Gardening becomes less visually appealing

Summer gardening is full of flowers and handsome vegetables with gorgeous colours and liberal sunshine.  Autumn gardening is more gritty, sunshine is hard to come by and plants are less appealing as the vibrant green fades to shades of brown and grey.  Even the produce is less joyful, with pumpkins supplying beta-carotene and some fine orange, but the plants have long since faded back into the earth.  This is a third of the crop, and some are the size of cricket balls.

The courgettes have now given up producing much by way of fruit, although there are the odd vibrant flowers.  After harvesting over 300 during the summer, I'm not overly upset at there being few now to add into dishes of anything.  It was magnificent and probably quite healthy, but a respite is now called for!  The plants will be pulled up during the week.

My attention now has to turn to potatoes - I have already lifted one block of 18 plants, but today I needed to lift more as I have run out of potatoes in the kitchen.  Even with the added energy and fitness that should come from two keep fit classes per week, digging up 8 plants today was hard work.  The soil is heavy clay, and while we've had some rain, because the bed is at the bottom of the hill, all the mud seems to accumulate there.  Looking at the tubers, and given that we do no water potatoes so they have to fend for themselves, it is easy to see the mixed rainfall pattern in the extra knobbly specimens we are getting this year - no lovely sleek baking potatoes to speak of yet.

The campaign to capture and sterilise the feral cat population has continued this last week, when we managed to capture Randolf, Wimsey's father.  He was not at all happy at being caught and transported and dealt with, and has been noticeably less visible since his session at the vet.  However he is a fairly dominant male, so it is good to have his line brought to an end, if you get my meaning.

During the week I brough in a trail camera to check up on its battery function and saved files, before putting it in a different place in the hope of catching cute boar action.  The camera had been out since early July, so I was a bit disappointed to find only 120 files on it, approximately half of which were us walking past.  The tree I had tied it to seems to be a popular one with pine martens and squirrels - I think this was a marten from the video stream that followed.

Early in the period, the deer were in the zone, but they seem to have moved off too.  Well the land can't be wildlife central all the time I guess!

It has been a quiet week really, recovering from the cold I didn't want.  Looking forward, I need to check the other trail camera as it has been out longer than this one.  We have a quince pressing session at the fruit press on Friday, which is always entertaining, but might clash with my annual boule de forte humiliation on Friday evening.  The Comite des Fetes Ladies team is facing off against one of the boule de forte societies in the annual Communal Challenge.  It is not the winning, it's the taking part!  However before Friday, I need to show my boules a bit of love and affection - wood wax and a special "gommage" for the metal bits so they don't look rusty.  I might also need to make some chutney.

Have a good week!

A busy week ending in Heritage

It's been quite hectic this week, what with the latest cold bug, taking advantage of dry days to do laundry and strimming, capturing feral cats, winning a Quiz Night and then to round it all off, European Heritage Weekend.  Perhaps starting with Heritage Weekend is the best way to go, as the pictures are the best.

After some four or five years under wraps and being worked on through all weathers, a few months ago the last covers and temporary blocks were removed and the Tribunal in the centre of Bauge was revealed in all its splendour.  It had benefitted from a grant of the French equivalent of the Heritage Lottery Fund, as well as grants from Europe and donations from private citizens to come up with the several million euros required to do the work and turn a handsome but dilapidated white elephant into a gleaming and useful space.

We were lucky as we got there before the afternoon hoards really got going so could do a self-guided tour without elbowing our way through a major throng.  We had been inside before, when it used to have offices, when we needed to get our medical cards - not the best memory as the functionary concerned was singularly unhelpful and surly.  It was also cold, rather bedraggled and unfriendly.  Now there are offices, work spaces, the Micro-Follie virtual museum and the municipal archives housed in rather excellent facilities.  There are two major meeting rooms - the old judges' withdrawing room, and the main court room itself.  I couldn't get a good photo of the court as an elderly couple had thrown themselves down the stairs and were being looked after, but the Withdrawing Room was lovely.

