That's Christmas done for another year

That was a rather different one!  Talking to my brother on Boxing Day, he thought that I had experienced a White Christmas before, but as I would have been between 2 and 5 (he wasn't sure which), I wouldn't have remembered it.  The weather forecast was really quite accurate for once, and when John got up in the early hours, he came back to bed muttering about it snowing.  When we got up, everything was covered in a covering of white, except the road, which was rather magical.  My first White Christmas.  Even better, by the time we were ready to go out to do stuff, it had mostly thawed.

The sun came out and we were able to do our favourite ritual for Christmas.  Once we had fed the Boys in the Country, we walked from there to the One Acre Wood, where we beat the bounds and then offered a Yuletide drink to the big oak, the King of the Forest.  There wasn't much snow in the wood, but it had settled on the log bench and someone had been to visit.  We don't think it was a cat, as there aren't any houses close by, but wondered if it was a pine marten.  Whoever it was, was long gone by the time we were there.

Because we had a modicum of faith in the weather forecast, I dug up the Christmas vegetables on Christmas Eve - two parsnips, one of which was particularly fine, a bunch of carrots, some potatoes and a couple of white radish.  They were delicious roasted on Christmas evening with a duck. and there are more to be roasted tomorrow to make a thick and rich mid-winter soup.

The cold has settled in now, and the past few days have been sunny but raw with a wind from the East.  Checking round the Orchard yesterday, I was followed by a very rotund robin, fluffed up against the cold, but waiting to see if I fell over so he could have a feast of human flesh.  The Blue and Great Tits are all over the fat balls we put out for them, and today I installed my Christmas present to myself - a bird feeder with wildlife camera included.  It will remain in place until late March or early April, depending on the weather, at which point I stop putting out food as Nature provides.

Of course it is not just fat robins you find in trees at this time of year and in this weather.  Rebus likes to be in charge of the garden, but the snowy and frosty ground is not totally to his taste.  He therefore supervised me dealing with laundry from the potentially warmer safety of the pear tree.

It is the time of year for mindlessly scrolling through drivel on smartphones, but you do spot the occasional nugget of interest.  I saw a recipe for eggs - they called them poached, but I think they are more baked - which I just had to try as we are still overly well supplied with eggs.  You whisk up the whites with a bit of salt until they are really stiff, then you put cooking parchment on a baking tray and using those very cheffy rings, make towers of egg white.  In the top of each you make a shallow dent and place carefully an egg yolk, then cover that with finely grated cheese of your choosing, plus a bit of pepper and salt to taste.  You bake them in a preheated oven (in my case to Gas Mark 5) for about 5 minutes and they are done, and really very tasty - a sort of savoury Iles Flottant.

They should  have been prettier, but I couldn't find my stainless steel chef's rings!

So that is it for 2025, but i will review the year properly next week.  Enjoy your celebrations and stay warm!

To quote - "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"

There are decorations everywhere in the towns and villages and the last Christmas Fairs are taking place this weekend in the smaller locations.  The big Christmas Fairs in major cities will carry on for a while yet, but the ones that last a weekend are nearly over.  During the week, we went back to Chinon and saw their decorations at night - we assume that they get a bit of a bung from the nuclear power plant close by and will have a bit of cash in the coffers after hosting both men's and women's Tour de France in the summer.  The Place Mirabeau looks like something out a Disney film, it is so pretty.

Santa and chums are in the main square near the Mairie, overlooked by the Chateau and its floodlights.

 Last weekend we enjoyed the Christmas Fair at Chinon, with its food and craft stalls.  The first weekend of Advent, we went to a small local Christmas Fair in the barns attached to a local market garden and direct sales shop.  That was enchanting as the venue was a bit different, the stalls were clearly run by the people who produced the things for sale, and there was a lovely mixture of things to nibble, decorations and affordable presents.  Today we went to our last Fair of the season and found it rather disappointing - there are only so many woollen scarves and fake pashminas, leather wallets and handbags, and crystal necklaces and bracelets that can be gawped at.  Few were produced locally although the vendors had shops in the department.  The wines weren't particularly local, and only three of the food vendors were very much of the area.  It is also difficult to create a festive atmosphere in what is essentially a concert hall.  Perhaps the most disappointing of the three.

Having been snide about the provenance of some of the goodies on sale today, the cats' Christmas treats turned up from China this week - a sunflower for when a collar of shame is required, and a "golden snitch" for when Rebus needs exercise.  The latter has already produced hours of fun and exercise for a boy cat.

It is tricky being an over-energetic cat at this time of year, as the days are so short (although they get longer from today - yey!).  I discovered Rebus likes to guard the chickens when they are eating - I guess when they stop stuffing their beaks he runs away, as they are quite aggressive towards cats!

And on that note, I will wrap up for today.  Tomorrow we are moving into the 21st Century with fibreoptic internet, assuming all goes well.  If it doesn't, we are back to the happy days of dial up I fear.  Experiences of the switch over vary, and I am hopeful that we have managed to stagger the pain, by changing internet box before the line changes so that any problems can be clearly identified as the line and not the box.  I've supervised one installation for a chum, which went smoothly, but you hear such horror stories...  Wish us luck!

And in any case, Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Getting busy!

