Writing Home

Bertie ...

2012-01-25T16:51:00.001+01:00

... is standing on my mouse mat and pawing the key board, which is now covered in fine clay dust.

Blocking my view of the screen, he arches his back, yawns, then licks his lips - all polite terrier conversation. He reaches across and delicately steals an empty Lidl's chocolate wrapper that I've scrunched up and left on my desk.

I nuzzle his soft blonde fur which smells of outdoors and wet grass. His dark eyes, rimmed by thick pale lashes, are on a distant horizon through the window behind my desk.

He thinks I should be paying attention to him and not blogging.

It's nearly his supper time.

Oh I have had such fun ...

2012-01-18T20:34:00.003+01:00

... searching for sites for my four remaining Liebster Awards.

One blog already on my list was Dirty Feet and Rubble in My Hair about renovating a property in the Haute Vienne. I have huge admiration for people who are self-building here in France and not only doing it themselves but also finding time to write entertaining blogs about it. I'll continue to follow Roz and Neil's adventures with interest. The suggestion for this blog came courtesy of Fly in the Web who writes two absolutely splendid blogs - French Leave and Costa Rica Calling; full of her gently sardonic well-observed humour. In fact I see she also has received the Liebster Award for her Costa Rican Blog. Well deserved and thank you for your suggestion Fly.

Someone else whose blog taste I trust is Pamela Terry who writes so elegantly From the House of Edward. It was she who led me to the story of Wilf, the Polish Lowland Sheepdog written by Angus from France Profonde somewhere in the direction of Toulouse. So I turned (as I have done in the past) to Pamela's blogroll to see what treasures I might find. Many of her choices are already very well-known and not appropriate for this award, but then I came across The Wind and the Wellies about life on Orkney. I am fascinated about parts of the world where I feel people are living "on the edge" (for a time I followed someone in Nova Scotia) - all that weather and sea! The blog is splendidly and amusingly written and photographed by (coyly named) Orkneyflowers. I'm going to enjoy following her story and give her the Liebster Award with pleasure.

One of the key things for me in following someone else's blog is that it should be well-written. I love people who can use language well and who believe good writing in blogland matters; those whose skill is in reaching for an interesting word or a well-turned phrase that captures an image or conveys an emotion. Keith of A Taste of Garlic keeps an eye out for new blogs on France and so I spent a couple of hours wandering through his reviews thinking this might be a place where I would find bloggers who deserve a larger following. It was here that I found Victoria Corby. I've chosen her not so much for that fact that she's in France, but because she writes well. And because she writes well about writing. That pleases me. And because I admire the fact that she is writing, whereas I just talk about it. Ah me. I will continue to follow Victoria with admiration.

And my final choice, is one from my own treasure trove: Au Fond du Jardin. I suspect Natalie has more than the required number of followers to be eligible for this award, but she does not tell us, so I am offering it to her anyway. I love her evocative paintings and photographs of her mountain countryside. If we were starting afresh in our search for somewhere to live in France we too would be drawn to the splendour of the Pyrenees. Natalie's blog gives me the opportunity to get a glimpse from time to time of that wonderful world.

Serendipity

2012-01-16T16:35:00.004+01:00

When I first discovered this thing called blogging, I used to spend hours going from blog to blog, following other people's choices. It was such fun, but also soaked up so much time that nowadays I tend just to check in to the blogs I know and like. But I also pay attention when these writers and photographers whose work I respect suggest a particular site to visit.

And now with the Liebster award, I need to find my five to recommend. And here's my first: The Living Isle, written by Rob about the natural world on the Isle of Wight, a place that holds for me such happy memories of childhood holidays and has always seemed a slightly "other-worldly" place.

Rob also has another new blog, The Off Cut, which was recommended a few days ago by Phil Gates a botanist at Durham University and Guardian Country Diary writer whose site - Cabinet of Curiosities - I love. Phil doesn't need the award, he already has an extensive following, but it would be lovely to see Rob's sites reaching a wider audience.

Both of Rob's blogs are beautifully written and illustrated. If I hadn't been given this award I probably wouldn't have noticed them. I'm glad I've found them.

A touch of serendipity.

The Dress

2012-01-15T23:16:00.000+01:00

Back in the 1970s I bought the most magical of garments - an Ossie Clark evening dress.

Lovingly kept all these years I wore it last night to the Winter Ball and for a few brief hours I felt young and beautiful again.

Photographer: Keith Buchan. Photos taken some time in the early 1970s

Dearest, Liebster

2012-01-15T17:12:00.000+01:00

Perpetua, who drops in for a chat from time to time and writes Perpetually in Transit - a gentle blog about being a retired priest, sharing her life with DH (Dear Husband), DD (Dear Daughter) and DS (Dear Son) and the joys of living in three countries, including France - has kindly given me the Liebster Blog award. A way of sharing our discoveries across this amazing blogosphere, the idea of the award is to highlight five blogs that we enjoy, especially ones with fewer than 200 followers and to share them here.

Thank you Perpetua and now it's my turn.

My challenge though, is that most of the ones I follow have many hundreds, if not thousands, of followers and are well-established. And a couple which I would have chosen I see have already been awarded. :)

So I'm asking for help please. If you have favourite blogs that you feel deserve to be known more widely, please could you drop me some suggestions, then I can go exploring. Thank you.

It's more than time I added to my "treasure trove".

Grey Days

2012-01-14T10:17:00.001+01:00

(As usual) I leave late for the Friday morning photography group up at Eymet and I speed across empty countryside in the Batmobile, racing to get there on time. Just me and the mist, as the road swoops up the hills to the small bastide villages, each hidden in its blanket of grey cloud, then down again onto the plain between, where roadside trees loom out of the swirling cold drizzle.

Our mild winter has disappeared and the cottage heating struggles to keep us warm against the dank weather. In the evening we huddle on the sofa - human, dog, human, dog - and watch bad movies and much-repeated favourite shows.

Late at night, as I walk Vita and Bertie down to the stream, my breath wafts in the light of the torch, caught white against a myriad moving grey droplets. We cannot see beyond the edge of the torchlight and we are alone in the world.

The best place to be

Countdown to a Quiet New Year

2012-01-01T14:04:00.005+01:00

Ten thirty pm: Tod takes his broken shoulder off to bed early.

Eleven pm: I walk the dogs down to the stream in drizzly rain in the dark. A few distant pops and bangs and flashes of red and blue come from one of the houses high on the ridge behind us. They're starting celebrations early.

Eleven thirty pm: The dogs take themselves off to bed and I start to watch a silly Goldie Hawn movie with a glass of something slightly sweet from a bottle that's been opened in the fridge for ages - seems ok.

Midnight: Bertie starts barking on the landing at more distant bangs. I hush him not to disturb Tod. I wonder about waiting to see London's firework display on TV at one o'clock, but decide not to bother.

One am: Bertie is up and barking again - yet more distant bangs and crashes - perhaps our neighbours are celebrating a British New Year? Tod briefly wakes for a New Year kiss and sleepily asks what time it is.

One thirty am: Most of us are asleep.

May 2012 be peaceful and happy for all of us. May our fears be unfounded and our hopes be fulfilled.

London Fireworks: from BBC

A Christmas to Remember

2011-12-26T15:53:00.005+01:00

Remembering childhood Christmases that followed the Polish tradition, Tod likes to see the decorations go up on Christmas Eve. This year, I persuaded him to let me put them up for the winter solstice. No holly yet (our bushes are still tiny) I find plenty of ivy to cut and dead branches of twisted willow that I spray gold and hang with small crimson baubles.

Bertie races across the fields around, nose to the ground, tail wagging frantically as he imagines small furry beasties beneath every clod of clay. Periodically he checks in with me as I gather handfuls of honeysuckle, the last of the roses coming into bloom, branches of viburnum tinus with its bundles of tiny white and pink flowers and straight bright red stems of cornus.

I am spoilt on Christmas Eve as Tod prepares our special Polish supper: borscht, monkfish in a bouillabaisse that fills the kitchen with sweet oriental aromas, a fruit macedoine, with crème anglaise (custard to you and me) and stollen cake and panettone to finish.

While he cooks, I escape into town and hunt for images for the latest photographic competitions on The France Forum – people queuing for mussels in the market, piles of small, ripe tangerines, sun on the Garonne in full flood – all the images in my head far better than those I capture through the camera.

Christmas Day we spend with friends and relish the banter and companionship, the good food and the good wine. Perhaps a tad too much wine? Late in the evening, while I head down to the stream with Bertie, Tod ventures forth with Vita on a lead (she has hurt her back pad and cannot walk far). I return to find that, in the dark, torchless and following Vita, he’s tripped over the remnant of the tobacco barn wall that juts out into the lawn and is lying in agony on the sofa.

Dreading A&E on Christmas Day night and expecting to be hours, I fill a bag with water bottle, books to read and a box of biscuits. Tod slumped in misery in the passenger seat, shivering with the shock of the pain, wrapped in a blanket, I drive as fast as I dare the half hour to Marmande, to enter a crisp, white world of tranquillity, speed and supreme efficiency, coupled with a touch of Christmas celebration as those on duty wander round in red Santa hats. The X-ray shows a broken right collar bone, and he is strapped tightly into a Velcro sling and given a prescription for shed loads of pain killers and anti-inflammatories. We’re back home quicker than I could possibly imagine – the books and the biscuits not needed.

Boxing Day, and he’s dozing and watching daytime TV – from the raucous music and squeaky voices floating up to where I type this, I’m guessing a nostalgic American musical.

He was humming earlier. Whilst not the best of ways to end Christmas Day, I think he’ll live!

Enough

2011-12-15T00:30:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, just sometimes ...

While looking down at the soapy washing up water;
Or sniffling over a sliced onion on the pan-scorched chopping board;
Or waiting while the checkout girl and the customer in front chat as if they have all day ...

I wonder: "Is this it?
I used to think there would be more."

But then ...

On a wet night, boots squelching through mud and long grass,
Throat-catching drift of wood smoke from a distant farm,
Dogs running at the edge of the torchlight, noses to the ground, tails high ...

I know that this is enough.

Dithering

2011-12-11T21:08:00.000+01:00

We've been talking for ages about having a vegetable garden - but where?

The best place physically is probably on the bank at the edge of the field behind the shed with the corrugated iron roof that we bought from Serge. It's roughly half way between the cottage and the house, so wherever we are living it's not too far to walk to get fresh veg. It's a good sunny position too with no overhanging trees and reasonably close to the underground water tank down at the cottage.

But it's also a sandstone outcrop, the soil isn't good and the veg wouldn't thrive there. So it would mean making raised beds of quite some height to give the plants a good root depth before they hit the sandstone. And the beds would need filling with earth from elsewhere, which all begins to sound like hard work. I don't do "hard work" if I can help it.

The alternative location is up by the house at the back, alongside what I laughingly call "the orchard" - two elderly plum trees, a suspect mirabelle, a sour cherry and a doubtful perry pear tree. At the moment the possible veg garden is a lawn. The soil is good and it's sheltered from the north by the wood store and the east by the house. But there's a large silk tree shading it and the old fosse septique tank is still underground in the middle. Also, it's as far away as you can get from the cottage, so a trek for any friend staying there who thinks: "great I'll just go and pick a few French beans for lunch". And they probably wouldn't anyway, because they would be entering what they would think of as "our" private space alongside the house.

On balance, the sandstone bank and raised beds is probably the better option.

Now is the time to be doing it - building the beds, filling them with soil and compost and deciding what goes where. But I'm still dithering. Maybe because the last time I had a veg patch I was working full time and the gardening just became a burden every evening and weekend. And I gave up. It's that "gave-up-ness" I can still feel.

