Caterpillars and Carpenter Bees

Bonjour à tous

I hope you are all well? I am late again with this blog. The weeks just seem to whizz by, always with new challenges and jobs to do. It would be lovely to press pause on day-to-day life, catch up and then press play again. C’est la vie I guess!

The news continues to be grim from Ukraine but the people there have shown themselves to be a force to be reckoned with. I am sure you, like me, feel a little helpless, but we have occupied ourselves sorting out rooms, should our accommodation be needed. I mentioned last week (see post: What’s in an address) that we had signed up to offer space in our home, as we have lots of rooms here, currently unused. However, in reality, each room has become home to an assortment of bits and bobs – most of which need action – whether furniture to restore/repair/paint/upholster or things that need organising, or stuff that should never have made it to France. 2 ½ years on, we are still unpacking and rearranging. The upshot is that very few rooms are actually instantly ready to use. We tend to rush last minute to sort things out for impending guests, but always with the intention of getting each room ready permanently. Life often gets in the way of realising that plan. It might also help if we stopped picking up bargains, all of which need some work! We have quite a backlog and have now added several more pieces to the queue. Having said that, 3 of our bedrooms are pretty much ready, not fully decorated yet but organised, tidy and just need beds sorting out and a chest of drawers.

This week has brought other distractions in the form of Pine Processionary Caterpillars and a Carpenter Bee. Before I explain, I did have time this week to visit my hairdresser – long overdue. The lovely Maguy has worked her usual magic on my hair and I spent a very pleasant hour chatting away, attempting to put the world to rights with her about a whole range of things. It is always therapeutic to take a little time out, especially when you come back looking and feeling better! We also had time to catch up with some lovely friends we haven’t chatted to in ages. Such fun to have a good natter over a glass of wine, even if online!

The cats are now experiencing their own lockdown as we have discovered that the solitary pine tree in our little copse has fallen prey to Pine Processionary Moth, and now houses a number of caterpillar nests. These caterpillars are extremely dangerous to animals, particularly cats and dogs. Their toxic hairs, which alarmingly they can eject at speed from their bodies if they feel under threat, can cause irreparable damage and even death to our pets. They also cause allergic reactions in humans, sometimes severe. The insect life that we encounter in the French countryside is an education! I have spent the last week trying to track down our tree surgeon, or any tree surgeon, at what appears to be a very busy time for them! Given the size of the tree (at least 15m in height), plus the complications of relations with next door (it is adjacent to a field of theirs), mean we need an expert to deal with this, so the tree causes minimal damage and the caterpillars are no more. I finally got hold of someone and then after a week of trying tracked down the guy who usually comes, who has just given us a rendez-vous for Monday. Hooray. The cats will be thrilled! I slightly dread the quote, which I am sure will be enormous, but we need to deal with this. Meanwhile the cats remain in and the dog is not going near that area. The cats are making the best of their new indoors life, honing their skills on Pilchard the turquoise cat, finding cosy places to sit or following us around the house (I suspect they are hoping for an exit to open up). I am not sure either they or Bear would want to be out at the moment, as we are experiencing howling gales and torrential rain. It is not anywhere near as bad as the weather in Sydney and the surrounding area, which has been relentless. My sister has said she has never seen rain like it. It is pretty wet here nonetheless with the usual leaks in the house. The wind was so strong and gusty yesterday, we couldn’t even open the shutters!

The other incident of the week was my encounter with a Carpenter Bee. Carpenter Bees are solitary bees, very common in Southern Europe, but huge and black with a gorgeous violet sheen to their wings when they catch the light. Quite breath-taking. They are known in France as the blue bee or abeille charpentière (their Latin name is Xylocopa violacea). They like to make their nests in wood, so to avoid beams being a target, it is an idea to leave an old wood pile somewhere in the garden to provide a habitat. They may still choose a beam, but at least they have some choice that way! We have one that nests in one of the beams in the covered terrace. The first time I saw it I was slightly alarmed at this large black flying thing heading my way. However males don’t shave a sting and females only sting if seriously threatened. Anyway I digress. We were sitting on the wall on the terrace drinking coffee in the sunshine, when one such bee happened along. Before I knew it, it had flown up my jean leg, with me in the jeans! There I was on the terrace trying to get out of my jeans without terrifying the bee, not knowing if I would be stung – I only found out later about the lack of sting. Max found it quite funny as I hopped around undressing on the terrace! That was until he had to come and help, as I didn’t want to squash the bee. Said bee was very reluctant to leave the jean leg – I imagine as my jeans are black it was very warm. Fortunately with a bit of encouragement the bee left, both of us unscathed but probably both a little shaky. I must have made for an interesting spectacle!

In other less stressful news, Max has been busy with doors. We worked out that we have 30 internal doors and 32 external doors (although I have to confess some of these are double doors which we have counted as 2 doors). We say that we are struggling to make progress, but each week Max is chipping away at lots of jobs that need doing pre-decorating. I also manage to fit in a few things each week too, including this week trying my hand at trimming our laurel tree that has taken over and swamped our balcony. Wielding our new pole saw from a slightly dodgy balcony was interesting. I have to say the extendable pole saw is amazing but really weighty. I am going to need to build up my arm muscles.

Max is currently in the process of checking each of our many internal doors, filling holes, repairing and rehanging as needed. Some of the internal doors have very neat little holes in the bottom corner, chewed by mice to allow access to the whole house in years gone by! Quite clever really but each one needing repair work. So far, he has done 15 internal doors, halfway there (we won’t mention the external doors yet)! At the moment he is busy repairing the door to the attic studio in the tower, which was hanging from a hinge (literally) when we bought the house. It is a very attractive door, now being repaired before being rehung. He thinks it is made out of old floorboards, as it is so thick and really heavy! It will be a big step forward to rehang this door. We have two windows in this attic space that have shutters but no actual window panes, so the wind whistles through, especially this week. My son woke up in the early hours of Friday morning to what sounded like music. He thought I was up playing the piano, but it was the wind singing through the house, making music as it went. Eerie but rather charming at the same time.

I mentioned earlier that we had succumbed to more bargains. I will tell you all about them next time, as we have yet to collect them. We did however spot 2 huge wardrobes – and I mean huge – each 2.5metres in length. Too big we thought. However on reflection and having measured a couple of spots very carefully, we worked out that they would provide all the storage we need, upstairs and down, for bedding, towels, table linen, crockery, etc. Why buy something new when we could get these for a fraction of the cost, beautifully made, and furniture that would sit well in the house. It sometimes seems wrong to think about painting such items, but they are heavy old wood cupboards and a lick of paint might update them, making them fresher and less ‘brown’! We are off to see them next week, but have first option on their purchase. Now that would be real progress from a storage point of view. I might just be able to find things for once.

Before I go, I wanted to share something lovely. When we got back from taking our elderly neighbour to the market, she asked me to pop in to her house with her. I thought it was to see the cat, as we had to visit the vet again this week. Instead she appeared with an enormous bouquet of blossom and daffodils from her garden for me. Just fabulous and so cheery, plus very sweet of her as she braved the winds yesterday to pick them.