Rural Life

Kitchen garden progress

Summer arrived with a bit of a rush, with temperatures building significantly during the last week and it also got heavier and more humid as the days went by.  Friday was agonising, as it was so sticky and hot, and while the clouds gathered, there was no rain during daylight hours.  This wasn't the case at Chinon where they had 40mm in an hour and one of the popular pubs got flooded!  All we had was this until late in the evening, when it finally started to rain - not vicious downpours but nice steady soaking rain - 10mm in all chez nous.  We could have done with more, but it did help to top up the water barrels.

Of course, when it is hot, and you get rain, a lot of it tends to evaporate again, making the air even stickier than before so Saturday was a write-off - given over to sitting flopped and moist, complaining that my phone screen wouldn't work with wet fingers.  We fed the Cats in the Country, but even walking around the plot to admire what a bit of rain does was nearly too much for us.  It did help the ancestral ponds a bit and the carp seemed somewhat happier, but it wasn't a long term solution for them.

Today there was a cooler breeze from the north west and it was possible to work in the plot, picking things, pulling things up (so much easier when the soil isn't doing an impression of first fired clay), planting things and thinning seedlings.  We got off to a very slow start really on vegetable gardening this year, not getting any potatoes in before Easter, not setting off any seeds until May, and not really having a plan.  To some extent we have caught up although courgettes will be late, and butternut squashes even later.

This bed has the overwintered broad beans in it - those sown at the end of November are nearly done and I have cleared a third of them.  Those sown at the end of December are just coming right.  There are also red onions, black mangetouts, shallots and white onions, as well as the courgettes I planted today, four aubergines and three chillies I bought at a car boot sale in early May and six tomatoes rescued from Aldi.  The soil is pretty heavy clay so hard work.

The next bed up the hill is mainly given over to potatoes this year - second earlies.  But to the right there is winter wheat we sowed in the autumn when we were worried about the price of chicken feed, while to the left and right by the potatoes is a line of carrots (mixed colour heritage) and parsnips.  In a separate bed to the left of them are this year's attempt at sweetcorn.  As last year was an abject failure, we aren't holding our breathe, but 40 out of the 52 stations sown are up and I will fill in the gaps, or attempt to, by transplanting the extras as I sow two seeds per station.  It may work, it may not, but 40 sweetcorn should be enough for us!

The next bed is the one that is highest up the hill, with quite light, shallow soil, and is the one we have used the least.  It is still a bit of a work in progress.  On the left, it is given over to butternut squashes, while on the right, we have the bean pen, where we are starting to sow borlotti beans - there are 29 up so far on the far right and John sowed a load more today on the left.

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I'm rather proud of the butternut squash plants which I grew from saved seed that had been sitting around in not the best conditions for a couple of years or so.  The root balls had nicely filled the pots without going totally mad.

A new experiment this year is growing a christophine or cheyotte - a tropical plant with nice fruits that make a good gratin and the plant has a climbing habit, hence the posts and wires.  The leaves look worryingly similar to bryony, but the fruits are distinctly different - a small green squash, somewhat pear shaped but a bit flatter and with a bobbly skin.  No idea if it will work here in the Loire Valley, although the fruit this grew from came from a polytunnel up the road in the Sarthe.

Finally, for those that made it this far and don't really have an interest in growing vegetables, here is a photo of a handsome fellow who walked past the trail camera this week!

Have a good week!

 

Summer has arrived.

There is a massive and stable high over the British Isles and a depression in the Mediterranean, and in between, here in northern France, we are enjoying summer conditions, and have been doing so for two weeks now.  It's good for the hay crop but not so good for germinating fodder beet I gather.  It is actually marvellous at the moment for getting seeds to come up.  Last weekend the big excitement was the hourly popping up of new butternut squashes and courgettes, while this weekend the excitement is over jalapeño chillies.  Over at the Plot, heritage carrots came up in a week and parsnips are showing their first seeds leaves after two weeks, while nearly half of the sweetcorn sown last week is now up.  All this makes me feel very good.  In addition, the roses are fabulous - here is a magnificent one called Orange King, bought as a memorial to a much loved ginger cat.  Last year it had perhaps 3 rather dingy flowers, this year it is amazing!

