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.

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.

Flash Bang What a Picture

Oh I've started something now mentioning Carry On films he's turning the house even more upside down looking for his DVD of Carry On Up the Khyber. He'll be shouting "Strawberry Mousse" next.

Today started much earlier than we'd planned with a huge clap of thunder. Within moments we were joined in bed by a quivering dog and slightly later by a cat who was acting fairly nonchalant but thought he'd make sure we were OK.

Little Borg has perked up a lot so we tempted him out for a walk in the garden. The old beams at the side of the path are perfect when he wants to sharpen his claws, he huffs and puffs between each session like he's run a marathon though.

In between putting up the stud work for the walls upstairs (yes we now have a framework with doors in!) Tech Support finally got his scarce swallowtail on the rhododendron picture.

All in all a pretty good day but it looks like ending on the same note it began our canine thunder detector is looking decidedly nervous.

Toilets, sheep it's all happening here

At last we have a flushing toilet and only two more plumbing bits to buy to get a fully functioning bathroom, well shower room actually we don't have room for a bath and anyway I'm not overconfident that the floor would hold a bath full of water. It's just a niggling doubt you understand something to do with the way it all slopes towards the centre. Anyway tomorrow it WILL be finished.

Well, when I say finished it hasn't actually got any walls around it yet so it's more kind of en suite you've heard of dining kitchens well we have an showering bedroom luckily the shower is strategically placed to allow a certain amount of modesty to be retained whilst using the loo.

It will be put right this week we are on a deadline now. Bob is coming round to put the upstairs sockets in next weekend so we really do need the walls by then. One good thing about France (and there are many but I wouldn't like to go on) is that they sell doors complete with frames so with the size of our house that's half the wall done already.

They've moved sheep into the field near our house. I never realised what noisy buggers they are. It's sounded like non stop Prime Minister's question time ever since they got here. The dogs are a bit put out as it's walks on leads now till we get past them. I don't know what breed of sheep (if any) but the lambs have a real piggy faced look to them. Not that they aren't sweet in their own way of course but it sheds a new light on the porc & mutton sausages we've been buying.

Did I happen to mention that we had chickens by the way? Yes? Well today we had a thunderstorm and rain. I thought they would all seek shelter either in or under the chicken house but no, one had to stand outside (let's call her Anita) she even looked like she was enjoying it. There's surprisingly little to a wet chicken.

We enjoyed the rain or rather the lack of watering duties. Its forecast sun and showers for the next week so that should see the veggies perking up a bit no doubt the weeds too so I'll be out there with me weeding fork till the cows come home. That's another good thing about France by the way, at least this bit, they have really pretty cows.

Well I've really wittered on tonight it's the giddy excitement of having that toilet.

Who needs plumbing when you have sunshine

Yesterday we skived off the plumbing and played in the garden all day instead. I finished digging my extra bed and sowed seeds in pots for tomatoes, sweet peppers, chilli peppers and cucumbers. For a litle bit of fancy I've also sown some bananas that Debbie next door but one gave me. These should produce some exotic looking greenery if they take.

This meant for once we didn't have to go dashing of to a DIY shop.

This morning the sun is shining the birds are singing their heads off and my peas and sweetcorn have started to sprout so it's a tricky choice plumbing, gardening or a little bit of both.

I can't believe this was the weather two weeks ago

Some Days

Today we mostly seem to be getting nowhere.

I’m writing this up in word as our Orange Livebox seems to be incapable of finding the internet tonight.

We have assembled all the required bits for plumbing this entailed a visit to Bricomarche, Mr Bricolage and Castorama so it was about two this afternoon when we got back. On the plus side I now feel I could hold a fair decent conversation with a plumber about his bits. Not terribly useful in everyday life though unless you know a lot of plumbers.

