Rural Life

A week that ends in a feast!

Last Saturday's storm is being claimed as a natural catastrophe as numerous buildings were damaged, though fortunately not ours.  I was in a shop this morning that had been affected.  It is all very well having a foot of insulation in the roof, but when it gets wet, it becomes very heavy and brings down an awful lot of stuff with it!  Not pretty and not good for the shop keeper! 

If you track down WIRED you will find an article about the increasing cost of lightening to buildings and insurance across the world, using the marvellous example of Mutton's Mill in the Norfolk Broads, which has had lightening conductors fitted to all four sails to prevent significant damage in a storm (perhaps try googling Farrell of the Broads Authority to find the story).

[Mutton's Mill, photo credit, Andrew Farrell]

Since the storm, temperatures have got steadily colder, although there are nice sunny days.  Rebus has spotted that the best autumn billet is on top of the beer fridge, as there is no heating on anywhere else and his fur coat is quite thin!

This cold autumnal weather means good sunsets in general, and also nice evenings to stand out and watch bats flitting around, hoovering up all the flies and other winged nasties that come out after dark.  We have at least two types that zoom around our house and garden, and actually the area is well known for its significant bat colonies, with protected caves where they overwinter.

Today (Saturday - I am writing this in advance - see below for why) was the annual Societé de la Paix Mechoui or animal roast, but in practice it is always a pig roast.  Festivities start from midday with people turning up for the aperitif and to admire lunch cooking.

Then everyone gets herded onto two long tables for more aperitifs, starters, the main event of spit roast pork with beans and ratatouille, rounding off the meal with cheese and apple tart.  We generally get home at about 6pm after coffee.  It is a wonderful way to meet people, to share village life and gossip and to feel part of something.  Every year is a bit different, even if the menu doesn't change, and we wouldn't miss it for the world.

Tomorrow I head for England, to see chums and family, and possibly even Mutton's Mill, so next week's story will be very different.  Have a good week!

 

Welcome to Autumn

Meteorological autumn started on the 1st September and autumness is being embraced by fauna, flora and weather with unseemly eagerness.  Temperatures are dropping, and the weather lurches from dismal to awful, with quick hints of sun in between.  Yesterday we were due storms in the afternoon, but needed to spend a few money off vouchers, so didn't get to the place in the country until the rain had started, while thunder rumbled around.  We were lucky, actually, to be there and not at home, where there were strong wind squalls, nearly three times the amount of rain, and hail.  While the barn cats munched their way through their feed, oblivious to the weather, I watched the rain and then checked the lightning strike web page.

There's not much by way of mellow fruitfulness about either.  The berries are rotting on the canes almost before they ripen and the pears are over - not enough for a burping barrel either!  There are apples - the Reine de Reinettes are falling and are quite tasty.  I need to burrow into the Bel de Boskoop to find any there, while the Granny Smiths will hold for ages.  The Canada juicing apples are rotting, then falling, so I fear for the trees if the marauding boar decide they like cider.  We had hoped for a single variety juice pressing this year, but if we do one at all, I think it will be mixed.  The quince are also a disappointment, as they have missed out on the heat and sunshine they need to develop to their full size and become fragrant.  They are falling!  I will have to try to make jelly, but I don't think they will be up to tagine or slow cooked quince standard sadly.  

Also in stark contrast to last year, we can only spot 5 fruits on the cristophine vine, despite it being even bigger than last year!  It also misses the heat and sunshine though it does enjoy a good deluge.

The cyclamen in the lawn have been later to flower than normal - about 3 weeks later if I recall correctly.  I had hoped that the delay might at least mean a full carpet of them around the birch tree.  I may be jaded and depressed with this year, but it seems to me that they too are less bountiful, although new corms have started to produce flowers in far flung areas of the garden.

We are hoping for a decent year for mushrooms, with all the water that there is around.  A walk around the One Acre Wood today showed that there are things popping up, but not interesting edible things so far.

We have found a first bolete, but not where it should be.  There was one growing in the lettuce bed, which I picked, but as there is no oak or chestnut in the Garden area, just a rather large birch tree, I did not risk cooking it.  It could well have been fine, but when picking wild mushrooms, any doubt at all and it goes on the compost heap.

