Christmas 2014 in St André

 

Christmas Day in St André was a quiet but lovely one.  The sky was blue and the sun shone – perfect weather for a post-prandial afternoon walk through the village and then I sat in the sunshine up on the field with the animals for a while.  

You can see the awful mud that we are having to contend with - the worst I've ever known it.  Thank goodness the far end of the field still has grass.

Three of the sheep standing very still in the sunshine.

The sunset was great as the following photographs show:

 

Christmas food started with the usual gammon or collar joint, cooked the day before and sliced on hot buttered toast with Coleman’s English mustard.  For lunch I had bought a frozen lobster

and having prepared it, after watching a youtube tutorial, I mixed butter with garlic, parsley and lemon juice and then spread it liberally on the prepared crustacean and placed it under a very hot grill.

It was pleasant enough but the quality of the flesh was not as good as a fresh one would have been.   In previous years, I have prepared fresh crab and really enjoyed it, so I shall do that again for my future Christmas starters.

As I was alone, I chose to eat my main course a few hours later and cooked duck breast with spiced red cabbage, roasted butternut squash and onions, petit pois, dauphinoise potatoes and a gravy with red currant jelly.  

It was delicious!   This is about the fourth year running I have cooked this plate for Christmas lunch and I see no reason why I would ever change this tradition.  One of the great things about it is that there is no long cooking of any meat.  With the red cabbage prepared and cooked the beforehand, the whole meal doesn’t take more than an hour to get to the table.  My electric slicer, bought secondhand for €20 a few years ago, efficiently slices the potato for the dauphinoise into beautifully thin, regular slices and I used my own home grown garlic for this dish too. 

Too full to eat Christmas pudding, I opted for Bourbon vanilla icecream and homemade blackberry sauce made with the fruits I’d picked in the lane this year.

I followed this with Camembert which I eat with Petit Beurre biscuits – I like the salty and sweet combination.

My family in Cornwall were all spending Christmas Day together and Skyped me just before they had their prawn cocktail starter – so lovely to see them happy and enjoying themselves.

The tulip bulbs I planted in November are already popping their heads up through the wet earth in the terrace bed alongside the house.

At the end of the afternoon, which I'd spent with my two smallest chicks perching on my feet, I took them to their new home in the back barn.  I was happy this morning, Boxing Day, to see that they were fine and not being attacked by the bigger chickens.  Today is not a good weather day.  Purrdy, my oldest cat, has just come in soaking wet.  It is miserable out there now, luckily it was dry when I went up to do the animals first thing. 

The Christmas tree, a beautiful Nordmann fir, a present from friends is decorated but without lights. When the decoration bag was opened a strong smell of urine emerged.  I spread out a newspaper on the floor and tipped out the contents which included a mother mouse and her four babies.  The four sets of lights from the bottom of the bag, completely urine sodden, worked perfectly when plugged in but the stench was so bad that they were unusable.  The four new sets of lights, previously unused in another unaffected bag, wouldn’t work – not one of them wanted to light up.  So, unfortunately, I have no lights on my tree this year which is rather odd. 

This morning I Skyped with the New Zealanders who are going to house/pet sit for me in April 2015 when I go back to the UK for my usual dentist visit.  They seem really good people and I feel happy that they are going to take care of everything here for me.

Lunchtime today saw me cooking plaice goujons and prawns in homemade breadcrumbs with salad from the polytunnel – a nice light change from yesterday. Tomorrow I have been invited out to friends so can leave the cooking to someone else.

I am now relaxing in front of the woodburner with a half full tin of Quality Street – there are benefits to spending Christmas alone!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas and that we all have a Happy and Healthy 2015.

Three things I like:

1.   Skype, for the opportunity it offers to keep in touch with and actually see friends and family.

2.   All the birds visiting the bird table just a metre from the sitting room window.

3.  My ducks and hens, who are laying so magnificently, even through these winter months, that I'm running out of ceramic egg trays. 

It seems ages since I caught up with my blog so I’m now going to put that right. 

