They giveth, and they taketh away

Before/during:

Digging up the road surface, in order to lay a new one...

Shiny new road, but...  No trees!

The commune has chopped down all the trees in the churchyard

We were hoping they would pollard them soon, but now the garden feels very naked; we hadn't realise quite how much we relied on the church to proved our 'backdrop'.

David has spoken with Bernard, and I understand that they are planning on planting new trees and had to cut the existing ones down as they were endangering the wall - I really hope they do.

Weird seeing more of the village, but I'm sure we'll get used to it very quickly, and it would be a crying shame if the lovely walls came down after all the work/money the commune invested in making everything safe - it's a Templar church, so has been around much longer than the trees.

Weather I haven't already posted about...

Over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of windy, rainy weather in France [which for various reasons I never got around to blogging about], and I found some photos when I was sorting through Picasa, so in no particular order:

Wind rips out trees in Vendeuvre:

We had some fantastic winds, and the chateau in Vendeuvre-sur-Seine seemed particularly targeted - a lot of trees were broken off 5-10' above ground [even a road sign was bent by a gust].

They chopped all the trees off at a similar height - I'm guessing so no more became casualties of future storms...

Hopefully, they are the sort of tree that pollards!

Huge-hail storm:

We had an immense hail storm one night - it woke me up through the industrial-strength ear plugs, and lasted what seemed like ages!

We we're leaving to come back to the UK about 2-3 hours later, and there was still a hail-drift to the side of the road.

Sadly, the light was so poor that I couldn't show how big the individual hailstones were.

Just glad I didn't have an open chimney [like in Brixton, before I had all the chimney caps put on], and have to rush round with a dustpan and brush collecting sooty debris before it stained the floor...

Done that a few times, and how I love chimney caps!

Water being drained from the lakes/Canal de la Restitution:

[Except I don't think it's called that...?]

The Seine flooded [and this close to the source, that's pretty impressive], and at Troyes filled lorry cabs the water was so high - so you can guess how much water fell out of the sky!

Last time we went to France [usually a time of brown verges, and very little growth] the grass had grown chest high in six weeks, and the garden looked fantastic, but it's all an indication of sustained/prolonged rainfall over the whole winter.

The (overflow-ditch-that-is-probably-NOT) the Canal de la Restitution [but I'm going to call it that till I can remember what it is called], has steadily dropped in level; I bet the people downstream on the Seine were glad that as much water as could be emptied into the lakes was funnelled away from the river.

They seem to be raising the banks, too?

Speaking of flooding...:

Villy-en-Trodes, before:

Villy-en-Trodes, after:

Can't wait to see what the weather's been doing in our absence this time.

Changes at our place (with some photos)

Continuing our trench:

Gosh, it's nearly two years since I posted about Vincent's trench, and it seems to have worked wonderfully; the potager is not weed free, but we definitely don't seem to be having any root incursion,and that was the main thing!

Bindweed remains a problem, but it's no longer 'seeping' in from the field, and I think I've virtually eradicated the couch grass [and that one I can manage - wait for damp ground, dig gently, and it pulls out nicely].  We are going to try spot spraying with a different herbicide [recommended by the very helpful chap who told us about the root killer which worked fabulously on the sycamore stump], but that's a post for another day [want to see if it works, first!]...

I don't know why I didn't get him to continue digging in the membrane to the fence we share with Philippe, but it pretty quickly became apparent that I should have done.

Oh, well, finally got around to asking him to come back, and it's "sorted" now.

AND, he brought and spread for us a load of topsoil [the potager had sunk quite a lot].

I'm very keen to start planting things, but also know that if we don't get the space bindweed-free before we start we've set ourselves up for years of 'pain'; I've waited this long, I can wait a bit longer!

Shredder:

We ordered a shredder, that arrived disassembled into small enough bits that we could get it into the car [so didn't have to hire a van].

It assembled pretty easily - a bit of pushing & shoving and (if I remember correctly) only a bit of 'percussive adjustment' from a 'universal spanner' [I always use a wood block to protect everything I'm 'drifting' from the head of the hammer, so it's not as brutal as it sounds!], and it was there.

We started on the compost "mountain" that had shrunk somewhat, but was a) still huge, and b) nowhere near becoming compost.