The Marx Sisters have settled in well, and at least two of them have started to lay rather cute small eggs.  Groucho is a greedy so and so and likes to climb into trees and onto tables.  This can be disconcerting.  Harpo bumbles on in her own happy way, and seems to have been the one to come into lay first.  Chico is a bit more of a loner and likes to fly.  Specifically, she likes to fly at my back when I am walking away from her, which is a bit worrying.  Perhaps in a former life, she was an eagle.

I have had another major session with my new strimmer, using the brushcutter head this time, and have a number of projects with that.  More to follow in the coming weeks.  I also probably ought to shuffle the trail cameras around, so again something for another week.

Until next time!

 

Summer ends with a splash!

Friday evening's pub session was grey, cool (I was wearing a sweatshirt, for goodness sake), and distinctly humid.  Saturday morning we woke to a thunderstorm and heavy rain - some 20mm before 11am.  But as so often with summer storms, but midday, the sun was out and temperatures rocketed and we were able to sit out for aperos in the garden and say how lovely it all was.  So at 3:30am, we were unimpressed to be woken with a shock by loud thunder nearly overhead and positively biblical rain, which carried on for a good hour.

I am always surprised after such a violent sounding night, how in the morning, you have to look really hard to find the evidence of the cataclysm that seemed to be going on during the hours of darkness.  Yes, the rain gauge was pretty full, and the one at The Garden was nearly overflowing, and driving to The Garden, there were odd banks of sand by some of the fields, but nothing particularly broken, just a lot more water in the ponds.

It is sad that summer ends so abruptly, not least as we are still in Comice season, and Genneteil were doing the honours this year for the Noyant Villages area.  Still by the time they got to the procession of villages (no fancy floats this year from the Noyant area), the sun was doing its best to shine on them.  I do feel that this year's procession was a demonstration of cruelty to Renault 4s and as I used to drive one, I felt a lot of sympathy for this poor car, pulling a trailer that was too well loaded for the weight of the car.

For an event where the theme was Rock and Retro, I also felt that the non-marching band weren't quite in the swing of the theme by playing Lady Gaga's Poker Face.  But perhaps it is the highlight of their repertoire.

Autumn jobs are coming to the forefront of our thinking.  The Meadow needs to be fully mown and the side paths need to be cleared so that I can get into the little woodland at the end and finally see what is down there.  The Orchard is too overgrown and needs to be sorted out before the walnuts start to fall - not least as walnuts are our rent to the landlady.  So, lots to do, and possibly too much for one man. 

So I rummaged in my moth filled wallet and invested in a strimmer/brushcutter that I can use.  My elbow has ceased to support frequent use of a pullcord for starting a petrol engine, so I have gone for a battery model and used it for the first time yesterday.  The battery lasted longer than I did, which bodes well for later in the autumn.  Me in safety gear, harness and carrying said strimmer is not a good look, but better safe than sorry!

Last Sunday, in a last hurrah to summer, we attended a jazz manouche concert at our local pub - Les Epines de Mymi Rose.  I've wanted to catch one of her concerts for a while, so was delighted to spend a warm summer evening, sitting with a glass of wine. listening to an excellent performance.

One of the delights of autumn here are vivid sunsets, so this from Wednesday night may well be the first of many.  There is much that is autumnal around at the moment, with the giant orange jelly slugs, ripe fruit falling and a certain feel to the air.  I am very fond of early autumn, but not so much this year, as we never seem to have had much of a summer.  Perhaps a week or so in August.

I did mention giant orange jelly slugs - they are numerous and finding life just too, too wonderful at the moment.  Wandering around the One Acre Wood I nearly stopped slug sex but standing on two, but managed to sidestep them just in time.  Fascinating and disgusting at the same time!

Have a good week!

