Christmas 2009

It felt a magical Christmas: we had snow for almost the entire journey down; OK that bit wasn't great, but arriving to a covering of white, and seeing the Christmas lights outside the Mairie really set the scene.
We hadn't got the heating sorted out at that stage, so when we arrived the temperature in the house was about 8 or 9°C, but got up to about 12°C by the next morning.

M. Antoni's visit helped massively with that, but that was later...

We were incredibly glad when M. Monnier's men showed up in their van; and even happier when, after 20 minutes of trying, they managed to get the van up the road to our house!

We were worried that it was going to be "snow stopped play", but thankfully the poêle was installed and started off the warming up the house properly process.

We never did get it above 14°C, but given the lows of -19°C [and the stove!] we were fine with that.

I had planned to do the housework and set up all the Christmas decorations after David had gone back to London, but the Eurostar "wrong kind of snow" collapse meant that he stayed with me.

A bonus, and he got to help with putting up the decorations!

I can't believe that I didn't take any photos of the mistletoe I hung up in the imposte above the front door, but as I can't find any, I have to believe it.

Shame, everyone we speak to regards mistletoe as a menace, so they don't mind you helping yourself to masses of it; they'd see that as a service!

I think the enforced early start to David's holiday helped him to wind down much quicker/sooner than he would have done otherwise - he was still logging on to the office and working, but there was a 20 second commute and an hour's time difference in our favour had a massive impact on his sleeping.

Because there was so much snow about, we did our "shop" to last us the fortnight we were there and we had no need to leave the house...

Apart from to try and work off some of the food!

We had one idyllic walk that could have come out of White Christmas, and managed several shorter ones on less sunny days, and just relaxed, read and allowed ourselved to be hypnotised by the flames of the fire and the candles.

I did 'fess up to my autumn's liqueur-making activities, but only after a blind tasting; he did identify one, but not the other two!

David is looking forward to when they have matured a bit; although he's not keen on my plan to lay most of it down for years!

I explained that I could make some more next year, and if we have spare mirabelles, they could be "sacrificed to the cause"; he cheered up a lot at that idea.

We are looking forward to being able to invite guests, and offer them a glass of homemade damson gin...

In the meantime, posting this has got me looking forward to next Christmas already - and you don't often hear me say that before December!

Poêle

December 18th:

The woodburning stove (poêle) didn't arrive in time for our previous fitting date in November, so we were incredibly grateful that M. Monnier managed to fit us in before Christmas.

We had to rearrange our journey to arrive a day earlier, but it was worth it.

As we hadn't yet got the heating regulated properly, it was doubly worth it! [Even now it's above freezing it's still worth it.]

Bizarrely, the workmen showed up on the day they were supposed to, only about 20 minutes late (given the snow that practically counts as 'early'), and worked really hard until the stove was fitted. And didn't complain when we insisted that they check it with a level [Maria was right!]!

We were totally impressed with them, and the lovely job they did, and (of course!) the poêle.

And with that night dropping down to -19°C, it got a real "road test"!

The advice is to burn the logs 'hot' and let the fire go out, rather than banking it down for the night, but we had to keep it in till the heating got into double figures.

It's Norwegian, and all our neighbours agree that they know a thing or two about woodburning stoves and cold winters!

We thought people would look a bit askance that we hadn't chosen a French model, but everyone agreed that Scandinavian stoves are way better; that was a surprise, but we are total converts!

And we've noticed plenty of other people choosing foreign stoves, too.

Best Piece of Advice Award:

The Best Piece of Advice Award goes to Karen, for suggesting getting a side-loading model.

The side door doesn't let any ash out, and less smoke (if the fire is smoky), and when it's hot, you don't roast quite the same...

Brilliant idea!

Karen also gets the runner-up Best Piece of Advice Award for suggesting a hot-air blower for the shower room radiator.

When it's not cold enough to have the heating on but nippy enough that you don't want to take your clothes of and get wet, the soufflerie takes the chill off the air enough to get naked.

And like most females I like to be warm if I'm going to be nude!

Snippets I would have posted...

...if I hadn't been pretending to hibernate...

