b(rittany)log

more work on the ceiling

2012-01-07T17:59:00.001+01:00

We have started again to do the ceiling in the house - this is definitely a winter job, and the cold-ish weather has arrived eventually, so it couldn't be put off nay longer.

As the next three pictures show, we struggled to line the diagonals up with the previous panel to the right. What we had forgotten, is that we previously just set the diagonals at 45 degrees to the joints in the boards of the floor above - doh!

So, having established the angle (not very accurate, as it turned out), the next fun job is the starting corner:

voila!
This bit has to go in in one piece, till the corner is filled.
You can see one of the templates we use to measure the angles at each end - I have a set of these for right and left, so I can call out the angles and then we measure the length of each piece off the previous one.
All those horrid pipes full of wires are about to be covered up - hooray!

Progress is reasonably steady till the final corner, then this piece has to go in in one again. There are absolutely no straight lines or right angles in this ceiling!

take a look at that curved wall!
BTW you can see the bucket containing all my template pieces, hung at the top of the ladder.

Finally, the two panels between the front door and the staircase are done!

Black Bun

2011-12-03T13:58:00.001+01:00

I have made a couple of black buns, which are in the oven as I type this. I have made at least one of these traditional Scottish cakes every year since the early 70s. They are eaten in Scotland at New Year, and contain lots of whisky! Originally I made one each year for my parents (specifically for my father, who supplied the whisky, as we couldn't afford it then). I seem to have continued making them since.

I use the recipe in the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book I got as a wedding present.
I don't follow it exactly, but hey!

I made the pastry and Pete weighed out the dry ingredients last night, as it takes a while to actually cook.

Heres the method - should enlarge if you click on it.

Dry ingredients for both buns

Wet ingredients - whisky, egg and milk

everything ready to go... cake tins oiled and floured, and wrapped in newspaper

line the tin,

mix all the ingredients,

cake mix into the pastry,

fold the spare pastry in,

egg for glue...

cut out decoration - I always do the same thing - a thistle. Not very imaginative, but I like the way the leaves tesselate with the flowerhead - all comes out in (nearly) one piece!

put on lid,

prick over the top with a fork, decorate...

more egg to glaze, then put in the oven for AGES. I usually cover the top fairly soon with folded newspaper to stop the pastry burning too much.

installing a woodburning stove in the gîte

2009-11-30T18:05:00.000+01:00

Why is Pete busy cutting holes in the lovely smooth floor of the gîte upstairs?

He is searching for a section of underlying wall, upon which we will build a chimney, to work with the new woodburning stove. At last an effective way of heating the gîte, though the cost of the chimney will be almost double that of the stove - ho hum...

Watch this space for updates, and I hope the chimney blocks are delivered in time for us to find a window of fine enough weather to finish the whole of the chimney, exterior as well as interior!

désarmement du grand léjon 7th Nov 2009

2009-11-15T21:50:00.000+01:00

Went up to St Brieuc to help with the désarmement of le Grand Léjon. Everything movable was taken off the boat and stored in a lock-up just off the quayside. Then out comes the paper tablecloth, the aperitifs and the nuts & crisps! We all went off for lunch afterwards, which gave my hands a chance to thaw out, having washed down the bunk mattresses in cold water (the water actually felt warmer than my hands).

porch door, sloe gin & Stumpy the cat.

2009-11-15T21:39:00.000+01:00

Porch door (nearly finished) 23rd October 2009. Top half not yet oiled, and no lock fitted yet. But it keeps out the wind.

Sloe gin on the go. Started 3rd Nov 2009. Should be ready by Christmas!

plus lots of empty bottles to be refilled when the gin has sufficiently steeped.

Meet Stumpy the cat, the only one of Ma's latest litter who is brave enough to venture into the house. Stumpy because he only has half a tail, but very beautiful for all that! Most of Ma's kittens have a genetic problem with their tails - usually a kink, but Stumpy missed out on a few extra bones.

18th Oct. Pete's first Grand Léjon Trip

2009-11-15T20:11:00.001+01:00

It was freezing early on, couldn't get warm even with many layers. Thierry steering.

Warmed up eventually - piles of coats on the hatch-cover!

Once again, no wind to speak of. Nice day, though.

Pete enjoying the day.

on the way back into port in the evening. Another great day out.

friend's sheep coming to stay here to be 'tupped' 13th oct 2009

2009-11-15T20:06:00.001+01:00

Said sheep not too keen on being caught. Lambs due mid-March 2010 if Shaun does his job promptly.

Jane's first trip out on Le Grand Léjon. 4 Oct 2009

2009-11-15T20:00:00.000+01:00

My first trip on Le Grand Léjon - Pete was in the UK visiting his mum. We set off at 8 am - still dark!

Leaving the Port de Légué, the motorway viaduct visible behind us.

approaching the lock

& the lock gates closing behind us.

Oce out of the harbour, starting to hoist sail. This is the 'taillevent' or mainsail. The hunier is on the deck to the right - this goes above the mainsail.

Not much wind for sailing!

hoisting the 'foc', or jib.

The view to stern.

This is the small foc. There is a bigger one, but not used today.

The bay where we stopped for lunch.

Then a post-lunch snooze

Before hoisting sail and setting off home. This is the 'Misaine' or mizzen.

Just messing about in boats....

Bit of deck-washing. I took refuge up front, as there was lots of cold water being splashed about.

We got back about 7.30 pm, having spent all day cruising - I really don't know where the time went, and we really did nothing! What a lovely way to spend a day.

27t Sept. Grand Léjon Pique-nique at Port Morvan

2009-11-08T19:02:00.001+01:00

Some brave souls went for a swim - the usual suspects who regularly swim in the sea all year round.

Somewhat competitive barbecue-ing - 'try some of this', 'no, try this!'

Loads more food than was possible to eat. Then a doze in the sun, a bit of singing and music.

Than Pete & I set off to walk off some calories. This is the view back down to the beach.

and looking north at the headlands on the east coast of the bay of St Brieuc.

Isle de Bréhat. 6th Sept 2009

2009-11-08T18:54:00.000+01:00

Took a quick day trip to the Isle de Bréhat.Tide was well in when we arrived, on a sweltering hot day in September, so had a long walk up to the 'town'. There are (virtually) no cars on Bréhat, and hardly any roads - just paths that wind around, between houses and gardens.

There is a tide mill which is 370 years old on the island. It used to be used to grind grain, by the power of the water collected in its tidal basin. There is a huge tide range on the north coast of Brittany, so it made sense to use it.

The gardens on the island were really lovely, with some rather impressive trees...

Paimpol Festival of Chants de Maris 7 - 9 August 2009

2009-11-08T18:39:00.000+01:00

We went to Pampol fête de chants de marins in early August. Le Grand Léjon is the green boat in the centre of the picture. The event was very crowded, so it was great to be able to retreat to the boat when things got too exhausting. Had a smashing weekend, weather was wonderful, music great, boats beautiful and people (as always) superb.

The Oufs (Les Oufs de Dyjau, or sort-of 'fous de jaudy') were also there, in Fred's boat. We had just had an apero with them when they decided to have another sing...

Pete in contemplative mood on the Grand Léjon.

While the boat was being hauled towards the 'capestan' (capstan) on the harbour side. This gave people a chance to try out the capstan for real.

This is the doris (pronounced exactly like the name Doris) that was made over the three days of the festival. Les Doris de la Baie is an association that makes these small boats at festivals (originally bigger and used for fishing on the Grand Banks, off of a larger ship). They are raffled off over the course of the festival. Haven't managed to win one yet...

Finally got the back porch roof finished!

2009-08-04T19:28:00.000+02:00

It took an afternoon to slate each side of the 'join' between the house and the new porch roof.

And it has rained every day for the last week or two.

Note how the window drains onto zinc, which will drain directly into the gutter. Cunning, eh? Lets us slate over the bottom of the window without getting a build-up of water in the window frame.

Hugh tries out the wheelbarrow, and a cinnabar moth tries out the porch.

View from on high, of Pete cutting slates.

Roof nearing completion, and the final ridge tile put in place. Now we could do with some rain to wash off the bits of mortar.

The finished roof, phew!!

progress with roof

2009-08-01T17:44:00.001+02:00

Things are progressing, between downpours, on the porch roof.

Fitted the voliges (planking) and got the slates re-hung on the roof sides of the zinc on thursday. We did the shaped slates on the porch-side of the roof yesterday, but haven't had a chance to take photos yet - pouring all today.

Have started to block in over the back door, and got he light re-fitted

Gertie is closely supervising all work - here Pete is fitting the zinc strip under one of the rooflights -

Gertie checks out the rest of the work...

"of course, it never rains in Brittany"

2009-07-29T20:09:00.001+02:00

From the sublime (weather, that is) on tuesday afternoon

to torrential rain on wednesday, despite the forecast promising two days of decent weather.

the satellite image shows how nearly we missed the rain - just a wee tail of it crossed over us this afternoon - should be OK tomorrow!

back porch continuing...

2009-07-27T17:10:00.003+02:00

Finally got all the A frames put up last week. Then we decided to use up a couple of spare (new, but unused) windows we have had around the place for a while to make roof lights. We took them out from their outer frame, and removed the bottom strip of wood to allow them to drain off properly.They fit pretty much exactly between two of the A frames.

Need to use zinc sheets now to seal round top & sides, and to drain them off the bottom. Will do this next, as we fit more woodwork to hold the slates. Very pleased with these, as it will give lots more light than we had originally planned.

So its beginning to take shape well now. Once we have bought the zinc to make the gutters and the weather stays dry for a few days we can take off the slates from the roof behind and tie-in the new roof gable. The front gable end is also going to be glazed - we discovered that it was possible to get triangular DGUs, so thats why the front gable doesn't have an A frame. We have put in the inside walls, using mainly beton cellulaire blocks. The front two gaps will have terracotta blocks, as they ran out of the others, and we had these spare in the hangar. The outside will be a skin of stone to match the house.

The floor will be slated with what is left of the slate slabs we have found all over the garden, and which we believe were the original floor of the house. This is a preliminary layout... Gertie obviously approves.

not-so-new ducks and start of roof

2009-07-19T15:09:00.001+02:00

Mrs Noisy came down from her nest under the bonfire pile in the field on the 5th July with her new brood - two tiny ducklings. They are amazingly strong, as they cannot be more than 24 hours hatched. Mrs N. has lived up to her name ever since, quacking loudly at anyone who comes at all near her brood.

They were swimming in the pond almost immediately, having tried out the possibilities of the food bowl first. They are, of course much bigger by now!

and here is a picture of the first two A-frames on the back porch put in place. The fourth will go where the gutter is at the moment, and the front one will not have an A-bar, but a vertical central post, and be glazed on either side. We have used the old oak roofing beams that Claude gave us (for firewood) that came off the old roof of his house in Kermarec. They have some really wild and woolly shapes!

We are also hoping to be able to use two existing DGUs from a window we had spare, to put into the roof to give some more light. Just need to work out how to fit them so they are weatherproof!

oak frame completed at last

2009-06-23T20:40:00.001+02:00

We have finally completed the oak frame for the back porch - still have the roof to put on it, but this is a start. Most of the frame is either jointed or fastened together with oak pegs. We have found that any screws used to hold stuff together temporarily tend to shear off when we try to get them out again. Apparently this is because of the tannin in the wood.

I always imagined that oak frames would be fairly simple, but here is one-half of one the corner window sill joints. We have routed out a groove for the window units, and will fit the units so there is apparently no extra 'frame' showing, ie the window units fit directly into the oak frame. They won't, of course, but that is what it will look like.
The gaps under the window sills will be filled in with stonework to match the back wall of the house, which will also stabilise the whole structure. We are going to use slate paving slabs from the garden to lay on the floor.

oak posts and windowsills going up

2009-06-08T20:23:00.000+02:00

We have cut the windowsills to fit into the notches on the upright posts for the first side. Here is the first in position:

Then the second:

and the third:

In the picture below, you can see the groove we have cut in each sill for the DGU windows. We will be using softwood packing, the thickness of the DGU, backed by a thinner piece of oak on the inside sides of each window. That way there will be no extra frame around each pane.

Gertie has taken to sleeping on top of the tool shelves. When she wants to get down in the morning, she waits for Pete to supply a 'ramp' for her elegant descent onto his shoulder!

more oak frame put up

2009-06-04T21:58:00.003+02:00

The oak posts for one side have been put up temporarily (three only shown here). They will need to be cut down to the right height and marked-up for the position of the windowsill pieces. This has to be done 'in situ' as the oak is changing shape just about by the day and no two gaps are the same. Each post is sitting on a nut and washer on a length of studding set into the concrete foundations (you can see the front corner one) to allow a bit of rotation to happen with drying out. This also keeps the wood off the ground and will allow a tiny bit of vertical adjustment if necessary. We have taken lots of advice from our friend John W. (ex building foreman for the Shakespeare birthplace trust before he retired to France), and who has probably forgotten more about oak construction than we will ever learn!

