Rural Life

Truffle time again

January can be an OK month, with galette parties and AGMs for various societies and the hangover of Christmas bits to get through, but February, while shorter, seems to be more depressing.  Often overcast, often cold, often moist or even dank, there are a few signs of spring but most mean you end up worrying about frosts killing off blossom and new shoots. 

To lighten the mood, we tend to buy 100 grammes of black truffle and spend up to 10 days with a meal a day generously sprinkled with black gold.  The date varies - normally depending on the spot price and what John's suppliers are up to.  This year Truffle Arrival Day was the 1st February, and the 105g we received are very aromatic!

Obviously the first day we have the classic scrambled eggs with truffle, this year supported by local whole grain multi-seed bread that is delivered to our door every Wednesday.  Other meals have included poached salmon on linguini with truffle, emmental omelette with truffle and truffled mash.  Photographing food is challenging, not least when steaming slightly, so most of those meals don't have a good photo, but the scrambled eggs do and you will have to imagine the rest!

The signs of spring are there - we just hope there isn't a harsh and prolonged cold spell again.  The catkins are elongating on the hazel stands, puffing clouds of noxious yellow/green pollen if you brush against them - my sinuses are twitching already!  The less cultivated plum trees have very "pregnant" looking buds, so I fear that we might see blossom in the next couple of weeks - o so pretty, but o so vulnerable.

As well as being Truffle Day, the 1st February was also pompom removal day for our little kitten.  When I say little, he now weighs in at 4 kilos, while being whippet thin, so I think he is going to be a big boy in time.  As well as the main objective of the operation, the vets also sorted out an umbilical hernia he had.  It wasn't giving him any trouble and in relative terms was smaller than when we got him, but it seemed worth sorting now, rather than when it caused a problem down the line. So our little boy has been wearing the Cone of Shame - and perhaps because he is a boy, he has submitted to it, and lies around looking mournful, or bashes around looking like a grey Darth Vader and trying to cause the same amount of chaos.  Just another week of this to go!

I walked back from an appointment in town and took a footpath that leads past a garden I used to mow - the one with the lake.  I wanted to have a good look at what had been done before the screening trees and scrub get their summer coats.  It was sad to see that several trees had gone, and I would never have permitted the scale of mud on the grass walk around the lake, but it is their house now and nothing to do with me.  I also stopped at the stone bridge over the river and looked along to the village.  The river is quite full at the moment, and with the light in the right direction, I could see meanders and riffles in the current that should slow the flow and make the river more appealing to aquatic life.  I was delighted to see that.

We have a relatively quiet week ahead of us, apart from a post-Comice party, so hope to get more winter gardening done.  Today I planted the last of the garlic I overbought, and have also set to chit half of the monster packet of seed potatoes I bought in a fit of enthusiasm.  That means that we will need to prepare a bed for 54 seed potatoes, for planting on Good Friday or so - a task that should keep us off the streets a bit!

Have a good week!

 

New shoots, new beginnings

Many thanks to everyone for your kind wishes over the past week.  The funeral ceremony went well on Friday, with a nice party afterwards, as Mum would have wanted.  Now I have to roll up my sleeves and get down to the paperwork and clearing stuff out.  That's my retirement sorted out then!

After the freezing cold and dull days, the weather has warmed up significantly, catching quite a few things on the hop.  I saw a Brimstone butterfly this morning, which is crazy, and a demoiselle fly as well.  Neither will prosper I fear.  We spent a lot of time today at the gardens looking around and taking stock and listening to the birds.  It was while doing this at a different vantage point to normal that John was horrified to see the little b@st@rds below.

These disgusting critters have no redeeming features at all - they are pine processionary caterpillars.  They are a non-native invasive species with no natural predators in this hemisphere (although greattits and bluetits will eat them now) and the spines, which shed very easily, are extremely toxic to animals and humans, causing if you are lucky, an itchy rash that lasts (from experience) for at least 15 days (they can do much worse).  John sprayed the blighters with an insecticide we use on the chickens, and when I am next there, I will wash the area with boiling water and then cold water to flush away the spines.  The only good thing about seeing them today is that they are about 2 months too early, so we have to hope that a nice sharp cold snap kills them while turning into moths.