 

Dog days of August

Interestingly (well I think it is interesting anyway), the French word for heatwave is canicule, from the Latin canus and something else, but implying our dog days of high summer.  Anyway, we are slap bang in the middle of another bout of high heat, which is quite restricting.  This morning we thought we might go to the Festival of the Giant Croissant - it is an annual thing around here.  I thought I might have written about it one year, but looking back, I haven't.  The giant croissants are over a foot long and would feed a family of four for two breakfasts.  I digress - everyone seemed to have the same idea and with a wait of 15 minutes to get into a car park, a couple of hours slogging around a hot village surrounded by fragrant and sweaty people lost all appeal.  We diverted to see the cats in the country and slop a bit of water around new crops and came home.  When I checked the Weather App, this is what I was promised.

While the sun is at its most intense at midday, the hottest time of the day is generally between 5pm and 7pm, by which time it was due to be about 35ºC.  We have decided to spend the day defrosting the small freezer instead.

With hot periods like this, there isn't much you can do really.  You have to go with the flow and try to keep as cool as possible (it is only 29ºC in my office currently).  This week we did decide to try out a new restaurant nearby.  The Bistrot 1813 has only been open perhaps 3 months, and is doing well, although from adverts on social media, when the schools and colleges go back, they could be struggling for waiting and kitchen staff.  We had a very enjoyable lunch there - 16,90€ a head for three courses, plus drinks on top (a very good Côtes de Rhône by the glass - not cheap, but if you are only having one glass, make it a good one!).  Fontaine Guerin is just down the road from us and has a church with a twisted spire - there are a few of them around here!

Yesterday morning was overcast and sticky.  Sunny and 36ºC is distinctly unpleasant but 28ºC and muggy is possibly worse.  To make the small and bijou market at Baugé that much more pleasant, there is often musical entertainment.  Some can be a bit trying - some Frenchman trying to croon "It's now or never" and imitating Elvis is the nadir, but recently there was a trad jazz clarinettist who was fab.  Yesterday we had a couple on guitar and fiddle doing Celtic sea shanty type music which was enchanting.  I hope they come again.

Rebus is no longer officially a kitten, he is now a cat.  He thinks this is a bit unfair, but once you hit one year old, you are a grown up in cat world.  But as he is now considered a cat, he has adopted one of the best loved cat perches around our garden.  Not our gutter, but definitely our cat!

He is well camouflaged in there!

The Marx Sisters have taken to garden life well and Harpo has started to lay eggs, but Chico and Groucho are being threatened with being part of the poule au pot served by the village at Telethon time.  I don't really need 3 freeloading chickens!  

We are in the final countdown to the Comice, at Vaulandry this year.  The last time it was there was 2011 and it was very hot (bit of a theme there).  On the Saturday a bunch of us performed Old MacDonald a une Ferme - there are photos here but fortunately no video!  Reading through the rest of the story, Pauline is now in the caring profession, Florian is married with one child, and Valentin has a degree in Engineering - how things move on!  The second day was the usual mayors' ploughing match and parade of floats, as is shown here.  I had nothing to do with the lovely float for le Vieil Baugé, which paid homage to the village's past as a wine producing area.

I've just heard a noise like a large lump of ice falling off the freezer, so I must go and tend to the ice removal process, which will be nice and cool - have I mentioned that it is 29ºC around my computer?  Have a good week!

 

 

 

Summer miscellany

Yes, summer is firmly installed now, and finally the verges are taking on their straw colour that I normally associate with July.  It arrived in a rush, with last Saturday starting to look promising, and last Sunday was as perfect a summer day as you could ask for.  But it didn't know when to stop, and Monday was hotter, which made visiting a chum in hospital more appealing as they had air conditioning.  Tuesday was deeply unpleasant - up to 39ºC measured in the shade in the garden, but with humidity, feeling a lot worse, and since then things have slowly calmed down to normal high summer.

On Monday, to finally welcome in summer, we got most of the cover on the gazebo in the garden.  First I had to check all the fixings and resew a number of the tapes, as they had been buffeted rather in the winds last autumn.  It is easiest to use my sewing machine outdoors, where the light is good and the table doesn't have a slippery surface.  Poirot, the elderly cat, decided I needed help and supervision - fortunately it didn't make life too difficult!