Pete sawing...

and me cutting one of the slots for the windowsill cross-pieces (not a bad tan for early June eh?). These will also be mortice & tenoned into the uprights. Next we will have to make lots of oak pegs to fix it all together... Don't use screws says John, they will fall apart in months, says John. So the whole edifice will be held together with oak pegs. I now need a piece of metal with a hole in it, the proposed diameter of the pegs, so I can hammer roughly-shaped bits of oak through it, to make the correct-diameter pegs - that's how its done!

See how wet the oak is once you get a centimeter-or-so into it! Cuts like a dream though!
Its funny, but I'm really enjoying having a bit of interesting building work to do again. We are now talking about building a whole house using green oak one day perhaps, as it's such lovely stuff to work with, and relatively affordable, here in Brittany.
Keep looking - will update again soon.

re-start for the back porch

2009-06-03T17:47:00.003+02:00

After a couple of years delay we have eventually found the time and funds to go ahead with the porch we planned in 2006.
Here we have close to two thirds of a cubic metre of green oak, which is more than ample for the frame, but because of the cutting required had to be that much - suggestions will be sought for the spare stuff later....
Pete hard at work measuring up. Not much to show yet but will keep progress updated.

Pete's orange melodeon

2009-05-26T19:36:00.001+02:00

Yep, its orange! in three keys, A, D & G and he's well pleased with it! Mind you, it will be a day or two before he can play it well enough to venture out in public. Once he's OK playing it, we can play all the English tunes we used to play at the Dressers Arms on sunday nights. Pete will also be able to accompany/do intros for, many of the songs we currently sing, as loads are in A. So now I have to get the fiddle going again, after a pause of some years when my thumb joint was a problem - that seems to have calmed down again now.

Fete de la Morue - Binic

2009-05-23T22:44:00.001+02:00

We went up to Binic on Thursday afternoon for the first day of the 'Fete de la Morue'. The port de plaisance was crammed full of boats and the weather was glorious.

We were taking part in the repas chanté put on for all crews of the visiting boats. A pleasant afternoon and a good meal for the price of a couple of songs - fair exchange!

We are going to become members of the association 'Le Grand Léjon' - click the title of this post for the site link. This is an association that owns and runs a Lougre (lugger) built at Loguivy de la Mer, from the plans of an old boat, and launched in 1992. as members of the association we get to have use of the boat when it attends various events, such as the Binic fete, and lots of others throughout the summer. They also do voyages around the Brittany coast, to the Scilly isles and to Cornwall occasionally. For a very reasonable fee, we can go on these trips... We know loads of the people who are in the association already - the group 'Fortune de Mer' and Hervé & Hélène who are singing at our concert in June are members - have a listen to Hervé & Hélène on the Grand Léjon site.

Ducklings!

2009-05-20T13:40:00.004+02:00

Seven ducklings have finally hatched out yesterday. Mrs Broody is very content with her new family, but she is going to get quite a surprise when they start swimming in any available water! The ducklings are surprisingly active, and already superb fly-catchers (and eaters - nice). Luckily the weather is due to be quite good for a few days, so they can take advantage of the sunshine to get outside & bask. Mrs B must be heartily sick of the little broody coop when she has spent the last 4 weeks!

Un Jardin Remarquable - Le grand Launay

2009-05-03T21:01:00.010+02:00

On Friday (a bank holiday here in France) we visited a local garden - Le Grand Launay, only 20 minutes up the road, and one we had not heard of before. It was included in a series of gardens open for charity this weekend, which is how we got to hear about it. it is classified as un jardin remarquable and with good reason.
The first bit is the beautiful archway into a large lawned courtyard. The lawn is immaculate, without a weed to its name, and carefully mown in stripes. The owner, while taking our 2 euros, explained that is was une pelouse anglaise and that he had bought an English cylinder mower to get the correct effect.This is one huge courtyard! All round the edges are mainly foliage plants, plus some beds edged in low wavy box hedges and one massive tree as you can see in the picture above. Pretty breathtaking start. I could live in that courtyard...However, after a slow circuit of the courtyard we left it and came upon the back lawn. The beds surrounding the lawn are edged in undulating box hedging, with cloud-pruned trees behind. At one end (left in the photo below) there is a low mass of beech 'hedge' the same level as the terrace above & behind it. The house from this angle is pretty amazing too! Carrying on round this back lawn brings you out to the most amazing little orchard I have ever seen - there are box 'serpents' trained up each of the trees! The effect is weird in the extreme, and I think is designed as a witty reference to the book of Genesis.Further on is a sunken area with a 'source', the floor of which is paved with blocks to allow the water to trickle through in rills. There are lots of lovely candelabra primulas here.
The rills finally join together and empty out into a beautiful pond, surrounded by foliage plants and trees. This pond is the source of water for the next feature - a cascade within a gravel garden.This bit of the garden still looks very new and a bit contrived, but will probably mature and fit in a bit better eventually. The slope is surrounded by trees with mown paths through them, which are lovely to stroll round, looking at the sunshine through the new leaves.Finally we came out behind the first building, where there is a small potager and herb garden.
This is surrounded by espaliered apple trees, within box hedges with wild strawberries below them. Within these is a woven willow fedge which outlines the potager and jardin des simples, or herb garden, with a small pond in the centre - all just immaculate.We came away with our jaws hanging open and a determination to get planting lots more hedging in our own plot. I love the idea of undulating hedges, carefully trimmed but following their own varying contours. Of course we have neither the setting, the means nor the full time gardener to copy this place, but we have come away with loads of ideas, and a garden that is close enough to visit regularly throughout the year.
Click on the title of this post to go to the site: http://www.parcsetjardins.fr/bretagne/cotes_d_armor/le_grand_launay-858.html

baa baa had a little lamb (called Mary)

2009-04-24T20:11:00.002+02:00

Completely unexpected, as we hadn't put the sheep to a ram last year, Baa Baa has popped a tiny black lamb. Dolly's lamb last year was a ram lamb, with obviously more go in him than we realised. Our friend Carol commented the other day that Baa Baa looked a bit broad in the beam, but she always seems to be like that. Pete thought he heard a lamb bleating this afternoon, and when I went to feed the sheep only Dolly came down for food - very unusual. So I went up the field to find Baa Baa and infant who was by then at least a couple of hours old. Good eh? Dolly is also excited - she went bouncing around the field all on her own - daft bat!
In addition, one of the grey hens has gone broody again, and we have put a dozen duck eggs under her to try and get a brood of ducks - lots of people want some of our Indian Runners. She started on the 21st April, so hopefully around the 19-20th May there will be some duck chicks.

kitchen fireplace and ham

2009-04-16T17:38:00.004+02:00

The vegetarians amongst you must turn away quickly.Others are invited to admire our first foray into the art of 'le traiteur'
Voila! air-dried ham and lots of it. It still has some drying to do, so we will not be eating it too soon, but judging from our first tastes it is unlikely to last too long, and will get better as it dries further. The pantry smells like heaven now!

We have eventually dry-lined and tiled the fireplace behind the cooker in the kitchen. Pete is seen grouting the tiles, and below is the finished effect. It's beginning to look like a proper grown-up kitchen now. Floor tiles and whitewashing the walls next.

Marathon de Paris 2009

2009-04-12T20:58:00.007+02:00

Last weekend was the Paris marathon, which Greg ran, but Pete didn't. We had a great time, with a bit of sightseeing thrown in.
Our apartment was very close to the Pompidou centre, which is a superb building, with a very inviting plaza in front of it
- just the place to sit and people-watch.
Here are some of the crowds at the start, just down the Champs Elysées from the Arc de Triomphe.
Greg takes on calories before the start
It was a bit of a tense time, waiting for the start...
Shorts and legs in the top left hand of this picture = Greg passing Bastille the second time (really!)
Pete and Alice at Bastille, before we jumped back onto a metro train to meet Greg at the finish.

On Monday we did a bit of reminiscing, and found the road we stayed on during our honeymoon - 36 years ago to the week. The metro line (which we hadn't realised at the time is above ground) is little changed, but the cars look a bit quaint back then.

Lastly, we found the lion statue that had amused us originally - scrambling to get away from the water spay up its bum - the spray was still on, but was further back in the garden!

cats & sunshine

2009-04-01T20:02:00.004+02:00

Here is the new length of 'dead hedge' we have used to replace the useless bamboo screen we put up as a temporary expedient last autumn. The colours won't last, but are pretty at the moment. This is all from the willow trees we coppiced a few weeks ago.Hugh was vainly trying to disguise himself as a bunch of twigs, so he could get some sunshine in peace, but with very little success. Gertie soon found him and chased him out of it!
Then she decided to help Pete with the hole for the gate post...
and the twig that had fallen into it,
She looked up to the camera just as I pressed the shutter. Bit of a sweety really.

june concert - chants de marins

2009-03-27T19:12:00.004+01:00

This is the poster for this years concert at St Lubin in June. For photos of both Fortunes de Mer (Etienne & Etienne) plus Hervé & Hélène see my blog for 20th December 2008. We will be using a sound system this year, so singers being accompanied will be able to be heard.

Samson, our new cockerel

2009-03-22T14:12:00.003+01:00

Here is Samson, a (predominantly) buff orpington cockerel, just over a year old who we acquired yesterday. He was fighting with his father (inevitable, really) so we got him for free. He is in quarantine for a few days, while I am treating his scaly legs (caused by mites, so insecticide and vaseline will do the trick), and then we will let him out to join the girls. Hopefully we will get some nice crossbred chicks from him. Our grey hens go broody prettly regularly when it warms up.

For those whoM I havent told, I now have a garden blog, in which I am posting pictures as well as information for myself, about planting dates etc. The link is given in the header to this blog.

new kitchen! new camera!

2009-02-27T20:14:00.001+01:00

At last we have a camera that works, so here is the updated kitchen in pictures. Have finished the 'pelmet' bit, but still have to finish the tongue and groove on the ceiling - wet weather work, and it has been beautiful weather recently. The wood is lime waxed which gives it a sheen as well as making it white-ish, while still looking like wood, if you see what I mean.
Got lots of stuff in jars to hand now...
On the 'outside' the surface is plaster-boarded, as is the new hood over the cooker (below) which is simply the old hood boxed in to match the rest of the kitchen. Next job is to tile the area behind the cooker, for which we have bought plain cream-colour, matte surface tiles with slightly wany edges. THEN terracotta ceramic tiles on the floor of the kitchen area.

cold weather and foxes

2009-01-12T21:52:00.004+01:00

We have had some truly cold weather recently - the duckpond is 10cm thick with ice and the ground has been frozen solid for a couple of weeks. The local foxes have obviously been having a hard time of it too, and with 4 fox-free years of poultry keeping we have been getting complacent.I saw a fox just outside our back door a couple of days ago, sniffing around where we had recently slaughtered a couple of lambs. Pete had buried the remains of the said lambs (heads and skins) in the woodland on our land and yesterday we discovered a large empty pit was all that remained. Also yesterday, one of our Indian runner ducks went AWOL, presumably eaten by a fox.Today, I went out to fed the chickens and ducks and saw a large fox eating another of the chickens, with two more chickens missing. So I'm afraid we have set the fox trap (humane - its a box with a drop-flap) in the woods, baited with the remains of a dead, half eaten, chicken. I don't really have much hope of trapping the fox, as they are too clever for that, but one has to try something. The remaining chooks & ducks have been corralled into the old hangar area, so will no longer be free to wander up into the woods.....

On a happier note; we have started work again in the house - for the first time in nearly 4 years. We have finished the 'pelmet' round the kitchen area. The outside is plasterboard, with a wooden moulding surround, which has been finished using liming wax.
'inside' the kitchen we have used tongue and groove, again finished with liming wax. Gives us a shelf for the jars of dry goods (sugar, pulses, rice etc) and serves to differentiate the kitchen area from the rest of the house.
Future plans include hiding the hood over the stove with a similar construction, then getting on with tongue-and-grooving the rest of the ceiling, using liming wax throughout to keep it light. After THAT lot is done, we will lay the reclaimed oak parquet on the floor of the main house. Should keep us occupied for this year...

New Year 2009 photos

2009-01-06T21:39:00.004+01:00

Here are some of the photos that I take on each new years day, so we can keep track of what has changed from year to year. Probably only remotely interesting if you have been over here!