We were watering the shreddings really well into the trench left behind after M. Milesi had built his wall - we wanted to not have a huge gap, and are hoping to plant some red elder/smokebush/red twisted hazel when we can get around to it.

We just need nature to work its magic, now.

Coloured garden areas:

Not sure why I've put this here, as I haven't got any photos...  But I am attempting to have (some) themed areas near the driveway.

After my surgery last year [a BIG sorry to David], I managed to accumulate 69 pots to take to France [I managed to load all of them with only one hand, so I did what little I could], and 71 plants [I think I'd managed to sneak a couple of transplants into one pot?], which my wonderful assistant in his (temporary) role of head gardener planted.

It was 25°C at 10pm, so we probably got it badly wrong with when to take plants to a hot, continental, climate...

The aim is to have a bunch of pink coloured plants all near each other, then merging into purple/blue planting, which is next to "hot" colours.

Obviously, there will be things popping up [particularly yellow daisy-type flowers] that I may need to move...

And despite what I have read/been told, don't chop down Oriental Poppies; I had a fabulous clump of "Allegro", which I managed to reduce to about four sickly sprouts...  I thought I'd nothing to lose by transplanting them to where I wanted them (most of them looked on the way out), so I think I have a couple of tiny shoots in the "hot" area, and one I missed in the "pink" zone.

On the upside: we bought a small pump with a tube that drops down into our rainwater tank, and that works brilliantly - so much so that we managed to water in all the plants and soak most of the compost/shreddings before it ran out.  Another long-term aim is to sort out the leak in the tank, and create a drain nearer the top for when it will overfill.

Stealing the drive:

Well, not stealing, more 're-allocating'...

The old (pale brown) bark is where the drive used to finish...

But because of the piles of sand and gravel, we haven't used that space for several years (and don't miss it), so it made sense [to me, at any rate!], to properly incorporate it into the garden...

We've been accumulating tufa every time we find some, and nearly have enough to give the drive a defined edge...

Well, at least we've started, and it looks a lot tidier!

Orchids in the meadow:

We know we probably shouldn't...  [Move orchid plants, that is.]

But since the communes have all taken to mowing down the verges regularly through the summer...

We've seen a tiny fraction of the number of plants/varieties in the countryside...  [They're going to be eradicated in the wild if that continues; like England.]

And Jean-Luc mows ours off when he cuts the hay...

So we transplanted as many orchids as we could find to the edges J-L can't get at...

And we've only had a couple of plants looking a bit sickly, but we've got another 12-15 flowering away.

We dug as huge a clump of soil out as we could and, and used the mycorrhiza powder in the holes.

Now we're just hoping they will set seed and we can establish a colony.

David one day [he'd strimmed that part down to the ground about eight weeks earlier; to the left of the picture is the bit he hadn't touched - spot the difference?].

One day later: he'd cut pathways so we can get to the plants we're trying to cosset [some fruit trees, the above orchids and our nettle colony (not mad; we haven't seen any of either variety of swallowtail, or the marbled white,  since we cleared behind the house, and I want to encourage whatever butterflies had laid their eggs on them to come back) - OK, we're not actively cossetting the nettles, but I want them to establish away from where the hay-cutting will chop them down].

Phew, that's it for me [for now!].

Trying to catch up (snippets)...

"Turn it down":

The boiler was playing up (again) - it has done that a couple of times before [and been fixed]: it will turn up, but then refuses to turn down.  Fine, for a few hours, or even days when the weather is bitterly cold...

But not when the poêle has got up to temperature; once we've been in the house a couple of days, that's the only heat we use/need.

And when we're not there?

Crazy to pay for heating in an empty house!  It nicely turns itself on when we send it a text message or the temperature drops below 7°C [it was set to do that below 10°C, but we don't need that much warmth, just enough to prevernt the pipes from freezing, so I adjusted it], so the house never gets really chilled, and we light the poêle as soon as we arrive in winter and turn the heating off either immediately, or after a couple of hours, depending on whether the temperature is above or below freezing outside.

The (new) chap suggested we turn the heating down...

...rather than him diagnosing and correcting whatever the problem was.  [First time it happened, it was a faulty (tele)command unit (?), the second time a factory reset on the electronics worked; neither of which I could have sorted out myself.]