We have started on the annual mow of the wildflower meadow (royal we).  There is never an ideal time to do it, and currently it is a sea of white umbellifers, mostly wild carrot I think, but there are few butterflies, and the crickets seem to get out of the way OK, and if we leave it too long, the brambles and old man's beard and tiny saplings get more difficult to pulverise.  Seeds of things like orchids and broomrape are now ripe so will be spread around in the mowing process.

A favourite flower is gaura, and this year, after it had been well and truly strimmed down to ground level, it has come back with a glorious display for us.  I guess this could be the answer for how to keep it lovely!

I have been through the files on the trail camera that was overlooking one of the ponds.  It wasn't the best placement, and it overlooked a path going across so you get lots of photos and videos of animal bottoms disappearing out of shot.  This short video of a meandering doe is a rarity, and she doesn't stay around that long either!

Perhaps a day after the camera was set up, a stag took an interest in it, and had a good go and dismantling it, but failed.

The main purpose of the camera placement was to catch the boar having mud baths.  They leave an imprint in the mud that is impressive, so I hoped to capture something interesting.  One night I thought I might be in luck.  A boar arrives.

It gets itself into position, after a bit of preparation.

But is then too far away from the trail camera to set it off again, until bath time is over anyway, at which point I get an image of a muddy boar!  There is evidence of the boar bath place in the mud of the pond of course.

I would show you that, and the boar after its bath, but the internet is so slow and intermittent, I need perhaps 20 goes to get a photo loaded up, so I am calling it a day.  Enjoy your week!

 

 

It's all about weather, and the Olympics

After years of planning and months of the Olympic Torch passing through as much of France as possible, and people trying to get enthused about it all, last week it started!  Opinions are divided over the opening ceremony, ranging from censorship, through moans about it being boring and taking too long, being bitty and strange, to out and out adoration.  It seems to depend on how well you know French history and culture and whether you can be bothered to dredge your memory for interminable teams with flags parading into tight capacity Olympic stadia in previous iterations.

I can see both sides - from my academic and intellectual perspective, it was an interesting take on how to parade sportspeople from over 200 nations into a holding area where they can observe the Olympic oath being taken by representatives.  The logistics are always challenging, so to take to the water adds another dimension and a different way of doing it.  I suspect Los Angeles won't try to imitate that!  On the detail of some of the tableau, well, if you don't know French history or popular culture, many things will go over your head and the always quirky Philippe Katerine may well be a long way outside your comfort zone.

Some have said it was too inclusive - but working to the French moto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, I don't think you can overdo the inclusiveness, including a 100 year old Olympic Gold medal holder being the third last link in the torch relay.  There were moments that had me teared up (French boat going under the bridge), or held in wonder (the horse charging up the Seine), or just downright proud to live in France (the light show around the Tour Eiffel), but people will never agree.  I liked it, you may not have done, but as always I found something else to do while the teams were on the move.

I've not included a picture - there are many in the public domain.

In the run up to Friday, all the discussion was about the weather - would it stay dry?  Would the front pass through beforehand?  Would it just be a bit of cloud and the odd drop of rain?  At no time did the forecasters say, "It will pee it down like you haven't seen in Paris in July without thunder for years".  O well!  The week was so mixed with hot sun on Wednesday and Thursday, and now again on Sunday.  It just goes to show you can't rely on the weather behaving itself.  But today things are looking lovely.

The sky last evening did actually presage a change in weather, with a wonderful, luminous pink effect across high clouds heading away to the east.  Today is the transition from something akin to October to high summer, which is due to last three or four days I gather!

Yesterday I dug up a load of potatoes for the week - they are looking good, but aren't really interesting to photograph.  While I worked I was whistled at a lot by a golden oriole, so I replied, imitating its call.  We kept up our conversation for a good quarter of an hour - I wonder what we said!

A final item from yesterday, was that the usual Saturday market in Baugé was augmented by the monthly display of classic, vintage and collectable cars and vans.  Some are quite magnificent, while others make me feel old as they were normal when I was growing up.  To add to the display this month, they brought along entertainment - a clarinettist playing jazz standards to a backing track.  He was very good and it was a delight.  I hope he comes back again soon!