On the other hand, the winter sown crops are starting to grow visibly, so it's not all bad.  The broad beans sown just before Christmas are now mostly up and looking healthy - once again I have dodged the bullet that many around here are caught by and the seeds were not all stolen by voles!  The first batch of garlic went in more recently and is now showing too.  I planted more today, so we should be safe from vampires in 2024.

When we planted our quince tree, we put crocus and snowdrop bulbs around it - perhaps 20 years ago now?  Anyway, the crocus did well for a while but are long gone, as are most of the snowdrops, but one clump comes back year after year, tucked in close to the tree trunk.  Today they are looking wonderful.

The new beginning?  There are new people at the boulangerie La Fontaine in Baugé!  So far we have sampled their croissants and their almond croissants - both found to be very good.  We have also tried their flatbread - they tried to explain it to me, the different type of flour that they use, the different way it is cooked on a hot plate.  I looked at it and my immediate thought was stottie cake!  It's not as fluffy inside as a stottie, so rather thinner - perhaps a mix of stottie and pitta bread.  It is totally yummy though - particularly warmed with farm butter and tuna rillettes.  So when you are next in Baugé, try them out, because these people need to be encouraged!

Have a good week!

 

Different kinds of cold

Cold shouldn't be surprise in winter - it is right and proper that it is cold.  Fruit trees benefit enormously from a good cold spell during the winter to rest and be inspired to bloom and then fruit in the warmer seasons.  A good cold snap will also kill off many undesirable residents of house and garden (as well as some desirable ones sadly).  In fact people often dream of those ideal winter days - sunny, frost glistening everywhere, puffed up birds tweeting in the hedgerows and around bird feeding stations, breathe freezing in the air, and then going back indoors to sit beside a roaring log fire, with a mug of something soothing, as your toes warm up again.  Something like we had on Thursday in fact.

It's been cold all week - but not that cold, as only once has the chicken water fountain frozen solid.  Instead, and apart from Thursday, we have had the less appealing cold winter weather - grey, slightly misty, never getting warmer than +1ºC or getting colder than -1ºC, unrelenting and dreary.  The stones of the house never benefit from a bit of sunshine, the house is mostly extremely cold as the electric heating only goes on between 10pm and 6am, there is no brightness to lighten the heart and spirits, just grey, drab, cold and depressing.

Yet amongst that frozen soil, there are the growing tips of broad beans starting to come through, and even with the cold, there are more every time I count them - today there were 27!  And hanging from that pine tree there is a bird feeder that is alive with great and bluetits, chirping and stuffing themselves with fat and seeds, and hopefully finishing off their meals with pine processionary caterpillars from the nests high in the tree.  My birdsong app on the phone tells me that Firecrests, song thrushes, dunnock, chaffinch and linnets are around in the hedges, while my ears are well enough trained to spot jays, green and greater spotted woodpeckers, blackbirds and magpies making their presence felt.  It's just me that is hating the dull days, so I flop on the sofa with cats.

There is a fine tradition in France of leaders offering their best wishes to their populations of interest for the New Year.  In rural communities like ours, this includes a ceremony (this morning) where our village mayor and the mayor of the district, plus local councillors and a representative of the Youth Council stand up and say their piece.  They review the year that has gone and outline the plans and hopes for the coming year.  The big event for Baugé en Anjou will be the passage of the Olympic Flame through the area on the 28th of May, although at the moment it is hard to get too excited about standing around outside waiting to see a passing flame.  I'm sure by late May I will be more enthralled!  Anyway, if you make it through the one hour twenty minutes of speeches (that was this year's duration), you get a glass of fizz, a couple of sugar buns and a chance to catch up with people you haven't seen for a while.  The photos are the official ones taken by Maryline Margas - one from the perspective of the presenters, one from the perspective of the audience.

So now I've lost feeling in my toes, as after two days of heating, my computer room has only struggled up to 17ºC, which means that I'm going to proof read this, post it, and go and find a fire and a couple of warm cats to put on my feet.  Have a good week!

 

 

Changes for the New Year

Happy New Year!