Then there's the reason why we're considering it .... The media and the forums are full of anxiety about what is going to happen in the eurozone and what our world will be like in the future. Doomsday scenarios are being written and there is talk of needing to be self-sufficient when the financial and economic world collapses around us.... that doesn't seem to be a joyous and uplifting reason to have a veg patch.

Better to focus on the delicious River Cottage veg dishes I've been cooking and think how much nicer they will be when I can just walk outside and pick my own basketful of organic vegetables fresh.

The vegetable garden I had ... before I gave up

In Love

2011-11-29T13:24:00.004+01:00

I'm in love with a new cookery book.

It's true I've had special ones in the past...

Robert Carrier, so sophisticated for show-off dinner parties when I first started living in London. Some recipes so well used that the pages have split apart.

A brief fling with the Galloping Gourmet, but that didn't last long. His recipes haven't stood the test of time.

A somewhat daunting all 1,235 wafer-thin pages of Constance Spry, a luxurious Christmas present from my parents, much thumbed for ideas over many years, but often put aside in despair for something simpler.

And now - it's all too easy to reach for the internet. Pumpkin soup? Cheesecake? Pear and almond tart? Stuffed courgettes? Just google it.

No, this time it's different. A "hold in my hands, leave it on the kitchen table" recipe book I reach for, use and love every day.

I've always had a soft spot for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I like the way his cookery programmes link us back to where our food comes from and help us understand what the implications are if we choose to eat meat and fish. He shows us by example what it means to honour the food that we eat.

This year he has excelled himself with his new TV series and book: River Cottage veg every day.

As a would-be but lazy (and definitely not nut roast) vegetarian living with a carnivore who is prepared to humour me, I quickly run out of ideas for what to cook. So we ring the changes between vegetable curry, roast veg, an occasional vegetarian moussaka and (through summer) lots of salads and Italian antipasti. After a while, it gets very boring.

And then Hugh's new book appeared like the cavalry over the horizon, every recipe a joy - bursting with interesting combinations of flavours and textures. Even my carnivore is asking for more.

His salads are a revelation. My current favourite? Warm salad of rocket, mushrooms and roasted squash. Today my eye's been caught by carrot, orange and cashews (with a touch of cumin). Looks delicious.

I can see that this love affair is going to be a long relationship. And I'm sharing him. I've started buying copies for friends!

Must dash - got a salad to make.

The last but one ...

2011-11-26T13:40:00.001+01:00

... of our butternut squashes that grew on the bank behind the cottage, chopped up with some carrot and thrown in a big saucepan with lots of chicken stock and simmered vigorously while a diced onion, garlic and ginger are sweated down in butter; all to be added to the pot, plus chilli and black pepper, medium curry and a bayleaf; then whisked creamy smooth and back in the pan on the heat for two large dollops of crème fraîche to be stirred in.

Soup just right for a misty, chilly November lunchtime, together with Tod's sour dough rye bread.

We're thinking about moving back down to the cosiness of the cottage.

These Mellow Days

2011-11-13T14:38:00.000+01:00

This time last year we had already fled down to the cottage in search of warmth and comfort.

This year, we are still in our draughty old house, relishing the mild November days, leaving the kitchen door on to the veranda open so that the dogs can wander in and out at will. We sit outside, tea mugs in hand, faces turned to the sun. Too hot as I dig over a new bed where more roses will go, I strip off my sweater. The tomatoes on the vines behind the pool house continue to ripen and each morning there is a fresh flood of bright blue morning glory on the pergola at the back of the cottage.

These mellow November days are a gentle antidote to the fear and uncertainty around the world economic situation. Long may they continue.

Wet Weekend

2011-11-06T15:39:00.000+01:00

Not much going on.

Bertie has just been "done". Hence the hood and the carefully arranged T-shirt.

A Harvest and a Château Garden

2011-11-01T11:19:00.006+01:00

About ten days ago I helped with a harvest - of chasteberries, which grow on Vitex Agnus-Castus bushes. We have one in the garden at the back of the cottage. It has pretty blue flowers that in autumn give way to small, peppercorn sized berries used in herbal medicines.

The technique for harvesting is to have a large box or basket hung at waist height and to rub the flower heads between one's hands so that the berries fall off into the receptacle. A group of us worked our way steadily bush by bush across the fields high above the Garonne valley, chatting in French and English in the mild October sunlight.

The berries are so small and light it takes many bushes to make up a single barrow load. And the bushes (grown organically) are not uniformly productive. Some are satisfyingly laden and the berries drop in a rattling cascade into the boxes. Others, frustratingly have no more than a few fruit that have to be laboriously picked off.

Among our number was a local gardener, who, to my delight, turned out to be the creator of a medieval garden that enchants us attached to a château in the centre of Gontaud.

Over months, walking Vita round the village, we had peered over the high garden walls and peeked through ajar gates to marvel at the transformation, with trees uprooted, arbours planted, parterres dug. Passionate about his creation, he took us down into the village and in the late afternoon sunlight after we had finished harvesting, we wandered along formal pathways, among the roses, vines, herbs and vegetables while he recounted what he had done.

A beautiful end to a satisfying day.

It is clear that ...

2011-10-18T11:26:00.000+02:00

... we are not going to have a croquet lawn any time soon.

We Nearly Lost Him

2011-10-16T00:20:00.004+02:00

We were warned. The previous family who tried to adopt Bertie kept him for two days. They couldn't cope with his "escaping".

But we, of course, thought we knew better. He loves the garden and he explores the edge of Serge's field, with no inclination to head for the middle, keeping close to us and the house, burying his nose into the long grass in the ditch, snuffling in search of small creatures. So Tod said it was alright to leave him off the lead as we all went down to the cottage to close the shutters and keep in the warmth.

I watched the two of them disappear into the hot border, tails up, noses to the ground. And I briefly turned my back. The next I knew, Bertie was half way across Monsieur F's ploughed field with Vita in his wake. But that was fine. The set-aside strip beyond would keep him distracted, he'd lingered over the enticing smells there this morning. So I called him and quickened my pace as I set out to catch up with them.

By the time I got onto the beginning of the set-aside strip, Bertie was half way along it and now moving at a fast trot down to the stream. I broke into a run, if nothing else I had to keep him in sight. Once at the stream he could cross and I would lose him.

Wriggling with excitement, he bounded into the long grass on the bank followed by Vita. I shouted back to the cottage for Tod and kept running. By the time I was at the stream they were disappearing round the curve that edges Philippe's field. By now I was frantically calling both of them, conscious that yelling "Bertie come" meant nothing to him. He was "Spok" at the rescue and heaven knows what other name a few days ago. And with the echo across the valley, how would he know which way my voice was coming from?

I reached the ditch that runs into the stream on the far side of Philippe's field. Vita was coursing up and down the bank looking for him and I thought I heard him in the gloom of the trees on the other side. I ran on, heading for a grass causeway that crosses the stream and up into the woods, trying to see him on the other bank. By now the light was fading and I dreaded losing him in the dark. And still no sign of Tod.

Then briefly, with the causeway in sight, he reappeared in the other side, tail up, hunting. Vita saw him and dashed forwards and both of them were gone. There were so many ways they could have taken, up through the woods, or across the fields, or back along the stream. My calling became more despairing and frantic. I'd now lost both dogs.

Then suddenly, in my despair, realising there was no point in going on calling him (he couldn't and wouldn't understand) I began to make puppy whimpering noises, hoping they were near enough to hear. It worked like magic! Vita raced towards me from out of the woods and as I made a fuss of her, there he was. I kept whimpering and he came up and sat at my feet. With no lead, I swept him up and puffing and panting we all headed home.

Half way back we met an anxious Tod following our steps on the other side of the stream. Vacuuming up cluster flies in the cottage he'd heard none of my frantic calls and only belatedly realised we were all missing.

As I carried Bertie in my arms he looked so pleased with himself. He'd had a great adventure.

We have a new ...

2011-10-14T22:14:00.008+02:00

... member of the family - Spok who from now onwards wants to be known as Bertie.

I saw a photo of him on Total France forum - just another of so many abandoned dogs in France - with his nose pressed against the wires of his cage and his bright intelligent eyes.

He came home with us today from Cahors canine rescue, grumbling gently from the back of the car because he was in a cage (just in case) and not on the back seat with Vita.

A feisty terrier with a good bit of wired haired fox and I'm not sure what else, he's completely unfazed by the classic Airedale approach to friendship which involves taking another dog's head in your mouth (which is why his fur is a bit damp in the fourth photo) along with a good bit of body barging.

I think Bertie is going to be top dog - he's already appropriated Vita's bed and she's let him. He's marched his way through all the flower beds in search of lizards, shrews and mice. He settled under the table for supper and has made himself thoroughly at home.

He's sleeping at my feet as I type this.

New Slimline Vita

2011-10-09T12:11:00.002+02:00

Airedales are a deceptive shape. Their supposedly "non-moulting" fur goes Rastafarian if left to grow too long and they finish up looking like a fat fluffy bear. But underneath they are slim - which is why Airedales that have been in the water look awful - fat furry body on top of thin spindly wet legs.

But keeping their fur under control is challenging. There are whole websites and magazine articles dedicated to the art of keeping an Airedale looking beautiful. Vita dislikes the noise of the expensive electric clippers that I bought when I realised that going for grooming was too much for Smudge. He didn't mind, he couldn't hear them, but Vita runs off, tail between legs, because the noise is associated with vets doing nasty things. So I bought a Coat King which shifts great mounds of grey fluff from her coat. She gets bored and wanders off, or resents the tugs from the comb as I pull through her tangles, so we don't get very far.

Dog grooming parlours in town are designed for the small yappy things on strings that the French keep in their apartments and walk in the park. Dogs the size of Vita are meant to be used for the hunt and chained up in a kennel during the week - no grooming for them. So the grooming tables are tiny and one is supposed to lift the dog onto them. Trying to lift an Airedale onto a high wobbly grooming table when she doesn't want to be there at all - legs flying all over the place - is an interesting experience.

So I'd given up on the idea of getting her groomed here in France and thought I'll just struggle on with the Coat King and maybe one day I might get her back to the UK to Liz who did such wonderful things for our other Airedales.

But then I was watching Little England a series of programmes on ITV about the "joys" of being English and living in the Dordogne and there she was - Julia, in Eymet, only half an hour away - with her Shampoochien dog parlour, grooming her Springers who obviously adore her.

So off we went and Vita's come back with a new slimline sleek look. Like our other Airedales after they've been clipped, she's been madly chasing round the house and garden like a six-month puppy, feeling the wind against her skin. Her back is like black velvet.

She sat on the bed last night barking at the new, strange dog reflected in the glass of the French window.

Unusual Saturday Morning

2011-10-08T11:00:00.002+02:00

In the early morning mist our valley is silent - no sound of hunters' guns or dogs.

On the drive into town there are few cars.

The market is half-empty. Women stand around and chat in small groups.

The bars are packed.

Ah!

France is playing England in the Rugby World Cup and winning!.

At the tail end of this Indian summer ...

2011-10-05T23:46:00.002+02:00

... we set off optimistically for Arcachon and the sea in thick early morning mist. Even at lunchtime, as we wandered in search of a reasonably priced lunch menu, the day stayed stubbornly overcast and the beach towels and swimwear were left unwanted in the car parked in some remote side street.

But gradually, the clouds thinned and the sun broke through and in the early afternoon we strolled to the front and took it in turns to walk barefoot across the soft fine sand and dip our toes in the chilly water while the other kept Vita on the lead on the edge of the promenade.

No dogs allowed on this smart town beach.

She found an oyster shell to play with. Next time we'll take her to Cap Feret and the crashing Atlantic rollers, where we can all enjoy sand and sea together.