Autumn established itself properly and I think most of the leaves that blew off the trees in St André landed in my garden and driveway.  My brilliantly helpful Workaway, Ed, worked his way through the list of tasks I had for him.  He cleared away many of the leaves and all the prunings that arrived on the ground while I sorted out the vines, honeysuckle, wisteria etc. 

He dug through the little bed below for bulbs and also dug through a large piece of flowerbed for me to put other plants.  A little late I know, for bulbs to go in during November, but I didn’t have the area to place them until Ed arrived. 

My usual worker is not feeling well so he was glad to have Ed to help him when they cut my long hedge – more trimmings to be picked up and disposed of.  I didn’t want all the hedge trimmings in my compost bins, they would have been full, but luckily we have an area in the village, hidden from sight, where we can all dump garden waste so several wheelbarrow loads and a trailer load were carted off and left there.  It looks much tidier now.
  

They also mended an eight metre length of fence which should have stopped Basil and Betsy, the goats, jumping through to the neighbouring pasture up on the field, but it hasn't.  It seems that if they want to be somewhere else then they will find a way.  I had to 'phone my neighbour earlier this afternoon as his small white goat is out in the road today, so it's not just mine who thinks that the grass is greener elsewhere. 

The hens are laying less than they were with the onset of shorter and colder days but there are more than enough eggs from them to sell each week and even the ducks are still laying. Their fields though are a slippery, muddy problem, particularly at the gateways and it is really hard to stay on my feet when I’m feeding and managing them.

I bought and then cooked some beautifully coloured crayfish for lunch at the weekend, but was very disappointed at the lack of edible meat within them.  

Without question, large prawns contain more meat even if they are not so visually appealing.

I bought three few Norfolk Grey layers and three nine week old chicks this week who are settling down in the barn with the other girls.  I have two three week old chicks, a Buff Orpington and a Norfolk Grey in the warmth of the kitchen.  Here are the little chicks yesterday on my laptop table.

On the right are some red berried twigs I cut from a shrub in a picnicking area I was driving past last week.  I thought they would look Christmassy on the windowsill. 

The weekend saw the arrival of the Christmas market in St Nicolas du Pélem.  The outside stallholders were so lucky with the beautiful sunshine and blue sky day which arrived on Sunday.

It was very well attended as community things always are in Brittany.  I met several friends there and it was a pleasant way to spend some time.

 

Here is a photo of my granddaughter, Mia, taken at the end of last month when she was sixteen months.  I love the old fashioned look she has about her.

Here she is two weeks later, looking quite different.

It was the Writers' Group Christmas Lunch last week.  We all met up, as we always do, at the Lanterne Rouge, a Chinese restaurant in Pontivy where we have a great lunch for €11 plus drinks.  It's always a good meal and the staff are very pleasant too.

Some of the sunsets recently have been quite beautiful and here is just one in the village. It's good to think that in three days time we will be past the Winter solstice and heading back to longer and lighter days again.

Three things I like:

1.   Christmas cards with letters in them containing a whole year's worth of news.
2.   Having baby chicks again they're just so lovely.
3.   Friends bringing me a really lovely Christmas tree.

Autumn walk, my granddaughter and Remembrance Day

This week I visited an Ear, Nose and Throat consultant.  He did hearing and other diagnostic tests in both ears, as both are affected by the firm fluttering feeling and sounds which last for between ten minutes and four hours, mainly, but not exclusively during the hours I would like to be sleeping.  His diagnosis was that the muscles controlling the eardrum are causing the problem in exactly the same way as a twitch on your cheek or eye may occur.  The treatment is Magnesium, taken as a supplement, although it is also to be found occurring naturally in dried fruits, beans, nuts, green leafy vegetables, brown rice, wholemeal bread and chocolate.   I shall start taking Magnesium today and hope that my years of poor sleep may be coming to an end.  It also seems like a perfectly sound reason to be eating chocolate!  I seem to remember Magnesium is recommended for cramp too and that is something I get frequently – another muscle related thing I suppose.

Tuesday saw me with a friend and the medium-paced group of Marcheurs de St Nicolas du Pélem doing a demanding walk starting and finishing at St Gilles Pligeaux.  The day started with a temperature of 2°C when I did the animals at 0845hrs.  By 1345hrs the temperature for the walk had risen to 10°C.  