Good health, a bit of joy in every day and may your feathers not all fall out at once!  We have four chickens and a bantam and we haven't seen an egg in weeks - I actually had to buy some yesterday, as we didn't have enough to make an emergency omelette if we needed to.  Bridie the Freeloading Bantam only lays when she thinks the weather is going to be right for some serious brooding, and winter is not that time.  Mo the Pensioner hasn't laid an egg since she came to stay until the day of her demise.  Well, she looks no different after nearly 2 years and hasn't fallen off her perch.  The economic migrant kept laying last winter, but gave up in March 2023 and hasn't produced an egg since - although she now looks rather splendid.  That means that all the laying work has been done by Mac and Jack, and they have decided to go on strike and to produce new feathers rather than eggs.  One is starting to look a bit more sensible, but I was faced with this horror this morning when feeding them.  It has to be cold round her bum!

Another change for the new year is that it has finally stopped raining!  We were down near Saumur during the week, stocking up on fizz, because a house round here without an emergency bottle of fizz is a very bad thing.  We parked by the Thouet, which joins la Loire just west of Saumur, coming up from Montreuil-Bellay and over the border with Nouvelle Aquitaine.  It had broken its banks in an impressive manner and was travelling at speed, feeding into an already swollen Loire, so respite from more rain is welcome.  However, be careful what you wish for, as it is turning colder, much colder.  Colder indeed than we have known for about 5 years apparently.

Cold weather anticyclones bring an interesting phenomenon, not totally pleasant, cold weather static cling.  It is annoying if one is human - it's what makes wearing a hat and taking it off and having your hair upright a thing in winter.  Yes it would happen anyway, but the cold static cling makes it worse, and crackly to deal with.  For cats, and particularly quite floofy cats, it is a sartorial nightmare and can be a bit uncomfortable too.  This morning, Spooky obliged me with a demonstration of how rather smart black fur can look horrific in these conditions.

My way of life is changing a bit too.  With no more work in the UK, I am now able to concentrate more on doing what I have been evaluating other people doing for nearly 10 years, and managing an area for wildlife.  I am hoping to get a visit from the naturalists that take an interest in the ENS (roughly translated as the area of natural interest) that just encroaches on the Meadow and the Orchard.  How to manage the pond/wetland area is one big question, not least as it is impenetrable due to bramble and dead man's beard, and I'm sure that allowing a greater diversity of vegetation would be better for wildlife.  What to do about the meadow, with the range of orchids that sometimes thrive there, the badgers and the sea of butterflies including one that I think is a species of conservation interest for the ENS?  Then getting a plan of action and seeing it through.  I fear my big fish are history, but you never know!

In the interim, I will enjoy the irises, that are just starting to show, and the narcissi, when they come through too.

On the growing front, there are the first signs of the broad beans coming up that I sowed in December.  Today I took advantage of a bit of sunshine to plant a first batch of garlic - as I'm a bit late with it, I had to buy a huge bag of planting garlic and have found space so far for about half.  They say you plant on the shortest day and lift on the longest day - well I missed the shortest day by about three weeks I guess, but it shouldn't make that much difference.  I'm prepared to wager 5 grown bulbs that I lift the crop before the end of June!

Our cheap electricity deal means that for the next week, we won't be able to afford heating in my office (when load demand is high, the unit price is three times normal, as a way of smoothing demand - when load demand is low we can light up the house like a prison yard).  Running the washing machine becomes a challenge and life is concentrated in the living room.  In preparation for the red day that is tomorrow, I must therefore close and go and use electricity in a wise manner.  Have a cosy week!

 

A look back at 2023

Happy New Year's Eve!

I thought I would review the year, reprising my favourite photos from this blog, one for each month of the year.  Sometimes it was quite hard to select one, but I was hard hearted, particularly about stripy piglets!  So here goes.

In January, the trail camera was well placed by the ponds to track the activities of the animals that use the back path, as well as the hunters who seem to think it is their god given right to go through there as well.  Daylight photos were better, and this one picked up wonderful detail of the young stag's face.