The First of October ...

2011-10-01T21:45:00.002+02:00

... and the temperature in the shade on the veranda is twenty-eight degrees Celsius (over eighty degrees Fahrenheit).

The pool looks inviting.

Yesterday evening we went to our favourite crêperie in Clairac for the last time this year. We sat in the courtyard in the candle light feeling the heat radiating from the high old stone walls and enjoying the banter among the owner's friends. She closes every year on September 30th and opens on April 1st. She told us this was the first time in the sixteen years she's been there that her customers have been able to sit out in the warmth at the end of September.

We wished her Happy Christmas and told her we would be back next year.

Tomatoes

2011-09-24T17:57:00.001+02:00

I have grown tomatoes before - though not very successfully - in pots. I think I just got bored with them.

So I thought I knew what I was letting myself in for when Eric and Phoebe offered us a few plants. Two cherry, two "green" and one plum.

The border behind the pool house seemed like a good place - facing south, with a warm sheltering wall. There were already a couple of hydrangeas in the border, but that didn't seem to be a problem as my recollection of growing tomatoes in the UK was that they didn't grow very big. To begin with they didn't. The weather was dry and hot and I fretted about their not getting enough water, so I rigged up hose pipes and tried to remember to water them most evenings.

Being behind the pool house, I can't see them from the house. So although I know about pinching out the side shoots, I found it was easy to forget about them. By the time I remembered and after several bouts of rain, I suddenly found that I had a tomato forest. Not just side shoots, but side shoots of side shoots and all of them with flowers on, so it seemed a shame to pinch them out.

I am now buying canes by the dozen to support the heavy laden branches and I'm scouring the internet for recipes for tomato chutney and instructions on how to freeze them for winter. And somewhere behind the forest there are two hydrangea plants struggling to grow.

Mind you, it's so satisfying bringing in a bowlful of just-picked, I grew this myself, sun-filled fruit for supper.

Trip to Nîmes

2011-09-19T10:59:00.005+02:00

We started well! Vita had been sick over night (too many over-ripe figs?) and continued to throw up as we drove along the motorway heading for Toulouse. As between "episodes" her tail was up and wagging, we decided to press on. After a couple of unscheduled stops she finally calmed down and curled up asleep and content on the back seat.

We've become real country bumpkins, used to our quiet lanes and empty villages. Our side of France, tourists have long gone, but in the hot, dry south of Provence the French, Americans, Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, English and Japanese are still in holiday mood and milling round the star attractions.

So we visited Aigues-Mortes, Arles, Avignon, Les Baux, the Roman aqueduct of Pont du Gard and Saintes Maries de La Mer in the Carmargue along with the world and his wife and his dog. We ate exotic flavoured ice creams (lemon meringue pie the favourite), strolling with the throng window shopping, marvelling at the number of street cafes and restaurants (how could they all stay in business?) and trying to take in a bit of history and scenery along the way. Next time we'll come "out of season" (if there is such a thing).

Our hotel, with its individual houses and three swimming pools nestling among oleander bushes, was our place of sanctuary and good food.

In the brisk wind, the swimming pools and the Med, were too cold to do more than dip toes into, despite the heat of the days. We've become soft and spoilt with our own warm pool on "our" side of France.

Aigues-Mortes

Arles

Les Baux

Our Hotel outside Nîmes

Palace of the Popes - Avignon

Pont du Gard

Saintes Maires de La Mer

Street Scenes

Link:
Our hotel: L'Enclos des Lauriers Roses

Moonlight

2011-09-13T23:49:00.002+02:00

The moon is just past full. In the silver light I walk down to the cottage to turn off the hose to the butternut squashes and a white bobtail gleams and vanishes as a rabbit dashes across the lawn in front of me. An owl, hunting low, swoops below me - a glint of great wings and then gone.

Later, putting the rubbish out for tomorrow's collection, Vita and I walk up the chemin alongside Monsieur F's field to the ridge road. No torch is needed as the moonlit white chalk of the hardcore marks our way. The dry pale leaves of the maize rustle in the night wind appearing and disappearing as they catch the moonbeams.

Across the valley half way up the hill where someone is slowly clearing and restoring the land, the old unused polytunnel glows in the reflected light of the moon. In the dark, its gleaming long low shape looks like a distant train waiting at a station..

The cows in the field beyond the stream went earlier in the summer, but three are now back. Their distant bells accompany us as we walk up the hill to the road.

Storm Cloud at Sunset

2011-09-02T23:22:00.000+02:00

From the posts on the forums today, seems like half of South West France was watching this storm cloud yesterday evening. It was like something out of a science fiction film, with constant lightning flashes within the cloud.

We had a few drops of rain from it and then it slowly passed north and east of us. Today has been hot and sticky and more storms are promised for tonight and tomorrow. Let's hope the next one passes overhead. We could do with a good downpour.

The End of August

2011-08-30T21:55:00.001+02:00

The long-dead sad, black drooped-over heads of the sunflowers have all been harvested and the first of the maize fields up on the ridge behind us is now just stubble.

The sound of distant thunder is the noise of grain lorries along the ridge road, racing back empty from the co-operative to the fields for the next load.

Philippe - who hopped off his tractor to introduce himself a few weeks back, saying he was our "neighbour" and that his parents used to live in the house across Serge's field with the same lieu-dit name as ours and although he doesn't live in the house he still farms the surrounding land - is out in the warm sunshine ploughing.

Saturday evening we went to the last of DejaVu's rock gigs for this year at Le Mas d'Agenais, under the high tiled roof of the old town market place. The local restaurateur had decided it was the end of the season and there were few tables out and no food being served, so we stood around in small huddles and shouted small talk at each other over the noise of the band. There was little dancing and several of us slipped away early.

Sunday morning Tod and Vita walked to the sounds of distant gunfire up in the woodland on the other side of the valley. The hunting season has almost started and catalogues drop into our letter box with pictures of fierce men in camouflage.

Although the days are warm, the early mornings start crisp and weeding the new flower bed at the back of the cottage first thing, I've been wearing a gilet over a long-sleeved T-shirt - to be shed later as the sun moves round and I wander back to the house, eating fresh-picked squidgy sweet smelling figs for breakfast on the way.

I try to prolong the flowers on the rose bushes by dead-heading, but the hips are forming fast and the ones I miss are turning bright red.

The butternut squash plants that Eric and Phoebe gave us are rampaging across the bank behind the cottage. Planted late after we got back from Poland they've been slow to start producing, but the first of the crop is now a chubby figure of eight, turning yellow and with the promise of winter soups and roast veg.

We're hoping to hold on to summer a little longer. We're off to Nîmes next week for a few days exploring and I may get to dip my toes in the Med while Tod and Vita sit in a café on the waterfront watching the world go by.

Links:
DejaVu rock band

Shooting Star

2011-08-20T13:34:00.004+02:00

This is the time of year for the Perseid meteors. Wikipedia tells me they are debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle and that they are so-called because the point they appear to come from lies in the Perseus constellation.

I had never heard of them in the UK. But then with all the pollution and light-spill at night in South East England I doubt they would have been visible.

The first year we were here, we took the batmobile up to the ridge behind us and lay back with the roof open star-gazing. It's all too easy to begin to imagine things in the velvet black with so many stars overhead. Tiny, momentary pin pricks of light - are they actually meteors or just our eyes playing tricks?

This year has not been a good one for seeing them. The moon has been full through the peak viewing time and the sky has not been dark enough. But the moon has been rising later and later and last night, walking back up from the cottage after watering the new "hot border", I needed the torch to see where I was going.

The Plough (one of the few constellations I recognise) hung huge and low in the northern sky, straight above our chemin rural. It looked as if I could walk right up to it.

And then I saw it! A shooting star. A long slow fall across the sky, in front of The Plough and over the roof of our house. No doubt about it.

Maybe I should have made a wish, but I didn't need to. It had already been granted.

Links:
Wikipedia article on Perseids
Photo of this year's meteors from Mike Long taken in the Hautes Alpes - article here

Housework

2011-08-10T14:51:00.006+02:00

I notice the dangly cobwebs under the chairs on the veranda and walk on, in the hope that someone else (in this two-person home of just him and me) will get the dustpan and brush and sweep them away.

Miramont - Bastid'art

2011-08-09T09:36:00.003+02:00

High summer and festivities in full swing, Guccio's owner and I amble through Miramont on Saturday afternoon taking in acrobats, jugglers, street musicians, a luscious red fruit sorbet piled with cream and gossip with friends. The day ends with moules, frites and cheap rosé under a thunderous, rainbowed evening sky.

Links:
Batuc'fada - the samba band Miramont

Sernik - Polish Cheesecake

2011-07-28T00:02:00.003+02:00

I've finally cracked it! Today I made a proper Polish cheesecake.

The cheesecakes we had in Poland were wonderful - light, full of flavour and not too sweet.

Tod bakes a great cheesecake, but his recipe is American, has lashings of sour cream on top and is very rich. It also comes with a biscuit crumb base, whereas many of the cakes in Poland have no base.

Over the last few weeks, I've been trying various Polish recipes from the internet, but each time the cheesecake looked great as it emerged from the oven - like a soufflé - but then collapsed as it cooled.

But today's sernik was perfect. The trick I've discovered is to bake the cake at a much lower temperature than most recipes suggest and for much longer and not to over-beat the egg white.

So here's my recipe for the perfect Polish cheesecake....

Ingredients:

- Five eggs - separated
- About a kilo of cottage cheese (here in France I use Faisselle which is very wet, so I strain two kilos of it overnight through muslin, which brings the weight down to about a kilo in total)
- 70 gm caster sugar
- 110 gm butter
- 70 gm sultanas (some recipes suggest soaking the sultanas in brandy)
- one tablespoon of potato flour
- one tablespoon vanilla essence
- zest of one lemon

Beat the sugar and butter until nice and creamy. Add the egg yolks one at a time still beating the mixture.
Add the strained cheese to the butter/egg mixture and beat to a smooth texture.
Add the sultanas, potato flour, vanilla essence and lemon zest and beat again.

In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until they are just stiff (but don't go on any longer) and then fold the beaten egg whites into the cheese/egg mixture. Spoon the mixture into a buttered and flour-dusted cake tin.

I use a nine inch diameter cake tin with deep sides and a removable base. I butter and flour-dust the sides and bottom and then line the sides with a double layer of baking parchment.

Most recipes suggest baking at 180°C or even hotter for about 40-50 minutes and this is where I found the frothy mixture rose too much and too quickly and then collapsed. So I now bake at 140-150°C for about 90-100 minutes until the top is just beginning to brown and feels springy to the touch. I also leave the cake in the oven to cool.

It's a struggle to get a French bottle gas oven cool enough and the settings are not subtle, so I have the regulo just below "1" and put the cake tin on the middle shelf on two layers of newspaper and have a tin of water in the bottom of the oven. This slows down the whole baking process, means the cake rises more slowly and stays risen and light. And tastes great!

Magical

2011-07-24T12:11:00.001+02:00

Tango in the night. On a cold July evening in Bordeaux, under the Monument aux Girondins.

Vita Helps with the Cooking

2011-07-19T14:51:00.004+02:00

Vita lays at my feet, head to one side and resting on her left paw, as I peel the charred and sticky skins off the roasted peppers. They'll be marinaded in lemon juice to mingle with the red oily sweet tasting juice.

She watches as I turn the sizzling aubergine in the hot oil. Coated with a dash of chilli flakes, cumin, coriander, balsamic vinegar and honey, the slices turn satisfyingly soft and translucent with a crisp outside.

The French beans (her favourite) steamed and lightly fried in butter and crushed garlic are ready and cooling on the window-ledge.

