Hot summer weather, restored pond and lovely guests

 

What a weather week!  It's been so hot and sunny - just my cup of tea -  anything up to 30°C but usually around 26°C which I find perfect, with just the slightest warm breeze.   We have been very lucky in Brittany as most parts of France have experienced giant hailstones, tornadoes, serious storms and flooding.   We have had the odd bit of thunder rumbling in the distance but never coming to anything.   I have been very glad of my pool and enjoy cooling down in there and doing some aqua aerobics in private!

 

In the village there are lots of hydrangea bushes of every hue. 

 

 

 

 

 

They seem to be really flourishing this year and everywhere around there are huge blooms.  My Callistemon is also flowering well for the first time since I planted it.

 

 

 

Yesterday morning I picked the first of my tomatoes - two very tiny cherry tomatoes - not quite enough for a meal but so sweet!  The lettuces in the polytunnel are doing very well and I now have a mixed salad leaf bed starting too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fishpond, has miraculously cured itself and is no longer leaking.  A cubic metre of sand, four 35kg bags of cement and waterproofer are in the garage, along with a cement mixer but it seems none will be needed at the moment.  I have today put back in the surviving  thirty-seven fish - four died unfortunately - and the divided plants and I have my fingers well and truly crossed against future leaks.  My worker now thinks that it is possible that the fault was not with the pond but with a leaky hose from the pump which was not returning all the water to the pond.  So, we have replaced the hose and will see what happens before we hide it properly in the plants at the back of the pond which also hide the pump and filter system.

Yesterday evening all three cats decided to follow me on my walk down one of the lanes leading from the calvaire. 

 

 

 

I walked for ten minutes and I don't think that the cats had ever gone so far from home before.

 

On our way back a horse and rider came towards us.  She spoke in English and asked "Do you take your cats for a walk?"  I replied that they just followed me and asked her where she was from - St Nicolas du Pélem apparently.  Bizarre meeting an English horse rider deep in the Breton countryside.

 

 

Her horse scared the cats and they disappeared completely only to reappear when the horse and rider were well out of sight. 

 

 

 

Part way back they decided they had walked far enough and did a "lay down" strike.

 

 

Once we arrived home they just flaked out on the terrace - no stamina!  This photo is of Purrdy and Claude on the calvaire the day before.

 

 

 

Two lots of guests for rainbowcottagesinfrance.com arrived last Thursday and left on Sunday - all very pleasant and we had several drinks together and put the world to rights.  The next guests in Middle Cottage will be my very good friend, June with her twin six year old granddaughters who arrive on Thursday into Dinard Airport.  I haven't met the girls and am looking forward to practising my limited Spanish with them - their Daddy is Spanish.

 

On Sunday there was a horse endurance race which came through the hamlet.  I sat on the grass at the base of the calvaire and took lots of photographs - here are just a few.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My neighbour's grandchildren watching the competitors going up the lane I walked with the cats this evening.

 

 

My team came joint first in the Quiz at St Mayeux last week, mainly because there were only two sport questions this time.  We have a dearth of sport knowledge in spite of having two men in the team and having so few questions this time was very good news.

 

The new sheep have settled in well and will now feed from my hand or the bucket I'm holding.  They have already made distinct paths in the fields and left deposits everywhere.  I can't believe how they can poo so much! 

 

The incredible summer weather has brought on the grapes on the vine at the back of Rainbow Cottages.  There's going to be a whopping harvest again this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My worker has been continuing with the kitchen and all doors and drawers are now finished, just the cornice, pelmet, plinth, tiling and eventually floor to go now.  It's a slow job as he only comes once a week to do it but we'll get their before Christmas hopefully.

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Making lunchtime soup with the tomatoes and onions the guests left behind and some of my basil.