Probably far too long for one post, but I want to make a record of lots of things, and don't want to do numerous tiny posts dragged out over the next few weeks. I do plan to post some photos of the snow, installation of the wood burning stove and the Christmas candles, so there will be another few disjointed points before "normal sevice is resumed".

[In no particular order:]

Wild Boars:

We saw two families of wild boar: one was in the wood just outside the village, and the piglets looked very nearly fully grown, and the other was on an outing we took on Boxing Day - mum, dad & six tiny piglets.

WOW!

I know they have loads of them in France, but we have been looking out for them for over five years, and the closest we'd got previously was the chap who ended up in the body bag, which doesn't count in my book!

The little piglets are so cute with their ginger stripes!

Eurostar:

Apologies all round, blah blah blah, will learn from their mistakes, etc etc etc.

For once we didn't mind - the bonus days when David couldn't get back to the UK were like an early Christmas present!

AND our luck was holding - the trains broke down before David had gone back to London.

[Now him being stuck in London over Chrimbo would NOT have been popular]

And David's mum sent him a text to say the service had broken down, so he didn't even have the wasted journey to Paris/hotel stay/return to Troyes fiasco that he could have had!

Penknife:

Vs. Axe

I was hoping for an axe for Christmas...

[And certainly would have made use of it, had I received one!]

But I got a penknife instead! Actually, I love it - a special gardener's penknife, so thank you Santa!

That of course means I can go axe shopping; yippee!

Boiler going wrong:

Had a minor panic with the boiler...

We're loving being able to phone it up & say "stoke up, please", and arriving at a warm house!

[OK, technically we send an SMS saying "1111 bahk1 2", so it's not the full sci-fi robot experience yet, but sometimes in my mind it could be.]

For the first time since we've being using the "télécommande" we needed to turn the boiler down...

[When it was getting down to -19°C and highs of -2°C we didn't really need to turn the heating down; that was before M. Antoni had adjusted it, and it was struggling to get up to 14°C going all the time.]

Only it wouldn't!

Thankfully much nagging of David by Maria led to sufficient chasing of M. Antoni that he came back & waved his magic wand; we don't know what he did, but we could finally turn the boiler down to the low setting.

Bit of a panic, but glad it's fixed now (and hoping it stays that way)!

Broken tooth:

In September I finally had to go to the dentist having had toothache for 5 or 6 weeks. I felt really weedy, having to make an emergency appointment for a filling-gone-wrong, but Paul was very good about it.

I apologised for being wussy, and said could he just bung me in a temporary filling, and I would make a proper appointment when his diary was less crammed!

Well, the x-ray showed that there was a fracture in the tooth, and Paul said at least one half would have to come out; he wouldn't know if he could save the other half until he'd hoiked out the first chunk...

After asking if there was any way to save the tooth, and re-phrasing it a couple of times in case that gave me a better answer [in my defence, I think I was a bit in shock], it was still "No!", and "Let's get the first bit out and then see about the rest".

It's quite an odd [very slightly unpleasant] sensation having someone wrench out a tooth: there's no other way to do it, unless it's so bad you have to go to the dental hospital & they take away part of the jaw - NOT what I wanted!

Sadly, both halves of the tooth were beyond saving as the tooth had split completely, and the nerve no longer served either bit, so the other portion was dragged out, too.

When I went back to have the stitches out, I asked if I could have broken the tooth in Feb/March: I'd had really bad tooth pain for about a week [I felt as though a horse had kicked me in the face], and could NOT face letting a dentist any where near me, and then we got busy, and I forgot, etc, etc, etc...

Paul said yes, that sounds about right, and by the way I wasn't a wuss!

So, that made me pretty happy!

Chainsaw:

Very sad to lose the damson tree in the storm.

DELIGHTED to be able to use the chainsaw "properly"!

[So far we've only used it attached to the saw horse - that works brilliantly.]

That reminds me; did I mention we have logs?!

Well has water!:

When M. Antoni came to adjust the boiler the second time, he looked in the well, and we now have water - yay!

We "conveniently" forgot that you are supposed to pump the water for 12 hours [which is what caused it to run dry in the first place] before having a water quality test done; and no-one else has mentioned it...

And I'm willing to take the risk for flushing the loo and the cold shower water.

The basin has town water, so teeth cleaning is with treated water.