Tod has the finely shredded carrot and sliced mushrooms bubbling gently in something orange and alcoholic on the stove.

The pastry case has been blind baked, waiting on the kitchen table for its creamy contents of beaten eggs, butter, sugar, shredded coconut and pineapple, to be cooked to a golden brown and eaten this evening with crème anglaise.

In previous summers we would have been setting the table on the veranda for our dinner guests but this evening we will be indoors.

As another squall of cold rain tears across the garden from the north west, over the tops of Monsieur F's maize, battering plants in its wake, Tod reminds me of all the prayers for wet weather by gardeners throughout France and says: "Be careful what you wish for."

With all the wonderful smells above her head, Vita's wishing that something will fall earthwards.

Offspring

2011-07-10T23:23:00.000+02:00

We have two bats. We've always had two bats in the four years that we've lived here. Well there was a brief period at the beginning when we thought we had only one, until we saw the two together.

Then late yesterday evening, while filling the watering can in the near-dark, against the still pale western sky I saw four bats playing above the wood store - two normal bat-sized bats and two small, with that slightly anxious fluttery motion like baby birds: "Look Mum, I can fly!" I think we have a bat family.

I walk towards the open garage and suddenly there's a loud cheep and a scuttling noise. A baby redstart peers at me from behind the spokes of the bicycle wheel next to the empty gas canister. His mother flutters and clucks at me from the top of the garage door that we now keep permanently open until her brood has flown. As we do with the doors into what one day will be our hallway, but at the moment is the nesting place for another redstart who has (at last count) four fledglings in there peering down at us from the rafters. This is the second lot that she's had in there. We really do need to manage our wildlife better.

Tod comes back from his early walk with Vita on the lead. He's seen three black kittens in the mown field next to ours. I watch anxiously as the mother hunts through the stubble - her jet black body visible for miles against the pale straw - she and her family a target for every buzzard and crow.

Then this evening, I see with some trepidation (the French can be brutal to feral cats) the young farmer's wife from the cottage two fields over walk down the valley to where they are playing. She kneels down and taking off her jacket gathers up the small black balls of fluff, cuddling them as she does so. Husband and friends arrive to help and they all walk slowly back home, mother cat running alongside. I think the kittens will be safe.

So Vita can walk off the lead again; just as long as we keep her away from the open garage and entrance hall for a few more days.

Sunflower Summer

2011-07-10T09:53:00.004+02:00

Some years, there are just a few of them, the odd patch here and there. This year, they are everywhere, to delight the eye and warm the heart.

The Batmobile's been Googled!

2011-06-27T00:39:00.000+02:00

Earlier this year, on a bright spring day, off to a book club lunch I think, with the hood down on the batmobile, I breezed up to the cross-roads in Grateloup. Coming towards us from the other side of the junction was a Google car with cameras on its roof, which flashed as we met.

From time to time I've idly wondered, in passing, whether the batmobile's image was there on Google but thought we're so rural here, they won't bother. Yesterday, checking out a route on Google maps, I saw the little orange figure and decided to see if I could make him stand on the Grateloup cross roads. He did. Up came the images of the centre of the village. And there's the batmobile - on Google!

If I'd known, I would have had my hair done!

Canicule: "Whew what a Scorcher"

2011-06-26T13:40:00.001+02:00

Twenty-three degrees at eight- thirty this morning and I'm struggling to get the drip system for the new hedge to work properly.

Crouched on my knees among brittle thistles, I make more holes in the black tubing for the watering attachments alongside each small plant. Water runs through the hose and it squirts and spits at me soaking my shorts as I work. In the hard bleached sunlight the occasional soaking refreshes.

Buzzards and kites hunt across Serge's stripped wheat fields. The combines worked late into the evening through the week and he followed one night with the baler - chug, chug, thump, thump, clang, clang - the bales now left scattered through the bone-dry stubble.

With the promise of temperatures in the upper thirties this afternoon, we open up the pool. But it's too hot to linger so we retreat to the cool of the kitchen to sample the hazelnut and apricot tart I made last night. Something in the meld of flavours clashes slightly, but we take a second piece, just to make sure. Next time I'll try the hazelnut with pears and chocolate.

Typing this, I glance up to see Monsieur F trundle past on his tractor, bouncing down the slope between his field and our small orchard.

Moments later I hear the gentle swish-swish, swish-swish of the water canon across the maize as it rustles in the scorching wind.

"D'Artagnan's" House?

2011-06-20T13:06:00.003+02:00

Vita has been to visit her cousin Brando at a grand seventeenth century fortified house.

When Airedales play, they play hard, which can be daunting for other dogs. But put two Airedales together and the barging and play-biting weight for weight is glorious fun.

They roar round the garden and house for three hours, stopping every so often to flop by us, tongues hanging out, joyous grins on their faces.

We are there to learn more about the house with our friends who have a château and are knowledgeable about old buildings. Brando's owners are aiming to sell their house (reluctantly) and are interested in understanding its history before they leave.

Local legend has it that the house was owned at one time by Charles de Batz whose life was fictionalised as D'Artagnan in Dumas' The Three Musketeers. What fun for the owners - to live in a house that may have been occupied by D'Artagnan!

Links:
More about "D'Artagnan's" house
Our friends' château

Vita plonks herself down ...

2011-06-18T11:04:00.002+02:00

... right on top of where I'm weeding out the couch grass from the gravel in front of the small wall that Eric has built to edge the bank up to what will one day be our front entrance.

She's been startled by a gust of wind and has come for reassurance.

On hands and knees, I work round her and, warm against my leg, she lies back watching the swallows as they dive above our heads.

The sun is struggling to break through the clouds. In the half-sunlight her normally dull brown fur glows deep gold.

Just in Time

2011-06-06T22:51:00.001+02:00

The météo promised rain this week. Nothing new about that. They've been promising rain for weeks. But this time it felt different. Maybe because several days of rain were shown. Maybe because the little thunder clouds on the chart didn't slip away to nothing as the days went by. They stayed stubbornly in place. Maybe because we have friends coming to stay this week - a sure sign that the weather will break.

And there's the almost empty leaky water tank sitting there with its muddy puddle in the bottom. And if it's going to start raining again, surely now's the time to make it waterproof.

We found a large sheet of black plastic at a reasonable price in our local Gamm Vert. Tod said we ought to line the walls and floor first so that the plastic didn't tear on the concrete. We wandered round looking for something that would do and not break the bank and he noticed some trousers that might fit and I fretted about the black thunder clouds I could see piling up through the shop windows. We settled for big bags of hamster bedding for the floor and bubble wrap for the walls and didn't buy the trousers. Then, at home, we realised we could use the summer pool cover that we were about to throw out because its blue bubbles were dropping off and floating around in the swimming pool and clogging the filter.

The tank is just over three meters square and one point two meters deep. One point two meters is just about my chest height. So climbing down into the tank, I have to stoop and turn my head sideways. I feel like Alice in Wonderland when she eats the cake and grows so large her head hits the ceiling. We pump as much of the muddy puddle out as possible, but there's still some left. I drill holes in the concrete and fix up wooden battens to hold the black plastic and worry about electricity and water. The blue pool cover is stapled to the battens and Tod rakes the hamster bedding out over the floor - the tank almost looks cosy.

I try to unfold the eight by six meter black plastic sheeting on the cottage lawn as the thunder, wind and rain start in earnest. At this point there is no going back. We have to get the liner in situ before the rain starts collecting on the roof and running along the guttering and down the drain pipes and into the water tank. I fight with the black liner in the tank and the liner keeps winning. It's like trying to wrap a parcel, but from the inside. I'm on my knees crawling round in the hamster bedding. Water is now coming down the drain pipes and dripping into the tank. We put a bucket there to catch the flow. I finally staple the liner to the battens and beat a strategic retreat. The liner will hold over night. I'll finish tomorrow. As I walk back to the house, my trousers are soaked and clinging to my thighs - it's like putting on a wet cold swimming costume. I just want to be in the warm and dry.

The first time it's rained in weeks - the rain I've been praying for - and I'm wishing it would stop!

May has disappeared...

2011-05-29T21:57:00.004+02:00

... in long, hot rainless days of gardening, and cleaning and ridding the cottage of our winter muddle so it's ready for friends this summer. And watering, more watering and yet more watering. This was not the year to plant a hot border, a hundred meter hedge and over a dozen young trees. Hose pipes snake across the field and filled watering cans sit ready to grab at the sight of a wilting tree or shrub.

Our huge underground water tank has been a bitter disappointment. In eager anticipation, following serious discussions in our local brico on which pump, piping and attachments we would need, we opened the tank to find no more than a muddy puddle in the bottom. All the captured rain of the last two winters has leaked through the concrete walls. We did not realise - our builders should have lined the tank to keep it waterproof. So with much gnashing of teeth and frustrated swearing, yet more evenings have been spent dragging hose pipes and lugging heavy cans.

We left our house, spotless cottage, trees, freshly planted pots and shrubs and Vita in the care of Gucio (elderly sad-eyed Spinone - he who hates thunder storms) and his master (who promised faithfully to water) while we slipped away to Poland for a week.

I expected grey post-communism and found vibrancy and colour, beautiful old churches and historic, cafe-filled town centres. We drove from nearly down south (Cracow) to nearly up north (Gdansk), sight-see-ed 'til we dropped, ate like lords on traditional Polish dishes, stayed in elegant hotels, window-shopped in modern shopping centres, had afternoon tea with mouthwatering Polish cheesecake and took our lives into our hands as we played "chicken" with oncoming motorists past convoys of lorries nose to tail on busy, pot-holed single carriageways, while wishing that the miles of motorway under construction alongside were already finished.

We came back late (after a long drive from the airport north of Paris) to the warm dark of the French countryside, filled with the sound of crickets and frogs, to thriving plants and a dog who barely said "where've you been?" before she rushed off again to find her best playmate. We sat on the veranda and gossiped into the night.

As Sinatra sings: "It's oh so nice to go trav'ling, but it's so much nicer to come home."

Wroclaw town centre

Cracow roof tops

Cracow - Basilica of the Virgin Mary

Wawel Castle, Cracow - Ancient Seat of Polish Kings

Carving in rock salt by miners - Wieliczka mine

Poznan Town Centre

Poznan Baroque Church

Gdansk - Baltic Agate

Gdansk Street Musicians

Gdansk Woodland

Cafe Nightlife

Gucio and the thunder storms

Nothing. Not a Drop

2011-05-03T11:30:00.005+02:00

The météo promised a thunder storm yesterday. Little flashing symbols were shown on the chart for our area from about 11pm onwards.

Great, we need a good downpour. I think it's rained twice in the whole month of April.

We had seen the promise of last night's rain on the graph for several days, so we thought it was a good moment (while things were still dry) to dislodge ourselves from the comfort of the cottage and move back into the house. The First of May was spent trudging backwards and forwards with television, clothes, food, bedding, all our computer paraphernalia, bits of furniture. Vita thought there was a danger we might forget to move her as well and so spent all day hurtling up and down the drive trying to make sure she was with us at all times.

As the day wore on we watched huge anvils of thunder clouds bank up on the horizon and congratulated ourselves on our prescience. It would be a relief not to have to water, dragging hose pipes (probably strictly forbidden) across the field to water the hedge and the new trees and lugging watering can after watering can round the flower beds as I try to catch which shrubs are beginning to wilt. Most look remarkably healthy. Amazing since the ground is rock hard and the only way any water gets through is via the cracks opening up in the clay. Vita and Tod return with bone-dry feet from their early morning through-the-long-grass walks.

For the last two nights, we've had the faint rumbles of thunder and seen distant lightning flickering. Someone's getting the rain promised on the météo, but we've had nothing. Not a drop! So the water butt stays empty and I turn on the tap again.