Anyway, for a Sunday, we have a very busy end of the day (annoying as I would quite like to vegetate in front of the TV watching the cross country bit of the Olympic 3 day event from Versailles, but they keep cutting away to basketball or table tennis, so I guess I'm not missing much).  I had better go and do "stuff", and wish you a good week!

 

Could it get worse?

Well that was a mostly cool and damp week, but there were some compensations.  A novelty for the village is finally an alternative to the boulangerie that closed back in 2020 - a depot de pain, or bread drop-off, based around the village bar.  They have baguettes and bread, and if you want croissants or similar, you can order the day before.  First we tried the baguette on Monday and found it to be good.  Then we ordered croissants for Thursday morning, and were able to have a coffee and eat our croissants on the terrace in the sun, before it started to rain again.  This has added a whole new dynamic to our week we feel.

We have also had storms this week, including a humdinger on Wednesday, or rather two humdingers.  The first hit while I was in the Comité des Fêtes barn with a couple of chums working on the float for the Comice in August.  There were only three of us, not least as two were working hard on steaming off the last vestiges of last year's decorations from the corner posts, and you can't work with crèpe paper when there is steam in the air. 

I took the opportunity to design most of the missing panels.  Anyway, we were kind of stuck in the barn, as a storm started up at about 3:20pm and didn't leave us alone until about 4:45pm, at which point we scattered off to our different homes, ready for the next one.  That was a long and loud one too, and caused a lot of damage to crops and the roads not so very far away.

We had more rain on Thursday, Friday and early Saturday morning, but now it seems to have stopped for a day or two, to allow us to recover and take stock.  I did some of that yesterday - the shallots had basically collapsed, and I feared the worst - white rot.  Fortunately that doesn't seem to have been the case, just lack of sun and a decision on their part to give up on a bad job and try again next year (except I lift them and plant new stock each year).  I am hoping there are enough for two pots of pickled shallots for Christmas!

This week I was able to vote in a general election.  Not here in France sadly, as I am not a citizen - something I must try to sort out over the winter.  Instead I was able to take advantage of the change to the UK law that used to limit those living abroad to only having a vote for the first 15 years of absence.  Apparently after that we had no links to the UK - well apart from family, pensions, language, friends, potentially investments etc.  It was the one thing the last government changed that was a step in the right direction, so I have voted in the town where I was last registered to vote.  And it was good. 

There are elections due too here in France and the thing they have in common with the UK ones, is all the pundits asking "Why now?".  Of course if an election hadn't been called, they would have spent the summer saying "Why not now?".  In both instances, the rise of the Far (or Nasty) Right is a talking point at the very least.  The French elections seem to be based more on who can get through a day without making a total farce of their campaign.  The UK elections seem to be about whether the Conservatives get more seats than the Lib Dems, or if they can even beat the spoiled ballot papers in some areas.  How utterly depressing!  Much better to focus on nice things, like flowers.

In both elections, nature, the state of the planet and the environment seem to be at the bottom of the agenda.  Perhaps because the TV pundits are all urban types who are more concerned with where to find the best coffee, rather than whether it will be possible to grow coffee in future. 

We have left a few leeks to flower, more by accident that design, but they are very popular with the local insects, so clearly a good thing!

There is an even better photo with a bee in flight, which I am trying to load - one more try!

All of this blether means that intended subjects such as animal satisfaction and more details on the coypu will have to be tales for another day.  However I have loaded up new footage of a deer for you, having a go at a tree:

And another bit of film to show that the boar are still around:

And another with ducks, because ducks are happy fowl:

And there is so much more wildlife entertainment to come in the next few weeks! 

Have a good week!

 

Junevember - it's a thing apparently!

It's raining today, and cold.  It rained yesterday too, and during the week, and it hasn't been at all warm.  It is a totally new month apparently - Junevember - and it's got to be real as someone did a cartoon about it, which I have shamelessly nicked!

