new kitchen! new camera!

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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"

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

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

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

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....