From there, it was a few steps to the Chateau to get a bit of the presentation on the exterior of the building and how it was set up in Good King Rene's day - there was clearly going to be a long tour around, but we weren't feeling up for it.

Instead we walked around the town hall and over to France Services - the help desk for all things bureaucratic if you can speak a bit of French - housed in the old Chapel Saint Joseph.  There had been mutterings about it being too old and too horrible to do anything with, when the rest of the old school site was renovated.  Fortunately money and ideas were found and it was restored and given a new lease of life as the antechamber of French departmental and national bureaucracy.  

It is really rather beautiful, and as on a Sunday, it wasn't functioning as a gateway, music was playing and we could admire the stained glass windows, the stone carvings and the ceiling bosses.  I particularly liked this one, with a glowing bee at its centre.

There is a local association that will get stray and feral cats identified and neutered for free, if only you can catch the little darlings.  They do have a cat trap too.  I borrowed that during the week as we have 5 feral cats in the zone, and really needed to do something about it.  The first time I put the trap out, I was lucky and caught one - just four to go now I guess.  Anyway, Wimsey (yes, we get to make up names for them too!) was stupid enough or greedy enough to be caught and has had his balls removed.  The following day we released him again and didn't see him for 24 hours, but now he is back demanding food - it appears he learned how to squeak when he was at the vets!

As a cat gets one bit of him removed, the bantam has decided to show solidarity and is shedding feathers - not slowly or elegantly, as would seem sensible at this time of year, but dramatically and all at once.  I introduce Bridie the Oven Ready Bantam in all her shame.

Well, now there is nothing for it, but to go downstairs and make a large quantity of crumble mix, so I can freeze away the 12 hour poached quince in useful form for the winter.  Then I need to batch cook 5 portions of pork and quince tagine, again for the freezer, before doing yet another pot of tomato sauce.  There is mellow fruitfulness and then there is batshit crazy squirreling away of good things against the hard times that will surely come!

Have a good week!

 

September pursuits

September is a busy month.  There are the national and international style events that we can go along to, such as European Heritage Days - that is next weekend in France.  There are first sessions of various groups and sports to be attended if you sign up for that sort of thing.  Mercifully for you, there are no photos of Gym for Health or Gentle Gym, both designed for retired ladies.  We are all enthusiastic, but that much lycra and wobble bouncing around and furiously counting to 8 along with the music is not a spectator sport!

There is always the rather magnificent Mechoui, or outdoor pig roast, run by John's boule de forte society in a nearby field.  It is our favourite thing of the year - a chance to meet neighbours, make new friends, eat and drink through an entire afternoon (you arrive a bit before 1pm and don't go home until after 5:30pm), and the key item is a spit roast pig, something you don't do for an average Sunday roast.

Normally the weather is kind, but September this year is being kinder to the soil and the plants than to humans, and it was cool, breezy and occasionally a bit moist (the more serious rain held off until well after 6pm).  None of that dampened the enthusiasm for good food and the quality of the cheer, and it was a lovely introduction to true autumn.

September is the month when one of my favourite flowers goes completely nuts, and true to form, the cyclamen are just getting better and better with every day that passes.  The clumps in the One Acre Wood are more frequent and bigger, the ones in the lawn are resisting the chickens' obsession with finding bugs, while the ones in the Orchard are amazing.

September sees the Rentree and therefore a pick up in political activity, as there are no more holidays to enjoy until November, so why not strike or have a demonstration to make up for that?  I am ambivalent about this, as while I enjoy the fact that the French won't take things lying down and will take out a placard to make their views known, sometimes the things they rant about are a bit foolish.  The French have squirreled away in their savings accounts three times the amont of money than is represented by the national debt.  Many of the French savings products are government backed and limited risk, and from media reports into the impoverished pensioners, many of those put away money for their grandchildren; although whether the grandchildren see that cash when needed is a moot point.  Whatever.  

September is demonstration time, but the demo in la Fleche on Wednesday discouraged market shopping even more than the lack of convenient parking spaces.  Hard working family businesses and farmers brought products to market, but there weren't many buying.  There were a couple of hundred in the demonstration, which was very well behaved.

