Flowers and fauna

It's been a quiet and not too hot week this week, time to rebuild strength and energy after the sapping heat, ready for the next round, as we are, after all, still only in July.  I've been out to lunch twice this week - both meals were excellent.  Once in Chinon, where the Restaurant de la Gare produced a weekly menu that was so enticing, it was a real challenge to choose what to eat!  And it did not disappoint either.  The second meal, with the Ladies That Lunch, was at Chigne where a small village restaurant is building a really impressive reputation for good food and excellent service.  The choice was more limited, but the food was delicious.  I don't believe in taking photos of meals like that, so instead, here is a sunflower, because it is that time of year!

Other plants are looking very pretty too.  Wild chicory is tough as old boots and seems to thrive on thin soil and extreme temperatures to produce a really magnificent display of flowers.  These are by the parking for The Shack.

In the spring, I bought something that purported to be a hydrangea from a local discount supermarket.  It was basically a forked twig, so I was pretty dubious, but it wasn't expensive and didn't say it was one of those fancy blue or pink ones, depending on the soil.  Instead it was supposed to be a strawberries and cream style pyramid flower one.  I repotted it, because it was in something the size of a yoghurt pot, which wasn't going to be feasible outdoors, and plonked it with the other random plants by the front door.  We were pleased to see leaves and amazed to see positive growth, so the fact it is now flowering is rather beyond our expectations!  I'll have to look after it a bit better!

I've had a bit of time to look through more of the videos from the row of fruit trees at the bottom of the Meadow and found some rather fun things.  It's a nice sheltered place for roe deer to raise their young - I've followed a Bambi's progress a couple of years ago, so was pleased to spot new deer life once again.  Small already seems to know the area!

There is still just a hint of the spots he would have had when first born on his coat.

A couple of weeks later and he has grown rather, although still very attached to Mum.

Dad is also in the area (or we assume he is the father) and rather disapproved of the camera - honestly, these poor cameras of mine to get a pasting from boar, badgers and deer!

Less obvious, but there are pine martens in the zone.  In general they move too quickly to be anything more than a blur on a photo, unless there is something they want to do that happens to be where the camera is pointing.  Not easy to spot, but it is there!

The badgers are always a delight, here are three, yes, three, rummaging for fallen cherries.

The fox family continues to delight me in the videos.  I've seen the cubs a few times in person too, but less recently.  They may have moved on or become much more shy as they realise humans aren't their friends.

I am not a fan of coypu - I'm sure I've said before, they are a non-native, invasive species that damages water courses and competes with native fauna for scarce resources.  I mean, look at all those babies!!  Having said that, even baby coypu are rather cute.

They may be vegetarian, but female coypu will defend their babies with agression.  The fox knew to run away!

And I can attest to the bravery of a defensive coypu female!  Yesterday, while wandering around the Meadow, sussing out the blackberry situation, I met Mamma Coypu with two of her babies.  We both froze (the babies continued doing what they do), so I had time to dig out my phone, turn on the camera and take a few photos.  Something unfroze in her and she charged at me, so quick as a flash I growled at her (they have big teeth and I have heard that if they bite, like badgers, they don't give up), which stopped her in her tracks.  She then gathered the two babies and ran off.

Assuming it was the same female, three of the babies haven't made it - I can't be too sorry about that.  Like I said, they aren't native and they are competing in this awful summer for very scarce resources.  I prefer my badgers, martens, hares and foxes.  Having said that, respect to her as she was quite scary, despite being the size of a Jack Russel terrier.

In theory, the week ahead should be quiet, but hot.  While I (reluctantly) believe the second prediction, I am not so sure about the first.  Life in France has a way of springing surprises on you.  At least we are well away from the current batch of wild fires, although we are on orange alert for fire as there has been no rain to speak of around here for ages, everything is tinder dry and there are strong breezes.

Have a good week!

Countdown to Heatwave Number 3

This week has been about recovery and some semblance of normality after a seriously unpleasant period of heat.  Sadly it seems it was just a short reprieve as the thermometer slowly climbs back to rather unpleasant levels, although we are not expected to suffer 40 degree heat this time round.  The catch this time is that "they" can't predict when this one will be over.  So the forecast for the next couple of weeks is for daily highs over 30 degrees, but not too many nights over 20 degrees.  We have to enjoy the respite while we can, so last night it was live music at the local pub.

