Been a week now

Would that be a good title for a country music song? Been busy playing with CorelDraw and fancying up my MISI shop. Adding the stuff I had made and working on my mad scientist project of home electroforming which has had me ordering chemicals over the interweb.

TS is expecting a visit from MI5 anytime now to find out just what I am up to.

The electroforming is still at the waiting for stuff to be delivered stage but you will be able to keep up with it on the jewellery blog.

I really need to get out of jewellery land and sort things out for our trip to France. The lovely Debra has offered food for our first night there so I'm fairly laid back about the whole thing that side of the channel. We may have to rethink the cat holiday plans though as Uncle Oscar has now been joined by Zena a fiesty princess who is not altogether sure she will tolerate Oscar and hasn't had the pleasure of meeting our pair yet .

I'd tell you more but The Project beckons waha waha wahaha (that was my creepy mad scientist laugh by the way)

Happy Blogaversary To Me

Yes I have been blogging for a whole year today.

Strangely enough a year later and I'm in almost the same place but different.

I am staying at my brother's again (same brother, well only brother, different house) waiting to go off to France to fill our garden with food, do the house up etc. etc.

But another year older is another year wiser so I have been looking on e-bay at bits and bobs to take back with us like kitchen units that are strangely expensive in our bit of France where people don't chuck everything out and go for a new look kitchen, living room etc every few years.

I won't be taking umpteen packets of veg seeds, except I have already bought six on a whim yesterday but they were only 29p each so maybe I will. But I won't make the mistake of putting them in too early or trying to give plants a good start in crap compost. And I will plant some stuff that will produce food into the winter like chard. I'll also be planting squashes because I've discovered that I do like them to eat as well as to look at. I will not however, be trying to grow onions or leeks from seed. I'll buy a punnet of 50 little leeks for 5 euros and a bag or two of onion sets instead. I'll also buy pepper plants and chilli plants and probably tomato plants because we have nowhere warm and light enough to start them off.

I'll also be working on making the garden pretty as well as productive so that we can enjoy sitting out there even more. Whilst still feeling guilty that we're not doing up the house or something else useful.

All in all I'm just as excited as I was this time last year but I know a little bit more. Maybe I'll direct my energies better and finish some jobs. More likely I'll just find a whole new lot not to finish. At least we'll be starting off with heating, washing and cooking facilities even if we are still on the blow up bed. That has to count for something. Right?

Moules & Frites

We had what I would consider to be a "French" kind of day yesterday. Not surprising being that we are in France you might think. What I mean is that we did the kinds of things that other people seem to do in France and write about on their blogs. Foody winey kinds of things.

In the morning we went to a fete at Chaptelas where there were stallholders selling oysters, sausages,wine, cheeses, liquors and such. We tasted wine, honey and cheese (well I didn't taste the cheese as I hate it but was assured that it was outstanding by TS and our friend Miranda) and bought some. Then had Moules & Frites for lunch along with a bottle of the wine we had tasted and bought in what looked like the village hall. This is the kind of foody winey experience I enjoy. Sitting at a trestle table on a plastic chair rather than in a posh restaurant, with your neighbours wishing you bon apetite and tucking into their food and throwing their moules shells into an old margerine carton in the middle of the table.

Then in the afternoon we went over to another friend's for champagne and cakes to celebrate her birthday. The company was a mixture of French and English as was the conversation. Mine mostly English with the odd French phrase thrown in, some peoples mostly French with the odd English phrase and a few clever people fluent in both bridging the gaps.

Only the one glass of champagne, unfortunately I was driving, but lots of cake to make up for it.

The Washing Machine Does Not Go Round and Round

I don't want to bore you with how much I love the way this place looks just now (but I will anyway). This is the chemin this morning.




It is COLD today. I can't tell you just how cold because the thermometer is under the lean to and now I've thought about looking it's too dark to see it. But when I brought the washing in it stood up by itself which is usually the way it is before I wash it.



More so now because the wonderful clothes washing machine has decided not to be wonderful anymore and won't go round and round no matter how much I slam the door or kick it or twirl the programme thing or switch the plug on and off. I think it's dead.