Below is the newly redecorated office - we rarely live anywhere long enough to redecorate a room, but I knew as soon as I had finished the previous yellow paintwork that it was not going to stay that way too long.
We have started the pelmet-thaing we had always planned to do around the kitchen. Here is the basic frame, now plaster-boarded in. I will post photos when it is finished (soon, I hope)
Outside, the sheep have a tidier enclosure under the hangar, with a gate, so the vet doesnt have to vault the wire fence (she's a bit short and found it somewhat awkward!)
The area I used for nursery beds when transporting plants out here has been cleared out a bit more, but the grass hasn't had time to cover the bare patches yet. That christmas tree is getting big now!
This is the filter bed with our little (polythene-covered) greenhouse, which went up in the spring.
The hangar, with some of our firewood store:
The new fencing round the field:
More fencing, plus the fruit cage:
The shrub bed behind the hangar:
fencing round the bottom field:
The next two pictures are of the (becoming) wooded area to the east side of the land, that we call Pixel's wood. The hole in the right bank is where we have discovered a large quantity of lovely compost/soil (what we suspect was the compost heap/dump/midden when the house had no plumbing). The soil is fabulous and most will go in the yet-to-be-set-up polytunnel.
This is the newly-laid hawthorn hedge round the orchard - the far side has yet to be laid, but the weather is too frosty to do it now.
Cant take pictures of the gîte, which we finished about June, as we have some long-term tenants in there at the moment. Will post some when it is available again - June this year. It is great not to have to pay to heat an empty building over the winter!

cats and christmas

2009-01-06T21:26:00.003+01:00

Despite Rupert still being scared stiff of Gertie, Milly plays with her quite often now. Gertie finds a tail hanging over the edge of a chair more than mortal cat can bear, and takes a swipe. This usually results in a game of mutual biffing with Gertie usually getting mere than she gives, but it keeps her in her place!
This is the teaching room decked out for christmas dinner. I have been looking forward to an excuse to decorate it properly and we had fun fixing up all the greenery. Got to get it down now! Some of our friends came round on christmas day, and we shared the cooking between us. Started eating about four in the afternoon and finally left off about eleven o'clock. Rhett had devised a quiz about different countries and their national anthems/ currency/ which-side-of-the-road-driving habits etc - which was more hilarious than it sounds.... Definitely a good day was had by all.

chants de marin - second birthday

2008-12-20T20:10:00.010+01:00

Thursday night was the 2nd anniversary of the Chants de Marin session we go to every month. The venue changes, with every second month at a different place or boat, and the months in between in a bar - les Mouettes - in the Port de Legué at St Brieuc, which is where it was on thursday...
Here are Etienne Miossec and Etienne Delahousse, two thirds of the group Fortunes de Mer who organise the sessions Hervé Guillimer (below) is well known in Brittany as a songwriter and performer, pictured here with Hélène, his partner, who comes from Quebec.
Hélène is obviously singing a proposition to Fanche le Marrec from Morlaix.Hervé on the whistle...
These next pictures are of Edwige Demory and Pierre-Jean Salaün who are two thirds of De Ouip en Ouap. Note the fantastic trompe l'oeil painted on the wall behind them and the birthday candles on chunks of chocolate cake that were doing the rounds all evening. Odile is Etienne Miossec's other half, and she usually takes the photos that appear on the Fortunes de Mer website. Below her is Françoise Delahousse, who is Etienne's wife (see above). Françoise usually sings songs in Breton, and is much in demand. This is Magalie, who runs a dance group in St Brieuc and who has a great voice when she is brave enough to sing in public (which is not often enough) Last, but not least, these pictures are of les 'Oufs' a band from Pontrieux, where the January session will be held, at their local bar. There are more than three of them, in fact there are loads of them, but they were scattered about the room - it was standing room only...
Definitely a good night out, and I was just a bit hoarse and groggy the next morning when I got to work. If anyone is interested in coming along, the sessions are the third tuesday of the month - just send me a message and I will ask Etienne to put you on the mailing list....

our cat eats bones!

2008-12-15T19:27:00.003+01:00

Having had her for a few weeks we have eventually discovered that Gertie is completely deaf. Apparently white cats with blue eyes have a 65 - 80% chance of being deaf and she is the only one in her litter with a blue eye (the other is green). Her mother and siblings have green eyes. Still, she is happy enough, and we will just have to warn the neighbours to watch out for her on the road outside the house.
Gertie eats everything she can get her teeth round!

And attacks everything including the broom and all the other cats. She's not frightened by the vacuum cleaner either - can't hear it!

Meet Gertie

2008-11-21T16:41:00.003+01:00

Here is Gertie, our newest addition to the Family.
We have been thinking about another cat since Pixel died, and Gertie here proved totally irresistible. As you can see, she has one blue eye and one green and an appetite of a cat five times her size.
Both Hugh and Rupert are totally terrified of her at the moment, they are just a pair of ninnies. Hugh will just about tolerate having her on the same sofa as where he is dozing so long as she keeps her distance. Milly just ignores her and keeps out of the way. Rupert is sulking and refusing to talk to me. Ho hum, they will get used to her.
Gertie has decided that my sewing table, right next to the stove is the place to be, so I have padded it out with a bit of fleece. However, if she continues eating at her current rate she wont fit in here for much longer. She retreats here regularly to kip, then ventures out to eat, explore and play some more.

bank holidays and "making the bridge"

2008-11-11T17:51:00.004+01:00

French bank holidays are usually on the actual date rather than the nearest monday as in the UK. So, today, the 11th November is the French Remembrance Day, and this year it happens to fall on a tuesday. Your average French man or woman doesn't think it is worth going into work just for the monday, so they usually "make the bridge" or faire le pont.

I knew this.

I also assumed that, where I work, to take this bridging day would require one of my slowly accumulating holiday entitlement days - which I am saving up for Christmas/new year, or when someone comes over, or we want to go over to the UK.

What I didn't know, and no-one had bothered to tell me was that at the hospital one is entitled to faire le pont automatically, and get paid for it, and (as far as I have been able to make out) keep hold of ones holiday entitlement!

So I blithely rolled up for work on Monday morning.

I thought it was a little strange that the lady on the gate took a while to raise the barrier and gave me a long look, but thought no more about it. Neither of the patients I had booked in to come first thing to the department arrived - oh well, perhaps they forgot, have another cup of tea and I'll chase them up on Wednesday. I went across to the offices to photocopy some stuff but they were all locked-up and dark. Starting to get suspicious (quick, eh?), I finally ventured out to one of the units, fortunately the one where our local mayor works (she is a nurse there). Her first words to me were 'what are you doing here?' They sat me down over a cup of coffee and explained the situation as outlined above - only a minimum staff of nurses and auxiliaries work bank holidays and bridge days. I realised then that there were no doctors about and very few cars, and it all began to make some sense.

Having got up early and gone in, I decided to finish the morning, but I have been told that I must take a day in lieu, so I will probably take next Monday - not bad eh?

pigs & hedges

2008-11-09T19:03:00.003+01:00

Last weekend we took possession of our half of a pig, raised by some friends locally and shared with another local couple. The Friday afternoon killing and cleaning session was interesting and I took some photos, but I don't think they are suitable for showing on a blog!
Here is a picture of our half pig, a considerable lump of meat that was too heavy to carry in from the car, so we resorted to the wheelbarrow. We spent most of the rest of the weekend cutting up, boning, salting, boiling, mincing, roasting, bagging-up etc etc... We now have a 7 kilo ham salting in the pantry. This will be air-dried over the next few months, and should be ready for consumption in mid 2009 (we hope).

The freezer is bursting at the seams with joints, chops, diced pork, bacon joints, stock & sausage meat. We are just coming to the end of the brawn that we made from the head and the boudin noir that was made (by our friends) from the blood. I also had a go at making rillets - cooked shredded pork with lard. There are a few of jars of these left in the larder as I only made enough for 5 jars. The one we sampled was delicious, so I shall make more next time we have a pig.

It was an interesting, if exhausting, process and another time we shall have more idea of the amount of work involved and the sorts of end products we want to produce. We have also reverted to salad lunches as a reaction to eating too much meat recently!
More garden pictures.
Above is the short section of beech hedge we planted about 6 years ago, using plants grown from seeds collected in Bold Venture Park in Darwen, where we used to live. The colours of the beech trees this autumn has been spectacular, as you can see, even after having been trimmed.

Below is the start of my first attempt at laying a hedge - this six metres took me a whole afternoon. This is the hawthorn hedge that we planted a few years ago round the orchard. I want it to be a reasonably tight and stock-proof hedge (although we actually have a 1 metre high wire mesh fence separating the sheep from the orchard now - you can just see the fencing at the far end of the orchard. It is now completed round both the top and bottom sections of our sheep field). When we let the sheep into the orchard a few years ago they did so much damage to the trees that they are now banned, but I have ideas about geese...

The hawthorn is probably still a bit small for laying but it is getting very untidy so I decided to lay it this year. This winter, Pete and some of our friends are going to lay the main hedge along the side of the property that we planted 8 years ago now, but this is more my scale! I also need to go and buy a billhook, as I used a small axe to do this bit and it really was not the right tool for the job. You can see how much more I have yet to do, and that the hawthorn on the other side of the orchard is bigger than the side I have started. We will be lifting the crown and opening out the trees on the boundary bank to the right of the picture, so that should encourage the hawthorn to grow a bit better.

Today we have planted more of the fruit bushes in the fruit cage, but the light went before I could take photos. The tally so far is 23 strawberry plants (three different varieties), 10 raspberry canes (4 varieties) and two different gooseberries that we have transplanted from elsewhere in the garden. There are still red, white and black current bushes to go in. We also need to have a go at deterring the moles who obviously enjoy hunting the millions of earthworms in that bit of the garden. Not keen on poison, but other anti-mole ideas will be welcomed!

Quick visit to england

2008-10-26T18:05:00.003+01:00

We made a lightning visit back to England last weekend, mainly to say farewell (yet again) to Fran & Jen who are going back to New Zealand. However we couldn't pass up the opportunity to drop in on Kath & Mick Walsh who have a house with a view (see above) back in Darwen, Lancashire, where we used to live. Although we haven't seen them for a year or two, it felt like we had only been away a few weeks, although we had lots of news to catch up on. With children and now grandchildren on three different continents, they understood our feelings as we contemplated saying goodbye again to Fran & Jen.

We went on to the Wirral to stay with Jen's parents and took the opportunity to go for a walk in some lovely woodland nearby. This is a strange sandstone rock in the middle of the woods, which is being rapidly eroded by water into deep gullies, the process being hastened by people carving their names all over it.

Unfortunately the clutch of Duck eggs we were hoping would hatch that weekend failed to happen. Not sure of the reason, as they were being looked after by our current gite tenants, who had instructions about keeping them damp etc. Mrs Broody has hatched a brood before very successfully, so who knows what went wrong. The eggs each contained a fully formed, but dead, chick - bit sad really.

We have been able to get lots of stuff done in the garden this last week - more fencing round the bottom field, finishing the bramble cutting on the top bank, and planting strawberries in the fruit cage. Photos to follow when the rain eases up again!

Indian summer

2008-10-12T21:00:00.007+02:00

We have had some really lovely weather this september and october, which has given us the chance to catch up a bit with gardening and also to have a day out...

These pictures were taken at Loguivy de la Mer, on the north coast. There was a stiff wind blowing, but we spent the day exploring the coast north of Paimpol.
For map see: http://www.multimap.com/s/eSP6UuaJ

We have fenced in the top field for the sheep, leaving enough space between fence and our boundary bank to get the tractor & topper round the outside of the sheep field. You can just see in the field the pile of dead brambles ready for burning, that were cut from the bank. The sheep enjoy eating the bramble leaves, which often results in sheep arriving down at the barn trailing yards of bramble from their wool - dim as toc-H lamps!
This is the bank round the bottom field, down towards the pond, where the brambles haven't been cut for a few years. There were lots of blackberries this year, but the brambles have got to go, which is a bit of a job - yet to be finished, as you can see. The posts are in place for fencing in the bottom field. We will need this soon, as we are borrowing a ram (Sean II) soon and our ram lamb will need to be securely fenced elsewhere.
This is our fruit cage - yet to be planted-up, but now both small bird-proof (fine green net) and hen/duck proof (chicken-wire round base). We have some gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes in the garden, that are regularly stripped by the birds so we will transplant these into the fruit cage. We have also bought four types of raspberries, a redcurrant, a whitecurrant and loads of strawberries - I just hope we have enough room for them all ....
The orchard is coming back into some sort of order again. The hawthorn hedge round th outside will be laid this winter, and hopefully I can keep the grass under better control next year!
Our Indian Runnner ducks are thriving - the only photos I can get are of them running away from me at high speed! We are starting to get duck eggs, although the egg rate has dropped off lately, as there is probably not enough daylight now.
This handsome lad will be our new cockerel. He is called Bilbo, as he's got feathery feet. He was hatched this year, the offspring of Iggy, who is getting on a bit now (about 4 years!) and starting to get stiff joints in his legs (tell me about it). Iggy will become stock shortly once Bilbo has grown a bit bigger and the hens have stopped pecking him.
Finally, the lovely daytime weather has meant that there have been some frosts overnight and the cornus leaves have suddenly tuned this beautiful colour. Here comes winter once more....

kinésithérapeute!

2008-09-11T20:50:00.002+02:00

I am coming to the end of my first two weeks working as a physiotherapist at our local hospital. This is a mental hospital that serves most of Brittany, and I am the only physio in the place! The job is mornings only - 17.5 hours a week from 8.30 to midday, 20 minutes drive from home and no traffic jams (hardly any traffic for that matter).

As Fran so neatly put it, I am currently rather outside my comfort zone, but it sure will improve my French in a hurry! I have to ask about everything, as all the healthcare/hospital systems are unfamiliar to me. I also have to ask the french words for lots of things, as they are equally unfamiliar. And the telephone!!!! But most people are extremely friendly and helpful (with the odd inevitable exception) and happy to show me what is what. I asked for a computer the first day (priorities!) but it hasn't materialised yet. I will need to get some more up to date electrotherapy equipment as the stuff in the department probably came out of the ark. I haven't a clue what it does or how to use any of it, and from the look of it, don't much want to. My predecessor retired in June, leaving the place pretty blank except for stuff that was probably new when he started in the sixties. Once I get a computer and internet link I will go searching french equipment suppliers and put in a bid for some new kit. Perhaps a local museum will be interested in some bygone therapeutic artifacts?? (joke!?)