It's lucky David was dealing with the heating engineer: I think he was treated to "erm, no" in French, whereas I am bilingual in cutting sarcasm when I need to be [so much so that even the most unhelpful of French workmen (almost) invariably notice], and if that fails, I am perfectly capable of shouting loudly and waving my arms for emphasis, until everyone agrees I should get my way.

Not my preferred approach [who likes grown adults behaving like a thwarted toddler?], but when people have already been paid to remedy a fault, and fail to comprehend why leaving it unremedied/worse is unacceptable, it calls for the big guns, don't you think?

I've only done it once and the biggest trouble was trying not to 'corpse' - I had no idea I was such a fantastic actress!  I was actually enjoying myself playing the part, and could have continued as long as it took, but our (former) project manager caved in after about 10 minutes and agreed that we could pay the remainder of the bill after the work was done, rather than "instead" of having the work done, which was their first position (we'd made the mistake of part-paying on the understanding they would complete their role as they were in a financial hole and we wanted to help).

Long story short: heating gone wrong; now sorted [thus saving hundreds of pounds of gas, and possibly the boiler running "dry" with disastrous results].

Left-hand right-hand?:

A.k.a. "Orange don't seem to have done a 'sanity check' on their databases".

We've been getting an awful lot of cold calls from Orange, trying to sell us internet access.

Because they're cold callers, they have a whole spiel to follow, and so don't get to the point very quickly [if I pick up any unknown caller, I will either practise my French (slightly mean, but they are choosing to waste my time, and I don't feel it too unfair if occasionally that works both ways?) or butt in and inform the caller that it's a holiday home and we are not French residents/tax payers, which causes over 90% of them to apologise and cut the call short to try to make a sale elsewhere], so it can be several minutes before they get around to asking if we would like internet access...

We have internet access...

Would we like to switch to a better deal?

Yes, that would be lovely...

Who is our current provider?

Orange...

Oh, erm, er...

Are you offering us a better rate?

Oh, no, we just want you to switch to Orange...

But we can't do that; we are with Orange already...

Are you sure you wouldn't like to switch to Orange?

[At this point we begin to suspect the conversation has gone off script...]

Yes, we would, if that will give us a better rate?

Ah, but it won't...

OK, then, thanks for your call...

[At that point I will politely say goodbye a couple of times and put the phone down, whether they are still talking or not, but David may sometimes play a few more rounds - too polite for his own good?  Or possibly because he's never worked a busy switchboard where 'timewasters' will lead to unhappy 'genuine' callers?]

Orange - get your databases synched why don't you?!

Long story short: Orange is wasting money trying to sell to existing customers [without offering a better tariff].

There IS such a thing as a free lunch!:

Last time we were in Tonnerre we went to Flunch for a quick lunch...

Except it wasn't!

Flunch had morphed into «Le Bistro», and our "quick" lunch took over two hours before we gave up on our meal, and went to the Auchan next door and bought dessert...  David missed out on his espresso [why would a supermarket have a coffee machine when there is a bistro on the premises?].

We were unsure [certain Capricorns among us need plenty of advance warning for sudden changes!] whether to go in, as we'd been expecting a lady dishing out various hot cuts of meat before you head to the help-yourself-to-vegetables counter (suits me, or I can have a ready-made-up salad plate), to select your side dishes, with fridges of water/wine/juice/dessert, etc.

Well, we thought we'd risk it: how bad can a bistro at a supermarket be?

Hah!

We were seated very quickly, but that's the last we saw of any kind of speedy service.  It took over 25 minutes to place our order - I think the waitress wanted to just take our drinks order and come back later (but I've successfully done a lot of blotting out the 2+ hours of my life I will never get back ;-) ) for our food order, but by then we were more than sure we 'didn't need any more time', so insisted we order then.

I would say "perhaps that was our mistake, and we ticked off the waitress", but she was offering the same 'service with a snarl' to everyone [apart from one table, that appeared to be friends of hers, who were seated long after us, ordered after us and got their food way before us; we weren't the only table to notice that!].  The refusal to make eye contact was noticeable, and other customers were commenting on that, as well as the delay/difficulty placing an order and the unfriendliness.