I have checked the obvious things like fuses and sockets and I'm reluctant to experiment further. Not least because it's in the cellar and it's dark and cobwebby down there and I keep hitting my head on the beam. All in all it's the kind of job you need Tech Support for. I shall put it on his list right after the new chicken run.

After weeks of cursing them I felt really sorry for the chooks today, they just didn't like the frozen ground at all. In fact it depressed them so much that they only escaped once. They got pasta and tomatoes for tea but even that didn't cheer them up and they went off to bed half an hour earlier than usual.

Menhir and Chips

We decided to have a random drive round and sightseeing trip today cos we never go anywhere and we felt we should for a change.


First new place was Mortemart a really pretty village. They have a country market Friday mornings apparently. So of course we rolled up on Thursday when the tumble weed was blowing down the main street.






Seeing a sign for megaliths we followed it to the Menhir de Ceinturat. Sissy and I are in the picture to give some idea of scale. Set a good way along a track, just when you think you've gone the wrong way you see it looming through the trees. Excellent place.





Then we followed the autre megaliths sign to the Stone of Sacrifice. Quite frankly I think it was just the baldy bit at the top of a hill but an interesting looking stone for all that.






Then on to Confolens mainly because we've never driven in that direction before. It looked quite nice but I'm afraid our appetite for sightseeing was on the wane by this time. We were seduced by the aroma of Le Chippy where we had pie, chips and mushy peas washed down with a can of pop. Sissy was particularly impressed by the chips. Then we came home.

Breuilaufa Dolmen

Almost every time we go out in the car we pass a signpost for the dolmen at Breuilaufa. We keep promising ourselves the slight diversion to go see it but somehow in three years we never have even though it's only about two miles away.

Today we did.

And here it is stood standing there about twenty yards into the field.

Inside on a ledge was a small sheaf of wheat.

We'll go again soon I think.

Apricot Day

Today 14th July Bastille Day in France but in this house it is henceforth proclaimed Apricot Day.

Yesterday I took delivery of my 10kg of apricots from the grocery van.

Today we have been working subtle and cunning transformations upon them. Have we turned base fruit into gold? Yes sort of, for now we have (dadadadadadadaaaah)

Apricot Jam - the finest (and first) jam I have ever made
Apricot Chutney - the finest (and first) chutney I have ever made
Apricot Wine - the finest (and first) wine TS has ever made

OK strictly speaking the chutney won't be ready for a couple of months and the wine till next year, but apricots have been processed. If the wine and chutney are rubbish then they will never be mentioned again and you will be none the wiser.

The day started with panic looking at too many books and too many web sites. In the end we settled on How to Store Your Garden Produce by Piers Warren, got an idea of proportions ,then winged it. So the jam is simply 40% apricots 60% sugar. The chutney is apricots, onions, cider vinegar, red wine vinegar(didn't have enough cider vinegar), raisins, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove and ginger plus two spectacularly large but completely mild chilli peppers out of the garden. By the time it got to the wine I'd lost track but I'm sure TS almost definately won't of.

So if we don't die of food poisoning there'll be no stopping us now.

Only 5kg of apricots to go

Working for the Man

Our web site gets a surprising number of visitors. Some arrive via very strange searches “Lifestyle France The Olden Days” springs to mind as does “Mr Stripy Tomato Picture”. But generally stick one of the subjects we cover alongside Limousin France in your search and there we are amongst all the estate agents and gites.

In the past we have created web pages linked to the site as a favour for friends. Now I’m being paid real money for doing it. I’m sure my creditors will be pleased.

The problem with being paid money in France is that they like you to say you’re going to be self employed before you start but once you say you are then you have to pay social charges. Fair enough you say and so do I because I have this strange socialist streak from somewhere that says it’s right to contribute (obviously pre Thatcher’s children vintage then). Except that you can finish up paying social charges without actually getting any money in.

It does apparently even itself out in the end i.e. over a three year period but frankly we don’t have three year period money.

So I’ve taken the easy route I’m working via a portage company. This means I go find people who want me to do some work for them but the portage company bills them and pays me less their commission and my social charges.

