Rural Life

A spot of gardening

It's that time of year when the garden gurus tell you to stay off the lawn and put your feet up in front of the fire with the seed catalogues to plan the next growing season.  When you have chickens and a workshop at the bottom of the garden, that advice is useless, and the best one can do is to ensure that you don't keep walking on the same bit each time (handy tip - put plastic garden chairs over routes that have got a bit soggy so you have to walk round them and thus let the grass recover, plus if the chair is white, you can see it in the dark and avoid falling over it!).

Round here, if you are in the country and don't have fences, you find that enthusiastic wildlife will do what it can to scarify the lawn.  I'm not talking here about the gentle progging that a green woodpecker or a blackbird will do searching for worms and insects, nor in the Southern Hemisphere that a friendly Ibis will do for reasons that the Southern Hemisphere will have to provide.  No I am talking serious earth works here - see below!

 

This delightful sight met our eyes at one of John's gardens near the river before Christmas.  The owner was concerned that someone had raided his grounds for wild cyclamen.  While they are prolific there, the French are not into nicking them as they are so widely available everywhere; they just enjoy them where they are.  Indeed our lawn is starting to sprout a number of patches of cyclamen due to the lawn mice that find seeds, bury them and then either lose them or get eaten by the cats themselves.  I think I am up to a dozen such cyclamen plants, and ours is not a huge garden.

So what had done all that damage, if it wasn't itinerant pilfering peasants?  The ultimate vandal was to blame.  A beast that, if it sees a fine lawn, just has to go and make a mess of it.  A beast that trashes woodland roads and verges (and sometimes cars too) and is growing in numbers in our part of the world despite the huge numbers of hunters that try to track it down.  The wild boar is a very shy animal - I have only ever seen a live one once, and that was living at a farm rescue centre.  John has seen a couple at night but only fleetingly.  We have seen their traces in the damage however and know exactly who to blame!

Foot prints and tusk marks - could the clues be any clearer?

 
 

New Year traditions

Apart from the January sales, and then only if I could find something I wanted and could afford, the after Christmas period in the UK used to be quite depressing for me.  Twinkling village lights were more a symbol of how cold and alone I was as I drove home after work, than of communities with a life of their own, and the days didn't seem to get any longer until the end of the month at the earliest.

Here in France we find it very different.  Firstly there is the importance of wishing EVERYONE a happy new year - something that can go on until the end of the month.  Then there are the formal ceremonies for wishing people a happy new year - first the President does his, then the Government visit him and present their wishes and after than mayors and elected leaders all over the country are making New Year's wishes to their voters.  Particularly in the villages, these ceremonies are taken very seriously, with formal gatherings noted in the papers, people dressing up smartly to go along, listening politely to the words of their elected leaders and then sipping cremant and nibbling on small sweet things.  The one for our village was this morning and it was great to see people, interesting to hear the news, including changes in the village staffing, and it was a very fine cremant.

Finally, there is the whole question of gallettes.  Epiphany is either counted as the first Sunday of the New Year or (more properly in my view) the 6th January.  Whatever date it is, there are gatherings to eat gallette and find the feve and crown the king or queen (who ever finds the feve or bean).  Gallettes come in a variety of flavours and types - most common around here are the brioche-style ones, where you are given a HUGE slice, but it is very light and fluffy or the frangipane ones, which are two layers of flakey pastry with a rich mixture of almond paste in between.  For the month of January, any gathering is blessed with eating gallette - next weekend we have two bouts of that, with the Comite des Fetes AGM and with the walking group.  It makes January that much more special.

One of the local bakers has upped the ante this year and on Epiphany itself was selling gallettes where the feve (normally a small porcelain figurine - highly collectable I'm told) was taking the form of a small gold coin.  How special was that?

Firewood

Happy New Year - or as we say here Meilleurs Voeux, et pour la sante surtout!  Of course in the current glacial climate, while health is very important, staying warm is totally fundamental.

