Difficult days, sunny days and the first harvests

 

The last ten days have been very difficult.  A friend from bowls was ambulanced to hospital early last week with a brain stem haemorrhage and I went to the hospital with her devastated husband to help with translation.  There was nothing that the hospital could do to help her although the staff were very kind and caring.  Eight days later, and two hours after life support was withdrawn this week she passed away.  Four of her sisters, one of her brothers and her son came over from England for the cremation yesterday and some of them stayed in my cottages.  It was a brutal shock and very sad.  I think her husband will need a lot of support from friends once all the family members have returned to the UK.  Her son read a poem during the service which I had never heard before but which I really like.  The Dash by Linda Ellis.  The dash refers to the line between the birth date and the death date on a coffin or headstone.  (For example, my father's would be 1907-1981.)  That dash represents all of the life spent by that person while on earth and only those who loved her know what that small line is worth.

 

 

For it matters not, how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash,

What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard; Are there things you would like to change?

For you never know how much time is left that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough to consider what is true and real

and always try to understand the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more

and love the people in our lives like we have never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile,

Remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read with your life’s actions to rehash…

Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?

 

The beautiful sunny weather continues and I can't now remember when it last rained.  It has become a habit to get dressed into something skimpy for sunbathing without even looking out of the window first.  The swimming pool has been emptied, cleaned and chemicals done for the second time and I have been taking full advantage of it to have cooling down swims and do some aqua jogging.  My farmer neighbour has just told me that it is forecast to rain on Thursday.

 

I was approached in the supermarket car park the Thursday before last by a man laughingly asking if my Landrover was full of wine in the back.  When I looked at it I saw that it looked as if it was ready for takeoff with the back almost on the ground and the front high in the air.  It seemed that the compressor which controls the rear suspension airbags had died.  On Friday, I ordered a new one from Paddocks, the wonderful on-line Landrover parts supplier, and for the princely sum of £5 delivery to France they despatched it to arrive on Tuesday morning - great service!  My worker, Andy, has fitted it and this morning I collected it and brought it back home with everything level again.  He now has my VW campervan windows to sort out.  The electric system which replaced the original winding handles has failed and I am relying solely on the roof windows to let in air in this very hot weather.  There's always something!

 

This week I have been harvesting broad beans, peas, large gooseberries, carrots and garlic, all from the raised beds in the veggie patch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rhubarb, which had been moved while the raised  bed edges were replaced, has finally settled down and is now holding its leaves proudly erect again.  I had worried that it wasn't going to make it.  This rhubarb was given to me years ago by a friend and gardener, John Reeves, in Gloucester in the 1980s.  I dug up the crowns and moved them to Cornwall in 1996 when we went to live there.  Finally they crossed the water in 2007 and came to ground in St André where they have produced kilos and kilos of fruit and provided many plants for other people.

 

 

 A car boot last Sunday successfully tempted me to buy these large earthenware boat-shaped dishes.  They are for serving moules frites (mussels and chips) and cost the princely sum of €1 for the two.  The fruit bowl is not small so you can get some idea of the size - they are just over 40cm from bow to stern.  I haven't been to a car boot for months, possibly years, and although it was relatively small I did enjoy it.

 

 

Having had my scooter in the garage apart from two frightening - to me - outings.  I have finally been to Carhaix to visit the office who will issue me with a new Carte Grise - registration document - as I don't think I ever received one when I bought it. 

 

This will enable me to sell it as I am obviously not of the mentality to ride around on two motorised wheels.  When riding I am tense and terrified and know this is not going to change now - enough is enough.

I am expecting to collect three more sheep this week.  These will be sheep for eating.  There is a four year old Mum with eight week old female lamb and a two year old Texel ram.   I intend to keep the ram unless he is troublesome when he could become the first into the freezer.  Next year I hope to breed and fatten any new lambs for the freezer.   I wasn't going to keep sheep again but lamb is so expensive here.  I do love it and at least if they're my animals I know that they've had happy lives and been well looked after.

Three things I like:

1.   Hearing that my special friend who, after his regular six month check up because of previous kidney cancer, has been declared still cancer free.

2.   Swimming in my pool during this wonderful sunny weather.

3.   My neighbour's newly fitted automatic garage door which is silent and doesn't wake me when he leaves for work at 0645 hrs.

A lovely, busy couple of weeks in Brittany

Following the success of my German pet/house sitters in May, I have now found a couple from New Zealand who are going to pet/house sit for me when I do my usual trip to Cornwall in October.  I love the site I’ve found - housecarers.com.  It costs nothing at all, not even to register.  My first sitters, Steffi and Peter were lovely and the next ones, Wendy and Patrick and I have had a good conversation on the ‘phone and I feel absolutely confident that they will be great too.

I have extra animals for them to look after now as this week I collected some sheep.  They are Ouessants, the native Breton breed.  When I first came to Brittany I had three but gave them away eventually in favour of sheep to eat.  These newest ones are to perform the function of strimmers so hopefully I shan’t have to pay my worker to do that work now. 

They were sold to me by two Americans living in a castle nearly two hours south of me.  Trying to catch them was a farce in a field with seriously overgrown thistles.  They seem to be settling in and are in the field with Basil and Betsy, my goats.  I have called the  ram lamb Arthur, after Arthur Ashe, the tennis player.

