Rural Life

Comice 2025

Yes, today is all about the Comice 2025, the 150th in the Baugeois, and held at Fougeré - well done to all involved!  It is a pretty intense period in the area, with many involved as volunteers or doing something (selling things, participating in games or the procession, being seen).  It can be up to 10 days preparing the site, which extends over several tens of hectares, and then a couple of intense days getting everything down again.  But it is worth it!

We went to view the site on the Saturday - it was a really big venue.

[stalls and stages]

For the intensive gardener there were some awfully nice toys to look at.

smaller tools]

While for the farmer, there was machine porn.

While the main competitive activity for the weekend is ploughing matches, serious and closely fought, including the departmental challenge, for others there are the Intervillage Games, a sort of It's a Knockout, this year including wheelbarrows and solex motorised bikes.

intervillage games]

On the Sunday, the morning is devoted to old tractors and even more ploughing matches, while the afternoon is the time of the procession of decorated floats.  Each village is invited to send along a float - there were a few missing this year, particularly among the really tiny villages, but as hosts, Fougeré had 3 floats, so it was quite a sight.  As ever, the procession was led off by the Cadets de Baugeois, a well thought of local brass combo.

The first of the floats was Baugé, as they will be hosting the Comice next year.  The theme overall was Retro, and more specifically, Comices of yesteryear (that message didn't get transmitted all that well).  One of the stars of this float was a little old "lady", sadly not visible on the photo.

Then came Vaulandry, who hosted last year (it's quite a protocol for the order of the floats).  They recycled a favourite float with the chateau of Turbilly, home of the Lord who started the Comice movement in the area, so very appropriate.

Then we had the first of Fougeré's floats, celebrating the 6 hour Solex marathon races they used to hold in the village.  There were quite a few Solex outriders, but they didn't fit in this photo and as it is taking 5 minutes to get every photo in, I'm not going totally mad with it all!

Cuon came next with one of a few takes on kitchens and living rooms, but with a very fine central fireplace.

4 Cuon]

Bocé celebrated its Viking roots.

5 Boce]

Pontigné had a most excellent school room complete with unruly young pupils and a teacher with attitude and a pipe.

Fougeré's second float was supplied by a local gardening club, the Grenadiers, complete with forced labour from convicts, soldiers and ladies in nice, Empire line frocks.

7 Fougere]

We were next, from le Vieil Baugé, with our very old style kitchen, the classiest tractor, which had to be wound up to start, and four cackling biddies around a table, drinking and playing silly games.

Following us was St Martin d'Arcé, with a fine look at dinosaurs and Asterix - I think that was a nod to floats of the past.

Cheviré le Rouge also reprised old floats, including their somewhat disturbing Bois de Boulogne from last year, and also did a lot of drumming.

Le Guedenieu celebrated the boulangeries of the past, which may or may not be related to either that they celebrate a giant croissant every year, or that they have a new baker in the village.

Echimiré came next - another fireplace and kitchen table, this time with people playing cards.  A tiny, but naughty, note was the half burnt cheque for 28,000 euros in the fireplace.  The profits from the 2021

This took 2 hours.  I did another hour or so, and all that is lost.  I've things to do today, so you are stuck with this and no more for the day.

 

Heat and Fire

I've lost count of the number of official heatwaves we have had so far this year.  The current one - is it 5 or 6? - has been going on a long time and still has a day or two to go, although we are past the peak, thank goodness.  Everyone is getting bored and tetchy with it all - the continual heat, the challenges of keeping the house faintly cooler than outside, the restrictions, are all wearing people down. 

The latest heatwave has brought in local restrictions on access to woodland areas and what you can do in or near them.  This is a sensible precaution as there is a breeze, everything is tinder dry, there is little standing water outside of major lakes and water courses and we still see the ravages of the big forest fire from 3 years ago.  The Prefet has therefore banned all access to woodland areas between midday and midnight from Friday 15th August to Tuesday 19th August.  This has upset a lot of people.

This is because at Vernoil le Fourrier every 15th August there is the Festival of Hunting.  The grounds they use are, I gather, rather spectacular, on the edge of a major forest and partly wooded to ensure shade for horses and dogs (and humans).  It runs from 10am in the morning, with demonstrations, stalls, exhibitions, feasting and drinking, and is rounded off by fireworks before closing at midnight.  Despite arguments from the organisers that they had lots of tanks of water around the site, that all their visitors were responsible human beings, that it was all a bit unfair and "nanny state", the Prefet was unmoved, and they could only open for 4 hours, from 10am to 2pm.  The weeping and wailing and calling it all unfair has swept across social media and the press.

