Warm weather has delayed Autumn but it's finally arriving

Nearly another month has rushed by - it's true what they say about time passing faster as you get older.  Everything has changed in the countryside, the leaves are turning to their Autumn colours, the short cut to the field is covered in fallen mountain ash leaves and there are fungi everywhere.

My Workaway Bill and I had a day out on the north coast visiting the practically deserted beach at Pordic - just two swimmers who had just come out onto the beach.  It was beautiful there and I collected an armful of different shells.  

We then went on to Binic.  After a quick walk we  and sat and had a crepe from the market before having a walk along the front.  There was a lovely looking seafood restaurant, Cabane a Crabes, right at the end of the harbour which I would like to and eat at one day.  As I walked past I could see the lunches the diners were enjoying and my eyes were green.

My housecarers from last October returned to help me out for this October's trip back to Cornwall.  Being a small world, it turned out that they had mutual friends with my occasional neighbours from across the lane, Val and Mark and that they only lived about a mile from my neighbours back in Oxford.  Ian and his American wife, Jeannine are lovely and not only looked after my animals and the house but also juiced all my grapes and put nineteen litres of packaged juice into my freezers.  They also took delivery from my friends Jac and Ken of a load of hay for me to use for animal and poultry bedding - grand job.

I was lucky with the weather in Cornwall and it only rained on my last evening.  Luckily it was dry for me doing the long pack of the car.  In spite of the damage to the Land Rover I managed to nurse it there and back.  Bill, my Workaway until I left for England, made a wooden repair for it to cover the worst of the damage and make it slighter better for any pedestrians brushing by the parked vehicle.  

The local bodyshop owner has now been to collect my Discovery and has left me a small, petrol, left hand drive, manual, two door car, so something to get used to over the next few weeks/months, until I get my repaired vehicle back.  I suppose there's still a chance they may write it off when the examiner looks at it, I shall have to wait and see.

My second day in Cornwall was my daughter's birthday and we went for lunch to The Heron at Malpas.  It was a glorious sunny day - seriously hot sitting on the terrace outside to eat lunch and my mussels with sweet potato chips were delicious too.  

Friends Chris and Carole came to stay for a few days before I went back to the UK and we went walking on two days - a bit of a shock to my system but I did enjoy it really!  

We also met up again for lunch when they were in Cornwall while I was and had lunch in Charlestown before they carried on to stay with friends for the weekend.

Other visitors to Brittany, at the end of September, were Viv and Geoff, old friends who I hadn't seen since my fat days, and Geoff's sister.  They treated me to lunch at Le Pelinec and it was lovely catching up after all this time - at least six years.  Neither of them seemed to have changed at all and it was a lovely if brief meeting up.

The acer in the large flower bed in the garden is changing daily and looks glorious with the sun shining through the leaves - I have taken so many photographs but it's hard to resist.

Just as I got back home here, a young German girl, Lynn, wrote to me saying that the placement she had for Workaway wasn't clean and wasn't nice.  Amongst other problems, they had put her in an unheated caravan to sleep. I collected her on Friday and she is now helping me here until Sunday next week.  This morning we have cut back the mass of brambles which climb the tall bank from the lane and arrive just behind the swimming pool.  It has never been cleared like this while I've been here and I'm very happy with what we've achieved this morning.  Those who know me would have been astounded to see me climbing to the top of the bank - I'm terrified of heights - even standing on a chair is too much - and using both hand to hard prune the brambles and nettles to the ground. I came in to cook lunch before the heavens opened and three hours later the rain is still pouring down.  

Two other Workaway requests this weekend: a young French chap and a Spanish boy each would like to come at the beginning of the second week of November.  If the weather is kind I hope that we may be able to re-felt a chicken shed roof, clear gutters and do the other things for which I need a strong and taller male.

The bees have had their varroa strips removed now and apart from putting insulation boards into the roof sections of the hives I think that is all that has to happen before winter.  Oh - apart from turning them all 180° to make the access easier now that my neighbour's boundary trees have grown.  I'm not sure I am able to lift a full hive, so was very pleased to meet someone who may be able to help me on Thursday when I did a fungi foray.

