Rural Life

Day 16 of Deconfinement Diary - growing things

Ah the joy of having reliable brakes - it meant I could go out and about quite happily this afternoon, after a morning of staring at the computer screen.  Today's foray was "just" to feed the boys in the country, check round the property and water the seedlings.  It is also a magnificent day here today - blue skies, a bit of a breeze to take the edge off, and lovely sunshine.  The official shade temperature is supposed to be about 25ºC today, and it probably is about that, but when you are out and about, you are not always in the shade, so it feels a lot hotter.  Still, I topped up my vitamin D levels nicely I'm sure!

So what did I see out and about?  Well the contents of the tin of cat food disappeared very quickly as all four boys were hungry for food with gravy on it and even ate their carrots, before joining me down the garden.  Fergus found his usual dust bath, but this time in the shade.

After a certain amount of shuffling around for the best position, Donald took the spare chair and Spooky curled up on the ground, again both nicely in the shade.

Clause was feeling vulnerable - I had found a further two ticks on him and wanted to get them off, but he wasn't going to be pulled around today, he wanted to be left alone, so he took to deep cover.

The potagers are coming on - I really didn't think the tomatoes would take when I just shoved in the bare rooted seedlings we had been given, and I was quite sure the lettuces wouldn't do anything.  The shallots were a gamble and I wait to see how they turn out.  The broad beans are nearly over and the bit of plot in between will be sown with borlotti beans soon.  Beans are good on the vile clay soil there, as the roots are supposed to be good for breaking down into the soil and also for fixing nitrogen.

I also checked the orchids in the other plots.  We've not had as many bee orchids this year as expected and many less than last year, but the lizard orchids are now doing their thing.  They aren't pretty but they are rather dramatic.

I was surprised to find a bird's nest orchid as well.  It's a pretty name for an orchid that is even less attractive than a lizard orchid.  It is parasitic and grows from something rotting in the soil, normally roots of something else.  It has no leaves, all you ever see is the flower stalk.  I've found them at my Mum's and in the One Acre Wood, but it was a first to find them where the boys hang out.

 

Day 15 of Deconfinement Diary - garden plenty

It might be a bank holiday in the UK, but it isn't here (Pentecost Monday is actually next week), so my car is in the garage having his brakes fixed.  John is working, however, as it is ideal mowing weather, so I am at home, on my own and reliving lockdown.  While it would be nice to be lounging in the garden, the usual drongos are in the garden next door with a pile of Tramp Strength, so I have done some necessary garden chores but not as much as I would like.  I've even done a bit of desk/computer work.

While I was in the garden, I was able to admire the rose we received for our Silver Wedding Anniversary five years ago - and it has put on a lovely show this year.  Thank you, Pauline and Dave once again!

I also spent a happy while checking round the hanging baskets and pots for strawberries and in amongst the canes for raspberries and have a nice portion prepared for pudding this evening, complete with a dash of something to draw out the juices and flavour.

Dinner will be a rustic dish of lardons and broad beans, simmered in stock for a while with garlic and thyme - I've not had enough beans to do this with for a few years, so hope I can remember the recipe (it's not one that is written down anywhere).

In a day or two I will cut the last spears of asparagus from our garden for this year, to allow the plants to develop properly and store food and goodness for next year.  We've done quite well this year, not least as John has kept the bed well strimmed and we have, we think, got rid of the feral artichokes that were clogging up the area and stealing nutrients and light.

I'm looking forward to getting my car back - even if I don't use it for a few days, I have the impression that I can go somewhere if I want to.  With lockdown so recent, today has been a bit of a challenge in some ways.

 

Weekend 2 of Deconfinement Diary - well it is a bank holiday weekend!

While the first weekend of fewer restrictions was spent on mundane but useful things like gardening, shopping, feeding ourselves and preparing for the coming week, this weekend we were daring and crossed the regional border into Centre Val de Loire.  Such braveness and intrepidness!!

It was fun to be out and about together - during lockdown having two in a car was a signal to be stopped and checked, so we just didn't do it.  We went over to Restigné, near Bourgueil, first of all.  We took the roads less travelled across country, admiring the woods, fields and villages we hadn't seen since February or so.  It was great to see our friend Laurent the wine maker again, and for the first time this year.  He has not been having a great time of it.  The markets that allow him to sell his wine to the public have not allowed vignerons in until the last week or so, he doesn't sell to the supermarkets as he doesn't have the volume and can't go very low on price (or as low as they want), while the bars and restaurants that he supplies are closed.  Added to that, customers such as ourselves have not been able to get to him and he has been severely hampered in gaining a living.  While he has applied for the government handouts, he has heard nothing back.  He was very pleased to see us.

