Moonlight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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