The featured image this month is looking out towards the bay with the water of the estuary and the silhouette of the Talmond church visible on the left
1st All Saints Day when the French traditionally decorate their family graves with chrysanthemums
2nd. Modified the pots for my lemon trees by screwing a platform with castors on to the base. This will make it easier to move them around. For the moment they are by the back fence which is where the sun spends the most time in winter, conveniently close to the greenhouse.
3rd. A lovely day spent mostly filling planters and planting salad and cabbage plugs, moving herbs that don’t like the colder, wetter weather of winter. I also put two garden chairs in and a small table. In the afternoon I spent about an hour in there enjoying the sun, drinking tea and reading. It is a bit like having a conservatory, I think it will be quite nice over the coming months.
I made five Christmas cakes this year two of which have already been sent to Jon and Family and Marian in UK. The other three, two small ones to give to friends in France and a larger one for me are unwrapped and fed brandy on a regular basis!
7th Lovely warm sunny day where work was eschewed for the pleasure of country walks! The winter fields have been ploughed over again and Casidy had the chance to greet one of his friends “en passant”
One of my work avoidance activities today was to dress the greenhouse for “Covid safe evening gatherings with one other” using the hanging t/light holders that Jon and Nicki sent last Christmas. It looks lovely.
10th. The weather continues to be stunning allowing Cassidy and I to take long walks where he has the opportunity to make new friends.
I also finished insulating the garage door which will make it more comfortable to work in there when the weather gets colder.
In the garden I have started training the two new fruit trees into umbrella shapes so that it will be easy to reach the fruit. They look quite festive.
I have changed the way I am sprouting my cress and gone back to the method I was taught as a child. Using an open trey rather than a jam jar will I think give me better results.
13th Filtering the Sloe Gin today in preparation for Martine sharing un Petit Gout at Chateau Serre aka Greenhouse after our customary afternoon walk today.
The Gin was not finished filtering by the evening, a really slow process! So I decided to open a bottle of Fizz. For snacks I settled on Humus made with a generous dose of Cumin and tumeric, as I had been unable to find Tahine at the spice stall in the market, olives, tuna with chopped pickled cucumbers and blinnis that I would cook over the gas in the greanhouse. This would sever to keep use warm as well as facilitating serving them hot to guard against the winter chill!
This would be topped off by a bowl of hot pears in red wine!
A find evening with stars in the clear sky overhead, an owl serenading us from the woodland beyond the field and warm food and friendship.
16th. On this mornings walk it seems evident that the last fine ploughing that I previously observed was probably also a sowing, looks like a winter wheat crop.
I am going to send snail mail Christmas cards mostly this year. They will be a mix of recycled cards from last year and hand painted Robins. Those at the end of the list will profit from my hopefully having improved with practice and be able to produce a decent stylised bird by the time I get there.
19th Never mind “fairies” and “worms”, I have a BIG RED Tractor at the bottom of my garden. It was my field’s turn to go under the plough today not doubt also in preparation for planting with winter wheat.
20th Lovely walk again with blue skys and brilliant sunshine and although the morning started off chilly the day has become balmy, especially for November. Below, the end of the cul-de-sac that opens up into the fields, the view across the countryside and bringing in the maize harvest.
(Now here’s a thing. John Cleese, via my friend Rhian, in pursuit of protecting and preserving the English language ((as opposed to American)) says that we should replace the suffix “ize” with “ise”. But what do we do about Maize/Maise which is after all a crop that comes from the Americas! So should we not use the American spelling? After all we have stopped using the Anglisised version of Beijing (Peking) and taken up the Chinese spelling.)
23rd. I bought a great number of stamps today for the numerous Christmas cards that I intend sending out today. To cover UK and all the rest of the World outside the European Union I was given a whole load of these. All of them featured Dublin as the European Capital of choice. Now I am not a conspiracy theorist but I am a bit of a sceptic and not a great believer in coincidence. Given Macron’s antipathy towards Britain at the moment and the state of the brexit negotiations I can’t help but suspect this is a Gaelic two fingers up to the Brits!!!
capetocarpe 