The wildflower meadow is now definitely past its best, with the oxeye daisies nearly over, the linseed gone to seed, the pink clovers done, the pretty orchids mostly faded and the lizard orchids taking over in their rather dull fashion.  In a couple of weeks, we will need to think about mowing the meadow to keep undesirables at bay (old man's beard, bramble, small cherry trees), spread the seed from this lot of flowers and allow a better growing environment for the late summer and autumn flowers including field scabious.  At the moment, the knapweed is still pretty spectacular where it is to be found, and some late bee orchids provide a bit of interest in the shade.

The trail camera has had its batteries boosted and I have spent some time starting to go through the downloaded files - but it takes an age to work through the video files to decide what is worth keeping or not, and I have to be in the right mood.  There was no doubting that this rather nice clip of Woody doing his thing in the spring was worth keeping!

There was a pretty definitive viewing of the coypu too - he has a look to my mind of a stuffy colonial colonel wandering around chuntering to himself, but perhaps I am influenced by the old Animal Magic series and thinking what sort of voice Johnny Morris would have put to this fellow.  

It is always a joy to see the hare, and with the long evenings and the current placement of the camera, you do get some rather sweet close up videos such as this one.  That nose!  Those ears!

I think this is also a hare, but the eyes are a bit different.

Other old friends (fiends?) are back in the zone too - our chums the boar are back and making a mess in one of the ponds.  The pond with the fish, so I would prefer it if they didn't make too much of a mess, those poor fish have enough problems to cope with at the moment!

Again, rather nice photos as the light was good when they were passing through at 8:45pm one evening.  I'm glad I wasn't there to see them, but then I guess they wouldn't have come through if they thought I was there!

Anyway, it is time to enjoy a summer afternoon in the garden under the abri, as we spent time getting the cover out, mended and installed for the summer yesterday.  Sing along to the Kinks - Lazing on a sunny afternoon, in the summertime!

Until next week....

 

Proper winter weather

It's January in the Northern Hemisphere, and despite 2022 being the warmest year on record, we are currently enjoying proper winter weather.  Okay so we don't have snow, but actually I don't mind missing out on the white stuff as I have twice weekly physiotherapy sessions at the moment and getting to those would be so much more complicated if there was white stuff on the ground.  But proper frosty weather and for quite a few days - it's good for the soil, the trees, makes parsnips sweeter and (I gather) Brussel sprouts more flavoursome - well, it has to be good.  The downside is that low winter sun on a frosty day makes for too much contrast on photos to be really good - for example:

On the other hand, honing in on fine detail can be a bit easier, with all that contrast:

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That is very nice carved detail over those windows!

The gardens can't really be worked at the moment, although when there is a bit of thaw, it's quite good for getting persistent weeds out.  It is traditional to slaver over seed catalogues at this time of year, but I have a big box with loads of free seed packets, so no need to buy new, just try to work out somewhere with enough warmth and light to get the seeds growing once March is here - anything sown direct is too vulnerable to chickens, cat bottoms, slugs, snails, being trodden on, being bullied by weeds, birds, drought, frost, flood, and heavy clay soil.  Weeds do remarkably well.  We had 5 seeds of giant parsnip we were given before Brexit made such things impossible.  We sowed them late (they don't like being stored) so were lucky two germinated and grew, and benefitted from the water the chickens didn't want in the drought conditions.  Finally this morning, John dug one up for our dinner - yummy!

The biggest we have grown in France (our biggest in the UK weighed over 2 pounds, and was 18 inches long of usable parsnip, but that really was a mutant!).

Last weekend I moved the trail camera as while all I had captured was a hunter's bottom, there was clear evidence that around the ponds, something was lurking!