Pros: shiny hair - like rinsing with rain water. [However cold, I always finish with a cold rinse - wakes the head up nicely in winter!]

Cons: we don't seem to have constant pressure - so there's cold "patches" during showering!!

#LFMF:

When you're really tired, get a strong man to move the furniture!

I dragged a table top [we'd been emptying the stable to allow building work to start again, and had to store the "spare" furniture in the house"] away from the cupboard where we store the coffee maker.

[Site meeting of builders et al = coffee by the gallon!]

Thinking I wouldn't drag it back so I didn't mark the floor tiles, I lifted it to move it back into place...

And the edging and part of the top came away, whacked me in the face & left me bleeding and with a trout pout!

[Thankfully, as I've so far resisted botox, I didn't end up with that "mummified" look we sometimes see in Hollywood!]

Old furniture, made in sections may have weakened glue after a hundred or so years. #LFMF

#LFMF

Thankfully, it wasn't my fail!

The stories of plenty of contenders for the Darwin Awards on Learn From My Fail [#LFMF] suddenly made me stop and think: "Oh, I could end up writing about this on a Cheezburger website!", and then, "if I keep all my limbs/digits" and "as long as I don't bleed to death in the meantime".

It was as though a light bulb came on above my head: when you're so tired that it takes both hands to push in the 'release' button to start the chainsaw, it's probably time to call it a day!

We had a damson tree come down in the Xynthia storm, and it was in the middle of the hay meadow, so needed removing before the grass starts growing.

David wanted to save some of the seedlings, so was digging holes & transplanting seedlings.

[Once the grass grows we'd never have found them again, and then they would have got mown off with the hay.]

So I got to have first go with the chainsaw not fixed to the saw-horse, [David got to have a go later], and I started cutting off the branches & one of the trunks...

Well, thankfully, my belief that you never learn from other people's mistakes was superseded by an incredibly strong desire to avoid being in the news because my shaking arms had given way before the cut-off switch on the chainsaw kicked in!

The tree got moved anyway & I acted sensibly [rather than persevering to the bitter end], so a fantastic outcome.

I may not be as strong as I'm feeling, but the grey stuff between my ears seems to be working better!!

Update

We've got started with some more building work: on Friday we had a site meeting with various firms to price some of the remaining work for Phase 1.

We are calling it "Phase 1b", and T+B are calling it "Phase 2", but quite frankly we don't care as long as something happens!

A big consideration is the interpretation of the planning permission: we have two years in which to start the work, and five years during which we can finish it...

We have started the work in the stable inasmuch as there is a doorway broken through from the house [and blocked up] and there is a waste from where the loo will be connected to the drains.

Is this enough to count as having started? Does the fact that we have done the other work count as starting? Would they refuse to let us continue if we get it wrong?

We don't know [and don't want to find out - in the neighbouring village someone was made to knock down his newly-built house because it didn't have the correct planning permission], and don't want to take the risk; this way we are definitely covered either way.

AND get to have a spare bedroom!

Easing myself back in gently...

Having heard about shepherds in the Pyrenees who hibernate, I've spent the winter wondering how to go about this...

Is is possible for humans to hibernate?

And if so, how?

QI, it's not that I'm doubting you... BUT

Let's just pretend I'm emerging from hibernation!

We had a lovely Christmas at the house, with the newly-installed poêle and masses of candles; and a bonus few days of David-time.

[Thank you Eurostar, for your complete inability to learn from your "lessons" of past train breakdowns & handle a crisis! Thankfully, the Shuttle trains can handle winter weather, and we were the "right" side of the channel before the Eurostars went into melt-down (freeze-down?) & David couldn't get back to London!]

I might post some photos later - I'd gone a bit over-the-top with the candles, so everywhere looked pretty festive, and [obviously!] we had snow...

No longer running on adrenaline...

And boy, can I feel it!

I'm determinedly making the most of having nothing to do - which is lucky, as I'm not up for doing much...

I am sleeping, taking some exercise & getting fresh air, but not a lot else.

Oh, and the odd bit of 'scrumping'!

"Leftovers" - the grape harvest this year was pretty good, so there are lots of grapes left on the vines [the vignerons only pick up to their quota, and leave the rest]; after an extra month and a few frosts, these are much sweeter than when they are harvested, but very messy!