They get a commission

I get to pay my social charges on a PAYE basis

France gets some money out of me

It’s a win win win situation.

It’s like working for a temp agency but you find your own work so no phone calls from them offering assignments doing things you’ve never done before.

“We’ve got this brain surgery job the rates really good”

“I’ve never done brain surgery”

“Oh you’ll pick it up easily and they’re really nice people”

Plus TS gets to be a kept man his lifelong dream.

You Say Potato I Say What Now?

Only one bed of blighted potatoes left in the ground now.

We dug up one bed of maincrop Desirees this morning. It's not a happy story, about the best we can say is we got more spuds out than we put in. Could of been worse we could of got less or none I suppose. The Charlottes have been great we'll definately do them again next year seems like they nicely beat the blight and the colorado beetles. Perhaps we'll also try another early variety.

My consolation is that everyone else feels sorry for us and donates food courgettes, cucumbers, redcurrant jelly and lettuce this week. Thank you Miranda.

So what now? I have no idea. Time to hit the books again. Clearly the time I thought I was spending aquiring knowledge I was really just feeding my day dreams and when I look in my head for facts on what I could be growing there I just find a film clip entitled "Heroine Swanning Round Potager Gathering Produce".

It's going to be a long hungry winter at this rate.

We will have an ample sufficiency of apricot conserve though (touch wood). Tired of waiting for our cherries to ripen and despondant over the spuds in a fit of retail therapy I've ordered 10kg of apricots from the grocery van man this morning. Now I'm sat here thinking that's an awful lot of apricots.

More research required "Heroine With Shining Shelves of Bottled Produce" film clip is no use.

And still it rains

Except it's not raining today at least not yet but it does look like rain.

Our friend Miranda was talking to a French farmer who says this weather is down to the moon and that it won't improve dramatically till after the 14th. So roll on the 14th - Bastille Day, fireworks and good weather.

It's all a bit disappointing in the garden at the moment but some stuff seems to be coping with the wet weather. The brussels sprouts, the red cabbage (we bought seedlings in of that just to add a bit of colour really), the french beans are still going strong as are the peas and the sweetcorn is still looking good.

I wish I'd planted more peas now as I didn't expect them to be quite so nice and we haven't really got enough plants in to get two portions of peas for a meal. We are having a tiny portion of peas and a huge portion of French beans. The long term stuff that takes up a lot of space like potatoes are definitely going in the Orchard next year to give us chance to try lots of variety and so get some insurance against the weather.


We have been consoling ourselves by retreating into science fiction watching Stargate DVDs every night. We had an all too brief interlude of Firefly (why did they axe that series?) and a couple of Dr Who's as well.

In between that we are rescuing Sissy from the kitten. That dog is such a wimp. Tasha has put paid to kitten pestering by a very serious snarl in the kitten's face. Sissy always moves away which gives the kitten a hugely inflated idea of just how tough she is leading to a swaggering kitten walk (think Ryker on Star Trek while we are on Sci Fi).

The Old Bamboo

The sun is shining and everything seems possible today. Optimism replacing the creeping mardyness brought on by the cold miserable weather.

We're rediscovering the back door of the barn.

It faces onto the little track that runs down the side of the property. The huge bushy stuff is bamboo. It likes it there but it is taller than the barn and it's knocking the tiles off the roof. Plus it's a nice bit of wall to grow something more useful on. After all how many pea sticks do you need?

Friends want bits for their gardens or for pots on the patio but it's not that genteel designery type of plant. It sends up spears, not shoots, which rapidly grow to 15 or 20 feet tall. I can see us engaging in jungle warfare for some time to come.

I think the tomatoes have had it but it's too nice a day to care.

We have peas, carrots, french beans and spuds, next cold day I'll try making soup. Tomorrow judging by the forecast.

Flaming June Get Your Act Together

Flaming June continues to be anything but in our neck of the woods. Still from what I can gather I would have been worse off in Leeds regarding humidity.

A trek down to The Woods That Legend Spake Of (spooky music) has revealed this tree fruiting away. Some kind of crab apple? or something else altogether ?