I still haven't quite fathomed out how to use the security phone I have in the department itself, which I am supposed to keep on me when I am treating a patient there. That will probably be a job for tomorrow, as I have had a patient referred for treatment in the kiné department, rather than in one of the various units spread out over the hospital grounds. Last time I took it out of its wall-mounted recharger it vibrated and set off an alarm which I managed to quell by pressing all the buttons in turn, but not sure still which it was... As far as I can gather (I have had one brief explanation from one of the nurses on one of the units I visited) you have to press a button on the side each time it vibrates (about every ten minutes) - not doing this sets off the alarm. But I will go and check again, taking with me my trusty electronic translator this time!

Most of my patients so far have just been gently batty - so it matters not that my french is fairly rudimentary or plain incorrect - I just nod, smile and agree, "d'accord" - seems to work most times. However motivating some of them to do exercises that are uncomfortable of difficult is rather more of a challenge. Writing up notes in dog-french-come-latin is even more of a nightmare, but I'm sure it provides some moments of amusement to the nursing staff! My patient load can hardly be described as heavy yet, though it is building up. I have enough work now to keep me going most of the morning with time to take coffee in at least one unit each day plus time to pour over a dictionary back at the department to find out how to phone someone and ask yet another question. Pretty civilized so far - none of the frantic rush and stress of an english general hospital. Watch this space!

Hot Beetroot Chutney

2008-08-27T16:25:00.005+02:00

Once again, this recipe is adapted from one in the WI book of Jams, Pickles & Chutneys, although I have changed it quite a lot... In fact this comes out remarkably like a famous brand of pickle that starts with a 'B', but a bit hotter, and a fraction of the price.
The quantities given are for half of what you see in the picture below - I made two roasting trays full, as I had been given loads of beetroot!
1.3 kg beetroot, cooked & diced
0.5 kg onions, chopped
0.5 kg cooking apples, cored & chopped
0.5 kg seedless raisins (you could use chopped dates)
2 lemons de-pipped and cut into small pieces (skin and all)
1 litre cider vinegar
a large-ish piece of root ginger, coarsely grated (skin and all)
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsps allspice
3 tsps ground ginger
1 kg sugar
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan oven)
2. Put all ingredients EXCEPT SUGAR into a large stainless-steel roasting tin & mix well
3. I cooked this for 2 hours, stirring occasionally
4. Once the vegetables are cooked and the liquid is starting to colour, add the sugar & stir in.
5. Cook for at least a further 30 minutes till most liquid is well thickened and the chutney is nice and caramelised
6. Put into slightly cooled sterilised jars and put vinegar-proof lids on immediately
4. Don't forget to label the jars!.
5. Because I ran out of jars I had to sterilise more (using the oven). So I liquidised the remaining chutney and added a bit more water & put it back in the oven while the jars were sterilising. This 'fine cut' chutney will be used for spreading on BBQ sausages next summer, if there is any left by then .....

Pixel - le chat qui lit

2008-08-26T21:22:00.008+02:00

We buried Pixel this afternoon, in the strip of woodland we are establishing along the east side of our land - and which will henceforward be called Pixel's Wood! Pixel's kidneys finally packed up at the ripe old age of 15 and we had to make the painful decision to have him put to sleep. He was happy and not too uncomfortable until this morning, and remained chief mickelborough moggy right to the very end.

So here are some pictures from the last 5 years which show how much he enjoyed life here in France and to what extent he supervised the renovations and gardening. They are in no particular order, but I hope you enjoy them.

Neither Pixel nor Milly were overjoyed by the trip over.... but things got rapidly better:

There really was a time that he was bigger than Hugh, but Hugh can be seen working hard at putting on the pounds!

Of course Pix was le chat qui lit (the cat that reads) and above is the picture that the logo came from.

Definitely a cat with character!

French orienteering championships

2008-08-19T21:07:00.005+02:00

An amazing orienteering event today - although I didn't get to run in it, being part of the organising team. As you can see from the map below, most of it on beach/estuary that is covered by water at high tide! And of course the long courses went out to the edges of the map!
The start tents had to be put up behind the causeway, as the westerly wind was so strong:
And the first control kite can be seen on its pile of rocks!
Note the island on the left horizon (left of the yacht mast, with a strip of sand showing). This was accessible via a sand causeway at low tide.
By the time the starts were finishing, there were people (you cant see them in this photo, but I saw them!) wading across the gap, up to their hips in water!
I took this next shot only about ten minutes later - fortunately all the runners did get safely in! Only one or two complained about 'not safe, taking risks etc'. Most runners had a ball - who doesn't enjoy scrambling over rocks and running across sandy beaches?
The next picture is one of the controls, not sure of the description - crag foot perhaps??
This is the finish - the last kite was on the dark shape (an old wooden hulk) in the centre of the picture.
Lots of us were itching for a run on the area, but had to man the information/ start/ finish etc etc. However, now the map is made we will probably have a regional event there in the not too distant future. Hopefully on a day with less wind than today - the starts had to be put back by an hour, as the westerly gale prevented the low tide from falling as low as was needed in time for the first starts. Hence the rush at the end.... Anyway, a really good day.

ducks afloat

2008-08-03T15:48:00.005+02:00

Ducks were afloat before we finished the pond - they were still on the water at 2.00 am the other morning when we went to shut them in after a late night out!

Jane's nectarine and lemon chuney

2008-08-03T14:44:00.007+02:00

Having had a few requests for the recipe, here it is with pictures! (I have adapted this recipe from one in the WI book of Jams Jellies & Chutneys) It is oven-cooked - this keeps the fruit in lumps and allows it to caramelise nicely. Goes well with roast or BBQ lamb or pork...

Quantities are for a double amount, using a 2 kilo box of nectarines which are widely available here in France this time of year. This chutney can be made with any other fruit - I have used plums & lemons before which is very nice. Just keep the ratio of fruit : vinegar : sugar the same and use at least 1 lemon.
1.6 kg nectarine flesh in pieces 1 kg lemons de-pipped and cut into pieces (skin and all)
1.3 kg onions, chopped roughly
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp allpsice
0.5 tsp ground chili
500 ml cider vinegar
1 kg sugar

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan oven)
2. Put all ingredients EXCEPT SUGAR into a large roasting tin & mix well
3. Cook for up to 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally
4. Once the fruit is tender, the liquid is reduced and it is starting to colour, add the sugar & stir.
5. Cook for at least a further 30 minutes till most liquid is well thickened and the fruit is as caramelised as you wish
6. While it is cooking, put jars (between 10 - 12) in a tray in the same oven to sterilise. Boil lids in water
7. Allow chutney & jars to cool a little, then fill jars, seal & label.
8. keep at least a month (preferably longer if you can!) to mature Voila! 11 jars of chutney for about a euro a jar!

another rainbow cot quilt

2008-07-28T13:09:00.002+02:00

I have managed to get the overall rainbow effect better this time!
This is a hand-painted, pure silk dupion cot quilt with personalised embroidery - available to order for 110 euros. Now to get the website up and running....

Duckpond!

2008-07-25T19:58:00.002+02:00

The excavation of the pond is complete, now to use up the metres of black plastic we have disinterred from around the garden. This stuff is not waterproof or big enough to be a liner, but it will protect a liner from stones beneath (we hope). The ducks are intellectually challenged by the steps into their current pond arrangements. Three have worked out how to step up into the water (most times) but the other two just look on in puzzled interest
Watch this space for a flotilla of happy ducks in a day or two.

cot quilts in silk

2008-07-22T14:07:00.005+02:00

To compliment the knitted cot quilts that Pete is trying to get launched, I have started to make patchwork quilts in pure silk, with hand-painted patches plus room for a machine-embroidered panel to personalise the quilt. These are two prototypes:

The animals are outlined in a bronze 'gutta' but I think something darker would look better. This is a small, pram size and will sell for about 90 euros (including machine embroidery).

This bigger quilt is a cot size and the rainbow patches didn't come out quite as I hoped. I have put the gîte name and date of our first guests on the panel, and I will use it on the cot we have in the gîte.
I am now making another of these, but have painted the rainbows in narrower stripes on a full quilt size piece of silk, and will cut out the piece to give two quilts-worth of rainbow patches. I am also going to use a darker blue for the plain squares. Photos to follow soon.

Now the gîte really is finished AND inspected AND passed for inclusion in the Brittany Ferries brochure next year we can get on with other stuff again at last - there IS life after Gîte!

chicks at one month

2008-07-22T13:46:00.004+02:00

The chicks shown in the last posting are now exactly one month old. In the end we got eight that survived. They are now reaching that tatty gangly teenage stage and Mrs Broody is having to keep a constant watch out for them as they are inclined to wander off on their own. They are enjoying the freedom of being out of the chicken shed ....
because we have acquired some Indian Runner ducks, and they need to be kept in a few days before being let out. I have always been fascinated by Indian Runners since I saw a picture of them many years ago. The two small ones (Linford & Sally - think about it) we got first, and I doubt they are true runners. The three bigger dark ones are undoubtedly Indian Runners and very handsome they are too. There are two ducks and a drake (who is called Jackson, tho' I dont know if he can hurdle yet). Suggestions please for names of the two girls - only criterion is must be a runner of some sort (Hev & Yvette??). We are planning a duckpond in the walled hangar area. They are coping with a cattle drinking trough at the moment.

THe tomatoes are flourishing in the tiny greenhouse, as well as aubergines and peppers. I suspect we may have a case of blight, so toms may come to nought. The sweetcorn outside is sprouting beautifully but has to be fenced from the chooks.

The potager has given us crops of potatoes, rocket, radishes, lettuce and peas already. The beetroot, carrots & turnips are swelling nicely. I have recently sown or transplanted runner beans which are romping up their strings and broccoli, both normal and purple sprouting. Only the parsnips and spinach have been a bit of a disappointment. I think things were too dry/cold to get them to germinate properly. Our culinary high point recently was a spanish omelet with our own fresh eggs, potatoes and peas, with a home-grown salad.

chicks

2008-06-22T18:18:00.003+02:00

They arrived exactly on time, starting late last night. We went to check her when we got home after the Rock Moelou concert last night, about 1.30am.
So far this afternoon Mrs Broody has had six hatch out - five yellow and one black. There are quite a few eggs to go yet. Because she brooded in the top of an oil drum, with nothing to stop the other hens laying a sly egg every now and again for her to incorporate in her brood, she started with about ten and ended up with nearly twenty. Not all these will have developed enough to hatch and we don't have another broody to put them under. Watch this space for the final tally.

musical season....

2008-06-18T22:11:00.022+02:00

loads of musical stuff happening around now - next Saturday is le fête de la musique and there will be Rock Moelou down the road in St Lubin. This is preceded by a balade à moto - a 50 kilometer ride round the countryside for all who have motorbikes.
Pete & I will be serving food and washing up for most of the evening, but I expect it will count as one of the most enjoyable days in the year, as it was last year.

The Friday night before (june 20th), we are once more giving a concert of traditional song in three languages, but this time they are breton, czech, and english.

This is in the tiny chapel at St Lubin - amazing acoustics and terrible, agonising bench seats! Bring a cushion.

A couple of sundays ago we were asked to sing at the opening of a four à pain (bread oven) in Ploufragon, near St Brieuc. The day started with une balade chantée - all singing as we walked through the forest. Personally I prefer orienteering at a faster pace and I also prefer the sound of birdsong in a forest, but there are lots of these singing walks, so we had to see what they were about....

On Friday 13th June we sang at a concert in the port de Legué in St Brieuc - a spin-off from the chant de marin sessions we have been going to for the last year or so. The boat behind us is a reproduction gaff rig lugger, built a few years ago by a association (club) in St Brieuc, from the plans of an old fishing vessel from the same port. As you can see we tried to help the chorus singing by holding up some words - got a giggle!

Fran & Jen made it over for a few days, and Fran immediately wanted a go on the tractor now called 'Bessie' by default (no other suggestions - does ANYONE read my blog I wonder?). He also enjoyed a bit of pyromania - the field loooks much better now we have got rid of the pile of dead brambles and hedge trimmings.

Some pictures here of the 'chaos' at Huelgoat, where we all went yesterday.
This is yet another extraordinary river bed full of huge boulders - there are quite a few round here, some more frequented than others.
They make for a fun walk with a bit of optional scrambling on a fine afternoon.

Tractor!

2008-05-30T19:49:00.006+02:00

Here is Pete with his new toy. She is actually about my age (50+), but goes fine once started. Getting her started is another matter, requiring jump leads from a hard-revving car and a squirts of 'easy start'. But she has been sitting in our barn getting cold and a bit wet all through the winter... Hopefully once the battery is thoroughly re-charged and all damp dried out she will only need a bit of help to get going. The topper on the back is a fantastic piece of kit and mows the long grass like a dream, so hopefully the grass will be less long in the future.

So - suggestions please for a name for this venerable bit of agricultural history!