The weather has meant that gardening is limited to dashing out when at all possible to attack things that are growing too well and shouldn't be allowed to continue (grass, weeds, the grape vine), sighing over the things that should be pushing away with rare vigour currently and aren't (sweet peppers, courgettes, butternut squashes, chillies) and taking solace in flowers that are happy and having a longer season than we would expect (wild orchids are a good example).  Today I spotted a new one at the Orchard, hiding in plain sight among a bunch of pink clover that has now gone over.

One couple we know were delighted to see me as they had two gluts, white asparagus and alstromeria - I couldn't leave without an armful of each.  So very kind and the flowers, assuming a cat doesn't eat them or smash the vase, will last for ages!

The lack of heat, and more importantly the lack of sunshine, have an effect on the morale, but yesterday I rescued a trail camera that I had left in place for a couple of months as a way of doing something productive with the day.  My initial assessment, without wearing glasses, was that I had messed up and that there was going to be nothing on the memory card, so it was a pleasant surprise to find 599 files, when I looked at the card via the computer and wearing glasses.  Just a random sample of files showed that while I had yet again managed to turn off the video recordings, that wasn't until after about 6 weeks in situ, and there was a lot of activity including film of the blasted coypu.

Today I have been through all the files having a first look through - there is some juicy stuff in there for future blogs.  There is also a hunt chasing a deer and a boar two months after the season for "big game" closed - and from the noises off, I think they caught up with the boar.  As we have had other footage of a boar with a damaged leg, it would appear they didn't kill it, and the corpse by the main road is probably it - or was as it is now just a smelly black patch.  The audio didn't include a gun shot, but if it was a fox hunt, they wouldn't have had the right ammunition to deal with a boar with them.  It's all very complicated.  Anyway, I think this is who they were really after!

The little crossroads that the camera was by is very tight - the path across is mainly for ducks and coypu and the water rail to go from one pond to another, while the path up to the tree is fine for me, but peters out a little way further on, at least for me, because boar, deer and badgers use it.

The tree is popular with birds - there is more than one picture of a woodpecker on it, although this is my favourite.

It is a favourite with the boar, but that needs film and I haven't got the will to battle uploads to YouTube today.  The deer like it, not just the doe but also a rather nice stag.

Best of all, it is a fun place for the pine marten to climb up!  How I love these fellows!

I need to spend more time with the files - there is a whole article about boar to be written, and another about coypu, with lots of photos and video to accompany them.  So I will leave you this week with a slightly unhelpful photo of one of the common visitors to the crossroads - the Lady Mallard.

Have a good week!

 

Boring weather

Last Saturday, when I wrote my last piece a day early, the weather was glorious!  Hot sunshine, hardly a cloud in the sky, just a gentle breeze to stop it getting too hot, but a lovely 25ºC in the shade.  That changed on Sunday, just in time for the trout fishing day, to what we have now.  Nice mornings that fool you, afternoons that don't get much over 20ºC with thunderstorms rumbling around and unpredictably dumping rain and hail on me every time I put my nose out of the back door, while the evenings are cool but calmer after about 9pm.  It is great growing weather for weeds and wild plants, not great for setting off seeds of courgette and butternut squash and impossible to get the thyme seedlings to do anything more than pout.  But it has brought out the bee orchids, and this year, I've managed a couple of cracking photos of them too!

The various alliums we have growing are putting on a lot of green growth, although rather floppy.  At least the onions are mostly growing under frames to keep the worst ravages of cat bottom under control, so they are supported, while the growing habit of shallots is such that they are quite perky.  The garlic have lovely strong stems and leaves, but when I lifted one today to go with broad beans, it looked like a very healthy leek underground.  I think they need a bit of sunshine and heat to bulk out.  Not that the forecasts are promising any of that for the moment.

The Fergus Memorial Rose (aka Orange King) is now out and looking magnificent!  I could go a bundle on roses if they put on displays like this all the time!  Actually I am fond of roses, but I like them to have perfume - this one doesn't seem to, but with this, the colour was the important aspect.

The electrical activity is making writing this very challenging - it is taking about 8 goes to get a photo loaded up and inserted which is not doing my blood pressure any favours, so I think I will finish with a short word about the trout fishing day, and go and do something else.

