I may be getting superstitious

OK, so I knew last week was going to be a challenge as a client was going to be in town and had complex issues to sort out, but I hadn't expected quite the level of complication and uncertainty that ensued.  I was brought, as a gift, a bit of California bling - I didn't realise it was hexed.  I left it in a café by mistake, and it wasn't until I had recuperated it from the café owner that things sorted themselves out and life settled down again.  Some might say that it was just a coincidence, but I'm not so sure.  So for safety's sake, it is now hanging on a hook by my computer, and treated with great respect!

Autumn is really making itself felt at the moment - we have finally resorted to having a duvet on the bed, rather than just duvet covers, have used the fire a few times, have purchased a new mobile gas heater and I'm still making quince jelly to use up the last viable fruits that are knocking around the garden.  Yesterday I chopped up 3.8 kilos of fruit and today made 11 large jars of jelly.  The quantities were so great, I had two pots going as neither was large enough to get the whole lot boiling at once!

Storm Austen passed through on Friday and Saturday - around here we "only" had gusts of up to 87 kmph, which is quite enough, thank you.  Naturally a lot of plant pots got moved around, the chickens sulked but weren't blown away and all the cats went on strike due to lack of air pressure.  The greenhouse/polytunnel got blown over but to our relief, the impressive industrial quality cover survived in tact.  The only bit of damage that we really need to sort out quickly, and even then, relatively quickly, is that a chunk of one of the poplars in the Plantation dogleg of the Meadow came down in the farmer's field.  We need to get in there and see how much we can move off the field to avoid harming his much needed crop.

The other thing autumn does so well is sunsets - this one last Sunday (after I'd done the blog) was a particular humdinger.

The cats are all trying to grow fur, floof and fat for the winter.  This is particularly the case with our outdoor family: Randolph, Wimsey and Wally Hinterloper.  When not sitting and judging us from afar, they are seeking out any last crumb of food to help create a layer of blubber for the long winter nights in our cellars.  I have pointed out to them that there are plenty of nice fat field mice around, but that just gets me even more severely judged!  Randolph is the father, and the big fellow on the right; the mother, Sluttella, moved away, tempted by the charms of a black cat as far as we can tell.

We are very lucky in our village to still have a pub/café, which is open Thursday to Sunday in the evenings for drinks, food and occasional events.  The local musicians have checked out the latest owner (she's been there a year now) and have finally decided she is trustworthy, so we are starting to get some seriously good bands coming in.  Last night was Spy Shuffle Drivers - a blues trio from L.A. (Loire Authion), who were very good, if a bit loud.  The drummer had a neat trick of being able to play harmonica one handed while still keeping a beat going on bass drum and cymbals.  They played a continuous set from 9pm to 11pm, with all sorts of blues styles, finishing up with (and bringing this story round nicely in a circle) Superstition and Voodoo Chile.

Support your local small live music venues and musicians and have a great week!

Seasonal activities

I'm slowly getting through the autumnal stuff that comes with October.  Now even in the One Acre Wood, we have cyclamen coming up, which says that things are becoming more normal, although our chestnut forage proved that the impact of the summer heat and drought will be felt for a while yet - the nuts are tiny.  Also there was no hint of mushrooms in the wood, so we have to content ourselves with enjoying the flowers.

I have had to get to grips with the quince issue this week and found time to make a massive batch of 9 hour poached spiced quince, which now need to be turned into crumbles for the freezer.  I have also made (finally) the first batch of quince jelly for this year - 10 and a bit pots are cooling downstairs as I type.

Last week I had to dash off to see the photo competition exhibition and watch the winners be announced.  The theme was spiders' webs and heritage, and hadn't inspired me to participate.  The winning photo was nice enough, but many of those that had been printed up were pretty samey and with only 91 entries, clearly I wasn't the only one to lack enthusiasm.  Next year's theme is Ruins, here and elsewhere - now that is something to get our teeth into!

This week was also the second week of the Challenge Communale in boule de forte.  The Comité des Fetes Girl Power team did fine the week before, but we were beaten 10 - 4 in the next round, so didn't make it to the finals this year.  Bizarrely, none of us were too upset!!

The week brought rain, and fairly decent quantities too, although it has now stopped again.  It does concentrate the mind rather on garden activities and also doing something with the quince that decorate part of the lawn and the outdoor dining table.

That nudge meant we did actually get round to making a weed proof base for the nascent polytunnel, and during the week, we may even get around to putting the plastic sheeting up too.  We need somewhere weather proof for the big pot of jalapeño chillies and a table someone gave us for potting things up on, which is currently blocking the wood store.

The autumn weather has brought on yucca flowers on our rather rampant plant - there are these spikes doing nicely and another 4 which will take over in a week or two assuming no frost.  I find these flowers wonderfully alien and opulent among the weeds and dying vegetation of the deciduous bushes.

Things are starting to quieten down now after a manic spurt of making up for not doing stuff as it was too hot.  The nights are drawing in, as are the mornings, so we have to make the best of less than 12 hours of daylight - dawn doesn't arrive here until after 8am which can make getting up challenging.  For the moment, it is warm enough to not require any heating but that will change as the days get ever shorter and the stones of the house don't have a chance to absorb as much heat from the sun.

All the more time really for making more quince jelly!!  Have a good week!

Phew - that was a week!

And yet but Friday, all seemed relatively calm!

Monday was the start of the work on removing the old wood burner and getting the new one in.  The taking out was a bit traumatic for us, not for the work that needed doing but from the ominous crashes and bangs that punctuated the morning.  By the time the guys left for their lunch, there was a pile of debris outside in the courtyard that stank of soot and old smoke.  We looked at the tubing aghast as it had cost us a few thousand to have it installed, admittedly about 15 years ago, but even so!