For Christmas, John got a book on native British trees and their uses, including a section on how to deal with firewood and make a fire that will light first time.  It is extraordinary the difference between the opinions in the book, based around we assume a Middle England experience, and what we find here, in a middle but westerly France.  I guess the distance between is about 500 miles, but is enough to affect how trees grow, and therefore the properties of the wood.

Neither the author nor we would disagree with oak making a fine firewood if you don't have any other uses for it, but we do disagree about chestnut.  He didn't distinguish between horse chestnut and sweet chestnut - the former we would agree is a lousy firewood, but the latter is very good, with an excellent thermal content, albeit that it spits badly.  In fact firewood vendors here have to get you to sign a confirmation that you have a closed fire in order to sell it to you.  We have a woodburner insert and it is wonderful in that.

Poplar is something else we disagree on.  The book said that it was slow to burn and difficult to light - here we tend to regard it as kindling, or something to use if you need a short, quick, intense burn.

The book allows for a one year seasoning period.  I would say that if you are felling living trees, then they need a good 2 to 3 years depending on the tanin in the wood.  If the tree is long dead when you felled it and isn't a pine, then the wood really just needs to dry out a bit in order to burn.  Pine is a problem due to the amount of resin in the wood - the dead pine we felled in the One Acre Wood is useless for burning indoors but is lovely in the chiminea, as it is full of resin which would bung up the chimney, but smells lovely outdoors.  Live branches that fall in gales should still be left for a couple of years, as they were green when they came down.

The oak tree we had to fell at a work site shown below will not be ready to burn until the winter of 2012/13 at the very earliest.  The haze in the picture is not camera wobble by the way, it is pollen.  The tree was felled to make way for a swimming pool, but we didn't get the order until late spring.  It was about 200 years old, but the usable trunk section (for construction) was disappointingly short (12 feet) as the tree had not been managed.

Restaurant review - Restaurant de la Gare, Linieres-Bouton

There is a wonderful tradition in rural France - the menu ouvrier.  In general it is somewhere between 10 and 12 Euros (more in chi-chi towns) and will include four courses, wine or cider, coffee but have limited choice.  These menus are designed for those workers who cannot get home in a reasonable time for lunch (reasonable being 10 kilometers at most it appears).  As we test out the facilities at regional restaurants, we will let you know about them in case you are in the area.

Sneeze and you will miss Linieres-Bouton - it has 96 inhabitants, not all of them in the village itself but is not the smallest commune in Maine et Loire - that prize goes to Chartrene.  It is just off the main road between Vernantes and Noyant, so is not far off your route if you are heading to or from Saumur.  It has hardly changed in the past century apart from the closure of the railway and the opening of a foundry, which has managed to survive the economic downturn.

The Restaurant de la Gare has a large restaurant and a small bar at the back, and is open weekdays between 12 and 2pm for the Menu Ouvrier (the bar is open longer).  We went there on Monday 21st December.  There are very few small tables, you basically take your place at long tables and may be joined by others, though they do tend to leave an empty space between you and them.  There is wine (red) on the table and cider and mineral water (still) is produced when you sit down along with a big basket of good bread.

The buffet starter is excellent - yesterday there were about 12 different salads, a meat mousse, ham, garlic sausage, rillettes and pate to heap onto your plate.  There was a choice of steak (cooked bloody or medium, but the medium would be most English people's description of bloody) which was very good, or beef stew which was also delicious, both served with cooked green beans.  The cheese board had a selection of 8 cheeses, including a blue, and there was a good range of plain puddings. The pear tart was delicious and the iles flottant a true vanilla hit.  The coffee was good but was extra to the meal.  As we were on our regular no drinking days, we didn't try the wine or cider - not even in the interests of research.

It was 10,50 Euros a head with the coffee extra at 1 Euro each, but was excellent and with a good friendly atmosphere - highly recommended.

A guest contributor dictates....

