It’s a public holiday today in France so I am not avoiding work by writing this post. It’s called Assumption Day which is really just the end-of-summer-holiday here but I won’t jump to any conclusions or guess what the name means.
The warm weather continues, with the exception of today when it’s in the mid-20’s. The forecast for the next ten days is for very hot temps in the low-mid 30’s (90’s) with no rain in sight. For the most part, it’s been pleasantly warm to hot during the day but still cool enough to sleep at night.
Despite the lack of rain, the garden continues to grow and I just harvested a dozen tomatoes the other day as well as the usual beans and courgettes. We water every other night but a big storm would be even better for it. It looks like we might actually have some edible corn this year, but only 2-3 ears in total from the 3 small stalks that developed. It will also be a bumper season for butternut squash and many of our pepper plants are also coming along nicely. The two plum trees are currently shedding tons of ripe fruit on to the ground around them. I usually have a few in the morning but apart from that, don’t think I’ll try to do anything with them this year.
We also harvested one of the four plants from our special crop, the male plant that was just about to release its pollen. You don’t want this to happen near the females or else they develop seeds instead of flowers (=bad) so we just hung that one up to dry in the loft. I think the other three plants are females and they should be ready to harvest in the next few weeks or so.
We’ve done a bit of socialising since the last post. As Will foretold, we went to Rigit’s on Friday for dinner. They made a veggie curry that was tasty as ever and we had that with a few vodkas and a lot of wine. They are both smokers so we went through a number of roll-ups that evening, so much so that Richard lost his dinner at some point late in the evening. Their Dutch neighbours joined us for a nightcap after returning from an evening in Brantome so we didn’t leave until around 1am. As we were sitting on their patio, we saw a number of shooting stars which reminded me that there was a meteor shower the past few nights. When Will and I got home, we decided to take advantage of the clear night and made some cocktails and enjoyed the sky show while listening to Dark Side of the Moon. We didn’t go to bed till 3 and we awoke to mildly sore heads.
On Saturday, we had takeaway pizza from our local but did very little else of note. We made it out of the house on Sunday afternoon when we met up with Lee in Mareuil, near Sharon’s old place where we first stayed. We started at the Royal Oak, an authentic English pub and each had a pint. There is a gay-owned bar in the center of town but it was closed by the time we got there so instead we drove a few miles down the road and had another beer in a cafe. We finished with a small beer at the Beausejour, just around the corner from our old place. There were a few people at most places and the sun was shining so it was a pleasant way to pass the afternoon.
Since we were in the neighbourhood, we stopped by Sharon’s along the way to have a nose around. Our hammock was nowhere to be found but neither were the paving stones nor the pool lights. It’s completely overgrown and unkempt which is sad to see. On the plus side, I found some bungee cords that I’d lent Sharon so the stop wasn’t a complete waste. When we got home that night, we had the curry from out last order that we had in the freezer. Between the pub crawl and having a “curry pizza” sandwich for our dinners, it felt almost like a weekend in the city, with the exceptions of better food here, but far less action in the pubs.
We decided to take advantage of the pre-holiday evening by inviting Bryan, Carol, their daughter Jenny and her two boys, Finn and Evan over for a bbq last night. We did the usual chicken and sausages but the boys are mostly vegetarians so I got some salmon for them. Since I don’t get to have it much, I got a couple of extra pieces that I marinated for the adults. We also made potato salad and pan-fried frozen potatoes for the boys. I am very pleased with the way all the food turned out, especially the salmon that I’ll be having again tonight.
We have a few non-work projects on the go right now, mostly to do with home-improvement. We have ordered a wood-burning stove on-line and are now waiting to hear if/when it will be delivered. Doing business on-line here in France is always a risky proposition with lots of uncertainty about when delivery is scheduled to happen and then, whether they manage to find us. It’s the same model as the one we had at Sharon’s since we were happy with it and know how it works. Andrew, Will’s dad, has kindly offered to come down and install it for us so we hope it works out for them to come out.
We have also arranged for wood from two different suppliers and we should be getting it in the next few weeks. All this wood requires a chainsaw since it’s delivered in lengths of a metre so needs to be cut in half in order to fit in the burner. We’ll also need to buy a chimney sweeper and do that before installing the new stove. I’m happy to report that I was successful at changing the shower tap and we now have much better pressure and shorter wait for hot water.
Ok – I’m going to take advantage of the relatively cool weather with a walk through the woods, something I haven’t done in many months.