There were a couple of little showers but I was almost grateful for those on the up and down terrain of the route.  There were wonderful fungi all along the paths we took and I was able to stop just to take photos of this fly agaric before I got left behind.  

I was absolutely shattered after the 2½ hours of strenuous walking – 8kms – thank goodness for the walking poles which help so much with climbing and then not slipping when descending again.  I was so tired when I got home.  Then I walked up to the field to put the animals to bed and fell over in the mud on the field, jarring my hip and back.  I felt rubbish all evening, very stiff and very old – luckily a good night’s rest did help.

We parked the car at St Gilles Pligeaux church and walking back these lovely trees were along the path. I haven't seen spindle for years - there used to be trees on the way back from church when I was at school in Clevedon.  I don't know what the other tree is, on the right here, but it was beautiful.

We had our Annual Bowls Club Presentation Lunch on Friday at La Vallée in St Gilles Vieux Marché. The two members opposite me at the table seemed to have a huge collection of trophies in front of them at the finish, whereas I have never been presented with anything, of course, but the company was good and it was an very enjoyable few hours with friends.

The weather has certainly changed for the worse since November arrived but the sunsets have been spectacular.

There has been so much rain with some sunshine too and the inevitable rainbows in the village.  

The animal field entrances and paths are quagmires.  I think we will have to spread stones on the ground to give me some purchase when I’m working up there or I shall spend more time flat in the mud than on my booted feet.   Talking about boots, when I was back in Engand and visiting B&Q, I treated myself to this very girly pair, which I am rather partial to, and keep me drier than the open backed gardening shoes I usually wear.

Mia's Mum posted a photo of Mia on the beach in a very similar coloured pair so I guess we're keeping it in the family!

Here's a new photo showing both Mia and her Mum, Emma - such beautiful girls!

In the village the hydrangeas on the next door verge are all changing colour  

and there are blue fungi on the way to my field - so pretty.

The cats have been coming in drenched after sudden showers and are spending much more time inside in the warm. Claude and Purrdy are usually here asleep but Gracie does tend to spend more time out and about in spite of the weather.  

This year, it was really difficult to get hold of a poppy to wear for Remembrance Day. Eventually a friend from Bowls managed to come up trumps.  

I have temporarily changed my profile photo on Facebook to a photo that I took in my garden in June this year and posted a poem that I wrote last November.

And all across the Flanders fields they lay

The bodies of the fallen in the war

For us they made the ultimate sacrifice

And we will remember them forever more.

Red poppies decorate November clothes

And where there once was only dirt and mud

The summer lands are covered in the flowers

The poppies which remind us of spilt blood.

Their lives were lost to give us lives to live

Hard to imagine the horrors that they shared

Our thanks to those we lost, to all of them,

Thanks too to those who fought and who were spared.

November 2013

Sandra E Chubb

Ducks, chestnuts and veggies

On Monday last week I took my New Zealanders up to Dinard Airport for them to collect the hire car in which they were going to drive down to the Dordogne.  Although it was dull when we set off, the return journey was in sunshine so much more pleasant.  In fact so many of the days recently have had super sunshine and it's still really warm here, 22°C in the shade this afternoon while I sat outside reading.  

Tuesday and Thursday Bowls last week – always good to get back to after a break and on Tuesday my physio came and sorted me out in the evening.  At Bowls I was handed a note which had been left for me.  It was from the daughter of friends who I probably haven't seen since she was about eleven years old.  Two of the bowlers had been on the P&O Ferry coming back from the UK while I was in Cornwall, and had been talking to the Receptionist on the boat and mentioned Brittany.  My friend's daughter, the Receptionist, Fiona, then said that she knew someone in Brittany called Sandra Chubb!  I imagine she was very surprised when the bowlers said that they saw me every week at Bowls.  It's a small world.

I did without a vehicle on Wednesday as it was having a panel resprayed after a friend’s 4x4 reversed into it a couple of weeks ago. 

It never fails to surprise me that a bodyshop can clean just the one panel they’re going to spray and not touch the rest of a muddy vehicle.  You’d think they’d do it all out of courtesy wouldn’t you?

