Advent is here

I don't do anything about an advent calendar, but feel I can no longer yell "not yet" at Christmas preparations as today is officially the start of Advent, being the fourth Sunday before Christmas.  On the other hand, one can now say "five weeks and it will be over" with some sense of relief.  In between, there are presents to buy and wrap (allegedly), Christmas cards to design, get printed, write and post (new mortgage time), food to order and things to make.

The local council is very good at still doing Christmas decorations, and as most are LED, I don't think they break the bank to run.  Doing away with them would certainly be a bad message to send to local voters ahead of an election.  We have things on lamp posts, a banderol of lights across the main road between the mairie and the church, and a Christmas tree by the church.

 This time of year is really about greed I guess, or finding ways to get through the long, dark nights.  This week I made the Christmas cakes, packed full of sugars, dried fruit, fat, alcohol and eggs, and baked for two and a half hours.  They will be fed every few days until just before Christmas, when I put marzipan on the top and ensure that one makes its way over to Chinon.

Looking further forward than that, there is the new growing season to plan for and to work on.  Nature is already doing her thing, with the rosettes of lizard and bee orchids appearing in the Meadow, and cowslip leaves appearing literally everywhere around the vegetable beds, as well as in the Orchard.  I need to find and plant bulbs before it is too late, mainly in tubs as otherwise they get eaten by furry things or scratched up by chickens.  I have also managed to sow a full row of broad bean seeds before the end of November - always my objective.  I might do another row in December and they will catch the others up in the spring.

We have also moved away from the house and over to the vegetable garden the stock of giant bamboo John cut this year.  We don't use it as scaffolding, but it does make useful garden structures, such as the cristophine cage.  We now have two giant tripods, one guarding the water butts, and one in the garden by the house for no good reason other than they please us.  While Shirl in A Country Practice recommended sitting under a pyramid for mental relaxation (and how many remember that wonderful series?), I don't think it works with a giant tripod!

In theory, the coming week is calm and quiet, all the better to deal with the Christmas card issue, but I bet things arise to change all that!

Have a good week!

Mostly about greed

This week all pretence of warmth disappeared on Wednesday with hard frosts on Thursday and Friday, followed by excessive rain.  We are heading rapidly into winter, and for those of us on clever electricity tariffs, this means keeping a good eye on news from the supplier in case we have a White, or even worse, a Red day when the normally affordable electricity prices, creep up or become exorbitant.  We had two White days during the week, so tried to act responsibly.

Sometimes that meant admiring the countryside in weak but still lovely sunshine - here you can see that on Tuesday we managed to get more of the Meadow treated to its annual mow, the rest will be done sooner rather than later.

John also went in with the strimmer and refound and widened the path through the bramble banks.  Hopefully at this width we can keep it open all summer next year.  It still needs work and I would like to add a dead hedge to keep the scrub bank in a contained area, but with gaps to allow wildlife to pass through and to shelter.

The log post is for when I move a trail camera from keeping an eye on the Orchard to seeing who uses the path, other than us.

Inspired by my visit to the UK last week and overly confident after a good Gym for Seniors session, I felt it was important to have a good check over one of the ponds, which is still free from much water... Or so I thought.  I could walk out on the firm clay to by the boar wallow quite safely, but one step beyond that, and I was in a fetid mixture of leaf mould, silt and things I don't like to think about, but smelled rather.  It took me a quarter of an hour to free myself from the fruit of my stupidity, not least as I was alone on site.  Many lessons have been learned!

When I showed John the scene of my embarrassment, it didn't look too bad from a distance - and that should also be a clear lesson.  And as an aside, I wonder if anyone is buried in there...

The third Thursday of November is Beaujolais Nouveau Day, and the new people at the village pub decided to make something of it.  For those that didn't go - fools!  The wine was actually nice for once - the very hot summer gave the wine more body than normal years, so that you actually knew you were drinking wine and not cherry cordial.  I believe as I am in France I now have to say that you should taste in moderation.

Where you don't need to taste in moderation was the snacking planche that was also available at the pub - a small punnet of chips, bread roles, a baked camembert, radishes, olives, goose rillettes, cherry tomatoes, dried hams and salamis!  What a delicious way to celebrate the new wine!

