At last some sunshine

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....

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

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

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...

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.

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

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.