In addition, the badger trail (which is visible on Google Earth surprisingly), is looking even more obvious than usual.

But at this time of year, the larger animals head for wooded areas, although the deer will likely be back in March or so I think.  While there is a lot of bird activity, unless we have the camera trained on a food station, it is very haphazard and difficult to catch, and frankly I have more than enough video footage of blackbirds and thrushes turning over leaves.  So it is the smaller, shyer, and less flashy animals I am looking for - foxes, badgers, ducks, the pine martin, mice, rats, perhaps even a coypu (although I really hope not).  Well, it paid off this week after the move - a badger bottom and a fox face!  Hopefully they will get a bit more used to the camera and I'll get more.

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I also need to get going on my campaign of attracting tits, particularly blue and great tits, as they are very good at eating pine processionary caterpillars and the pine trees have a few too many nests in for my liking.  The needles shed by the caterpillars are extremely irritating, and the rashes and swelling they cause last a good couple of weeks with no real remedy other than wrapping the affected part in wet towels so you can't scratch.  They can be deadly to animals, and have until recently no natural predators as they are a non-native invasive species.  But the birds are doing their thing, so feeders and nest boxes need to be set up in the next few weeks.  The feeders were very successful last year.

So, another frosty week in prospect for us, stay warm!

 

New year, new promise?

Last blog was all about looking back, today is more about looking forward as the days start to lengthen and we stop thinking about how to celebrate midwinter and concentrate more on what the new year has to offer.

On the last day of the old year, it was unseasonably warm.  Now it is always hard for a gardener to hold back on sowing things and planting things, because that is what it is all about, making things grow.  That challenge is even harder when it is mild and you see buds developing and catkins shedding pollen everywhere (and so the start of the new season allergies).  However I felt justified in doing a bit of sowing, as I hadn't got around to the second patch of broad beans, and I like to do autumn sowing to avoid the worst ravages of blackfly.  So I uncovered a nicely clean bed, raked it over to remove any foolhardy weeds and a bit more of the underlying builders' rubble, made about 88 dents and sowed broad bean Aquadulce Claudia.  I then raked soil back over and added a nice long piece of netting to avoid the worst ravages of cat bottom.  I guess it will be another 3 weeks or so before the shoots show.

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Another major winter occupation is firewood - now is a good time to fell as the trees are quiet, not too much sap around or leaves to encumber the fall, we aren't worried about missing mushrooms and we aren't being attacked by mosquitos.  We've brought down two trees so far this winter and want to bring down another couple to ensure continuity.  We had clearly grown soft this summer as moving the dead/dry pieces up to the top of the One Acre Wood is proving harder work than in previous years and neither of us have really felt that our elbows are in a suitable condition for doing a lot of splitting with an axe, however satisfying it can be.  We borrowed a log splitter which made short work of the existing stash of big logs, which are now ready for use.

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We are still eating the fruits of last year's gardening, and the Brussel Sprouts seem to be nearly ready for John to crunch his way through.  I won't touch them.  Next weekend we will have our first red cabbage, but I fear that the cauliflower plants, that grew so large and lush, won't have the reserves to make good curds in February/March.  I mentioned that it was unseasonably warm?  Today I found them covered once again by caterpillars!

It is good at this time of year to look around and appreciate what we take for granted.  Two examples of this.  Firstly I was in a neighbouring village for a work appointment, and rather than park at the client's house, I parked by the church.  Once the work was done, as I put my stuff back in the car, and changed sweatshirt to one that the cats could and would dribble on, I took a moment to marvel at the magnificent St Médard church in Cheviré le Rouge.  It's not the largest village by any means, but perhaps 800 or 900 years ago it was way more important, and deserved this large and impressive church.

Looking down, once at the Orchard and having a bit of a walk, I marvelled at the intricate patterns of cyclamen leaves and was perhaps a bit concerned at the number and size of orchid rosettes under the big walnut tree.  The cyclamen flowers in the autumn were magnificent.  The orchids are most likely to be lizard orchids - impressive, particularly when there are a lot of them, but not pretty.

