few kilometres!  The best photos (I hope) have yet to be downloaded from the proper camera, but I was truly impressed with the change at the former Scrapyard, which is slowly reverting to nature, rather than piles of old tyres, stacks of twisted metal and everything with a slightly oil stained sheen.

The following day, I took a couple of hours out to walk into the centre of Shrewsbury - quite my favourite place in England!  It was sad to see many empty shop fronts, but even so, they still have lots of small independent outlets there.  I also had a quick visit to Smethwick High Street - no photos of that, and smello vision is not a thing yet.  The spices that were on the air as I got out of my car, the enticing shop fronts and the cosmopolitan nature of the area are a total joy, though different to Shrewsbury.

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Thursday was devoted to all things Birmingham, so given HS2 and preparations for the Commonwealth Games, it was easier, but unsettling, to use public transport.  It did all pan out well, until I got back to Tamworth and had to wait for 20 minutes for a taxi, and I wore a mask more than anyone else I saw!  I visited the two Victorian Cemeteries in the Jewellery Quarter - well worth it, if you have the time.  Warstone Lane is more accessible, and I was privileged to be allowed to participate in a Remembrance Day ceremony with cadets from a local school.  It was very special for many reasons.  After a spot of eco-friendly lunch at a local café, I then visited Key Hill Cemetery, including a private view of the catacombs.  This site is more private and is home to nearly 100 London Planes - it is very beautiful.

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My final day was focussed on the River Cole, where Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the Tame Valley Wetlands Partnership are leading work to improve a number of sites and equip local people and organisations with the skills to maintain then and do more once this funding pot is all spent.  Again the best photos are on the main camera, but the lake at Tamworth was improved with the previous funding, and the work at Meriden Park was at an exciting stage, where for once they are seeking to speed up the flow of water in a river.  I didn't film the way the ground wobbled around us as the digger went past as I was in fight or flight mode!

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The crossing on Friday night was much bumpier, so much more to my liking, and I was home by 10:30am yesterday, as it only took a quarter of an hour to get off the ship and out of the port (not least as I was nearly pole position on the car deck and I know where I've left my car!!).  But after walking 25km in 4 days, and losing a lot of sleep with the ferry crossing, much of yesterday wafted past in a dream-like trance.  Today I feel more normal and we spent time at the Garden, mowing, mulching and for me clearing and forking over a seedbed and sowing 52 broad bean seeds (must wear my glasses next time I buy seeds - 80g not 80 graines!).  I also had a good mooch round, looking at how things had changed, including my radishes sown in leaf mould, and lifted a winter radish for lunch... for the next two days!  At the One Acre Wood we found a single interesting mushroom, but left it there.

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Looking in the flower border, I saw hopeful signs.  I left the annual flowers to set seed and die back, before pulling away the old stalks a couple of weeks ago.  Looking at the seedlings that are coming up, I can see signs that the frilly purple stuff and cornflowers have indeed set seed and are now sprouting to put on an earlier display next year.  I'll not do any more weeding there now, but let things over-winter, and then see if they need a helping hand in the spring.

November and it's dull, dull, so very dull

It's been a bit of a trial finding things to talk about this week and also to find any nice photos to share to illustrate that with.  The dullness is more as it is same old, same old, as actually the weather has been fairly kind, so I have done a couple of walks (brown leaves, brown fields, brown woods) and seen a couple of fungi that were faintly photogenic, but otherwise of little interest to me.  No cèpes at all this year, so I have to keep going with my stash of dried from last year.

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There was an amusing moment during the week when I was wandering around the Orchard, and Donald decided he didn't want to walk so spent his time circling my head by standing on my shoulders (I really am stretching the point here).  The shadow we made on the ground was amusing - I'm either wearing a Davey Crocket hat or a saucepan!

Other things are preparing/being prepared for winter.  After the first significant frost of the year, I thought it was time to bring the avocado tree into shelter - they aren't known for being frost hardy!!  This is its third year, and it was grown from an avocado stone we brought back from Guadeloupe - the fruit was huge (family sized really), as was the pit, so we thought it was worth a try.  The tree actually has branches, and has done better than any other avocado stone I've grown, so I want to keep it going, but it will have to stay small enough to bring indoors each winter!

Following on from last week's pride in a first new flower on the little orchid, I can now present flower number 2, and looking closely at the buds, next week there might even be a third flower.  This small and frankly rather abused orchid has been with us now for three years and I am amazed by it.  I would like it to be an example to the bigger orchids that have since seduced me, but I don't know that they talk that much!

One thing that has made the week dull from a blogging perspective is the fact that I am preparing for a voyage to Plague Island next week.  I have had to get to grips with expensive lateral flow tests, passenger locator forms and Engagement sur l'Honneur form letters, do laundry so I have enough clean underwear, find the small rucksack for carrying my camera around, charge up the battery for the big camera, and look into the exotic subject of public transport into and around Birmingham.  All this should mean that I have lots of exciting photos for next week's blog, but make today's effort a major snooze fest.  