Got the BBQ built and finished off today and photos of same put on gite site. Photo a bit one-sided; but have not finished fence on the right yet - gotta go with what we've got! We also finished and hung the gates at the bottom of the garden - divides the tidy bit from the rest of the land - photo below. Again, the garden need some work, but hopefully we will have some time to do it now - just need the weather to be a bit kinder.

Gruesome photo!

2008-05-21T09:44:00.002+02:00

I managed to shut my finger in the car door yesterday - so I ended up with ten stitches, the six shown below and another four on the other side of this finger. I have to go back to the doctors today for a tetanus shot....

As you can imagine, I said a few things like 'damn' and 'blast' etc. Luckily the lady in the bike shop (we had just picked up our bikes, having had new tyres fitted) didn't understand the actual words, although I'm sure she was in no doubt as to their content.
Pete just drove me up to the doctor's cabinet, and he stitched it up on the spot, during his lunch hour, saving us from a drive into Carhaix hospital and possibly a longish wait to be seen. Once again I cannot fault the French health system!

Luckily we are just going through a 'snag' list now in the gîte, finishing off the little bits that have got missed on the way. Here is the latest picture of the outside - better now the grass has grown back outside the front.

late lamb and new chickens

2008-05-03T11:16:00.002+02:00

At last Dolly has had her lamb - here is Friday (running out of name ideas), a young man who is not going to go short of calories!He was born last evening while we were having dinner. I noticed Dolly looked a bit restless before we went in for dinner, and there was Friday when we went to check afterwards. Nice to get a live lamb after the fright dolly gave us two weeks ago, getting hypocalcaemic, and us having to call the vet out. Intravenous calcium & steroids got her up and about very quickly, but the vet thought we may lose the lamb. These ouessants are tougher than you think!
Our new potager looks a bit bare still, but doubtless the weeds will soon green it over... We had to fence it to keep the hens off, then thread willow twigs through the wire to stop the hens squeezing through. Note greenhouse in rear - no glazing as yet - we are working on panels of polythene, but tomatoes may be a bit late this year.
Finally a picture of some of our new hens. We have quite a colourful flock now, with some of the original white sussex, including Iggy the cockerel, some 'poulets rouges' (the brown ones) and some 'cendres' (the grey ones - 'cendres' means 'ashes'). Just Baa Baa to lamb now - she's usually the last.

found sheep cartoons...

2008-05-01T21:23:00.003+02:00

Whilst clearing out the bedroom of the gite (to make room for the bed), I came across these cartoons that we had commissioned way back when pete was selling machine knitting wool. I cannot remember the name of the artist (suggestions gratefully received), but they amuse me greatly; especially the park bench one...Talking of sheep, Dolly & Baa Baa are still awaiting a happy event, as we forgot to supply them with a suitor till december last year. Watch this space for late lamb pictures.
Gite coming on OK - seems an endless job of finishing off now. Had to saw off a dodgy plumbing joint today - will need replacing, as no amount of car body filler was going to stem the leak (what, ME? bodge a joint??) caused by a squidged washer. The upstairs is essentially finished. Pete has a half days work under the stairs swearing at the electrics circuits etc (don't ask) and I have yet to plumb in the downstairs shower room. And we have loads of stuff and tools and rubbish to clear out and find a home elsewhere for. Garden still needs work before taking photos is possible, but the weather has been so appalling that we would be paddling to mow the grass.

But - have finally got round to getting a potager set up. Lots of seeds planted, but not much showing as yet. We are looking forward to a home-grown spanish omelette soon - our own eggs and potatoes, with a home grown salad. Fruit trees all in flower too, we are hoping the recent hail, rain & wind doesn't ruin the crop this year.

Long absence, but lots done

2008-03-10T19:35:00.004+01:00

I have just realised how long it is since I last posted anything on this blog. However, we have been SO busy, we have hardly had time to draw breath! Pictures of the results...

The dining-room end of the upstairs living area, plus the staircase.

The lounge end of the upstairs living area. These are preliminary photos for the gîte website that is is the process of bring done right now. The rest of the place still looks like a building site, there is loads to do yet but got to get some publicity out now....
The last photo is the outside as of today - steps, front door and bit of a flower bed. Obviously ladders, wheelbarrows etc will be got rid of...

Need to do some serious weeding here!

New year photo update 2 - barn/gîte

2008-01-26T21:45:00.000+01:00

First photo is a catch-up on the shower room in the first upstairs bedroom we finished earlier last year. Can't picture all in one but you can just see the edge of the shower to the left of the picture.
OK - this is the room over the shop, just before we cleared the decks and started to lay the pine-plank floor. As you can see, we have finished insulating the roof - makes it possible to work in there in the winter, and even add a bit of heat from time to time.
The pink stuff, foreground, picture below, is extruded polystyrene which we have used to insulate the old doorway - there isn't enough thickness to use glass wool. The heap of wood is the flooring, yet to be laid. These pictures were taken on new years day 2008.
The next two pictures are where we are up to now. The floor is laid and sealed, the partition wall studding for the bedroom and shower room is up, with the doors in place. We have dry-lined the end wall with "doublage" ie plasterboard backed with 40mm polystyrene. Next job is to finish the plumbing and electric cabling before we plasterboard the walls and tongue-and-groove the ceiling
You can see the bookshelves in the picture above. These will be set into the wall of the living area, ie built-in. In the picture below you can just see the two tiny windows that used to be for the pigeons in the end wall (over the shop door). They are now glazed on the inside, between the wall and the doublage. I will add a second sheet of glass to the outside end of the holes when the weather gets a bit warmer.
Thats all for now - Too busy to post too often!

New years photo update (part 1 - garden)

2008-01-04T11:50:00.000+01:00

Here are some before and after pictures - the befores are all 2003.

First the front of the house in 2003 and then yesterday. The garden needs cutting down, but the blue tits love the verbena seedheads, so I'm leaving them till spring, if the wind doesn't knock them down completely first (good excuse).

To the left side, the hangar had just been demolished (you can see the beams being loaded).The side barn is now a habitable space, with a small window in front and a decent door. The big stones in the 2003 photo were used for the corners of the beds in the front garden.

Down the side of the house, where the hangar used to be. We had the end half of the concrete dug up and that is now flowerbeds. We have filled-in the drainage channels, and covered the right-hand part with slate chippings with a flowerbed edge (theres a ditch to the right of the bed). The other side will be a boules court one day - when we don't need it for sand/compost/rubble storage!

Here is Pixel carefully picking his way over what looks like a bomb site. Poor cat, probably wondering what we had brought him to! Note the little apple tree in centre of picture. Todays picture shows the courtyard garden that has replaced the pile of wood on the right in the first picture. The apple tree is considerably bigger now, seen here without leaves. The concrete hardstanding in the forground of the 'now' picture is for the porch we have yet to get around to building (see blog 'More plans for the future'; Oct 22 2006).

The back lawn (just grass really). It did look terrible after the septic tank had been installed. the 2003 summer was so dry that nothing grew for months. The stony surface explains why the grass here doesn't grow too well at the best of times even now, although it is a bit shaggy now as I haven't cut it for quite a while. The recent picture shows the new chicken-proof (?) 'dead hedge' nearing completion - there will be smart gates in the gaps soon!

Finally, for now, some ariel views. The first was taken when we fitted the chimney pot a bit later in summer 2003. The last two are from an upstairs window of the gîte and show the back and front gardens. Things have tidied-up a bit and also grown somewhat. It cheers me up considerably to look back and see how much better it all looks now!

Chants de marin in Binic

2007-12-21T13:57:00.001+01:00

Last evening was the first anniversary of the 'chants de marin' sessions we have been going to at Binic, on the north coast. So we had a bit of a do - in fact we had a really smashing evening, with standing room only and sore throats afterwards from all the singing.
Note from the poster for the evening (above) - we are now included as residents/regular singers! Feels really nice to be included - some brave souls are even starting to join in with some choruses in English. Etienne & Etienne (next two pictures below) are two thirds of the group 'Fortunes de Mer' and originally started the session. They always strike me as an unlikely looking combination, but they sound really good together as well as singing individually.
Edwige and her husband Pierre-Jean (next two pictures below) are the couple who first told us about the session back last January. They also took part in the concert we gave last June.

Hervé and Hélène (pic below) kindly invited us to stay over with them last night - saved us an hours drive back in the freezing cold. Hervé is a local Breton, and Hélène is from Quebec, and speaks French with the most outrageous accent possible! What I struggle to understand at the best of times becomes practically impossible!
Hélène took along her dancing dolls which are traditional to Quebec. They are the same dancing dolls that are common in the northwest of the UK, particularly around Liverpool. You support the doll just touching the board, which you 'twang' with your thumb in time to the music, to make the doll dance. It is really very effective!
So if you are coming to visit, plan to be here for the third Thursday of the month (except in august, of course) and make sure you have a sea shanty you can sing or a hornpipe you can play!

doors: real and faux

2007-12-09T12:38:00.001+01:00

Got the front door fitted eventually, although the weather has not allowed us to render the in-fill either side. It would melt if I tried it!Here is the door from the inside. What a difference it makes against the wind! We can actually think about heating the downstairs now.
Meanwhile, upstairs, we have insulated and framed-out the capuchine, which used to be the only way into the loft. Since we have excavated the soil away from the back wall, this door leads nowhere, and we are not allowed to have a clear glass window overlooking our neighbor's property....
So, having installed pipes to take further electric cables (that are sure to be required once the space is blocked)....
We have fitted an old french door that came out of the house. Thus we have a 'faux' door, and a triple glazed, non-see-through window.

Insulating the upstairs

2007-12-07T19:19:00.001+01:00

Pete helped by a friend of ours, Rhett, putting up battening and insulation in what will be the bedroom over the shop. Just blocking the drafts that were howling through the edges of the eaves has warmed up the upstairs considerably. We had to spend an afternoon the other day cutting down the hydrangeas alongside the shop (by the road), to get to the climbing roses and brambles behind them, that were coming into the roofspace - great thick twining stems growing indoors! Have vigorously pruned the rambling rose, but this just seems to encourage it! Once the insulation is done we can start heating the place and then lay the second half of the upstairs floor-boards (over the particle board you can just see in the picture)

The end wall will be dry-lined. Rendering it will bring too much water into the building again. We have bought a second dehumidifier (second-hand this time) to dry out the downstairs rooms, as the rendering is still a bit wet. As we have started to acquire furniture & beds etc, we need to keep them dry.

photos of work in progress

2007-11-30T11:00:00.001+01:00

The old door has been removed and we have had to set up a temporary cover to keep the weather (if not the cats) out. You can see the new door frame and the blocks we have had to use to fill in the extra space. The door is still going to be wider than the average doorway...

We couldn't face blocking in the amazing stone hinge holes, especially the top one, so we left a gap. The blocks will be rendered in the next few days.

This is the doorway from the inside. I have finished rendering around the new blockwork, so it blends seamlessly with the rest of the rendering.

The kitchen is coming on. The gaps are for (from right to left) the dishwasher, sink (in place) fridge, cooker (with tiles behind) and shelves. The work surface will be finished with solid oak parquet, which we will seal with exterior grade polyurethane.

Update on progress

2007-11-23T19:55:00.000+01:00

OK, haven't updated for ages - been too busy. As you probably know, we are trying to get the gite ready for spring, so we have been madly building for the last couple of months.

Today, Pete connected-up the electric circuits for power and light in the downstairs 'kitchen' area, so now I will be able to take some photos with decent light. We have nearly finished rendering the kitchen walls, and have got the worktop base in place - we will cover it with (well sealed) solid oak parquet. I have managed to source second-hand cooker, fridge, microwave and dishwasher for the kitchen for very little cost - this lot will go in very soon, so we have room in the downstairs bedroom to put stuff from upstairs while we do the floor. I can carry on with finishing-off downstairs now.

Pete has started to frame-out the second half of the upstairs roof, so we can get it at least insulated, before we lay the rest of the floor, over the shop. Working in there now is a pain, it is so cold...

There is a load of plumbing to get done, which I am trying not to think about - maybe when we can heat the place a bit I can bear to start it. Twiddling with joints and pipes with frozen fingers is not my idea of fun - makes my hands hurt.

Speaking of which, I have been trying an elimination diet to see if it helps my joints. No wheat/barley/oats, sugar, alcohol, eggs, caffeine, tomatoes, chocolate or dairy for 7 days, and now a gradual re-introduction of different foods. Once the three-day headache wore off, I realise that my joints are definitely feeling better for it. Now I only now have one thumb joint that still hurts, and that seems to be improving each day. I have re-introduced beer, sugar, oats and tomatoes so far, with no adverse effects. Watch this space! I suspect red wine and bread may end up as the culprits - hey ho, never mind.

We have safely dispatched this years lambs to the great pasture in the sky. Well, actually to the freezers in our workshop, along with gallons of stock and various soups. So the carnivores among you can safely plan a visit, knowing that lamb will feature strongly on the menu, should you wish...

We have also had a 'ureka' moment, re: building raised beds for growing veggies. The degree of compaction, plus the tons of stones/hardcore in the soil where we want to put the veggie garden mean we have to have raised beds. Using old railway sleepers is not an option at 25 euros per carcinogen-creosoted piece. We will be using corrugated sheeting, of which we have loads that came off the big hangar we had demolished, and which has been sitting quietly in the workshop, waiting for us to find a use for it. Our increased consumption of salads will be satisfied by growing our own next year!