Friday morning was taken up by fetching animal feed.  A friend and I share the trip each time alternating vehicles and trailers each time.  It’s always good to see lots of feed in the barn and know that I don’t have to worry about running out for a month or so.  I just had time to get back, shower and change before driving to Jac and Ken’s for lunch and met another friend there too.  Chicken Kiev, cheeses and then bread and butter pudding  - a lovely menu and lots of good conversation for most of the afternoon. 

My new chickens have sorted themselves out and are now putting themselves to bed so that I just have to shut the doors to the houses.  I am getting various numbers of eggs – some days just one hen and one duck egg and other days eight hen eggs, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it but the lay will diminish as the days get shorter.   I have had to rehome my two drakes who were subjecting my Muscovies to frequent and aggressive threesomes.  The ducks had taken to hiding in the barn in a corner inaccessible to the drakes and something had to be done.  This afternoon I took them to their new home.

The goats are proving troublesome with their constant need for greener grass.  They keep going through to the adjoining field and have just finished destroying the latest fence panel which was designed to keep them out.  Here they are in said field with what is left of the fence panel.

Every few days I've been digging in the runs to give my hens and ducks new earth to root about in and they have been enjoying the worms which are uncovered.  

My printer has decided to give up.  This morning my brilliant neighbour printed a form I needed to complete and send to Cornwall.  Heavens knows what’s wrong with it – I hate technology when it doesn’t work.  Another neighbour came past the field while I was fetching eggs.  She’d collected a full bag of sweet chestnuts along the lane and then added some of my salad leaves and chillis to her haul.  She asked me whether they were very hot chillis, but I don’t really know as I haven’t eaten fresh chillis before these, so have nothing to compare them with.   My next door neighbour's grandchildren brought me a bag of their sweet chestnuts yesterday some of which I roasted in the fire during the evening - lovely!   I have one tree on my field which produces good size chestnuts too.

The change of hour meant that waking to the light at 0800hrs and doing the animals instead of waiting thirty minutes more for their day to begin.  I know it’s contraversial going back to normal time on the last weekend of October, but I like losing summer time.  I now put the animals to bed at about 1800hrs, come back for supper and don't have to go out again.  

The hunt was out in force again this Sunday sounding horns and with hounds baying loudly all around.  My cats stayed in and even the rabbits didn’t come out of their house - the hunt stayed out of the garden.

I’ve had a good weekend.  I was shattered this week and decided I’d go nowhere during Saturday and Sunday.  I gardened and put in 50 mixed narcissus and daffodil bulbs in the narrow bed along the house.  I wanted to put in tulips, aliums, crocus and grape hyacinths but couldn’t remember where I’d put them – the senior moments come thick and fast nowadays.  I finally uncovered the box they were in late this afternoon, so they’ll not get done today.  I cleared some of the accumulated stuff in the kitchen and had a general sort out.  I listened to The Archers omnibus while I ate my oxtail and carrot stew which I’d cooked in the slow cooker – it was lovely.   I resisted loading up the woodburner so that I could roast chestnuts over the glowing embers – these were lovely too. 

I did loads of gardening this week, cleared the raised beds and then planted onions and garlic.  I also weeded round the strawberries and leeks and picked spinach for supper.

The  pumpkins and squashes are now hardening off in the polytunnel and Claude, wrongly, thinks there are mice lurking behind them.

This butterfly, a red admiral, is one of many in the polytunnel this week.
















This was the first year for my artichokes so I didn't eat the few that were produced, allowing the plants to get bigger and stronger for next year.  I love the flowers which develop.

I catalogued the books I’d brought back from Cornwall, so that everything was up to date and put them in front of shelves already stacked with books in the gym.  I still have lots of duplicates to pass on and I did take some to a Mingle I went to last month.

The acer in the garden is beautiful now.  It came with me from Cornwall where it wasn't thriving at all, but clearly enjoys Brittany - just like I do.

Three things I like:

1.   The incredibly hot and sunny days we've had throughout October.  
2.   Chatting on the 'phone with the family.   
3.   Having a lovely back massage from my Physio.