A manic drift into Autumn

Apologies - I totally failed to post last Sunday and last Monday and today nearly didn't happen either.  After 4 months of either very wet weather (first half of May), or really hot weather (the rest of the time), people finally decided in September that things had to start to happen.  That's fair I guess, as climate change indicates that this last summer will soon become the norm rather than an exception and we will have to learn to live with it.

Mixed in with the fun of visitors, rock concerts and European Heritage Weekend have been preparing for having our fire insert changed, getting a house sale through for someone, helping someone to move into a residential home, helping someone else with various issues to do with life in general, failing to deal with the quince harvest, and finally getting some movement on our plan to buy (rather than rent/squat) the Meadow and Orchard.  It has been hard to find a moment to stand back and look at the bigger picture!

It was lovely to catch up with old friends, and fun that it coincided with a rather loud but jolly night of Rory Gallagher music, courtesy of Tribute Bourbon - a local rock combo, at the village pub.

As part of the visits with chums, we went over to Chinon for lunch, the antiques fair along the river bank and a look at the Collégiale Sainte Meme.  While I have been into the auditorium bit of this repurposed church, Heritage Open Days gave us a chance to go up the tower and look in painted rooms that are not normally open to the public - fascinating and very beautiful.

 The Romanesque ceiling with beams and spiders' webs was also very impressive.

The last time I wrote, I commented on my rather meagre and disappointing sweetcorn crop - at least those cobs were disease free.  When I went to get the last 8, two of them were infested with smuts.  While the Mexicans regard kernels like this as a real delicacy and strive to grow them, I find them disgusting to look at and touch, but the chickens are happy to sort them out for me!

We planted our quince tree in the garden not long after we bought the house and now it is a mature specimen.  It always produces large fruits - I'm not sure how, as we never water it.  This year we have had a bumper crop - earlier in the year I lost count at spotting about 60 on the tree, but I think there were many more than that.  One fruit seems to have damaged one of the chickens when it fell, and as the larger one in this photo weighs just under 3 pounds (well over a kilo), you can see how it might hurt if it falls on you.  Newton wouldn't have found gravity, he would have found a hospital if he had been sitting under our quince tree!  The smaller specimen is about the size of a large orange for scale.

While this autumn is extraordinary in its warmth and dryness, it is also living up to the usual promise of beautiful skies and sunsets.  We watch cloud formations come and go, but to date bringing no rain worth speaking of - perhaps this week, when we could do with dry weather, that will change.  Here is one good sunset, even if the photo doesn't quite match it in quality.

This week sees the new fire installed, my friend moves into her residential home, and I am back playing boule de fort for the honour of the ladies of the Comité des Fetes of Vieil Bauge.  I'm hoping that somewhere in the week I will also finally get a bit of time to start dealing with the quince mountain, assuming I can find enough jam jars!

Have a good week!

Getting back in the swing of things

September in France is all about new beginnings as well as profiting from the hard work of earlier in the year.  With a lull in the hot weather, we were able to turn the soil in the old broad bean bed and get in the first of the winter crops, so that there should be something available in February or March in the garden.  We have one bed where we can (normally) grow cauliflowers, so once the rotavator had done its job, we added a bag of well rotted horse manure and I planted 10 cauliflower plants.  They will now be in the ground and carefully nurtured for about 7 months, so if you complain about the price of caulis, remember how long they take to grow and how much space each plant takes, and only produces one head of curds!

As the medium term forecast for the autumn is quite benign, I have also planted a load of salad/leafy crops to make October and November a bit more interesting.  The seeds went in last Sunday, so it was encouraging to see that the Bright Lights chard and the spinach were well up and some signs of the mâche (lamb's lettuce) coming through as well.  If I am watchful and we are lucky, we should be eating baby leaves in October.

But what of the existing crops?  Well today I picked the best of our sweetcorn, as a snack to accompany lunch.  Disappointing puts it rather mildly - as these were very short cobs at about 3 to 4 inches long, sparsely populated too, but very sweet and tasty.  It just wasn't a good year for them, and I did sow about 2 weeks too late.

The cucumbers seem to remember now what their purpose in life is and have about 4 fruits set on them.  Reading the packet details, the variety is a slim version, and hails from Poland.  I have to hope that they do fatten up a little bit more than this, as it isn't totally appealing at the moment.