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I'm travelling next week, so there may be photos from other places next Sunday!

 

Review of 2022

It has been fun reviewing all the blogs of 2022 to see what were the highlights and what were the determining features of the year.  Weather, local events and wildlife were the standouts for me, as I will explain.

The weather had a major impact on the year, from a sharp late frost affecting certain crops, winds taking down trees, sand storms in the African desert affecting cloud colour to the searingly hot and dry summer, which facilitated the massive forest fire and reduced crop sizes for those things that survived the frost.  Once the rains did start finally, at least we had mushrooms for the end of the year - here are some photographic reminders of all that.

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After two years of Covid restrictions, 2022 had many of the usual events back, including the local trout fishing day, the delayed 600th anniversary of the Battle of Vieil Baugé, a full on Comice, car boot sales and my favourite, the Societé de la Paix Mechoui.

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But perhaps most excitingly, the trail camera lived up to its promise and showed us a wealth of wildlife, plus being more alert to that meant spotting others with a phone camera too, so the real stars of 2022 were the animals!

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Hopefully the animals will all put in appearances during 2023!

Happy New Year!

 

Frosty weather

Last week I welcomed winter and talked of purple risotto and the need for slow cooked and warming food.  The week continued cold, but no frosts until Thursday night, when it was a bit closer to zero, while Saturday morning was a nastily brisk -5.7ºC at 8am - currently the coldest time of the day.  With that harsh frost does come the recompense of sunshine, but also the inconvenience of at least two pairs of socks, wearing gloves when going shopping, not being able to sit for too long without getting cold feet and the chickens' water fountain freezing solid.

Good frost also brings beautiful ice crystals and an edging of white, and is finally knocking out those plants that really shouldn't be growing on still, such as chillies, cannas and rhubarb.  Here is a montage of frosted foliage.

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As predicted, the visit from the hunting dogs last week means I've not spotted boar on the trail camera over the past week, and there isn't much new damage either, so they may have moved on through.  There wasn't really enough for them to eat here anyway, as a marauding extended family group of 15 pigs can eat an awful lot, so it was probably time they moved on elsewhere.  I have seen deer and a hare and a badger on the camera though, so it isn't the totally clean sweep we had earlier this year.

As I said, the advantage of this type of weather are lovely views.  The frost also meant that a number of trees that had been hanging on to their leaves with a steely determination, finally dropped them, very quickly too, on Saturday.  I watched the apples and the quince basically ditch everything in a quarter of an hour - it was strange to watch and made for an eerie sound.  But what is lovely at this time of year, is to see a new view or vista, a new building (actually more like a very old building, but new to us), or an old familiar but in a new way or after a few years.  Our favourite view from the Garden is over to the Chapel at Montplacé, which has been hidden by leaves for many months, but has now been revealed again.

I'm keeping this short this week - I've not had the heater on in my office since Thursday evening, and with it going solidly since this morning, the temperature has crawled up to 16ºC, which is not totally comfortable for sitting in, certainly not around the feet!  Keep warm and keep safe if you have snow!

 

Winter is here!

It's cold, it's dark, there is Christmas music on the radio and threats of snow on the weather forecasts - I think it must be winter.  We have been so lucky with temperatures from a purely selfish perspective over the past two months of autumn.  That has freaked out some plants and trees and the oaks round here still have a good covering of brown leaves, while I hear rumours of things flowering out of season, although not with us.  With high energy prices and exhortations to keep electricity use to a minimum, keeping more than one or two rooms at a comfortable temperature gets harder and that pile of fluffy fleeces is particularly welcome when sitting still.  We have also rediscovered the joys of hot water bottles (wilfully ignoring the advice that they need to be renewed every 3 years at least).  Slower cooked comfort food is also the thing, and yesterday was my first winter risotto, using the liquor from rehydrating dried cèpes as the stock, Paris mushrooms to provide the content, and purple carrots to provide a certain je ne sais quoi.  Served with fried medallions of monkfish, it was delicious.  There was a bit of rice left for the chickens (sort of resembles maggots), and I look forward to seeing if that has an impact on yolk colour, should any deign to lay an egg.