Photos will follow soon.

Bull Barn progress

2007-09-22T11:27:00.000+02:00

Heres a rather shaky video of the work we have done recently downstairs in the bull barn.
It is now divided into a kitchen/entrance area, a small room for the water heater and washing machine, then a big bedroom with an en-suite shower room. We are currently rendering the walls in the bedroom - the noise is the dehumidifier drying the place out.

I get to make crêpes for sale!

2007-08-27T18:35:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was the Pardon at Saint Lubin, and as tradition dictates (this is what an elderly gentlemen told me) the weather was lovely. After a short défilé to the fontaine at the back of the village, they lit a substantial pile of brushwood soaked in what smelt like diesel and enjoyed a quick bonfire - another tradition.
What was faintly alarming was the proximity of telephone and power lines...
"Its always been here" was the response to our alarm, presumably since before the lines went up, so they must take their chances. Glad they're not our power lines though. That was just the gentle start to a hectic day. The pardon participants returned to the chapelle, outside of which we (members of the comité des fêtes) were serving kir and selling homemede cakes to fund-raise for intermediate-type technologies for communities in Burkino Fasso.

A sad note was that there was a new member of the team of four carrying the Saint. Our neighbour, Raymond Le Goff, who died a few weeks ago, had, for many years, been very proud to be one of the four bearers. So this was a bit of a difficult day for Monique.

After a couple of kirs (obligatory, it seems!) and a quick lunch (more wine), the afternoon activities were got underway. There is a definite (and predictable) male/female split in who does what in these things, so Pete spent most of the afternoon helping Laurent organise the boules tournament. Easier said than done, as the attractions of freshly-made crêpes (more of which later) and two bars within 100 meters meant that competitors tended to drift off if their next round opponents were not immediately to hand. So the four rounds necessary to whittle down from 31 teams to get a winner, on only 8 boules courts ended with the last two teams deciding to split the 200 euro prize money pot because it was getting too dark to play. Keeping the bouncy castle inflated against the depredations of hoards of overexcited kids took up Pete's spare afternoon time.

I spent the afternoon helping to set up eight krampouezh or crêpes-makers - linked in series (strictly interdit!) to only a couple of gas bottles (this photo gives you the idea). Then Laurent's wife, Noëlie let me have a go at making a crêpe. This looks Soooooo easy when done by experts (It should have been one of those awful tasks on the Generation Game, remember that?). The secret, I was told, was to be calm - not to panic. Sounds just the thing for me - you all know I NEVER panic....

So the first one was not too bad - a bit uneven, torn and crisp in parts, but then only Noëlie was watching. About an hour later, when production was warming up, with three people making & selling crêpes, Noëlie called to me - did I want a go? I realised this may well be a now-or-never moment so I said yes. What I didn't expect was that she would immediately vanish and leave me to it. My customers were on the whole extremely tolerant, especially when they realised I was english! The sweet crêpes, made with wheat flour, eggs sugar and milk are relatively easy as they are quite elastic and tear-proof. The blé noir galettes, made from buckwheat, are another matter altogether. The batter is very claggy and stringy, but when cooked becomes much more fragile and likely to tear. When I got an order for three blé noir with cheese & ham it took me a while to understand the order, and then the results were pretty awful. I would like to thank the lady who ordered them for her help and encouragement as I was struggling. Each got worse than the previous, and she kept assuring me that THIS one was for her, so it didn't matter. After that things got a bit easier as I calmed down and stopped panicking. I did notice the queue in front of me was noticeably smaller than the two others, which didn't surprise me. More surprising was that there was any queue at all!

block walls started

2007-08-23T20:18:00.001+02:00

This is the start of the downstairs plaster-block walls. We have only seen these in France, big lego-like plaster blocks that you glue together with a special 'colle'. Most off-the-shelf doors/doorframes come with morticed sides and top to fit these blocks, so building a wall with a door is easy.
Bedroom door now in place and more wall built. There will be a utility room (water tank and washing machine) on the left of this door (ie just to the left,behind the existing outside door). It barely looks safe as a wall, but we know from previous experience that these walls are solid.
This picture above shows where this new wall is in relation to the outside door of the barn. We decided to incorporate the tiny window at the back into the bedroom, rather than the kitchen.
Here's a picture of our new (second-hand) table, which will go in front of the fireplace, and give a worksurface in the kitchen. Its solid oak and weighs a ton.

Finally, congratulations to Greg on being awarded a Research Council grant to help him finance both fees and some maintenance for his masters degree.

tidy the fireplace

2007-08-23T10:16:00.000+02:00

This is how the fireplace looked in the bull-barn. Once Pete had taken out the manger, the bottom of the wall was a mess, where the big hearth stone had been removed. Luckily the bottom bit of wall is bedrock, so it's safe enough.
We have built up a small wall across the front of the fireplace and cut and waxed a piece of the old walnut manger-edging to top it. So now we have a (not very comfortable) bench-seat rather than a yawning gap.

How about getting the last row of floor tiles to fit exactly up to the end wall? Good planning eh? The building is actually a remarkably accurate rectangle, and despite starting with a row down the centre, we only had to cut tiles down one edge of the space.

below - Hugh is in training to fit Pete's guitar case sometime very soon.

The floor is finished!

2007-08-19T13:47:00.001+02:00

At last we have finished tiling the floor of the bull-barn. This has been quite a marathon, but we got there in the end. The job of grouting, which I was dreading, was made ridiculously easy by a bit of advice from our ex-builder friend John (see blog for thursday 7th June). When I was bitterly complaining about how hard it is to clean-off the grout he simply asked if we had any sawdust? "Use dry sawdust and a sponge to clean it up" was his advice.

As you can see from the photo above, it worked amazingly well. We cleaned-off the last 30-or-so square metres in about an hour, with much less fuss and effort than before. Please note as well the magic knee pads John loaned to us - knee savers!
So now the next job is to get the internal walls and doors into place - we are going to use plaster blocks for the downstairs walls, as well as to build the kitchen units. There will be a bedroom/shower room, utility room (hot water tank & washing machine) and a kitchen in this area. The old fireplace will be left showing and used for a decorative feature (unless we decide to put a small woodburner in front of it).

W actually had some nice weather while Jen was staying. I think she suspects us of exaggerating the awfulness of this summer in general. Our neighbour gave a huge sigh of relief and worked 24/24 to get his wheat and barley harvested.The road outside our house was red-hot with tractors pulling hugely overloaded trailers of first grain and then dozens of giant cotton-reel bales of straw. It was all hands to the pumps, with every friend and family member they could pull in to get it done in the few days of sunshine we had. Yvon is now looking a little less harassed.
We went up to Quintin (say it: can-tan) for their fete de tisserands, their linen festival. Good brocante (lots of stuff as no-one has been buying much this year) a parade with lots of music, costumes and huge horses and a nice lunch out. It was really nice to stop building and do some touristy stuff for a change. Jen, you can stay anytime if you bring weather like that!!

The floor tiles get laid..

2007-07-31T20:53:00.001+02:00

OK they are getting laid - see above. Takes ages as one mix of mortar does about 18 - 20 tiles which is about all we can manage at once. Pete mixes mortar and and I lay the tiles - restrictive trades practices it used to be called. We call it divison of labour. We have almost half the floor laid by now. Watch this space!

In the meantime we have taken advantage of some fine weather (shhhh it may notice!!!) to clear out the midden behind the workshop building (many thanks to Greg for his help) and to construct the second part of the dead-hedge (see may 22 for part one). The cordon sanitaire against the chickens is getting there! Watch this space for part 3, then the finale of "the gates"

As you can see we have a nice shady space now, behind the workshop. I am hoping to plant azaleas, rhododendron, yew (there is a golden yew already planted now in the corner) and other shade-loving plants there soon. We already have sweet peas and honeysuckle growing up the new dead-hedge. I am hoping to construct pretty gates for pedestrians and vehicules using treated wood, painted green. Pictures will follow.

Somewhere I have climbing solanum cuttings - I put them somewhere safe in the garden, earlier this year, but I havent been out much since and I have forgotten where they are.....

The French 5 Days orienteering

2007-07-14T21:11:00.000+02:00

(I think this episode of my blog is really aimed at Fran!)
Here are the maps from the french 5 days orienteering event. At least, the bits that I came across! Click on the maps to see a bigger version. I can send copies to anyone who wants...

The whole area is basically pine forest over sand dunes. Days 1 - 3 had quite a lot of areas with scrub and waist to shoulder-high undergrowth which made things very difficult occasionally. Days 4 & 5 (same map, same start and finish - bit boring really) had much more defined ups and downs and the white areas were really fast if you could manage the hills of soft sand....

Day 1 first.

I didn't make any big mistakes here. This was basically a medium-distance event, to get used to the type of terrain. The open-area start was a bit worrying, but I didnt see much open after that, except 6 which was in shoulder-high pine treelets. I attacked it from the knoll on the vegetation boundary to the east.

Day 2 - it gets harder..

Made two mistakes on this day - note that the contours are 2.5 metres, rather than the usual 5. I mistook the path junctinn to the north of number 3 for the path junction to the east. Ridiculous but true. I lost about 6 minutes here. Then I had a blinding run till number 11. I got distracted by people running D45 who had the same number 10 and headed towards my number 11 - except they went somewhere else and I was left thinking where the XXX am I ?? This leg took me 12.21 minutes. Damn. It was not really difficult, just delicate navigation and no time to get lost and relocate.

Day 3 - bad to worse.

I stood on the start line and thought "I'm never going to find number 1" I completely failed to spot the ride going east to west just south of the control. Doh! So I took the first path to the right and tried to follow the row of knolls going north-east. Fat chance, they barely showed on the ground - so after 11 and a half minutes I stumbled on it by chance. Two and three were slow and at 7 I mistook the first path crossing for the second (getting tired) which wasted a bit. The run-in was awful - about 700metres of just running (staggering) uphill on dry sand, as it effectively started from number 11. Bad planning that.

Day 4 - the best day

Despite getting very tired, this was he best day by far. The dunes were bigger and easier to see on the ground. The first control was like one of the knife-edge ridges in Sunnyhurst woods! I found the path leading into number 5 from the north-east, flew down the sand slope on the ride between 6 & 7 and disturbed someone's lunch going through the campe site from 11 to 12. The run in was pretty awful again - all the rides were soft sand. I was 12th on the day - it was one of those times when everything seems to go right, and to be soooo easy.....

Day 5 - repeat the previous day with added aches.

As I said - same start and finish. Almost the same legs occasionally. H35A actually had the same last two controls as the day before. Not good enough really. The weather eventually turned HOT. We had late starts and I was really tired. In addition, I had pulled a joint in my right instep, so soft sand was even harder than normal. You will note that 6-7 crosses the same open spur as day 4 and the stretch to and from number 7 was too hot for (polite) words. There were no drinks controls for the shorter courses either. Lots of people just went and dived straight into the lake by the finish once they stopped - my brain was too cooked to remember it was there!!! Never mind. I managed to do just about the same time on day 5 as day 4. The scandinavians of course did day 5 faster than the previous day. I came 18th overall the 5 days, and first member of a french club. (and second brit!) so I am well-pleased.
Now I need to do some more training.....

Going on holiday!

2007-07-04T19:20:00.000+02:00

and the size of the pile of stuff is starting to make me think 'kitchen sink' (no, the ironing board is staying home)
We have probably got out of roughing it when camping, there are too many necessities. We are going to a tiny site to the north-west of Bordeaux and we are hoping that the weather proves kind. I have memory-scars still from the scottish six-days at Kingussie (Fran & Greg were running M10) in the rain. Still, bordeaux is slightly further south..... warm rain probably.

The floor is now laid in the Bull Barn. Here is the concrete waggon arriving, this is about as close as he could get. The driver was very helpful, and dispensed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of concrete while Pete & Rhett (a friend) carted it to the furthest recesses of the barn. We got 4 cubic metres which was not quite enough, but 5 would have been far too much. Now for the floor tiles. We will get them once we get back from orienteering.
Thats all for now. Take a look at Genes Reunited - I have put on lots of the family recently (you cant see my tree till I let you via the site, so ask while I'm away and I'll let you in when I get back. Doing this has also got me back in touch with two of my cousins that I ahve lost contact with -Christine Nugent (My aunty Peggy's eldest daughter) and Gus Mackay (my uncle Billly's eldest son) and we have been doing some catching up. When I can get sorted out how to, I will post lots of the old family photos on the genes reunited site.

Fête de la Musique...

2007-06-24T10:26:00.001+02:00

was last thursday, when anyone can perform any music without incurring royalty payments, so long as the performance is free. Our concert was actually on friday night and went very well. There were about 80 people in the audience which wasn't bad considering the weather and the fact that the chapel only holds about 120 maximum. We thoroughly enjoyed it, as did Pierre-Jean & Edwige and Patrick & Marie-Claire. The comments we got afterwards included how nice it was to have such a varied programme - three languages and three very different styles.