How long can it take to bring a pizza, a salad, a bottle of water and a 25cl carafe of wine-box wine?

I can't remember if it was just-under or just-over an hour, but seriously dude?!

I'm struggling to remember what I had...

[Free lunch, remember?]

But I think it was half a pizza and half a salad, and I'm sure it was lovely.  I seem to recall that David's salad - what didn't end up in his lap as it was slammed down in front of him [and loudly enough to cause several tables up to 20' away to look round (we did it when other people had their food slammed down in front of them)] - was very nice.

We did try to get the waitress's attention to order dessert and a coffee, and the bill at the same, but didn't persevere too long as by this time it was already later than we wanted to get to Auxerre (about 40 minutes away)...  [And we still hadn't had our puddings!].

We gave up, and went to the bar to pay.  We asked a couple of times if the cashier was sure the bill was right (it seemed very low, for waitress-service food), and the cashier assured us it was, so (given the very limited success of trying to attract the waitress's attention when we wanted something from her!) we paid up (sans pourboire*), and left!

Looking at the receipt later [we never saw a bill - we only spent 10 or 15 minutes trying to get it from the waitress before giving up] - free lunch - yay!  Ordinarily, I would go back and point out the mistake, but that felt like compensation* for a dreadful waste of our time [and David wearing part of his lunch, and no pudding, and, and, and], so we 'took' it.

So, free lunch.  :-)

We were lucky - a cheap [if not cheerful] meal, overall.  Would have happily paid a lot more to get service with a smile, sweets and coffee, but it wasn't our choice that that was unavailable.

We will be very interested to see if «Le Bistro» is still there when we're next in Tonnerre: the place was very full, but given how few people were receiving their food in a timely fashion, that could just have been a massive backlog?  And given the number of disgruntled comments we overheard/faces we saw, we're not sure how many local people will go back [and we always felt it was a place that it was mostly a local crowd meeting up with friends after doing their shopping]...

A review Yelp has suppressed [the only one I could find related to «Le Bistro», rather than the previous Flunch] was similarly unimpressed on a visit on a different day:

"Si vous êtes pressé, passez votre chemin ! On vous prend la commande boissons assez vite et on vous la sert pour vous fixer, puis vous attendez 20 minutes pour passer commande de vos plats qui n'arrivent que 55 minutes plus tard: dont une pizza pas assez cuite et dégoulinante. Patronne mal-aimable et pas un mot d'excuse de la serveuse pour l'attente, alors que la salle n'était pas remplie au tiers."

A rough & ready translation:

"If you're in a hurry, don't stop! You can order drinks quickly, then you wait 20 minutes to order your food, which won't arrive until 55 minutes later, with one pizza not cooked enough and trickling/oozing [I'm guessing not in a good-mozzarella-way?].  The boss was unpleasant and not a word of apology from the waitress for the wait; the room wasn't even a third full."

* Note to North Americans: in Europe [northern Europe certainly] it is not common to leave tips after a meal [it's becoming more common, as we follow more and more US examples]; the culture is different, and waitstaff are not being cheated when a tip isn't left, and are frequently surprised when a tip is left (especially in a more "informal" style establishment, even moreso away from tourist areas); tips are only left for exceptionally good service, or if a larger party has been particularly challenging [and often, not even then].  Further note: it was clearly the boss who was serving us, and waitstaff do not have unpaid-for food deducted from their wages in Europe; that is illegal.

Long story short:  If you're going to be surly and slam food down in front of customers who have been waiting ages, don't expect them to go to great lengths to fix your error with the bill...

Oh, and don't expect a tip!


OK, enough for now!

Dreams coming true!

I haven't been posting much [the repeated infections in my ganglion scar and then the crippling shoulder pains that came back because I was protecting the operation site have meant I've been trying to limit my computer use; I feel I'm on the mend now and the need to sort my photos has become overwhelming, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed not to aggravate whatever's happening with my shoulders], but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of posting...

Two things:

Firstly, we finally sorted out the pile of stuff upstairs in the salon d'été, and can now use it as a...

...salon d'été - ta dah!

It felt great, even though we had to pack it all away again almost immediately, but we know that next year we are in a great position to set it up quickly and easily (which should guarantee a cold spell), and really enjoy the space as we intended when we bought the house nine years ago.