We have a huge underground concrete tank down at the cottage holding two winters' rain water. There is a small square concrete "lid" with two rusty hooks as handles and no means of getting the water out. Making use of the water has felt like a daunting task, but it's time to sort out pumps and hoses and connections. There's only "light rain" promised for this week and and no guarantee we'll actually get what's forecast.

Five Summers, Not Five Minutes

2011-04-14T11:36:00.002+02:00

I'm an impatient gardener.

I want the ideas I have in my head translated to reality NOW. And with the minimum of effort on my part. I sigh when I look at all the jobs I have to do and how slow progress seems to be with all my various "projects" - most of them only half done.

Sometimes Nature just reminds me: all that is needed is time for the vision to become reality.

When we arrived five summers ago, there was a scrubby, stubby bush to one side of the lawn smothered in weeds. Full of dead or dying wood, it didn't look much. There were a few reddish sticks with variegated leaves which helped me identify that it was a feeble cornus. So each spring I cut back the older stems, trimmed back the grass and weeds to let it breathe, dug out more of the dead stumps.

The bush is now at the centre of what will be a new bed of roses and wild orchids, with a small nectarine tree to one side.

This morning, as I walked back across the lawn towards the new bed, I suddenly realised: the scrubby, stubby old bush looks beautiful. Her silvery variegated leaves gleam in the morning sunlight. Her red stems are long and straight and every tip holds a cluster of soon-to-be-opened flower buds.

It has taken five summers for her to reveal her full glory.

I walk ...

2011-04-09T09:11:00.000+02:00

... to the sound of cuckoos and nightingales, eyes squinting against the low early morning sun, Vita a dark shape running ahead through the dew-silvered grass.

Feels like August, not April

2011-04-08T23:27:00.003+02:00

We turn off the underfloor heating and open all the cottage doors and windows to try to catch a cooling breeze.

As I make supper, I watch Monsieur F planting his maize in the late afternoon sun. His tractor kicks up dust and turns just beyond our lawn. We wave companionably to each other.

Black redstarts blunder in through open doors looking for nesting places and have to be coaxed gently out again, into the heat.

I wander up to the house to hunt for summer T-shirts and light weight trousers. All my clothes in the cottage are meant for chilly days.

Nightingales sing in the shade of the woodland by the stream.

We open up the swimming pool, turning back the winter cover to reveal clear water. Good. As the temperature rises there is a risk that the pool goes green, but not this year.

Late spring flowers burst into colour and then fade too quickly.

We talk about moving back up to the house. Suddenly its cool rooms and shady veranda feel welcoming.

Extreme Weeding

2011-04-04T11:17:00.001+02:00

Weeding bores me. The day to day tidy here, tidy there, type of gardening doesn't interest me. Apart from anything else, all the weeds are back again the day after tomorrow, so it has to be done again.

But extreme weeding is different. That's really satisfying. The "nose down, crawling forward inch by inch, sore back and knees, weeds are taller than I am" type of weeding is really satisfying.

And this has been the week for it. Rain every day and then Friday and Saturday glorious sunshine. So our sticky clay soil is still moist round the roots and an expert flick with the pronged weeding thingy and dandelions, couch grass, thistles, dock, and self-seeded rape are out of the ground in no time.

When we restored the cottage, the first task of the builders was to drive a hard surfaced road down what was a grass-covered green lane. In the brambles on the edge of Serge's field we found abandoned concrete telegraph poles and these were dragged forward and laid flat, end to end, to make a sharp edge to the new road. Through winter the weeds have been spreading over and through the concrete creating grassy mounds splashed with the gold of dandelion and buttercup flowers - a green carpet steadily spreading back out across the road surface. The green lane is re-establishing itself. Friends suggest using weed killer. But this offends my organic sensibilities. I'm tempted to leave it, but know that that would annoy Tod. So the weeds (at least here) have got to go.

Oh the satisfaction of standing up to ease an aching back and turning round to see behind me that weed-free clean edge of the concrete post nestling in the grit and pebbles at the side of the road! Never mind that there's another seventy metres of road edge weeding still to do in front of me. Extreme weeding rocks!

Spring Forward

2011-03-27T09:07:00.004+02:00

After a week of endless sunshine, we put the clocks forward last night and we've woken to a rain-pouring, grey cold day.

We've friends coming to lunch and we decided it would be a good moment to have the meal up at the house. We'd imagined lounging on the veranda, replete, in the late afternoon sun. So we've been tidying the garden in their honour - mowing, weeding, strimming the edges. Now we're going to be huddling indoors in front of the Godin stove in the lounge and I have wellington-booted, back of the neck dripping journeys to make backwards and forwards between house and cottage. I must go up there now and turn on the radiators to take the chill off the dining room and lounge.

Ah well! We need the rain. I met Monsieur et Madame M. (he who sells us his wood) in Leclercs earlier in the week and they were shaking their heads at the weather, saying it was too warm and too dry. It will be good for the new grass we've seeded and the young bushes and trees we've planted. Just a shame that our guests won't be seeing them.

Slow Gardening

2011-03-21T23:48:00.003+01:00

The sun has long disappeared behind the ridge of Monsieur F's field, but by the pale blue of the evening sky I can still see enough to tug at the brittle dry stems of fat hen and heave out yet more builders' rubble from the edge of the cottage lawn.

Here is where I want to make a "hot" border: yellows and deep oranges and clashing reds; dogwoods dug up from elsewhere in the garden and transplanted to add structure between the scattered seeds of achillea, marigolds, echinacea, dark poppies and hollyhocks and golden sunflowers to echo those planted in distant fields.

Vita stands on the edge of the bank, nose to the ground waiting for the scurrying of small rodents. When bored she comes offering to dig where I am working.

In my mind's eye I can see the border finished, full of colour in the heat of a late summer's afternoon. For now though, it's just Vita and I on a muddy weed-covered bank in the fading light of a spring evening.

Here's Some I took Earlier

2011-03-17T11:01:00.000+01:00

The weather's gone cold and wet again. So a reminder of some previous Spring days ...

The weather gods have smiled ...

2011-03-07T11:53:00.027+01:00

... and the chill first few days of March have been replaced by clear blue skies.

We garden, make a bonfire, sit on the terrace beside the cottage and soak up the warmth.

I open up the shutters of the house and throw wide the French windows of the lounge to let sun-filled air seep into its dark, dank interior.

Yesterday afternoon, engrossed in making a flower bed behind the pool house Eric built last spring, digging out the dandelions and couch grass tucked between the stems of the hydrangeas I planted in the autumn, I hear their distant cry. Way to the south, too far and too high to see clearly, I can just make out a hint of smoke grey moving against the grey-blue sky - cranes!

Wave after wave of them over two hours. Moving north and east in the late afternoon sun.

And then, finally, one group comes out of the west, high above our fields. They find a thermal and for ten minutes we watch their ballet, as, calling to each other, they wheel and turn, climbing higher and higher on the warm air before heading away towards the north again.

The beginning of March ....

2011-03-01T18:19:00.005+01:00

... always has a bite to it.

In February we're lulled into a false sense that spring has sprung. Then suddenly the bright sunny days disappear, the wind picks up and we huddle back indoors.

Sixty thousand cranes set off from Spain this morning and I'd hoped to see some of them passing us this afternoon, but the clouds are too low and there's a leaden dull look not just to the sky but to the whole countryside.

No French lesson this afternoon and little reason to be outside, but feeling stuffy from too much time in front of the computer I dragged myself out and met bemused men in dayglow jackets wandering around our drive. From the electricity board, they were forlornly looking for ways to get their truck and equipment across our field to the pylon in the middle of the field beyond. I got all the French practice I needed as we discussed ditches and slopes and bridges and whether they could get along the bottom of Monsieur F's field (non).

I watched somewhat nervously as they all piled into the back of the truck and launched it at the muddy, weedy patch that one day we will call our "park". Keeping to the edge by Serge's land they skirted the bottom between the newly planted baby hedge (which is doing well, lots of tiny buds appearing) and the ditch. Then taking a sharp left off our field the truck heaved up over the grassy bridge crossing the ditch and lumbered down the grass verge of the next field towards the pylon.

After much shouted discussion, two clambered the metal frame disappearing up into the late afternoon gloom. In the sharp north wind, it must have been cold at the top. It was pretty chilly down on the ground watching them. And no sign of the cranes. So I came back indoors.

Summer's Coming

2011-02-14T17:50:00.002+01:00

A hundred cranes high overhead in a perfect V formation against the watery blue of the late afternoon sky - flying due north.

Vita barks at their wild cries.

I stand looking up, breathing in the cold damp air and think of summer.

Link:
Crane migration: information and place to record your observations

Contentment

2011-02-07T18:15:00.000+01:00

Warm sunlight across the ploughed fields.

A small vanguard of cranes heading north.

A buttered piece of Tod's fresh-baked sour dough bread.

Making pie for supper from leftovers of yesterday's roast guinea fowl.

The kitchen French window open onto the terrace to let in the warmth.

Vita slowly pottering in and out, hoping for treats.

Vita's feeling better ...

2011-02-05T18:22:00.000+01:00

... she barked, for the first time in eight days.

Five in the Morning

2011-02-04T13:18:00.000+01:00

Vita pads slowly across the kitchen floor in the dark and noses my hand.

She lays at the bottom of my mattress and I stroke and massage her aching back and legs.

This is how she heals.

Poison!

2011-02-01T21:18:00.000+01:00

On Friday evening our glorious, vibrant two year-old Airedale terrier Vita nearly died from eating the poison metaldehyde found in slug pellets.

She came into the kitchen as we were having supper and I noticed that her back legs were beginning to tremble. Within ten minutes she was thrashing on the floor. As I struggled to find a local vet who would come out Tod was yelling “come on, she’s dying”. I drove, breaking speed limits, as he held her in his arms while her legs kicked so hard her claws tore through the fabric on the back seat of the car. She was burning hot, her tongue lolled from her mouth, she gasped and panted and she poured saliva. Tod begged her to fight it and stay with us.

We sat in the car park at the vets waiting for him to arrive, terrified that every minute that passed increased the likelihood that she would die. She lay thrashing on the surgery floor as the vet calmly pumped her with anaesthetic – the only way to stop the seizures that were racking her body. He explained that her brain would go on firing but that with the anaesthetic her muscles would not respond. He also gave her a diuretic to push the poison out of her body as fast as possible. That night she stayed at the vets on a drip

Saturday we brought her home. Our strong, energetic dog could hardly move. She lay in her own urine, gasping for water, hardly able to raise her head to the bowl, her confused eyes half-closed. Her faeces were runny and black – a sign that they contained blood. I slept that night in the kitchen with her, every two hours giving her water to help rehydrate her and get the poison out. Sunday she was a little better, but still barely able to move, constantly soaking her bedding and turning her head away as we tried to persuade her to eat. We kept the washing machine running all day as we changed her towels, trying to keep her dry and comfortable.

Yesterday, at dawn, she was so weak I thought we were going to lose her. Then Tod carried her out onto the lawn and I watched in amazement as her tail went up and her nose went down. We applauded as she did her first wee standing upright and, like Bambi, front legs splayed, back legs bent and rickety, she made her first wobbly tentative steps. Breakfast was joyous as she wolfed down a small portion of chicken and vegetables.

She is still weak and her legs are everywhere. Short distances leave her panting and she's inclined to sit down abruptly. But she’s alive! And getting stronger. This evening she positively ran a few steps as Tod let her out in the dark before supper and he had to grab a torch to go after her - such joy!

We will have blood tests done in a couple of weeks to see what (if any) long-term damage has been done to her liver and kidneys and she will be supported in every way possible to help her heal.