As even the cat is a critic, I'll leave it at that for now!

 

Scary things

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

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

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

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

Bring on November!

 

 

Autumn changes

Last week I picked and stored the butternut squashes, this week I picked the best red pepper I have ever grown.  Plus I also pulled two more of the large white radishes - one of them was a bit damaged, but we had a good sized salad with the two (Donald the cat insisted on being part of the picture, posing as you can see).  Now our thoughts are more about next year's crops, and I should be sowing the first of those, broad beans, in the next couple of weeks.  My darling husband acquired a trailer-load of leaf mould for me - lovely stuff that is dark and full of organic matter and will help our clay soil a lot.  It is now stored under a tarpaulin in a number of giant cat food sacks until needed.

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During the week, the weather took a serious turn, with the arrival of Storm Aurore.  She was forecast to track further north than us, although the clouds were a clear sign that she meant trouble.  She brought an hour of truly nasty winds which brought down trees and powerlines.  In the centre of the village, we had a couple of power cuts, but otherwise no major issues.  Isolated properties to the east of us weren't so lucky with more major electric lines down and some houses without power for over 24 hours. 

So here is a tip if you are leaving your house for a few days, leaving the power on, and have food in the freezer, and there is a power outage.  Have a half eaten tub of ice cream in the freezer.  If when you get back, you find a slick of ice cream across the bottom of the tub, your freezer has defrosted, if there is still a clear half and a half with ice cream in it, enjoy the rest knowing it hasn't melted and refrozen!!

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So Aurore has now passed and the sun is back.  And we have a new toy to help with those annoying branches where it is difficult to get a bow saw in and a proper chainsaw is over the top.   This little gem came with two batteries, two bars and four chains (on the basis that you work 2 chains to a bar and should replace the bar more often that we do as the bar gets clogged and damaged and warped with use).  We spent a happy quarter of an hour raising the crown on an annoying cypress style tree, and half an hour tidying up afterwards (always the way).

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Last week I wrote about my embarrassing orchid habit - this is the final one I hadn't managed to get a good picture of, while it still has a flower.  I know it will fall off soon.  The small orchid that was covered in buds now has one flower, and I'm likely to show it off next week.

And yes, that is a cat eating in the background!

 

The Days are drawing in!

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

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

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

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

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

Until next week!

 

Mellow fruitfulness, sort of

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next week!

 

Distinctly autumnal now

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

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

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

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

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Now to get back to watching the puddings cook.

 

 

Normal service is resumed

In fact, as I really need to cover two weeks of excitement and rural stuff, this could be a bit longer than normal!

The week Huguette died and the week after were mostly lovely autumn weather.  This meant I could do a few useful autumn things like make jam.  My Mum's tree was about the only peach tree with much fruit on it, and as they are very dark fruited peaches (almost black if you get a good one), the resulting jam was a rich, dark pink colour.  We got 12 and two half pots of jam, both half pots have already been eaten, plus five jars of quince jelly from the tree in the garden (no photos of the jelly though).

Today has been spent gathering in excess of 150 kilos of juicing apples for our appointment at the fruit press tomorrow.  We could have gathered more, but a couple of years ago we discovered the joys of single variety apple juice - pretentious, nous?  Anyway, we wanted to do that again, as the juice from these apples (probably Canada variety or similar) is not as sweet as a mixed variety juice can be.  You know what next week's blog is going to be about therefore, but here is a tree before it was picked, and here is our helper.

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Huguette wasn't the only one to leave us in September, with a close neighbour also bowing out.  His house is now shut up while the family wait for the French equivalent of probate to be sorted out, but the geraniums he tended outside his house are still going strong and a lovely memory of him.

September is a good month for views if the weather is suitable.  We had a run of magnificent sunsets, so after a bit of fiddling, I managed to get my camera phone to get this image, which is pretty dramatic I think.  Morning views of the church are much easier, although the angles are wrong to avoid the neighbour's laundry.  Why not wait for a day with no laundry?  They don't exist, even when it is raining.  I think they don't have wardrobes, so the clothes line is a place to store clothes they aren't wearing.

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The badgers at the Wildflower Meadow are getting prepared for winter.  They have cleaned out tunnels and done a bit more excavating - probably without planning permission.  As the ground where they live is pretty chalky, it isn't subtle when they decide that set maintenance is what needs to be done.  If you look closely at the second photo, you can see paw prints in the excavations too.  