While we are aiming for a very quiet Christmas, the run up is anything but, with friends over from the UK, a group Christmas lunch, a Children in Need raffle and wine and cheese party, and other less festive events too.  Yesterday we were in Chinon for a bit of DIY and beer purchasing, but in order to get to the brewery, we had to go via the centre of town, which was in full Christmas Market mode.  There were all the usual suspects - food stalls, crafts, smelly things, Santa, too many people - but there was also a novelty, an Arctic Queen and her retinue of arctic foxes!

 

These amazing puppets and their attendant dancers came from Paris and spread a bit of enchantment through the town.  After dark, they were part of the main parade and the foxes were lit up within so they glowed, but we didn't stay to see that.  It was a lovely interlude.

After my chuntering last weekend, on Monday we had a lovely, sunny morning, so the golden leaves on the apple tree looked a lot more appealing.

Tuesday afternoon was dedicated to dealing with firewood, including bringing back from the One Acre Wood the stashes of logs and branches we had left standing around to dry.  The cyclamen flowers are now all over, but the next joy is looking to see where there are cyclamen corms developing, particularly new ones self-seeded from the existing plants.  Sometimes it is hard to distinguish the young leaves from ivy leaves, but this new plant is very clear.

Thursday afternoon was spent waiting for and then observing the work of a water company employee at the house of a friend in Fougere.  I'll not bore you with the works, but while that was going on, I went for a bit of a walk and found the village lavoir or wash house.  Most villages around here still have these, fed by a local stream or spring, and while not used for their original purpose, they are a carefully preserved bit of village heritage.  The doorway and cross beams were too low for me to stand comfortably, a clear sign that I am taller than the average peasant lady of 100 years ago.  I should add that I can remember seeing people using a lavoir not so far away when I was a child aged 6 or 7.

With the year coming to an end, it was only right that we stripped the village float of its disguise for the 2025 Comice, ready to design and build its new get up for 2026.  It was a happy band of 7 of us that attacked the task with gusto on Friday - another lovely day - and were able to clear it of everything apart from the wooden structure of the fireplace.  We'll leave that for the new year.

Friday was indeed another lovely day, and we were able to work in the hangar with no heating and little padding.  It is way too warm at the moment, after a few days of frost at the end of November.  As evidence, there were flowers on the Fergus memorial rose!

Next week is another packed week, ending with the Bauge en Anjou Christmas Fair.  Sadly I don't think we will have giant fox puppets dancing around the town, but there are sure to be lights, hot drinks, stalls full of crafts and tat and things that are far too sweet for me nowadays.  I will finish with a final fox picture, and wish you a good week ahead.

Winter birds in the zone

I checked my phone thoroughly and could only find 2 photos not of cats for this week's blog.  That is late autumn and early winter for you - grey skies, mud, dead leaves and murk.  A possible light in all that gloom are the yellow leaves hanging on to the Belle de Boskoop apple tree in the garden, although even they find it hard to shine against a wet Sunday morning!

This does raise a question of how I am going to cope as we move further into winter and particularly that singularly most depressing month of the year, February!

To be fair, much of the current mongs are related to the fact that we are nearing the shortest day of the year.  I was pottering around this morning at 8:15am and it was still dark.  It's not too bright now at 3:40pm and will be dark by 5pm, and still "they" steal a few minutes of daylight each day and for another couple of weeks to come.  

Instead I turn my attention to the avian life at the place in the country, where each visit I try to do at least 2 10 minute recordings of bird song with identification on the Merlin App from Cornell Laboratories.  Sometimes I get 3 or 4 recordings.  I then record on a spreadsheet (because I LOVE spreadsheets) who is around on each day - in part I do this as an argument for keeping our area free of development (unlikely in any case, but ...), as the diversity is amazing.

So far this month, we have four bird varieties that have been heard every time.  The first is the Chaffinch - ubiquitous through most of the year round us and particularly strident at the moment.  My records show that they are resident all year round making a noise.  I should point out that none of the following bird photos are mine, they all come from iStock.

The second of my permanent residents is the much loved long-tailed tit.  There is a colony that hangs out on the land and perhaps I am lucky, but I normally get to watch a mob of them pass through most visits.  I think they are adorable.  They make a nice twittering noise when they are around, which is instantly recognisable.

The third is the great tit, and I am really pleased we are home to so many of these fellows, as they are one of two species that have adapted to become predators of the non-native, invasive, and dangerous, pine processionary caterpillar.  Actually I even encourage them into the area by hanging up fat balls and coir bells stuffed with lard and seeds to keep them interested in the area.

The final one of this year's big four hasn't been so frequently spotted in previous years, but again, as I encourage them with nesting boxes and fat balls, perhaps I am succeeding in getting them to think of the area as home.  The blue tit has a less appealing song than the other two tits, in fact it is very strident and harsh, but I guess they do that to make themselves out to be more dangerous than they are.  They are the other predator of the pine processionary.  I think this stock photo came from a different website.

Normally the robin would be a daily visitor, but I didn't spot any today.  To be fair we weren't there too long as it was raining and the hunters were out and way too close to the garden for comfort or safety.  

I am a great fan of the Merlin app, but I would be careful about taking it all too literally sometimes.  It is convinced we have a bittern living just down the hill and while that would be lovely, I am more inclined to believe the app is being fooled by a recalcitrant bit of agricultural machinery.

Let's hope next week is more exciting, or I will have to tell you about the next tier of most observed birds!

Have a good week!

 

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!