Rural Life

Culture and critters

It was 31 years and 5 days ago that John and I had a bit of a party at Tynemouth Sailing Club.  We try to do something nice each year to remember the day - this year we chose to visit the newly opened Museum of Modern Art at Fontevraud l'Abbaye.  After I visited the market at la Flèche for urgent milk and butter supplies, plus the where with all for a picnic, we headed down to la Loire, and stopped at Cunault to eat and admire the river.  In a normal year, it should be very sparse at this time, and it was pretty empty, but even a couple of weeks ago, it would have been higher than this, due to the torrential rains down in the Massif Centrale.

I think Museum of Modern Art is a bit of a misnomer - it is actually a museum to house the donated collection of a couple of magpie art collectors, including items from 3,000 BC to 1960s.  It was eclectic and interestingly mixed up.  Of the sculptures, most of the modern pieces were awful apart from some rather whacky chess pieces.  There were some nice 19th and 20th century paintings, some good drawings and an awful lot of rubbish.  Photography without flash was allowed, so here are two pieces I liked.

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We hadn't been to Fontevraud since about 2005 or 2006, and it was clear that restoration and renovation have continued since our last visit.  The Abbey Church itself is always gorgeous and impactful.  It shouldn't be white inside really, it was designed to be bright and painted and with vivid stained glass, but after the Revolution it was used as part of a prison, so the decoration was removed.  I think it is more awesome in its whiteness, but who am I to judge?

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Chaumont sur Loire has an annual garden festival and keeps the best bits and sculptures in the park.  It would appear that Fontevraud wants to do the same.  The art installation in a disused stairwell was rather disturbing, and moved with the breeze.  The wooden fort in the gardens was totally bizarre - I mean, it looks like a really good fort for kids to play in, but you aren't allowed within 3 meters of it as it is delicate.  Pointless more like!

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As Autumn is theoretically now here, we have to be ready for the major harvests (still digging up spuds but should be only one more week of that I hope).  In the orchard, those major harvests are walnuts and (surprisingly) apples.  They aren't particularly nice to eat and they don't look particularly appetising either, but they do make really nice, single variety apple juice.  I need to get a slot at the press and then we can get picking!

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As I admired the relatively clear areas under the trees, I spotted movement in the grass by my feet.  Sure enough, it was an example of my favourite bug of the Autumn, so here are a couple of close ups to admire (probably) him.

I hope no one is squeamish!

 

Chickens and sun worshipping

Apologies for the delay and also, in advance, for the somewhat light nature of this update.  They are related I guess, as yesterday there was a Birthday Event, which took some managing and also most of yesterday.  When you are 90/91, a year makes a huge difference, plus Covid makes everything so much more special.  In August 2020, you could have 10 round a dining table at a restaurant, while the Birthday Girl was also able to walk a bit.  Not a vast distance, so she was driven down to the restaurant 250m away from her front door, but she could make it the 30m to the dining table, and remembered to wear a mask on the way in (not so much on the way out).  Then it was warm and sunny enough to sit in the garden, partake of more fizz and cake and carry on having fun.

This year we have Pass Sanitaire, and I think restaurant tables are still limited to 6 places.  More importantly, home has changed and the rules around entering a nursing home are strict and include the Passe Sanitaire.  Mobility has decreased, while the capacity of my car has not increased, so a restaurant or a picnic was not possible (the latter also as it was rather cool and windy).  Instead there were four of us round a bed, slurping the finest fizzy rosé Saumur (Ackermann) can produce, while scoffing a range of patisseries and talking about old times. 

Anyway, what else has been going on?  Two different forms of sun worshipping were spotted during the week.  The pears at Chinon really are not nice, they don't cook well, they don't make good eau de vie (the distiller spotted their overtones one year and told us not to do that again), they really aren't nice raw either.  I'm guessing they might have made good pig food at one stage, as the tree is very old, and the house has outbuildings.  Their only fans this year seem to be bees - I think possibly ground dwelling solitary bees, but I may well be wrong - who love sucking out the sweet juices from where they split when they fall.

The other sun worshipper is my feral sunflower - we didn't sow it, it just started growing out of the bin of compost we had some strawberries in.  It has grown to nearly 6 foot tall, and because it is on a plinth, I can't look it in the face.  It is very well placed to worship the rising sun in the morning, while the less open faces, follow the sun during the day (tournesol or tourne au sol - clever, huh?).  I take a photo or two each day to keep a ray of sunshine for winter.

On the chicken front, Auntie Mo is settling in quite well, although we still get some aggression from Mac and Jak.  She went up in the pecking order a bit when Bridie the Freeloading Bantam started to moult.