Keeping an eye on the trail camera, there has been a mixed bag of activity in the corner of the meadow.  Inevitably, but disappointingly, there was clear evidence of hunting dogs questing up and down the line of fruit trees yesterday, so I fear it will be a while before we see deer, boar and hares in that area again.  On the other hand, I can understand that farmers get a bit hacked off with boar activity, as we have plenty of evidence of their destructive tendencies and a litter can be up to a dozen piglets, with no natural predators.  The badgers aren't out at a time when the dogs are but, and I could well be wrong, are likely to hibernate for a bit soon.

I also know very little about the private life of the pine martins, so whether this chap is getting ready for a long sleep or not, I couldn't tell you, but it is always lovely to see him around the camera area.

What we are seeing a lot at the moment are standard "garden" birds enjoying turning over leaves and checking boar damage for something interesting to eat.  There has been a jay, a pair of blackbirds, a green woodpecker I think, the inevitable pheasant, and also a thrush.  It is years since I have seen a thrush in the garden, but over at The Shack, I have heard them smashing snails and have found their anvils in and around the vegetable plots, which is delightful.  Not only do they help keep pests down for me, but the broken shells add a bit of drainage to the heavy clay.  So I knew they were around but had to take it on faith in general.  I was therefore delighted to find one posing in front of the camera for me, and also very pleased with the quality of the photo, even when cropped/blown up a bit.

While I am not one of those that advocates you leave your garden covered in leaves, with long shaggy grass and weed stems, I would suggest keeping a small corner untouched to allow thrushes and blackbirds to have somewhere to rummage, because they are getting rid of the things that will eat any crops and flowers next year.

Have a good week!

 

Mushroom Time!

I had an excellent time in the UK (thanks for asking), including four days of interesting visits in and around the Broads, catching up with projects and chums.  The V.I.P. visit to the Museum of the Broads was a particular highlight - so many fascinating exhibits I could have spent a day there!  Norwich is always a nice city to visit, although those that aren't keen on spiders probably kept away from City Hall over the last couple of weeks!  Family time was also very special.

I did also visit a full-size windmill but haven't downloaded the photos yet.

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I've not yet been home a week, but have really noticed the difference to before I went away in October.  There has been quite a lot of rain, although it is still unnaturally warm for this time of year.  That has meant that fungi are finally making their presence felt at the One Acre Wood and in the Orchard and Meadow.  The ones in the Orchard and Meadow are interesting enough and meant that we felt it was worth frequent visits to the Wood in case.

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There have been lots of interesting sightings.

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The red ones are interesting as there is a silly rumour on social media that you always find cèpes near them!  Anyway, having a wood that is full of interesting mushrooms makes one a bit paranoid about "visitors" having it away with anything edible.  Before you accuse me of being paranoid, this did happen once - we surprised a bunch of dubious industrial mushroom pickers, challenged their right to steal our mushrooms, which had no effect at all, and the scale of their picking meant we had nothing at all for three years.  So, while the lot of bolets of the left were fine, I did wonder if these other ones had been tampered with!

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We are ultra-cautious about mushrooms.  Some bolets are fine, others taste very nasty, and some are downright poisonous, so we left all these where they were.  But there is one type of bolet that is not confused with any other, the mighty cèpe de Bordeau (or Pennybun or porcini depending on your country/language of preference).  We have those from time to time, and this last week has been a good week!

We've eaten some and we've dried some to keep the joy going through the year, and we also have a couple in the fridge for supper tomorrow - very good in omelettes!