It seems to me that all blogs need a little refreshment from time to time - and this one is no exception.  I have also been accused of not playing my part in the household and just flopping around rather uselessly of an evening rather than helping with the Christmas cards or similar (my portrait at the end of this piece is not typical I assure you). So to set the record straight, I had better describe how I help out in these cold times.

Well firstly it is important to note that without me and my two chums, "they" would never get out of bed in the morning, but the need to tend to our needs means they do actually see the morning!  Secondly, the house would not be properly aired at this time of year, without me constantly reminding them to open a door or window so that I can get into the garden, or come back into the house.

I have also been doing a certain amount of digging so that all those nasty pests in the raised beds are killed off by the frost, plus I have been inspecting the bark of the cherry and pear trees pretty closely for other nasty things - I was reminded I needed to have a go at the apricot today too.

Then there are my jobs in the community, keeping various elderly neighbours on their toes.  I have to say that if I wasn't there to knock pots over, scare chickens, bat nuts about and look round open doors and windows, these poor old things would just stay rooted to their kitchen chairs, dealing with vegetables.  I am honestly doing a public service.

Perhaps the most onerous of my current duties is sorting out that young brat next door - you, know boy kittens think they can get away with anything by looking small, but that doesn't wash with me and he is going to get a jolly good thrashing when I next get my paws on him.  Of course, the poncy white oaf that sits on my wall needs to be sorted out frequently as well - I know his Mum is on the village council but I still say he is a waste of space with the memory of a goldfish.

So as you can see, my days are full, when "they" just sit around in front of these computer thingies with an odd unfocussed look on their faces (until reminded to move by me demanding food), and I am therefore entitled to my 18 hour snooze.  So there!

Les en primeurs sont arrives!

With many apologies to the French language for missing acents and dodgy spellings and potentially missing agreements.  It is the third Thursday in November however and as such the formal date for release of many of the en primeur or nouveau wines.  Some do come out earlier - we had primeurs in a restaurant in Narbonne in late October last year, but today is the day for Beaujolais and for Anjou Gamay.

I gather there are still parties for the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau but a lot of the marketing hype and fun seems to have gone out of it and wine snobs are sniffy about the quality of a wine that has been maturing for a few weeks at best.  I think they are missing the point with it.  November is a pretty grim month quite often, with storms, flooding, short days, cold nights, so something a bit fun is nice to change the mood.

The wines are young and therefore bear a very strong resemblance to grape juice with a kick, but you aren't drinking them for deep tanins and a complex nose, you are drinking these wines for a giggle.  If you want your tanins and complex nose and oak top notes and all the rest, pay a few pounds or euros more for something that is older and don't be offended by a young wine.

One thing we have found with Beaujolais Nouveau Villages, is that if you keep them for 18 months, you end up with quite a nice complex wine, although one with no more keeping qualities.

So this is our selection from Super U, and we will work our way through them, and if any are any good, we will probably invest in a couple more bottles, to keep us giggling until Christmas!

The fruits of my labours

Not the picture of pigs' ears but rather nasty weather has enabled better photographs to become available finally - could normal service be being resumed?  But then what is normal?

We have now picked the 9 fruits that we let mature on the young medlar tree, partly as all the leaves fell off and it looked rather odd.  We have the fruits bletting now in the entrance hall in an egg box, and one would appear to be right for eating - well it is mushy anyway, so later on I will find a sliver of Wensleydale and try it out.  However, as you can see, before the leaves fell off, it looked rather splendid.

As we are now at the middle of November, I thought it was about time to put away the more delicate potted trees and plants - two olive trees (neither very large), an agave (again very small) and a prickly pear.  They spend the winter in the unheated greenhouse, along with the brugmantia and the lemon tree and a pot of avocado saplings.  While I am not too worried about the cold for the olives, I am concerned at them getting water-logged, which is what they really hate.  This year I got one full sized and ripe olive - not enough to bother with either making oil or curing to eat I fear!