Monday night we could only see a few holes and some bits that were keeping the fire space clear of cats and their explorations - clearly we put the wind up the salesman when we said there were elements to prevent cat intrusion in the chimney area!  But by Tuesday lunchtime, there was a beautiful, new, shiny wood burning insert, with no chance of cats getting into the area above the insert.  On Thursday, the boss turned up to check his team's work, light a fire, and get us to sign lots of paperwork.  It is very effective and efficient, and when the temperature outside is about 25 degrees C, that is exactly when you want a nice hot fire going!!

 Another excitement for the week was the start of the Challenge Communale in boule de forte.  Each club, plus the council is invited to put forward a couple of teams to play this uniquely Angevine sport.  The Comité des Fetes puts in two teams, this year again we came up with an all women team and an all men team.  I play on the women's team (Girl Power) and last year we got to the finals.  This year we were pitted against one of two teams from the Council (elected members, not staff), and won by an embarrassing margin (10 - 0).  I was busy, so no photos!  The men's team played the following night against one of two teams for Heritage Preservation, taking it all very seriously ... and lost.  If they had won, it would have been an all Comité des Fetes second round, so perhaps good?

Today I was able to harvest a few autumnal crops - a handful of potatoes and a small pumpkin.  The potatoes were rather small - this is due to the lack of rain during the summer and not being allowed to do much watering because of the drought.  Crisps and chips will be smaller this year and baking potatoes at a premium I think.  Still this collection will do us nicely for the week.  I am not sure if it is unusual to be harvesting cucumbers in October and it's the first year we have grown them.

The bed of autumn and winter greens is coming on very nicely.  The chard will need to be thinned soon, which will give us a nice salad to eat.  I've already been snacking on baby spinach leaves and they will also need thinning soon.  The lamb's lettuce, or mâche, will grow slowly and some may be ready for Christmas.

Something else that may be ready to eat during the week is our first cristophine!  Normally by this stage we would be fed up with them, having been picking them since mid-September.  This one snuck up on us rather, as we only spotted the first female flowers about a week ago, but then it is well hidden in the canopy.  It has been a bad year for this tropical perennial, as it has been far too dry and too hot as well - it likes temperatures between 20 and 33 degrees and either side of that, it is out of its comfort zone.

Another weird one are the jalapeño chillies, which would normally be searingly hot to eat.  This year they are full of flavour, but very tame.  We do still have some cayenne chillies in the freezer to add heat when required, but we had high hopes of these and are slightly disappointed.  I guess they would have preferred cooler temperatures too.

Anyway, the nights are drawing in, and we are told there will be a sharp drop in temperatures after Wednesday, so we take advantage of the light and outdoor events while we can.  Today there is the exhibition of the village Heritage Preservation Society's annual photo competition up at the church, with prize giving in about three quarters of an hour, so I had better round this off and put on some shoes and go and be seen to participate.

Have a good week!

Animals and art

It's done!  Our tax return is filed and the payments required look right, so that is over for us for another year.  I still have to sit in on two more tax returns with people who want their "hands held" as they work through the electronic forms, but mine is done!  Yay!

I chose a wet day to do battle with bureaucracy, so there were no challenges to my time and attention.  There have been storms and we have had rain this last week - the first for a good month and boy did the ground need it!  There have also been dramatic clouds.

That particular cloud was all drama and no action, which is fine by me.

In terms of animals, there have been a few noteworthy things during the week.  I bought a nice big pot for our seed-grown yew tree, that will be topiary art in due course.  Naturally it came without holes, so for the moment, it is sitting gathering water, waiting to be drilled.  There is a large spider who has taken up residence in there, and is doing a fine piece of work demonstrating surface tension on water.  As I've seen it up the sides of the pot, I think it has chosen to be there.

One of the outdoor cats kindly brought me most of a lizard during the week, but it was a feisty one!  She wanted to bring it right over to me, but it latched on to the floor mop and would not let go for anything, demonstrating that lizards and crocodiles are related!  Poirot had one attach itself to her face in a similar manner - no one was impressed by that.

On the cuteness stakes, this little fellow is probably the winner.  I knew there was a vixen in the area that was seriously with cub, as I had seen her on footage from one of the trail cameras.  I think she had at least two cubs, as I have seen two playing around the badgers' set.  One has now set up camp in the Garden bit at The Shack.  Yesterday I was sitting listening to birds and cuddling cats on a seat under the birch tree, when I noticed a fox cub coming out of the hedge area, then sitting by the polytunnel frame to scratch, yawn, lick bits of itself and generally enjoy the sun.  The cats were not phased by it.  It wasn't phased by me taking out my phone and taking a few pictures, but then something changed and it ran away.

Naturally we will not feed or encourage it - nature must take its course - but there is something very cute about baby animals, and provided Reynard doesn't do anything silly or destructive, he is welcome to live in the hedge and keep the mice and rats under control.

The art side of the week is that there is a new exhibition opened on Wednesday at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne - Comrades in Art: Artists Against Fascism - Comrades in Art: Artists Against Fascism — Towner Eastbourne for the official details.  My dad is one of the featured artists.  There was a pretty useless review in The Times during the week, vapid in the extreme, listing a few artists that they had heard of, and complaining there was too much to see.  Those I know who were at the opening say it is marvellous and very interesting and well laid out - I need to go and see for myself next month.  I took over a few bits for the show in March, including a painting that had been knocking around the place for years and had got very grubby.  The wonderful conservators had cleaned it up for the show - just a foretaste of what is there!

I am ashamed to think how grubby it was when I handed it over!!

Next weekend is the village trout fishing festival, where I will be required to help staff a bar for much of Sunday.  It is therefore possible that the blog will be a day late, depending on the state of my feet and patience after selling beer, soft drinks and wine for 6 hours.

Have a good week!