This reminds me of an interesting conversation we had with Madame next door last week. We were just going out when she appeared with the dog lead we thought maybe Amos had gone missing. Amos by the way is a long chocolate brown short legged dog, sort of a Labrador head on a Bassett Hound body who lies in their back garden and sighs a lot. But no there was much more to it something to do with windows and roofs and Madame being too small. We asked if we could help and she led us round to the back of her house where Amos was pottering about in the garden. He had though, been up on the barn roof having jumped from the upstairs window and Madame was asking for help in getting him down. As it happened it took us that long to catch on that he’d somehow got himself down. Managing to communicate when you only have bits of a language is basically about guessing the gaps in your knowledge but who expects to be talking about a dog on a roof?

So we sprang into action this afternoon. First job put up the chauffe-eau (water heater). Starting with the drilling of the holes to bolt it to the wall. Two holes were achieved with only minor swearing even though the walls are granite. The other half then decided we should put the thing up on two bolts to get the measure for the bottom two.

This is a steel cylinder with a diameter such that you can’t get your arms round it to pick it up and so smooth that you couldn’t get a grip to lift it if you did have long arms and heavy enough that you don’t want to drop it on your foot, if you ever managed to pick it up that is. We did eventually get it on the wall after two cups of coffee a cup of tea and three fag breaks by means of dragging it up onto a storage box with the cushions from the dog settee making up the height difference but we broke a plastic bit off on the way. Thank goodness for super glue.

We decided the other holes had to be drilled with the tank where it was. Easier said than done as hole number three lined up with the mortar rather than the stone. The other half cleverly devised a bracket for the bracket which only resulted in an even larger hole in the crumbly soft mortar. We are now waiting for the cemented in bolt to set before we start on hole number four personally I can’t wait and it’s a shame I’ll be busy planting spuds or something.

On a positive note the weather has been warm and sunny (well we were spending the day in the cellar oops sorry I was being positive wasn’t I) and we saw another deer on the tea time puppy constitutional. Luckily the girls always have their noses to the ground and never see such interesting quarry.

Update the Livebox has decided it's no longer a sausage so this is yesterday's post today.

Today has been much better so far but I'll tell you about that later

We have telecommunications!

Hellooooo



Yes we have telephone (when it feels like it) and an internet connection. I just have to spend a couple of hours with the dictionary to find out how it all works. You can speak to someone in english to sign up but all the destructions are in french.



So let me fill you in with all the coming and goings at Chez Nous.



We spent two days cleaning up dust and rubble and finding somewhere to put everything and outside the sun was shining and the weather was glorious. Then we turned our attention to the garden and making a start out there and the clouds gathered and it got colder and colder and then it snowed and then it got even colder.

Techsupport was sleeping in his woolly hat and the cat was not amused even the dogs had sleeping bags. We now know the value of roof insulation and that is definately somewhere on the to do list before next winter.

Then the day came to pick up Martin from the airport so of course the weather was glorious again and so far since it's not been bad although Madame next door tells me it will rain for the next month.

Progress in the house - cellar cleared of the rubble from the concrete living room floor, cooker and fridge obtained and working. Shower, toilet, kitchen and bathroom sinks and hot water heater obtained and tantalising us with the prospect of civilised living when we work out french plumbing.

Progress in the garden - early potatoes, carrotts, onions, garlic, lettuce, rockett, radishes, spring onions and raspberries planted. Leeks, sweetcorn, chives, basil, perilla, peas and beans sown in pots under cloches. There is a mole but so far he has been polite enough to come up between rows of things.

Out and about - there are lots of lambs and calves in the fields, we've seen red deer just 50 yards down the lane and all sorts of birds of prey. The lizards are starting to come out to sun bathe on the walls it's definately spring.

So lots more news and pictures to follow but now I've got to go get the fire going again

What did I say about waiting for it to warm up

Got an e-mail this afternoon from Cheryl its been 20 degrees and sunny (in St Sornin-Leulac). They had a foot of snow two weeks ago with phone lines down and roads closed.

Hope we can be there next winter for the snow, we've had nothing to speak of here in Leeds this year. I know lots of people hate snow and all the inconvenience but is there any kind of weather more magical? I don't think so.

Actually, I like weather to be doing something I'm the only person I know who goes on holiday and gets bored with the weather when it's nice. Hot sunny days can only be appreciated when contrasted with not hot, not sunny days.

That's one of the reasons we picked the Limousin it has proper weather