However the comité des fêtes de St Lubin were all down-in-the-mouth because their proposed outdoor rock concert on Saturday night looked as if it was going tobe a wash-out. (see http://monsite.orange.fr/rockmoelou/page1.html) They were faced with holding it in the salle des fêtes in Kergrist Moëlou, which wouldnt have been the same at all - ie not in St Lubin!

However, we were incredibly lucky with the weather. They decided yesterday morning to chance an outdoor event and last evening was fine and quite mild. Some huge black clouds passed by to the north but the field had dried out enough to get a lorry trailer towed onto it using a tractor.

Pete spent the evening selling 'casse-croûtes' ie snacks - in this case barbecued sausages in a baguette while I washed-up a million knives, forks and coffee cups in a dingy shack using what was unmistakably a cow feed-bucket as a washing-up bowl! I also got a lesson in how to mix batter for crêpes, but I will need to practice before I can confidently stand and make huge thin crêpes to order with everyone standing watching. They make it look so easy...

We have spent the last week getting in the plumbing for the gîte before we lay the concrete floor downstairs.

then suddenly most of the work gets hidden!

We are hoping to get the floor poured on tuesday, as Pete is off to the UK to see his mum on wednesday. Getting the floor done depends on us barrowing enough rubble onto the space today and tomorrow to fill up some of the 20 -30 cm height difference across the floor from back to front. Of course the weather is being foul again...

Home from home

2007-06-12T18:43:00.000+02:00

OK, so we thought we had done with camping. However we are about to take our first holiday in four years and camping is the only option really, so we got the tent out today. Happily it is still in pristine nick, and thanks to Fran who used it last, it was beautifully clean and packed - obviously a prelude to parachute packing! In July we are off to the French five days (orienteering, see http://perso.orange.fr/laco/5J2007/Accueil.htm - sorry, still haven't worked out how to put in a link) down on the sand dunes near Bordeaux.

How about this for a map! Will make a change from some of the forests up here that are pratically flat, with long straight featureless paths and bingo controls in the centre of forest blocks. It will take us a while to get back into navgating by contour again.

I am going to try to mend the airbeds that we bought for Greg & Tom when they came out some years ago - which promptly deflated as soon as they were slept on. Failing that, new ones will have to be aquired. Thermarests are definately not sufficient these days! Hopefully we will have some shade - the site looked to have lots of trees, so fingers crossed.

We're going up to St Brieuc this afternoon to return some books to emmaüs (the ones we can't get online) and to buy plumbing stuff at bricomarché (exciting, eh?). We need to get pipes set into the concrete of the floor, so this needs doing before we order the readymix. After a few nice days, we look to be in for a spell of wet weather again so back to working indoors, and the grass still needs cutting....

sheep shearing day

2007-06-07T13:40:00.000+02:00

Monique came round last night to tell us that it was sheep-shearing day today. A friends of her cousin comes round each year and does them for her. Not much notice, but never mind...

Got the girls penned this morning OK, while Pete went to fetch the three belonging to our friends Rhett & Martine. We put the lambs into one of the outbuildings while we were away, otherwise they would have broken out. However they probably have sore throats now, with all the frantic yelling. No time for photos during the process itself, but here are pictures of fleeces (lucky you can't see the ticks) and the now-slim girls. I am struggling now under the influence of the obligatory huge dose of pastis drunk down at high speed after the shearing, while we settle up (4 euros per sheep). I am starting to itch - must have a shower and check for beasties....

John came round yesterday and we got the levels marked out for laying the concrete floor in the Bull barn. Its a much faster process than fiddling about with a spirit level and ruler!

So, floor to go in as soon as we can organise it! Progress!

at last, some sunshine 2

2007-06-05T13:59:00.000+02:00

Not that we haven't been busy while it has been raining & grey. We have finished the ceiling in the upstairs over the bull barn. The side walls are plasterboarded but not finished-off yet. Now we have to move everything across into this space so that we can lay the remaining upstairs floor.

Downstairs from this pete has EVENTUALLY managed to get the mangers out. It took him two solid days with a road drill and compressor, plus hours of barrowing - altogether a heroic feat. Our neighbour Jean-Jaques who built the mangers said they had to be extra strong to prevent the bad-tempered bull from pulling them to bits. Still, steel reinforced concrete seems a bit much. Here are two photos of the surprisingly large space. John Waterson is coming over tomorrow with his theodolite to help us get the levels marked out for the concrete floor.

Pretty pictures now - a moth I havent managed to identify yet and the first flower of the rose 'veilchenblau' that is slowly covering the left half of the rustic arch.

Finally a sneak-pic of Pete taking five in the garden after lunch - just to prove we do stop occasionally! As you can see the metal loops around the little courtyard garden are gradually getting covered with plants. The foxgloves are looking pretty amazing too...

At last some sunshine

2007-05-22T16:41:00.000+02:00

So we decided to start the back porch. Here are the inital measurements being made:

The turf is off the top:

The first row of footings is poured:

As well as the porch we are using up a huge pile of brashings to build a 'dead hedge' to serve to divide the chicken-scratched from the hopefully chicken-free bit of garden. This will also be a haven for wildlife as well as looking much better than a post and wire fence.

More stuff has come out in the garden. This laburnum flower is on what has become a small tree that was originally a seed from Mike Leighton's front garden! The clematis was a cutting I aquired from a neighbour of nana Mick's in Faversham. You can see they are both struggling to survive in Brittany...

wind and rain and rain....

2007-05-11T22:15:00.000+02:00

Hey Ho, the wind and the rain, for the rain it raineth every day.....
Old Bill must have lived in Brittany!
OK, thats enough, now, lets have the sun back again please.

We had to go out yesterday evening with a length of rope to tie together the two forks of a our pretty apple tree that grows just behind the house. There used to be three forked branches till one got ripped off in a spring gale two years ago. I was determined that it wasn't going to happen again, hence the rope. A quick walk round the garden this morning showed remarkably little damage, considering the strength of the wind - only one climbing rose looking rather sad. I had disregarded the late Christopher Lloyd's advice to train climbing plants in the direction of the prevailing winds, rather than against them. I need this rose to climb east-to-west until it reaches the top of the old hangar wall.... Too may gales like last night and it won't survive to reach the wall. It is called Velchenblau (not entirely sure of the spelling) and (weather permitting) will soon be smothered in the most amazing bluey-purple flowers that fade to greyey-bue. Photos will appear when this happens. Zepherine Drouhin, the climbing rose that is heading up over the shop door is already flowering its socks off (picture to follow) and the scent is amazing.

No photos, I'm afraid, of the fireworks on tuesday. It was a wash-out.

Bad weather means more work achieved in the Bull Barn, which we are slowly converting to a gîte. I undercoated the two (thus far installed) interior doors today, and earlier in the week we finished the tongue and groove to another two sections of the ceiling, plus a window reveal. Pete has started spraying insecticide on the next couple of sections of roof timbers so that we can start insulating and then tongue-and-grooving these. Funny how I am always doing something vital on the computer when spraying needs doing....

Egg production is a bit disappointing at the moment. The hens apparently hate this weather as much as we do. This is a nusance, as we have now developed a small trade in eggs - enough to pay for their grain as well as the sheep's food - and means we have to make sure there are enough for the regular dozen or so we sell each week. Can't always pig-out on fried eggs for lunch!

There is a busy orienteering weekend coming up. Training tomorrow afternoon and then an inter-regional event on Sunday. This looks likely to be taking place in a torrential downpour, so I'm glad I'm competing and not standing around at the start or finish. Next week is the Fête de morue (salt cod festival) up at Binic. Their fishermen used to travel across to the Grand Banks (with a resulting huge loss of life), to fish cod until all the cod ran out. Now they just have a festival, to celebrate the good old days. We shall be goig up to some Chant de marin sessions, which should be good. I wish I could attach a sound bite, but I dont know how.

When it stops raining I will take some photos, if I can find the garden for grass......

singing in brittany

2007-05-07T22:01:00.000+02:00

We are getting more excited at the thought of the upcoming concert we are giving with some Breton and French friends in June. Edwige & Pierre-Jean are going to let us have MP3 tracks of some of their songs that have choruses so we wont look complete dorks trying to mouth words we dont know (or even understand, in my case). The Breton songs I am not even going to think about attempting.

There was another singing session in the bar at St Carreuc last saturday. There are some really smashing singers around, and we are starting to get to know some of the people and their songs. There is a sort of "here's a song about XYZ", or whatever and then they ask, "is there an english song about that?" If we sing a song about love/courtship in any or all of its guises they most certainly have a song about THAT! This is France after all. It can be very frustrating to see everyone smiling/laughing/guffawing at a song that goes completely over my head, but I can usually work out what it is sort-of-about, I just tend to miss the punchlines.

May is the month of bank holidays over here. There are 4. I wonder if that nice (??) Mr Sarkozy will do something about them? NOTHING gets done in May. People are either getting over one day off or getting ready for the next. Invariably 'on fait le pont' (make the bridge) between bank holiday and any ajacent weekend. That plus "la Presidentielle" (election) means that booksales have been decidedly quiet recently. The French can apparently concentrate on only one thing at a time.... Never mind - we have had time to get a couple of thousand more books on line, mow the grass, tongue-and-groove another section of roof upstairs in the barn and cycle into Rostrenen and back (nearly put my lights out, that one, cycling uphill into the wind coming home!) The GOOD thing is that there are "feu d'artifice" (fireworks) tomorrow night in Rostrenen (its another bank holiday), so rain-permitting we will go and see them after our breton dance class. If I remember, I will take the camera and post some pictures.

Does anyone know about setting up podcasts? Some of the song sessions we go to would be great to podcast.

Watch this space!

OK back again

2007-04-25T21:11:00.000+02:00

I got fed up of the Country Living site very quickly - it was terribly clunky to use or to find stuff.

Spring is in full glory here in Brittany. Four new lambs, more eggs than we have a use for (done lots of pickled eggs recently) and lots of flowers going mad.

Here is Bo (peep) new daughter of ('marigolds-for-an-udder') Dolly. I had to hand-milk Dolly that evening to reduce the tension a bit so that Bo could get her mouth round a teat.

This is the clematis 'montana' growing on the rustic arch. Below is a 'before' picture taken in August 2004. Proof that Greg helped to build the arch. The clematis on the arch and the Hangar behind have both come on a treat, and are almost in full flower.

More garden pictures:
The coutryard garden is fulling out, and the metal arches are starting to become covered with greenery. Hugh can be seen in the foreground, taking full advantage of sun-warmed slate to lie on.

This is the 'patio'. Bit of a pretentious name but a smashing place to sit on a warm evening. Below is another 'before' picture of this area, before we put the doors through the back wall of the side-barn.

Finally, for now, a photo of what I thought were going to be species tulips. They have turned out to be sparaxis. Thats what comes from buying cheap bulbs from a market, but pretty.

Oh yes, here is the poster for our concert in June. "Three traditions singing in one single voice". Tickets limited to 150. Bring your friends......

Posting elsewhere for a while...

2007-04-01T21:47:00.000+02:00

I am posting some blogs as an entry for a competition in Country Living - they want a new columnist, so I thought I'd have a go.
Take a look at:
http://www.countryliving.co.uk/index.php/cat/10969
click on bloggers list and roll down the list to janemick (bit of a long-winded site, this)
Hope you enjoy! All comments welcome (they count towards popularity rating) please.
Have a good easter everyone!

spring at last

2007-03-27T16:35:00.000+02:00

At last the sun is a bit more convincing and we can get out into the garden. The flowers are coming up under the birch trees and their leaves are just starting to come out. The grass looks a bit scalped, but will green-up quickly - I have only just been able to cut it.

The sheep are enjoying the new grass, they were even lying down in the shade of the hedge this afternoon. Here is Rosie with young Derby tucking into a meal. Below is Tina and Vicky, now looking quite big next to Derby. We await lambs from BaaBaa and Dolly - last as usual.

Lamb number two

2007-03-25T14:01:00.000+02:00

Rosie had her lamb today, while we were out orienteering. We were told last year to make a note of what time of day a ewe lambed, as they tend to lamb again the same sort of time. Well Rosie sure did - young Derby here must have been born around lunchtime, as was Pippin last year. Derby is named for the song - the Derby Ram (http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1537) and also because she was under the Lord Derby apple tree. We shall keep them under cover for 24 hours then let them out with the rest. Two down, two to go.

hare today...

2007-03-15T09:56:00.000+01:00

how quiet is it in Pempoulrot?
This quiet - the rather blurry photo is of a hare that we saw this morning at 8.30. The picture is blurry because I took it through our (naturally spotless) front window.

first lamb of spring

2007-03-12T18:44:00.000+01:00

The weather has finally decided to be spring and our ewe Tina had her first lamb yesterday morning. Here is Vicky, a beautiful black ewe lamb. True to form she was born in the early morning - I had checked on Tina repeatedly all the day and evening before, but she hung on till I was well out of the way! Tina is being a good, if rather anxious mother - not easy the first time. The other three ewes should lamb quite soon. Hopefully while the good weather lasts.

lino printing

2007-02-22T21:32:00.000+01:00

I have been doing some lino printing - predictably of our cat Rupert. However, I'm not good with colours and this is a four-colour print. I was inspired initially by the Japanese-style of woodcut with flat colours and a sharp, dark outline.