Not far from the land that we rent, there is a rather splendid chapel - Notre Dame de Montplacé.  The 15th August is a bank holiday in much of Europe for Assumption, celebrating Mary's ascent into Heaven, if you believe in such things.  There is therefore a pilgrimage to the chapel, and a well attended Mass is celebrated at 11am, drawing in the faithful from a fairly wide area.  It isn't too close to woodland, but it is surrounded by fields and copses. 

When we left that area on midday on Friday (tending our plants and cats, not attending Mass), there were lots of cars parked up at the chapel, and yesterday when we left that area, we found that there had been a scrub fire at the end of the track leading away from the parking area.  Today we stopped to look and photograph the damage. 

It would appear to have been a car fire, burning furiously hot (chunks of melted metal and evidence of totally destroyed tyres), which spread into the surrounding grassland, fortunately stopped by broadleaf scrub and presumably some form of fire extinguishing intervention.  Certainly the bulk of the car has been taken away.

I'm not at all sorry the Hunting Festival was brought to a halt at midday.  If a few pilgrims can lead to a small fire, what could a few thousand people on the edge of woodland do?

The heat is doing great things for the garden, however!

This is becoming a daily standard of what gets harvested.  OK we don't have aubergines every day, but the tomatoes are becoming a challenge commensurate with the courgette problem that has been going on for some 6 weeks now.  Then there are the Victoria plums - I've picked loads, and loads have fallen off, and still the tree is overloaded!

I've made jam, I've made crumbles for the freezer, I have a recipe to try for plum fool, and I have a burping barrel in the cellar that takes anything that isn't perfect or that falls on the floor.

And while it is still only mid-August, there are signs of autumn creeping up on us.  Trees that like nice moist soils (poplar, willow) are giving up and their leaves are turning colour and falling.  The swallows and house martens are starting to think about who they want to travel south with (the swifts are long gone).  The evenings are drawing in - while we aren't allowed to water vegetable gardens until 8pm at night (and only until 8am), the gap between 8pm and sunset not long after 9pm gets ever shorter.  The smoke from the wildfires in Portugal has also shortened the light at dusk, which doesn't help any either. 

However a happy harbinger of autumn is also appearing, as cyclamen flowers appear in the lawn, hedgerows, and woodland (when you are allowed in).  Such a pretty flower!

Next weekend is the Comice and Sunday is the parade of decorated floats, and I'll be on ours.  So the blog will not appear until Monday, because I will be way too busy to do anything else next Sunday!

Wish me luck, not least with the weather, and have a good week!

 

Full on harvesting

Down the road at Fontaine Guerin, they might be celebrating the ancient arts of harvesting, but here we are just trying to keep on top of things and failing to a greater extent.  Last weekend we did manage to gather about 4 pounds of blackberries, which were turned into the first Bramble Jelly I have made in years.  The temptation to eat it all very quickly must be constrained, not least as the less durable jams need to be made and used first.  It always looks lovely when it is doing its hard boil phase!

We are now up to 188 courgettes, not counting the ones that "got away" and turned into chicken food about a foot long.  I'm testing freezing courgette cake (savoury with cheese and chilli), and if that works, will be making more for the freezer.  You can't eat a loaf of that a week or you end up looking like a cake yourself!!  I must also give the courgette bhaji recipe another go now the onions have been lifted.

We are drowning under tomatoes, and that is before the main red ones get going, that is just drowning under small, sweet, pear shaped yellow tomatoes.  The Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes are huge and starting to turn colour, although that does take quite some time with them.  The Corne d'Andes are also starting to ripen, and I don't like to think what is happening in the triffid zone that is the companion planting paradise of tomatoes and cristophine vines!  The individual Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes can weigh as much as 1 pound (450g or so)!

I picked a mixed tray of produce today, and we counted it a victory to off load 2 courgettes, 2 chillies, and 5 tomatoes of various sorts on our unsuspecting next door neighbour.  He looks like he needs feeding up anyway!