I've also eaten quite a lot of sloes [yay, that makes me feel tough: ask anyone who's eaten a sloe if they can eat a couple of dozen and still be smiling!], beech masts, a few apples, damsons and tiny peaches - gifts from neighbours or found in the hedgerows; nice time of year.

I've seen a red squirrel, a praying mantis, unexpectedly driven through Troyes [David's train was held up there, so I went to fetch him: got lost twice and asked for help from non-drunks at midnight; now can't imagine doing that (safely) in English cities from what I read!], ordered some logs to be delivered [for when we (should) get our woodburning stove the week after next], and seen installed the telephone control for our central heating.

Sadly, I'm not feeling terribly communicative at the moment, so I'll wish any readers well until I'm back to my usual self.

(C)locks go back!

We coped perfectly alright with the change in the hour - normally on a Sunday this wouldn't matter, but with David having to catch his train back to London, we did need to be on top of it today.

Everything was going swimmingly, till we came to lock the house up and head for the station...

"Darling, have you got the front door key?"

"No!"

Oops!

Actually, that should probably read:

Aaaarrgghhh!

Ordinarily, not a problem: lose the house keys, one of us would go to B&Q/Homebase, buy some more locks, change the locks, voila!

Once my head had calmed down - I had a spare key in the car, so we could lock the house before leaving it, and luckily, I have three spare locks [with one key that operates them all] in the house - it was OK, but a few heart-stopping moments before logic reignited!

Needless to say, in this part of the world, NOTHING opens on Sunday apart from bakers and restaurants, so no chance of buying new locks.

Lucky I'd only just replaced them then, and kept the old set!

We're hoping that the key was dropped in the bakery, or that someone hands it to Stephanie in the Mairie, but at least I'm sitting here knowing that with different locks on all the doors if someone picked up the key with bad intent, at least they can't get into the house.

Now all I'm trying to do is NOT remember how much I spent on lovely new pick-proof locks with matching padlock and in a colour that matched the door furniture, and admiring my "new" contrasting brass locks & quite frankly weedy-looking padlock [and also trying to forget how much I've just spent on eBay purchasing a complete set of Agatha Christie books; ouch]!

An expensive day - but I've had those before [and no doubt will have them again!], and given just a little time it will not even be a distant memory...

I am very good at forgetting!

Oh, in case you're wondering, we got to the station just as the train was pulling onto the platform; we we're both very glad that it was the near platform (you cross the tracks to get to the other one, so once the train has arrived there is no way to get to the far platform), and that there were no obstacles like turnstiles to get through before David ran onto the train.

And once I'd got home and changed the locks I started to calm down!

First frost

Yesterday was cold enough that I put the heating on again (high of 10ºC and low of 4ºC - just like the last time), and left it on overnight...

Was I glad I did that?

When I looked out at my drooping 'flower meadow' and saw the frost on the grass in the field, it felt like the right call!

At 8.30am the temperature in the sun was 2ºC, but in the shade it had only risen to -1ºC (it had been -2ºC overnight).

Which prompted a lot of rummaging around upstairs looking for hats/scarves/gloves and big thick socks...

Success on the big-thick-socks front, but less so with the rest.

I've found two hats (one was one of my dad's old work hats - designed to keep dust off his head, but not long enough to cover the ears [not his winter work hat] - and a skiing hat whose elastic is too tight!), so I'm OK for now, if not comfortable...

Every time my ears have got totally "frozen", that's when I've gone down with the 'flu (real influenza, not "man-flu") - coincidence? Almost certainly, BUT I don't want to risk it!

Found a couple of mohair scarves (nice, but scratchy!), and a lightweight one (OK, but not big enough), but no gloves or mittens.

Hmmm, go for the "Royal" look - wander round with hands in pockets?

It's a glorious day, so I shall go for a walk looking like a bag lady & keep my hands tucked in the warm!

Ooh, it is nice, being able to type without worrying my fingers will drop off!!

David's on his way!

I'm really looking forward to seeing him again, but why must he send the "English weather" (as it's known here) along ahead of him?!

I might have worked out why my back sometimes goes 'wrong'

Occasionally, I think I might have a 'faulty' chromosome - I wonder whether one of the "legs" is missing from one of my 'exes'...Why else [when I have a shedload of legitimate jobs to do!] would I go and spend a couple of hours digging up the drive?
Mindless physical activity as therapy?