[The intention is to post photos later, when I've sorted out the jumble of months' of photos in three cameras...]

Secondly, the garden is now tidy enough that we can garden (for the most part) in a leisurely fashion.

OK, so sometimes I have a mad-dash to get on top of the weeds, but mostly it's a case of see a weed, remove it rather than "HALP!", and that feels great.  We have managed to move a few plants, are trying to create "coloured" sections of garden, and have tidied the edge and put down lumps of tufa to demarcate the drive better.

Again, I have the best of intentions with regard to posting photos [vide supra].

Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm going to Hell with all my good intentions, but seriously, as long as my shoulders hold up I want to get my digital clutter de-cluttered!

Wall finished!

[For now, at least; I may try some white spirit/cellulose thinner/WD40/specialist cleaner recommended on the internet - not sure, and I can always come back to it.]

"Before" [notice also "before" for floor!]

I think it looks a whole heap better - still room for improvement, but I'm happy to leave it for now [and go and bathe; yucky-feeling skin]

"After" [or maybe "during", if I use a solvent]

Now all that's left to do is have fun seeing how long David takes to notice.

My best guess is that it will be some time on the 21 or 22 of August - when he's back in the office catching up with his emails [might even be 19, as he's working from home that day].  I think I'm pretty safe in betting he won't 'spot the difference' before he reads the automated email he gets for my posts!

I have to admit to doing all the female sneakinesses in my power to hide my activities [tidying, cleaning, and putting things back as they were before!], and also that my sneakiness is in a different league to his when I'm waiting to see how long it takes him to notice a thing is different - did I mention the haircut that left it 9 or 10" shorter that took [I think] over a week to become 'visible'?  And that's something he looks at every day...

After two years of changing the knobs on the bedside tables [and repeatedly "looking for nicer ones" in various shops] I did tell him about that one.

David tidying upstairs...

Maria untidying upstairs!

Nice seating area

David had moved most of the tools and clutter from the front wall in the grenier, and vacuumed the floor so that we could set out a table & chairs and our 'comfy' chairs whilst the weather was so hot - I don't mind the heat upstairs, but downstairs is so well insulated that it just builds and builds if we have the shutters open when it's baking.

Outside: 36C, upstairs 28C and downstairs 23C and gloomy [shutters are great for keeping out the heat/cold, but also keep out the light].  So warm enough, but not as furnace-like as sitting in the sun!

Tidy/clean floor

Well David's off to Spa at the moment on a couple of track days, so I've been left to my own devices.

The only problem with having comfy chairs upstairs and relaxing, is seeing the tar from where the builders removed the old chimney to make room for the flue for the wood-burning stove...

I think I mentioned that David had moved most of the tools, but he didn't hide my little blue metal tool box well enough to stop me finding my 'heavy' implements; I can't currently handle the big lump hammer, and my wide-bladed cold chisel seems to be off on it's holidays, but I managed to make a start.

Oops!

Should I have been doing this so soon after wrist surgery?

I don't know, but neither the surgeon nor the hand therapist said "don't start wielding lump hammers/cold chisels", so I'm guessing the answer has to be "yes"!

I only managed an hour and a half, and am being sensible, but it feels great to have made an improvement on the eyesore and I must be building up strength in the joints, no?

Seriously, Crocs?! Seriously?

I’m sitting here wearing bright green ‘clown shoes’, reading the warning tag that had been attached to them, and wondering “why escalator safety?” and “why not using-a-chair-instead-of-a-stepladder danger?” or even “hazard of crushing mockery for wearing clown shoes?”.  I’m mystified why that particular potential for harm merits a tag being printed off and attached to my new shoes, and no other.

Seriously, though, I have bought my first pair of Crocs [as opposed to “mock crocs” (Shoezone was out of their “2 for £8” offerings in either of our sizes, so we forked out £19.99 for each pair – 30% off – at Sports Direct); I own plenty of those] and so far I love them. Having a pretty high tolerance for put-downs [try growing up with my relatives and not developing a thicker skin!], I think I’m going to love them.

I own Croc winter shoes [no holes, removable fleecy linings], and boots [the only things I can wear (apart from Wellingtons) that don’t give me heel blisters] and plenty of other mule-type shoes, but this is the first time I’ve succumbed to genuine Crocs' “crocs”.