The boar have mostly moved on, but one came back on Friday night in the rain to eat more nuts - the last few are still there, in case she feels hungry again, but with the hunting season now upon us I fear boar and deer will be much more discrete for a few months.  There is more good footage of boar eating nuts and when I have the time, I will get more videos loaded up for all to enjoy.  In the meantime, have a good week!

A time of reflection and change

This time last week, it was so hot, I was sticking to my desk as I typed.  Today my office is a more liveable 22ºC and rather than being concerned about how to keep cool, we are starting to trap heat again, while ensuring that chillies and fruit aren't damaged by near frost conditions in the early morning.  Once again weird weather is here!

I've frozen some 30 chillies now to see us through to August next year, but I am sure there will be more as the plants are reasonably well placed so they won't get frosted tonight and then things start to warm up again.  We won't see 30ºC again this year, but I'm not sorry, it was wearing. 

I've picked about 8 pounds of quince - well, 8 good sized fruits each weighing about a pound, and I will spend tomorrow morning chopping and boiling them while watching the broadcast from London.  There are still loads on the tree too, but my batch tomorrow will be for making quince jelly and perhaps shredding one for quince liqueur.

Obviously when you get hot temperatures, particularly at the wrong time of year, they tend to end with a bang.  As the maize was finally harvested in the field where I go to say goodbye to the day, we could also stand there after dark and watch the distant light show - once again, just a couple of millimetres of rain for us, but somewhere got soaked!

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Conditions were right, and there were few insects around as well, so it was time for the meadow to have its annual mow.  We don't take any of the material off the field, so it is there as a mulch, any seeds can fall and be eaten or can germinate, and the ground is clear for things to resprout and grow.  If we didn't do an annual clear, the meadow would soon be overtaken by brambles and old man's beard, which would grow taller and taller, killing any low growing plants and providing meagre shelter while blocking access to the ponds.  We know this, as there are still blocks left like that, which we are slowly turning to something better for biodiversity. 

One effect of this is that the trail camera is marooned on its log in the middle of the meadow.  So today I decided to move it.  Actually the batteries need a boost, so I moved the log to its new position so that things can get used to it, while we boost the batteries and I clear the SD card.  As far as I can tell there are a lot of videos of night as the deer have been setting it off just outside the range of the infrared lights, but the big screen may show more and prove me wrong.  There are lots of videos of some bloke on a mower driving around too.  Anyway, I hope next week there will be some films, but this week you will have to cope with just photos of a deer, a boar and the pine martin.

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So much for change, but what about reflection?  We don't have UK television, just radio and the BBC website, plus other news sources, not necessarily British.  Last weekend our French friends were asking how we felt about the death of the Queen, to which our standard response was "sad, but not unexpected, and time to celebrate a life well lived".  We have been able to separate ourselves from the media message in the UK, so cannot hope to comprehend what the sentiment and feeling is like over there.  We watch with a certain incredulity as the queue to view the Lying in State takes on a life of its own.  We will watch events unfold tomorrow, taking a day out to participate, mainly vicariously, as history is written.

When I was younger, if I had feelings about the monarchy at all, it was of a glittery entity that didn't really affect me or have any relevance for my life.  My parents both met the Queen a couple of times, while my father met her father and mother on several occasions and worked with the Duke of Edinburgh occasionally on questions of Design.  I did the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, was a Scout but had issues with the Scout's Promise, and more recently have worked with and have huge respect for The Prince's Trust. 

Reflecting now on the end of the Post-War Era, as it has been described, for me the value of the Royal Family and Queen or King as the Head of State is as a non-political, non-elected moral core and standard for the country.  That point of reference for what is British, who represents us irrespective of the vagaries of popular votes and ever more self-serving and mediocre politicians is an important one.  France doesn't put Presidents on coins or stamps, rather Mariane, an idealised woman and spirit of all that is best in France.  The USA does a similar thing, but with an Eagle and dead Presidents, who may not be as above reproach as history is rewritten from a 21st century perspective.  