In a few weeks more, it will be sweetcorn time.  Yesterday I counted 24 lots of corn silks, which is manageable, but we have 59 plants so I suspect there will be a few more than that, even if some are small and more suited to chicken treats.  For some reason, the computer and all the software don't think you should be allowed to see that. 

But its not all about fruit and vegetables (although it seems like that sometimes), there are flowers too.  Most of the flowering plants and shrubs are over, but the variegated Birthday Rose that climbs over the front of the house is still going strong, and the flowers are beautifully scented in the evening.  Don't bother asking what rose it is!  It is a climber we bought locally 15 years ago, and that is all I can remember!

The cats all deal with summer in their own ways.  Monsieur Clause over at The Garden has decided that the only way to get through this summer is by living on the ride on lawnmower, on the seat, protected by a tarpaulin.  He gets room service delivery of food and cuddles, so why should he change?  Rebus has discovered the Gutter.  It is a stage all our house cats go through it seems, but there is something comforting for them about the zinc gutter on our neighbour's house and makes it the best place to slump of an evening.

Next week promises heat, courgettes, tomatoes, plums, peaches and more courgettes - that's me sorted out, how about you?  Have a good week!

 

 

August festivities and harvests

Normally I find that things quieten down in the first couple of weeks of August, before exploding into action again after Assumption (15th August) as we go into Comice season and preparations for the Rentrée.  This hasn't been the case this year, with Convivial'été having its last hurrah of the season on the 1st August in Vieil Baugé.  The Comité des Fêtes was on war footing, despite a number of key players being away on holiday.  We were supported by the Baugé en Anjou technical services and tourism teams, but everything food and drink was down to us.  By 7pm we were girded and ready for the off.

And that was about the last moment of peace until 10pm!  I was taking dinner orders, not payments, just orders.  The first was at 7:30pm and the queue didn't stop until we had sold out of sausages and chips and andouillettes (rather unpleasant to my mind tripe sausages) and chips at about 10pm.  I stopped the queue at one stage for 30 seconds to put a sweatshirt on as the evening was cool, but that was it!  A chum took a picture of the clouds and caught the queue.

There were two bands.  I totally missed the exotic Bulgarian folk music, complete with strange machine - this is an official photo.

The second band, Pet't J Bus, were a lot of fun.  A punk ska combo who delighted in taking French classics and turning them into ska anthems, with the occasional own creation thrown in (although that might just have been the sound test), which seemed a bit more "basic", if you see what I mean, and less suitable for a family audience.  I did do a couple of videos but there is no chance of loading them on YouTube today, so here is a photo for ambiance.

We weren't the only ones having fun and frolics.  Chinon had its mediaeval market weekend, with lots of people dressed up in fun costumes, lashings of food and drink and music.  I imagine it was impossible to park too!  Anyway, another robbed photo, this time of our favourite brewer, Simon, without his glasses, but looking suitably of the period!

And if that wasn't enough fun, the Comice season kicked off early this year, with Beauvau (tiny village, but gave it's name to Place Beauvau in Paris, which is rather important) trying to rekindle the Comice spirit in its area.  We remember fondly an amazing Comice there perhaps 12 or 14 years ago with 4x4 demonstrations, a chainsaw wood carver, a competition for the biggest pumpkin among other delights, and close to the centre of the village.  This year was all about tractors and ploughing.  We had a lovely ice-cream each from a local farm and admired the range of tractors, but only stayed 20 minutes.

All the preparation work John did on the kitchen garden beds, with rotovating and adding loads of quality compost is paying off.  We are now up to about 150 courgettes harvested, and for the past couple of weeks have also been picking large quantities of small yellow pear-shaped tomatoes which are wonderfully sweet.  Today's haul also included two cayenne chilli peppers, and a green pepper, as well as some yellow carrots and an onion.  We will eat well and healthily tonight I think!

Earlier in the week I was able to pick the first Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes.  While not the largest on the plant, this one demonstrates the heart shaped form of the tomato and deep colour that gives it its name.  It was also delicious with a good dressing as an accompaniment to whatever we had for dinner that night.  There are many more of these to come, and they make a very good tomato sauce.

We've also been picking loads of blackberries - I will be making bramble jelly tomorrow for the first time in ages (I hope I can remember how!) as a real treat for the winter.  Today John was attacked by, or possibly flirted with, by a huge bumble bee.  Once removed from his shirt and placed on a plant, I was able to get a good look - what a marvellous specimen, and well over a centimetre long.