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As the fruit comes to an end, nuts start to catch our attention.  At the Garden, we have three big trees, then there are another four in the Orchard, and a couple more on the edge of the Wildflower Meadow.  We suspect that if we stopped doing any maintenance, the whole area would be taken over by elderberry, walnut, bramble and old man's beard.  Anyway, the area below the good two trees in the Garden has been close mown to make it easier to collect them, while it is possible to see them starting to emerge from their cases on the low branches.  I picked up 5 nice clean nuts this afternoon, but that is just the start!

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The weather has now turned, after the amazing sunshine and clear skies.  Soon I will be ripping up the sweetcorn and the faded tomato plants, trying to ripen off the small butternut squashes and thinking about sowing broad beans for next year.  It feels like we haven't really had a summer this year, and that autumn has been with us for a couple of months now, with cyclamen in the lawn, and falling leaves.  The rewards of autumn are of course sweet chestnuts, fresh walnuts, mushrooms and preparing for the year end festivities.  I expect to be making Christmas puddings next weekend - watch this space!

 

 

Homage - Huguette Gallet

Our village lost a bit of its sparkle last week, as one of our great characters and a good friend left us.  There is a gap in our lives, and I felt it appropriate to write about her today rather than any nonsense about vegetables and fruit.

Huguette Gallet was born in June 1938, and didn't have the easiest childhood.  Both parents died while she was still very young and of course there was the War, the German Occupation and then the years of reconstruction.  She was adopted by a local family and grew up in the area.  She was by all accounts a bit of a handful, but also worked hard to earn some money from as early as she could.

She married twice.  With her first husband, she had two children, a boy and a girl, and with her second husband, two more girls.  She was widowed both times, but her second husband only died about 8 years ago.  As well as four children, she had lots of grandchildren and a few great grandchildren too.  Raising four children was hard and expensive and she worked and tended the kitchen garden and raised chickens and rabbits for eggs and for meat.  She also worked as a dinner lady in the local school.  She seemed to know everyone across all generations, not least due to the school canteen.

She was very fit, despite a couple of accidents over the years.  Even before we met her, we heard stories of her being asked not to train next to the school children as she was beating them, and how she ran a goat into the ground (possibly both apocryphal).  She led an informal walking group on a Sunday morning, and that is how we met her, and through her, an awful lot of other people too.  She was our "open sesame" to French society.  From 2007 we walked between 5 and 12 kilometres with her every Sunday, and through her, got to know all the highways and byways around our village.

She was also an intrinsic part of Friday night Beer O'Clock, as she would potter along most weeks.  If we were with other British people, she would sit and nod along to the conversation, enjoying the company if not always what was said.  If we were alone, we would chatter and she would kindly and tactfully correct our French and share her knowledge.  If she was there with family, we were included in the company and conversation. 

She was inclusive.  She was kind.  She loved animals.  She picked up waifs and strays, both animal and human, and tried to help them where she could.  She was musical.  She was energetic.  She was a member of the Comité des Fêtes with us, she was also a member of the local Heritage group.  She was mischievous and cheeky.  She was a ray of sunshine.  I will miss her.

 

 

Time to reflect

Autumn brings certain pressures, like doing everything in daylight that needs to be done in daylight (it is getting horribly close to the equinox), making all the jam, jelly and juice before things turn, getting stuff into the freezer, fire wood and getting the chimney swept, lifting produce and enjoying heritage open days (next weekend in France).  It does also mean that there is a bit less pressure on preparing things, while grass and some weeds at least are slowing down.  So our Sunday morning marathon gardening stints are getting shorter, and once the midday curfew for loud engines sounds, we can actually take time to reflect and enjoy the hammocks and see what is/has been working.

We are currently enjoying our sweetcorn harvest, although by this time in a fortnight, it should all be eaten or in the freezer.  The little bits get fed to the chickens.

We are coming to the end of our third season working the Garden at The Shack.  About 30 months ago, it was all like this - impenetrable scrub.

We now have three large potager beds, which can now be rotated reasonably well, so back to potatoes in the bed that has corn this year, corn and beans into the middle plot and aubergines, brassicas and peppers, plus broad beans in the top plot, which I have just emptied (haha - there will be more hidden I'm sure) of potatoes.

Then we have a number of leisure zones - the hammock zone, the sitting and being drooled on by cats zone, the place where the picnic bench will go if I ever spot a cheap one in the sales, and the shaded area under the walnuts for high summer.

At the top, by the redundant spotlights, we have the developing flower border with the Fergus Memorial Rose and all sorts of rescue plants, plus a load of annuals that I hope will self seed, but if they don't I will add more seed next year.

Of course scrub will continue to do what it does and grow and encroach into the tamed areas.  That first picture of dense scrub has engulfed a storage bunker we put in down there and haven't seen for about 9 months now!  It's all a work in progress, but today we felt rather good about what we have achieved, not least as we listened to many different types of bird chirping and very little else by way of sound.

Now I must go and make jam, as there are three and a half pounds of stoned and peeled peaches festering in a bowl that need my attention.  Until next week!