Fête de la Musique...

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

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

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

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

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.