Next week the heatwave returns, but that might also ripen up more plums and tomatoes, so it could be a very red and purple post next week!  Have a good week!

 

Standard July stuff - but still jolly good

July - the month where anything below 25ºC feels cool enough to make wearing jeans and socks an option.  Of course we do get cold, damp spells (today for example), but in the main, July is about watering plants, eating fresh produce and the Comité des Fêtes' Diner Champêtre.

Watering has taken on epic proportions this year.  The pots in the garden and on the terrace by the front door require doing once a day, some need twice a day when we have very hot temperatures, and with the second half of July, I sometimes wonder why I bother?  Except that the lilies that are now fading have bulbs that need to build up stocks of energy to put on another amazing display next year.  Among the annuals, the sunflowers tend to be the star performers.  This single flower specimen is rather fabulous.

From the same batch of seed (about 10 I purloined from an oil seed sunflower in a field by a friend's gite), another produced multiple flowers, so you never can tell!

The vegetable patches need more water in volume and nearly every day too.  The courgettes are producing 6 or 7 new fruits on average per day, and if I miss one, I end up with a marrow for the chickens in no time!  Today we ate the first of the yellow miniature plum/pear tomatoes, which I failed to photograph before we tucked in, and I picked the first ripe chilli of the season.  We even have a couple of small and nearly ripe pumpkins - I'll not pick them for another week or so to ensure maximum sweetness.

The middle of July also brings the village Diner Champêtre, food, music, dancing and fireworks on the first Saturday after the Fête Nationale.  While we have been planning it for months, the first signs on the ground are on the Friday when the first marquees, the dance floor and the stage are erected by different teams through the day.

During the day on Saturday, tables and benches, fridges and beer pumps, cooking materials and supplies are brought in so that when the volunteers start to gather at 5pm, there is enough to do while also reorganising what has been done to date, and having multiple goes at deciding who does what in detail (we are already divided into bar teams and food teams).

It will be jolly quiet for quite a long time, apart from the odd pensioner asking how soon they can eat, but not coming along with their ticket until about an hour and a half later.  Then it will get crazy as 250 people descend on the food line (rather more at the bar), demanding their dinners.

There is one group of people who every year are the last to come forward for their meals, making a joke of it quite often.  However, as the volunteers can't eat until all guests have been served, by which time the first served are bringing back their trays and demanding their deposit for their dinner plates, it is beyond annoying.  This time they also took all the chairs for the volunteers, so we ended up perched on crates and boxes, as we ate our late meal.  Having said that, it is always a great atmosphere, although this year my patience with the Late Diners did wear rather thin!

If you are looking for a tip on how to time your dinner at an event like this, I would say an hour after the advertised start time at the earliest, and a good hour and a half or more before any fireworks!!

The fireworks were very good, but my photos aren't.  I will have to try to get a video stream onto YouTube but as it is taking a good 5 minutes to load each photo today, I'm not going near that!

We now have about 10 days off community volunteering, until the next event in the village, Convivial'été.  A very clever play on words there.  The commune provides a bunch of material, a couple of pre-vetted groups and a bit of support, while we provide the food, drink and ambiance, but not until 1st August.  So now we can concentrate on vegetables, fruit, burping barrels and what to do with the 30-odd courgettes I have in the kitchen.

Have a good week!

 

 

Respite!

This photo was taken (not by me) in our garden on Tuesday afternoon at about 4:30pm.  This was the height of the latest heatwave and I have to confess to being slumped on a sofa, in front of a fan blowing air over 3 5 litre cannisters of ice.  The weather was uncomfortable, the Heath Robinson air con worked!

I finally went outside at about 10pm to lock the chickens away and do a bit of watering, as well as my regular stroll to the top of the hill in front of the house.  I was rewarded by a lovely sunset.

Today that all seems like a distant memory, with rain, soft, gentle, wet rain, and much cooler temperatures.  It won't last but today we are enjoying the change!

