After last year's wet summer (and not being able to weed, and then the weeds all seeding, and then not being able to weed - you get the picture?), a lot of our visits have involved weeding the garden.
This time around, the garden was relatively weed-free (certainly much better than most people's gardens I know; and they live next door to their gardens!), so efforts were focused on the
potager. We've got it all cleared, apart from the bindweed, and it was so wet that we couldn't spray that. We're still having to use glyphosate as the roots are impossible to remove from the clay soil; couch grass, with its sturdier roots we're chasing them out, but the bindweed just breaks off.
Speaking of wet, the whole area is awash!
Our meadow is about 2' high already, and the garden is incredibly lush - they have benefitted from the almost unremitting rain - but the local towns have had dreadful flooding. The Seine at its closest point to us is normally a fairly pathetic little trickle usually, hardly more than a stream, but this time it was a raging torrent and the neighbours tell us that levels have dropped considerably.
Troyes has had worst-in-a-century flooding, and even lorry cabs were flooded, so that must have been something to see.
The Canal de la Restitution, where they were enlarging the channel last year (they do manage to get infrastructure projects completed in what feels like, to English sensibilities, record time) was nearly full this visit; everyone in Paris will be having a lucky escape because of it. They probably don't know that it not just supplies their water from the lakes in the Aube, but takes water out of the Seine to prevent/minimise massive downstream catastrophes
Speaking of infrastructure miracles: in the six weeks since we were last there, the N19 has been resurfaced over about five miles. We couldn't believe how quickly work must have been done [despite having seen the same thing, repeatedly on the motorways (we justify that to ourselves as being because they are toll roads)], and to an English eye, it wasn't even bad enough to justify doing. Come on England, start buying that better surfacing material we have been reading about!
[Apparently, one Japanese car manufacturer has built its own test circuit and had to
create lots of potholes because there was nowhere in Japan or even in the rest of Europe that uses such poor quality materials that the roads are as full of craters as in the UK, and to test drive their cars they need a surface as rough as we contend with daily to see if the suspension can cope.]
Having intended to post at Christmas about how lovely and dry the house was (45° humidity, even on the rainy days), I now have to admit it's about 60° humidity owing to the unremitting precipitation! Still way better than during the years that the hemp-lime insulation took to fully dry out. I wrote in my
liqueurs blog about not having to light a fire until 6.30pm on December 29, but the rain has meant that in late May we've been lighting a fire every day much earlier than that!
Not complaining about the moisture, though, as the dozens of hedging whips we planted between Christmas and the new year all seem to have survived, and I'm sure the lack on heat and baking sun have helped that process. The hedge to the left of the
pré is looking like a proper hedge now.
We've had
apéros with Isabelle and her family, and had Philippe who owns next door round for beers, so having a bit more time on our hands has been lovely.
A final word goes to David [who was very pleased with his Christmas present of a cheese keeper (so it can be left to mature at room temperature without drying out/insect 'involvement')]: unleash the cheese!
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