That was Thursday, and on Saturday we went for our annual visit to the all you can eat Chinese buffet at la Fleche.  Despite checking on the website, it turned out it was booked out for a private party (of nearly 200 I think), so we ended up at the nearby Buffalo Grill.  That is perfectly good, don't get me wrong, and one of the few places in France you can get a good slice of cheesecake.

As I wasn't driving, I also indulged in an Irish Coffee.  This was rather disappointing, for a number of reasons.  It was scotch whisky for a start, and the cream was whipped cream, and then digging around in the bottom I found a piece of chocolate - a nice touch but not quite right.  We decided that we needed to review the correct Irish Coffee at home - something for a wet Sunday.  Today is a wet Sunday, but we have other things on our minds.

The coming week sees us change our internet box for one that is fibre compatible (suitable for uttra high speed internet if you will).  This could go awfully wrong, and we could be off line for a while or it could be totally simple, I just don't know.  The actual fibre connection won't be done for a while, as I have to book artisans to do that, but even a new internet box is something to fill me with terror I must say!

Have a good week!

 

Time away from the routine

Much of the past week has been rather different.  Last Saturday I picked up the ferry at Caen and went to England for a few days to visit family in Essex.  It's been more than a year since I was last over there, and I found I hadn't really missed the country, just a few people.  

Arriving on a Sunday meant that while I was horrified at the number of people on the road at what I termed "stupid o'clock", there weren't any major hold ups.  The M25, if it hadn't been foggy would have been no problem, and I was at South Mimms about three quarters of an hour earlier than I had expected.  I was horrified at the state of the roads.  The M25 between junctions 10 and 11 was so badly surfaced I worried for the state of my tyres and shock absorbers, but that was nothing to the state of the roads in Essex, where axle breaking holes could be anywhere.  I made it without incident, but I'm sure it took a good couple of days for my blood pressure to go down.

The relative I was staying with has a large pond.  Until I entered the drive and saw diggers, I wasn't aware that the pond was being renovated.  This massive exploit was fascinating and dominated my attention much of the time.  It was particularly fascinating to watch where the underground spring that feeds the pond was rising, in the middle.

In order to accommodate the estimated 400 tonnes of sludge and leaf litter, a pit had to be dug, and the spoil from that created a couple of mountains of clay and subsoil, covered with top soil.  The pit will slowly allow water to drain out and can be capped in due course, but for now it is a shimmering zone that could eat people, animals or machinery without leaving a trace.

I am always fascinated by the plants my relative grows - the dahlias are large, blousy and colourful, the rhubarb a source of envy and there are always novelties.  This time round I was fascinated by a shrub with bright red leaves - a cotinus "grace", from the same family as the smoke bush.  Indeed, so much so that I will be finding one for our garden if I possibly can.  The leaves are this colour all the time they are the bush apparently.

To earn my keep during my visit, I replaced the cane seat in a chair that had been in the family for a while.  I had ordered new cane and a cane bodkin, so despite not having done a chair seat for some 20 years or more, and having sore hand joints, I was still about to complete the work in about 5 hours.  Getting the old seat out took a bit more time than I planned.  I was pleased with the result and the chair now functions as a chair.

Once home at the end of the week, French life took over again, including discussing a faulty telephone line for some elderly chums, checking the removal of a hornets' nest from another friend's house and preparing a rant for the people who inspect septic tanks.  A week's work was crammed into two days!

I also got round to the final fruit harvest of the year, and got to it at just the right time too!  Medlars are an ancient fruit, and going back many years, before more fancy things came along, were one of the staples of late autumn eating.  The fruits have to be bletted, or allowed to go ever so slightly rotten, at which point, if they do this naturally, they fall off the tree if you just look at them.  So harvesting is done when they are just about to turn, and the bletting was traditionally done in a crock of sawdust.  Mine will have to make do with a fruit crate in the garage, but I got perhaps a couple of kilos, and once they have turned, will be made into jelly.

You map spot that a couple of the lower ones are darker than the others, those ones were ripe.  One fell off the tree before I could pick it, but we had the other one and a few others that were ready with a piece of stilton yesterday for supper, and it was jolly good.

So that was my week, next week may be a bit more normal, then again, it may not.  We shall see!

Have a good one!