Yesterday we were in Chinon for dinner.  Next Sunday morning, the town will be the focus of the cycling world as the Tour de France sets off from there, for its ninth stage, heading south towards Chateauroux.  Naturally we will go along and see the spectacle, although how much there is to really see will be interesting.  We saw a stage finish once in Tours, and it was 2 to 3 hours of standing around for 10 seconds of whoosh!  The town is festooned with yellow bunting, flags and other decorations, and a line painted on the road for the official start line when the four jerseys line up behind the lead car.  The real start is about 10 kilometres out of town, but it is all about the spectacle in town.  One of the pharmacies had a suitable window display.

On Thursday morning, a bunch of us braved the metal convection oven that is the Comité des Fêtes storage barn to crack on with the float for the Comice.  My illness and successive heatwaves had slowed progress considerably, but we are on a deadline and fortunately a strong team of 7 were able to do all the panels that were prepared.  I have checked the photo and I'm not giving away any secrets when I show our admirable team at work.

One more session is all we need to get the panels finished!

A combination of heatwaves and the arrival of a new computer have encouraged me to deal with a trail camera - down in the corner where the Meadow meets the Plantation.  I was delighted to see that the hare uses this corner quite a bit, or was using it in March anyway!

It is very much an area where deer like to hang out - it provides cover and food and yet also allows a good view in the "vulnerable" directions.  This stag had a pretty impressive rack of horn in April and used his antlers to trash the trees and greenery a bit.  They are a menace when you have young or vulnerable trees, it has to be said!

By June, the results of a previous rutting season were around.  When very tiny, the fauns are stashed in long grass or cereal crops, but as they grow, they follow Mum around learning to feed themselves, and being left in slightly more interesting places, like among the trees that edge the Meadow.  These were learning to feed.

There is a water source nearby, which is also an attraction for the deer at the moment.  Some of the ponds are looking very dry, but two are fed by tiny springs that don't seem to fail, and keep the local wildlife going.

Next week may be all about the Tour, depending on the next bout of heatwaves and the speed of my internet connection (we will soon go over to fibre, but there are Things to be Done before that can happen), so may be a day late.  All very conditional I know!  Anyway, have a good week!

 

 

Normal service is resumed!

This latest Covid variant is a doozy, so if you have the chance to get vaccinated, I heartily recommend doing so.  The razor throat gave way to a debilitating cough, which turned into a lung infection, all of which was during the first heatwave.  Now I feel better, we are slap bang in the middle of a second and worse heatwave!  June has not been my favourite month!  Still, my Poundland lily has been putting on a fine display and will go on for a few days yet, so not all bad!  I bought it over before Brexit really kicked in so it has been going in that pot for some 5 years now!

The weather is crazy.  May was so much drier than normal, and June has been the same - just 16mm of rain in the month to date and I don't expect any more between now and Tuesday morning.  At the start of April, we had 2,500 litres of rainwater stocked in our giant cubes, but to keep the vegetables going, we have had to pump a further 3,000 litres from the well to put into the cubes, and we will be topping them up soon, as the farmers are going to start pumping and irrigating big time shortly, so the level in the well will fall.  The fruits of the water can be seen in the impending courgette glut - they are delicious when small, but let them get to 8 to 10 inches long and they become less enticing!

The sweetcorn is not quite so triffid like but coming on nicely - there are 60 plants in this bed and if they all produce a couple of cobs each, we will be nice and regular through August and September, if you see what I mean!

We had a visitor - a rarity for us - during the last week for a couple of nights.  It was fascinating for us to see our life here and the local area through different eyes.  I handed him mirabelles and raspberries fresh from the tree/cane to try, to be met with a query of were they safe to eat, before tasting the freshest fruit he had had in his life I think.  They were approved!  Similarly our wells were a source of amazement.  We drove through Durtal, and the surprise on coming down the hill and seeing the Chateau for the first time - What is that!?  Just another normal facet of French life!

Last night as I took down the heat shutter from the bedroom window, I looked out to see a new moon on the horizon.  It doesn't look as though this moon will bring cooler temperatures, indeed the forecast, always a bit on the conservative side, for Tuesday is a suffocating 41ºC.  We will be up early in the mornings to water the triffids and feed cats, then snoozing through the heat of the day. 

I have a trail camera to check over and download and triage the photos and videos, so there may be wildlife in next week's blog.  Eating fruit, fresh vegetables, salads, and things that don't need much cooking is the order of the day - yesterday's queue for tomatoes, melons and apricots was just about bearable!