It was the second visit by this rather impressive duo - she is a virtuoso singer, and he is a guitar teacher who is slowly getting into the idea that occasionally, if he has a nice neutral backing track of drums, he can let rip.  Last night there was a bit of audience participation too!

For the garden plants, it is a bit of a respite too and a pot of day lilies decided that it was their time to shine - they have been stuck in this same recycled container for about 4 years now, and this year is definitely the best from them.

We rescued a six pack of pinks from a favourite discount store and planted them out before the last heatwave in a recycled container and a proper window box.  The ones in the container are really giving it their best shot and looking quite wonderful!

I was doing some watering and found that the rhubarb was being used as a zone for a lot of indecent shield bug activity - the leaf was positively quivering with over 20 of the things.  I don't think they caused the brown marks on the leaves, but I don't feel quite the same about that rhubarb plant at the moment!

Another insect that has been enjoying life recently was a newly hatched swallowtail butterfly that thought the Meadow was just the most wonderful place yesterday afternoon.  It led me a merry dance trying to get a few photos of it, and while this one is quite good, I have to confess that it has been trimmed down from the original, where the butterfly was just a cream splodge near the middle!

Right now, it is 36 degrees in the garden (and 27 upstairs in the house), and this is just the start.  For the coming week, any activity will be in the morning and the afternoons will be spent watching the Tour de France on television (no other cycle race will do) and working through trail camera photos and videos to share with you next weekend.  There are only so many photos of scorched grass I can share with you, and there are cute baby badgers and fox cubs that will be far more entertaining than I can be!

Have a good week!

How to cope with hot weather

A week into the latest hot spell, and it is getting deadly serious - I use that word advisedly.  The last time there were temperatures like this for a similar duration in 2003, thousands died in Paris and elsewhere due to the heat.  There were 4 fatal drownings yesterday, and there will likely be more today, although I guess not all make it to the national news.  With 42 degrees in our garden in the shade, and forecasts of over 40 degrees for the next four days, we are on war footing.  We advise others to be equally vigilant.

To be fair, one of my ways of coping was to travel to England for a good part of last week, and while the journey each way was long, a bit tedious and rather sticky, I did find opportunities to cool down.  A visit to Greatstone beach on the Fifth Continent was curtailed by a thunderstorm, but the short plodge in the English Channel was welcome.

During a visit to Penshurst Place, I met the Drinking Bear automaton - an excellent advocate for keeping hydrated I think you will agree!

While after a good roam through the gardens at Penshurst, we had to take advantage of the tearooms to rehydrate ourselves - plus a bit of sugar to keep the system ticking over!  The hot herbaceous border was magnificent but thirst inducing.

At Eastbourne, we were able to stroll along the promenade, admiring the fog sitting on the cliffs above while enjoying a delicious sea breeze - as I said at the time, thousands of visiting pensioners cannot be wrong!

All that exercise did mean we felt justified in indulging in an ice-cream sundae, but that was also hydration and cooling down at the same time!  I have to say, these weren't cheap, but the most amazing quality and stuffed full of, in my case, chocolate chunks, in others' cases, cherries and chocolate liqueur.

All the products from this café that we tried were excellent, and some of the local residents agreed and were plotting how to get their share.  I was firm - I think there are fines for feeding this lot anyway.

The reason for Eastbourne and the whole visit really was the exhibition Comrades in Art at the Towner Gallery - I won't write about that here or today as I need to take my time and process what I saw and learned, and it deserves more than a passing comment.  I was immensely impressed to see that the AA had put out signs to direct people to it, even though access is currently difficult due to the Tennis tournament.

I was even lucky enough to watch a hot air balloon float along the valley below my host's house, as proof of rather lovely weather.

But all good things come to an end, and yesterday, after lunch with an old school chum, I got on a fog bound ferry and headed home.  Driving down from Dieppe (17 degrees and foggy at 10:30pm), things warmed up slowly, so that at Rouen it was 19 degrees at 11:15pm, at Alencon 20 degrees at 1:00am, le Mans 21 degrees at 2:00am, and as I turned into our road at 2:45 in the morning, it was 23 degrees.  I was greeted on the doorstep by the night slug warden, doing a good job as usual.