We were fortunate. Metaldehyde / slug pellet poisoning can leave a dog blind. Her bright eyes watch us from where she lays on her mat in the kitchen. If it had been strychnine / mole poison or warfarin / rat poison, she would now be dead. If she had not come to us immediately and had instead lain down outside, she could have died. Metaldehyde kills in four hours from ingestion.

We have been naïve and careless. We are totally organic and have no poisons around our house or garden, but we let her roam. She is the best of terriers and (for a terrier) remarkably obedient. She comes when she’s called so she is not fenced in. She strays into our neighbouring farmers’ fields hunting small rodents.

On Thursday in the field next to us our neighbour had a hopper behind a tractor as he trundled backwards and forwards over the young green shoots of his winter wheat. On Friday about six in the evening I saw Vita on the edge of his field doing what terriers do best, digging, and thought nothing of it. By eight in the evening she was dying. I had assumed the hopper contained fertiliser, in fact it was pesticide to kill the slugs.

We have learnt the hard way. We will now fence her in and will have her on a lead as we cross our neighbours’ fields to protect her from poison so powerful that it takes no more than a mouthful to bring a young, active dog to death’s door. A poison that is being spread now (and every spring) across fields filled with the young seedlings of food that we, in turn, will eat.

It has been a hard and bitter lesson - but we also have the joy of a dog who is still alive.

The smallest of mice ...

2011-01-26T19:16:00.007+01:00

... darted from behind the television cables and disappeared under the base of the standard lamp.

So tiny and light it will dance across the traps I have set unharmed.

Secretly I am glad.

Washing a yellow pepper ...

2011-01-24T16:52:00.001+01:00

... I hold a piece of Spanish sunlight in my hand.

Antidote to Blue Monday

2011-01-19T14:00:00.001+01:00

Some worthy organisation has identified one of the Mondays in January as being the most depressing day of the year, brought on by excess during the Christmas period and January sales followed by dire weather, penury and failure to maintain New Year resolutions. Some think the date this year was Monday this week, others that it is next week.

Well, I can recommend planting a hedge as an excellent antidote.

Doing something with what was Serge's field and is now ours feels like an elephant task. It's a huge sweep of mud and weeds and random self-seeded crops. But gradually Tod has been mowing it and parts are now mainly grass and it begins to have the possibility that, one day, it will be parkland. So the elephant task begins to look more do-able and I've allowed myself to imagine where I might plant trees and hedges.

Garden centres in France are expensive. We have an excellent one near us, but I was looking at the prices of their hedging plants and small trees and reckoned I could afford about ten or at most twenty plants if I chose the cheapest - not nearly enough for the field. But then I was tidying up all the different websites that I'd book-marked and forgotten about and hadn't looked at in years and came across a French on-line gardening site link. And suddenly, I had the option of relatively cheap bare rooted hedging plants.

Ninety-seven small healthy twiggy plants with good fat root balls were delivered last week - a whole mix of country hedge plants: nut trees, spindle, blackthorn, holly, hornbeam, rowan and more. And thanks to the weather gods it's mild enough and the ground is warm enough for me to plant them. I've laid the strip of matting and started planting one small bush every metre. If this is too sparse, we've plenty of brambles, dogwood and elder going spare that we can use as infill. Vita sits in the bright sun and watches me work and occasionally wanders off to investigate intriguing smells in the surrounding farmland.

The hedge will run parallel with but not too close to the ditch on the far side of our field. I've left a wide strip of grass between the hedge and the ditch - about four metres wide - to allow Tod, Serge and the man who clears the ditches with his digger to easily manoeuvre their tractors.

Ninety-seven plants felt like lots. In fact they will only reach about half way along the field boundary. For the moment that will have to do. The next order from the on-line company will be for young black poplars. Every large French garden has to have its line of slim tall poplars throwing long shadows across the grass in the late afternoon sun.

PS: meant to post this earlier. The on-line company is Planfor. They have a well-designed site. One reason I like it so much: they have an English version as well as French. I went from English, via Latin to the French name. So Spindle is Euonymus europaeus in Latin which leads me to Fusain d'Europe in French. Really helpful.

Yesterday's sunset ...

2011-01-08T11:42:00.001+01:00

... painted the whole sky.

Mild Days

2011-01-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

I start work wearing a jacket but rapidly shed it as I battle with the brambles that have invaded the bank which borders the cottage lawn and descends to Monsieur F's field.

Last summer Phoebe and I dug out builders rubble, shifted earth and shaped ledges on the side of the bank ready for planting. But apart from a few tired irises and some wild mallow that I'm tolerating, I never completed the planting and the brambles crept back, their long tendrils running through and over the grass tussocks. No good just cutting them back again. This time I've got to dig them out.

Vita joins me, catlike, motionless with one paw raised and nose quivering as she waits for tiny furry things to move in the grass below the tall stems of the fat hen that we have left to die back - a haven for small birds and beasts and a hunting ground for hawks as well as Airedales.

I bring out my hot drink and sandwich and sit with my back to the cottage wall, squinting in the sun as I try to read. Vita, having had no success with her hunting, thinks it would be good if I share my lunch.

The Road along the Ridge

2011-01-02T21:37:00.001+01:00

Up behind our house the big field belonging to Monsieur F. climbs to a ridge. Here, running along the ridge is the narrow road that takes us towards town in one direction and in the other through small villages and the rolling countryside towards the Dordogne.

The road runs along the ridge between two valleys. Our valley is small, intimate, a stream in the bottom and each field, farmhouse, cottage and country lane known individually. Over the ridge, the other valley is vast, a sweeping landscape of villages, roads and farmland that stretches to the Garonne.

There are times on winter mornings when the mist lies in the two valleys and we drive into town on the ridge road bathed in sunlight.

Spurred on ...

2010-12-29T11:22:00.004+01:00

... by our glimpse of the Pyrenees at Laparade, we set off yesterday for Pau.

A new motorway (the A65) has just opened that goes from this side of Bordeaux down to the mountains and we'd been wanting to try it. Although we travel some way west along the A62 before joining the A65 to turn south, it is a much faster route than crossing the Landes directly on country roads.

The last time we went to Pau heavy cloud cover meant that, although they are only 30 kilometers away, we had no sight of the Pyrenees and we set off somewhat doubtfully yesterday under leaden skies wondering if we'd have the same experience again. But gradually as we travelled down, patches of blue broke through and we watched delightedly as the mountains slowly emerged. How could we not have seen these giants last time?

We arrived just after noon. No time to waste. A quick march with Vita along the Boulevard des Pyrénées past the Irish bar and the Australian bar to a proper French restaurant with a terrace that was rapidly filling up, where we could sit and bask in the sun, eat well and revel in the glorious backdrop. Vita, squeezed in at our feet alongside the narrow alleyway between the tables, was smiled at by most of the waiters as they rushed past and fed crispy duck skin by the man at the table opposite us.

With Christmas only just over and children not yet back at school, Pau was "en fête" in the warm sun, with a plastic skating rink and a huge blow-up toboggan run and a wonderfully girly two-storey roundabout with (appropriately) a solitary small female passenger in pink.

My photography does not do the mountains justice and they fade away against the light blue sky. Next time we'll stay longer - perhaps overnight - so I can catch their shapes lit up by the setting sun.

On a Clear Day

2010-12-27T13:35:00.001+01:00

The phone rang - it was Paul to say they could see the Pyrenees from their house but it wouldn't last long.

We grabbed dog, camera and warm clothes and dashed in the car up to Laparade which sits on a high escarpment overlooking the Lot valley.

There is a relief map at Laparade of the surrounding countryside showing small villages, the winding of the river and in the distance the hills on the other side of the Lot Valley. And, impossibly, beyond the range of hills we can see, the promise of a further view of the Pyrenees, about 190 kilometers away.

We take friends up there in summer and through the haze wave our arms vaguely and tell them that the Pyrenees are "over there" (somewhere). But we've never seen them. Until today.

There they were, no more than a hint of grey against the grey-blue sky - a bank of angular clouds up and beyond the far hills we recognise. A vast range stretching across the horizon.

We could see them, just, with the naked eye. My camera struggled - nothing on wide angle, but on zoom there is a hint.

We can now point when we take friends up there and say this is where we saw the Pyrenees at Christmas.

Boxing Day Walk

2010-12-27T13:05:00.000+01:00

A chilly bright day enticed us out for an afternoon walk along the canal. This time we went further afield and for longer - a nearly-two-hour hike from Damazan to Buzet and back.

Vita found a very fierce bollard that needed attacking, from behind the safety of Tod's legs.

The barge had a small car parked alongside and smoke coming from the chimney - some brave souls on the canal for Christmas.

And the tiny pleasure boats with their covering of leaves were a reminder of good things to come in the summer.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T12:53:00.003+01:00

Earthy beetroots and carrots gently cooling on the stove for tonight's borscht.
Monkfish, mushrooms and crème fraîche in the fridge ready for cooking.
Tod's home-made poppy seed cake and stollen on the side (already started, too good to wait).
Overnight snow slowly thawing on the fields.
Vita sitting guard by the front door in case the importunate blackbirds get too close.
The cottage snug and warm.

Tomorrow we spend the day with friends. This evening is just ours.

Frosty, Sunny Morning

2010-12-10T10:26:00.000+01:00

Bliss

2010-12-01T21:31:00.001+01:00

We've moved back into winter quarters - down in the cottage - and my feet are warm for the first time in what feels like weeks.

We struggled to keep the house heated as November became increasingly cold and wet. We created small pools of warmth - the kitchen, my study, the lounge (and even that became hard after I'd broken the Godin glass) - and scuttled between them across chill passages. We shut doors to keep the heat in and Vita (who easily opens latch doors) did not understand and wandered round opening them again pulling in icy draughts as she hunted us down to where we were huddling.

With the prospect of even colder weather, yesterday evening after our French lesson we fled to the cottage with duvets, chicken and the spice rack for curry supper, milk and cereals for breakfast, our computers and the Sky box.

Today, in biting wind we've trotted backwards and forwards carrying down winter clothes, books to read, cameras, extra shelving, the store cupboard and veg. Every time we come in through the cottage front door the warmth has enveloped us. Vita follows us contently from room to room - no shut doors to paw at.

We can look at the forecast with equanimity. We are promised snow.

Had Enough

2010-11-22T22:14:00.003+01:00

Shouted at the fire because it sulked and wouldn't start.

Slammed the Godin stove door shut and broke the glass.

Lounge full of acrid smoke.

Sulking logs that wouldn't burn in the stove are now blazing away out on the lawn.

Burnt the grass.

Vita's wisely gone off hunting.

Fortunately Tod's out.

I'll be alright tomorrow.

Vita's on a Diet

2010-11-18T18:03:00.000+01:00

We went to the vet's the other day for Vita's tick vaccination (after Smudge I'm taking no chances).

Her check-up included a reluctant moment on the scales (which are very scary). Even more scary, she's twenty-eight kilos! She was twenty-five a few months back. Even Clara, who was a BIG Airedale and everybody assumed was male, only reached twenty-eight.

It's true, Vita's been looking a bit podgy round the backside and cuddly along the middle - not much evidence of ribcage - but it was a shock to discover just how much she now weighs. So NO treats and only two chicken wingtips for breakfast and three for her evening meal. Which means between-times she hoovers up every crumb in sight.

It's a grey afternoon, cold and raining again, so stuck inside and a tad stir-crazy (where does that phrase come from?) I try to make nutella flapjacks without treacle (which I find makes them too sweet). The outcome is a resounding failure as the oats haven't really glued together. Still Tod will have some crunchy bits to mix with his breakfast cereal and the burnt nutella-ry bits of oat flake do taste rather good.