Normally at this time of year we get the gossip on the spring weather and how it has affected the buds on the vine.  This year, he was more interested in telling us and showing us how much damage one broken bottle can do when in a trailer full of goods for market.  With little margin and few sales, losing a few presentation boxes in such a way is a loss too.  We left his place with 20 litres vrac (i.e. needing to be bottled) of his 2018 corsé red wine and 20 litres of his best dry rosé for us, and a further 10 litres each of dry rosé and the 2019 red for Chinon.

Then on to Chinon!  Coming along the Vienne, it is a dramatic way to enter the town.  First there is the river, which was lower than I have seen it since October last year!

Then as you get closer, the chateau dominates the entrance to the town - it has a long history but is most famous for being the place where Joan of Arc performed her first miracle - spotting the Dauphin disguised among his courtiers.

Then we had a lovely afternoon/early evening catching up with family and their new neighbours, including reciprocal cellar visits, and didn't get home until 8pm.  Today has been more relaxed, and has included feeding the country cats, picking ticks off them, watering seedlings and eating home grown strawberries and raspberries with the chunk of Mum's shortbread that I purloined yesterday.  Not a bad weekend!

Day 12 of Deconfinement Diary - a delayed appointment

A reflection on one of the few the joys of this virus - normally at this time of year towards sunset, the sky around us resembles a giant Jack Straws puzzle, with con trails in all directions.  Last night - not a single one, the wisps and streaks are cirrus clouds showing a change in the weather.  Lovely!

Anyway, on to that delayed appointment.  We had an appointment on the 19th March with Cuma near Brion to have a couple of barrels of brown gloop turned into something rather wonderful.  However, due to lockdown, that appointment had to be cancelled, but they got a dispensation to carry on distilling to the end of May.  So today we dragged the two seething barrels from the cellar and John drove them to Brion.  He was told to come back at 5:15pm, and has now returned with two barrels that need a good clean out, and one bonbon with 12 litres of clear and dangerous spirit.  It is a mixed vintage this year - pear and peach, because that was what we had. 

Now the gossip from Brion is that normally they would have 300 clients through a season, but this year they have only had 70!  People still labour under the impression that preparing fruit for distilling is illicit and illegal, and can only be done if you have grandfather rights.  No, people!  You can prepare and have distilled the products of your gardens, using a recognised distiller, the difference is that the amount of tax you pay on the product to the Government has increased.  If there is fruit this year (too early to tell for the moment), get brewing and keep those distillers in business!  However you can't have apple or grape product distilled, as that would make Calvados or brandy, which are controlled products.

No idea what this is like yet - currently it will be rough as old boots, but by late Autumn it should be OK.

So today the cheque book got a workout through needing to pay the distiller and the Government.  It is going to get a workout tomorrow too, as we head out not quite as far as 100km to visit our favourite producer of Bourgueil wines at Restigné before doing a socially distanced and responsible visit to Chinon.  The public health France cry for alcohol is "toujours avec moderation".  Good thing they can't access our cheque book!

Day 11 of Deconfinement Diary - and it's up!

A couple of updates from yesterday's blog.

Firstly and very sadly, I was right, it was an undertaker's van backed up to a (nice) neighbour's house, as he died at home yesterday at just 70 years old (nothing to do with Covid).  

Secondly, and on a happier note - yay, my hair has been cut!  No longer the shaggy sheep look, but back to something more normal for me.  On arrival, you get to slather your hands with gel, so they are nice and sticky.  Then you get to put on your drape yourself.  Meanwhile everything the person before touched is being disinfected.  Then the compulsory hair wash which isn't so bad with a mask on, but no back or scalp massages.  Then the cutting, with the hairdresser wearing a mask and a face visor, so speech is muffled.  Great care is taken around the ears so that your mask is not cut off by mistake.  The biggest issue is if a bit of cut hair falls into your mask - that is a whole new form of torture and one the CIA will no doubt adopt, particularly if you then try to speak!  So there we go - and I feel a lot better for it, especially once I was out of the salon and could get my hair lined mask off my face!

And then this evening, just before sitting down to type, we got the new abri roof up.  The internal ties to the centre of the frame aren't tied yet, but as we aren't expecting a gale overnight, I'm not worried.  The stripes work even though they aren't matched, and we have shade.  This is important as it was humid and up to near 30ºC today.  Nibbles has tested the shade for us and approved it.