Our annual truffle fest was a bit later than usual, in February, but we made the most of the 100g of black gold that John ordered up from further south.  While I photographed every dish I made with it, this one reminded me the most of the wonderful flavours.

By March, the trail camera had been moved to The Garden, as we had spotted some rather large holes and wanted to know what was doing the rounds.  This was important as it is where we have our kitchen garden area, and we don't need badgers digging up our prized potatoes or deer sampling tomatoes or corn.  The holes were down to rats - hardly surprising in farming territory - but the camera stayed for a while to enjoy the antics of Mr and Mrs Woody Woodpecker, chasing the last of the walnuts among other tasty morsels.

In April, our patience finally paid off and we were able to harvest the first of 6 cauliflowers.  There is a lot of argument here in the expat community as to why cauliflowers are so expensive when they can be purchased for under a pound at Tescos (other supermarkets are available).  Well, these beauties had been in the ground taking up a lot of space for 7 months, should have been fed, should have been netted against cabbage white butterflies, and are very particular about what soil they will tolerate!  I think cauliflowers are cheap at 5 euros, given the required effort and investment.

By May, the trail camera had moved again, this time to a higher up path between two walnut trees.  We captured images and video of a coypu, which we weren't delighted to find rambling around the area, and the back heels of deer as they passed through at speed.  My favourite of the resident animals also came through quite a lot - the hare - I just love them!

After a long wait, June brought the bee orchids into flower.  With a phone camera, it can be a bit tricky getting the flower in focus, but for once it worked.

In July, we started to get smug about the potential parsnip and carrot crop - I had sown a long row, with parsnips every 6 inches or so and then carrots quite thickly in between.  My thinking was that parsnips are slow to germinate and in the ground for ages; carrots don't germinate that well either, but are eaten long before the parsnips need the space and the nutrients.  Well we are still eating both in December (and frankly into January next year too), but it worked well and I've never grown such good carrots, and not grown such long parsnips for over 20 years!

August was all about the Comice in Vieil Baugé - while there had been lots of preparations since the start of the year, painting panels with music and with dancers, painting dancers on piles of hay bales and making and stringing up bunting, August was the final push and the event itself.  The rain on the Friday night and early Saturday morning meant that it was an anxious time getting the podium ready for the first speeches of the day, but we did it!

And then it was all over and September had to be devoted to dealing with the mass of fruit at every turn - pears, plums, quince, apples and figs.  We actually had more figs and better figs than we have ever had before. I made loads of jam, we ate loads raw, and then I also made a rather good piquant fig sauce which has been wonderful with foie gras (if you like that sort of thing).

An experiment that dominated the year, was growing the tropical fruit cristophine.  Although a fruit and looking a bit like a bumpy, prickly pear, it is actually used as a vegetable, and grows from a ripe fruit.  You can't actually take out the pip and expect it to grow, you have to sacrifice a whole fruit so it has nutrients to get it going.  If it is happy, and ours was very happy, it grows enormous!  Ours was perhaps 20 feet in every direction from the growing point, at its height in October.  It is also very productive and I think we eventually got nearly 50 viable fruits off it, weighing roughly 400 grammes each.

In November, we added to our cat family.  It wasn't intentional, but when a small and rather cute little fellow bounces around the garden, and then looks very sorry for itself when wind and rain come in, I can't really turn my back.  Facebook searches and a vet check didn't produce a registered owner, so we adopted young Rebus, who is really rather a sweet little boy, albeit with some very pointy bits (teeth and claws). 

He is a lot bigger now! 

So December is nearly out.  Christmas Eve was notable for magnificent sunsets all across north west France at the very least.  As much of the month has been dull, grey and wet, this was a wonderful moment to cherish and record.  Earlier in the day, we had been able to fly one of our kites and enjoy blue skies, but the display at teatime was more impressive.

Tomorrow is a new year, and for me something of a change, as I become a pensioner and will have to use my time constructively.  I don't believe in New Year resolutions as I believe they are mostly borne of self-loathing (get fit, get thin, stop this, stop that) and set you up to fail.  Instead I hope to have targets to achieve in the year, but they still need a bit of refinement to make sure they are S M A R T!

A very Happy 2024 to you, with hopes of peace, prosperity, love and freedom.