One of the things that the French have got very right, in my view anyway, is their horror of waste of good things, although that might be declining as a new generation is focussed on information technology and fiscal security.  One way that bumper harvests of fruit can be conserved, once you have made all the puddings, jams and jellies that you can fit in cupboards and freezers, is by making eau de vie.  There are approved distillers around the place in rural areas, who will turn the contents of your rather icky barrel into clear firewater, and will charge you not too much, and sort out the Customs and Excise paperwork and money collection too.  

But first you have to make your gloop.  We have a barrel with mirabelles fermented down in the cellar - that is now sealed until the distillery has opened for the winter season.  We have another barrel with plums in which is still doing its thing in a somewhat sinister manner - the burping and hissing noises it makes as you stir it up each day are not for the faint hearted!  Soon it too will settle down and be sealed and wait for its moment of glory at the still!

The weather promises to be rather kinder next week, so I hope to visit something for Heritage Weekend, and also to do some strimming, in between making quince jelly and attending gym classes - it's all go for the retired!

Have a good week!

 

A week with jaunts

Thirty five years ago, we got a bunch of family and chums together, first for a fairly intimate ceremony at North Shields Registry Office, then a lot less intimate party at Tynemouth Sailing Club.  Since then, we have tried to do something special together that day each year.  This year our plan for a day out in Angers, visiting the Jardin des Plantes, having a nice meal, and using public transport (we were going for a green theme) fell at the first hurdle - the bus timetable was not at all helpful.  Plan B was a day out at the Zoo de la Fleche, where they film the French version of A Year at the Zoo (Chester Zoo is the location in the UK).

We have lived here over 20 years, so it is a bit poor that this was our first visit, but I don't think it will be our last.  We were very impressed.  The staff were charming, the food was really tasty and not too expensive, the flying bird show was rather special, with 4 vultures circling over us at one point, plus kookaburras, macaws, eagles and a really stroppy kestrel, and the park was well laid out so we never felt crowded by other people.  Here are a sample of the Important People we met.

There were a few meerkats, these one did the classic pose for us.

 There were some very lovely rainbow lorikeets, and I managed not to get covered in bird poo (when I was in Australia, every time I saw one, it pooed on me).

We met a rather splendid cat, that would not answer to "kitty, kitty, kitty" but treated that endearment with suitable contempt.

There was a pile of otters that are clearly close relatives of cats, due to their clear enjoyment of chasing small bits of wood, and when not doing that, sunbathing.

Finally, although it was probably the first thing we saw, we were able to watch a flamingo egg hatch and a little bundle of fluff start its adventure in the world.

At the end of the week (today even) was the Noyant Comice - it is nice to go to these things as a complete visitor, not involved in any way.  After a slightly disappointing edition last year, they really had pulled out all the stops in the commune this year.  It was a vast festival field with lots to see, including a bit of a car boot sale, some funfair rides, commercial exhibitors, and of course big boy toys.

John is anxiously watching his phone for the message to say he has won the electric wheelbarrow(!) that was up for grabs.  There was also a mobile sawmill in demonstrating what it can do with large tree trunks - we'd like one of those too, please!

In between all that, there was a procession of floats, more and better floats than last year as the villages get back into the swing of an annual Comice (last year was their first since Covid, and many are tiny villages).  We particularly liked the Auverse bakery, complete with puffs of smoke coming out of the bread oven from time to time and the baker batting old broiche at people.

Noyant itself had a number of floats and a couple of bands, the main float was a village shop and was beautifully done - the tractor pulling it was tiny, and isn't in the picture.

In between all that frivolity, we have been working hard, either to earn cash or to cope with the garden and the produce.  There are more tubs of tomato puree in the freezer and more jars of jam and jelly stashed in the garage.  We either have already eaten or will eat shortly most of the contents of today's basket of goodies.

So there we have it, quite an exotic period - the next one will be much quieter I think.  Have a good week!