As I stood in that queue, I was able to admire another jewel of the Middle Ages, as our chateau at Baugé stands guard over the market square.  Sometimes I forget to marvel at the wonderful area we live in, but not this last week, my eyes have been reopened!

So, I am back in the world of the living, albeit dripping with sweat at the effort of moving my fingers in an office that is currently 29ºC, which isn't that comfortable.  So I am going to go and find a fan to sit in front of, and perhaps have a restorative snooze.  I think I am allowed!

Have a good week!

 

A plague on carriers of disease!

Either that cold was a real humdinger or we had Covid, either way, the extra symptoms and issues just keep on coming!  I have never before had to phone the doctor's surgery here for a medical appointment that wasn't routine, but yesterday I did manage to get an emergency appointment to look into symptoms.  Thanks to Google, I was convinced I had a failing gall bladder or pancreas - actually it turned out to be acute gastro, so unpleasant but solvable. 

Then last night I became convinced that someone was trying to kill me by forcing a knitting needle into my ear.  Despite serious pain killers, sleep was elusive at best and my ear is seeping gunk.  This time Google tells me it is an anodyne ear infection and to take painkillers until it sorts itself out.  Much of the earlier part of the week was spent trying to fool myself that the bugs had gone - all in all, I'm not impressed!

Still, we did get one thing sorted out, and that was very purposeful.  Twenty years ago, when we moved over to France, we realised we needed a decent outdoor table and chair set, so went to Casa and invested.  The chairs lasted perhaps 3 or 4 seasons, but the table has only just fallen apart.  Actually it is still doing service as a place to put plant pots, so not dead yet.  It took a while to find something we liked - most stores go for the metal and plasticised fabric things, but we wanted wood.  We also prefer to buy locally, but sometimes you can't, and the internet helped us out.  Of course it needed to be varnished before being put into use, which meant that Poirot took against it until I put a bit of hardboard on it, but we now have our new outdoor table.  Let's hope it also lasts 20 years!

The week has been very hot, which made the session on Thursday sticking paper flowers onto cardboard panels rather uncomfortable, to say the least.  Actually I blame that heat for the gastro, but I could be wrong!  Anyway, progress was made and that was the important thing, as while the Comice isn't until the 23rd August, the time will fly between now and then!

The hot weather is suiting the Mediterranean vegetables although they are now starting to ask for water as well, which is an issue as we haven't had much rain for 3 months now.  The progress the courgettes are making is really rather scary and this year I might have overdone the number of plants!

This weekend, the local business support group, Baugé Entreprendre, has its regular Fair or Exhibition.  I am always stounded at the range of artisans we have in the area, much smaller than a British district council.  There were a number of people who upcycle things - leather, furniture, tyre inner tubes as below ...

There is a guy who makes lovely shelves from offcuts of wood - I will invest in one shortly!

And of course there was a furniture restorer and a lady who does lovely upholstery, who will be getting our custom in due course.

Not only was it fascinating to see the inventiveness and skills of local people, we also met up with a load of chums as we wandered round, making it a very convivial occasion as well.  Hopefully this spotlight on local talents will ensure that they pick up more work and provide an excellent economic base for the area.

Well, I hope that next week's offering is more interesting and less full of complaints about health.  The weather forecast is set fair for a beautiful late spring/early summer, and over the last week, the douceur angevine once again spared us from devastating storms.  Long may that continue!

Have a good week!

Between two events - apologies for the delay!

Last week I was a few hours early posting, before heading off to tend bar at the village Trout Fishing Day.  This week I am a day late after being one of a handful of stall holders at the village PTA car boot sale.  In between there have been all sorts of excitements with a poorly cat, a septic tank issue and wild orchids - it's hard to know where to start and what to include!  Perhaps at the beginning, with a picture of a lovely sunny day for trout fishing?

Yesterday was rather a contrast, dull skies, rain in the night, a third of the booked places not taken up due to the weather and few punters for all the goodies spread out for their delight.  We did alright during the day in terms of large and/or heavy items sold, as well as a lot of smaller stuff, but the heavy rain at lunchtime scared off buyers, and while we hung in to the end, we did little business in the afternoon, despite lovely sunshine.

There is nothing exciting about septic tank inspections, so I will gloss over that, other than to praise highly the integrity and helpfulness of the local inspector, who tried her best to approve things, but where they couldn't be approved, is helping us to find cost effective solutions for my client.  