Vita's come to join me at the computer, front paws plonked on my lap, head across my keyboard, she's finishing the non-flapjack bits on my plate that I've missed.

Weather

2010-11-16T00:58:00.000+01:00

We're on the side of a valley. When the weather is from the west, as today, we can see rain coming long before it reaches us. Useful. Gives us time to get in the washing.

Look east and the sun's still shining ....

But not for much longer ...

Then behind the rain is more sunshine ...

And a spectacular rainbow. The crock of gold is in Serge's field.

A summer's day ....

2010-11-13T16:08:00.000+01:00

... has slipped through a crack in the seasons and appeared today as a gift after a week of November rain and wind.

We have friends coming to supper and we are serving autumnal butternut squash soup and beef stew. In the warm sunlight it feels like we should be serving salad.

A Finial

2010-11-03T11:16:00.001+01:00

Our house (somewhat unusually around here) has a pigeonnier - a dove cot - on the roof. And on top of the pigeonnier is something I now know to be a finial.

A finial finishes off the roof and may be pointed or round and sometimes is ornately decorated. Our finial is round and plain and we've never thought twice about it.

Martin has been filling the gap between the roof and pigeonnier where, when it rains hard from the east, it leaks down onto the veranda. He knows old buildings and tells us things about our house. Things we hardly notice suddenly become special. Like our finial. He showed us it's an upturned hand-made cooking pot, with the handle still intact. Not many finials like that!

Les Manifestations

2010-10-22T12:06:00.000+02:00

Students are taking to the city streets. Refineries are blockaded. Queues form at petrol stations. There's panic buying in the shops. The police move in at night to break up strikes. Friends in the UK wonder if we are stranded at home, running out of food. There are posts on the forums about whether or not to travel and whether it's possible to get petrol and fierce arguments about whether striking against raising the retirement age to 62 is "right".

Here though, in this rural backwater, we are surrounded by a placid normality.

Getting anxious from the news reports, I set out to fill up the car just before Tod came back from the UK. Ah, the joys of the French "lunch hour"! At 1.30pm I had the petrol station to myself.

Now, a few days on, it's true there are signs saying "no jerry cans" and we're careful to top up before the tank is half empty. We are more organised with our journeys into town (or at least a little bit). As everything is only ten minutes drive away it's all too easy just to pop in, whenever. But yesterday I set out with a car load for the municipal tip, instructions to check the tyre pressures, an empty gas bottle to change and a list for Leclercs, which was reassuringly empty of customers and full with goods.

On the way back I also took in the small garden centre that does cheap bedding plants in the hope that they might have something for the border I'm making behind the pool house. They were full to brimming with huge pots of chrysanthemums - nothing but great mounds of gold, rust, purple, in polytunnel after polytunnel - plants for La Toussaint (November 1st, All Saints Day) when France visits its dead friends and relations.

They say the petrol will have to be flowing by then.

This strange, magical world ...

2010-10-21T13:03:00.000+02:00

... of the internet.

People I have never met - never will meet - have become important to me through their words and images on a virtual page.

I smile when they are happy, cry when they are in pain and worry when they do not write.

Through these days I carry in my heart and in my thoughts Wilf, Angus and "the Font".

Wilf the PON discovers France

Thick mist ...

2010-10-15T15:01:00.000+02:00

... has lingered all morning. The house feels cold and damp.

Thermals for Vita's walk.

The fire alight in the lounge.

Home-made vegetable soup for lunch.

Three days ago I saw cranes heading south.

October on the Beach

2010-10-10T13:35:00.010+02:00

Vita and I dropped Tod off at Bordeaux airport yesterday (on his way back to the UK for a week) and headed west.

Look at a map and Bordeaux is near the sea. To get there though is a long haul through scruffy hinterland. Endless straight roads are bordered by sandy, scrubby tracks that veer off into the gloom between interminable rows of pine tree trunks. Tired hoardings advertise "PAINTBALL!" or the nearest collection of holiday "cabanes" that are many, many miles from a beach.

The road is only one lane in each direction and the French predilection for tail-gating means that we travel along in small packed convoys behind a battered Renault driven by an elderly man in a cap or an oil tanker heading for the nearest hypermarket.

But it's worth the journey. Mile after mile of surf-pounded sand to walk along - almost alone.

Vita agrees that sand is fun, but still thinks getting wet is very dangerous.

Lacanau-Océan

Carcans-Plage

I thought I'd done ....

2010-10-07T13:44:00.001+02:00

...with digging boulders and builders' rubble out of the cottage lawn. But apparently not.

I've bought grass seed. We've had a bit of rain. It's sunny and there's a light breeze. I thought I'll just dig out the weeds, rake it over and then seed before too many leaves come down and smother the new grass.

It's that sinking sensation as the fork goes in no more than a centimetre or two and there's that jarring gritty thud as the prongs hit something solid. But we dug this all over last autumn! I thought we were rid of all the big stuff, but oh no!

It's the cornflake packet syndrome. The big bits move up to the top as the small particles drop through the gaps to the bottom. And that's what's been quietly happening to the lawn all through this year.

I prod around with the fork, trying to find a gap where it goes in a bit further, heave, watch the tines bend and the ground in front of the fork slowly rise as another flagstone comes to the surface. Behind me the "lawn" is now a muddy mess.

And the weeds! Tod has been mowing this scruffy patch and I'd hoped that it would gradually grass over, but there's more weed than grass and even the grass is more like weed - tough and coarse. The mowing has kept it tidy, but the perennial weeds (dandelion, thistle, mallow, fat hen) have thickened and sent down long tap roots, which have easily found a way through the rubble.

I carry this image of my father - bent over a neat lawn, legs straight, slightly apart (more so after his hip operations) picking up a leaf, digging out a weed. He said he wasn't a gardener, but a "tidyist".

I could do with a lawn "tidyist" right now.

The Air is Full of Dust and Noise

2010-10-03T12:36:00.000+02:00

The combine harvester is in the next field.

The wind is blowing hard and hot from the south carrying the dust from the chopped-down maize across the border I'm planting on the bank behind the wall behind the cottage.

So I'll stay inside until the noise and dust are further away.

I Knew What We Could Do

2010-09-19T10:59:00.005+02:00

I grumped. I was tired of thinking about food, buying food, preparing food, cooking food, clearing up after food and I wanted to run away to the sea before summer completely disappeared. But the météo showed cool and rain for the Med, so I stayed.

And gardened in the sun. And felt better.

And then Tod moved my bike out of the garage while he blocked up the gap in the colombage that sends gales of cold air into our lounge in the evening and I knew what we could do.

Link:

Canal de Garonne

Château Chats

2010-09-16T23:36:00.002+02:00

We took our visitors to meet friends who are lovingly restoring a château.

And I fell in love with these two.

After Our Friends Have Gone

2010-09-14T19:23:00.000+02:00

I take the clean duvet covers and pillow cases down off the washing line. They are warm, dry and full of sunshine.

I close the door of the cottage and turn to walk the track back up to the house. Beyond the rustling field of sun-scorched maize, a distant tractor draws a plough.

A week is so little time together, after so many months of anticipation.

Getting Ready

2010-09-07T00:53:00.001+02:00

For a departure

The swallows are gathering on the power line that cuts across our field, chattering and squabbling, then suddenly launching off to swoop low across the valley.

I'm struggling to take good photos of them, but I like the sky in this one.

Getting ready for an arrival

Friends are coming to stay this week and the terrace is getting its biennial de-cobwebbing. You have to have a good head for heights and not mind large spiders. So not a job for me!

Summer's Back - With a Vengence

2010-08-26T17:01:00.002+02:00

The météo tells me it's thirty-eight degrees celsius (100F), but the car thermometer stubbornly stays over forty (104F) on the drive into town. Thank heavens for air conditioning.

I hunt for shade to park the car at Leclercs and the hot strong wind from the north west hits me as I get out. By the time I reach the welcoming cool draught through the supermarket doors my damp hair is sticking to my forehead.

I linger over the freezer cabinets and wrap the ice cream inside three layers of cool bag. The aisles are full of autumn clothing and reminders to sweep your chimney before winter.

The papers tell us we have the highest level of water restrictions - no use of hoses to fill pools or water the plants, not even from one's own well. As I drive home I see the family that built a pond in their front garden in the spring busy filling it - with a hose.

Monsieur F has harvested some of his maize for silage: the green flow shoots from the funnel above the harvester into the tractor-drawn wagon that crawls alongside. The maize that's left cracks and pops in the heat.

We hide indoors and close the shutters but there's nowhere now in the house that's cool except in front of the open fridge door.

Vita lies on the tiles at my feet, occasionally sighing. I'll go for a swim in a while and enjoy that brief moment as I drop in when the water feels almost cold.

Hanging a Picture so it Looks Straight

2010-08-22T16:10:00.004+02:00

How?

Not a single ceiling, door, beam, mantle, tile, stone or shelf is horizontal.

Nor window, shutter, door frame, post, wall or corner is vertical.

August - South West France

2010-08-16T10:31:00.000+02:00

Supper on the veranda wearing long sleeved T-shirts and sweaters. We thought about eating inside.

Later, watching television wrapped in a dressing gown against the cold draught from the open colombage, I thought about making thick, heavy curtains.

Harvesting the Beet (continued)

2010-08-15T15:40:00.000+02:00

Because I didn't really understand what they were planting in Monsieur F's field in the spring, I posted a question to Total France. This is what Colebags told me:

It's jolly hard work, very labour intensive and not yet automated (here at least).

Picture a small group of itinerate workers (on minimum wage paid via cheque d'emploi service) standing around a table in an open sided barn in February, temperature near freezing. A lorry reverses in and tips its load of baby betterave onto and against the table. The workers trim the beets, no conversation allowed until a brief coffee break, then on again with the pile of beet gradually diminishing until lunch. Assorted packed lunches and friendly chatter until it's time to start again. The group continue to work until 18h30, it's dark and bitterly cold and at no time have there been chairs to sit on apart from in their own vehicles at lunchtime.

Trimming the beets is considered easy money compared to planting ....

The people I met were embarking on a year of planting and harvesting, following the seasons and the various crops, they are back in the region now to harvest melons. They were happy to work, knew the farmers well and didn't complain.

The farmer and his wife worked along side during the morning, leaving the others to continue without them in the afternoon, a couple from Morocco, a single man also from Morocco and a young couple from the north of the region who lived in an old van with two dogs, a cat and a wonderful zest for life!

We have the utmost respect for the people who work in the fields, it is a jolly hard life.

Harvesting the Beet

2010-08-10T18:07:00.001+02:00

Monsieur F is finally harvesting the seed from his sugar beet. Over these last weeks the brown floppy heads have lain heaped in muddled rows in the hot sun waiting to be collected.

A thunderous vacuum cleaner, the great green and white harvester with its giant red threshing blades creeps slowly up the slope beyond our cherry tree, dust and debris spewing out behind. The tractors with their trailers wait patiently for their cargo at the top of the field.

Eric was building the pool house in the spring when the roots were being planted. A row of women sat nattering on the back of the drill, wrapped in winter coats against the chill air, dropping each small plant down the chute to the ground as Monsieur F's tractor crawled across the field - no faster than the harvester today.

The crop is the seed. The roots will just lie in the field, to be ploughed up and left to rot down over winter when they will sprout a fine array of white, flat mushrooms.

Wikipedia tells me that one kilogram of beet seed yields over 100,000 seeds, enough to plant a hectare of ground. Many millions of seeds are being harvested, enough to plant many, many hectares next spring - I wonder where?

Summer Romance

2010-08-05T14:26:00.001+02:00

We have Vita back for company.