We shall see whether they last any longer, or withstand the really sharp stones on the farm tracks any better, than the cheapo alternatives, and that will dictate whether this is the first pair of many or the last.

As an aside: I’m typing away and, distracted by the ‘chattering’; I glanced at the window to see two black shapes flying in front of the bars – cue yelling at the swallows to “get out!” and “stay away!” – clearly time for another brood [and the weather here seems to have been wet – lush growth, so I suspect lots of yummy caterpillars/grubs to feed the babies on, so it would be great timing], and they frequently investigate the house for nesting sites if I don’t warn them off quickly enough.

It’s wonderful having them nesting here, but I’d prefer that they stick to the barn, and if it came to it they would too – our shutter-closing habits don’t work well with their late-evening-snack-gathering routine and they poo everywhere!

Alasdhair & Maria's wedding

We were invited to Alasdair and Maria's wedding in Paris on the 15th June, and had an absolutely lovely time!

[Apologies: my photos are so completely rubbish that I'm not posting any of them, sorry!]

We travelled to Paris on the Friday, and once we'd battled the périphérique we got to our hotel in the 15th arrondissement, which was fine but really expensive.  No surprises there, just wish we'd had time to use the swimming pool/spa!

Saturday morning, we took a taxi to the Mairie of the 6th arrondissement, and met up with Hilary, a schoolmate of David's, and her daughter Molly, and Matthew (a college friend of David's) and his wife Gilly, and were waiting in the courtyard.  None of use expected to know anyone else at the wedding, so we were just trying to follow the crowd.

Well we did follow the crowd, but luckily were halted by a phone call from Alasdhair [thankfully David hadn't yet switched his phone off] asking where we were - "we're just coming into the room" - "you're at the wrong wedding"!

Oops!

We'd just looked at the time and as it was already nearly midday followed the other people heading upstairs.  In our defence, the invite said 12 o'clock.

It was only later that we realised Liam and Alyssa would have been there if no-one else we knew!

[Later we met up with another guest who shall remain nameless, and he had not only the wrong ceremony, but the wrong venue; he'd been at the church of St Sulpice across the road, had seen two groups of people and chosen the better dressed group only to find out he'd joined a funeral!]

The ceremony was at the conducted by the mayor (as I later found out, of the 7th).  She was gorgeous (and she was definitely one of those French women we hear so much about: slim, beautifully turned out, at ease), but spoke quickly enough that I missed some of the details. 

I understood her giving biographies of Alasdhair and Maria [it was totally unlike an English civil ceremony where the vows take up a lot more time, with the law taking up much less].

I was musing that perhaps in Paris there's some sort of rule that you are only allowed a glamorous mayor  [no offence intended to any English worthies, but the photos I've seen of UK mayors show distinctly homely women!], when she mentioned that she'd not always had an easy time with journalists [Maria is a journalist], so I thought "oh, perhaps mayors in Paris have more trouble from the press".

It was only after the ceremony that Matthew asked if I knew that she was Rachida Dati - I didn't, but that explained the bother she'd had at the hands of the fourth estate!  I thought she handled it very graciously: making a little joke when she could have been stony-faced or just ignored it.

Maria had organised taxi's to the restaurant, so that was one worry removed.

The wedding "breakfast" was held at the Tour d'Argent which is a really spiffy Parisian restaurant; the food was lovely, and the views were fabulous - sixth floor, overlooking the Seine, with Notre-Dame off to the left - it's a fantastic setting.

We started with amuse-bouches with champagne Tour d'Argent Grand Cru, then there were quenelles of pike "André Terrail" with Château de Tracy (pouilly fumé) and Vendéenne duck breast with vegetables accompanied by Saint Joseph (chave).  Gâteau de Mariage [scrummy chocolateness] and mignardises to round off a delicious meal.

[I had asparagus for starters and a vegetable medley for mains; both really good, and I was really grateful to Maria for organising that, and to Alasdhair for remembering I'm vegetarian!]

Under Matthew's influence [and that of several bottles of the chave!  I wish I'd been drinking alcohol; everyone was raving about the wine], we left the restaurant last and then we tried to find a taxi rank (with taxis!) before giving up and taking the metro.