 

The slow road to Christmas

Meteorological autumn was the wettest on record for Maine et Loire, no ifs, no buts.  There were few edible mushrooms as the rain didn't start until mid October, so the mycelium was challenged.  There was a brief flush and since then we have only found inedible specimens around the place, but lots of them!  The One Acre Wood, which we visited this week on a rare fine day, had an outcrop of what I call Slimy Grey Ones, which turn up in clumps and lines, I assume following a tree root or similar.  To me they are always the sign that there is no chance of anything more that is edible, and while they are relatively attractive, they mark a clear phase in the year.

During the year, one of the walnut trees at the Orchard died - the nuts didn't develop and the leaves fell in August.  It is hard to say why it has died, but the mushrooms at its base that started to appear last week may be a very strong hint that it was diseased.  This weekend, the mushrooms have opened up and while last week they looked relatively attractive, this week they don't!

The days are ever shorter, and with bad weather, it is now dark at 5pm.  So we start to look indoors for our amusements.  The village pub has reopened after some 18 months closed, so our regular Friday drink and debrief down the way can restart.  Now as it only reopened last weekend, we were a bit saddened to see that apart from us, there were two single blokes inside with us, and three lads drinking outside on the terrace.  Closer inspection of Facebook showed that another local hostelry had a band in that night, so hopefully next Friday will be rather more lively or the tenure of the new landlord could be quite short!

This weekend is Telethon weekend - very similar in concept to the BBC's Children in Need, except that the funds raised go to support research into medical conditions.  This year the focus was on Duchene's Muscular Dystrophy.  We tend to avoid the events to be honest - games for children are not for us, the convivial evening sharing "poule au pot" is also something we avoid, as we don't much like boiled chicken.  We used to buy the knicknacks sold at the bakery, but that closed three years ago now.  This year the local society for protecting the village heritage put on an exhibition in the church - each year they do a photography competition, and the exhibition was of the 30 best images submitted this year on the topic of The Tree.  It was nice to visit the church, it was interesting to look at the photos, but when we went, it was just us and the organisers - I hope more turned up!

The heritage group also ensure that there is a crèche or nativity scene in the church for Christmas.  An old neighbour of ours, Monsieur André, used to make figures and would set it up each year.  He was a smelly and curmudgeonly old boy, who lived in a tiny hovel tucked back from the main road without mains water or drainage (hence the smell), but lived well into his 90s, the last few months in a Home.  The sad thing was that only a small handful turned up for his funeral, despite the care he took each year making the church ready for Christmas.

I mentioned that autumn had been spectacularly wet, particularly the latter half.  That humidity is carrying on into winter, and the last week has seen some truly awful days weather-wise.  The cold has moved on and now we have very mild (currently 14ºC) and very wet conditions, with some 20mm of raid in the last 48 hours adding to what fell on Thursday, and Wednesday.  Yesterday afternoon we had a short respite and I took the opportunity to see how the ponds at the end of the orchard were doing - the good news being that they are now starting to look much more purposeful.  I startled three deer that were lurking down there - two bounded away, showing me their white bottoms, while one stood still and camouflaged the other side of the fish pond.  My attempt to photograph him was of course laughably bad, but I know he was there.  Somewhere....

Finally, Rebus the Kitten had his second set of jabs this week.  He was also weighed and shown to be putting on weight mainly through size as he isn't fat, so he could grow up to be quite a big boy.  He has a lot of energy and hasn't mastered gravity at all.  He has learned that the best place to be in the evening is where you can see and feel the log fire!

Have a good week!

 

It's become cold!

Yes, we have finally had our first frosts.  I have a dim memory of this week back in perhaps 1969 or so when it snowed, and I also remember trying to drive through Flers in Normandy and negotiating drifts six inches deep, so it shouldn't be surprising that we have had two white frosts now.  Of course the cold makes everything very clear and crisp as we settle into a winter anticyclone.  That can make taking photographs a bit tricky.  This one of the turret on the back of the chateau in Baugé came out very nicely.

It was rather more difficult to get a decent shot of this hidden piece of the old town wall and turret, not least as I was down a narrow lane, with little room for manoeuvre.  The contrast with the light is really too harsh.