 

2.   Seeing the fish back swimming happily in their pond again.

 

3.   Getting my campervan back with the electric windows working again - thanks, Andy.

Flowers and happenings this week in St André

The roses have suffered in the downpours we’ve had lately.  The blooms are browned and sodden.  They’ve been weighed down with the quantity of water that’s fallen on them and this week I decided to take the secateurs to them.  The first to get my attention was the small apricot coloured rose in the driveway and progressed to the red floribunda by the rabbit area.  I’d just started on the small climbing rose on Small Cottage when I noticed my neighbour, Paulette coming up the lane from the woods where she had been walking.  She came up my drive and we chatted in the garden, talking about the Crocosmia Lucifer which I have a small clump of in the large flowerbed

 

 

and she has a huge drift of in her garden, alongside huge white daisies which set them off beautifully.  My white daises are in the front of the bed which was designated for herbs some years ago but which has been taken over by all sorts now. 

I must sort it out in the Autumn.  I have beautiful lavender coloured flowering Perovskia at the back of the herb bed which is almost complete hidden by the very tall fennel and the Shasta daisies.

 

 

 

 

 

My bedroom needed clearing up – clothes seem to accumulate on a large stool in there.  I put a couple of piles of them out for washing, along with my bedding and all the tea towels from the kitchen.  The weather was sunny and hot and I easily dried three loads of washing – all very satisfying as I folded them neatly, inhaling the freshly washed fragrance before putting them all away where they belonged.   Later my friend who cleans the cottages for me came in and did my house too which was very good news. 

 

 

The kitchen is progressing - slowly - and my worker will be back on Friday to do some more.  All the chickens have been washed and put back on the tops on a temporary basis.

 

Most, but not all, of the new doors are now up and I have been sorting out the stuff in the cupboards and bringing the older dated stuff to the front.

I prepared an out of date packet of couscous and took it up to my appreciative hens and sat for a while in their area watching them and enjoying being outside.

 

Yesterday evening I took this quick snap of swallows on the telephone wires - to me they always look like notes on a music stave.

 

After seeing a snake last week – not sure what sort –  while walking up to the field using my short cut, I have been taking the longer way round on the lane when the sun is out in case it might be emerging from the lush undergrowth to sunbathe on the path I have made treading down the grass while walking up to do the animals or gardening in the veggie beds or polytunnel.   The verges are all overgrown and need the commune to come and trim them a little to improve vision for drivers, though these particular photos don't show the worst parts.

 I am also now wearing socks and cloggy shoes instead of flip flops.   It’s strange how things change.  In my twenties, I was a snake handler and used to milk Malayan Pit Vipers for their venom.  Now I couldn’t touch a snake if you begged me!   The three cats follow me when I go up to the field.  I worry about them wandering all over the road, they never keep into the verge, but luckily there is very little traffic around here.   As soon as I’ve finished whatever I’m doing and set off for home again, there they are running around my feet trying to trip me up all the way back down to the house.

The poppies growing in front of the runner beans have been thriving and I have been collecting the formed seed heads and drying them in the kitchen. 

 

I already have a container of golden seeds from this multi-petalled pink variety.  I just wish the runner beans were doing as well as the poppies!  The poppies generally in the veggie beds have been brilliant.

 

I hate having knives that are blunt and luckily my neighbour Paulette’s husband is my official knifeman and sharpens my kitchen knives periodically.  She has just brought back to me my six most used knives. 

 

They come back in keen condition and I have to remember to take it easy when chopping things so I don’t cut my fingers off.  I know that a blunt knife is supposed to be more dangerous as you cut harder and if you slip you do more damage however, believe me, it is possible to do lethal things with my newly sharpened knives and I love using them.

 

This is one of the new beds created last year at my local SuperU, with grasses and Verbena bonariensis.  I they look lovely and they make me smile every time I pass them on the way into the shop.

 

The last photo is of my beautiful granddaughter, Mia, who's sitting outside with her beautiful Mummy, Emma.  It's hard to believe that Mia will be celebrating her first birthday in eleven days time.

Three things I like:

 

1.   One of my friends in England has just come through a bowel cancer operation thank goodness.

 

2.   Two separate couples are arriving tomorrow for my two cottages with www.rainbowcottagesinfrance.com

 

3.   A thank you gift of a heart which I was given yesterday.

New kitchen, new birds and old cats

Finally, I am getting my kitchen renovated.  This evening it is in chaos. 