The fungi foray was arranged by Barbara, above left, and she organised for an expert mycologist, Paul Nichol, to come over from the UK to take a group of us  around two different wooded sites, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a very pleasant lunch in between at Les Restrouvailles near Plevin.

I was a total pain and managed to slip my small shoulder bag of my shoulder during the latter part of the morning walk and had to go back to look for it.  I was accompanied by the very amenable Darren, who spotted it within five minutes and we were able to rejoin the group only slightly late, at the restaurant.

It was a very enjoyable day and I do hope there will be other foraging days arranged.  I certainly learned a lot about fungi and hope I can retain it.  We found so many different varieties of edible and non-edible fungi and it was a very pleasant day.  

These were the fungi I collected in the morning 

and this was the afternoon's bounty.

One of the chap on the foray, Jim, was someone who had helped me out in the past with the delivery of a drake and he told me that he also keeps bees.  I am hoping that he will lend me his strong arms to turn my four hives at some time in the near future. 

Lots of herbaceous plants came back with me from the UK and they have all now been planted out along with twenty wallflower plants - never seen these in Brittany - and they will all be appreciating this long rainy session we are having today.

Three things I like:

1.   Clearing up the garden and filling the compost bins on the field.  Luckily, for the perennial weeds and brambles we have a garden tip in the village, just the other side of the calvaire, so within wheelbarrowing distance.
   
2.    Coming back through my house door again - I love coming home - especially to my woodburner, and especially in the dark evenings after I've put the animals to bed.

3.   Eating my first lamb joint from this year's flock.  A beautifully sweet shoulder with all the usual culprits for a lovely roast meal.

Autumn is here, but it's still sunny and warm in St André

Well Autumn has arrived.  There has been complete change in the early mornings here with thick mist instead of sunshine.  It’s much chillier when I get up and I have been lighting the woodburner first thing.  However, as the day goes on it seems to get very sunny and hot - it’s been a joy to sit out and still feel the heat on my back this late in September.

My Workaway for the next two weeks, an Englishman via forty years in Australia, has arrived and is getting stuck into the To Do List.  I am now topped up with animal feed and the manure heap has increased by a trailer load thanks to Jac and Ken’s heavy horse, Oscar.

Yesterday, while Bill worked on digging and removing some very deep rooted non-fruiting fruit bushes, I cleared several veggie beds and pruned all the gooseberry and currant bushes – it was a good day.  Today, while my trusty worker was digging out the barn floor and wheelbarrowed the amalgamated hay and manure to the compost bins, I cleared the polytunnel of weeds, swept it out and generally tidied it up – the hens were glad of the weeds I pulled.  We could almost eat our Sunday roast off the floor in there today it looks so good!  This warm, dry weather is a bonus.  It rained last night, giving the squashes a well-needed drink, and it seems to me, that’s how it should be in life, rain at night and sunshine in the day.  Here are some of the squashes already harvested:

On my way to bowls last Tuesday I had a meeting with the very large wheel of a tractor and no longer have the left hand front wing of the Land Rover.  Heavens knows when it will be repaired and how long it will take sourcing parts for a foreign vehicle.  It is driveable, thank goodness, as having sold the campervan two weeks ago, it is my only mode of transport at the moment.  No-one was hurt and you couldn’t see a mark on the tractor tyre!

My bee mentor, Richard Noel, came to visit me for the first time, after months of help and advice on Facebook messages.  He said that my bees were well-behaved and contented and everything was good.  He suggested that I turn the hives 180°to make access for them easier now that vegetation has grown higher in front of the area where they enter.  I shall do that sometime after we’ve extended the area for next year’s increase in hive numbers.
The farmer in the village has obviously offered his land to a beekeeper for their hives as overnight sixteen hives arrived in St André. 