Plus a handful of cherry trees round the edge so a bit of sun and who knows they might even ripen. The lack of sun is really getting a bit beyond a joke now. We never expected to be lighting the woodburner past the middle of May. I take solice from the fact that I could be queuing in the rain on the M62 instead of getting splattered with chopped up bits of slug when I am out wielding the strimmer.

The crap weather has brought out the books (sod the DIY) and I am perusing recipes for stuff that can be cooked at gas mark inferno, homebrew things to try, in fact generally having a day of planning to do stuff. It's kind of like winter.

Hands On Experience

Today I felt something that I've only read about in books or heard about on tv.

When I went to get some spuds for dinner the soil was really warm compared to the air temperature. Yes I have read about the soil warming up as in "waiting for the soil to warm up to plant things" but this is the first time I have actually felt it. Suddenly with my hands in the mud I thought "Ah this is what they mean" and I felt a bit like a gardener.

Only a bit though because my tomatoes are a disgrace. Its the weather I think. We've had one hot sunny day in the last week , less than a handful all month. They keep flowering but nothing ever comes of it and now they're looking decidedly ill. Maybe I'm just not cut out for tomatoes but I have some replacements waiting in the wings should the summer decide to frame itself. Otherwise there's always next year.

Yesterday (our hot sunny day) we went to the vide grenier at St Sornin Leulac. It looks deserted because it's lunch time. We bought chips, a sausage sandwich and a beer. We already have enough rubbish.

Finding Mimo

Busy doing nothing. One of my favourite songs and our theme tune for this week

Except TS has made these rather good shelves from some planks he found in the barn we are debating whether to paint them to match the rest of the kitchen or leave them woody. Inertia will probably win out.

But in general we haven't got much done. Today for example we spent two hours looking for the kitten. Downstairs calling Mimo Mimo, upstairs Mimo Mimo, in the attic, in the cellar, in the garden, in the barn (no she doesn't go out but we were getting desperate). No she wasn't in the basket all the time we looked in the baskets ten times at least. But she appeared from that general vicinity.

When we weren't looking for Mimo we were putting the chickens back in their run. Four times if it was once (eventually we just took them down to the woods and left them to it) or scraping the cremated remains of meringue off the bottom of the cooker.

The meringue seemed to be the ideal way to use up the five egg whites left from the creme patisserie that took five egg yolks and use up the left over creme patisserie. In fact to generally concoct something sweet and yummy. Instead I concocted a previously unknown substance that resists all attempts to remove it. The settings on the cooker are only notional it seems and the choice is actually gas mark blast furnace or gas mark inferno. Yes it is definitely the cookers fault the cook is blameless.

The oven has only just been put into commission, it needed the burner changing for LPG but we couldn't find the burner until we took the back off the cooker. It's taken two months for our desire for pizza to overwhelm our desire not to bugger about pulling the cooker out and taking it to bits. Then we couldn't find the replacement burner which we'd put somewhere safe. In a box. But where was the box? That was three hours searching then.

The box had been turned into kitten proofing blocking up a hole in the bathroom. So although we looked and looked it was no longer the box with the cooker bits in it was kitten proofing and we just didn't see it.

Oh and we're blighted our beautiful spuds blighted. This is what happens I guess when it's either raining buckets or 28 degrees and the veg growing advice is based on the UK weather and the gardener doesn't use her brains. So since they've all flowered I'll follow "The Vegetable Expert" advice and cut off the haulms, leave the spuds in the ground for 10 days and then dig them up. Unless anyone has a better idea.

Back to Reality

I've calmed down now about the whole preserving thing so I won't be rushing out to spend money or anything equally rash. Thanks to everyone for bringing me back down to earth.

Every now and again I am overcome with "My life would be complete if only I had ..." For the last two years it has been "if only I was at my house in France" now I'm here it's moved onto consumer goods.

I don't want to come over all maudlin, sentimental and platitudy but really my life is complete when we're walking the dogs in the woods, grazing on the raspberries and peas in the garden (yes we have raspberies and peas! but not enough to make it to the kitchen yet), playing with the kitten, having a drink and a laugh with friends etc etc none of which is available at the shops.

So I have reconnected with my inner yorkshirewoman and today it's checking out the barn to see if we can make owt for nowt.