After all that, I had to be up very promptly this morning to be able to leave the house with any degree of comfort, and have the joy of the heatwave for the next four to five days at least.  Gym classes are cancelled, and I will need to cancel work parties for the village float too.  I also need to buy fans, as two of ours have died with the heat - b*****y typical!

Have a good week!

Heatwave Number 2

It seems like only 2 weeks ago that we were getting excited about the end of the unprecedented May heatwave, and wondering if it would go with a bang or a whimper.  On Friday the temperatures started ramping up again, and today the weather station in the garden says 34.5 degrees at 4:20pm, so not yet the hottest time of the day (around 5:30pm).  We are back to early starts, keeping the windows closed and shaded during the day, a constant hum of oscillating fans and an unsightly selection of shorts and t-shirts to keep things as cool as possible.

No chance of me getting product placement money, but there are other brands available!  Yesterday at 7pm it was only 31 degrees, as you can possibly make out!  This morning at The Shack, the local bird population was getting its trills out early and also trying to compete with the sound of what might have been a rave party, or just some chaps letting off steam.  It was annoying enough to send us on to The One Acre Wood, but not before I had noted a number of our avian friends.

This is a screenshot from the Merlin application - I'm not sure if other reputable bird song identification apps are available, but it works for me.  The Golden Orioles were in fine voice today - clearly they like techno music - making a noise in the wooded area at the bottom of  the Meadow.  In the Orchard I met a rather nice butterfly - not a variety I can identify easily, and it is too hot to dig out my Observer Book of Butterflies and Moths I'm afraid (other butterfly identification books are definitely available)!

The wood was wonderfully cool after the direct sunlight in the Meadow and Orchard, and also full of very loud birds, but not as great a variety as at The Shack - it is amazing how much noise a Song Thrush can produce!  It was the first time we had been for a few weeks and now all the leaves are out, it is a chance to take stock of what is dead/dying and needs to be felled on a cooler day.  The plot next door was clear felled in 2020 using heavy machinery, so the light is very different, but the drainage is also affected.  That plot hasn't recovered from the treatment, with none of the chestnut boles coming back to life, rather rank bog grass in places over winter, and only pioneer species taking over the area.  As it is registered woodland, it can't be ploughed for crops, but no one seems interested in replanting trees, even Mother Nature.  Some of our trees are suffering from the changed conditions, as well as from climate change, but you wouldn't know it from this photo.

While laziness is affecting some of my productive gardening, other aspects seem to be working of their own accord.  For two years, we have been recycling tea leaves onto the rhubarb bed at home.  Last year we did well, this year it has gone nuts, and shortly I must go and make a pile of crumble topping to freeze as a batch of rhubarb crumbles for the winter.  There is also a very large pot of rhubarb fool in the fridge for eating now.

A friend of mine's family are all current or retired professional flower growers and sellers.  My friend's father has moved into sheltered housing (aged 91), so they are having to dispose of his kit and property in order to fund his new lifestyle.  I bought a couple of earthenware baskets as interesting planters for the front porch.  I bought some trailing lobelia for one and a couple of surfinia petunias for the other, bulked out with supermarket stumpy petunias.  The results are currently gorgeous.

This latest heatwave brings climate change to the fore in our minds.  I read two reports this week, one saying that the North Atlantic Drift of Warm Water, or whatever they call it now, is shutting down, bringing us a climate similar to Siberia and making northern Europe uninhabitable.  The other said that the latest El Nino event would mean we are heading for the hottest period in recorded history, with drought, fires and extreme weather phenomena.  Certainly something is happening and we will have to adapt or die.  Our own little experiment leans towards the drought and extreme phenomena - for the fourth year in a row the beast (the cristophine vine) is back and looking stronger than ever.  This is essentially a tropical plant, living its best life in rural North West France!

I've got a busy and exciting week ahead of me - I hope I will be feeling up to doing a blog next Sunday, otherwise you will have to wait for Monday!