 

The four worktops were replaced a couple of weeks ago. I have been waiting for just over a year now since the fire last year and I shall be very pleased to see it all done and dusted.  It seems that none of the cupboards were put up originally using a spirit level so all are being taken off the wall, carcasses being cleaned, and being remounted before having new end panels and doors, drawer fronts, cornices, pelmets and plinths.  Tiling will then be done and eventually the floor will be replaced. 

 

On Sunday I picked up two new chickens, a pair of Black Copper Marans.  They are only two months old at the moment but when the female comes into lay, probably next year now, her eggs will be chocolate brown coloured.  They have settled in happily with the eleven month old chicks I have put into an area on the field.

 

The day before I collected two female Emden geese. 

 

 

 

They too have settled in well and share the duck field and pond and sleep with the ducks and hens in their house.

 

Rain has finally arrived in a serious manner and thank goodness, at last, the IBCs on the field are beginning to fill up again with the precious collected water from the barn and shed roofs.   Not having mains water on the field for the animals and veggies becomes a real problem after so many dry and hot weeks.  I have also increased the amount of IBCs on the field to eight, buying two more from a neighbour who has moved, and these were installed today and have already started collecting for me with the downpours this afternoon.

 

The rain is slightly less welcome in the fish pond which had been emptied in readiness for resurfacing to cure the leak.  It is now, of course, holding water when it wasn't before - life is strange!

 

The cats don't seem to know what to do after weeks of sunshine and lying in the shade on the terrace they are now cuddling up together on the windowsill and avoiding the showers.

 

 

Three things I like:

 

1.   Eating some of the huge crop of broad beans I've been picking.

2.   Making another batch of gooseberry jam from my plants.

3.   Plaiting my garlic harvest to hang on the wooden ceiling airer.

 

 

New sheep, a leaking pond and gooseberry jam

We got quite a bit of work done on the field last week.  My worker brought his digger and we turned and tidied up the compost area, a lot easier than using spades!  Now all I need is some rain to soak the heaps and then old carpet to go over the top to stop stuff growing in the compost.

 

The three new arrivals last Friday, which we collected from near Rennes.  A two year old ram - laughing in the photo - a four year old ewe and her baby girl lamb of three months - all still to be named.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They joined Martha and her ram lamb, Arthur, and Basil and Betsy - my two goats - in the two biggest grassy areas. 

 

This fierce looking boy is one of my neighbour's tethered goats which are all around the hamlet.  He's not really fierce - just the effect of his magnificent horns.

 

 

The fish pond developed a slow leak sometime towards the end of last year.  It was on the list of things to do.  On Friday, I topped it up so there was at least 45cm in it.  On Saturday morning I looked in and there were about 3 cms left and the fish were struggling and gasping in the small quantity of water.  A neighbour helped me bring two of the house baths that I use on the field for storing water back to the garden and a friend came over and helped me empty it and put the fish, newts, toads etc into one bath and most of the plants into the other.   The horrible silty bottom stuff ended up all over the gravel at one end of the pond and will eventually have to be removed once the pond has been repaired.

 

 

I had spent the morning in gentler tasks.  After picking gooseberries from my two bushes on the field I made jam.  It was really easy to do and tastes wonderful.

 

Some of the terrace pots - June and July are always good months for them.

and the clematis which I like so much on the other side of the door from these pots.

Some of my hens sheltering, this afternoon, under an old table from the rain which was just beginning.  I just made it back from the field before the heavens opened and the thunder started.

Here are my little white bantam and the Araucana chick which she hatched - now almost as big as her surrogate Mum.

 

This last photo is of one of the brambles in the lane in flower with a promise of fruit in the Autumn.

 

Three things I like:

1.   The birth of a friend's grandson, Freddie, on Thursday last.
2.   The lovely prawn bisque I made for lunch today.
3.   Seeing a friend, who had a double heart bypass in the Spring, in Brittany again.