Now to go and christen the shade with a suitable libation!

Day 10 of Deconfinement Diary - and it is now the glums kick in

I shouldn't feel down, I shouldn't feel anxious, I shouldn't feel "confined", but yesterday evening I lost it.  It had been an OK day, with John picking up a new client, so the promise of a bottle of fizz to celebrate in the evening, and I did win a couple of battles against French bureaucracy, but sometimes you just crack.

We have some very nice neighbours and then we have F the alcoholic, and the demi-monde that are attracted to him.  At 5pm, two of these decided that what they really needed to do was strim the garden F squats and to drink large quantities of tramp strength beer and to parade around in their jeans and not much else other than (surprisingly) PPE for the strimmer.  Two whole hours of a quarter of an hour strimming or playing with the strimmer, then a quarter of an hour drinking and shouting at each other as they only had one set of ear defenders, then back to playing with the strimmer.  It was a glorious evening and I had been stuck indoors much of the day with computers, and it was the last straw to deal with those drunken bums.  There were times when I was nearly in tears.  Normally I just sit with an MP3 player plugged in and my back to them, but last night I just couldn't.

So the abri roof isn't yet in place, as I couldn't face the comments yesterday once John got home.  Likely it won't go up tonight either, as I have a hair appointment (yippee - perhaps that will cheer me up) at 6pm and they are back with the beer, no t-shirts but no strimmer.  Also I saw a gurney going into another neighbour's house, and that is never good....

Tomorrow I will report on the challenges of getting your hair washed and cut while wearing a face mask.  My mind is currently boggling but no doubt it will all become clear in about 40 minutes!

I leave you with a couple of pretty pictures to brighten up your day.

Day 9 of Deconfinement Diary - French bureaucracy will get me if Covid doesn't!

After yesterday's triumph of finishing the sewing (still not yet in place however - something for tomorrow!), I felt strong and able to cope with the thought of firstly helping some chums get through the ANTS system, and then looking at the tax declaration stuff.  Well that was a mistake!

Actually things started well, in that we got my friends' approved digitised photos done at the local service in double quick time, plus John scanned the required documents for me so I didn't have to battle the scanner.  Then it all started to go a bit pear shaped.  First off they wanted more documents than we had scanned, so I ended up taking photos of electricity bills and health system cards and using photos.  That worked and one application to change from a UK drivers licence to a French one went.  Could I get the other one to work?  Aaargh.  It took 15 goes to get the home address entered, as the system took offense at a "lieu dit" that it couldn't automatically find in its repertoire.  As the Government will happily send tax and health stuff to the address, that was a bit annoying, but by sidling up to it, catching the system unawares, a judicious prayer to the god of computers, and by not doing anything different, it finally accepted the details and let me do all the other stuff required for the second licence exchange application.  That is two hours of my life I won't get back!!

So after lunch I went to feed the boys and water the seedlings I planted at the weekend and check on stuff.  There are cherries, but not many, not large, not whole and not particularly spectacular - a shame after all the blossom.

I also took more photographs of bee orchids, but most are out of focus.  This one worked nicely though.

Once home, I thought I had better start looking at tax forms for here and Chinon.  Big mistake!  O it is easy to find the exchange rate they said last year at the tax office - I had to access a number of different reports, copy down twelve numbers to 4 decimal places, take the average and now I wait to see if it bears any resemblance to the number I asked for on the Q&A.  If it does fine, if it doesn't …. And tax French bears no relationship to real French like wot it is spoken either.  Another 2 hours of my life I won't get back.

Rummaging in the shed yesterday evening, John found our Covid-19 remedy (not that he was looking for it, but nice to have found it anyway).  We think it has more chance of working than Trump's dodgy hydrochloroquinine anyway.

Day 8 of Deconfinement Diary - with assistance from Nibbles

It's not been a momentous day here really.  First thing after breakfast I took my car to the garage as he was making a noise - a discussion and a look at the back wheels with a torch and he is booked in to get his brakes sorted out next Monday - not before as they are busy and there is a bank holiday.  I'm glad they are busy - it must have been a tricky time for them.

After lunch I thought I'd better crack on with the roof for the gazebo.  Lockdown stopped play as I had done all I could without fixings.  Amazon France was then blocked for unsafe working practices, so I had to wait until last week when the large "sells everything" shop opened and I had access to their haberdashery department.  If you remember, the lady there was pleased to sell me Velcro and orange tape and not have to discuss the lack of elastic.