Have a good week!

All change!

Last Sunday, having spent a few very damp and rather cool hours manning a bar for the village trout fishing day, I complained about the wet.  Today, I am tucked away in my office area, wearing shorts, t-shirt and no socks, trying to keep cool as outside temperatures rise to something like 33 degrees.  It is sunny, hot and dry and worthy of a summer's day in July and yet it is only May.  Climate change is a thing, people!

This morning we were early at the Shack, so that I could do some strimming and John a bit of mowing - there are summer crops to get into the ground, but you've got to be able to get near the beds and ground, and the rampant weeds made that impossible.  John made a nice path around the Meadow so that we can walk around in shorts and not worry too much about ticks, although they will always be an issue thanks to the deer we share the area with.

The wildflower Meadow is looking magnificent at the moment, with pink clover, knapweed, ox eye daisies and other plants vying for the attention of pollinating insects.  The area hums with buzzing and crickets and grasshoppers and there are butterflies around too.  Today I saw meadow browns, a red admiral or two, a peacock and a swallowtail.  Along the side of the path I spotted my first bee orchid of the season, but couldn't find it again when I went to photograph it.  I did spot a very fine lizard orchid though.

It's only in the last couple of years that we have also had pyramid orchids in the Orchard, and once John had done a path through there I spotted these two beauties.

So I have confirmed sightings of three different species of wild orchid chez nous - good, but not as good as a garden we keep an eye on, where I found four species of orchid in bloom.  The same three as us (pyramid, lizard and bee) as well as the rather more rare fly orchid - or at least that is what we call it!

Very similar in concept to the bee orchid, the "body" of the flower resembles a fly rather than a bee, and so is rather less pretty.

My evening watering and walking activity is now blessed with strong perfumes from the honeysuckle hedge of a neighbour and another neighbour's magnificent fragrant mock orange bush, which is nearing its peak at the moment.  In addition the swallows, swifts and black redstarts make a racket as I go around the pots and planters.  It's a hard job, but someone has to do it!!

Well, with the computer producing heat, my office is becoming less appealing as a retreat from the blazing sun, so I will leave you with a photo of a small but very fragrant rose I bought from Aldi (other discount stores are available) a few years ago.  It only flowers once each year, so I have to ensure I enjoy it while in bloom.

Have a good week!

The bee man came

Following on from last week, when I had to post quicky and close down in order to be ready for the bee man, just 20 minutes after posting, he arrived, with an apprentice, to sort out our swarm.  The bees were well enough behaved that I was not at all fussed to sit and watch from the safe distance of 15 yards or so, as the guys identified the swarm, had a word with them and judged them to be a friendly and sweet swarm.

With my permission, they cut off the branch of apple tree that held the swarm, and knocked it all into a spare nuc (that's a small hive for collecting bees to you and me), getting as many in as they could.  The guy then explained to me that he was hopeful that the queen was in the hive.  She would inspect it, and if it was to her liking, then all the workers would mass around her in the hive by nightfall.  He would come back at dusk and take them away.  With a very Gallic shrug, he said that if she liked the hive, all would be well, but if she didn't, they would fly off somewhere else.

When I mooched past to have a look, they seemed happy enough to queue to get into the new hive, and were making very little noise, so I assumed that the hive passed muster.  We heard the bee man come and collect them at about 10pm, leaving a pot of honey on our back doorstep as he went.  This was a kind gesture, but you don't pay beekeepers to take a swarm away; they are only too happy to get a nice new colony.  This is particularly the case this year, as so many hives were lost last year to Asian hornets.  The fact that I am an active Asian Hornet Trapper might have helped too I guess!  Anyway, a couple of days later, I got a message to say "my" bees were very happy and the Queen was doing her thing.  Along with a nice regal portrait of herself.

Our hornet trapping is doing well finally.  We have caught some 4 or 5 in the garden at home, while the trap in the Orchard, and situated under acacia trees is positively crawling with them.  It is very hard to count how many we have trapped there, but I am pretty sure we are up to at least 9.  I can see why the last week has been so successful, the scent of acacia blossom is so heavy, pungent and full of nectar-promise.  So strong indeed that it killed my sinuses and I am having an evil reaction to it!