Sadly, we arrived back at the hotel five minutes before the taxi was due to collect us for the evening reception, and still had to get back to the room...

So no evening outfit for me [I felt desperately weird being the only woman who hadn't changed].

Had we known the taxi was going to be 20 minutes late, I would have scrambled into my other outfit!

Not that it mattered - we were in time for the departure of the Ivoire for the cruise on the Seine (unlike one of the other guests), and it was a brilliant evening.  I was nervous that I was going to be boat sick, but I was fine, and really enjoyed seeing Paris from the water.

By the time the boat docked, David and I were ready for our beds [another huge thank you to Maria for organising the taxi guys to take us back to the hotel], so passed up on Matthew & Gilly's offer to go clubbing...

Unlike Liam, who apparently didn't enjoy his four hour wait for the Eurostar at the Gard du Nord the next day!

Fab time, and hope they enjoyed the honeymoon in Honfleur, and that we see them soon in the Aube.

Snippets

We had a lovely visit to France last month - we'd gone for Alasdhair and Maria's wedding [which was lovely, and about which I will post another time], but stayed on for a week's holiday.

We [David, mostly] finished putting the subsoil back into the trench left by the wall that M. Milesi had built for us.  We started to transfer the compost heap there [in the four or five hours that we moved the upper layers, we didn't come across any broken down matter!], but stopped when we realised that if we bought the long-debated shredder it might help to speed up the whole process.

So we've put it on hold, and we have a chipper/shredder on order [it will cope with all the hedge trimmings, too] that, fingers crossed, will fit in the car easily...

If not, we checked that the hopper removes without too much bother [four bolts], so it will still be easier to transport than if we had needed to use the trailer.

I'm desperately hoping that the shredder will make light work of our current compost 'mountain' and will prevent future build-up...

When we've finished moving the compost, I'll post again about the trench [too many photos at the moment to cope with the thought of going through them; I'll sort them out in Picasa and then should be able to face it].

We continue remarking about the weather - the Canal de la Restitution is much lower than it was on our last visit, but still massively higher than we would expect at this time of year; it's been great for planting [although it went really hot for four days] - warm and wet, just what the plants love - but there has been more flooding.  We saw horses up to their 'armpits' [there's probably a technical term, and that's probably not it?] in water in their field, which worried me, but the level was dropping all the time, so when we saw them later only up to their 'elbows' [vide supra re: technical term], I was a lot less concerned for them.

Philippe who owns the place next door [he's not really our neighbour, as he lives about five miles away] said the daughter of a former mayor of the village had her house (on the way to Chatillon) destroyed by hail stones about the size of an orange, and there was a tornado that hit less than 20 miles away.  We're more glad than ever that our valley seems particularly lucky when it comes to the worst of the weather!

We did have some weather-related damage - the bells stopped; odd that the absence of sound impacts us more now than the bells themselves ever do.  We also had "thunder storm stops play" when we were planting - it hadn't stopped raining, and we were desperate to get the remaining plants in the ground before the heavens opened - but it felt that the lightning was getting too close, and I don't want to be hit for a third time!

[OK, it wasn't dramatic either of the other times, but I have learned (the hard way) not to use a telephone during a thunderstorm - huge blue flash, Gibbs-slap to the side of the head, temporary deafness; not bad for a strike, but better avoided in my experience.]

Before the rain set in as though we were in England, we had a couple of days of low 30s, and a low of 18.5°c [weather when the shutters don't open for fear of letting in more heat; the only downside of really efficient insulation], and it only dropped out of the 20s because of the first thunderstorm!

All the plants are settled in, the ground is still very damp, we watered them in well so we are hoping that they will all survive.

It's so odd seeing France much greener than England; our hay was shoulder height on David, with no sign of a break in the weather for Jean-Luc to cut it - we only saw one field of cut hay the whole time we were there, so we haven't missed out on his attentions.  The (few) walnuts are between a petit-pois and a marrowfat pea in size, whereas I would expect them to be (nearly) full-sized by now - one recipes calls for green walnuts and suggests 25 June as a harvest date - not a chance!  The elder flowers were out at about the same time as I previously when I made some liqueur; I'm not sure I hadn't left it a little too late, but I was waiting for a day when they were dry [should have picked them when we first got there, but we were prioritising the plants at that point] - we shall see.