Much more exciting is that the bee orchids are finally putting in an appearance, possibly stirred into action by a very small amount of rain at the start of the week.  They have mostly cropped up in or very close to the recently mown path through the orchard.  This kind of confirms my view that bee orchids need either grazing animals to keep the grass down or a simulation of that (mowing) in order to push up their flower spikes.  They don't much like competition and it seems long grass and tall weeds are not their friends.

Another orchid related excitement was the discovery of a new (to us and to the location) type of orchid, this time relatively happy in the long grass.  I've not had a chance to look it up yet, but it is some form of pink pyramidal orchid.  I've not seen any like it in the area, so I'm not sure how it arrived, and John says it is nothing to do with his mowers!

Early in the week I met the biggest caterpillar I have ever seen in the rough grass in the country - large, and on some level rather disturbing.  Way back in the 70s there was a Dr Who episode called something like the Green Death, which involved giant maggots, and I have been iffy about maggots and caterpillars every since, particularly that size!  The Peugeot key fob gives an idea of scale.  I hope it grows up into something nice!

As we head towards the end of no-mow May - something I rather disapprove of in general - I thought I would highlight how you can do it sensibly.  Make nice wide paths that are kept mown through the area you are interested in.  This has been particularly a thing with us this last week, as it is a bumper year for tics and we are picking off a good number each week from the Country Cats.  One of the cats has developed anaemia and the vet thought it was entirely possible that this was due to the number of tics he has picked up.  The blood tests to diagnose the problem were costly, although not as much as if we lived in the UK (expensive is relative I guess), and there is a prolonged course of medication and a long way to go until he is back to full Spooky Power.  

And here is the anaemic patient in his cat carrier at the vet's - Spooky the indomitable.

So keep checking for tics - you and all your loved ones! 

Well, that is it for this week, and it promises to be a quiet week so I should be back to the normal schedule next week.  Have a good one!

 

In praise of weeds

Of course pedants would say that a weed is only a plant in the wrong place, so perhaps this should be called a rather less provocative "in praise of wild flowers"?  Whatever, looking through the photos of the week, many of them are of flowers, not all in the right place, not deliberately sown or planted in most cases, but all looking too gorgeous at the moment.  Suddenly the weather has gone spectacularly nice, even those days forecast to be wet and horrid were only grey and mildly disappointing.  The forecast for the week to come is spectacular, so as soon as this is written and launched, we are getting the abri cover out so that sitting in the garden is a real thing and a pleasure.

Anyway, here is the first of this week's pin ups - probably a lady orchid, and the best it has looked for perhaps 6 years, as in 2020 it was deformed and lopsided and hasn't really done well since then.

An unsung hero of pretty weeds is the speedwell, often overlooked, but the intensity of this patch in the Orchard is really rather pleasing.

On Easter Monday, we made a pilgrimage to the One Acre Wood to admire the new leaves on the trees and see how the ponds were doing.  The upper one was alive with "things", probably baby newts, the lower one was quiet and neither had much water.  Up at the top, where we leave our car, there were lots of wood violets.

Further down in the Wood, the lily of the valley were up and in flower.  It is traditional to give sprigs of these lovely flowers to friends on the first of May, but I think most will be over by then, given the weather conditions.

There are some cultivated areas, with this bed full of non-flowering broad beans, young peas, onions and some rather slug damaged pumpkin plants.  I hope we will have food from some of them, but I am starting to despair with the broad beans.

That bed is overlooked by one of our bird boxes.  It is inhabited - I have spent a lot of time this last week watching two great tits flying a relay between any good sources of grubs and yucky things and the box, and today the babies were definitely screaming to be fed a lot of the time.  If all goes well, I guess they will fledge in a couple of weeks and perhaps then there will be a second use of the box.

We had a visitor in the courtyard yesterday - damaged, so probably dropped there by a cat or a bird, but still able to wriggle around and look threatening.  John got his litter picker out and took it over the road to the long grass, in theory so that our cats did not find it and play with it.  Rare and protected, but not from other wildlife or cats!!

So that is it for this week.  It has been challenging getting the photos to load up, I think all part of a cunning plan to get us to change our broadband line for a fibre one.  It isn't helped by the age of my computer or running a version of Windows that Microsoft would prefer I didn't, either.  A project for another month I think!

Have a good week!