With the passing of the Queen and the New Carolingian era that is about to start, the moral compass will be reset.  I expect there will be a slimmed down monarchy, but fascination with the Royal Family will not fade (indeed it is one of their purposes - filling pages of glossy magazines and fuelling book sales).  My hope is that King Charles will maintain his emphasis on the importance of conserving environmental and built heritage and saving the planet, and that the leadership he has shown in that field over the past 40 years will continue during his reign.  Planet Earth needs a few big hitters in her team at the moment!

 

 

What a strange week!

Last Sunday the weather decided to break, with thunderstorms and rain, except around us.  I could see storms, but couldn't actually hear them, and we had little rain during the week despite the predictions for quantities of up to 20mm.  We had 5mm.  Not really enough to do anything other than make the air heavy and uncomfortable.  But then the temperatures went down, and I even wore a pair of jeans one day! 

The chimney is now swept, so we could have a fire, but the house is still very warm, so no need.  It got ever cooler so that on Friday, when visiting Chinon, I turned down the opportunity of a soft drink in the Place Jeanne d'Arc on the basis I didn't have a jumper with me.  Today I am back in shorts, and we expect temperatures of 30ºC and over for the next couple of days.  Crazy!  This storm was to the North of le Mans, 50km away!

The trail camera is starting to be accepted again by the local wildlife - it takes a while for them to get used to a lump of willow trunk sitting and looking threatening in their "zone".  There are some videos, but i don't think the bandwidth is there today to load them onto YouTube and share them.  In addition to the badger, deer and birds of last week, more deer have been spotted, and the pine martin is back.  A new addition to the local gang is a hare - the field next door was ploughed, and he/she seemed to object.

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Yesterday was the annual Méchoui or outdoor pig roast at our local Boule de Forte club, la Paix.  Covid meant that it couldn't run in 2020, as no large gatherings were allowed, while the rules were changing so often in 2021, the organisers wisely decided not to bother.  This year, with no restrictions, it was back. 

While for the organisers, it starts early on a Saturday morning, getting the pig cooking, for us punters, things kick off from about midday with a long drinks and nibbles session, before we are called to table for more drinks and nibbles.  Then there is a collation of cold salad starters with bread (at which point the chaps buy wine and water), and by about 3:30pm, people are starting to get restive, so six chaps will carry the pig over to the carving table and serve it up.  Platters of hot pork, bowls of beans and bowls of ratatouille then do the rounds, and there are always seconds.  There can be a bit of a scrum for good bits of skin and crackling, but I did well on that this year.  Then when you feel you couldn't eat or drink another thing, cheese and slices of apple tart arrive, followed by coffee. 

We dragged our sagging tummies home at 6:30pm, as our brains were ringing with French, including heartfelt condolences from French friends who had been thinking about us, they assured us, constantly since Thursday evening.  The warmth of community feeling is a wonderful thing.

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So yes, that's the final aspect to a strange week - Thursday 8th September, at 7:33pm the France 3 news was interrupted in its first story by the breaking news that Queen Elizabeth II had died.  By the time we turned over to France 2 for the detailed weather forecast including the Caribbean islands, their 8 o'clock news had started early, with presenters wearing black, doing a four-hour special on Her Majesty.  Their coverage was sad but also celebratory.  They managed to find a couple of British, but fluent French speakers from their staff to make some sort of serious comment, while National Treasure, Stéphane Bearne (OBE) was wheeled out to talk about the several times he met the Queen, including for his investiture.  It was an excellent homage to a great lady. 

While flags were lowered on Friday in many places, and any news programme or channel is a bit obsessed by it all, we can turn over and watch other things.  We can also change channel on the internet radio and go from mournful or reflective music on Classic FM and Radio 2, to jollier tunes and normal voices on French radio stations.  Come the 19th September, I guess we will be glued to a news channel though - after all, it is history in the making.

But now I must go and make peach jam, because over-ripe peaches wait for nothing and no one!