The weather brings out magnificent sunsets but they bring their own challenges when taking photos - this one worked OK.

The crisp clear air and frost makes it much easier to see the nests of the vile pine processionary caterpillar - last year we didn't have many, but this year this poor tree is riddled with them.  I now need to invest in attracting great tits to the garden as they are the only predator that will take the revolting things on.  I am anti pine processionaries as I am sensitive to their spines, while they can do really nasty things to cats and dogs.  They are a non-native invasive species, brought in with lumber in the past and have spread across the country.

The frosts have finally done for the cristophine vine, and it now looks very sad and ugly.  We will have to unpick it from the frame and compost all that vegetable material, and then feed up the area with manure and organic matter, as the frame is too solid to move to a different spot for next year.  John cut out the last large fruit yesterday, which had got itself well integrated into the netting and had started to sprout.  It will likely be the parent of next year's vine, although there is a spare if needed.

With the autumn and the very short days, farmers are more limited in what they can do - although I have seen quite a bit of twilight ploughing going on recently.  But give a French farmer a bit of thinking time, and their thoughts turn to their grievances and how to get their message across effectively.  Sometimes it's calendars with scantily clad peasants, sometimes it is taking large piles of lettuce and setting fire to them (never entirely sure how that works), sometimes it is dumping large piles of manure in supermarket parking areas (and removing every last trace at the end of the day as it is too good to waste), or spraying slurry on things.  This year, protests have taken a new turn, literally.  They are out in the evenings turning village signs upside down.  It is done carefully, and the markers are still there and easy to see (the village name sign is the start of the 50kmph limit for built up areas, so it is important), but they are upside down.

The argument is that French agricultural policy is upside down as the constraints put on local farmers are such that their products are more expensive than cheap imports from countries without limitations on the use of chemicals, fertilisers, a lower minimum wage for seasonal workers, lower husbandry standards, etc and while people say they want farmers to work to these high standards, they are not prepared to pay the extra so that the farmers can live from their work.  So they want a land free of pesticides, but won't pay the necessary premium for organic produce.  They have a point - Solidarity!!

Well, it is jolly cold in the non-heated extremities of the house, so I am going to call it a day and head for the fireside.  Rebus the kitten is doing well, is a bundle of energy and is going through the rather annoying teething stage - my hands are taking the brunt of it at the moment.  It won't last - or that's what I tell myself.

 

Keeping an eye out for old familiars as well as new experiences

Autumn is definitely prime mushroom time, and while there have been no more cèpes since a flush of them perhaps a month ago, there are loads of fungi popping up in the One Acre Wood, demonstrating the biodiversity and the health of the underground mycelia.  Today there were green ones, purple ones, different shades of brown and a couple that might be compared to field mushrooms except they weren't in a field!  The two types that I illustrate here should not be eaten.  The little brown ones pop up all over the place and can be difficult to spot, but I think they are quite pretty in their own way.  The other ones are deadly but are very beautiful.

If you keep your eyes open, there are still some stunning flowers around.  A neighbour has a passion vine growing on their house and there are still blooms which are so impressive.  The forecast frosts for next week will likely kill them off for this year.  The cyclamen have their last flowers glowing against a background of vibrant foliage which will last through until March or April next year and serve to build up stores in the corms.

Following on from last week - we had the parsnips and carrots in a slow cooked oxtail stew and they were great and made a lovely soup for the following day too, as I cooked way too many vegetables.  The kitten, Rebus, is a boy, and was about 13 weeks old when we got him, so 14 weeks for his vet visit.  He is now chipped and legal and partially vaccinated.  The "operation" will be in January.  

Friday was a day of new experiences.  One of the best trainers of race horses over hurdles in France is based near us, and so we wangled an invitation to visit the stables and exercise area with a couple of owners.  What a magnificent set up!  The stables were large and airy, and the exercise area was discrete and beautiful in a large clearing in pine forest.  We watched about 20 horses put through their paces on the flat - impressive to see 10 at a time charging past at a fast canter.  After a coffee and visit to the stables, we then walked back to the gallops to watch another 12 do work over hurdles and fences.  The enjoyment of the jockeys and the horses was evident, with the particular horse we were visiting very proud to show himself off, be patted, be told what a good and handsome boy he was, and to see his evident relish at stretching out at a comfortable canter.