My fight against Asian hornets continues - this is the time of year when workers are on a feeding frenzy of finding sugar, while young queens need to really stock up on sugars to get themselves through the winter.  The exceptionally hot summer hasn't been good for them, as once the temperature inside the nests exceeds 40 degrees, they die off.  As we have had four periods when that has happened, we hope that they have taken a big hit.  The other noticeable thing is that as food has been more scarce and conditions not to their liking, any specimens that have been spotted are a bit smaller than usual.  On the one hand this is good, implying a weaker set of insects that may find it difficult to get through the winter.  On the other hand, there have been instances where they are able to escape from the selective traps that are set for them, as they can squeeze out of the holes designed to let bees and flies escape.  I have topped up the bait in my number 1 trap and have caught at least three of the beasties.

The star plant of September is the cyclamen and they are cropping up all over the place now, including random spots on the side of the road.  These clumps are at the entrance to the Orchard, and always cheer me up.

Yesterday was the annual Mechoui of our local boule de fort club - a lovely Saturday given over to gluttony and fellowship.  This year was a little subdued - the long, hot summer has taken its toll on people, and indeed the menu for the meal couldn't be finalised for a while until they got permission for the fire needed to spit roast the pig.  Our glorious Leader hasn't been in the best of health so he was less lively and couldn't make his usual general toast.  But having said that, the punch kicked above its weight, the wine was delicious, the starters were excellent, and the spit roast pig was all you could desire.  Once we got home at 6pm, we lolled, trying to digest and rehydrate after a decidedly warm afternoon among friends.

That is lunch and here are the happy punters.

Another feature of September is a rush of arrivals who didn't want to come over during school holidays.  The week ahead looks extremely busy with people, concerts, meals out, antiques fairs and the like and the blog will probably not be published until Monday.

Have a good week!

Vindicated on the Rentree!

Last week I said that things would start to happen as the Rentrée came into effect, and I wasn't wrong!  The water bills arrived - one of which looks seriously wrong, so will need me to rant at someone in the coming week.  The gym classes restarted and by the end of the week I was physically broken, although pleasantly surprised that I hadn't totally lost it over the summer.  An issue I have been working on for the past 6 to 8 weeks got broadly resolved, and when I was given the final confirmation by phone on Thursday, I actually cried with relief, much to the concern of the person on the other end of the line, who thought I was nuts.  And then Poirot decided to add her own brand of grumpy old lady cat troubles into the mix, which I won't go into for the moment.  Rebus is channelling my physical and mental exhaustion for you!

In amongst all that, I found time to harvest some food from the garden to create a nice healthy supper.  We only have 3 tomato plants, but Coeur de Boeuf are pretty reliable and excellent in the kitchen as there aren't many seeds in the lovely large fruits.

It has been a very mixed year for fruit, with many things cooked on the tree, but I have managed to make a few jars of peach jam, and could make more, if I can find the time.  The quince are likely to be outstanding this year, although I have yet to dissect one of the fallers to assess the quality of the flesh.  This is one of many huge examples, which weigh in at about 750 grammes a piece.

My raised bed for "soft" herbs has worked to my satisfaction.  The parsley and dill protected the rather fleshier sorrel from the worst of the sun, and both shop bought and seed grown chives are doing well, while the tarragon is quietly doing its thing.  The dill is now over and I hope spreading seed to sprout in the spring.  The parsley will keep going until the middle of next year.

Rather belatedly we have put out a small tank of water for wildlife in The Meadow - our consciences were slightly needled by the thought that at least 3 baby coypu hadn't made it and while I don't mind predators getting them, I didn't like the thought of them dehydrating to death.  Keeping the water relatively sweet and without mosquito larva is of course the challenge, and before the French government put an end to John's occasional spending binges on Temu (rule - never more than 20 euros total including postage), he found a small solar fountain to do the job.  It's not the most powerful piece of kit, but is doing what we need, and will be put away at the end of September along with the tank - assuming it rains before then of course...

In a real rush of Rentrée activity, there is so much going on this weekend, it has been a struggle to choose.  Yesterday there was all the usual Saturday stuff, plus the Forum of Associations where you sign up for sports and other activities, and the Boziacus festival at Boce.  Today there are two vide greniers, the classic car exhibition and spare parts sale, a walk and run in support of cancer charities and the Comice at Lasse.  In the end the last one won for us, as it was near something else we needed to do and had Tractorcross - so like motocross for bikes, but with tractors.  Not small tractors either, not the totally huge ones, but decent sized road going tractors racing round a muddy and sinuous track - excellent fun!

I'm hoping for a gentler week before the Méchoui of the Boule de Fort society on Saturday, but I suspect it is a vain hope.  We'll see.  Have a good one!