You see the barn is stacked up with all sorts of odds and sods left by the previous inhabitants mainly wood but also old tools with handles that have been completely eaten by wood worm, an old woodburning stove that we can't get to for the wood, all sorts of things that could make my life complete.

Self Sufficient Egg and Chips

Yay!

We've graduated from sandwiches to hot meals. From dinner to tea (or lunch to dinner if you're posh) in the self sufficiency stakes.

We now have the makings of a meal. We dug up our first few Charlotte potatoes today. (Not counting the one we dug up a couple of weeks ago to see what was happening down there)

No I didn't make chips (just how common do you think I am?) We have had them boiled in their skins with lots of butter and they were yummy and potatoey. I even went so far as to cook duck to go with them in a hastily concocted marmalade sauce (which is far indeed for someone as domestically challenged as I am). But the potatoes were the stars.

And yes we have had them at tea time

Potatoes! The official food of the Breezy Break!

ps Do we leave them and dig them up as we want them or dig them all up now?

Guilty Pleasures

Yesterday evening our friend Ian brought us this tiny kitten not knowing what had happened with Borg in the morning.

She had been seen with her mother at the house where he is working but then mum hadn't been around for a day.

The timing isn't great but there you are.

We have managed to get her eating at first from the end of a finger and now from a dish.

She has been to the vets today for de-worming and de-fleaing and has been pronounced a healthy six weekish tigre gris (grey tabby?).

TS is calling her Mo I'm calling her Mi-Mo. ( much as I admire Mo Mowlam I just can't see the resemblance. Although she is very fiesty).

Tasha wants her for her very own puppy despite the hissing and growling. Sissy thinks she's spooky "she's small but she's not far away!"

We all Have a Dark Side

I was ambling about in the garden today wondering when we would get something to eat out of it (beyond leaves). Thinking well the new potatoes might be ready soon which would be the makings of a substantial meal. I stopped to watch the chickens a bit.

They were doing chicken stuff mainly scratching at the soil and stepping back to see if they'd unearthed anything and chasing the one who managed to get the biggest bug. This got me to thinking about how free range chicken legs are meatier and tastier because they get to do that too rather than being crammed into a barn where they can't move around.

Do you know where I'm going with this?

Yes I'm afraid so. I began to look at "our girls" as food. Not that I would ever eat them no of course not perish the thought. But I might consider eating a chicken that I owned. In fact I might feel more comfortable doing that than eating a chicken that hadn't scratched about in the sunshine and fresh air and had a chance to be a chicken.

Scarey thought for a townie.

An excuse to post pictures of goats

We stopped off to look at some pygmy goats in a field (where else?) on the way back from the open all hours tabac/bar/restaurant/grocers/breadshop (they also sell flowers).

And they had a look back at us.

I can't help but think that two of these (at least) would be just the thing.

I like goats. I've liked them ever since I fed one with a bottle of milk at Scarborough Zoo & Marineland. Since that day I have planned to have goats. Good job it wasn't an elephant I suppose.

TS says "goats? we can't even control four 'king chickens"

I have to agree having watched him from the kitchen window this afternoon trying to herd them back from the woods. Stick in hand, like a cross between the Little Goose Girl and One Man and His Dog (cum bye bup bup bup)

Rainy Days and Mondays

UK and France it's just the same. Bank holiday Monday and it siled down all day. This is the third rainy bank holiday in a row between days where the temperature has got up as high as 28 degrees. Go figure.

It's a phenomenon I may have to add to the Olde Breezy Breake Almanac "If the shoppes be shutte rain will fill your butte". Has quite a ring I think.

I used to like rain as an excuse to curl up with a book and do nothing at all. Now rain means I have to work in the house on DIY stuff instead of being out in the garden talking to the chickens and weeding, urrhumph. So I'm torn.

We have our "crops" out in the garden a couple of dry hot sunny days and we're looking at the sky for clouds to save the hauling up of water from the well and trudging about with watering cans but it means breaking out the toolkit and doing real work.

What the world needs is sunny days and rainy nights everyone says so. Someone ought to sort it out.