I evicted the seedlings and got myself set up on the outside table, and cracked on, knowing it was going to be a long haul.  Nibbles decided to join me, and made things more difficult.  The photos show her serene and relaxed, but mine is a hand cranked sewing machine and there were times when every time my hand went towards her (so once every rotation), it got smacked, claws out!

Anyway, by about 7pm (hence the delay to this story), it was all done.  Tomorrow we will put it on the frame and celebrate with a bottle of something nice, but for tonight, you will have to make do with a photo of it on the ground.  There is of course still the centre piece to be done, but not this week!

The eagle-eyed will notice that Nibbles is still helping.

 

Day 7 of Deconfinement Diary - meeting some new helpers

Before I show you the newbies, a couple of pictures of old favourites.  First question is how many chickens can a small man trap they constructed actually hold?  Chickens don't seem to do social distancing, well apart from Bridie the Bantam who keeps well away from the Big Four when they are out and about.  So we found out last night, one small chicken underneath (no need to breathe for most of the incident it appeared), plus one big, fat Light Sussex (was a breed ever worse named - she is nearly goose size!).  The astonishing thing was that this double layer of chicken in a hole lasted for over half an hour!

Our latest previously owned ride-on lawnmower is currently having its blade plate welded, so we get to keep the grass collector that goes with it in the garden.  It is seriously large!  The hedgehog, Nibbles and, this morning, Poirot all think it is a great place for sunbathing - here modelled by Poirot.

This morning we were back to the vegetable plot to get the third courgette plant, four more butternut squashes and the 20 surviving sweetcorn seedlings into proper ground.  I lifted a piece of weed suppressant matting that had been protecting the soil and the horse poo we spread there in the autumn, and tried turning the soil.  That particular patch is about 70% clay I think so it was hard work, but the sweetcorn are planted and I am hoping that the broad beans provide a bit of shelter and a lot of fixed nitrogen in the soil as their roots spread out.

As I worked my way down the row and lifted more of the matting I met Sid first of all.  I don't know who was more surprised, but once uncovered he didn't seem too keen on going back under the matting.  Nor did he seem too keen on going towards the broad beans, probably as there was a cat on the other side of the beans.  I the end I moved him down to the bottom of the row, knowing I wasn't going to go that far.  Anyway, introducing Sid, the baby grass snake!  If he was a foot long in total I'd be surprised.

As I carried on turning back the matting I found the reason Sid didn't want to go back under, as I found Terry sitting and getting very cross with me for having lifted the mat, moved Sid further away, and then I wouldn't just go away and leave him alone.  He eventually pottered off under his own steam, but he wasn't too chuffed.  He was also very well disguised, so I really only spotted him because he moved.  There were some lovely Terry-sized snails further down the mat, so he should have had a good lunch once we left him to it.

It's ever so nice to meet the neighbours!

 

Day 6 of Deconfinement Diary - getting back to the new normal

Saturday morning is market time in Baugé, and I've been faithful to local stall holders and producers as much as I can be during lockdown.  The market was given permission to expand to include all the usual stallholders although it remains in the Place de Europe in front of the Chateau, rather than up in the market place.  It was really nice to see old chums back.  The lady who sells crèpes and gallettes was there and delighted to be back - she seems to have found lockdown very hard, particularly as she is a very social soul, so not seeing anyone for days clearly affected her.  I was also delighted to find that the Moroccan lady who does wonderful savoury stuffed pancakes and delicious cakes was back, so I could stock up on all the yummy things we have missed over the last two months.

After lunch (mostly Moroccan yummy things) we went out to do stuff, with first stop at a Vide Maison.  A widowed friend managed to sell her house just before lockdown, and can now disperse her stuff, prior to final signatures and heading back to Réunion to be with her children and grandchildren.  We will be sad to see her go.

My husband is very special - he got me a present on Thursday - a trailer full of horse poo.  Today I got to spend a chunk of the afternoon transferring it to a wheelbarrow and then taking it down the hill to sit and mature near where it will be needed.  How kind!

Each time I went down the hill, I was able to admire these flowers that came from some random bulbs I bought at Aldi and planted last autumn.  As I've lost the packaging, I've no idea what they are, but I am really enjoying them.

Today's cat pin-up is Fergus, looking rather imperial.  Until a couple of seconds before I took this, his back paw was pointing at the sky, but it came down, so pretty perfect!