Next I'll be going and hiding in a "cave". [A martian one, naturally!]

Oh, well, at least I don't play golf!!


Sadly, wonky wheel & flat tyre stopped play. [Our sack barrow was another thing the workmen used, broke & didn't replace or say sorry!!]

Having turned the heating on...

...The first thing I had to do yesterday was turn it off again...

NOT complaining: '20°C & balmy' beats '11°C & shivering' any day of the week!

If only I could have lasted; my self-image wouldn't have taken the massive 'ding'; oh, well.

And obviously: '27°C in the shade' trumps all!

Oooh, I'm so happy.

In case you haven't guessed: I'm in a t-shirt, thanking my lucky stars and the weather gods.

David buys me the nicest presents...

A chainsaw...

AND a sawhorse!!

I'm delighted - I spent over an hour sawing up my beautiful [in my eyes, anyway] old floorboards, creating enough firewood for about two evenings, I suspect.

Now I'll be able to do a week's worth in that time!

He is really kind, and I'm so glad he buys the sort of presents I would like to buy for myself (just think: he could be the type of bloke to buy perfume!).

I caved...

Awww! "Hard" image shattered; boo

After a couple of nights when it went down to 4ºC outside (11ºC inside; in the room with the fire) I was contemplating turning on the central heating...

Pros:

• It would be warm! Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, I've got lots of warm-making activities to be getting on with, but I'm feeling a bit below par, and have allowed myself to be persuaded to take another day off;
• I would have to close the doors & windows (so wouldn't be sitting in an increasingly cold draught);
• It wouldn't be cold;
• Did I mention it would be warm?!

Cons:

• I would feel like a wuss for not waiting till the temperature was in single figures!
• I haven't read the instruction manual (despite David chasing Schwartz many, many times after they promised to supply one in English). Which wouldn't matter, except for:
• I haven't a clue what the buttons on the control panel mean!
• I would have to keep the doors & windows closed (so wouldn't be having fresh air circulating to dry the insulation out)

Well, having woken up for the second day feeling quite ropey and not up to doing much (with the exception of going to saw some more fire-wood; I'm going to combat the weakness in my limbs for that worthwhile venture!), I let David talk me into turning the heating on.

His rationale was that I may have picked up a bug (I think it might be a chill from sitting in a cold draught!) - normally I don't get ill just from sitting in a cold house, otherwise I'd have been quite poorly 2 years ago!

But I think I'm still winding down after all our property-related "excitement"...

And if one kind friend is to be believed, these things can take ages to get over: he said his sister took a couple of years to fully recover from her house building experience!

I'm hoping it will wear off faster than that, but am also plotting an afternoon in front of the fire with an Agatha Christie (always solace in times of 'wobbliness')...

Just as soon as I've sawn some more fire-wood!

Ahhh! 15º, no "wind chill" - I'm feeling better already!

Perhaps I'm up to hefting the axe...

Sloe Gin 2

You may have guessed that I overcame my reluctance to go back to the supermarket & buy more gin!

Yup, I felt pretty bad standing there at the checkout with my four litres of gin & 2 kilos of sugar...

[If I knew the French for "after 2 ½ years of being teetotal, yes I celebrated both the ridding of our house from builders, and the sale of our home in Brixton (and had a few glasses in between!), but I'm back on the wagon now. And it's for making liqueurs" - sounds like protesting too much, doesn't it? Better that I just brazen it out...]

If I make up my mind about the damson schnapps (or still contemplating some prunelle eau-de-vie), I'm going to shop in another town!

It was very satisfying to make so many different jars of liqueur-in-waiting, and I now have [what I privately think of as] my "secret gin cupboard".

Oh, that looks so much worse than it sounds!!

[And in my head it does sound pretty bad]

The reason it's secret is that I want the results to be a surprise, and unless anyone reads this & rats on me to David, there's no way he will notice that I'm building up stocks of "goodies"...

Well, if I die, in a couple years time he might wonder what's in that cupboard.

But I reckon it's pretty safe till then!

So why is a teetotaller making litres of flavoured digestifs?