So that made for a lovely morning.  Then in the evening we hit the town at Chinon, starting with a drink or two at the excellent establishment XV, followed by an extremely good dinner at the restaurant Un Air d'Antan.  This small restaurant does not have an extensive menu - the night we were there, there was a choice of three starters, three mains and three desserts plus a cheese plate.  The challenge with choosing what to have, was that everything sounded so good!  We didn't cover all options, but the two starters we did taste were a mushroom tarte with a small side salad and a pumpkin and chestnut velouté with crushed hazelnuts on top, and both were excellent.  The (probably) home made bread that was served with them was also delicious. 

The main courses were things that had been simmering during the day - while we could smell the Blanquette de veau (which we didn't have), the beef cheek had clearly being cooking gently for hours as it fell apart, while the fricassee of chicken was falling off the bone as it arrived!  The chocolate fondant for pudding was also magnificent.  In the winter there are not many tables, more in the summer when there is an outdoor terrace.  The atmosphere is convivial and it is a bit like eating in someone's front room.  We heartily recommend it.

This morning I finally made it into the poplar plantation at the bottom of the Meadow.  Hunters and boar had cleared a path that wasn't totally easy to follow, but was possible.  The resident woodpeckers weren't too pleased to see me.  Some of the trees are dead and creating interesting feeding stations for them.  I leave you with an image of that for this week.

Have a good week!

 

November musings

This isn't a classic autumn, with lovely colours, sharp, bright days, and cold nights with a log fire.  October was the warmest ever recorded in France, Europe and indeed the world, so the sudden shock of cold that is needed for the marvellous reds and yellows of autumn hasn't happened.  Instead we had a warm and relatively dry October, and since the start of November, we have had two named storms and at least 66 millimetres of rain.  Of course that is nothing compared to up in the Pas de Calais, where they have unprecedented floods, but it is quite enough here.  Our ponds (other than in the One Acre Wood) are filling with water finally and there are waterlogged fields, testimony to the areas of clay pan in the valleys around here.  There is some autumn colour, but really only offered by field maple.

While in the UK not wearing a poppy is near criminal behaviour, here in France, you can choose to wear a cornflower, but have to look hard to buy one.  However, every village in our district has its own Remembrance Parade, before everyone converges at Baugé for the big one.  The local Cadets get to play a lot of jaunty marches and the fire brigade and police need to attend as many of the parades as they can get to, and pity the poor standard bearers for the Anciens Combattants, not in the first flush of youth in any case, and then needing to parade their standards at least twice!  However the stigmata of war are to be found everywhere if you know where to look - small shrines to fallen planes or murdered resistance fighters, bullets and marks in walls, hidden arms in roof voids or skeletons in cellars, and a repurposed Nazi bunkhouse doing time as a garage.  It is therefore more than just the uniformed groups that are out and about whenever the 11th November falls, not the nearest Sunday, but the real day, to remember, to demand the end of war, and to think of those that have fallen.

Despite the lack of frost so far, I couldn't wait any longer and dug up a couple of parsnips.  In my defence I found a lovely oxtail in the market, and you can't slow cook oxtail without a nice parsnip or two and carrots.  That's tomorrow's joy as we have the rest of the cristophine and cauliflower cheese tonight, plus I set the slow cooker off at about 10am for oxtail and at that time today, these beauties were still in the ground!

Although the leaves are still on the trees, particularly the oaks, we made a start on this year's firewood campaign.  In late summer I check round to see which trees are either dead or mostly dead, and mark them up for felling, and then through the winter, we will cut down perhaps five and process them, taking the long dead stuff away, and leaving the lengths of recently living wood stacked in the One Acre Wood to mature. 