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Sometimes I spot things out of the corner of my eye and they are interesting.  Two examples to end with.  I was at The Garden, watering some things and carrying on with the potato harvest.  As I went to get the fork from the store, I spotted some movement in the grass and closer inspection showed it to be a small frog or toad - not warty enough for a toad, but too far from water to be a frog.  Whatever, he/she is very useful and welcome.  Yesterday evening, sitting in the garden, recovering from an overdose of patisseries (helped with a gin and tonic) I spotted another crop in the overgrown border - hops!  And quite a lot of them too, some looking really beautiful at the moment.  I'm not sure there are enough for beer making, and we don't do that sort of home brew anyway, but good for hop pillows perhaps.  I'll think on it!

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I promise I will try for Sunday next week!

 

 

Comice 2021 Covid-style

What a pleasure to be back in a Comice field yesterday, and Echimiré really did do a fabulous job, with a really well laid out Comice venue and some truly excellent entertainments.  We were advised to wear face masks most of the time, apart from when in the special areas for eating and drinking, where you had to have a health pass, but rather than keep showing it, you registered it once, and were given a very hard to remove bracelet that let you into the food and drink areas.  It worked well.

You know you are at a Comice if there are decorated floats - there were only two this year and mostly static, although they were moved to the main arena at one point, but with no one on or accompanying them (didn't stop Cheviré le Rouge singing a lot).  Well done to the two teams that put them together - for many it was a step too far.

One of the highlights of the Sunday afternoon was a Regional Percheron contest - I think mainly mares, ideally with foals tagging along, but there were some without I think.  It was a painstaking process as the horses had to be shown static and moving, standing four square and ideally with ears pricked.  Well, telling one tonne of horse who wants to keep an eye on her foal and doesn't much like flies to do that isn't the easiest task, and the judging went on all afternoon.  The photos show some horses being prepared, and the entrance of a beautiful mare with two foals.

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Among the entertainments were an all girl cabaret band, a fun show and some great musicianship too.

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Animals are a key part of the Comice, as it reflects the local agricultural traditions.  There were a number of cows, donkeys and ponies in pens in the woodland surrounding the Comice site, allowing them to stay cool as the afternoon wore on.

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Continuing the animal theme, there was a local gentleman who herds geese, of course!

Among the numerous stands, there was a demonstration of carving with a chainsaw, glass blowing and the "mobile" peanut roaster.  The largest crowd around the chainsaw sculptor was when it came to moving the massive crocodile, and everyone wanted to see whether the chaps with the big green lifter were up to the job!!

The Comice is all about the rural way of life and agriculture so the purveyors of nice, big, shiny machines are out in force with some mechanical porn.  How about one of these as the new ride on lawn mower?

Such a wonderful day out - there was so much more, but you needed to be there!  After the awfulness of the Covid months, it was great to enjoy such an event.  So well done, Echimiré and I'm already looking forward to Pontigné in 2022.

A whole week of Summer!

Yes, It's true, a whole week that could be considered summery - assuming we gloss over the early morning fog that blotted out the church spire on Wednesday!  It hasn't always been particularly hot, that has only built up over the past four days or so, but the plants are certainly showing their appreciation with set fruits on the chilli plants, female flowers on the butternuts and flowers and tassels on all the sweetcorn now.  Whisper it softly, but we might actually eat some sweetcorn on Thursday if this keeps up!

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We worry about the lack of insects, other than flies, but have been entertained this week by the rather undignified arrival of a baby grasshopper and the antics of a drunken butterfly, gorging on semi-rotten pear. 

There is a particular type of fly round here, smaller than a bluebottle, not as dangerous as a horsefly and not buzzy, but unpleasant for all that.  It sits on you, then if you don't knock it off quickly, it starts to chew on you.  Evil wee so and so's!

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The cats have different ways of coping with summer.  Donald the Love Bug thinks that sharing our hammock with us is the best thing ever, until he gets it to himself and that is just paradise!  I can take it down gently and start rolling it up and only get rid of him by prodding him with the rolled chunk.  Even then he is reluctant to move.  Poirot may be older (we aren't sure), but her thing is sprawling on steps, either indoors to keep cool, or in full sun for the sheer joy of it.

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Anyway, that is enough sitting with a computer on a lovely sunny, summer afternoon/evening.  I'm off to enjoy sitting out under the gazebo with a glass of something chilled.

Next weekend is the Comice, so things might be delayed a day.