Random things

This is a hastily written entry as tonight I head for the Normandy coast and a ferry to the UK for a short visit.  As ever, packing and the like are last minute, I still have a pile of chores to do and have doubts about my tasks when I am in the UK.  Last year, when visiting family, I spotted a couple of caned chairs that were damaged.  One was totally broken, the other had a few strands snapped.  I promised I would go back this year and redo the small seat and patch the one less damaged.  As you will have spotted, the year is disappearing fast, so before my frequent traveller pass on Brittany Ferries expires, I need to go and make good that promise.  During the week I have been practicing my art, or trying to.  Time pressures and 24 year old cane have made it rather challenging!

Today's market was interesting.  As well as a range of events organised by a group of local artisans and vendors, there was a left-overs soup giveaway going down and the Cadets de Baugeois were celebrating their 60th anniversary by playing pop tunes between the vegetable stalls.

While the weather was typically overcast for the massive Beaver moon during the week, I was lucky enough to catch it just before it was full, for an arty shot on Tuesday evening.

The only produce still growing full on at the moment are the cristophines.  While earlier in the autumn there were fewer than previous years, they are still going and I think I spotted about 8 on the massive vine last time I searched.

The cabbages and cauliflowers I planted a few weeks ago for the spring are enjoying the warm and wet weather and are getting interesting, but it is a long way to go until they are ready in March or so next year.

And on that note, I had better close down the computer and get packing!  I am so out of practice, it will take longer than my record of 15 minutes to gather all my needs together!

Have a good week!

Wildlife and autumn colour

It has been a much quieter week this week, no storms although a lot of rain, no one changing house, no major local events, just getting used to the change in hour and adapting as the weather gets cooler and it becomes more difficult to dry laundry outside.  The colours this year are amazing.  I thought it was supposed to be related to a bit of a frost, at which point leaves turned bright colours, but we've not had a frost yet and the colours are better than I remember.  Sadly I spot the best when driving and therefore can't safely photograph things, so multicoloured hedgerows and golden avenues have to be left to the imagination.

One of the best trees for colour is Sumac, but it is also an invasive thug, so I have never planted one.  On the other side of the road in the Country, there is one, and its suckers have managed to get under a road, a fairly deep ditch and a big leylandii hedge to produce a couple of bright saplings.

Rather more appropriate to the area are field maples, with their vibrant yellows - the magnificent reds and ambers are from hybrids related to Canadian maples, and while lovely, are expensive to buy and take a while to get into their stride.  I only got to our big field maple after the leaves had mostly fallen to provide a golden carpet by the ponds.

It appears to be the season for yucca flowers and this magnificent specimen is in a friend's garden.  Ours has two spikes that might make it or might get caught by a frost in a couple of weeks before they are out.  

The 1st November is a day when the French remember their dead, and shops and market stalls make a killing on selling chrysanthemums that have been raised to flower just at the right time.  I have managed to overwinter a couple, so didn't buy any this year to decorate the garden.  This display at the War Memorial at la Fleche, which if it lasts and the weather is kind, will serve both for All Saints (1st November) and for the Armistice Day celebrations that are taken very seriously in the town.  La Fleche has a famous military school, hence the vast number of names on the memorial.

We had another go at trapping feral cats this week, and much to my surprise, we were successful with our first go, getting one that I was keen to trap too.  This is Wally, who was a girl, but has now been spayed.  Much spicier than her brother, Wimsey, but less ferocious than her father Randolf, she took a bit of evicting from the garage after her post-op convalescence night.  She won't be a kitten factory, and that is the main thing.

I had a mooch through the many photo files from the trail camera, to see what was good apart from the overly cute red squirrels.  Pine martens are challenging as they do not stay still, but you can get a good badger photo if they don't know the camera is there.

There were loads of photos of deer, or at least parts of deer - ears, bottoms, torsos, but few that were really nice ones of them facing the camera and not pulling faces.  This one worked quite well.

And this one rather appealed as well.

I'd better get a few badger, fox and deer videos loaded up as back up for next time I have few photos to frame a blog around!

This week will be devoted to remembering how to cane chairs and to finding a bit of space in my office area - the recycling bin is temptingly empty, so I can get rid of stupid amounts of stuff that I no longer need (indeed I have to question whether I ever needed much of it in the first place!).  If the weather is favourable, I will also do some strimming, as we have Projects to get moving on.

Have a good week!