Three years ago, the plot next to the One Acre Wood was clear felled and that has made a difference to the light and the wind patterns.  Added to that, the desperately dry and hot summers, and there are actually nearer 20 trees marked for felling.  Yesterday we took a huge one down that had a good position to fall nicely - an easy one - as it has been almost a year since the last felling.  It came down nicely, but with a huge bang - it had fallen directly onto an old stump!  Close inspection of the trunk showed evidence of a fence nail from some 18 years ago, before we bought the Wood.

Another bit of evidence of how mucked up this year is, is a late flush of kittens.  Normal kitten time is the summer, with them being discarded by the road or in woods between late June and mid-August as people go on holiday.  So to find a young kitten, perhaps 14 or 16 weeks old bouncing around the garden and the courtyard in November was a bit strange.  A plea on the local Facebook site did not bring forth a worried owner, rather someone else who had the same kitten bouncing around, two gardens over, and wasn't able to take it on.  Another neighbour had taken it to the vet to see if was identified (a legal requirement here in France), but no.  He also tried to take it to a shelter, but was told no.  The shelter I support I know has run out of space as well.  What to do? 

Well, as an xx year old Mad Cat Woman, what could I do?  Rebus - current gender unknown (but will be neuter as soon as possible) - has landed and made itself very comfortable.  Nibbles is unaware and so not fussed, but Poirot and Zola are unimpressed.  It's going to be a long winter!

Have a good week!

 

Looking for happy things

I find late October and November difficult - the change in the hour doesn't make the difference, it is the generally short length of day, the mess and the realisation that it will be at least 4 months before it warms up again.  Every 10 years, it gets worse, with the lurking of a "significant" birthday.  Twice we have managed to avoid that - but the holidays involved were expensive, and we didn't have as many cats!

Storms Ciaran and Domingos don't help either - I hate the way that strong winds bluster around the house and garden, howling and rattling and shaking.  The amount of rain also makes visits to the chickens and just generally around the garden fraught with dangers of slipping on mud, and of getting wet if I don't time it right.  So I look out for things to cheer me up.

This year, something that just keeps giving are the cyclamen, both the pink ones that have run away from gardens (or have been helped in their mission for world domination by mice and shrews) and the more delicate but wilder white ones.  We have white ones in the One Acre Wood and each year there are more leaves, and now, with maturity, there are ever more places where one, two or a whole clump of flowers poke up between the fallen leaves.  Later, I will drive myself mad counting all the sets of leaves that indicate where there are corms, but not just yet.

The garden escapees are bolder in colour, and stronger flowers.  Between the Garden and the Orchard, there is a disused green lane, which is a haunt of boar and deer, and is gradually being taken over by false acacia.  During the late spring, the hidden garden shrubs put on a fine display of flowers, but at this time of year, the lane is filled with pink cyclamen flowers, hiding among the ivy and detritus, and lifting my heart when I see them.

Today, the sky has been swept clean by Storm Domingo and underfoot is wet and squelchy, so gardening didn't appeal.  Instead, armed with my phone and escorted by Monsieur Clause, I took a long ramble around the Meadow and Orchard.  The phone has an app that is somewhat addictive, which identifies birdsong in real time.  Standing in the sunshine at one edge of the Meadow, I was told I was listening to robins, chaffinch, great and long-tailed tits, a common firecrest and a Cetti's warbler.  I also watched a small group of jackdaw mobbing a buzzard that had the temerity to be in the zone.  The rain has refilled the ponds a bit, or the three I could look into anyway, the access to the fourth was too overgrown.  I fear it is too late for my huge fish, but many other things enjoy the wetland.  Walking back up the Orchard, I found some weird fungi - not as dramatic as Devil's Fingers which are black or red, but still ghostly and strangely disturbing.

The trail camera isn't behaving at the moment, so my only photo of wildlife this week is this huge, orange, flesh-eating, jelly slug.  I had hoped to plant some tulip bulbs in that old WC cistern, but it might not be the best idea I have ever had, if that is what lives in it at the moment!  I'll have to find a plan B.

The big news in the village is that someone has bought the lease of the pub and plans to open soon.  No hint of when soon might be, and sadly they are changing the name of the pub too (I wonder if I could persuade them that is bad luck?), but it will be good to have something happening in the village during the next long, dark months of late autumn and winter.  I'll keep you posted!