This week included the 1st May - International Workers' Day - the most closely observed bank holiday in the French calendar.  So much so, that there have been questions in the Chamber and Senate as to whether bakers and florists can open on the 1st, even with staff paid double time and time off in lieu, as the right to not work on International Workers' Day is enshrined in law.  It was a ridiculously hot political potato this year.  The question about florists is a bit weird to the British, but it is also a tradition to give a small bunch of lily of the valley to friends and relatives on the 1st May, and if you don't grow your own, where do you get them?  We don't have them in the house as cats are allergic, but it is a nice tradition.  I found some growing in a garden to photograph.

Despite what I said about people not working on May Day, our local pub had a band in on Friday night - a flamenco duet, singing in Spanish.

They started quite early for France, at about 9:15pm, so old folks like us weren't too inconvenienced for staying for the second set, where they were joined on a few songs by a couple of local musicians on double bass and on acoustic guitar.  It was fascinating to watch how the two extra musicians adapted to the style of the music and jammed most effectively, given they can have had very limited practice time beforehand.  For those in the know, yes, that is indeed Pierrot of the local punkabilly band D-Track.

I will go off on a popular hobby horse of mine here.  The bar and the live music were a wonderful evening of community getting together and having a great time.  The quality of musicianship was excellent, the bar staff were running around, providing quality food and drink, but also able to enjoy the music and ambiance.  This is what life is about!  It has to be encouraged and supported, because if it isn't, then venues like this disappear, and music becomes the anodyne mush that is churned out by the mile on TicTok and other media.  If there is something going on near you, go out to it and enjoy, or one day when you want to go out, there won't be anything to go to!

End of rant.

While sitting and watching the bee man, I was protected by one of my chickens - Mac the Knife.  She is now probably a bit over 5 years old now, but still provides an egg 6 days out of 7, and is looking particularly fine after a gentle moult.

May is a month of bank holidays - we've had one so far, the 1st, but we have another three to go.  Friday 8th is Victory in Europe day, which is taken pretty seriously in Europe, then the 14th is Ascension (a Thursday, so most take the Friday too and make a very long weekend of it), and finally Monday 25th is Whitsun.  Not much gets done in May, a bit like December in the UK really.  However i will be back next Sunday, with more tales of life in France, probably quite a bit that is uncomplimentary about the French tax filing system, unless I am pleasantly surprised!

Have a good week!

Waiting for the bee man

That sounds a bit ominous doesn't it?  We have a swarm of bees in the garden, tucked into one of the apple trees and by a pesky area of bramble that needs to be sorted out (obviously not at the moment though).  When I went into the garden at 2pm to put laundry out, there was a lot, and I mean a lot, of angry buzzing and loads of bees flying around the tree.  By 3pm, they had all settled into a nice tight lump tucked in the back of the apple tree.  This is as good a photo as I could get.

Fortunately I know people, so made a call or two and shortly a nice sounding man will come to claim the swarm and take it away to a good home.  Much as I would love a hive or two of bees, we can't have them in the garden as we are too close to habitations, while the Meadow and Orchard have badgers and boar who think hives are a sitting smorgasbord of food.

This won't be a long blog as I will have to leap to deal with the bee man when he comes.

During the week I visited the village down the road which has a great restaurant - it was a very good lunch with a bunch of ladies.  I did take a bit of time to look at the twisted spire on the church there - very much contrived by local craftsmen wanting to show off how clever they are.

Less obvious, but just as interesting are the faces carved under the roof line - I'm sure there is a proper name, but it isn't gargoyle, as there are no rain spouts related to them.

And another lot.

It is slightly oxymoronic to say it, but the late spring flowers are much too early this year.  Lily of the valley is effectively over, and wisteria is fading fast.  The first flush of irises are long gone, but some of my fancier ones are still going strong.

The red hot pokers definitely should not be out at the moment, but here they are  in all their glory.  It is going to be a weird year I think for flowers, fruit and other produce.

No sign of the bee orchids yet, but they are always hard to spot at first.  Perhaps they will headline next week's blog.  Anyway, I had better go and be ready to greet the bee man.

Have a good week!