I received the labels for my jars in the post this week and am pleased with the way they look on the jars:

The two lambs and one barren sheep, Lily, were slaughtered here on Monday and the carcasses were taken away for hanging and butchering.  Bill and I collected the meat the evening that he arrived – just over a two hour round trip.  Having had supper, we spent the following hour or so polybagging the joints, chops, kidneys, liver, mince etc. ready for the freezer.  The bags which had been put into the Land Rover were really heavy and the bagging would have been a long stint without Bill’s help – he must have been shattered after the all travelling too, so I was very grateful to him.  It all looks really good quality meat with a great lean/fat ratio and it’s been butchered well, I shall definitely use Dennis again in spite of the distance he lives from me.

One of my bowling friends died this week.  Ken was a lovely man.  He resembled my father and often I would look up while at bowls and instead of seeing Ken, I would see Dad.  A few weeks after I first met him I took a photograph of Daddy in to show him.  I’m not sure he saw the resemblance, but it was not only in his appearance but the way he moved and his sense of humour.

The swallows seem to have left us this week.  

Up until now there have been 30-40 of them sitting on the telephone wires but now they have gone off to warmer climes.

One morning this week there was a seed swap organised at a house in Rostrenen.  Dot hosted it and there was a brilliant spread of homemade cakes – one gorgeous chocolate and peanut butter deep sponge.  We all took surplus seeds and garden plants and left for home with someone else’s surplus.  I have just planted up a very small fig tree in a dustbin for it to winter in the polytunnel.  I also brought home a Japanese anemone and three little asparagus plants which have all been committed to the St André soil.

This was a visitor to my sitting room flyscreen - I helped him outside into the sunshine and was surprised how big he was.

Christmas ferries have now been booked.  I don’t usually travel back for Christmas but am doing so this year, straight afterwards I will travel back with Libby and Charlie for New Year.  I have housecarers arranged and it will make a change being somewhere more Christmassy.  France doesn’t really seem to do Christmas as much as the UK.

Three things I like:  

1.  Having a Workaway here again and getting some jobs crossed off the To Do List.
2.  This lovely September sunshine and really good temeratures for the time of year.
3.  Looking at my cleaned up polytunnel.  Lots of veggies still growing in there, but it's all neat and tidy.

Family, friends and my first honey harvest

August came to an end with Libby and Charlie taking the ferry from Roscoff back to England, after three plus good weeks on holiday here.  I think we only had one wet night and one wet morning through the whole time they were in St André - really lucky.  The sunsets have been wonderful.

 

One of our trips out was to Branferé.  The animals are kept in very large areas, probably the most room I have ever seen given in this sort of place.  Here are photos of flamingo, Charlie and a wallaby, ring-tailed lemur and a red panda.  It was a well laid out place, but the food in the restaurant was abyssmal.

The chicks which were hatched in the kitchen on 25/26 August for Charlie to watch, have been thriving and now have quite a lot of adult plumage.  They have been spending the sunny days out in a larger crate in the garden and just coming back to their smaller brooder at night.

The family's departure was quickly followed by the arrival of my very good friend, June.  We had a more relaxed week, with a few meals out and a visit to Chateaulin, where the bridge is beautifully reflected in the water.  

We then drove on to Locronan where this photo shows the sun shining through the stained glass window in the chapel onto the old stone flags

and later to the beach at Kervel which was lovely.  There were guys fishing for tellines, a small shellfish, which they export to Spain, it looked like very hard work as they pulled their tractors through the sand and shallow water at the edge of the sea.  

It was a beautiful day and we paddled in water that was really warm in the shallows.  

Wherever we went somehow we found ourselves having a coffee, an icecream or a glass of something reviving plus several meals out. 

When I took June back to Dinard on Thursday we spent the afternoon on the prom of Plage l'Ecluse in the sunshine before driving to the airport. 

With help from Lorna again, I harvested my first ever honey from nine frames from my beehives.   

I was delighted to finally pot up 10 kgs of delicious, sweet, runny and very sticky honey, June helped with this part of the operation.  