And finally sorting through the 400 odd photos on the camera, I came across this lovely picture of the two types of chillis we had growing this year - the smaller ones are hot, while the large ones are totally mild but add a lovely rich flavour to chillis and stews.  Previously I have grown Cayenne chillis which are very hot, but don't do much on flavour so this year has been quite a change.  I picked the last mild chillis yesterday - they are still green but should turn red in the kitchen over the next few weeks.

 
  

Afraid of 13?

Today is Friday the Thirteenth - a day when many try to spend the day in bed in case of bad things happening.

In France they are a bit schizophrenic about the number 13, so there is always a special massive jackpot on the lottery, they do not fear having 13 people sit down to dinner and if you ask for a dozen oysters from a vendor, you are likely to get 13 not 12.

Today the news reports are full of stories about people being afraid of Friday the thirteenth, putting the blame on Jesus sitting down at a table of 13 at the last supper and then being crucified on the Friday.  Personally that seems more likely to bring on an Arthur Dent moment of not being able to cope with Thursdays rather than Fridays, and better vetting of friends, but there we go.

Could it be that the French are trying to avert people's attention from the truly unlucky Friday the thirteenth back in the forteenth centruy when the French king, Philippe the Fair (Philippe le Beau) had the Knights Templars rounded up and burnt on a Friday 13th?

Still no luck on the photos clearly ...

Must get better photos!

So it's like this:

• two weeks ago we had the final stages of the masonry project at the back of the house to deal with, plus next door's new kitten
• last week I was tearing round the UK trying to earn an honest crust
• this week I have to catch up with all teh work that didn't get done last week as I was tearing around the UK

All of this impinges on two things, my ability to sort out photos and my ability to find nice ones to adorn this blog, or even to write something for this blog or my other one.

So in order to prove I still exist, and in a vain attempt to spur myself into finding something better jolly quickly, I put in the photo below.

It was taken on a friend's Blackberry and quite late in the evening, hence the grainy quality, on Easter Sunday when the really rather good Dutch band, Forty Fingers, were playing a gig outside the Excaliber Pub in our village.  The picture is of my frind Kathy and myself with a pair of pigs ears Kathy had brought over for me from their small haolding - I am a fan of eating pigs ears.  But by the time this was taken, we had both had a couple of Stellas....

A bit of time out

I have been quiet for a while, partly trying to cope with the fruit and nuts and also taking some time off.  As I work from home and spend most of my day it seems in front of a computer, that holiday time did include being banned from switching my computer on apart from doing a bit of internet banking.

So how did I fill my 10 days off (including 2 weekends - it really wasn't a long break at all)?

Well, we went to Futuroscope for a day, which is about 2 hours drive south from here, and we made sure we went on a weekday and outside of school holidays.  Once we had checked into our hotel, we hit the park and did 11 rides and attractions before getting tired and needing to eat, after which we watched the evening show and retired to our hotel.  I am not a theme park person but it was superb.  We built up from reclining in comfy armchairs to watch a projection of planets on a domed screen, through walking through a hi-tech hall of mirrors, going up on the Gyroscope, to a white knuckle ride through the Vienne department on a variety of vehicles, to an even more white knuckle ride showing an ecologically sound speed race 100 years in the future. 

For details of Futuroscope follow this link.

We went on to our favourite hotel in Brive la Gaillarde for a night - for more details follow this link.

Then we had a relaxing four days at home, dealing with the mason, chopping down a hedge, finding tiles, collecting nuts - stuff like that, before heading off for another weekend, but this time at the sea.  We haven't downloaded the photos yet, but the Brittany coast when it is blowing a gale is fabulous.  We stayed at this hotel and had a jolly nice time, including breakfast outdoors on the terrace on Sunday morning, watching the tide go out.

However, now I am back at work, in front of the coputer and feeling that I must take some time out to set up the heating in my office before I freeze!