I'm trying to espalier train the plum seedlings David had moved to near Philippe's "hangar" - not sure that's what I should be doing, but I can't let them get huge, so I've got to try to 'tame' them before that happens.  Philippe thinks I'm mad, but in France we just don't see smaller trees over there like we do here in Kent.  It may be a crazy idea or it may just be a function of France being huge compared to England when population/square area is calculated - I will get around to looking up online whether I should be doing it, and if so how, but we're always so pushed for time when we are in France that I often find out later what I should have done.

Oh well, as long as I don't kill the trees, we're good!

We had a bike ride-through go through the village as we were scrambling to get last minute work done on the Saturday.  My French Googling abilities are unequal to the task of finding out what was going on, but there were a lot of motorcycles heading past the church.  I kept thinking "oh, it will nearly be finished, there's no point going to look" for a good five (if not ten) minutes, but eventually I went to peer through the elder bushes.  I counted 95 bikes go past, so there must have been hundreds.  I do wonder what they were up to.

The trip was only slightly marred by missing our Shuttle, and the following one that we were booked on being subject to hour-long delays - could have been worse, and they did bring round water as we were waiting, but I'm not sure why they gathered our details.  David said we might get a refund of some sort [I voted for unlikely; we've waited for over four hours without even an apology, so an hour doesn't seem to merit anything] - which we didn't.  I guess that Eurostar has different standards they apply.

Wall [without logs]

We arrived at the house for Christmas and noticed that M. Milesi had started the new wall.  He'd removed all of the traces of the one that had been falling down for years.

It was a lovely wall, but we were terrified that one day it would fall on someone - not something we wanted on our consciences.

An upside of replacing it will be that I will no longer be nervous about weeding the garden near to the wall [in case my activities were what precipitated its collapse].

The footings were laid, and then we had a massive hiatus before the wall went up, owing to the cold, wet winter.

As we couldn't garden anyway, it didn't matter to us, but did leave us a bit nervous that yet another workman had started a job only to abandon it before finishing [I would say "once bitten, twice shy", but it's been more like a swarm of mosquitoes than a simple learning opportunity!].

So it was great to see a wall there when we went in March.

The last time we visited the house (a couple of weeks ago), the spoil had been [mostly] put back into the trench, and we had an invoice awaiting us in the letter box, so we know his work here is done.

The wall looks great: not pretty like the old one, but it matches Philippe's wall , so I think it works very well.

And David started going over the ground to shovel all the remaining subsoil into the gap.  Rain stopped play, but we're not far from finished.  Then we plan to relocate the compost piles to the gap to let it work its magic & fill up the gap.

We can't plant now until the autumn or next spring [in case the weather does finally turn "normal" for the time of year], so it should give us a good bed to plant into.

Now we just need to remove the unwanted elderberry bushes [I intend to plant "Red Lace" instead - lower down the bank, so not as visually intrusive, and with prettier leaves & flowers, but hopefully it will berry up OK]...

Wall [with logs]

We had a delivery of logs just before Christmas, which prompted us to finally finish cleaning the wall in the barn - I'd done about two thirds of it a couple of years ago, but the rest was hidden by timber, stones and other builders' detritus.  Now all of that has been taken to the dump or found a more permanent home, so there was just a few rotten beams to remove and get the steam cleaner out.

David did the rest of it, and it looks great - just need to saw up and stack some logs!

The new logs are much lighter in weight - we don't know what they are; they are great, and burn really well, but don't last anywhere near as long as the oak logs.  I think we're going to try to get deliveries of both sorts, if we can manage that without offending anyone!

We used a couple of pallets to create a flat platform [makes stacking them easier, and will hopefully discourage rodents from making a home under the pile?].

We've got it almost right - when the pile is empty, I'm going to move the pallets a little to the right so there is a perfect bin-sized space immediately to the left, which will free up the concrete slab again [it's very useful for putting our little "bar" table to use as a stand for cooking outdoors - neither David nor I like the smell of meat or fish hanging around for hours after a meal, and this place is perfect: under cover and with a power socket on the wooden pillar (L of photo)].

Now we just need a 'barbecue summer'!