Well, I guess it's a combination of an instinct to put stuff by in times of plenty for when times are hard (country background), liking to make things to please other people (that's surely the reason we cook for friends?), and liking the magic of the process...

The fascination with alchemy is still as strong in the 21st century, otherwise why would people spend so much money on "cures" for everything from weight loss to stopping smoking (to making yourself irresistible to women!)?

And quoting from Fiona Neville's friend Gilbert:

“Remember that the combination of gin, sloes and sugar is always better than the separate ingredients, no matter what you do.”

Oh, and I'd always heard that sloe gin makes a great alternative to cassis in a kir royale!

Sloe Gin...

...Only it isn't!

I was doing fine - just getting over the hectic last six weeks [mum & Dot came to stay at the gîte round the corner for a week, then we hurtled back to England to move house - if you're remotely interested, I shall post about this on my other blog - fitting in a van trip to dump a load of stuff here in the process, not to mention the dozen or so calls to BT ("what, when you asked us a fortnight before you moved, to move your broadband with your phone , you actually wanted to take your broadband with you to your new home? Oh, that will take another five days...". Internet finally connected: "Oh, you wanted to take your 'Broadband Talk' as well?" Guess what, yup, the usual efficiency! And another five days). Did I mention the dentist visit - tooth extraction(s?) to take both halves of my fractured tooth out?]...

So, I went to look for the blackthorn bushes to see if I was in time for sloe gin.

The plants I'd been eyeing up two years ago (when I didn't have time to harvest the magnificent crop), had been hacked back, and all the other ones I found only had a few sloes in the upper branches; too few to be worth taking the step ladder out in the car!

And then I came a different way home & found the perfect bush - covered in the little blue-black beauties, almost all at grabbing height.

So, no problem there then...

Till I started Googling to check the recipe!

Having gone out yesterday to buy a litre of gin & a kilo of sugar, I knew I'd be fine, till I came across at least one different recipe on each site I looked at.

No problem, just pick one, and do it!

But then I got caught up in the comments on whether freezing the sloes was better/necessary on the Cottage Smallholder page...

The short of it was: 'if you make different recipes, you can compare which you like the best' [make notes on the bottle at the time of making], and 'keeping the gin improves the flavour - compare different vintages' [someone was the lucky possessor of a bottle of 30 year old sloe gin].

So, guess what?

Instead of enough berries to fill one bottle, I went out yesterday evening and picked a decent sized bag, and not being sure whether we'd had a frost, cleaned them and froze them. About 4 pounds of them - enough for four bottles...

Still "so far, so good", but the page I'd clicked on the get to the "sloe gin challenge" page had a recipe for wild damson gin...

Having walked past the damson sapling in the hedgerow earlier in the week, and noticing that the damsons I couldn't reach last visit were still there, I was now thinking "hmm, sloes will be ok in the freezer, let's harvest those damsons & make a bottle of damson gin".

The "few" damsons turned into more than two pounds, and thus two jars of damson-gin-in-waiting (thankfully a small bottle of gin was nestling in the cellar in case of "emergencies" - sorry, David!).

So, now I'm off to town to buy more gin (and sugar), and hopefully avoid being branded as one of those alcohol-fuelled Brits who go abroad to make trouble...

Or an alcoholic!

Red hot little yellow plums

Yum!

It's 38°C outside the front door, so my windfall mirabelles are warm...

If you're old enough, you will remember the kind of warm that British Rail [as was] used to achieve with the lettuce on their sandwiches; not quite cooking, but not so far off it...

Well, these little beauties are a bit hotter than that, but for some reason it's much more acceptable to eat hot plums (that have been heated by the sun under the tree from which they've fallen) than nearly-cooked lettuce on a sarnie from a train "refrigerator"!

Did I mention it's a beautiful day where I'm sitting?

Enjoy the summer!

As Promised! Part 3...

As Promised! Part 2...

As Promised! Part 1...

Is it swine 'flu when some swine brings a germ from his office?

I'm not feeling 100%, so I am not doing the delicate thumbnail sized photos that I was planning to do!

I may come back later & edit this post, it depends how much it irritates me knowing I didn't make every effort to make it look OK.

So, just a load of BIG photos:

Of course, it doesn't look like that now.

Will post the "furniture pics" when the furniture is against walls!