A friend, Carole, finally arrived to stay last week.  Her train connection from the boat at Caen to Le Mans was delayed by 75 minutes and she had left her mobile in Surrey meaning that she had no contact details for me and no address.  I got a message from her son telling me that she'd missed her connection at Le Mans to come to Guingamp and came back home to telephone and find the possible train she may have caught.    Happily, we met up at the station and if was a relief to be driving her back to my home.  During the wait I picked up a dozen day old chicks to replace some of the hens which the fox had taken recently.  The following morning I had to despatch one chick which was clearly not doing well.  The remaining eleven are fine and already have some of their adult plumage. 

Carole's husband, Chris, arrived by motorbike on Sunday evening from the Normandy landing celebrations.  Carole and I happened to be in the lane when we heard a bike arriving so made hitchhiking signs as he came round the bend.  They left for Caen on Tuesday morning. 

 It was good to catch up as we hadn't seen each other since 2008 when my oldest son and I were on our way to Tobago and stayed the night with them to be near to Gatwick.

I had my second stay of guests in Small Cottage and the couple may have found a house less than ten minutes away which they would like to buy for a permanent move to Brittany.

Other newcomers are a lavender frizzle cockerel and his partner and another unrelated bantam cockerel who has paired up with the white bantam who hatched and is looking after the Araucana chick.  They are all in a run together with three black Orpington chicks at the moment and all seem to get on well.  This is the frizzle cockerel - I love him!

I developed a cold overnight two weeks ago and although I do feel better than I did, breathing through my nose is difficult to impossible and my voice is not my own.  Friends were coming to lunch on Sunday and Jac 'phoned to say that she had a rotten cold and they wouldn't be coming.  That meant that I have had to eat, all by myself, all of the trifle that I made our pudding today - it's been hard but I did it!

Today I have been harvesting garlic which I planted in the Autumn.  I've also  picked some really large gooseberries which I've already simmered with sugar for pudding today.

The poppies and foxgloves in the veggie patch are looking wonderful.  I know I should be ruthless and weed them out but I just can't bear to do that.

This last photo is one of the sitting places in the garden.  Luckily I have lots of garden furniture which I brought from Cornwall with me and I have little places for each time of day.  This is my morning coffee position.  I really like the large flowered clematis on the wall and the nasturtium which has climbed through it.

 

Three things I like:

1.   Seeing old friends and catching up.
2.   Having my new kitchen worksurfaces fitted - hope the rest of the kitchen will be done soon.
3.   Having the swimming pool cleaned and refilled for the summer.

 

 

Back blogging with a different name

I have come back to Brittany to find that I am unable to log in to post on my usual blog, www.livingin22.blogspot.com.  After a day of trying to pretend I understand technology, I have given up and have set up another blog www.livingoutmydaysin22.blogspot.com and this is what this posting is on and what I shall use for the foreseeable future unless someone sorts out the situation for me.  I have no photos in this posting as I just wanted to get it out there.

Most of May seems to have been spent getting ready for going on holiday.  There was so much still to do in the veggie garden.  My worker finally got the new edging round the raised beds in front of the barn and I planted out sweetcorn, radishes, parsley, tomatoes, chives and squashes .  In the polytunnel I finally got all the beds weedfree and planted out the indoor tomatoes, aubergines and chills.  In the back raised beds I added to the already planted veggies, butternut squashes and courgettes.  The broad beans are coming along a treat, as is the mustard which I have never grown before.  The rhubarb had to be disturbed when putting in the new edging and is still recovering.  I had already had so much and sent visitors away with armfuls too, it will soon be doing well again.

My pet/garden/house sitters, Steffi and Peter, from Germany arrived the day before I went back to Cornwall.  They were absolutely charming and I knew that I needn’t worry about anything in Brittany while I was away.  They stayed on for another day after I returned and we sat outside under the pergola for the evening with a glass of wine and some lemon cake Steffi had made, and talked about what we’d all been doing during the past two weeks.

I had been off to Lanzarote with my oldest son, daughter and grandson.  I had previously been to Tenerife so had some experience of the Canaries and knew that it would be pretty windy.  It was not as sunny as it might have been, with thick white cloud cover, but it was very warm, usually around 24°C.   We sat together on the flight over but coming back were all dotted around the plane, strange the way RyanAir do things, but we weren’t going to pay £10 each for the privilege of a prebooked seat each time we got on the aircraft.  We left the Discovery at a hotel car park and were shuttled to Bournemouth Airport and back.  Once we’d arrived in Arrecife we collected the prebooked car and drove to our villa.   The accommodation was a very pleasant surprise, being well presented and obviously newly built with few previous occupants.  It had everything we needed including a pool and three ensuite bedrooms and wifi.

I had a couple of days in Cornwall visiting friends and shopping before coming back home again.  It’s so lovely to be back!  I miss the animals and just being where I like to be.  All the terrace pots which went outside just before I left for England have all filled out and are looking lovely.  The vine is romping along the walls of the houses and the roses are blooming.  I am trying, for the moment, to ignore the weeds which seem to be doing well too.

The fox has been visiting while I’ve been away and all six twelve week old chicks have been taken and two older hens.  The new little chicks are thriving and it seems that two of the three Orpingtons are cockerels.  I'm just hoping that the lone Araucana turns out to be a female.

Three things I like:

1.   Being back home again.

2.   Getting a 'phone call from my New Zealand based October pet sitters this morning.

3.   The two bowls of prawn bisque I made yesterday.