 

Apologies for the delay

Yesterday was a birthday - not mine - and meant a bit of celebrating, a bit of exercise, and by the time we were done with that, I could not face being near the computer (actually I was tied to the juice pot, as we had 4 pounds of elderberries doing their thing).

The weather has not been inspiring once again, which has resulted in two cats finding their inner kitten/getting stir crazy and needing to run around like crazy.  Normally the lizard population provides summer entertainment, but this year we have needed the help of the mouse on a long string, a piece of rolled up newspaper and the Red Dot.  "They say" that summer will restart this week, but first it was today, then tomorrow, now Wednesday seems to be Summer - we'll see!

There have been two flower events this week worthy of note.  During the week the final bud opened on the large red orchid I bought from Aldi - this is much bigger than my other orchids, so is having to live on the kitchen window sill for the moment.  I have bought another like this one, but it was half price as the flowers had finished and the shop (not Aldi) didn't want the ugly thing sitting around.  We'll see what happens with that one too.  The other flower event is the first flower on one of the many chilli plants we have knocking around the garden out of the range of chicken beaks.  What these plants really need is heat and sun, so fingers crossed from Wednesday (bit of a theme developing here).

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The potato harvest is in full swing at the plot, and as I moved the weed suppressant matting that makes potato crops possible, I found another of my little garden helpers - a rather fine baby slow worm (less scary than the sloughed snake skin I found last week).  The first sweetcorn - the six or so that came from the first sowing of 51 seeds - are starting to look promising.  I think they may be ready before the end of the month.  The second sowing are starting to show their male flowers and there are hints of the female flowers (the tassels and the cobs).  They won't be ready until September, unless the weather really bucks its ideas up.

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We have been joined by yet another chicken this week.  Following our purchase of Mac and Jak in the Spring, and being invaded by the Economic Migrant in July, we have been prevailed upon to provide shelter to an old girl who was left on her own when her chums died off (after a suitable quarantine period).  She needs company, we were told, she is pining for the company of other chickens we were told.  Meet Auntie Mo, the chicken that walks by herself.

The Birthday Weekend started with a tasting at a craft brewery in Chinon on Friday night, on Saturday we went shoe shopping and won (well, found two pairs that were considered acceptable), and Sunday was lunch at Buffalo Grill.  They are formulaic, but the meat is good quality, the chips are very nice, they have a full range of steak sauces, and the puddings are magnificent.  Of course after that lot, you then need exercise, so we walked round the wildlife sanctuary lake at la Monnerai, which was new to us.  Using the free telescopes, we could admire egrets and cormorants on an island in the middle of the lake.  The wildlife lake is also less visited, and there were mobs of people around the leisure lake, as you would expect on a Sunday afternoon in August!

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So apologies for the delay, and until next Sunday, which should be Summer!

 

 

A beano and evidence of a visitor

Now I don't mean the comic, quality as that is, I use beano in the sense of a day's outing, such as used to be taken by workers from the East End of London, because I took a rare day off - needless to say the weather was not propitious but as a couple of things had been booked, Tuesday it was. 

I went with a chum, and first of all we stopped at the lac de Rillé, an artificial lake (supposedly the largest in Touraine) which is normally about two thirds empty at this time of year.  Not in 2021!  The trees around had been damaged by the storms with strong winds in June and July and there was still some tidying up going on.  It looks a lovely place for walks later in the year and over winter, with a bird hide.  We then went to Langais for lunch and a mooch around, admiring the outside of the Chateau, the inside of the Church and a very lovely bronze sculpture on the outside of the Church.  I couldn't photograph it, but the Church had the dodgiest ever crucifix above the altar, made by a local art group.  The pose on the Cross was actually more #paintmelikethosefrenchgirls, while the back was decorated with Nespresso capsules.

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Last week I was worrying about blight.  The potatoes escaped it seems as they were second earlies and therefore pretty well over before it hit.  I've resorted to the French trick of removing leaves, growing tips and anything that displeases me, and at the moment we are under control.  Evidence that the potatoes are looking good below, as well as a view of ripening tomatoes as proof!

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The Garden and the Meadow are good for wildlife and we find lots of evidence and see lots of things.  This week's interesting finds were a large and beautiful red admiral sunning himself on a log pile, a comma butterfly (I think) gorging itself on the buddleia, and the sloughed skin of a reasonably sized grass snake under the matting that we cover the potato plot with.

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Some know of my challenges with chilli plants - the fact that chickens eat them is a particular annoyance.  The fact that my brother has a couple in a pot on his terrace and despite being planted in the same soil at the same time as mine, his always do better, is even more irritating.  So it is with great pride that I announce the first flower bud on my chilli plants this year.  Of course they need sun and heat, which is lacking this year, but it is a start!