Here are the stages in making the blocks, the first being the design drawn onto a piece of lino:

The next photo shows the first pull from the part-cut block

This is the fully-cut block and the black and white print from it:

These are the 4 separate blocks. The background ones are cut from plywood.

Finally, here are some of the 4 colour prints I have tried, starting with the first go in green and blue.

this last is a 'safe' colour version - a bit bland I think!

I would really appreciate any feedback and especially ideas about the colours.
If the truth be told I think I prefer the first draft from the partially-cut block (second from top), simply left in black and white...

about time for an update

2007-02-16T14:52:00.000+01:00

It has been a manic winter, although the weather has not yet been very wintery. The grass has needed cutting fairly regularly since last autumn and we haave had no snow and little frost. We have got lots done - we topped the 10,000 books on line before christmas, and reaped the resulting rush of orders, which has been good. Book sales have quietened down now - I guess february is not the top shopping month. I have been spending time re-learning to use the most up-to-date version of Dreamweaver - eeek! Our business website desperately needs updating but its slow going.

We have been invited to a few traditional Breton/French singing sessions, having met someone at our dancing class who told us about the first one. Having sung at one we were invited to two more... The most fun so far has been a session up on the north coast, at Binic, of 'chants de marin' or sailors songs. We are going again on tuesday, having learned another couple of shanties/sea songs. We also went over to the UK to do some traditional song workshops with Greg's students at Esher College - that was a fun day, although I'm not sure what he students thought about it all. They seemed to be interested and were happy to join in. What we love about Brittany is that traditional songs and music are much more generally accepted and valued than they are in england, where they are seen as a bit of a joke. Pete & I will be singing in a concert of traditional song (breton/french/english) on 23rd June here in Kergrist Moelou.

Anyway, here are some photos of the first room to be completed upstairs in the bull barn. First one of the half-completed state:

These three are the finished room. We are going to use it as a bookstore for now, until we have completed the downstairs room (for which we need to remove the manger - built in with very hard concrete and reinforcing rods) Compare with photos from Aug 12th.

this weather is crazy

2006-10-28T19:24:00.000+02:00

This photo was taken an hour ago - the apple tree behind the house is coming into blossom. The weather has been so warm and sunny this october that the whole garden thinks it's spring. The trouble is, of course, that now we won't get many apples from this tree next year. And it produces such good cooking apples! As well as this, the grass continues to grow quite fast and we have to cut it fairly regularly still and the trees have barely started to change colour.

Winter seems to start later and later each year, and spring earlier and earlier - makes for a short winter but lots of the plants can't cope with such sudden changes.

more plans for the future

2006-10-22T19:16:00.000+02:00

We are going to put a porch onto the back of the house. The photos are a 'before' and 'after' that we are using for the Declaration de Travaux (planning application). We will use stone that we have available from various building projects for the low walls, and the biggest bits of green oak we can afford for the posts. It will only need single glazing, but will give us somewhere to store firewood, grow plants and keep muddy boots. It will also help to keep the back of the house warm when the winter north winds blow! There will, of course, have to be a cat-flap in the door. Hope the planners don't notice!

The pantry is nearly finished

2006-10-22T18:33:00.000+02:00

We have been trying to get the pantry finished this autumn. It was the last bit of the house that had no insulation, so the wind whistled in under the eaves in winter and straight into the rest of the house.

The above photos show the start of the process. You can see the new ceiling, hiding 200mm of insulation. We have put in a big slate shelf to the left of the door as you go in. The slate was lying around in the garden when we moved in. The walls are ready to be rendered.

This photo above shows the rendered walls, the slate shelves and the newly installed wine rack - not full yet!

The 'boat' shape is the old chimney space. We have dry-lined it, and have converted the original tatty wooden shelves into a smart cupboard (painted white). One day we will add doors to this, with a mesh to allow air but not mice to circulate.

The wall against the house now has the last of the teak we rescued from Salford Uni chemistry labs as a wide shelf right across it, with the freezer underneath, plus storage space and the gas bottles. Doors will need to be made for these bits too some time in the distant future....

The middle shelf contains 4 x 70cl bocals and 4 x 1.5 litre bocals of sloe gin in the making. Gin over here is ridiculously cheap - about 9 euros a litre, but I got some funny looks when I bought enough for this lot the other day - ah! les anglais! Said sloe gin should be just about drinkable around New Year. Won't keep long though....

lots of stuff...

2006-10-22T17:29:00.000+02:00

This photo of the back garden is from the roof of the side barn. Having had the roof re-done, we had a series of leaks where it butted against the side wall of the house. We had to do something about it this summer, hence the photo opportunity. This little courtyard is quite an improvement on the old piggery that was there when we bought the house.

We eventually found a home for Ma's last two kittens. The grey one, that we called Tarzan (picture above) and the black fluffy one we called Teddy both went to a lady a few miles north of us, who's cat had recently died.

These photos show a 'before' and 'after' the big conifers on our boundary were cut down recently. We now have lots more light, and when the sun decides to show its face again, we will get sunlight across the back garden in the morning again. They had to be chopped anyway, as they were too close to the overhead power lines to next door. During the felling process, they knocked the lines with a branch, and they got hooked together, one over the other. All the electricity to the hamlet immediately went off, and EDF had to be called in to sort it out. Evidently it is a common enough occurrence, as they had a special insulated stick for unhooking lines...

What a week.

2006-10-07T21:41:00.000+02:00

My best friend in France, Anne Waterson, died last thursday night.

She had breast cancer, but only found out about it after the secondary tumor in her cervical spine was diagnosed. She has had a terrible summer, with surgery and chemotherapy but I dont think she ever complained more than to regret missing the nice weather.

She died unexpectedly, at home - her heart just packed up with the strain of the treatment. It was very quick, and she and her husband, John, were spared the nightmare of a long, drawn-out final illness. But it has been such a shock to us all. John is devastated, of course.

Ann & were planning a trip to Guingamp next week to get her a wig - that would have been a retail therapy trip with a tale to tell! It still makes me smile to think about it - should she get a dolly parton beehive? a punk crest? blonde or redhead? We had fun just discussing it. In fact thinking back over my all-too-brief friendship with Ann, joking, smiling & laughing are part the overwhelming majority of my memories. That is something to hold on to.

So it has not been the best of weeks. One to get through.

Building work moves on apace

2006-08-12T15:51:00.000+02:00

We are getting on steadily with the building work in the barn and over the shop. We have now put in all the roof windows (9 in all, see pictures below) and finished tiling the capuchine, which used to be the door from the first floor.

Inside we have finished the staircase, laid the pine floor over the barn area and started to mark out the rooms/shower rooms. We still have to treat all the wood beams before we put up the insulation and lambris (tongue & groove). I am just about to go out to buy a new pulverisateur to use for spraying the beams as the old one is clapped out.

The staircase was a bit of a challenge, as we originally planned a spiral-type, home-built affair. However, we realised that it would take far too long to make, so we bought one 'off-the-shelf' and had to cut in in half to get it to fit. The vertical beam is designed to look as if we built the stairs round it - in fact we put it in after the stairs. It will reach from the downstairs floor up into the lambris of the upstairs ceiling.

The next two photos show the upstairs as of today - the first over the shop and the second over the barn. What a difference the roof lights make!

The gap that used to be a door is now a window from outside (see 1st photo) but will look like a door from the inside. This is an old door we took out of the house, and it will form a faux door with the necessary translucide window overlooking next-door's property.

The cat that has read but is now sleeping

2006-07-20T09:32:00.000+02:00

Isn't this lovely? One of our regular customers gave it to us yesterday. He had seen it in a shop and immediately thought of us - the cat that sleeps having read the book.

We have had some lovely comments from customers recently, including:
'Le chat qui lit, le félin le plus rapide de l'Ouest' (the fastest cat in the west) after we had posted a book out in double-quick time.

Courtyard garden is taking shape

2006-07-15T19:49:00.000+02:00

Here are three photos of our courtyard garden. The poppies and sweet peas are filling it out beautifully.
The photo below shows the amazing purple 'paeonyflora' poppies that I got in the cottage garden society seed distribution this year. The climber is a clematis.
The last photo shows the whole bed alongside the workshop. It will be lovely when the arches are covered - hopefully by next year some of the climbers I have planted will be up that high.

chickens kittens & sheep

2006-07-15T19:30:00.000+02:00

One of the hens has gone broody. You can (just) see her inside the broody coop, above. We are calling her Mrs Peck, as that is what you get if you put a hand anywhere near. With luck we will have chicks at the start of August.

The sheep have started a routine of galloping down for their evening bite of food....

Eating the food as quick as possible, with maximum argy-bargy and searching in each bowl for the most food.. Then retreating back up to the main field, a bit more slowly than they came down.

Ma has decided to let us see her latest litter. There are 4 kittens, one black, one grey and two tabbys. One tabby is pale and smoky colour and one has very clear markings. They all seem to have blue eyes. They are 7 weeks old and Ma is starting to get a bit fed up with them. We think we have homes for 2, but if anyone wants one - let me know.

Here are the boldest two, the grey and black kittens, with the smallest of them all (the tabby) below.

some pictues of the garden..

2006-06-06T22:58:00.000+02:00

We have been developing the garden since we bought the house in 2000. Most planting has happened in the last three years, although we got a lot of trees put in early on.
The front garden was one of the first bits to be done - Pete had to double-dig Breton style, using a pneumatic road drill to break up the concrete/bitumen covering and then to break up the underlayer of compacted stone. Yvon, our farmer neigbour moved the very large stones into place for us, using his Manitou and we then completed the surrounds in smaller stone. Then we barrowed 10 cubic metres of soil into the parterres.

The paths are of crushed slate 'quarry bottoms' to replace the gravel we used originally. The slate picks up the colours and materials of the house, as well as toning beautifully with the predominantly blue of the flowers planted here.

This photo shows the small area behind the house. This was a mire, full of inidentified rubbish and muck, and had grown a lush crop of nettles by the time we got round to doing something with it. This area faces north west and catches the evening sun - a great place to relax and finish a bottle of wine in the evening.....

The courtyard is still being built. This is the site of an old piggery/chicken shack, which had a broken concrete base. The crushed slate hides this beautifully, and the metal arches, made with reinforcing rod will soon be covered with roses, wisteria, clematis, passion flower and jasmine. We are planning a pair of ponds made from old baths, surrounded by stone walls & fed by a trickle of water that we have piped in from the local 'source' or spring.

This corner is where the ditch from the source is culverted across the rest of the property. however, the ditch is now running dry most years, and the damp loving plants I have put in may not appreciate getting dry roots over the summer.

This photo shows the filter bed, which was originally grassed-over. The grass suffers in summer, so I have killed it off and am covering it in gravel. I will be planting things that revel in the heat & dry, such as thrift, euphorbia, verbena & grasses. The area to the left of the filter bed has receently been rotovated & seeded.

There is lots to do yet, but the garden is starting to fill out.

Time for more animals. Sheep next.

2006-05-26T22:57:00.000+02:00

We started with three sheep, last May. Of these we still have Dolly and Baa Baa. Ali (son of Baa Baa) made a delicious Christmas dinner....
We then aquired two more ewes, Joey and her lamb, Rosie.
Joey had a lovely black ram lamb in March, but unfortunately she and the lamb were killed by a local dog. The pictures below are of the three remaining ewes and their lambs.

This picture is of Rosie with Pipin, who was born under an apple tree. You will see how much he has grown in a later picture.

This is Baa Baa, our wild-woman Ouessant ewe, with little Dot.

Finally, Dolly with Cyril and Pipin in the background.

We are getting two more lambs, one black ewe-lamb who will be called tina, and a black ram-lamb as yet un named. At the rate the grass is growing we will need them all to keep the field down this summer.

Next post - the chickens. Can you bear to wait?

I have been meaning to get around to doing a blog for a while...

2006-05-16T18:01:00.000+02:00

Ok, here we go.

I live, with my husband, Peter, in the centre of Brittany. Pempoulrot is just about in the back of beyond. We moved here almost exactly three years ago. We are still renovating the house and developing the garden. We are also renovating the stone barn next to the house to give us accomodation for residential courses (staring later in 2007 we hope).

We run a bookshop - le Chat qui lit, although most of our sales are now of French books on the internet.

We have numerous animals. Four cats who come live in the house (there are others who don't come in). Pixel is the oldest, and came with us from England. He enjoys the sunshine in the summer and the woodburning stove in the winter.

Milly is the other cat we brought over from the UK. She just revels in the space and wildlife (mainly for hunting).

She likes to pose for the camera.

Hugh (Fearnly-Whittingstall) and Monty (Don - the garden cats) were just kittens when we moved here. Their mother (called Ma) is black and we have never been able to get near enough to her to touch her.

Hugh quickly realised that life as a house cat was infinately preferable to that of garden cat. Monty has only just got the hang of the catflap and stays outside most of the time. This picture is of Hugh.

The latest addition to the cat menagerie is Rupert. Another one of Ma's kittens, she presented him to us (more along the lines of 'please, take this off my paws, I've had enough') when he was about 10 weeks old.

He is another blue-eyed beauty. He likes playing with the grass in the front garden.

Watch this space for the sheep and lambs next!