The trout fishing day is run by the fishing club la Gaule Baugeoise, who stock the lake with trout of the right size, manage the fishing tickets and provide snack food at lunchtime.  The Comité des Fêtes du Vieil Baugé, of which I am a member, provide a drinks stand all day long - coffee, wine, beer and soft drinks, served with a smile.  Very successful events in past years have seen over a hundred rods, and a three hour long. lunchtime rush for drinks from 11:30am.  This year was more sedate, in part due to the weather, in part due to a very long holiday weekend (known in the media as a viaduct holiday weekend), and in part due to people feeling less like splashing the cash than they used to.  Even so, there were perhaps 70 rods and a continuous stream of drinkers and we didn't get too wet, and my feet stopped hurting about 2 hours after I got home.  A success overall I think!

So I'm now going to quit while I'm ahead, and wish you a very good week!

 

There's lots around if you know where to look!

We might have had a log fire going last night, resorted to a local discount warehouse yesterday afternoon due to the rain, and be working on our tax returns today, again because of the weather, but actually nature is out there doing what she does and getting on with Spring.  Beating the bounds today before giving up due to the rain (have I mentioned it is a wet weekend?), we spotted a new orchid plant and location.  Because they have tuber-like roots, for many orchids, once you have seen them flower in a location, you know to look in the same place the following year, particularly if that location isn't subject to local authority or local authority contractor "maintenance".  So spotting this new flower on the opposite side of the meadow to its usual haunts was really pleasing.  I imagine the seed was moved around by badger paw.

Thursday was a rare fine day, although not particularly warm.  I was able to take advantage and plant more of the well chitted seed potatoes, so now there is just a final row of 8 or 9 to go in during the week.  Each time I passed a particular tree where we had put up a nest box, I was aware of a lot of chattering noise, so I decided to pause, lean on my metaphorical spade and watch.  Sure enough, after a couple of minutes a Great Tit went to the nest box opening to be greeted by a lot of squeaking and then silence as goodies were shared out.  Once one parent had gone, there was a short pause, then the other parent turned up and the noises repeated themselves.  Today when I walked past the box, all was silent.  I hope the babies were tucked up warm and safe.

On Thursday, the Meadow was humming with insects: it was so loud, it was hard to distinguish the different birds that were also singing.  I'm sure it made finding food easier for the fraught parents from the birdbox!  At the entrance to the Meadow, I met a slow worm, basking in the sun and trying to warm itself up a bit.  We have quite a lot in the area, but it was nice to see one, although I then had to make sure my accompanying cats ignored it.

It must be nearly a year since I invested in a pond dipping kit, and early in the week, while the ground was still too wet to work, I decided to have a play.  You don't get instructions with a pond dipping kit - I guess they think it is obvious, or if you are getting a kit, you know what you are doing.  My first attempt was therefore marginally successful and with lots of learning points - take a chair and a kneeler and some spare white paper, and only source water from one pond at a time being top of the list.  I needed more time and more stable surfaces and a chair to let sediment settle properly, to focus properly and to have a chance of seeing whether the elongated fast thing had a hook on its tail or not.  A better field guide might be useful too.  I was cheered to see that there are a lot of water fleas around, as they are at the bottom of the food chain and if they are there, then other things can be too.  I don't have a clue as to what the elongated fast thing was, other than fast and about a centimetre long.

There is a parasitic plant that can be confused with a bird's nest orchid, but isn't one of those.  It grows off tree and shrub roots but at quite a distance and has no leaves.  We found a lot of them on the eastern side of the Meadow this weekend, just starting to come up, and about 2 to 3 metres away from the row of fruit trees.  I've not seen them there before, so am not sure if it is a weather related thing or a problem for the trees.  Anyway, here is a photo.

While not totally unusual, the past few Mays have been warm and sunny, so this year's wet and cold version is not going down well with humans or cats.  So far this month we have had over an inch of rain and a bit of thunder and hail, and more rain is forecast for the next couple of days before a 5 day window of warm and nice - or that is what we are promised.  I hope "they" are right, as while the rain is keeping the water level in the ponds at a useful level for wildlife, everything else is getting a bit miserable.

Have a good week!