Incidentally, if you are reading this on a computer rather than a phone, if you click/double click on the photos you get a bigger, better view of them.

Until next week!

 

 

Struggling against the elements

Last Saturday the weather changed, and summer arrived very quickly and very firmly.  No rain and temperatures up to 30ºC by Sunday and through the week, so much so in fact, that I had to mow a lawn in the morning, as while there was still some dew, it would be too hot to mow in the afternoon, when shade temperatures reached 34ºC, and you aren't always in the shade when mowing.  The farmers also took advantage of the window of hot, sunny weather to get the wheat, barley, oat and colza crops in and the straw baled.  As Benoit, purveyor of fine milk, butter and cream pointed out, once bailed, the straw was safe.  Our weird garden cactus decided it was time to flower and the Poundshop Lily finally bloomed - all very beautiful (and smelly in the case of the lily).  The blue hibiscus at Chinon was also looking very glamorous.

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The hot weather coincided with Mac going broody - I've never had a black chicken do that before!  Bridie does it at least twice a year, but she is a freeloading bantam, Mac is one of my good chickens, or so I thought.  Actually she is nicer than Dummer used to be, so while I wear gauntlets to lift her out of the coop, she isn't so savage in her attacks.  She wanders around the garden looking for bugs, and aggressively preening her wing feathers at us, while making the chuntering sounds you hear from velociraptors in Jurassic Park films.  Her eye might look odd in the photo, but it is totally fine, she was just caught badly and I didn't get another picture as good.

Anyway, one chicken broody means one less egg each day, and having to fight for those there are, so it is a pain.  Sudden heat means the weather isn't totally stable, and of course on Friday evening it broke.  The gusts of wind knocked over the lily, breaking off one of the flower stems - that is now in a beer bottle on the outside kitchen window ledge (we couldn't have it indoors as it smelt so strong, and lily pollen can be fatal to cats).  Since Saturday morning we have had another 9mm of rain, and that is before counting how much fell this afternoon during the monsoon between 3pm and 5pm.  All that makes the following comments and photo inevitable - blight!  The tomato plants are laden with fruit, but how much will ripen before the plants succumb completely remains to be seen.  I've picked two near ripe tomatoes and more are colouring up, but these two are nearly ripe, and yet riddled with blight and inedible and can't even be added to the compost or they will spread the disease.  I could be making an awful lot of chutney, except that you need other ingredients and I am not going to waste my shallots on jars of chutney that won't get eaten.

Once I had removed most of the affected leaves and fruit, I took a few more photos of the vegetable plots to try to inspire myself again.  Here is the sweetcorn looking impressive and with climbing beans planted among them as recommended by the Radio 2 gardeners, the butternut squashes that survived the snails starting to look business-like and the big square with newly planted brassicas, the tomatoes, peppers and aubergines (the latter two hidden in the main by tomatoes).

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The tomato news, a pretty vile weather forecast for the next week and a wet weekend drove us to drink.  Tant pis!

 

The camera isn't always there to hand

Well what's that about?  Only that the Patrouille de France - the French answer to the Red Arrows - have been based at our local airport for the past few days.  They arrive, they do a practice of their air show, they go off and do their air show at Saumur, they come back, they get a delivery of air force kerosene, they do another practice, then they go and buzz the Tour de France finish before heading home.  I've heard them three times and seen them twice - in formation - and not had a camera of any sort to hand to capture the moment.  Rather splendid though.  It was easier to capture us both relaxing in different forms of hammock at midday today, after working hard.

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We are getting different flowers out now.  My favourite cultivated flowers, agapanthus, are coming out by the front door.  The first cyclamen have started to show in the lawn, making mowing so much more challenging.  The gladioli are coming out but are a disappointing yellow - perhaps the red ones are the ones that got munched by snails.  Last year in the UK, when I could still get there and visit a Poundshop, and could bring back bulbs, I bought a couple of mystery lily bulbs.  They didn't do much last year but will be magnificent soon.

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I worry a bit about our older cats and that they can be a bit lazy, so last weekend, I invested in a couple of things to arouse their interest.  While Poirot has made it clear that all this is beneath her, Nibbles has taken a very keen interest in finding and catching the Red Spot, public enemy number one for all cats.  She has also taken to worshipping the planter that the giant catnip plant is wedged in at the moment - I don't think she can climb into the planter, or it could get very ugly.  She is not a pretty spaced out person.