I hope to add to my hives for next year.   At the end of the week I inserted anti-varroa strips, Apistan, into the four hives to protect my bees.  The strips stay in the hives for six weeks.

All gite bookings have finished now unless there are unexpected bookings which come in. It has been a less busy year than last year.  I have had lots of one and two day bookings, mainly from French guests, which has meant more work than usual for the washing machine and my cleaner, but all guests are welcome.  Luckily, because of the incredibly hot weather, the linen has been dry within a couple of hours of being hung out in the garden.

The vine leaves have been cut back to allow the sunshine to reach and finishing ripening the grapes.  

There are so many bunches, I shall be eating a lot of grapes again this year.  I expect we will also juice a lot for the freezer.  It is amazing to think what a tiny hole, surrounded by stone, that this vine was planted into and how prolific it is now.

It rained this afternoon which was good because the garden needed refreshing and the water containers need filling too.  I can't believe we are already a third of the way through September.  This year has just sped by.

Three things I like:

1.   Harvesting the honey from my bees - a lovely experience.

2.   Having family and friends to stay.

3.   Meeting and making new friends from my new beekeeping interest.

Family and friends visiting and a very hot August

The weather this month has been quite extraordinarily hot.  My daughter and grandson arrived in the first week and a week later my friend's daughter, son-in-law and twin granddaughters came for a week's holiday here too.  It was lovely for the children to have each other to play with and everyone had a great time.  

We all visited Lac de Guerledan two days running and all of us enjoyed the newly filled lake.  There was a fire which needed eight fire engines to attend on the far side of the lake as we were leaving apparently started by people having a BBQ.  

Strange to think that this time last year the lake was empty and we were walking in the bottom in what looked rather like a moonscape. 

Libby, Charlie and I visited the Bee and Ant Museum at Le Faouet which was fascinating.

This is where I bought some of my hive equipment when I started beekeeping earlier this year.  Gilles and Corinne who run the enterprise are a very pleasant couple.

Another afternoon saw us at the Vallée des Saintes where we climbed in the glorious sunshine and enjoyed the panoramic views and the sculptures.

A Friday evening at Mur de Bretagne where adults and children were abseiling down the church tower.  

The market had interesting produce including these colourful baskets and mouthwatering baked goods.

The last night of the Son et Lumière at Bon Repos was brilliant although Charlie found it difficult to stay awake - it doesn't really start until 2230hrs when it is dark enough for the laser lights and was a very late arrival home.

The following morning saw us back there again, this time at the market and for lunch in the open air.  Charlie bought a ring from one of the stalls and here it is!

The garden is suffering a bit in this very hot weather - 41°C on the SuperU sign one day last week.  However, my neighbour's outside steps looked really lovely in spite of the heat.

The day Libby and Charlie arrived we put sixteen eggs into the incubator and twenty-one days later, the first egg hatched a lovely yellow fluffy chick. The next three were black and we are currently awaiting the fifth.  Charlie spent most of the day in front of the incubator with his tablet so as not to miss the action ...

We drove the two hours to Rennes visiting Ikea for three hours and then returning.  An exhausting day in the heat, but came back with lots of goodies - so almost worthwhile.

I sat with my daughter and grandson in the pizzeria, La Gwendoline in St Nicolas du Pélem, on Friday evening finding it hard to concentrate on my meal.  You know how it is when you feel you know someone sitting at another table and just can't remember who they are or where you know them from.  

Well, finally, as we left I had to ask the lady herself, who was sitting in a group of six people at the table nearest the door.  

She turned out to be Alison Merrien, with eight World Bowls titles to her name, which is of course, why I felt I knew her, I had watched her so often on television.  She was with her husband, Ian, also a first class bowler.




Guests have just left and once the changeover on Small Cottage is done, today is a sit in the sun and walk in the woods later day.  The washing will dry quickly in the sun as it has throughout August - what a hot month it has been.

Three things I like:

1.  Having Libby and Charlie here. 
2.  The sunshine which makes life so good and easy.
3.  Hatching more chicks and watching Charlie spend so much time with them and the adult chickens.