Over the last three weeks she has been too engrossed to spend time with us. Much enamoured of Gucio (he who, like last summer, stays with us while his master dances tango near the Pyrenees) she has spent her days bringing him presents (shoes, pieces of wood, chewed plastic bottles, Mr Bear, windfalls), licking his ears, dancing round him in the shade of the apple trees while he lies back and gently grumps at her and, in the evenings, taking him out to night markets where humans sit at long tables in the dusk eating badly barbequed meat and chips (slipping the occasional dog-sized morsel), drinking rough wine and shouting to each other and passing friends across indifferent music played too loudly through tinny speakers.

He and his master left yesterday, first thing. No shared pleasure of prepared meals. No tango music floating around the swimming pool. No decision to be made on where we go tonight.

She races ahead of me as we set off down the garden. But no, they're not there. The cottage is empty and quiet.

Links:
Gucio last summer

Late at Night

2010-07-26T09:51:00.002+02:00

In the day to day
I lose sight of what we have.
My mind on the “oughts” and “musts”
I forget the quiet thrum
Of our joint lives.

Late at night
Alone in the dark
My mind soothed by the gentle snores
Of man and dog
I remember.

Ooohh, Uuuummm, Aaahhh, Mmmmmm

2010-07-18T13:31:00.001+02:00

Sound of someone eating warm, perfumed, sweet (so sweet) apricot straight off the tree.

The Bees

2010-07-17T11:21:00.009+02:00

A few weeks ago, one afternoon just before we moved back into the house from the cottage, the house veranda was a mass of swarming bees high up in the rafters. I called Heather and Jim who know about these things, but by the time they arrived the bees had largely disappeared except for a few who were exploring under the new roof. We worried whether the bees might be setting up house under the tiles (not a good idea) but by the next morning there was no sign of activity and so we forgot about them.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I found them again.

When the cottage was being built, we needed a separate water spur and meter off the mains. So a hole was dug in the drive and a small lockable green plastic man hole cover was placed on top of it. The lockable idea was a mistake, because at some point during the build someone needed to get at the meter and the lid was just wrenched off. Ever since the cover has had a gap where the lock should be. The water hole is partly on the drive behind the house but tucked away under overhanging elm and cornus branches from the bank below Monsieur F's field. Weeds grow up round it and it gets forgotten for months. But I thought it was time I cleared the weeds.

And there they were. The bees. Going in and out of the gap where the lock should have been.

So it was time to call Heather and Jim again. Because there was no way anyone was going to be able to read the meter.

Yesterday afternoon, in warm sunlight, the bees were moved to their new home.

The water meter hole cover.

The bees going in and out.

Puffing smoke into the hole to help keep the bees calm.

The comb was heavy, weighing down the lid and it needed quite an effort to lift it. First sight of the comb.

Transferring the comb to the hive.

Removing some of the hive frames so the comb will fit.

In lifting the lid unfortunately some of the comb broke away because it extended right to the floor of the chamber. So there was more comb to lift out and transfer to the hive.

The bees were active all round us. However, the buzzing was always benign and we never felt threatened. We didn't see the queen but the bees very quickly started going in and out of the hive, which implied that she had been transferred with the comb.

A few bees stayed in and around the water meter hole and began to form a cluster, so we wondered (briefly) if the queen was still there. We decided it would be good to leave the hive overnight and for today so that the bees could settle. Our friends will close the hive tonight and take it away when most bees will be back from foraging.

This morning the hole is largely empty. The bees have just been cleaning any residual comb still in the hole.

And there was even some comb with sweet clear honey oozing out for us.

Thank you Heather and Jim. A great job done.

Sorting out our lives ...

2010-07-11T13:00:00.000+02:00

... between the house and the cottage progresses in a series of lurches.

Friends come to supper and to see what we've done in the house and so we rush round opening more boxes, putting out a few more books, pictures, ornaments, hiding the empty cartons and crumpled paper in the attic.

After they've gone, we slump back into indolence.

This week we have friends arriving to stay, so another lurch - this time to prepare the cottage - is necessary.

For years - like camels with twin humps - we have carried more stuff than we need (the effect of merging more than one household) from one house move to another. Now, finally, we have the opportunity to split the stuff between the cottage and the house. But oh, what a task!

This set of table mats here, that set there (except there's a solitary coaster that missed the move and is in the wrong place). These round trays won't fit on the shelf in the house kitchen, would they be better in the cottage? How many baking trays will people on a week's holiday need? Do we give our guests the set of matching saucepans (will they even notice?) and keep the scruffy mixed set for ourselves? Why is there only five of everything and not six?

We have too many wardrobes, so two stay in the attic. And so many occasional tables. At what stage in our lives did we think that number of occasional tables was necessary? And we don't have anything useful like spare good double beds, or attractive dressing tables. So the cottage bedrooms look strangely mournful with small single beds, a wardrobe and not much else. Well Tod's left his electric piano in one bedroom, so any insomniac musical guests should be fine.

Everywhere needs dusting, sweeping and de-spidering. How quickly the spiders move in.

The cooker still needs a good clean. But joy of joys, yesterday in the late hot evening, I de-frosted the fridge.

Hot Days and Nights

2010-07-09T17:53:00.001+02:00

A strong wind blows from the south but it is too hot to bring much relief.

Vita lies on the tiles in the dining room catching what little breeze there is through the open doors of the lounge french windows and the kitchen.

I slip out to turn off the hose that's watering the roses by the pool but she's too hot and sleepy to get up and follow me. I've been pruning the clusters of dying rose heads, brown and dried, the hips already fattening below the few remaining petals. Pruned now, they will reward us with a second flush but the new growth is touched with mildew and white fly and I think the bushes are stressed from the lack of rain.

We're leaving the cover off the pool at night in the hope that it will cool down. Tod grumbles that at thirty degrees the water no longer refreshes when he dives in.

A pale sun occasionally pushes between the thunder clouds that drop no rain. The distant ongoing rumbling sounds like people moving the furniture upstairs.

Monsieur F has the water canon going constantly on his maize and sugar beet. The water splashes over our chemin rural and runs milky white down onto our drive where it sits in puddles. The ground is too baked to absorb it.

We ought to be cleaning and tidying down at the cottage for our soon-to-be-arriving guests but it is easier to stay in the relative cool of the house with its thick old walls.

The météo forecasts rain for the first day our guests are here. Tough for them, but we (humans, plants, dog) will welcome the change.

Last Night

2010-06-29T11:11:00.000+02:00

Walked down to the cottage in the dark between great fat splodges of rain.

The waning moon was pink.

Twenty-nine Degrees Celsius...

2010-06-28T21:25:00.001+02:00

... in the swimming pool this evening; the water just warmed by the heat of the sun over the last few days. That's eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot!

And only a week ago we had the fire lit!

I laze on my back in the water and watch an anvil thunder cloud build on the western horizon, outlined by the setting sun. Monsieur F has just started the water canon swishing in the maize field alongside our pool. He, at least, is not relying on the forecast of rain tonight. Though our neighbour two fields in the other direction is harvesting his wheat, just in case. No doubt the distant rumble of the combine (if not thunder) will go long into the night

Vita greets me at one end of the pool, licking the slightly salty water off my arms as I hang on the side. We both think this new system is a great improvement on the old chlorine tablets.

I climb out and turn to see a grasshopper jump in - legs splayed on the water. I drop back in to rescue him and it's like getting into a warm bath.

Maybe I'll swim just a little longer.

Just an Ordinary Day

2010-06-25T23:39:00.006+02:00

Eat sour cherries straight off the tree for breakfast.

Somehow move tractor from middle of field where it's stubbornly stuck.

Attach wisteria to new wire along side of house, as old wire was cut by the builders when they put in the kitchen window. (Would have been much easier to do before all the leaves came out.)

Recover Kong which Vita expertly threw into the underground drain pipe that runs the length of the garage. Then cover drain pipe so she can't do it again.

(Maybe) unpack another box and decide where all the contents go.

Make houmous because there was none in Leclerc's at lunchtime. And anyway homemade is much better.

Bring cookery books up from the cottage. Or maybe only the book with the houmous recipe.

Choose and eat ice cream.

Watch Brazil play Portugal (bad-temperedly).

Go for a swim.

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice

2010-06-20T22:12:00.002+02:00

At least the sun has shone today. (Better than yesterday's downpours. In the evening we fed friends beef and Guinness stew in the warmth of the kitchen, seemed appropriate given the weather.)

There's been a biting wind from the north all day and tonight's temperature is dropping to 6°C. We've dragged the bougainvillea in its large pot into the house. Its soft new bronze leaves won't cope with the wind chill.

We've lit the stove in the lounge and the house smells of wood smoke.

We huddle on the sofa to watch Dr Who and then Brazil play football and finish yesterday's stew.

Afternoon sun on the pool house

Vita in front of the fire

And this time last year ...

Almost Midsummer

The Joys of a Cool Wet June

2010-06-14T11:18:00.000+02:00

The roses last much longer and even when weather-blown are still beautiful.

Ooooff

2010-06-13T23:05:00.003+02:00

We're back in the house and have been so for a couple of weeks.

To begin with, I was too busy to post, then had too much to say. So I walked round carrying ideas for posts in my head, started to jot some down, but gave up in disgust.

I thought moving would be easier this time. (After all, it's the third time in three years - England to France, house to cottage, now cottage back to house - we've had plenty of practice.) But it wasn't.

So I grumped at Tod, Vita and friends. Tod cooked. Vita barked. Friends helped clean, repair and paint walls and got little thanks for it. Tod came up in itchy bumps when scraping paint off our old lime walls and finished at A&E on a drip. Banned by the doctor from working in the house he stood on the veranda and wax coated all eight of our new doors. How on earth did we finish up with eight?

I crawled over the pine lounge floor tinting and waxing it a deep oak colour. For a brief evening after Tod polished it (by then he was ignoring the doctor's ban) the floor looked beautiful. Builders' mess was everywhere. Each cobweb hanging from our impossibly high ceiling in our new entrance hall (ex gîte / apartment / whatever) was a small hammock of sawdust. We thought we would just finish painting and cleaning in time, then the removals men said they were bringing our furniture out of store a day early. So I grumped and Tod cooked. Vita barked. And it rained.

The removals men brought the heavy stuff up from the cottage and we foolishly said we'd do the rest. It's a long way down and back when it's the tenth journey and not yet lunchtime. And all my papers and books sat in sad piles in the cottage waiting to be moved among the bed fluff and dust . And it rained and was cold. And I grumped some more and stayed down in the warm cottage late at night watching old movies. And Tod cooked. And Vita wondered where she lived and barked.

Dirty wood from the dismantled kitchen units lay on the veranda and old doors and shutters stood stacked against the house walls. Empty cartons piled up in the garage and tools were in the cottage when we needed them in the house and in the house when we needed them in the cottage - or in neither place because they had crept into the garage. And my papers and books were in sad piles in my study which had no shelves and hadn't yet been cleaned. And I had a fight with the Ikea system I'd lovingly brought from England and planned to use in my super new walk-in wardrobe. So in temper I threw it away and went to Bordeaux and tramped round two Leroy Merlins, Conforama, Castorama and Ikea, while Tod cooked and rescued the shelving system.

And then, gradually, I stopped grumping. My shelving went up and my computer came back to my study. A Castorama system holds all my clothes (summer and winter) in my wardrobe. We've moved the wood and the doors from the veranda, books are in bookcases, the television's in its new corner in the lounge alongside the open colombage that we backlight in the evenings. We've made trips to the communal tip and found secondhand oak chairs and a coffee table in the local Troc. We linger over meals in our bright, modern kitchen. I've planted troughs with geraniums and Tod's polished the long oak table on the veranda.

We finally feel at home again and we've invited friends to supper.

Waxing the lounge floor