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We lifted the shallot harvest on Wednesday - magnificent though I say so myself - and they are now drying on a nice bulb drying tray I got from a chum locally - thanks Brigitte!  I am concerned about the spuds.  They have flowered and there is a lot of die back.  I foolishly didn't read the packet properly and these are second earlies, so I am hoping they are doing what comes naturally, as the other explanation is Blight, which is Bad.

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Have a good week!

 

A promise of things to come

Before we get onto that, a word on chickens.  Muck left us for the chicken run in the sky - brown chickens never seem as robust as other types, so we watch Brass with a certain concern.  Currently we are home to 7 fowl - Delenn the Doyenne shown below, demonstrating that you don't have to be young and agile to get to roost on the high perch, old, creaky and fat can do it too.  Then there is Brass, and Mac and Jak the newbies for this year, Bridie the freeloading bantam, and The Asylum Seeker from next door.  I was a bit concerned to find another of next door's marching around the garden just now when I popped out for some bay leaves - we are not going to be a sanctuary for discontented chickens!

British visitors are starting to turn up in the Pays de la Loire, as restrictions ease and a pent up need to visit their properties becomes overwhelming.  It is lovely to see them, although we panic about getting gardens just so in the days before they arrive.  I was doing one garden, and had time to stop to admire a bank of some sort of pea flower along the side of a lake, and a yellow wagtail marching up and down the landing stage (believe me, that is what it is, the photo is just fuzzy).  Monday night the President will make announcements and that may stop the tide again - and not exactly a tide, just a few more faces in the area!

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We've found evidence of very welcome visitors to The Garden in the past week.  I do not see them when I visit, well I make a noise and am generally accompanied by cats, so have to find other ways to know they are there.  In the photos below are two different thrush anvils and the shells of the snails they have beaten out of them.  It is so great to see that, as I've not seen a real live thrush for ages, and they are such beautiful and useful birds.

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The promise of good things to come includes something else I've never seen before.  The sweet chestnuts are in flower and normally the flowers are high up so you see the long tails of essentially male flowers with their fluffy petals, and if you are a hayfever sufferer with a problem with tree pollen, you tend to suffer too.  But get up close and personal, and you can also see the female flowers, miniature spiny cocoons where the nuts will form during the next three months.  The first sweetcorn are also starting to produce male flowers (round here castrating maize is a thing, but I'm not going to bother), and signs of where the cobs will start forming very soon - that makes me hungry and yearn for them to get on with it!!  Finally the sweet peppers (or bell peppers) are in flower and I've spotted some tiny fruits too, so that will be something else yummy soon.  Ideally a bit of sun and the tomatoes will start to ripen too!

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We've been working on a flower border in the garden, filling it mainly with things we have rescued from compost heaps or have been sitting in pots for ages or packets of seeds that seemed like a good idea at the time, with the honourable exception of the Fergus Memorial Rose.  On the left is an early shot, on the right, how it is looking today - full of flowers for bees and insects and full and blousy.

Finally a gratuitous photo of one man and his favourite machine making a noise this morning during the window of opportunity for using loud machines.  Useless scrub has been pushed back for a day or two.

Still a chunk of weather out there!

I wouldn't want to be considered one who rubbernecks, but I did feel that if it was from a suitable distance, getting sight of what had happened at St Nicholas de Bourgeuil a couple of weeks ago would be interesting.  It didn't disappoint, and on Friday, as I took a different route to Chinon, I was able to stop just below the buildings of la Jarnoterie (many may know this grower) and look across the vineyards to something that might be compared to what Godzilla would do if she visited the area.  The village is still blocked off, and quite rightly.

The weather is really not right for this time of year, with sweatshirts not banished to the back of the cupboard, jeans de rigeur much of the time and mushrooms!  Further south, friends have found cèpes.  Yesterday we found three different varieties in the Garden - none of them convincing for eating purposes, but wrong at the beginning of July.

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There are also the things that you would expect from this time of year - lovely banks of lavender humming with bees and hawkmoths, peacock butterflies on the buddleia and marbled whites on the wild scabious.  Our nascent herbaceous border has lots of bee friendly flowers out now as well as hidden shrubs and rampant weeds - actually it is hard to distinguish it from the surrounding weeds as it has been too wet to get a mower in there to define the edges.

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Of course July in France is all about la grande boucle - the Tour de France - and today they are up in the mountains with an uphill finish at Tignes.  I downloaded the Tour de France app this lunchtime and am impressed by it.  But now I must go and watch the utter pain and ultimate glory of an uphill finish!

Until next week!